Author: Cao Xueqin
Category: Nonfiction
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The sentence was barely out of her lips, when a continuous sounding of footsteps was heard outside, and a waiting maid entered and announced that Pao-yü was coming. Tai-yü was speculating in her mind how it was that this Pao-yü had turned out such a good-for-nothing fellow, when he happened to walk in.
He was, in fact, a young man of tender years, wearing on his head, to hold his hair together, a cap of gold of purplish tinge, inlaid with precious gems. Parallel with his eyebrows was attached a circlet, embroidered with gold, and representing two dragons snatching a pearl. He wore an archery-sleeved deep red jacket, with hundreds of butterflies worked in gold of two different shades, interspersed with flowers; and was girded with a sash of variegated silk, with clusters of designs, to which was attached long tassels; a kind of sash worn in the palace. Over all, he had a slate-blue fringed coat of Japanese brocaded satin, with eight bunches of flowers in relief; and wore a pair of light blue satin white-soled, half-dress court-shoes.
His face was like the full moon at mid-autumn; his complexion, like morning flowers in spring; the hair along his temples, as if chiselled with a knife; his eyebrows, as if pencilled with ink; his nose like a suspended gallbladder (a well-cut and shapely nose); his eyes like vernal waves; his angry look even resembled a smile; his glance, even when stern, was full of sentiment.
Round his neck he had a gold dragon necklet with a fringe; also a cord of variegated silk, to which was attached a piece of beautiful jade.
As soon as Tai-yü became conscious of his presence, she was quite taken aback. "How very strange!" she was reflecting in her mind; "it would seem as if I had seen him somewhere or other, for his face appears extremely familiar to my eyes;" when she noticed Pao-yü face dowager lady Chia and make his obeisance. "Go and see your mother and then come back," remarked her venerable ladyship; and at once he turned round and quitted the room.
On his return, he had already changed his hat and suit. All round his head, he had a fringe of short hair, plaited into small queues, and bound with red silk. The queues were gathered up at the crown, and all the hair, which had been allowed to grow since his birth, was plaited into a thick queue, which looked as black and as glossy as lacquer. Between the crown of the head and the extremity of the queue, hung a string of four large pearls, with pendants of gold, representing the eight precious things. On his person, he wore a long silvery-red coat, more or less old, bestrewn with embroidery of flowers. He had still round his neck the necklet, precious gem, amulet of Recorded Name, philacteries, and other ornaments. Below were partly visible a fir-cone coloured brocaded silk pair of trousers, socks spotted with black designs, with ornamented edges, and a pair of deep red, thick-soled shoes.
(Got up as he was now,) his face displayed a still whiter appearance, as if painted, and his eyes as if they were set off with carnation. As he rolled his eyes, they brimmed with love. When he gave utterance to speech, he seemed to smile. But the chief natural pleasing feature was mainly centred in the curve of his eyebrows. The ten thousand and one fond sentiments, fostered by him during the whole of his existence, were all amassed in the corner of his eyes.
His outward appearance may have been pleasing to the highest degree, but yet it was no easy matter to fathom what lay beneath it.
There are a couple of roundelays, composed by a later poet, (after the excellent rhythm of the) Hsi Chiang Yueh, which depict Pao-yü in a most adequate manner.
The roundelays run as follows:
To gloom and passion prone, without a rhyme,
Inane and madlike was he many a time,
His outer self, forsooth, fine may have been,
But one wild, howling waste his mind within:
Addled his brain that nothing he could see;
A dunce! to read essays so loth to be!
Perverse in bearing, in temper wayward;
For human censure he had no regard.
When rich, wealth to enjoy he knew not how;
When poor, to poverty he could not bow.
Alas! what utter waste of lustrous grace!
To state, to family what a disgrace!
Of ne'er-do-wells below he was the prime,
Unfilial like him none up to this time.
Ye lads, pampered with sumptuous fare and dress,
Beware! In this youth's footsteps do not press!
But to proceed with our story.
"You have gone and changed your clothes," observed dowager lady Chia, "before being introduced to the distant guest. Why don't you yet salute your cousin?"
