Lee went quickly out of the kitchen. He sat in his room, gripping his hands tightly together until he
stopped choking. He got up and took a small carved ebony box from the top of his bureau. A dragon
climbed toward heaven on the box. He carried the box to the kitchen and laid it on the table between
Abra’s hands. “This is for you,” he said, and his tone had no inflection.
She opened the box and looked down on a small, dark green jade button, and carved on its surface
was a human right hand, a lovely hand, the fingers curved and in repose. Abra lifted the button out and
looked at it, and then she moistened it with the tip of her tongue and moved it gently over her full lips,
and pressed the cool stone against her cheek.
Lee said, “That was my mother’s only ornament.”
Abra got up and put her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek, and it was the only time
such a thing had ever happened in his whole life.
Lee laughed. “My Oriental calm seems to have deserted me,” he said. “Let me make the tea,
darling. I’ll get hold of myself that way.” From the stove he said, “I’ve never used that word—never
once to anybody in the world.

Autore: John Steinbeck