to live in. I sensed the curious gazes that we encountered on the street, the disparaging remarks, the indecent and the insulting glances, which caused me, if I was not on my guard, to shrink from embarrassment. But I managed to summon up enough courage to face them proudly. She, however, was without embarrassment. She walked on calmly in the face of these hostile manifestations as if there was no one in the world besides herself and me.
It was no easy matter to find a place to live in. Most of the time we were refused upon one pretext or another, and the rest of the time we rejected the place as unsuitable. At first we were rather particular—we were not really particular, but the places we saw did seem unsuitable—later on we only wanted to find someone who would take us. After looking at more than twenty places, we finally discovered one that more or less answered our purposes. It consisted of a two-chien southern room in a house in Chi-chao Hutung. The landlord was a petty official, but was quite broadminded. He occupied the central (northern) unit of the house and the side chambers with his family, which consisted of his wife and a girl less than a year old and a peasant woman servant. It was a quiet place as long as the child did not cry.
Our household furnishings were simple enough, but it already required more than half of the money that I had managed to get together. Tzu-chun sold her gold ring and earrings, the only jewelry she had. I would not let her at first, but she insisted and I gave in. I knew that if I did not let her contribute her share she would not be happy.
She had broken openly with her uncle long before this. He now disowned her as his niece. I also broke off one by one with those of my friends who professed to offer advice for my own good but who really feared for me or were jealous of