Pao-yü had long ago become aware of the presence of a most beautiful young lady, who, he readily concluded, must be no other than the daughter of his aunt Lin. He hastened to advance up to her, and make his bow; and after their introduction, he resumed his seat, whence he minutely scrutinised her features, (which he thought) so unlike those of all other girls.
Her two arched eyebrows, thick as clustered smoke, bore a certain not very pronounced frowning wrinkle. She had a pair of eyes, which possessed a cheerful, and yet one would say, a sad expression, overflowing with sentiment. Her face showed the prints of sorrow stamped on her two dimpled cheeks. She was beautiful, but her whole frame was the prey of a hereditary disease. The tears in her eyes glistened like small specks. Her balmy breath was so gentle. She was as demure as a lovely flower reflected in the water. Her gait resembled a frail willow, agitated by the wind. Her heart, compared with that of Pi Kan, had one more aperture of intelligence; while her ailment exceeded (in intensity) by three degrees the ailment of Hsi-Tzu.
Pao-yü, having concluded his scrutiny of her, put on a smile and said, "This cousin I have already seen in days gone by."
"There you are again with your nonsense," exclaimed lady Chia, sneeringly; "how could you have seen her before?"
"Though I may not have seen her, ere this," observed Pao-yü with a smirk, "yet when I look at her face, it seems so familiar, and to my mind, it would appear as if we had been old acquaintances; just as if, in fact, we were now meeting after a long separation."
"That will do! that will do!" remarked dowager lady Chia; "such being the case, you will be the more intimate."
Pao-yü, thereupon, went up to Tai-yü, and taking a seat next to her, continued to look at her again with all intentness for a good long while.
"Have you read any books, cousin?" he asked.
"I haven't as yet," replied Tai-yü, "read any books, as I have only been to school for a year; all I know are simply a few characters."
"What is your worthy name, cousin?" Pao-yü went on to ask; whereupon Tai-yü speedily told him her name.
"Your style?" inquired Pao-yü; to which question Tai-yü replied, "I have no style."
"I'll give you a style," suggested Pao-yü smilingly; "won't the double style 'P'in P'in,' 'knitting brows,' do very well?"
"From what part of the standard books does that come?" T'an Ch'un hastily interposed.
"It is stated in the Thorough Research into the state of Creation from remote ages to the present day," Pao-yü went on to explain, "that, in the western quarter, there exists a stone, called Tai, (black,) which can be used, in lieu of ink, to blacken the eyebrows with. Besides the eyebrows of this cousin taper in a way, as if they were contracted, so that the selection of these two characters is most appropriate, isn't it?"
"This is just another plagiarism, I fear," observed T'an Ch'un, with an ironic smirk.
"Exclusive of the Four Books," Pao-yü remarked smilingly, "the majority of works are plagiarised; and is it only I, perchance, who plagiarise? Have you got any jade or not?" he went on to inquire, addressing Tai-yü, (to the discomfiture) of all who could not make out what he meant.
"It's because he has a jade himself," Tai-yü forthwith reasoned within her mind, "that he asks me whether I have one or not.—No; I haven't one," she replied. "That jade of yours is besides a rare object, and how could every one have one?"
As soon as Pao-yü heard this remark, he at once burst out in a fit of his
raving complaint, and unclasping the gem, he dashed it disdainfully on the floor. "Rare object, indeed!" he shouted, as he heaped invective on it; "it has no idea how to discriminate the excellent from the mean, among human beings; and do tell me, has it any perception or not? I too can do without this rubbish!"
All those, who stood below, were startled; and in a body they pressed forward, vying with each other as to who should pick up the gem.
Dowager lady Chia was so distressed that she clasped Pao-yü in her embrace. "You child of wrath," she exclaimed. "When you get into a passion, it's easy enough for you to beat and abuse people; but what makes you fling away that stem of life?"
Pao-yü's face was covered with the traces of tears. "All my cousins here, senior as well as junior," he rejoined, as he sobbed, "have no gem, and if it's only I to have one, there's no fun in it, I maintain! and now comes this angelic sort of cousin, and she too has none, so that it's clear enough that it is no profitable thing."
