United States or Finland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Dong-Yung, riding through the sun-splashed afternoon, buying coloured jewels and flowery perfume and making herself beautiful, yet felt uneasy. She had not quite understood. A dim knowledge advanced toward her like a wall of fog. She pressed her two hands against it and held it off held it off by sheer mental refusal to understand.
Least of all is it satisfied when it seeks the presence of God above. I want thee beside me." Dong-Yung hid her delight. Already for the third time he said those words those words that changed all the world from one of a loving following-after to a marvelous oneness. So they stepped across the lawn together. It was to Dong-Yung as if she stepped into an unknown land.
"All men have a great wife first; but this, my small wife, is the wife of my heart. Together we have come to seek and find the Jesus way." The priest wiped his hand across his face. Dong-Yung saw that it was wet with tiny round balls of sweat. His mouth had suddenly become one thin red line, but in his eyes lay pain. "Impossible," he said.
Behind her were the white stove and the sun-filled, empty niche. The light flooded through the doorway. Foh-Kyung set down his rice-bowl from his left hand and his ivory chop-sticks from his right. He stood before her. "Truly, Dong-Yung, I want thee. Do not go away and leave me. Do not cross to the eating-room of the women and children. Eat with me."
Worship thou alone the great God, and the shadow of that worship will fall on my heart." "Nay, I cannot worship alone. My worship is not acceptable in the sight of the foreign God. My ways are not his ways." Foh-Kyung's face was unlined and calm, yet Dong-Yung felt the hidden agony of his soul, flung back from its quest upon gods of plaster and paint.
Perhaps it was this love for him that made all the rest of life so precious, that made each bowl of white rice an oblation, each daily act a glorification. So she flung out her arms and bent her head before the kitchen gods, the symbol of her ancient happiness. "Dong-Yung, I do not wish you to do this any more." Dong-Yung turned, her obeisance half arrested in mid-air.
The waiting candles, the echoes of many prayers, the blossom of worship filled the tiny chapel. Dong-Yung liked it, despite herself, despite the strangeness of the imageless altar, despite the clothes of the priest. She stood quite still behind the bench flooded and filled with an all-pervading sense of happiness.
The silence grew and grew till in the heart of it something ominous took the place of its all-pervading peace. Foh-Kyung lifted his face from his hands and rose to his feet. Dong-Yung turned, still kneeling, to scan his eyes. The black-robed priest stood off and looked at them with horror. Surely it was horror! Never had Dong-Yung really liked him.
Foh-Kyung and Dong-Yung turned to the casement in the upper right-hand wing and listened apprehensively. The quick chatter of angry voices rushed out into the sunlight. "The honourable great wife is very cross this morning." Dong-Yung shivered and turned back to the lilies. "To-day perhaps she will beat me again. Would that at least I had borne my lord a young prince for a son; then perhaps "
"Yes," Dong-Yung answered, with a little smile. "The customs of the foreign-born are pleasant to our eyes." "I am glad you like them," said the foreign-born woman. "I couldn't bear not to go everywhere with my husband." Dong-Yung liked her suddenly on account of the look that sprang up a moment in her eyes and vanished again.
Word Of The Day