a woman went about, she was sure to have it in mind to entice a "loose" male. Whenever a man and a maid conversed alone, there certainly was a matter of dark secrecy. (These were Ah Q's extraordinary musings.) He was in the habit of glaring at such people with furious eyes in order to mete out punishment to them; he might pass a few loud cutting remarks, or, if he happened to be in a remote place, he would throw stones at their backs.
How was it to be anticipated that at the late age of forty, he should be brought so low by a little nun as to feel that he was fluttering, fluttering, fluttering. That fluttering, according to moral teachings, should not have existed; therefore, the female is, without the least doubt, detestable. Now if the little nun's cheek had not been greasy, Ah Q would not have been enticed. Again, if the little nun had had her face covered with a cloth, Ah Q would not have been tempted. Five or six years ago, while in a crowded theater, he had squeezed past a woman in passing through the aisle . . . (and that was the nearest he had come to a woman); but it was not so with the little nun. This manifestly shows the hatefulness of heresy.
"Woman . . . ," thought Ah Q. The women who without a doubt desired to lure on "loose" men he always watched closely, but they had never