Dowager lady Chia hastened to coax him. "This cousin of yours," she explained, "would, under former circumstances, have come here with a jade; and it's because your aunt felt unable, as she lay on her death-bed, to reconcile herself to the separation from your cousin, that in the absence of any remedy, she forthwith took the gem belonging to her (daughter), along with her (in the grave); so that, in the first place, by the fulfilment of the rites of burying the living with the dead might be accomplished the filial piety of your cousin; and in the second place, that the spirit of your aunt might also, for the time being, use it to gratify the wish of gazing on your cousin. That's why she simply told you that she had no jade; for she couldn't very well have had any desire to give vent to self-praise. Now, how can you ever compare yourself with her? and don't you yet carefully and circumspectly put it on? Mind, your mother may come to know what you have done!"
As she uttered these words, she speedily took the jade over from the hand of the waiting-maid, and she herself fastened it on for him.
When Pao-yü heard this explanation, he indulged in reflection, but could not even then advance any further arguments.
A nurse came at the moment and inquired about Tai-yü's quarters, and dowager lady Chia at once added, "Shift Pao-yü along with me, into the warm room of my suite of apartments, and put your mistress, Miss Lin, temporarily in the green gauze house; and when the rest of the winter is over, and repairs are taken in hand in spring in their rooms, an additional wing can be put up for her to take up her quarters in."
"My dear ancestor," ventured Pao-yü; "the bed I occupy outside the green gauze house is very comfortable; and what need is there again for me to leave it and come and disturb your old ladyship's peace and quiet?"
"Well, all right," observed dowager lady Chia, after some consideration; "but let each one of you have a nurse, as well as a waiting-maid to attend on you; the other servants can remain in the outside rooms and keep night watch and be ready to answer any call."
At an early hour, besides, Hsi-feng had sent a servant round with a grey flowered curtain, embroidered coverlets and satin quilts and other such articles.
Tai-yü had brought along with her only two servants; the one was her own nurse, dame Wang, and the other was a young waiting-maid of sixteen, whose name was called Hsüeh Yen. Dowager lady Chia, perceiving that Hsüeh Yen was too youthful and quite a child in her manner, while nurse Wang was, on the other hand, too aged, conjectured that Tai-yü would, in all her wants, not have things as she liked, so she detached two waiting-maids, who were her own personal attendants, named Tzu Chüan and Ying Ko, and attached them to Tai-yü's service. Just as had Ying Ch'un and the other girls, each one of whom had besides the wet nurses of their youth, four other nurses to advise and direct them, and exclusive of two personal maids to look after their dress and toilette, four or five additional young maids to do the washing and sweeping of the rooms and the running about backwards and forwards on errands.
Nurse Wang, Tzu Chüan and other girls entered at once upon their attendance on Tai-yü in the green gauze rooms, while Pao-yü's wet-nurse, dame Li, together with an elderly waiting-maid, called Hsi Jen, were on duty in the room with the large bed.
This Hsi Jen had also been, originally, one of dowager lady Chia's servant-girls. Her name was in days gone by, Chen Chu. As her venerable ladyship, in her tender love for Pao-yü, had feared that Pao-yü's servant girls were not equal to their duties, she readily handed her to Pao-yü, as she had hitherto had experience of how sincere and considerate she was at heart.
Pao-yü, knowing that her surname was at one time Hua, and having once seen in some verses of an ancient poet, the line "the fragrance of flowers wafts itself into man," lost no time in explaining the fact to dowager lady Chia, who at once changed her name into Hsi Jen.
This Hsi Jen had several simple traits. While in attendance upon dowager lady Chia, in her heart and her eyes there was no one but her venerable ladyship, and her alone; and now in her attendance upon Pao-yü, her heart and her eyes were again full of Pao-yü, and him alone. But as Pao-yü was of a perverse temperament and did not heed her repeated injunctions, she felt at heart exceedingly grieved.
At night, after nurse Li had fallen asleep, seeing that in the inner chambers, Tai-yü, Ying Ko and the others had not as yet retired to rest, she disrobed herself, and with gentle step walked in.
"How is it, miss," she inquired smiling, "that you have not turned in as yet?"
