What I narrate was told me one winter's evening by my
friend Ah-Yen in the little room behind his laundry.
Ah-Yen is a quiet little celestial with a grave and
thoughtful face, and that melancholy contemplative
disposition so often noticed in his countrymen. Between
myself and Ah-Yen there exists a friendship of some years'
standing, and we spend many a long evening in the dimly
lighted room behind his shop, smoking a dreamy pipe
together and plunged in silent meditation. I am chiefly
attracted to my friend by the highly imaginative cast of
his mind, which is, I believe, a trait of the Eastern
character and which enables him to forget to a great
extent the sordid cares of his calling in an inner life
of his own creation. Of the keen, analytical side of his
mind, I was in entire ignorance until the evening of
which I write.
friend Ah-Yen in the little room behind his laundry.
Ah-Yen is a quiet little celestial with a grave and
thoughtful face, and that melancholy contemplative
disposition so often noticed in his countrymen. Between
myself and Ah-Yen there exists a friendship of some years'
standing, and we spend many a long evening in the dimly
lighted room behind his shop, smoking a dreamy pipe
together and plunged in silent meditation. I am chiefly
attracted to my friend by the highly imaginative cast of
his mind, which is, I believe, a trait of the Eastern
character and which enables him to forget to a great
extent the sordid cares of his calling in an inner life
of his own creation. Of the keen, analytical side of his
mind, I was in entire ignorance until the evening of
which I write.