by Cao Xueqin
‘But I know perfectly well what’s in your mind. You think that if we are staying with your uncle or aunt you will be too restricted, and that if we were living in our own place you would be freer to do just as you liked. Very well then. Why don’t you go off and choose a house for yourself to live in and let me and your sister go to Auntie’s without you? I haven’t seen her or the girls for years and years, and I intend to spend a few days with them now we are here.’
Experience taught Xue Pan that his mother was in an obstinate mood and not to be shaken from her purpose, so he resignedly gave orders to the porters to make straight for the Rong mansion.
Lady Wang had just breathed a sigh of relief on learning that the affair of Xue Pan’s manslaughter charge had been retrieved through the good offices of Jia Yu-cun, when the news that her elder brother had been promoted to a frontier post plunged her once more in gloom at the prospect of losing her main source of contact with the members of her own family. Several days passed in despondency, and then suddenly the servants announced that her sister, bringing her son and daughter and all her household with her, had arrived in the capital and was at that very moment outside the gate dismounting from her carriage.
Delightedly she hurried with her women to the entrance of the main reception hall and conducted Aunt Xue and her party inside. The sudden reunion of the two sisters was, it goes without saying, an affecting one in which joy and sorrow mingled. After an exchange of information about the years of separation, and after they had been taken to see Grandmother Jia and made their reverence to her, and after the gifts of Nanking produce had been presented and everyone had been introduced to everyone else, there was a family party to welcome the new arrivals.
Xue Pan, meanwhile, had paid his respects to Jia Zheng and Jia Lian and been taken to see Jia She and Cousin Zhen. Jia Zheng now sent a servant round to Lady Wang with the following message:
‘Your sister is getting on in years and our nephew is very young and seems rather inexperienced and, I fear, quite capable of getting into a scrape again if they are going to live outside. Pear Tree Court in the north-east corner of our property is lying completely unoccupied at the moment and has quite a sizeable amount of room in it. Why not invite your sister and her children to move in there?’
Lady Wang had wanted all along to ask her sister to stay. Grandmother Jia had sent someone round to tell her that she should ‘ask Mrs Xue to stay with us here, so that we can all be close to one another.’ And Aunt Xue for her own part had been wanting to stay so that some sort of check could be kept on her son. She was sure that if they were to be on their own somewhere else in the city his unbridled nature would precipitate some fresh calamity. She therefore accepted the invitation with alacrity, privately adding the proviso that she could only contemplate a long stay if it was on the understanding that they were themselves to be responsible for all their expenses. Lady Wang knew that money was no problem to them, so she readily consented, and Aunt Xue and her children proceeded there and then to move into Pear Tree Court.
This Pear Tree Court had been the Duke of Rong-guo’s retreat during the last years of his life. Its buildings totalled not much more than ten frames; but though small and charming, it was complete in every respect, with a little reception room in the front and all the usual rooms and offices behind. It had its own outer door on to the street, through which Xue Pan and the menservants could come and go, and another gate in the south-west corner giving on to a passage-way which led into the courtyard east of Lady Wang’s compound.
Through this passage-way Aunt Xue would now daily repair, either after dinner or in the evening, to gossip with Grandmother Jia or reminisce with her sister, Lady Wang. Bao-chai for her part spent her time each day in great contentment, reading or playing Go or sewing with Dai-yu and the three girls.
The only dissatisfied member of the party – to begin with, at any rate – was Xue Pan. He had not wanted to stay in the Jia household, fearing that his uncle’s control would prevent him from enjoying himself, but what with his mother’s obstinacy and the insistence of the Jias themselves, he was obliged to acquiesce in settling there for the time being, contenting himself with sending some of his people to clean up one of their houses outside so that he would be able to move there later on.
