红玫瑰与白玫瑰RED ROSE, WHITE ROSETranslated by Karen S
Kingsbury THERE were two women in Zhenbao's life: one he called his white rose, the other his red rose
One was a spotless wife, the other a passionate mistress
Isn't that just how the average man describes a chaste widow's devotion to her husband's memory -as spotless, and passionate too
Maybe every man has had two such women-at least two
Marry a red rose and eventually she'll be a mosquito-blood streak smeared on the wall, while the white one is "moonlight in front of my bed
" Marry a white rose, and before long she'll be a grain of sticky rice that's gotten stuck to your clothes; the red one, by then, is a scarlet beauty mark just over your heart
But Zhenbao wasn't like that; he was logical and t