Mrs. Chang received a box of chocolates for Easter. It was an egg-shaped box, the surface pasted with white linen, a sparkly gold-wired ribbon tied around the whole package. The box was left on her doorstep Easter morning and when she brought it inside, she found that the chocolates were Godiva. "Ai," she sighed and clucked her tongue. "So expensive."

The chocolates came with a gift card. They were from Mrs. Rottenbacher, the Changs' neighbor across the street. She and her husband were sweet people, the only neighbors to welcome the Changs in ten years of living in this little New England town. The Rottenbachers were immigrants themselves, Germans who still spoke with accents, and perhaps that was why Mrs. Chang felt an affinity towards them, fellow foreigners in a fickle land. Mrs. Rottenbacher, especially, was very endearing and she was always making considerate gestures such as this beautiful box with the gold ribbon. The card had a simple note in it: "To celebrate the richness of God." Mrs. Chang smiled and waved across the street, just in case Mrs. Rottenbacher was watching. The Germans had long been talking about God and such things and how thoughtful that they should offer such a gift on Easter.

Mrs. Chang brought the chocolates into her living room, spotless and still like a mausoleum. She set the decorated box in the center of her coffee table. The bow was so perfectly centered and shaped that Mrs. Chang dared not disturb it. It was a lovely piece, sitting in the middle of her living room, like a fragile sculpture of shell. Lovely, but it seemed such a waste to so lavishly decorate this cardboard box, holding little bites of overpriced chocolate. Mrs. Chang herself didn't really like sweets, Mr. Chang's gums were rapidly receding, and their two children were away at college. There was no one really who would appreciate this gift. Mrs. Chang clucked her tongue again. "Too expensive." She left the box on the coffee table and left, noting how pretty it looked in her living room.

About a month later, the Changs were invited to the Lin's home for dinner. Mr. Chang and Mr. Lin had been classmates in college at Tai Da, Electrical Engineering, Class of 1956. Although they were mere acquaintances in their youth, the proximity of their immigration to New England forced a friendship between their families. Mrs. Lin had always thought Mrs. Chang somewhat uncouth and provincial, coming from a smaller town in Taiwan; and Mr. Chang, even though he had graduated with her husband, had taken a job in industry, while Mr. Lin had gone the higher route: as a professor, teaching at Northeastern University. All in all, Mrs. Lin felt that the Changs were no equals to her own family, despite the fact that both the Chang children had been accepted at Harvard. But they were company, and the Wu's had not been available this evening, so the Changs would have to do.

The guests arrived and removed their shoes and Mrs. Lin was surprised to find Mrs. Chang, in her thin stockings, offering a beautiful gift. It was a white linen box shaped like an egg, wrapped with an exquisite gold ribbon. Godiva chocolates. Mrs. Chang had never brought them so expensive a gift before. Mrs. Lin eyed the box with obvious wonder. "Waaa! Tai gui-le! Why you bring so expensive present?"

Mrs. Chang waved her hand. "No, no. No trouble, really."

"Aiya ! Why you say no trouble? So expensive!"

"Ah! Why you like that? I say no trouble, I mean no trouble!"

Mrs. Lin stayed silent after that. And she was silent through much of the dinner, serving her famous sea bass in lobster sauce, which she had spent hours preparing, a dish worthy of more than guests like the Changs. But why had they brought such a gift as Godiva chocolates? Of course it was customary to bring a gift to a dinner party, but Godiva chocolates seemed too precious, especially for the Changs. Even if they did have two children at Harvard. Besides, two children at Harvard meant big tuition, and Mrs. Lin was sure they had to take out loans. She had even heard rumors that they had mortaged their house. Her own children had received scholarships to their schools, Tufts and Cornell, but she highly doubted that the Chang children could get scholarships to Harvard. Mrs. Lin kept glancing at the white egg box, perched on the dining room sideboard.

After the Changs had left, Mrs. Lin ushered her husband upstairs and came back down to the darkened dining room. She turned on a single light and inspected the gift. It looked so simple in shining white linen with its delicate gold ribbon, curled into a lily-like signature. Simple, yet elegant, like plum flowers in spring.

