by Cao Xueqin
‘Those four families,’ said the usher in answer to a question from Yu-cun, ‘are all closely connected with each other. A loss for one is a loss for all. A gain for one is a gain for all. The Xue who has been charged with the manslaughter is one of the “Nanking Xue so rich are they”. Not only can he count on the support of the other three Nanking families, he also has any number of family friends and connections of his own both at the capital and in the provinces. Now who are you going to arrest ?’
‘That’s all very well,’ said Yu-cun with an uneasy laugh, ‘but how am I going to settle this case? Incidentally, I assume you know perfectly well where the criminal is hiding ?’
‘I wouldn’t deceive Your Honour,’ replied the usher with a grin, ‘not only do I know where the criminal has gone but I also know who the kidnapper is and all about the poor devil who was killed. Let me tell you the whole story.
‘The man who was killed was a poor country squire’s son called Feng Yuan. His father and mother were both dead and he had no brothers. He lived off the income of a very small estate. He was eighteen or nineteen when he died. He was a confirmed queer and not interested in girls. Which shows that the whole business must have been fated, because no sooner did he set eyes on this girl than he at once fell in love with her – swore he would never have anything more to do with boys and never have any other woman but her. That was the idea of this waiting three days before she came to him. To make it seem more like a wedding and less like a sale.
‘What he couldn’t foresee, of course, was that the kidnapper would use this interval to resell her on the sly to Xue, hoping to pocket the money from both parties and then do a flit. Only he didn’t get away with it. The two parties nabbed him before he could disappear and beat the daylights out of him. Both refused to take back their money, and both insisted that they wanted the girl. It was at this point that our young friend Xue called for his roughs to get to work on Feng Yuan. They beat him till he was hardly recognizable. Then they picked him up and carried him home. He died three days later.
‘Now long before any of this happened, young Xue had made arrangements for a journey to the capital. So after killing Feng and carrying off the girl, he set off with his family, calm as you please, on the appointed day. There was no question of his running away because of the killing. In his eyes a trifling matter like taking another man’s life was something for his junior clansmen or the servants to clear up in his absence.
‘But never mind him. Who do you think the slave-girl is ?’
‘How in the world should I know?’ said Yu-cun.
The usher smiled maliciously. ‘You ought to, Your Honour! She is your great benefactress – Ying-lian, the little daughter of Mr Zhen, who used to live next door to Bottle-gourd Temple.’
‘Good gracious !’ said Yu-cun in astonishment.’ I had heard that she was kidnapped at the age of five. But how did she come to be sold so long after the kidnapping?’
‘This type of kidnapper specializes in kidnapping very young girls and rearing them until they are twelve or thirteen for sale in other parts of the country. When she was little we used to play with Ying-lian at the temple nearly every day, so I knew her very well; and when I saw her again, even though it was after an interval of seven or eight years, I could tell it was her. She’d grown into a little woman in the meantime, but her features were still the same; and to confirm it there was a tiny red birthmark right in the middle of her brow which I remembered.
‘By a strange coincidence the kidnapper had rented one of my rooms, and one day when he was out I put it to her who she was. But she said she was scared of being beaten and nothing would induce her to talk. She just kept insisting that the kidnapper was her real father, selling her because he had no money to pay his debts with. I kept on at her, cajoling and persuading, and in the end she broke down and cried. Said she didn’t remember anything about her childhood. But there’s no doubt in my mind. It’s her, all right.
‘The day young Feng met her and paid out the money for her, the kidnapper got drunk, and she opened up to me a bit. She was feeling very relieved. She said, “Today I think my tribulations are at last coming to an end.” But then later, when she heard that she wasn’t to be installed until after another three days, she began to look worried and despondent again. I felt truly sorry for her, and sent the wife round to have a talk with her while the kidnapper was out and give her a bit of encouragement.