Tai-yü at once put on a smile. "Sit down, sister," she rejoined, pressing her to take a seat. Hsi Jen sat on the edge of the bed.
"Miss Lin," interposed Ying Ko smirkingly, "has been here in an awful state of mind! She has cried so to herself, that her eyes were flooded, as soon as she dried her tears. 'It's only to-day that I've come,' she said, 'and I've already been the cause of the outbreak of your young master's failing. Now had he broken that jade, as he hurled it on the ground, wouldn't it have been my fault? Hence it was that she was so wounded at heart, that I had all the trouble in the world, before I could appease her."
"Desist at once, Miss! Don't go on like this," Hsi Jen advised her; "there will, I fear, in the future, happen things far more strange and ridiculous than this; and if you allow yourself to be wounded and affected to such a degree by a conduct such as his, you will, I apprehend, suffer endless wounds and anguish; so be quick and dispel this over-sensitive nature!"
"What you sisters advise me," replied Tai-yü, "I shall bear in mind, and it will be all right."
They had another chat, which lasted for some time, before they at length retired to rest for the night.
The next day, (she and her cousins) got up at an early hour and went over to pay their respects to dowager lady Chia, after which upon coming to madame Wang's apartments, they happened to find madame Wang and Hsi-feng together, opening the letters which had arrived from Chin Ling. There were also in the room two married women, who had been sent from madame Wang's elder brother's wife's house to deliver a message.
Tai-yü was, it is true, not aware of what was up, but T'an Ch'un and the others knew that they were discussing the son of her mother's sister, married in the Hsüeh family, in the city of Chin Ling, a cousin of theirs, Hsüeh P'an, who relying upon his wealth and influence had, by assaulting a man, committed homicide, and who was now to be tried in the court of the Ying T'ien Prefecture.
Her maternal uncle, Wang Tzu-t'eng, had now, on the receipt of the tidings, despatched messengers to bring over the news to the Chia family. But the next chapter will explain what was the ultimate issue of the wish entertained in this mansion to send for the Hsüeh family to come to the capital.
Chapter IV
*
An ill-fated girl happens to meet an ill-fated young man. The Hu Lu Bonze adjudicates the Hu Lu case.
Tai-yü, for we shall now return to our story, having come, along with her cousin to madame Wang's apartments, found madame Wang discussing certain domestic occurrences with the messengers, who had arrived from her elder brother's wife's
home, and conversing also about the case of homicide, in which the family of her mother's sister had become involved, and other such relevant topics. Perceiving how pressing and perplexing were the matters in which madame Wang was engaged, the young ladies promptly left her apartments, and came over to the rooms of their widow sister-in-law, Mrs. Li.
This Mrs. Li had originally been the spouse of Chia Chu. Although Chu had died at an early age, he had the good fortune of leaving behind him a son, to whom the name of Chia Lan was given. He was, at this period, just in his fifth year, and had already entered school, and applied himself to books.
This Mrs. Li was also the daughter of an official of note in Chin Ling. Her father's name was Li Shou-chung, who had, at one time, been Imperial Libationer. Among his kindred, men as well as women had all devoted themselves to poetry and letters; but ever since Li Shou-chung continued the line of succession, he readily asserted that the absence of literary attainments in his daughter was indeed a virtue, so that it soon came about that she did not apply herself in real earnest to learning; with the result that all she studied were some parts of the "Four Books for women," and the "Memoirs of excellent women," that all she read did not extend beyond a limited number of characters, and that all she committed to memory were the examples of these few worthy female characters of dynasties of yore; while she attached special importance to spinning and female handiwork. To this reason is to be assigned the name selected for her, of Li Wan (Li, the weaver), and the style of Kung Ts'ai (Palace Sempstress).
Hence it was that, though this Li Wan still continued, after the loss of her mate, while she was as yet in the spring of her life, to live amidst affluence and luxury, she nevertheless resembled in every respect a block of rotten wood or dead ashes. She had no inclination whatsoever to inquire after anything or to listen to anything; while her sole and exclusive thought was to wait upon her relatives and educate her son; and, in addition to this, to teach her young sisters-in-law to do needlework and to read aloud.