The Lady of Easy Virtue: An American

Lotus, So they called your name. Yet the green swelling pod, the fruit-like seeds and heavy flower, are nothing like to you. Rather, like a pitcher plant you are, for hope and all young wings are drowned in you.

Your slim body, here in the café, moves brightly in and out. Green satin, and a dance, white wine and gleaming laughter, with two nodding earrings—these are Lotus. And in the painted eyes cold steel, and on the lips a vulgar jest; Hands that fly ever to the coat lapels, familiar to the wrists and to the hair of men. These too are Lotus. And what more—God knows!

You too perhaps were stranded here, like these poor homesick boys, in this great catch-all where the white race ends, this grim Shanghai that like a sieve hangs over filth and loneliness. You were caught here like these, and who could live, young and so slender—in Shanghai? Green satin, and a gleaming throat, and painted eyes of steel, Hunter or hunted, Peace be with you, Lotus!