It was, in fact, a farewell visit. We had previously sold, by consent of all those concerned, the old house in which our family had lived for several generations and had agreed to turn the house over to the new owners before the first of the year. It was necessary for us to bid farewell to the old house and the familiar countryside and to settle down in another part of the country, where I made my living.
I arrived at our house the following day, early in the morning. The broken blades of dry grass that grew between the roof tiles rustled in the wind and explained better than words could why the old house had to change owners. It was very quiet, as ours was the last branch of the family to move away. My mother met me at the gate of our own compound, soon joined by my eight-year-old nephew Hung-erh, who came out running.
My mother was happy to see me, but I could detect that there was a trace of sadness in her, too. She told me to sit down and rest and have some tea and not to talk about the matter of moving till later. As Hung-erh had never seen me before, he stood and watched me intently from a distance.
In the end we came to the matter of moving. I said that I had rented a house and bought a few pieces of furniture and that we must sell all our old furniture and buy more with the proceeds. My mother approved of my arrangements. It was going to be a fairly simple matter as most of the packing had been done already and some of the larger pieces of furniture had been sold. The only difficulty was in getting the buyers to pay.
"After you have rested a few days and visited our relatives, we shall be able to start," mother said.
"Yes, " I answered.
"By the way, every time Yun-t'u comes to our house, he
