Chapter 53

With his post in hand, Chen Siniu naturally stopped climbing the wall to torment the old lady.

For one night the old lady was left in peace, and now, oddly, she couldn't sleep. Her wretch of a son hadn't come, but there was someone new at her side in the night.

The person slept on a low couch facing the kang, and at the smallest stir from her, the maid called First-Moon would rise and ask: "Does the old lady need the night-pot?"

The old lady was embarrassed and ashamed both. But in the small hours she could hold it no longer, and got up.

She'd barely sat up when First-Moon nimbly fetched the chamber-pot. In more than half a lifetime the old lady had never once made water within another's hearing. And so what should have been one clean go came out in five broken dribbles, sputtering and trickling, and made trouble for the maid on top of it.

Was this the life of the rich? It was unbearable, as bad as being put to the torture!

Early again the next morning, First-Moon finished her night-watch and withdrew, and the old lady breathed easier. She'd just drowsed off when the one called Second-Moon came to tell her: the Fourth Master was going away on a far journey, and waited outside to take his leave of the old lady.

The old lady sat up muddled, and thought to go out unkempt and unwashed as she always had, then feared the new maids and servants would laugh at her. But not to go out. Ah! Never mind! Let it be, then!

She nodded, helpless: "Tell him to come in!"

And thought to herself: from now on, even to have my own son into the house, it must pass through two sets of hands? Is this what taking one's ease means?

Before long Chen Siniu came in, a black gauze cap on his head and his green official's brocade robe on his back.

The old lady had never seen such a son. She thought him smart-looking, and hateful and provoking both. She said nothing, only watched him, quiet.

Going far away, Chen Siniu made to kneel and knock his head to the old lady.

Second-Moon, waiting at her side, briskly laid out a cushion for him, then went and stood without a word by the water-jar, hands lowered, head lowered, still as a figure pinched out of clay.

Chen Siniu of course knew that his nephew had given the old lady a courtyard, and had assigned her a page-boy to drive her cart, a needlework-woman, and four maids to wait on her person.

He couldn't provide the like himself, so he pretended not to see it. And as if there were nothing there, he finished his kowtow, got up, sat on the edge of the kang and said: "Mother, your son's taken the Board of Works post, and been made Grand Office-Director. I've a far journey to make!"

That said, he waited, quiet, for his mother to ask him, as she always had, where was he bound, was his travel-money enough, had he clothes enough with him.

But the old lady was dead tired, and uneasy at heart, and wanted only to catch up her sleep. So she said, careless: "Off you go, then!"

Chen Siniu was struck dumb. He looked, disbelieving, at the snow-white underclothes the old lady wore, and at her hands, no crack left in them now. The blue veins still stood up, but they were a woman of means' hands now. And thought: so she looks down on her poor son?

Something ached in him of a sudden, and he said, his voice shaking: "Mother!"

The old lady only thought this son more hopeless by the day. In the old days he'd at least talk like a human being. Now he was forever making her guess at his mind, and what for?

She hadn't the least wish to guess. She waved a brisk hand: "Haven't you business? Go!"

Go, and be quick, she was so very sleepy.

Chen Siniu, at a loss, said: "Mother, this trip will keep me ten days or half a month, and Lanxiang's carrying a child, so I must trouble you to."

The sleepy old lady's eyes flashed of a sudden with a cold light. She said to Chen Siniu, jeering: "Son! Your mother's near seventy. I can't look after anyone! Each sees to his own. I too beg a bowl of leftover rice under your nephew's roof.

"As for me, I don't look to you for any great filial care. You could have a mountain of gold and silver and it would still be yours, I'd not spend a coin of it! Siniu, didn't I tell you? So long as I've a breath in me in this world, I'll not own her for a daughter-in-law, and I'm to look after her? Go back and ask her: if I looked after her, would she dare take it?"

Chen Siniu's face was all injury and hurt as he pleaded: "Mother, we're all one family, why must you make it so hard for her?"

The old lady coughed lightly. Her mouth had gone dry. Before she could speak, Second-Moon at once poured a bowl of water, neither cold nor hot, from the straw-wrapped pot-stand, and offered it up with both hands. And seeing the old lady take it, leaned in to prop her as she drank.

Such style! Chen Siniu was quite dumbfounded.

