Fortress Besieged by Ch'ien Chung-shu

Author:Ch'ien Chung-shu
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-04-17T10:16:07+00:00

Chapter15-16

By this time he had completely forgotten the French superstition he had told Mr. Sun on the boat. All he wanted was to win money. At the end of the eighth round, Fang Hung-chien had won nearly three hundred dollars. The three other players, Mrs. Chang, "For Example," and "Admiral Nelson," all stood up and got ready to eat without paying a cent or mentioning a word about paying. Hung-chien reminded them with the remark, "How lucky I've been today. I've never won so much money before."As though waking from a dream, Mrs. Chang said, "Why, how stupid of us! We haven't settled with Mr. Fang yet. Mr. Ch'en, Mr. Ting, let me pay him, and we can settle it among ourselves later on." She then opened her purse and handed the notes over to Hung-chien,counting them out one by one.They had Western food. "Admiral Nelson," who was a Christian, rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling and thanked God for bestowing the food be fore he sat down. Because he had won so much money, Fang Hung-chien was full of talk and banter. After the meal everyone sat about smoking and drink ing coffee. He noticed a little bookcase next to the sofa and supposed it con tained Miss Chang's reading material.Besides a big stack of West Wind and Reader's Digest in the original, there was an unannotated, small-type edition of The Complete Works of Shakespeare in the original, the Bible, interior Decorating, a reprint of The Biography of Madame Curie, Teach Yourself Photography,My Country and My People [by Lin Yutang I, and other immortal classics, as well as an anthology of a dozen screen plays, one of which, needless to say, was Gone with the Wind.There was one small blue volume with the title in gilt letters on the spine:How to Gain a Husband and Keep Him. Hung-chien could not resist taking it out and skimming through it. He came across a paragraph which read:"You must be sweet and gentle to the man in order to leave a good impression deep in his heart. Girls,never forget always to have a bright smile on your face." As he read this, the smile transferred itself from the book to his own face. When he looked again at the cover, he noticed the author was a woman and wondered if she were married. She should have written "Mrs. So-and-So," then the book would have obviously been the voice of experience. At this thought his smile broadened. Raising his head, he suddenly noticed Miss Chang's gaze on him and hastily replaced the book and wiped the smile from his face.

"For Example" asked Miss Chang to play the piano, and they all echoed the request in unison. When Miss Chang had finished playing, in order to rectify the misunderstanding which had caused his smile,Hung-chien was first to say "Wonderful," and called for an encore. He stayed for a while longer, then said goodbye. Halfway home in the rickshaw, he remembered the title of the book and burst out laughing.

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