Mrs Spring Fragrance

When Jade Spring Fragrance first arrived in Seattle from China five years earlier, “she was unacquainted with even one word of the American language” (1). Now, not only are there “no more American words for her learning,” but she has become even more “Americanized” (1) than her husband, Mr. Spring Fragrance, a cabinet merchant whose business name is Sing Yook. Mr. Spring Fragrance takes a lot of pride in his wife’s ability to adapt to her new home.

The Spring Fragrances live next door to the Chin Yuens, who have an 18-year-old daughter who goes by her American name, Laura. Because Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Laura are close in age, they have become good friends, and Laura has confided in her married friend that she is in love with an American-born young man named Kai Tzu. Even though Kai Tzu returns her feelings, their love is a great source of pain for Laura because her parents, following Chinese custom, betrothed their daughter to another man, Tsen Hing, when she was 15.

Mrs. Spring Fragrance tries to comfort her young friend by quoting the British poet, Lord Alfred Tennyson: “Tis better to have loved and lost, [t]han never to have loved at all” (9).