Room 1617 did, in fact, have a view of Sun Yat-Sen's mausoleum. In the far distance, Dr. Sun's memorial and the observatory on Purple Mountain were bathed in the evening's golden afterglow, brilliantly lit beyond the mists outside the window. In this season, Nanjing's Purple Mountain offers a pageant of rustic reds and greens; so many people praise the autumn sycamore's on Fragrant Hill in Beijing, but the late fall colours on Purple Mountain are also very beautiful.

　　Pei Zi appeared a bit older than I had imagined, perhaps in her early thirties. Her hair was done up high in a bun; her dress was cut low in an off the shoulder décolleté, revealing an exquisite neck and collarbones, and then some. Nestled in her cleavage, a single pendant pearl on a finely wrought chain drew the eye like a magnet. Her skin was snow-white and smooth as marble, yet soft, with a hint of moisture that inspired the urge to touch, to fondle. Her face held a languorous pallor, though. I call it languorous rather than weary. Weary faces have been crushed by life; life's pressures have left them tired and hopeless, but languor is not the same. Languorous faces hold the puzzled mark of a thousand unfulfilled desires, whose loss leads the wearer to lose interest in the world. "My choosing this place to meet you won't make you think I'm a loose woman?" Pei Zi asked.

　　"Not at all. To tell the truth, you are really beautiful. If you wanted to act like a loose woman, you wouldn't need to go to all this trouble," I replied honestly.

　　"Beautiful? I bet you say that to all the girls."

　　"I don't. And anyway, your shoulders are truly beautiful. I really like them."

　　With a little "Ah!" she instinctively brought her hands up to cover her shoulders. It seemed she was actually rather shy, perhaps a bit prudish and over-sensitive, but her manner really touched me. Of course, she was obviously dressed to kill and, despite some earlier reservations, I was finding myself an ever more willing victim. But beyond that, something in her reticence and natural reserve seemed to reach to the very depths of my heart.

　　I said, "Do let your hands down, won't you. I shouldn't think your shoulders like to be covered."

　　"But they're mine! I'll cover them if I wish!" She retorted.

　　I crossed over to her and lightly took hold of her wrists, saying, "First shut your eyes; then, very slowly, let your hands down."

　　To my surprise she actually did shut her eyes, and quite beyond expectation, when I brought her hands down and took her in my arms, she made no more resistance than a soft moan, her eyes still closed. What does it mean when a girl can keep her eyes shut like this in front of a perfect stranger? She must intuitively trust him. That she can bear his fixed gaze, his long, slow, warm regard, means that she has opened her inner eye, can see into the other person's inner being, can sense within his own opened inner eye his unintentionally revealed self, provoking the moisture of her own response. I am often moved by women with closed eyes, they seem to be casting a spell that leaves me dizzy and enchanted: Am I enamoured of women, or of their closed eyes? Or the openness and warmth of feeling totally close to somebody, to grasp and understand another's essence, this feeling of blossoming forth and yet constricting, the sweetness of faintly discernable touching.You feel like a leaf unfurling within her, deep inside her sending forth tender shoots and sprouts.

　　Under her steady gaze, you sense your expansiveness gradually diminish. This sensitivity seems like the most slender, most fragile of autumn leaves that the least breath of wind could send floating away into the firmament of feeling. Light as leaf, you can float into love….

　　In the heart's form of love, in the greenness of youth, lies an unrealized anxiety, seeming haphazard, yet forever fixed in this period of youth. It seems that your body has no past experience of chaos or striving. Her autumnal form is thin and wan; weak in its juvenile manifestation Even should you close your eyes; even if weariness is written on your closed eyelashes, her sight remains piercing, with a soft and gentle intensity.

　　Soft and gentle dreams draw nigh. Your emptiness deepens, but leaves no despondence. That wonderful, terrible freedom to escape into nothingness helps you to continue, brings strength to both, engendering an expanding velvet dusk that allows each one to spread their confused wings and soar fitfully, leaving their trembling hearts in the tumultuous dark below. This vibrant dusk is quickly spent. Soon after comes the scrutiny of a fixed gaze that remains beyond sadness, like the eye of a criminal condemned to hard labour who watches this scene between man and woman, an act beyond his capacity for experience.Drop by drop her tears slid down her face, falling to the window sill. Even though it was dark night now, I could still see her teardrops, even hear their falling. Where is the meaning in this sort of evening, when a woman who has just made love stands crying alone by the window? I seemed to hear the melancholy chords of Tarrega's 'Lagrimae' opening a black curtain in the sky. In the dim light of night I seemed to hear every grain of wheat in the south fall to earth. In the windless dark, each grain drops to the ground, as if secretly conquered by the black of night.

