The pretty insect immediately flew in the direction of the Pavilion-of-the-guests. Little-cypress saw it go in at the window and alight on the stone for grinding the ink.
Then it arose again and alighted on the paper which was placed on the table; there it oddly crawled, retracing its steps, returning, advancing, and stopping. After a moment it took its flight and disappeared in the sky.
Little-cypress, much puzzled, approached and looked; on the paper was written in big strokes the word "Thanks."
When Dawning-colour was on the point of dying, he called his mother to him.
"Mother," he said, "I am going to die. I do not wish White-orchid, my young wife, to feel herself bound to keep the widowhood. When her mourning will be finished, she will marry again: our son is only three years old; you will keep him with you."
Now, the mourning was not yet finished and the coffin was still in the house waiting for a favourable day, when the young widow began to find the solitude weigh upon her.
A rich sluggard of the village, named Adolescent, had several times sent proposals to her through a neighbour; she at last was unwise enough to agree to an interview with him. When evening came, Adolescent jumped over the neighbour's wall and went to her room.
He had not been there half an hour when there arose a great noise in the hall where the coffin was; it seemed as if the cover was violently thrown to the ground. A little slave who was called afterwards as a witness told how she ran into the yard and saw her master's corpse brandishing a sword and jumping towards the room where the lovers were to be found.
A few instants after, she saw the young widow come out screaming and run to the garden. Adolescent followed her, covered with blood; he crossed the threshold and disappeared in the night.
Now, Adolescent, flying from danger, pushed the first door that he came across in the street; it was that of a young couple; the husband, named Wang, was absent and only expected to return the next day. The young wife, hearing a noise, thought it was her husband returning.
"Is that you?" she asked, without quite waking up.
Adolescent, who knew Madame Wang was pretty, answered "Yes" in a low voice, taking advantage of her error.