too. Thinking the matter very strange, Ah Q thought to himself: "These bourgeois women have suddenly learned the manners of gentle maidens. Creatures of ill repute!"
Several days later he again had occasion to understand that the world was strange because of the following things which happened: First, wine shops refused him credit; second, the old man who looked after T'uku Temple passed a few slighting remarks as if telling him to leave; third, he did not remember clearly how many days it was, but it was surely many days that no one had come to call him to do an odd job. If the wine shops refused him credit, well, he could endure that; if the old man insisted on his leaving, a round of inconsequential chatter would settle the matter; but it was not so with the fact that no one came to call him to do odd jobs, because this made Ah Q's stomach starve, and that was an unusually terrible state of affairs.
Unable to endure this last condition any longer, Ah Q finally had to go to his former employer's house in order to make inquiry; it was on the Chao threshold alone that he was not allowed to set foot. But even those who allowed him entrance acted in a strange manner; a man never failed to appear who wore a thoroughly annoyed
