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gly. The groom is invisible somewhere, but the bride martyrs among us. She is clad in scarlet satin, heavily embroidered with gold. On her head is an edifice of scarlet and pearls. For weeks, I know, she has wept in protest. The feast-mother leads her in to us with sacrificial rites. Her eyes are closed, hidden behind her curtain of strung beads; for three days she will not open them. She has never seen the bridegroom. At the feast she sits like her own effigy. She neither eats nor speaks. Opposite her, across the narrow table, is a wall of curious faces, lookers-on--children and half-grown boys, beggars and what-not--the gleanings of the streets. They are quiet but they watch hungrily. To-night, when the bridegroom draws the scarlet curtains of the bed, they will still be watching hungrily.... Strange, formless memories out of books struggle upward in my consciousness. This is the marriage at Cana.... I am feasting with the Caliph at Bagdad.... I am the wedding guest who beat his breast.... My heart is troubled. What shall be said of blood-brotherhood between man and man? Wusih The Beggar _Christ! What is that--that--Thing? Only a beggar, professionally maimed, I think._ Across the narrow street it lies, the street where little children are. It is rocking its body back and forth, back and forth, ingratiatingly, in the noisome filth. Beside the body are stretched two naked stumps of flesh, on one the remnant of a foot. The wounds are not new wounds, but they are open and they fester. There are flies on them. The Thing is whining, shrilly, hideously. _Professionally maimed, I think._ Christ! Hwai Yuen Interlude It is going to be hot here. Already the sun is treacherous and a dull mugginess is in the air. I note that winter clothes are shedding one by one. In the market-place sits a coolie, expanding in the warmth. He has opened his ragged upper garments and his bronze body is naked to the belt. He is examining it minutely, occasionally picking at something with the dainty hand of the Orient. If he had ever seen a zoological garden I should say he was imitating the monkeys there. As he has not, I dare say the taste is ingrained. At all events it is going to be hot here. The Village of the Mud Idols The City Wall About the city where I dwell, gua
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