“It is a difficult case. If you do not wish guarantee of recovery, I will ask for fee ten pieces of silver and I will give you a prescription of herbs and a tiger’s heart dried in it and the tooth of a dog, and these boil together and let her drink the broth. But if you wish complete recovery guaranteed, then five hundred pieces of silver.” Now when O-lan heard the words, “five hundred pieces of silver” she came suddenly out of her languor and she said weakly, “No, and my life is not worth so much. A good piece of land can be bought for so much.”
