The Crystal Heart

On the banks of the Red River in Vietnam stood a beautiful palace. The palace belonged to a mandarin, an important civil servant, who lived there with his daughter Mi Nuong. The civil servant was afraid of bothersome suitors and wanted to keep his daughter out of their sight, so Mi Nuong spent all her days at the palace. She sat in her room at the top of one of the palace towers reading, sewing, talking to her maid and gazing out over the Red River.

One day, she was sitting up in the tower room when she heard a song. She was enthralled by the deep but gentle voice that was singing it. She looked out of the window, but all she could see was a fishing boat sailing down the river.

“Do you hear that?” she asked her maid. “What a beautiful song! Whoever is singing it must be very handsome,” she said dreamily.

Her maid went to the window to have a look for herself. “My lady,” she said, “maybe he is singing for you! It might be the son of a rich civil servant in disguise. What if he secretly wants to see you and then he will come back to marry you?”

Mi Nuong blushed and felt her heart flutter. She tried to take a look at the unknown young man on the boat, but he was too far away and she couldn’t see his face clearly. He and his tuneful song sailed down the river and away.

Mi Nuong sat gazing out of the window all day. When her father called her to have lunch with him, she told him that she regretted she was unable to join him. When dinner time came round, she sent her maid to report…