‘The wife said to her, “Mr Feng’s insistence on waiting three days before taking you in shows that he doesn’t intend to treat you like a servant. Besides,” she said, “he’s a very nice, handsome gentleman, and quite comfortably off. Normally he doesn’t like the fair sex, yet here he is spending everything he has on your purchase. You can tell from that,” she said, “how much he must care for you. You only have to be patient for another day or two,” she said. “You’ve no cause to be downcast.”
‘Well, that seemed to cheer her up a bit, and she began to feel that life was going to be worth living.
‘But only the day after that, by the most accursed stroke of bad luck which no one could possibly have foreseen, she was sold to Xue. Now if it had been anyone else, it wouldn’t have mattered so much, but this young Xue, whose nickname is the Oaf King, is the world’s most bad-tempered bully; and having spent money like water on buying the girl only to find that she wasn’t willing, he knocked her about until she was half unconscious and dragged her off with him more dead than alive. Whether she’s alive or dead now, I have no idea.
‘And young Feng is really to be pitied 1 After a brief moment of happiness, before anything had come his way, he spent all his money and laid down his life for nothing!’
Yu-cun sighed sympathetically. ‘Their meeting cannot have been coincidental. It must have been the working out of some destiny. An atonement. Otherwise, how is one to account for Feng Yuan’s sudden affection for that particular girl ?
‘And Ying-lian, after all those years of ill-treatment at the hands of her kidnapper, suddenly seeing a road to freedom opening in front of her – for she was a girl of feeling, and there is no doubt that they would have made a fine couple if they had succeeded in coming together – and then for this to have happened!
‘And even though Xue may be far wealthier and better-placed than Feng was, a man like that is sure to have numbers of concubines and paramours and to be licentious and debauched in his habits – quite incapable of concentrating all his affections on one girl as Feng Yuan would have done.
‘A real case of an ideal romance on the one hand and a pair of unlucky young things on the other adding up to make a tragedy!
‘But a truce to this discussion of other people’s affairs! Let us rather consider how this case is to be settled!’
‘Your Honour used to be decisive enough in the old days,’ said the usher with a smile. ‘What has become of your old resolution today ? Now, I was told that your promotion to this post was due to the combined influence of the Jias and the Wangs; and this Xue Pan is related to the Jias by marriage. Why not trim your sails to the wind in your handling of this case ? Why not make a virtue of necessity by doing them a favour which will stand you in good stead next time you see them?’
‘What you say is, of course, entirely correct,’ said Yu-cun. ‘But there is, after all, a human life involved in this case; and you have to remember that I have only just been restored to office by an act of Imperial clemency. I really cannot bring myself to pervert justice for private ends at the very moment when I ought to be doing my utmost to show my gratitude.’
The usher smiled coldly. ‘What Your Honour says is no doubt very right and proper, but it won’t wash. Not the way things are in the world today! Haven’t you heard the old saying “The man of spirit shapes his actions to the passing moment” ? And there’s another old saying: “It is the mark of a gentleman to avoid what is inauspicious”. If you were to act in accordance with what you have just said, not only would you net be able to show your gratitude to th
e Emperor, but also you would probably put your own life in danger. If I were you, I should think very carefully before you do anything. ‘
Yu-cun lowered his head in thought. After a very long pause he asked, ‘What do you think I ought to do ?’
‘I’ve thought of a very good solution,’ said the usher. ‘When you open court tomorrow, you should make a great display of authority. Send out writs, issue warrants for arrest, and so forth. You won’t, of course, be able to arrest the culprits, and the plaintiffs will certainly not allow the matter to rest there; so what you do then is to arrest some of Xue’s clansmen and servants for questioning. But in the meantime I shall have got to work on them on the side and arranged for them to report that Xue has died of sudden illness. This can be supported by the affidavits of the whole Xue clan and the people living in the neighbourhood.