Mrs. Lin pinched the end of the ribbon and paused. She hurried into the kitchen and washed her hands, returning to hover over the gift. She tugged on the ribbon and found that it slipped off with suspicious ease. The linen on the cover was smooth yet textured, and when she lifted the cover off the box, sweet chocolate scents tinged with bitterness twitched into her nose. The candies lay shining in their molded pockets: bitter dark chocolate, lighter milk chocolate, creamy white chocolate, pralines, hazelnuts, marzipan, nut chews. Mrs. Lin reached a damp finger into one of the larger pockets and pulled out a dark square. Furtively, she pushed the chocolate into her mouth and chewed, sucking hastily on a gooey raspberry creme before swallowing. It tasted tart and sugary and...not fresh. She was sure of it. It tasted too soft, like tofu or rice porridge. And it had the faint smell of cardboard. She went into the kitchen for a drink of water. She knew the Changs would never buy such an expensive gift. It must have come second-hand. Who knew how long these chocolates had been sitting in this box?

The next day, Mrs. Lin went out and bought a box of Fannie Farmers' chocolates, five dollars a pound. She chose a dark oblong piece from the Fannie Farmers' and tucked it into the empty pocket of Godivas. It looked a little small in that molded groove, but only to her trained eye, she thought. Then she replaced the cover and re-tied the gold ribbon around the egg-shaped box. The ribbon didn't curl as nicely as before and Mrs. Lin spent many minutes trying to tease it into its previous perfection. But again, she decided that only her own trained eye would notice the difference. It still looked pleasing, the white linen still crisply bright against the gold ribbon's shimmer. It was so lovely, that Mrs. Lin took the box and placed it gingerly in her dining room cabinet, behind polished glass, set on display with her fine china and her son's gold medal from the Greater Boston youth violin competition.

In June, Mrs. Lin paid a visit to the Wu's, whose youngest daughter, Winnie, had just graduated from high school and would attend Yale in the fall. She telephoned Mrs. Wu to ask when she could stop by and there was a short pause on the other side of the line. "Oh, anytime, anytime," said Mrs. Wu. But she hung up the phone at the earliest opportunity and checked her calendar to see if she had to stay home that night. The Lins were nice people, but Mrs. Lin was somewhat fawning, calling often and inviting them over, as if she felt that they should be friends. But it was Mr. Lin who was the connection, a college classmate of Mrs. Wu and her husband. Mrs. Lin didn't even go to college. And while it was true that Mr. Lin had a position at Northeastern, it was nothing to Doctor Wu's position, the head of his department at Boston College. The Wu's lived in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Newton, where their children had attended some of the best public schools in the Boston area. And now, Winnie was going to Yale.

Mrs. Lin arrived on the porch just as Mrs. Wu was conveniently making up her mind to go shopping, but the sight of her lesser acquaintance bearing a large paper bag made Mrs. Wu stop. "Ai! What's this?"

"Hallo, hallo!" said Mrs. Lin.

"What you have there?" asked Mrs. Wu again.

"Oh, nothing, nothing."

The gift Mrs. Lin brought was stunningly-wrapped, an oval white box trimmed in gold with antique-like elegance. It looked as if it was studded with jewels, and Mrs. Wu had to blink to be sure that it wasn't. "Wahh! So expensive!"

Mrs. Lin patted Mrs. Wu on the arm. "Never mind. It's for Winnie."

"Too much for Winnie!"

"No, no, not too much. We congratulate her to go to Yale."

"Ai, no need!"

"Yale is very famous college."

Mrs. Wu didn't say anything, but smiled pleasantly as she inspected the box. The ribbon was stiched with distinctive gold lettering: "Godiva," it said. Mrs. Wu balked inside. She had once peered into the Godiva store on Newbury Street--everything was gilded in coppery browns and gold, and the sticky smells luring like weight on gravity. But Mrs. Wu had resisted the temptation, knowing she would regret the guilt of such an extravagance when she should be saving for more practical expenses, such as Winnie's education at Yale. She couldn't believe that Mrs. Lin would spend such money just to congratulate her daughter. This box had to cost eighty dollars at least! It was too much. Surely the Lins could not afford this kind of wealth. Mrs. Wu was always hearing about the Lin children's scholarships to Tufts and Cornell, but she suspected these "scholarships" were simply need-based financial aid and, therefore, not very lucrative. Mrs. Wu wondered if this gift meant she had to have the Lins over for dinner.