Her thirst slaked, the old lady smiled at Chen Siniu at last: "A concubine, she is! She's food and drink and good days, why would I, an old woman, make it hard for her? We don't so much as set eyes on each other all the day long. Your words are a joke. What's this 'one family'? Who's family with her?"

Chen Siniu was fit to burst, and mumbled: "Mother! Lanxiang is my wife."

The old lady laughed cold: "I don't own it! Dead and buried and my bones gone to ash, still I'll not own it! And when I go below, I'll have words with your father, he can't own it either!"

Chen Siniu had never dreamed the old lady could be stubborn to such a pitch. He hardly knew, in the end, what jumble of things he'd said. He could only drive his own cart off, dazed, and leave the home he cared for so.

As he left the lane, he saw his nephew's great gate open, and two old-women come smiling out of it, each with a three-tier food-box, bringing the old lady her breakfast.

And he thought, bitter: people are a funny thing. Once, when there was only himself, when he had no one but himself, then he was son! Own son! Filial son!

And now that there was a rich grandson, son was no son and mother no mother!

He gave a cold snort, and cracked his whip, and thought: hmph! We'll see how this plays out yet! He simply did not believe there was any such thing under heaven as wealth that lasts forever, that the day would never come when these ingrates needed him again.

The old lady needn't guess. She knew well enough that this son's heart had gone crooked long ago. She put an end to it, thought no more of it, ate her breakfast, rolled over, and slept a sweet second sleep.

While the old lady slept sound, Qi Qian'er was run off her feet. Up at first light, she sent Fifth-Moon round house by house to rouse that good-for-nothing crowd.

When Mr. Cheng, Brother Quanzi, and Chen Dasheng's brothers had all come, Qi Qian'er told them: the Qingfeng prefecture yamen was open now, so while they were all together, they'd go, the lot of them, and register every house-deed and land-deed.

They were a pack of fools who hadn't the least notion how important a deed was.

People were moving in every day now, and no one knew what connections another might have behind him. The sooner it was done, the better.

By the time Mr. Cheng had grasped it, over came Guo-Yang-shi and a dozen and more of the women. Qi Qian'er knew a few of them were already widows. And as for the rest, the men who held their doors, even come home, were only common soldiers under the Board of War. Whom could they take on?

Without that deed, there'd be great trouble! You might occupy a small court, and still not be secure in it! If another went and registered first, and came with the papers in hand, then move you must, whether you would or no.

A whole manor had scraped through life together. Now that she was able, why not put out a hand? So what if some of them were friendly with Madam Qiao now? They'd been neighbors for decades. A handful of rice, a bundle of firewood, every house had done another such kindnesses. Others had helped her, and she had helped others.

There are plenty in this world who act by their conscience, their means only so great. They'll not be too good to you, but real malice they have none. The most they'll do is snatch a little advantage in words, and the very worst is to leave off having anything to do with you.

Take loud-voiced Guo-Yang-shi: she'd truly no head on her, but she acted by her conscience, and said straight out what she couldn't abide. In the days when she lived hard, ground down and pinched by her own family, she'd nagged even the old lady, and Madam Qiao too, whom she'd charged to her face with a poisonous heart. Only, in the days when Madam Qiao held the power, Qiao forbade Guo-Yang-shi to draw water at the front manor, so that Guo-Yang-shi had to walk half the manor round to fetch her drinking-water from the river.

Naturally Guo-Yang-shi was sick at being made to bear another's spite, and simply washed her hands of Qi Qian'er ever after.

Ai! No use dwelling on it. Once I cost you half a life of hauling river-water, now I'll pay you back a great house with a well of its own.

Seeing them still all at sea, still with no idea what was afoot, Qi Qian'er spoke it out plain, and pointed at Chen Dasheng: "Aunties, you came up through hardship alongside my old lady, that's a bond of shared trouble, and we can't turn round and disown our own, can we?

"You've seen these past days: my house fears no newcomer, but which of you could take on anyone? Well, the ancestors were good to us, and Dasheng's come to a little something now. And it happens we're off to the Qingfeng yamen today for the deeds, and carts are cheap just now, so come along with us, aunties, and settle your courts clean and clear, and rest easy ever after."

Said that far, anyone who still couldn't see it was for their own good would have to be a fool. The dozen women looked at one another. They wanted to thank her, but with what? They wanted some pretty flattering word, but hadn't a store of honeyed speeches ready. And being all of the old lady's generation, a rank above, they couldn't very well kowtow, could they!