‘Then Your Honour has it put about that you have a gift for the planchette. You have an altar set up in the court and a planchette board installed on it and you issue an open invitation to any members of the public who want to to attend a seance. Then you say, “The spirit control gives judgment as follows:
‘“The dead man, Feng Yuan, owed a debt of karma to Xue Pan from a former life and ‘meeting his enemy in a narrow way’, paid for it with his life. The sudden, unexplained illness which struck down Xue Pan was caused by the vengeful ghost of Feng Yuan come to claim its own. Since the tragedy was entirely due to the behaviour of the kidnapper, the kidnapper should be dealt with according to the full rigour of the law; but apart from him, all other parties are exonerated…” and so on and so forth.
‘I shall secretly instruct the kidnapper to make a full confession, and when the public see that the judgment given by the planchette tallies with the confession made by the kidnapper, they will naturally have no suspicions.
‘Then you award the Fengs compensation to cover funeral expenses and so on. And since the Xues are rolling in money, you can say anything you like. Five hundred, a thousand – it doesn’t matter. There’s no one of any importance on the Feng side, and in any case they’re mainly in this for the money. So once they have got their compensation, they shouldn’t give you any further trouble.
‘What about that for a plan, Your Honour ? You just think it over!’
Yu-cun laughed. ‘Too risky! Let me turn it over in my mind a little longer. The main thing is to think of something that will stop people talking.’
And with this observation the two men concluded their discussion.
At next day’s session a group of well-known associates of the wanted man were brought in and subjected by Yu-cun to careful questioning. It emerged, as the usher had said, that the Fengs were few in number and had brought this action solely in the hope of gaining some compensation, and that it was only because the Xues had, with the arrogance of the very rich and very powerful, refused to pay a penny, that the case had been brought to a standstill.
By a judicious bending of the law to suit the circumstances, Yu-cun managed to arrive at some sort of judgment whereby the plaintiffs received substantial compensation and went off tolerably well satisfied. He then hurriedly drafted and sent off two letters, one to Jia Zheng and one to Wang Zi-teng, Commandant, Metropolitan Barracks, in which he merely stated that their ‘nephew’s affair had been settled and there was no further cause for concern’.
Fearful that the now usher and quondam novice of Bottle-gourd Temple might talk to others about the days when he was an obscure and impoverished student, Yu-cun for some time went about in great discomfort of mind. Finally, however, he managed to catch him out in some misdemeanour or other and have him drafted for military service on a frontier outpost, after which he felt able to breathe freely again.
But now no more of Yu-cun. Let us turn instead to Young Xue, the man who purchased Ying-lian and had Feng Yuan beaten to death. He was a native of Nanking and came of a refined and highly cultivated family, but having lost his father in infancy and been, as sole remaining scion of the stock, excessively indulged by a doting widowed mother, he had grown up into a useless lout. The family was immensely wealthy. As one of the official Court Purveyors they received money from the Privy Purse with which to make purchases for the Imperial Household.
Xue Pan, to give him his full name, was a naturally extravagant young man with an insolent turn of speech. He had been educated after a fashion, but could barely read and write. He devoted the greater part of his time to cock-fighting, horse-racing, and outings to places of scenic interest. Though an Imperial Purveyor, he was wholly innocent of business skill and savoir-faire; and though, for his father’s and grandfather’s sake, he was allowed to register at the Ministry and receive regular payments of grain and money, everything else was looked after for him by the clerks and factors of the family business.
Xue Pan’s widowed mother was a younger half-sister of Wang Zi-teng, at that time Commandant of the Metropolitan Barracks, and younger sister of Lady Wang, the wife of Jia Zheng of the Rong mansion. She was now around fifty and had only the one son. Besides Xue Pan she had a daughter two years his junior called Bao-chai, a girl of flawless looks and great natural refinement. While her father was still alive she had been his favourite and had been taught to read and write and construe – all of which she did ten times better than her oafish brother; but when he died and her brother proved incapable of offering their mother any comfort, she laid aside her books and devoted herself to needlework and housewifely duties in order to take some of the burden off her mother’s shoulders.
