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Updated: June 19, 2025
He walked through to the other rooms, and was not long left in ignorance of the cause of the unusual state of things. "So this is the love you professed for me! This is the way in which you treat me, before we have even been married a year!" "What do you mean, Lili-Tsee?" asked her husband, in consternation, thinking that his poor wife had taken leave of her senses. "What do I mean?
One day, however, she happened to come in suddenly and saw her husband replacing the long blue vase in which she kept her rose leaves in order to dry them. He made some excuse about its not looking very steady, and appeared to be just setting it right, and Lili-Tsee pretended there was nothing out of the common in his putting the vase straight.
He was thinking of the portrait all the time, and at intervals he would leave his work and suddenly appear at home to take a furtive look at his treasure. Now, in Japan, as in other countries, mysterious actions and irregular proceedings of all kinds have to be explained to a wife. Lili-Tsee did not understand why her husband kept appearing at all hours of the day.
"It is not, father," exclaimed Lili-Tsee. "My husband has the portrait of a woman, and I found it hidden in my rose-leaf vase." "I swear that I have no portrait but that of my poor dead father," explained the aggrieved husband. "My children, my children," said the holy bonze, majestically, "show me the portraits."
"Here it is; there is only one, but it is one too many," said Lili-Tsee, sarcastically. The bonze took the glass and looked at it earnestly. He then bowed low before it, and in an altered tone said: "My children, settle your quarrel and live peaceably together. You are both in the wrong. This portrait is that of a saintly and venerable bonze. I know not how you could mistake so holy a face.
She thought it was really quite natural on his part, but when day after day he appeared, and always with the same solemn expression on his face, she began to wonder in her heart of hearts whether he was telling her the whole truth. And so Lili-Tsee fell to watching her husband's movements, and she noticed that he never went away until he had been alone in the little room at the back of the house.
What do you mean? I should think. The idea of your keeping portraits in my rose-leaf vase. Here, take it and treasure it, for I do not want it, the wicked, wicked woman!" and here poor Lili-Tsee burst out crying. "I cannot understand," said her bewildered husband. "Oh, you can't?" she said, laughing hysterically. "I can, though, well enough.
Now the Japanese women are as persevering as any others when there is a mystery to be discovered, and so Lili-Tsee set herself to discover this mystery. She hunted day after day to see if she could find some trace of anything in that little room which was at all unusual, but she found nothing.
You like that hideous, villainous-looking woman better than your own true wife. I would say nothing if she were at any rate beautiful; but she has a vile face, a hideous face, and looks wicked and murderous, and everything that is bad!" "Lili-Tsee, what do you mean?" asked her husband, getting exasperated in his turn. "That portrait is the living image of my poor dead father.
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