| caption: |
Chapter Six. Death in the Rain |
| caption: |
high mortality in Chinyang's family |
| text: |
Chinyang himself had had much misfortune. Three wives had died one after the other, and three of his children. Now he was married for the fourth time, and had a grown-up son and a daughter by the fourth wife. Yet he was fondest of the seven-year old son of one of his dead daughters. And the boy, although living in the house of his father and belonging to the Balang as so often happens with grandparents, spoilt the boy more than any father would spoil his own child. I would offer Chinyang a cigarette, and he, after puffing at it for a few minutes, would hand it to his grandson, sitting silently beside us, and the little boy would smoke it to the end with obvious enjoyment. Whereupon I felt bound to offer the generous old grandfather another cigarette. |
