“Alas!” replied Ling, with extravagant humiliation, “it is indeed true; and this person is degraded beyond the common lot of those who break images and commit thefts from sacred places.  The side of the transaction which is at present engaging our attention never occurred to this superficial individual until now.”

“Wise and incomparable one,” said Mian, in no degree able to restrain the fountains of bitter water which clouded her delicate and expressive eyes, “in spite of this person’s biting and ungracious words do not, she makes a formal petition, doubt the deathless strength of her affection.  Cheerfully, in order to avert the matter in question, or even to save her lover the anguish of unavailing and soul-eating remorse, would she consign herself to a badly-constructed and slow-consuming fire or expose her body to various undignified tortures.  Happy are those even to whom is left a little ash to be placed in a precious urn and diligently guarded, for it, in any event, truly represents all that is left of the once living person, whereas after an honourable and spotless existence my illustrious but unthinking lord will be blended with a variety of baser substances and passed from hand to hand, his immaculate organs serving to reward murderers for their deeds and to tempt the weak and vicious to all manner of unmentionable crimes.”

So overcome was Ling by the distressing nature of the oversight he had permitted that he could find no words with which to comfort Mian, who, after some moments, continued: 

“There are even worse visions of degradation which occur to this person.  By chance, that which was once the noble-minded Ling may be disposed of, not to the Imperial Treasury for converting into pieces of exchange, but to some undiscriminating worker in metals who will fashion out of his beautiful and symmetrical stomach an elegant food-dish, so that from the ultimate developments of the circumstance may arise the fact that his own descendants, instead of worshipping him, use his internal organs for this doubtful if not absolutely unclean purpose, and thereby suffer numerous well-merited afflictions, to the end that the finally-despised Ling and this discredited person, instead of founding a vigorous and prolific generation, become the parents of a line of feeble-minded and physically-depressed lepers.”

“Oh, my peacock-eyed one!” exclaimed Ling, in immeasurable distress, “so proficient an exhibition of virtuous grief crushes this misguided person completely to the ground.  Rather would he uncomplainingly lose his pigtail than—­”

“Such a course,” said a discordant voice, as the unpresentable person Wang stepped forth from behind a hanging curtain, where, indeed, he had stood concealed during the entire conversation, “is especially forbidden by the twenty-third detail of the things to be done and not to be done.”

“What new adversity is this?” cried Mian, pressing to Ling with a still closer embrace.  “Having disposed of your incomparable body after death, surely an adequate amount of liberty and seclusion remains to us during life.”