THE JESUIT'S TALE
445
"Oh, yes. The house is nice. But one always feels something is
missing here," he said absent-mindedly. Then, wiping his brow with
a white handkerchief, he added, "I am sorry. You came here on such
a warm day and I had nothing to entertain you. Would you like tea
or beer? I would rather recommend beer- your Taiwan beer is quite
good. You know, this is a connoisseur's opinion." A gleam of a smile
had come back to his eyes.
Before the servant brought in the drink, my eyes were attracted
by the picture and the couplet hanging in the niche. Both were works
of Chinese art, mounted on scrolls and hung vertically. The lady in
the picture might easily have been mistaken for Kwan Yin, the so–
called Goddess of Mercy, if she had not borne the title Holy Mother.
Yes, she was holding a baby in her arms, but her delicate slanting
ey~brows, her phoenix-like eyes, her tender oval face, her white hood
painted in flying lines, her half-revealed raven-black curls of hair
(part of a coiffure modeled, no doubt, after the headdress of a Chi–
nese empress a thousand years ago), her blue robe with an infinite
number of folds and frills, weightless and airy, mingling most grace–
fully with the white clouds that filled the background and hid the
feet-all these represented a serenity, a feminine beauty or a divinity
completely Chinese. The couplet was written by Mr. Y-- , elder
statesman and renowned calligrapher and poet, but now also a refugee
on this island. It read:
To the Reverend Mr. Fei Li, art critic and friend of China:
Leaving the mainland, painful to see the devil usurp our home;
From this blessed island, let us actively prepare our new crusade!
Very poor verse, I should say. But it at least reflected the mood
of the time when poets became slogan-writers and one could hear
the rattle of the sword as angry strokes like this were hacked out by
a calligrapher who, I believe, must have been as old as the "art
critic and friend of China" to whom the piece of writing was
dedicated.
The room as a whole looked little differentJ from the parlors of
the Chinese homes in Formosa. It was simply furnished so it looked
bright and more spacious than it really was; but the mats were new:
one could almost smell the fresh straw. The sliding windows in the
front were wide open, and the little garden looked very green and
