used to be, quite unlike the animated, clever, and shrewd Lu Wei-fu that I used to know.
"Ah, Wei-fu, is it you? I never would have thought of meeting you here."
"Ah, ah, is it you? Neither would I."
I invited him to sit down at my table, which he did after some hesitation. My first delight and surprise gave place to a feeling of sadness and depression. Looking at him more closely, I found that his hair and beard were still bushy and unruly, but his pale, long face had become thin and lined. He seemed very calm and serene, but it might have been weariness. The eyes under his thick, dark brows had lost their luster, though when he looked around the room and saw the deserted garden, they gleamed with a fire familiar to us in our student days.
"It must be ten years now," I said with forced gaiety, "since we last saw each other. Isn't it? I knew that you were at Tsinan but I have been too lazy to write."
"It is the same with all of us. But now I am at Taiyuan; I've been there over two years now, with my mother. When I came to get her, I learned that you had moved away—made a very clean move, I was told."
"What are you doing at Taiyuan?" I asked.
"Teaching, in the family of a fellow provincial."
"And before that?"
"Before that?" he said, lighting the cigarette that he had taken out of his pocket and watching reflectively the curls of smoke. "Nothing but very inconsequential things. It amounts to having done nothing at all."
He asked what I had been doing since we parted, and I told him briefly, after first telling the waiter to bring another cup and pair of chopsticks so that my friend could join me
