'I like you both,' he roared. 'Ara tung! (Let us drink wine!)'
The monk returned with a jar full of white wine, cups were produced and we started toasting each other, munching kanbarr — dried yak meat. We must have stayed at least one hour, having a really jolly time with this unconventional lama.
After a week or so we heard that his sales were going very well indeed under the able direction of Madame Ho in her capacity as a shrewd and well-connected merchandise broker. She made thousands on the deal as she had skilfully beaten down the lama with discreet innuendoes as to the origin of his goods. I and my friend were quite surprised when one day we received invitations to dinner from the lama, and before he left I was invited again to his house for an intimate drink. It appeared that he liked me and wanted me to come with him on a visit to his lamasery. I thought the best policy would be frankness again. I said that I appreciated very much his invitation and, for my part, I always wanted to see his mysterious country, but I could not go to my doom with open eyes, for I still hoped to live a little longer. He said he thought he could protect me but his voice did not carry enough assurance.
One day I was intrigued by the appearance on a street near Double Stone Bridge of a gorgeously attired Tibetan woman, accompanied at a respectful distance by two more modestly dressed women who obviously were her suite. She wore a gold-embroidered semi-conical hat, jacket of gold brocade and a petunia-shaped skirt of some kind of cloth-of-gold. She was of average height and appeared to be in her thirties. Her face was neither beautiful nor ugly, her eyes were cold and commanding and she walked with great dignity. I bowed to her respectfully and she just nodded in return. I met her several times later and once she was accompanied by a giant of a Tibetan who was also magnificently dressed. He wore a similar gold-embroidered hat, rich silk jacket of purple colour, with gold and silver-studded belt, a silver-sheathed short sword and black corduroy trousers. His hair had not been braided in the usual Tibetan style and his black curls fell freely on his shoulders. His face was rounded, with apple-red cheeks and big eyes. His teeth were dazzling. Several times in my childhood I had seen a life-size painting of Peter the Great and it had left a deep impression on me. When I saw the towering, athletic figure of this magnificent man, the same rounded face with red cheeks, the eyes and the black curls falling on the shoulders, the resemblance to the long-dead czar staggered me. Even the dress conformed to that period. The same evening, after dinner, I rushed to Madame Ho's wine-shop and described to her the woman and the man. She laughed.
'She is a ruling duchess from Hsiangchen and he is her latest acquisition.'
'Don't you think she is a rather hard-looking woman?' I asked. Madame Ho poured herself and me another cup of yintsieu before replying.
'Yes, she is. They say that they are fighting already like cat and dog.'
'That's funny. He is such a powerful man,' I ventured.
'Well, it's not all gold that glitters,' was Madame Ho's cryptic remark, and she started putting up the shutters.
Next day I met my Nakhi friend — the same who had introduced me to the robber lama. I described to him the Hsiangchen princess.
'Oh, I know her quite well,' he said. 'She is rich and powerful and she came to Likiang to enjoy herself,' he continued. 'Let us go and I will introduce you to her,' he proposed. 'By the way, people say she is divorcing her present husband. Perhaps you will be eligible as the next one,' he teased me with a sly wink.
The duchess received me graciously. She was seated on a pile of gem-like rugs, surrounded by her ladies. She ordered wine and we chatted for a while. I addressed her from time to time as Wang Mo (Powerful Woman), which is an official title meaning princess or duchess. She was very pleased.
'O Powerful Woman,' I said at last, 'you have acquired such a wonderful husband.' Even before I completed the sentence I realized that I had committed a dreadful faux pas. She became very angry and her cheeks suffused with red.
'Are you coming here to insult me?' she demanded severely. I did not know what to say, so embarrassed was I.
'You have probably picked up some scandal about me,' she raged. 'Wonderful husband indeed!' she mocked me. 'He looks good but he is nothing,' she continued in a loud voice. 'I have given him another fortnight to regain his virility,' she almost screamed. 'Otherwise out he goes!'
I could feel that she was near hysteria. I apologized profusely and we had another drink. I reminded her that Likiang had a foreign-style doctor and several drug stores, so that the happiness of her conjugal life might yet be restored by a clever doctor and the judicious use of certain restoratives. She shook her head sceptically.
In about three weeks I chanced in the street to bump into the poor 'Peter the Great'. He looked sheepish and dishevelled and his eyes were listless. He did not stop to talk to me and disappeared into an inn. I called on my Nakhi friend.
'Haven't you heard the news yet?' he asked me. 'She did kick him out. Now she is gone and the poor fellow has been left high and dry to shift for himself.'
I liked the Khamba Tibetans who came on legitimate business. It was always easy to spot these giants walking through crowds in the streets or on the market. Their fluffy caps of fox fur made them appear even taller than they were. They were friendly, cheerful and generous to a fault. They looked very manly indeed with their hats on, but without hats their appearance was peculiar. The hair was braided in many pigtails which were coiled around the head with the aid of red ribbons, and in this way they strongly reminded me of some heroic Wagnerian women of the Brunhilde or Kriemhilde type, dressed in men's clothes. Several stayed at my house as guests. Their faces, burnt by the fierce sun of high altitudes and coarsened by biting winds, were usually quite dark; but I had occasion to observe that their bodies were always wonderfully white and the skin was like velvet. They never took a bath but rubbed themselves with butter every night. This, of course, made their skin soft, but after their sojourn in my house, the bedsheets were quite black and so impregnated with rancid butter that they could never be washed or used again, and for weeks the whole house smelled like burnt butter.