The best short stories of 1919, and the yearbook of the American short story
General
The best short stories of 1919, and the yearbook of the American short story
American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories -- 20th century -- Bibliography; Short stories -- 20th century -- Indexes; Short stories, American
She waited. The silence grew and grew till in the heart of it something
ominous took the place of its all-pervading peace. Foh-Kyung lifted his
face from his hands and rose to his feet. Dong-Yung turned, still
kneeling, to scan his eyes. The black-robed priest stood off and looked
at them with horror. Surely it was horror! Never had Dong-Yung really
liked him. Slowly she rose, and stood beside and a little behind
Foh-Kyung. He had not blessed them. Faintly, from beyond the walls of
the Christian chapel came the beating of drums. Devil-drums they were.
Dong-Yung half smiled at the long-known familiar sound.
"Your small wife?" said the priest. "Have you another wife?"
"Assuredly," Foh-Kyung answered. "All men have a great wife first; but
this, my small wife, is the wife of my heart. Together we have come to
seek and find the Jesus way."
The priest wiped his hand across his face. Dong-Yung saw that it was wet
with tiny round balls of sweat. His mouth had suddenly become one thin
red line, but in his eyes lay pain.
"Impossible," he said. His voice was quite different now, and sounded
like bits of metal falling on stone. "No man can enter the church while
living in sin with a woman other than his lawful wife. If your desire is
real, put her away."
With instant response, Foh-Kyung made a stately bow.
"Alas! I have made a grievous mistake. The responsibility will be on my
body. I thought all were welcome. We go. Later on, perhaps, we may meet
again."
The priest spoke hurriedly.
"I do not understand your meaning. Is this belief of such light weight
that you will toss it away for a sinful woman? Put her away, and come
and believe."
But Foh-Kyung did not hear his words. As he turned away, Dong-Yung
followed close behind her lord and master, only half comprehending, yet
filled with a great fear. They went out again into the sunshine, out
across the flat green grass, under the iron gateway, back into the Land
of the Flowery Kingdom. Foh-Kyung did not speak until he put Dong-Yung
in the rickshaw.
"Little Wife of my Heart," he said, "stop at the jeweler's and buy thee
new ear-rings, these ear-rings of the sky-blue stone and sea-tears, and
have thy hair dressed and thy gowns perfumed, and place the two red
circles on the smile of thy cheeks. To-night we will feast. Hast thou
forgotten to-night is the Feast of the Lanterns, when all good Buddhists
rejoice?"
He stood beside her rickshaw, in his imperial yellow garment hemmed with
the rainbow waves of the sea, and smiled down into her eyes.
"But the spirit God of love, the foreign-born spirit God?" said
Dong-Yung. "Shall we feast to him, too?"
"Nay, it is not fitting to feast to two gods at once," said Foh-Kyung.
"Do as I have said."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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