Mrs. Wu made a pot of tea and listened politely to Mrs. Lin chat about her daughter, Libby, who had just made the Dean's list at Cornell. Mrs. Wu bided her time, which had to be at least an hour to be civil, but as soon as that time had expired, she stood up to thank Mrs. Lin and usher her out the door.

Godiva. What an interesting name for a box of chocolates. Mrs. Wu looked up the name in the family encyclopedia: Godiva--an 11th-century noblewoman who, according to legend, rode on horseback naked. What did that have anything to do with chocolate?

Mrs. Wu slipped off the gold bow without untying it, and flipped off the cover to whiff those scents of bitter and sweet. Chocolate pieces, dark and white and caramels, heart-shaped, star-shaped, and foil wrapped, nestled in shiny plastic pockets. She chose a dark oblong piece. She sniffed it first and then, carefully bit the bottom off to look inside. It was a butter creme, yellowish and milky, tasting so sweet it stung her teeth and she couldn't swallow it. Mrs. Wu took a tissue and wiped her tongue clean of the gummy goo, but it left a slimy residue in her mouth, which would continue to linger on her breath much later. She took the top portion of her chocolate, the uneaten half, and dropped it into its nest, eaten side down, back into the fancy oval box.

The ribbon slid back around the box cover, but wouldn't stay centered. Mrs. Wu used a wad of scotch tape to anchor it back in place. She put the box in her pantry and left it there, more or less forgetting about it. She wouldn't be inviting the Lins to dinner anytime soon.

Six months later, Mrs. Chang and her daughter, Charlene, home from Harvard, paid a holiday visit to the Wu's, whose daughter, Winnie, was home from Yale; just as Mrs. Lin and her daughter, Libby, home from Cornell, pulled into the snow-packed driveway. The younger women stayed in the kitchen while, in the dining room, their mothers slung backhanded insults over a pot of tea.

"Oh, your Libby is so beautiful, that she doesn't need to go to a good school!"

"Oh no, I think Winnie is much prettier and should not ruin her eyes studying so hard."

"Ah, but your Charlene goes to Harvard! With so much intelligence, soon she will be old and wise like her mother."

"Oh, she studies so much, she never comes home. Both your daughters are so lucky that they didnŐt get into Harvard."

At the height of this exchange, Winnie, Charlene, and Libby came out of the kitchen with a somewhat battered box of chocolates. "Hey, Ma," said Winnie. "I found these in the pantry. They're Godivas!" She plopped the box in the middle of the table, a magnificent centerpiece of dust. It had a few rough stains on the cover, its ribbon dulled and askew, and its presence coated the whole room in an immediate, almost reverent, silence.

"What's wrong, Ma? Eat them!" Winnie tore off the cover and peered inside. "They look okay."

The chocolates still gleamed inside their plastic pockets painted to look like fake gold. Each of the daughters chose one. They took careful bites out their selections--mocha praline truffle, chocolate caramel, pistachio creme--licking and sucking, their voices squealed, gasping in delight as they left their mothers alone, sitting around the open box that nobody wanted to see.

It was Mrs. Wu who moved first. She nudged the box toward Mrs. Lin and said, "Please."

Mrs. Lin waved her hand in front of her mouth. "Oh, no, I can't. My teeth are so bad." She pushed the box at Mrs. Chang and smiled, her eyes askance. "Please," she said.

Mrs. Chang smiled weakly at both her hostess and Mrs. Lin. "It's so expensive," she said, but she politely picked a chocolate from the center, a dark oblong piece, and as she lifted it out of the battered white linen box, everybody could see that its bottom half had been eaten away.

Mrs. Wu coughed. Mrs. Lin cleared her throat. Mrs. Chang swallowed first, then lifted the half-eaten chocolate to her mouth and popped it inside. She tried not to taste the crusted sugar as she took a sip of tea, and she tried not to wince as she swallowed the gooey eight-month old clump of viscous cream. But she could still taste and smell the soured butter, stinging and acrid on the back of her tongue, and as she hurried to the bathroom, her head bent down over the gaping toilet, she promised herself that she was never going to call on these women again.