When he closed his eyes at night the maiden was there: her hair, so long, and so very black; her eyes, the shade of green leaves uncurling in the spring sunlight, her feet, which moved like tiny mice; the delicacy of her hand upon her fan; her voice, like a song heard in a dream.

When he went to make love to his concubine, he found she did not interest him, and he returned to his room, where he wrote a poem comparing his feelings about the maiden to the autumn wind, stirring the surface of a pool that had, until now, been placid, and he gave it to the servant to take to the maiden.

The servant brought back her reply, a poem in which she spoke of the reflection of the moon in the pool stirred by the wind. His heart swelled within him when he read it, astonished by the grace and ease of her brushwork.

He asked his oracles about her. The old woman laughed at him, cackling so hard he thought that she would die, and said nothing. The young woman with cold hands said, "The man she loved is dead."

Cont...

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