Gao-shi got a few words out and then bolted, which left Qi Qian'er staring a good while before she said, torn between laughing and not, to Sun-shi, She Jixiang's wife: "You hear that, she's plainly said no little about me out there!"

Jixiang's wife held back a laugh. She was holding two bolts of satin for Qi Qian'er to choose from, and when Qi Qian'er had settled on a pattern for the old lady, she said, smiling: "The madam's a kind heart. If she were one to keep accounts, she'd not be helping them at all."

When they'd all gone out, Qi Qian'er set She Jixiang to borrow a cart from next door and go to Yanjing, to Chang Lianfang's house. Whoever answered, he was to take the Chang family's card, and go to the yamen today as well, and get the chessboard court put in Little Hua's name whatever it took.

She'd not so much as call Old Madam Tao, and Madam Qiao could forget it entirely!

True, in this life Old Madam Tao hadn't taught Madam Qiao her letters, nor drilled her in all her tricks. But a feud is a feud, and that she wasn't taking revenge was itself only because she feared to anger the gods.

Say what you would, it was that teacher of Chen Dasheng's who was the good one. Only look at the people he'd sent, more to her liking the more she used them.

At the thought, Qi Qian'er had Jixiang's wife find her a few more bolts of the cloth she'd dyed with her own hands. She meant to make the teacher some underclothes to wear next to his skin, and shoes besides.

People must have a conscience.

Chen Dasheng and the rest had left early, and hardly a soul had seen them.

When the manor grew lively again toward mid-morning, Qi Qian'er went herself to the old house to fetch the old lady.

For all the many new hands about, what had to be done still had to be done. Every day she spent a while at the old lady's side, talking with her, taking at least one meal with her, keeping her company at play with her old cronies. And when they bragged, Qi Qian'er had to stand by as witness besides.

The old lady, dressed and tidied, stepped out the gate with Second-Moon and Fourth-Moon behind her, and this time she truly had the air of an old Lady.

Qi Qian'er followed her, smiling, and even teased: "Granny, and did you sleep well last night?"

The old lady stumped stubbornly on ahead, her face a study past all telling.

When they reached the Board of Works lane-mouth, Old Madam Tao, seeing the old lady's grandeur that day, said sourly: "Oh! Our old Lady's late out today! What's this, too comfortable at home to bother coming out?"

The old lady glanced back at the reclining-chair Second-Moon had set out for her, and, unable to hold it in, poured a stream of complaint into Old Madam Xu's ear. Old Madam Xu was doubled over laughing before she was halfway through.

When she'd got her laughter under at last, she pointed at the old lady: "You! You! Are you daft? Can't you just let them go off for a bit?"

The old lady was astonished: "Ah? You can let them go off?"

Old Madam Xu laughed again, and when she'd done said: "Lucky you spoke of it early! Else in a few days you'd have earned yourself a name for meanness out in the open! There's no one like you! Trained they may be, but you can't have them keep watch the whole night through, just tell them to sleep, and call if you've need of them! Say nothing, and they'll not dare shut their eyes the night long."

The old lady took the lesson to heart, and sat a good while before she sighed: "It only shows a body's fate is a body's fate. I was made to suffer. Half a day without touching my needlework and I itch as though something were clawing at my heart, nothing looks right to me."

Old Madam Tao was eaten up with envy, and, having no wish to hear the old lady's unwitting boasting, asked instead: "Old Lady? So many people, and where have you put them all to live?"

The old lady, open as day, sold her own house out on the spot: "On my east side, six of them in the side-rooms. The other maids and old-women live with Qian'er in the front court. And the rest live in." She stopped short, then broke into a smile, her eyes rolling round, and said to Old Madam Tao: "You're a funny one too, I don't go asking where your several daughters-in-law live. Why must you come asking after my house?"

Old Madam Tao started, and hurried to explain: "As Heaven and earth are my witness, it was only an idle question, why turn a crooked eye on me? All these years, and does the Lady still not know what sort of person I am."

The old lady knew her temper, and pointed at her and laid her bare: "What sort? The sort with the most scheming in her, that's what! You think there's a soul who doesn't know!"

Old Madam Tao at once cried her innocence, and set to reciting how spotless she was.

But the old lady laughed inside herself: I'll not tell you my house has come by another whole mansion.

Old Madam Xu, at a glance, sensed something behind it, and turned the talk aside to suit herself: "Old sisters! My son came home yesterday and said, our Emperor's going to hand out merit-reward coins!"

