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dream tonight.”
    Rong’s likening his career path to Eliot’s seemed far-fetched. Eliot never earned much at the bank, and he never quit writing. Nonetheless, it probably made sense from Rong’s point of view. People interpret their own past however they want, seeing and believing their personal history through the perspective they’ve chosen.
    It was now Chen’s turn to speak. The lights were dimmed, and after a brief silence, they were brought back up, as if Chen were onstage.
    â€œSpeaking as a translator of T. S. Eliot’s work, thank you, Mr. Rong. Or may I say, on behalf of T. S. Eliot?” Chen started with an awkward attempt at a joke, wondering to himself whether Eliot would have been amused at the book party.
    He fumbled, struggling to find his rhetorical footing in this talk. With the exception of Rong, who kept nodding and grinning, there was barely any real response from the audience. As he looked around the room, Chen couldn’t help but think of some of the characters from Eliot’s poems. There was a red-faced, middle-aged man in the front row with a girl nestling against him like a pussycat, purring as his finger caressed her shoulder-length hair. A gray-bearded, cigar-chomping man in the back spilled red wine on his silk Tang dynasty costume, and another young girl dressed as a cat hurried over to lick up the wine. Spiraling cigarette smoke from all corners of the party began to spread out like a shroud over the room. Distracted by the tableau in front of him, Chen continued to stumble, make more mistakes, ultimately deciding to rush through to the conclusion of his speech.
    As Chen stepped down from the dais, a well-known actor stepped up and started to read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in a rich, self-possessed voice that was absurdly incongruous with the persona in the poem. In the dimming background, a mermaid floated out of nowhere, naked except for green gauze wrapped about her loins, and began dancing, moaning, singing, groaning …
    â€œ For me … for me…”
    At the conclusion of the reading, Wuting stood up and announced, “Now it’s time to sign some books.”
    To Chen’s astonishment, once this announcement was made the room was plunged into darkness. He could hear hurried movements about the room, like ragged claws scuttling across a sea floor.
    When the lights came back on, the hall had been turned into a ballroom. Most of the chairs were folded up and leaning against the back wall; only the long table with stacks of the book on it remained unmoved. From the side of the ballroom came pouring in yet more attractive cat girls. Unlike in the musical itself, they were practically naked, covered mainly by body paint.
    It was a bizarre scene. The girls were not singing, swirling, swaying in tight choreography as in the musical Cats . Instead, they were each dancing with various Big Bucks.
    Once again, Rong stepped into the limelight and began addressing the crowd. “I still have a copy of Director Chen’s earlier translation. Someone on Confucius.com offered to purchase that cherished copy for one thousand yuan and, mind you, it’s not even a signed copy. Of course, I didn’t sell it. Here it is—the same life-changing poetry collection. I brought it with me tonight so I could ask Director Chen sign it for me. With his signature on this collectable item, it’ll be worth at least five times as much as before.” In one hand, he raised his copy of the older edition high. Then, with a flourish, he waved a check in his other hand. “And this is for five hundred copies of the new edition, all of which I’ll get signed. What a great investment!”
    Wuting, all smiles, walked over next to Chen and whispered in his ear, “Confucius.com is an online site for rare and old books.”
    â€œYou don’t have to sign all of those copies tonight,” Rong said. “But if