They were both somewhat sleepy. The meal had been a veritable poem in many verses, beginning with fragile cups of fragrant tea, candied walnuts, hemp seeds, small oranges, apricot kernels preserved in oil and dried, apples that melted like snow upon the tongue. Then the rhythm became more stalwart. Sea-slugs and sharks' fins, deer sinews and bamboo shoots. Birds' nest soup blending into a following rice soup. And so the poem continued until fifty verses had flowed with measured cadence into waiting stomachs.
Finally came warm wine to charm the senses and release the tongue.
Ah Chow and Wong See Lo prided themselves on their amiable expressions. Not the quivering of an eyelid betrayed their true thoughts. But they had no control whatever over their appetites. They wallowed in food, making snorting noises like pigs grunting contentedly. It pleased them that Dr. Shen Fu whom they had swindled many times and whom they imagined was their eternal enemy, should make this noble gesture in their honor. A feast in a house-boat, floating on West Lake, the jewel of Hangchow.
The day was pleasant. Occasionally a gentle breeze invaded the calm, cool and fresh and laden with the fragrance of peach blossoms.
Dr. Shen Fu lifted a cup of warm wine to his lips and sipped languidly. "Truly," he reflected, "the gods have given you a perfect day to set out on that gentle road that will end with your becoming immortals."
Ah Chow roused from his lethargy. "What are you saying?"
"That soon you will be an ancestor. You have unwittingly joined me in a death feast," Dr. Shen Fu explained softly.
"What could be more enjoyable than a premeditated death, a death that has been cleverly appointed? My friends, we are dying in grandeur. Our appetites are appeased. We are at peace with life. Now for a moment we are resting, waiting for the doors to open to admit us into the vast hall of eternal mystery where our elders await us. Would you like more wine?"
Ah Chow whispered, "I do not like the name of death."
But Wong See Lo, despite his growing nervousness, laughed shortly.
"You are very droll," he declared. "I am not dying."
"One is never nearer death than when apparently enjoying abundant life." Dr. Shen Fu poured more tea into a cup as fragile as a rose petal. "My friends, you have entered into your last week on earth. I trust you will enjoy it well. A single week into which you must pack all that remains to you of living. Alas, that you both should have accumulated so much gold only to choke upon it in your final hour."
As Dr. Shen Fu finished speaking, he struck his hands together. Instantly two girls appeared from behind silken curtains in the stern of the boat. They were slender and graceful. One carried a lute. She sat down on a yellow silken pillow, playing softly, notes so sweet the lute seemed to be singing. And as she played, the other danced, soundlessly, rhythmically and there was music mingled with her form. Water-lilies crowded around the boat to listen.
The interval of dancing was but fleeting for soon the girls withdrew to appear no more. A servant brought long-stemmed pipes and tobacco.
"Come," said Dr. Shen Fu, "let us enjoy the fragrance of tobacco before we hang up our hats forever. Interesting, is it not, that as we recline in the bowl of life, we are so soon to peer over its mysterious edge? Perhaps we will be happier afterward for are we not always curious