The well-known interest always shown by our present sovereign in literature and the arts, and the widespread recruitment of talent that this has stimulated, had recently, at the time of which we speak, led to an unprecedented act of Imperial grace whereby daughters of hereditary officials and distinguished families, apart from the possibility of being recruited to the Imperial seraglio by the customary procedures, were permitted to have their names sent in to the Ministry for selection as study-companions, with the rank and title of Maid of Honour or Lady-in-waiting, of the Imperial princesses and the daughters of princes of the blood.
This circumstance, coupled with the fact that, since the death of his father, the managers, clerks, and factors of the family business in its various agencies throughout the provinces had profited from Xue Pan’s youth and ignorance of affairs to feather their own nests at the firm’s expense, and even the family’s enterprises in the capital, of which there were several, had shown a gradual falling-off, provided Xue Pan, who had long heard of the rich pleasures of the metropolis and was agog to taste them, with excuses for realizing his cherished ambition, viz:
1. They must go to the capital because he had to present his sister to the Ministry for selection.
2. They must go to the capital to look up their kinsfolk there.
3. They must go to the capital so that he might clear his accounts with the Ministry and take receipt of a new instalment of funds.
(Needless to say, the sole substantial reason for going to the capital, Xue Pan’s desire to see the sights, was unexpressed.)
Accordingly, their baggage had long been packed and souvenirs of Nanking for their friends and relations in the capital long been selected and a date for their departure long been decided on, when Xue Pan encountered the kidnapper and Ying-lian and, as Ying-lian was an uncommonly attractive slave-girl, resolved to purchase her and make her his concubine.
Then Feng and his servants came to seize the girl and Xue Pan, confident in his superior forces, shouted the command to his attendant roughs which was to have such fatal consequences for poor Feng Yuan.
Entrusting everything to his clansmen and a few old and trusty retainers, he then proceeded to depart according to schedule, in company with his mother and sister, on the long journey to the capital, accounting the charge of manslaughter a mere bagatelle which the expenditure of a certain amount of coin could confidently be expected to resolve.
Of the journey our story gives no record, except to say t
hat on the last day, when they were about to enter the capital, they heard news that Xue Pan’s uncle Wang Zi-teng had just been promoted C.-in-C. Northern Provinces with instructions to leave the capital on a tour of frontier inspection. The news secretly delighted Xue Pan.
‘Just as I was worrying about Uncle cramping my style when we got to the capital and preventing me from having a really good fling,’ he reflected, ‘the old boy obligingly gets himself popped out of the way. Fortune is on my side!’
He then proceeded to reason as follows with his mother:
‘We’ve got several houses in the capital, but it’s all of ten years since anyone has been to stay in them, so you can bet that the housekeepers will have let all the rooms out on the sly. We shall have to send someone on ahead to get things straightened out for us.’
‘Whyever should we go to any such trouble?’ said his mother. ‘I thought the main purpose of our coming here in the first place was to see our relations. There must be lots and lots of spare room at your Uncle Wang’s and at your Uncle Jia’s place. Surely it would be much more sensible to stay with one of them first ? There will be plenty of time to send our people to get a place of our own ready after we are there.’
‘But Uncle’s just been promoted to the Northern Provinces,’ Xue Pan expostulated.’ They will all be making frantic preparations for him to go. What sort of stupid idiots shall we look like if we come scooting along with all our bag and baggage just at the very moment when he wants to leave?’
‘Suppose your Uncle Wang has been promoted to another place,’ said his mother. ‘There is still your Uncle Jia. Besides, Uncle Wang and Auntie Jia have for years been sending us letters inviting us to come and stay with them. Now that we are here, even though Uncle Wang is busy getting ready to go, Auntie Jia will probably be only too glad to have us. I’m sure she would be most offended if we were to go rushing off to get our own house ready.