In addition there was Ah Sui to care for and the chickens to be fed—all chores that she must do herself.
Once I did suggest that it did not matter if I did not have tempting things to eat and she must not work so hard. She did not say anything, but from the glance that she gave me I knew that she was hurt. And so I refrained from mentioning the subject again and she continued to direct all her energies to household duties.
The blow that I had been dreading finally fell. On the eve of the Double Ten Festival I was sitting in our room while she was washing dishes. There was a knocking at the gate. When I opened it, I discovered the office messenger. He handed me a stenciled form. I looked at it under the lamp and found it was what I had feared. It read:
By order of the Director, Shih Chuan-sheng is hereby informed that his services are no longer required at the Bureau.
The Secretary's Office. Oct. 9.
I had foreseen this when I was still at the Guild. Vanishing Cream was a gambling companion of the son of the Director and must have told him about Tzu-chun and myself, with inventions and embellishments of his own. What surprised me was that it should have been so slow in taking effect. It was not, to tell the truth, such a blow after all, for I had decided beforehand that I could get a clerical job elsewhere or find a position as tutor or do some translating work, though the last would have required greater exertion. I thought of the possibility of selling more translations to The Friend of Liberty; the editor was an acquaintance of mine and I had exchanged letters with him about two months earlier. But