Merit-reward coins?

Qi Qian'er started to hear it, glanced at the old lady, then bowed her head and went back to her needlework.

Chief-Attendant She had spoken of this reward once, but that was then and this was now. Everything was well at home now, and Scabby was riding high besides. Whether they got this reward or not hardly mattered anymore.

The old lady of course had no idea what a merit-reward was, and asked Old Madam Xu.

Old Madam Xu said, smiling: "I don't rightly understand it either, only that it's no easy thing to get! They say, a house that once staked its life for the Emperor, that did some great service, the Emperor rewards that house one merit-coin. And the service is reckoned great or small, so the coins run to gold, silver and bronze. My son's no great man, so he got only a bronze one.

"Ai, his father was lost midway too, and the body never found. My son's a filial one. He says a merit-coin isn't got to shield the descendants, he's afraid they'd lean on it and slack off, that not knowing fear is the true disaster. So! My son's making his father a cap-and-robe grave, and this coin will go into the earth with his father. My son says, it's a thing that carries the imperial aura. The Emperor is the Son of Heaven, so if this merit-coin goes down with my old man, then even King Yama must give the Son of Heaven of the living world his due."

Old Madam Xu spoke it without a thought behind it, but in the old lady it planted a sickness of the heart at once. Her face went heavy and dull. She didn't sit long that day, did no bragging at all, and went home early.

Which puzzled Qi Qian'er no end.

Chen Dasheng and the others were gone a whole day, and came back together only about dark.

And when they were back, Qi Qian'er learned that the yamen was open, true, but was chiefly busy just now with the old city's drinking-water, and with moving the old city five li forward. The special officer over the registers and deeds hadn't even been appointed yet.

And when Chen Dasheng got a look at the prefect's face, well! He knew him! Seen him often! Seen him daily, this while back. A man set to hold Yanjing's line of defense had to be one of the Emperor's own trusted people.

Come to beg a favor of an acquaintance, Chen Dasheng turned awkward and shy. But this personage smiled and took them in, and not only received them warmly, no register officer, was there? No matter, the prefect would see to it himself.

And so Chen Dasheng found himself, out of nowhere, with a "Brother Shi," for the man called him "younger brother" at every turn, and had the whole party feasted at a great noon meal in the rear yamen besides.

When the prefect had set his secretaries to it and was overseeing the deeds himself, the shrewd fellow was full of praise for how upright Chen Dasheng was, only taken three courts?

Just so: he thought Chen Dasheng had taken too few!

Chen Dasheng, much abashed, pointed down the row of his family's surnames: I've three elder brothers above me, and a sister! Hasn't everyone got one apiece? It's not too few! I've put you to trouble!

But the prefect said, all gravity: "Listen to you, brother, this has nothing to do with you! And it's not the least excessive. The houses of Quanhou Manor go to whoever comes first now, whoever's able takes them! And besides, each of you serves a different office. Brother Chen's brothers-in-law and brothers are the court's men too. Yanjing's not to be dreamed of, but taking a country hovel to shelter in at Qingfeng, what of it? What of it? Sorely put-upon, I call it!"

Ah! So it could be put that way too? Chen Dasheng learned something again.

The secretaries worked at it together, and stamped down the yamen's seal and the register's seal so briskly they scarcely looked whom they were stamping for.

Then, halfway through, Chang Lianfang's head steward arrived, all smiles, this being the man the old Chang lady trusted above all. And seeing Chen Dasheng, he called him "young master."

The prefect looked at the card sent over, heavens above! The Emperor's adopted son, and wanting the chessboard court!

The chessboard court was nothing at all! Give it! Miss so fine a chance to lay up a connection and you'd be a fool! Only now did Prefect Shi learn that Chen Dasheng not only had a great-eunuch for a father, but a sworn brother who was the Emperor's adopted son, and this brother the true adopted son of Chang Mianshen besides.

And so Chang Lianfang's name came, out of nowhere, by a marriage-mansion. And the chessboard court had two whole two-court houses more than his court back in Yanjing.

How so? When the Emperor first rewarded people, he'd looked to the spread of land and not to what was livable. The court granted the Changs had only half of it fit to live in, but it boasted a famous water-pavilion, ranked among the top five in all Yanjing, and, on top of that, a huge lotus pond you could put a boat on.

Their mansion had once been a princess's residence, and that lady had been a person of refined tastes.