But, to his pleasant surprise, he discovered that the young males of the Jia establishment, half of whom he was already on familiar terms with before he had been there a month, were of the same idle, extravagant persuasion as himself and thought him a capital fellow and boon companion. And so he found himself meeting them for a drinking-party one day, for theatre-going the next, on a third day perhaps gambling with them or visiting brothels. For there were no limits to the depravity of their pleasures, and Xue Pan, who was bad enough to start with, soon became ten times worse under their expert guidance.
It was not that Jia Zheng was a slack disciplinarian, incapable of keeping his house in order; but the clan was so numerous that he simply could not keep an eye on everyone at once. And in any case the nominal head of the family was not Jia Zheng but Cousin Zhen who, as eldest grandson of the senior, Ning-guo branch, had inherited the founder’s office and emoluments and was therefore officially in charge of all the clan’s affairs.
Besides, Jia Zheng was kept busy with public and private business of his own and, being by nature a quiet, retiring man who attached little importance to mundane affairs, tended to use whatever leisure time he had for reading and playing Go.
Then again, the Pear Tree Court was two courtyards away from Jia Zheng’s compound and had its own private door onto the street by which Xue Pan could come and go as he pleased, so that he and his young cronies could enjoy themselves to their heart’s content with no one being any the wiser.
Under these agreeable ‘circumstances Xue Pan gradually abandoned all thought of moving out.
But as to the outcome of these capers: that will be told in a later chapter.
Chapter 5
Jia Bao-yu visits the Land of Illusion
And the fairy Disenchantment performs the
‘Dream of Golden Days’
From the moment Lin Dai-yu entered the Rong mansion, Grandmother Jia’s solicitude for her had manifested itself in a hundred different ways. The arrangements made for her meals and accommodation were exactly the same as for Bao-yu. The other three granddaughters, Ying-chun, Tan-chun and Xi-chun, were relegated to a secondary place in the old lady’s affections, and the objects of her partiality themselves began to feel an affection for each other which far exceeded what they felt for any of the rest. Sharing each other’s company every minute of the day and sleeping in the same room at night, they developed an understanding so intense that it was almost as if they had grown into a single person.
And now suddenly this Xue Bao-chai had appeared on the scene – a young lady who, though very little older than Dai-yu, possessed a grown-up beauty and aplomb in which all agreed Dai-yu was her inferior. Moreover, in contrast to Dai-yu with her air of lofty self-sufficiency and total obliviousness to all who did not move on the same exalted level as herself, Bao-chai had a generous, accommodating disposition which greatly endeared her to subordinates, so that even the tiniest maid looked on Miss Bao-chai as a familiar friend. Dai-yu could not but feel somewhat put out by this – a fact of which Bao-chai herself, however, was totally unaware.
As for Bao-yu, he was still only a child – a child, moreover, whom nature had endowed with the eccentric obtuseness of a simpleton. Brothers, sisters, cousins, were all one to him. In his relationships with people he made no distinction between one person and another. If his relationship with Dai-yu was exceptional, it was because greater proximity – since she was living with him in his grandmother’s quarters – made her more familiar to him than the rest; and greater familiarity bred greater intimacy.
And of course, with greater intimacy came the occasional tiffs and misunderstandings that are usual with people who have a great deal to do with each other.
The winter plum in the gardens of the Ning Mansion was now at its best, and this particular day Cousin Zhen’s wife, You-shi, had some wine taken into the gardens and came over in person, bringing her son Jia Rong and his young wife with her, to invite Grandmother Jia, Lady Xing and Lady Wang to a flower-viewing party.
Grandmother Jia and the rest went round as soon as they had finished their breakfast. The party was in the All-scents Garden. It began with tea and continued with wine, and as it was a family gathering confined to the ladies of the Ning and Rong households, nothing particularly worth recording took place.
At one point in the party Bao-yu was overcome with tiredness and heaviness and expressed a desire to take an afternoon nap. Grandmother Jia ordered some of the servants to go back to the house with him and get him comfortably settled, adding that they might return with him later when he was rested; but Qin-shi, the little wife of Jia Rong, smilingly proposed an alternative.
