The Stranger at the Gate

In the county where the river bends below the eastern hills there lived a scholar named Feng. He was a young man of comely face and ready tongue, but he had no prudence in him; what little money his father had left him he spent on wine and on the loud company of men who flattered him.

His books gathered dust on the shelf above a cold hearth. His few acres were mortgaged, and his creditors began to smile thinly when they met him on the road. Yet Feng would not be warned. A cup of wine and a laughing companion could persuade him to anything.

One autumn evening, a storm broke over the village. Rain drove down in sheets, and the wind tore at the tiles of Feng's lonely cottage. As he huddled over a guttering lamp, there came a knocking at his gate, timid but insistent.

He opened it to find two women standing in the lash of the rain. The elder was a bent serving-woman with a lantern cupped in her hands. The younger, who stood a little behind her, was wrapped in a plain cloak, but beneath its edge he caught the glint of a quiet silk gown and the flash of a pale, composed face.

"We have lost our way in the storm," said the younger woman, in a voice as steady as if she had not been walking in rain. "My maid and I beg the shelter of your hall until morning, and we will not trespass on your hospitality beyond what is modest."

Feng, who was lonely as well as foolish, bowed them in. He dried his own poor fire and set out what tea he had. He learned that the lady called herself Xun Siniang, traveling to visit relatives in the next county; her maid, A-Qing, had been with her since girlhood.

She ate sparingly, spoke with grace, and asked after his studies with a gentle seriousness that he had never met in any woman of his acquaintance. When the fire sank she rose, as if to take her leave; but the storm outside had only grown worse, and Feng, stammering, begged her to remain.

So the night passed, and the next, and the next. Siniang did not press her company on him, but neither did she depart. It was as though the house, which had smelled of neglect, had drawn a quiet breath and become, for the first time, a home.

She mended his torn coats with neat stitches. She counted his scattered coins and showed him, in a few quiet words, how near he was to ruin. She advised him to dismiss the hangers-on who drank his wine and praised his verses; and for a while, to his own surprise, he obeyed.

Yet Feng's heart was light. He told himself that heaven had sent him a guardian in the shape of a beautiful and virtuous lady. He did not ask where her purse came from, or why her maid's lantern never guttered, or why, on moonless nights, a pale light seemed to breathe behind her eyes. He was, as ever, a fool for a fair face.