The Changs had come joyfully up to the capital, entered the court, and been quite stifled: precious few quarters to live in, and money to be laid out keeping up a great fish-pond besides.

They'd even meant, at first, to fill in the new mansion's nine-bend lotus pond and raise a wedding-house on it, but the two elder sisters-in-law grumbled and wouldn't hear of it! In private they even said the Emperor would surely never shortchange his adopted son!

The Emperor's was the Emperor's. The elders all knew that if the Emperor had readied a mansion for him, this youngest son might truly grow estranged from them.

And who could have foreseen it, the Chen family, humble-born, had loved their third as their own grandson, and gone and seized him a compound court beyond all expectation. And in Qingfeng, what of it? Qingfeng was no distance from Yanjing, an hour on horseback, and a low, unshowy place besides, that would pass muster anywhere.

The old lady and the mistress of the Chang house were overjoyed. Every child was their own flesh, and it went hard with the elders. They'd have liked to buy in Yanjing, but with so many eyes on the place now, money in hand was money you dared not spend.

Truly it was coals brought in the snow!

After all that bustle, Chen Dasheng was made to sit through another meal with Prefect Shi at nightfall, and only then brought his three cartloads of people quietly home.

As they left, the prefect, to show what a hard thing he'd done, charged them again and again: not a word of this must get out, not a word. Working the strings and doing favors, could it be done this way too?

Chen Dasheng was silent the whole way home. And only when he was back and into the lane, and the crowd of aunties climbed down from the carts and in all sincerity made to kneel to him, did his mood lift a little, for at the last, he too had the power to shelter people now.

It was the last night of his leave at home. And with the few extra cups he'd had at the yamen, he was more talkative than ever.

Lying on his pillow he chattered on and on, about the days when the county yamen came to the village to press men into corvée and pile on the taxes, and the runners' hard, mean faces. And then about all he'd seen and heard at the yamen that day. Pent up as he was, he rambled and rambled, and rambled himself at last to tears. And Qi Qian'er, at a loss, was forced to shift over and hold him and comfort him: "There now! There! It's all past, all past."

Chen Dasheng wept a while more, and muttered: "How I miss them, back then, a whole family, Grandfather, Uncle, like great mountains to lean against. If they were here too, a whole family living here, how fine that would be!"

But the dead, in the end, are gone.

Chen Dasheng left early the next day. Ashamed, perhaps, he slipped off without waking Qi Qian'er.

When Qi Qian'er got up she'd thought life would go on just so, she'd put the house slowly in order, and slowly wait for her An'er. But who could have foreseen it: breakfast over, the old lady sent First-Moon to call her.

When Qi Qian'er reached the old house, the old lady sat on the kang with a bundle in her arms, stroking it, over and over.

Qi Qian'er sat down by her and asked: "What good thing has Granny got hidden away for me?"

But the old lady raised her face and said to Qi Qian'er with a bitter smile: "What good thing! This is, this is." Her hands trembling, she opened the bundle fold by fold. And Qi Qian'er froze. She'd seen this thing before: a ragged silk-tapestry robe of stone-blue, all over holes hacked and stabbed by blade and spear.

Qi Qian'er knew the old lady liked to strip clothes from the battlefield, but she'd never understood why, in the last life, the old lady had charged her again and again to bury this robe with her, and to hold it against her breast. In those days she'd hated the old woman, and muttered that she was greedy for goods.

And today, why bring this out?

Fighting her tears with all her might, the old lady said to Qi Qian'er: "Qian, Qian, Granny begs you, take me to find the Emperor! Find the Emperor, will you? I want to get your Eldest Uncle and them one too, one of those merit-coins, for road-money in the world below. I, my son, I must ask the Emperor where he buried my son."

Qi Qian'er was struck dumb. And from the old lady's rambling she learned at last that the family's Eldest Uncle had died at Tongyan Mountain, in those few battles.

That year the Emperor had been caught in a pincer, front and back. And he, with several others of like build, had been chosen to stand as the Emperor's doubles, each drawing off one column of the pursuit toward a different quarter, so that the four of them ran four ways.

Where had Eldest Uncle died? The old lady didn't know. She'd only had this robe, and word by the messenger's mouth: that the Emperor had had Eldest Uncle's body gathered up, and given him a rich burial besides.

