beads.


Lin Tai-yue, the story goes, dwelt, after Ch'ing Wen's refusal, the
previous night, to open the door, under the impression that the blame
lay with Pao-yue. The following day, which by another remarkable
coincidence, happened to correspond with the season, when the god of
flowers had to be feasted, her total ignorance of the true
circumstances, and her resentment, as yet unspent, aroused again in her
despondent thoughts, suggested by the decline of spring time. She
consequently gathered a quantity of faded flowers and fallen petals, and
went and interred them. Unable to check the emotion, caused by the decay
of the flowers, she spontaneously recited, after giving way to several
loud lamentations, those verses which Pao-yue, she little thought,
overheard from his position on the mound. At first, he did no more than
nod his head and heave sighs, full of feeling. But when subsequently his
ear caught:

"Here I am fain these flowers to inter, but humankind will laugh me as
a fool;
Who knows who will, in years to come, commit me to my grave!
In a twinkle springtime draws to an end, and maidens wax in age.
Flowers fade and maidens die; and of either naught any more is known."

he unconsciously was so overpowered with grief that he threw himself on
the mound, bestrewing the whole ground with the fallen flowers he
carried in his coat, close to his chest. "When Tai-yue's flowerlike
charms and moon-like beauty," he reflected, "by and bye likewise reach a
time when they will vanish beyond any hope of recovery, won't my heart
be lacerated and my feelings be mangled! And extending, since Tai-yue