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The Cake of Soap
ing morning. He got up later than usual that day and found his wife bent over the washstand scrubbing her neck. The soap lather rose in billows behind her ears, as foamy as water bubbles that form over the mouth of huge crabs. The difference between this and ordinary tsao-chia was as great as the difference that exists between heaven and earth. From then on there was always an exotic fragrance about the person of Mrs. Ssu which was something and yet not quite like the fragrance of olives. It was not until almost half a year later that she began to have a different odor, which, according to those who noticed it, smelled of sandalwood.