Qi Qian'er stared and stared at the robe. In the last life the old lady had not been ignorant of any of it. She'd only clutched the boundless wealth with a heart gone cold, and been unwilling to give a soul a thing.

Chen Dasheng had kept his bitter watch at the frontier, and cared for another family's old lady. The remaining grandsons and granddaughters, over money and private grudges, had none of them been willing to come home. And she herself had been a useless thing.

Seeing the old lady straining with all her strength to hold it in, not daring to weep, Qi Qian'er ached past bearing, and took her hand: "All right! All right! Granny, don't grieve, we'll pack this very moment. Your Scabby of a grandson keeps the Emperor's gate. Go we shall, and we're sure to get in to see the Emperor!"

At that the old lady put her grief away on the instant, tied up the bundle in three strokes and two, held out her hand and gestured to Qi Qian'er in dead earnest: "Right! To the palace, to see the Emperor! To get the merit-coins! Eight of them!"

With a whole crew of servants in the house now, the packing went quickly too.

In no time at all the old lady's belongings were loaded aboard, and her three great carts set off for Yanjing.

That day Madam Qiao, heavy at heart for no reason, took Xique to the ancestral hall gate to find the sisters-in-law and chat her low spirits away.

But when Qi Qian'er's party went out, ringed round by servants, departing in state and splendor, Madam Qiao was nearly driven out of her mind to see it!

Sour and envious, she couldn't help but say, dabbing at her eyes: "So now we can't so much as be a family. I waited on the old lady three years! Three years! Eh? Sisters? Where have the sisters got to."

The women had come out cheerfully to their chores, settled and content. And when Madam Qiao came they'd thought little of it, and been very good to her. She was a Chen, after all.

But her old complaints and sour words tasted quite different now from before. They were the old Lady's and the young Lady's people now, and to hear that crooked heart of hers again? So this was the sort Madam Qiao was!

Madam Qiao was a Chen, and couldn't be slapped. So the women gathered up their work in haste and fled for their lives. Zhou-shi had run a good way when she remembered her vow, and, fearing Lord Laojun would loose the five thunders to blast her, backed up again, and stood five paces off before the bewildered, astonished Madam Qiao, and solemnly, three times over,

Pah! Pah! Pah!

Qi Qian'er never knew that this one kind act of hers had left Madam Qiao wholly cut off and alone.

She was too worried about the old lady, who clutched the bundle in misery the whole way. And fearing she'd make herself ill, Qi Qian'er comforted her along the road, to little effect, the old lady's lips had gone blue, and she could scarcely get her words out straight.

Some three li out of Qingfeng, Qi Qian'er caught sight of a temple, half-seen and half-hidden, on the slope of a nearby hill.

So she said to the old lady: "Granny, this place is called Qingque Head. You see that hillside, there's the Qingque Nunnery up there. I heard from my old mistress that the Bodhisattva enshrined in it is the most efficacious of all, truly answers every prayer! Since we're going to petition the Emperor, why not first stop at the nunnery, and hold a rite for Eldest Uncle and them, to ferry their souls, and give a little lamp-oil besides? It can only do them good."

The old lady heard her and nodded at once, hard as a pestle pounding grain.

Qi Qian'er told She Jixiang to turn off, and they made for the Qingque Nunnery. Only, well as she'd meant it, she'd no sooner helped the pious old lady down and started up the hill, not half an incense-stick's climb, than they were stopped by several fierce, forbidding men.

Several burly fellows barred the path, sabers at their hips, hands raised: "Halt, whoever you are! There's business on the mountain today. Come again tomorrow for your incense, the Bodhisattva won't hold it against you!"

She Jixiang, who hadn't said a word all this while, looked them over, and for the first time spoke up to Qi Qian'er of his own accord: "Madam, let's come back another day! Or, there's a great temple another dozen li on, and its incense-fires burn just as bright."

One look at the wrongness in She Jixiang's eyes and Qi Qian'er was on her guard at once. She smiled: "Yes, yes! Where's my memory! Granny, if it's incense we want, let's find the big one!"

But what she'd never in the world expected was that the old lady would wrench free of her and mutter: "We're right at the Bodhisattva's door, how can we not go in and worship?"

She would not be moved. She stood on her toes and looked up the hill, and at a single glance she saw a party of people.

And so the old lady put out her hand toward the fattest and whitest old lady among them, and called: "Old sister! Old sister! Are you here to worship the Bodhisattva? Won't you take your old sister along too?"