‘We have got just the room here for Uncle Bao. Leave him to me, Grannie dear! He will be quite safe in my hands.’
She turned to address the nurses and maidservants who were in attendance on Bao-yu.
‘Come, my dears! Tell Uncle Bao to follow me.’
Grandmother Jia had always had a high opinion of Qin-shi’s trustworthiness – she was such a charming, delightful little creature, the favourite among her great-granddaughters-in-law – and was quite content to leave the arrangements to her.
Qin-shi conducted Bao-yu and his little knot of attendants to an inner room in the main building. As they entered, Bao-yu glanced up and saw a painting hanging above them on the opposite wall. The figures in it were very finely executed. They represented Scholarly Diligence in the person of the Han philosopher Liu Xiang at his book, obligingly illuminated for him by a supernatural being holding a large flaming torch. Bao-yu found the painting – or rather its subject – distasteful. But the pair of mottoes which flanked it proved the last straw:
True learning implies a clear insight into human activities. Genuine culture involves the skilful manipulation of human relationships.
In vain the elegant beauty and splendid furnishings of the room I Qin-shi was given to understand in no uncertain terms that her uncle Bao-yu wished to be out of it at once.
‘If this is not good enough for you,’ said Qin-shi with a laugh, ‘where are we going to put you? – unless you would like to have your rest in my bedroom.’
A little smile played over Bao-yu’s face and he nodded. The nurses were shocked.
‘An uncle sleep in the bedroom of his nephew’s wife! Who ever heard of such a thing ’
Qin-shi laughed again.
‘He won’t misbehave. Good gracious, he’s only a little boyl We don’t have to worry about that sort of thing yet! You know my little brother who came last month: he’s the same age as Uncle Bao, but if you stood them side by side I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if he wasn’t the taller of the two.’
‘Why haven’t I seen your brother yet?’ Bao-yu demanded. ‘Bring him in and let me have a look at him!’
The servants all laughed.
‘Bring him in? Why, he’s ten or twenty miles away! But I expect you’ll meet him one of these days.’
In the course of this exchange the party had made its way to Qin-shi’s bedroom. As Bao-yu entered, a subtle whiff of the most delicious perfume assailed his nostrils, making a sweet stickiness inside his drooping eyelids and causing all the joints in his body to dissolve.
‘What a lovely smell!’
He repeated the words several times over.
Inside the room there was a painting by Tang Yin entitled ‘Spring Slumber’ depicting a beautiful woman asleep under a crab-apple tree, whose buds had not yet opened. The painting was flanked on either side by a pair of calligraphic scrolls inscribed with a couplet from the brush of the Song poet Qin Guan:
(on one side)
The coldness of spring has imprisoned the soft buds in a wintry dream;
(on the other side)
The fragrance of wine has intoxicated the beholder with imagined flower-scents.
On a table stood an antique mirror that had once graced the tiring-room of the lascivious empress Wu Ze-tian. Beside it stood the golden platter on which Flying Swallow once danced for her emperor’s delight. And on the platter was that very quince which the villainous An Lu-shan threw at beautiful Yang Gui-fei, bruising her plump white breast. At the far end of the room stood the priceless bed on which Princess Shou-yang was sleeping out of doors under the eaves of the Han-zhang Palace when the plum-flower lighted on her forehead and set a new fashion for coloured patches. Over it hung a canopy commissioned by Princess Tong-chang entirely fashioned out of ropes of pearls.
‘I like it here,’ said Bao-yu happily.
‘My room,’ said Qin-shi with a proud smile, ‘is fit for an immortal to sleep in.’ And she unfolded a quilted coverlet, whose silk had been laundered by the fabulous Xi Shi, and arranged the double head-rest that Hong-niang once carried for her amorous mistress.
The nurses now helped Bao-yu into bed and then tiptoed out, leaving him attended only by his four young maids: Aroma, Skybright, Musk, and Ripple. Qin-shi told them to go outside and stop the cats from fighting on the eaves.
