"Which son of a hundred-thousand-men whore ever called you a bastard?" Ai-ku turned around and protested loudly. Then turning to the honorable Seven again she continued, "There is something else that I want to say before everyone present. He never had a kind word for me. Whenever he opened his mouth, it was 'offspring of a cheap womb' by way of introduction, and 'your mother's this and that' by way of conclusion. Since he took up with that whore, he has even included my ancestors in his foul words. Judge for me. Your Honor, could any . . . "
At this point she stopped abruptly with a shudder, for His Honor suddenly turned up his eyes, threw back his round face, and at the same time released a loud echoing sound from underneath the moustache covering his mouth.
"Lai-a-a!"[1] called His Honor.
Her heart stopped for a moment and then started pounding, for it seemed to her that all was over, that the situation had suddenly changed. She felt as if she had slipped and fallen into the water and she felt, moreover, that it was all her own fault.
At once a man wearing a blue robe and a black vest came in and stood like a wooden stick before His Honor, hands hanging stiffly at his sides. In the entire room "even birds stood still." His Honor's mouth moved but no one caught what he said. The man, however, had caught it. It was evidently an order, an order that seemed to have penetrated to his marrow, for he jerked his body a couple of times—one could almost see his hair standing on end—and answered simultaneously, "Yes."
- ↑ "Come." Used by masters of many servants and affected by others who do not have so many to summon an attendant.
