I cannot bear this hour—I cannot bear it— I cannot watch its slow and tremulous dying. Shall I deny it—mocking my denying—? Or shall I weave a veil of words and wear it? Yet, having woven it, shall I not tear it With tears? I heard a messenger come crying— _Lo, here is thy lost joy_.... But he was lying. The thief who stole my joy would never share it. Then cried the messenger—_Come, cease thy grieving,_ _Thy joy was terrible and exquisite,_ _Yet here are other joys, for God is kind_.... But I will pay no heed, for I am weaving A veil of words ... a veil of words ... that it May fall about my heart and make it blind. They were in a sampan crossing obliquely towards Chungking. “S’posing we collide with a corpse ...” said Stone. “You adorable kid,” said Tam, and the sampan rocked as he leaned over to pull the boy’s hair. They collided with no corpses, nor with any of the sampans, loaded with retreating soldiers, coming from Chungking. The steps at the foot of which the sampan landed were moving with soldiers. A few earthenware jars stood on the lowest step, abandoned by their owners. On the beach, below the steps, a herd of beggars were raking with their fingers in a wilderness of refuse. One boy, who had committed some breach of muck-raking etiquette, was being held down by two women; his legs were being stretched by another boy and the taut muscles pounded by yet another avenger. His screams followed the travellers as they climbed the steps. There was a half open arched gate through the city wall at the top of the steps. The town within the wall was so silent that, for a long time, they could hear the screams of the beggar boy on the mud shore. Many of the booths and the shops were shut. Shopmen with black caps and long gowns stood expectantly outside their barred doors. Tense faces looked from the leaning upper windows into the abyss of the narrow street. A closely curtained light chair was carried swiftly by, and a young Chinese woman with a frightened face pushed aside the curtains and looked out when she heard the booted tread of the three foreigners. Perhaps she hoped they were wild wicked soldiers and would see her. The houses leaned together, propped up by their own crooked shadows; a fringe of gilded shop signs swayed so low that the occasional cavalrymen had to dismount and lead their horses. Soldiers passed, all facing towards the river gate. The soldiers swaggered by the dubious, watching citizens. The soldiers looked afraid, but their mouths opened to shout confident things. “Buy nice ivory?” said one of the shopkeepers to Tam in a soft voice. The shopkeeper clasped his hands and bowed himself slightly towards Tam. Stone was sitting on the rough counter of a deserted booth watching the soldiers. Tam and Edward left him in the street and entered the shop when the shopman had taken down one shutter.