As soon as Bao-yu closed his eyes he sank into a confused sleep in -which Qin-shi was still there yet at the same time seemed to be drifting along weightlessly in front of him. He followed her until they came to a place of marble terraces and vermilion balustrades where there were green trees and crystal streams. Everything in this place was so clean and so pure that it seemed as if no human foot could ever have trodden there or floating speck of dust ever blown into it. Bao-yu’s dreaming self rejoiced. ‘What a delightful place!’ he thought. ‘If only I could spend all my life here! How much nicer it would be than living under the daily restraint of my parents and teachers!’
These idle reflections were interrupted by someone singing a song on the other side of a hill:
‘Spring’s dream-time will like drifting clouds disperse,
Its flowers snatched by a flood none can reverse.
Then tell each nymph and swain
‘Tis folly to invite love’s pain!’
It was the voice of a girl. Before its last echoes had died away, a beautiful woman appeared in the quarter from which the voice had come, approaching him with a floating, fluttering motion. She was quite unlike any earthly lady, as the following poem will make clear:
She has left her willow-tree house, from her blossoming bower stepped out;
For the birds betray where she walks through the trees that cluster about,
And a shadow athwart the winding walk announces that she is near,
And a fragrance of musk and orchid from fluttering fairy sleeves,
And a tinkle of girdle-gems that falls on the ear
At each movement of her dress of lotus leaves.
A peach-tree blossoms in her dimpling cheek;
Her cloud-coiled tresses are halcyon-sleek;
And she reveals, through parted cherry lips,
Teeth like pomegranate pips.
Her slim waist’s sinuous swaying calls to mind
The dance of snowflakes with the waltzing wind;
Hair ornaments of pearl and halcyon blue
Outshine her painted forehead’s golden hue.
Her face, through blossoms fleetingly disclosed,
To mirth or ire seems equally disposed;
And as by the waterside she goes,
Hovering on light-stepping toes,
A half-incipient look of pique
Says she would speak, yet would not speak;
While her feet, with the s
ame irresolution,
Would halt, yet would not interrupt their motion.
I contemplate her rare complexion,
Ice-pure and jade-like in perfection;
I marvel at her glittering dress,
Where art lends grace to sumptuousness;
I wonder at her fine-cut features -
Marble, which fragrance marks as one with living creatures;
And I admire her queenly gait,
Like stately dance of simurgh with his mate.
Her purity I can best show
In plum-trees flowering in the snow;
Her chastity I shall recall
In orchids white at first frost-fall;
Her tranquil nature will prevail,
Constant as lone pine in an empty vale;
Her loveliness as dazzled make
As sunset gilding a pellucid lake;
Her glittering elegance I can compare
With dragons in an ornamental mere;
Her dreamy soulfulness most seems
Like wintry waters in the moon’s cold beams.
The beauties of days gone by by her beauty are all abashed.
Where was she born, and from whence descended ?
Immortal I judge her, fresh come from fairy feastings by the Jasper Pool,
Or from fluting in starry halls, some heavenly concert ended.
Observing delightedly that the lady was a fairy, Bao-yu hurried forward and saluted her with a smile.
‘Madam Fairy, I don’t know where you have come from or where you are going to, but as I am quite lost in this place, will you please take me with you and be my guide ?’
‘I am the fairy Disenchantment,’ the fairy woman replied. ‘I live beyond the Realm of Separation, in the Sea of Sadness. There is a Mountain of Spring Awakening which rises from the midst of that sea, and on that mountain is the Paradise of the Full-blown Flower, and in that paradise is the Land of Illusion, which is my home. My business is with the romantic passions, love-debts, girlish heartbreaks and male philander-ings of your dust-stained, human world. The reason I have come here today is that recently there has been a heavy concentration of love-karma in this area, and I hope to be able to find an opportunity of distributing a quantity of amorous thoughts by implanting them in the appropriate breasts. My meeting you here today is no accident but a part of the same project.