waste, futility. What the writer does not know is that in a far-back time, the old man was a young courtier whose fingers ranged up and down the two strings of his erhu with unerring precision, breaching even Heaven with his tremulous music. And many years from now, the old man will be young again, and his healthy fingers will wrench out such music again, while the writer will press a desperate, wrinkled hand to his deaf ears, all in vain, and the tears will flow because he will not realize all he needs to do is hear the beat of his own heart. Spring rain is like shards, brittle yet hard, and they assault the walls of this little cottage. It has bent and stooped with the seasons, but it has persevered. Here in this valley, the rain never stops, the trees and hills never receive a moment's peace. No human would live here -- the same patter of raindrops every day, the Lin Page 19 same implacable clouds greeting you each morning, it would be far too much for anyone. So you and the Stranger have the valley and this cottage to yourselves. Coughing, swaddled in a blanket, shockingly bald -- the wide-brimmed hat was lost long ago -- the Stranger sits by candlelight, his face white with each stab of lightning outside. For the first time, you are the one to cook the meal, pour the wine from a bottle long buried. Those who hid it are long gone and forgotten, but with your ears, your sense of smell, retrieving it was effortless. Someone somewhere is drinking, thinking, This vintage must be the best in the world -- you begin. The Stranger finishes: But they will never know wine as good as this. You shake your head no: Not just this one. Thousands more which will never be found. With a retching noise that passes for a laugh, the Stranger finishes his glass in a single lusty gulp. We'll find them all, he says. And then, as you