As they were both of small means, they were looking now (and at the same time filling their eyes with the movement of the street) for a lodging less expensive than the inn where they had put up on arriving at Pekin.
Leaving the Great Highway, they strolled far into a labyrinth of lanes more and more silent. They soon lost themselves. Undecided, they had stopped, when they spied out the red lacquered portal of a temple of the Mysterious-way.
Pushing the heavy sides of the door, they entered; an old man with his hair tightly drawn together in a black cap, majestic in his grey dress, stood behind the door and appeared to be waiting for them.
"Your coming lightens my humble dwelling," he said in bowing. "I beg you will enter."
"I do not dare! I do not dare!" murmured the two students, bowing in their turn.
They nevertheless entered, crossing the yard on which the portal opened, which was closed, at the end, by the little temple in open woodwork close under the mass of roofs of green tiles.
They went up three steps, then, pushing a narrow and straight door, they entered. In the half-shadow they distinguished on the white altar a statue of Tche Kong The-Supreme-Lord, with a golden face and griffins' feet like the claws of an eagle.
The walls on each side of the altar were painted in frescoes; on the wall on the right you saw goddesses in the midst of flowers. One of these young girls, with a low chignon, was gathering a peony and was slightly smiling. Her mouth, like a cherry, seemed as if it were really opening; one would have sworn that her eyelids fluttered.
Mong Flowing-spring, his eyes fixed on the painting, remained a long time without moving, absorbed in his admiration of the work of art, and disturbed beyond expression by the beauty of the goddess with the low chignon.
"Why is she not living?" said he. "I would willingly give my life for a moment of her love!"
Suddenly he started; the young goddess raised herself upright, bursting with laughter, and got down from the wall. She crossed the door, went down the staircase, stepped over the yard and left the place.
Flowing-spring followed her without reflecting. He saw her going away with a light step, and turn down the first lane; the young student ran behind her.