　　After making love, I often feel a crushing empathy with my partner. Through the act of making love, her joys and sorrows become branded in my heart, oppressing me to the point that I can hardly breathe. That, at thirty years of age, I have had so few lovers, is due to this reaction—how can one person's heart bear the weight of the joys and sorrows of both? This is my basic question.

　　Getting up, I watched Pei Zi standing alone by the windowsill, smoking out the window, still crying.

　　"This afternoon I stood here watching your car drive through the Zhongshan Gates", she said.

　　By then the night was thick outside the window. Purple Mountain lay like a black shadow, filling half the sky. "You must be very special. Standing here, I could see you, though you were far, far away; beyond the Zhongshan Gate." Pei Zi went on as if to herself, "After my husband died, I learned to use my heart and not just my eyes to see people, to see things. That's how I could see you. And afterwards, I could see you hesitating whether to come to the Hilton or not; but you didn't realize that the car was already leaving town. If I hadn't called you at just that point, before you were on the motorway, you wouldn't have come back at all."

　　"Your husband? He's dead?" I was quite amazed. Pei Zi was still young; her face held no trace of this kind off bitter grief, but merely a languid pallor. That her languor could conceal so great a tragedy was quite beyond expectation.

　　"It was a traffic accident. Two months ago. That evening I had a violent stomach ache. He thought it was appendicitis and drove me to the hospital. We were passing a car when a container truck forced us off the road." Pei Zi put out her cigarette and lit another. "To save me, he deliberately ran the left side of the car into the riverbank's retaining wall."

　　"I'm so very sorry! I really shouldn't be bringing that kind of subject up." I took a cigarette out of Pei Zi's pack and lit it. I don't really smoke, but I wanted to accompany Pei Zi in some kind of concrete action.

　　"Since he died, I have nightmares all the time; I only have to lie down to have the silhouette of his broken body appear before my eyes. I don't dare let myself sleep; I'm constantly awake." Pei Zi again dissolved in tears. Belatedly, I could see that the person before me was indeed wracked by suffering.

　　But I didn't know what to say. I had never before been called to comfort a person in this kind of situation, and could only stand helplessly watching her pain. Mankind is basically weak. We see only our own suffering, and can rarely extend a helping hand to others. It was like that with my brother, too. When I returned home to find him on his sickbed, he was already terribly emaciated, skinny as a child; I could hardly recognize him. His skin was yellow, like it had been soaked in medicinal gauze, a transparent yellow. Terrified, I could see through that transparent yellow skin right down to his bones, and inside them the suffering that was his destiny. From whence came this destiny? Where was it leading him? Who can alter the course of fate?

　　I put my hand on Pei Zi's, hoping it would comfort her a little. Her hand was ice-cold; perhaps her heart was also ice-cold.

　　But Pei Zi pulled her hand away. "Today was our wedding anniversary." She wiped away her tears. "Three years ago today, we stayed in this hotel. At dawn the sunlight poured in onto the bed."

　　I poured a glass of water for Pei Zi, my mood turning somber.

　　"Perhaps I shouldn't have appeared at just this moment", I said. "Am I troubling you?"

　　"I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do, either." Pei Zi answered. "Do you know why I reserved room 1617? I was asking myself if it was for happiness or grief: "16" (for happiness) or "17" (for grief)."

　　"Do you think our being together here will help to ease your pain?"

　　"I was surprised, but just now, in your arms, I fell asleep. That was the first time in nearly two months that I have really slept." Pei Zi wrapped her arms around her own shoulders, shaking violently, tears once again pouring down her cheeks. "I don't want him to worry about me, I want him to be able to look down from heaven and see me, see that I can sleep, that I can survive on my own."

　　"You are certainly right. If his soul in heaven can see you, he surely wants you to get through this."

　　That was true. Jesus had also said as much: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh."