The Golden Days

by Cao Xueqin

  Aroma had always been an intelligent girl. She was, in any case, a year or two older than Bao-yu and had recently begun to have some understanding of the facts of life. Observing the condition that Bao-yu was in, she therefore had more than an inkling of what had happened. Abandoning her question, she busied herself with his clothes, her cheeks suffused by a crimson blush of embarrassment. When he was properly dressed, they went to rejoin Grandmother Jia and the rest. There they bolted a hurried supper and then slipped back to the other house, where Aroma profited from the absence of the nurses and the other maids to take out a clean undergarment for Bao-yu to change into.

  ‘Please, Aroma,’ Bao-yu shamefacedly entreated as she helped him change, ‘please don’t tell anyone!’

  Equally ill at ease, Aroma giggled softly.

  ‘Why did you…?’ she began to ask. Then, after glancing cautiously around, began again.

  ‘Where did that stuff come from?’

  Bao-yu blushed furiously and said nothing. Aroma stared at him curiously and continued to giggle. After much hesitation he proceeded to give her a detailed account of his dream. But when he came to the part of it in which he made love to Two-in-one, Aroma threw herself forward with a shriek of laughter and buried her face in her hands.

  Bao-yu had long been attracted by Aroma’s somewhat coquettish charms and tugged at her purposefully, anxious to share with her the lesson he had learned from Disenchantment. Aroma knew that when Grandmother Jia gave her to Bao-yu she had intended her to belong to him in the fullest possible sense, and so, having no good reason for refusing him, she allowed him, after a certain amount of coy resistance, to have his way with her.

  From then on Bao-yu treated Aroma with even greater consideration than before, whilst Aroma for her part redoubled the devotion with which she served him. But of this, for the time being, no more.

  The inhabitants of the Rong mansion, if we include all of them from the highest to the humblest in our total, numbered more than three hundred souls, who produced between them a dozen or more incidents in a single day. Faced with so exuberant an abundance of material, what principle should your chronicler adopt to guide him in his selection of incidents to record? As we pondered the problem where to begin, it was suddenly solved for us by the appearance as it were out of nowhere of someone from a very humble, very insignificant household who, on the strength of a very tenuous, very remote family connection with the Jias, turned up at the Rong mansion on the very day of which we are about to write.

  Their name was Wang and they were natives of these parts. A grandfather had held some very small official post in the capital and had there become acquainted with Wang Xi-feng’s grandfather, the father of Lady Wang. Conceiving an admiration for the power and prestige of this greater namesake, he had sought to link his family with the latter’s clan by becoming his adoptive nephew. Only Lady Wang and her elder brother – Wang Xi-feng’s father – who chanced at that time to be staying with their parent on his tour of duty at the capital, knew anything about this. The other members of the clan were unaware that any such relationship existed.

  The grandfather had long since died, leaving an only son called Wang Cheng who, having fallen on hard times, had moved back into the countryside somewhere outside the capital. Wang Cheng in his turn had died leaving a son called Gou-er, who had married a girl from a family called Liu and now had two children, a son called Ban-er and a daughter called Qing-er. The four of them depended on agriculture for their living, and since, with Gou-er himself busy most of the day on the land and his wife busy about the farm drawing water, pounding grain, and the like, there was no one to look after Qing-er and her little brother, Gou-er invited his mother-in-law, old Grannie Liu, to come and live with them.

  This Grannie Liu was an ancient widow-woman, rich in experience of the world, who, having no son or daughter-in-law to cherish her, eked out her solitary existence by scratching a livelihood from a miserable half-acre of land. She therefore embraced her son-in-law’s invitation with alacrity and threw herself enthusiastically into the business of helping the young couple to make a living.

  The season was now at the turn between autumn and winter. The cold weather was beginning, but none of the preparations for winter had yet been made. By drinking to allay his anxiety, Gou-er merely put himself more out of temper. He returned home to vent some of his spleen on his long-suffering wife. Grannie Liu could eventually stomach no more of his wife-baiting and intervened on her daughter’s behalf.

  ‘Now look here, son-in-law: probably you will think me an interfering old woman; but we country folk have to be grateful for what is in the pot and cut down our appetites to the same measure. When you were little your Ma and Pa could afford to indulge you; so now you’re grown-up you spend all your money as soon as you’ve got any, without stopping to count the cost; then, when it’s all gone, you start making a fuss. But what sort of way is that for a grown man to behave ?

  ‘Now where we live may be out in the country, but it’s still “in the Emperor’s shadow ”, as they say. Over there in the city the streets are paved with money just waiting for someone to go and pick it up. What’s the sense in rampaging around here at home when you could go out and help yourself?’

  ‘It’s easy for you to sit on your backside and talk,’ said Gou-er rudely, ‘but what do you expect me to do? Go out and rob ?’

  ‘No one’s asking you to rob,’ said Grannie Liu. ‘But can’t we all sit down peaceably and think of a way ? Because if we don’t, the money isn’t going to come walking in the door of its own accord.’

  Gou-er snorted sarcastically. ‘If there were a way, do you suppose I should have waited till now before trying it out ? There are no tax-collectors in my family and no mandarins among my friends. What way could there be of laying my hands on some money ? Even if I did have rich friends or relations, I’m not so sure they would want to be bothered with the likes of us.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Grannie Liu. ‘Man proposes, God disposes. It’s up to us to think of something. We must leave it to the good Lord to decide whether He’ll help us or not. Who knows, He might give us the opportunity we are looking for.

  ‘Now I can think of a chance you might try. Your family used to be connected with the Wang clan of Nanking. Twenty years ago the Nanking Wangs used to be very good to you folk. It’s only because of late years you have been too stiff-necked to approach them that they have become more distant with you.

  ‘I can remember going to their house once with my daughter. The elder Miss Wang was a very straightforward young lady, very easy to get on with, and not at all high and mighty. She’s now the wife of the younger of the two Sir Jias in the Rong mansion. They say that now she’s getting on in years she’s grown even more charitable and given to good works than she was as a girl. Her brother has been promoted; but I shouldn’t be surprised if she at least didn’t still remember us. Why don’t you try your luck with her? You never know, she might do something for you for the sake of old times. She only has to feel well disposed and a hair off her arm would be thicker than a man’s waist to poor folks like us!’

  ‘That’s all very well, Mother,’ put in Gou-er’s wife, ‘but just take a look at us! What sort of state are we in to go calling on great folks like them ? I doubt the people at the door would bother to tell them we were there. Who’s going to all that trouble just to make a fool of themselves?’

  Gou-er’s cupidity, however, had been aroused by the words of his mother-in-law, and his reaction to them was less discouraging than his wife’s.

  ‘Well, if it’s as you say, Grannie, and being as you’ve already seen this lady, why not go there yourself and spy out the land for us?’

  ‘Bless us and save us!’ said Grannie Liu. ‘You know what they say: “A prince’s door is like the deep sea.” What sort of creature do you take me for ? The servants there don’t know me; it would be a journey wasted.’

  ‘That’s no problem,’ said Gou-er. ‘I’ll tell you w
hat to do. You take young Ban-er with you and ask for Old Zhou that stayed in service with your lady after she married. If you tell them you’ve come to see him, it will give you an excuse for the visit. Old Zhou once entrusted a bit of business to my father. He used to be very friendly with us at one time.’

  ‘I knew all about that,’ said Grannie Liu. ‘But it’s a long time since you had anything to do with him and hard to say how he may prove after all these years. Howsomever. Being a man, you naturally can’t go in your present pickle; and a young married woman like my daughter can’t go gallivanting around the countryside showing herself to everybody. But as my old face is tough enough to stand a slap or two, it’s up to me to go. So be it, then. If any good does come of the visit, we shall all of us benefit.’

  And so, that very evening, the matter was settled.

  Next day Grannie Liu was up before dawn. As soon as she had washed and done her hair, she set about teaching Ban-er a few words to say to the ladies at the great house – an exercise to which he submitted cheerfully enough, as would any little boy of four or five who had been promised an outing to the great city. That done, she set off on her journey, and in due course made her way to Two Dukes Street. There, at each side of the stone lions which flanked the gates of the Rong Mansion, she saw a cluster of horses and palanquins. Not daring to go straight up, she first dusted down her clothes and rehearsed Ban-er’s little repertoire of phrases before sidling up to one of the side entrances.

  A number of important-looking gentlemen sat in the gateway sunning their bellies and discoursing with animated gestures on a wide variety of topics. Grannie Liu waddled up to them and offered a respectful salutation. After looking her up and down for a moment or two, they asked her her business. Grannie Liu smiled ingratiatingly.

  ‘I’ve come to see Old Zhou that used to be in service with Her Ladyship before she married. Could I trouble one of you gentlemen to fetch him out for me ?’

  The gentlemen ignored her request and returned to their discussion. After she had waited there for some considerable time one of them said,’ If you stand at that gate along there on the corner, someone from inside the house should be coming out presently.’

  But a more elderly man among them protested that it was ‘a shame to send her on a fool’s errand’, and turning to Grannie Liu he said, ‘Old Zhou is away in the South at the moment, but his missus is still at home. She lives round at the back. You’ll have to go from here round to the back gate in the other street and ask for her there.’

  Grannie Liu thanked him and trotted off with little Ban-er all the way round to the rear entrance. There she found a number of sweetmeat vendors and toy-sellers who had set their wares down outside the gate and were being beseiged by a crowd of some twenty or thirty noisy, yelling children. She grabbed a small urchin from their midst and drew him towards her.

  ‘Tell me, sonny, is there a Mrs Zhou living here?’

  The urchin stared back at her impudently.

  ‘Which Mrs Zhou? There are several Mrs Zhous here. What’s her job?’

  ‘She’s the Mrs Zhou that came here with Her Ladyship when she was married.’

  ‘That’s easy,’ said the urchin. ‘Follow me!’ He led Grannie Liu into a rear courtyard. ‘That’s where she lives,’ he said, pointing in the direction of a side wall. Then, bawling over the wall, ‘Mrs Zhou, there’s an old woman come to see you!’

  Zhou Rui’s wife came hurrying out and asked who it was. ‘How are you, my dear?’ said Grannie Liu, advancing with a smile. Zhou Rui’s wife scrutinized her questioningly for some moments before finally recognizing her.

  ‘Why, it’s Grannie Liu!

  How are you? It’s so many years since I saw you last, I’d forgotten all about you! Come in and sit down!’

  Grannie Liu followed her cackling.

  ‘You know what they say: “Important people have short memories.” I wouldn’t expect you to remember the likes of us!’

  When they were indoors, Zhou Rui’s wife ordered her little hired help to pour out some tea.

  ‘And hasn’t Ban-er grown a big boy!’ said Zhou Rui’s wife; then, after a few inquiries about the various things that had happened since they last met, she asked Grannie Liu about her visit.

  ‘Were you just passing by, or have you come specially?’

  ‘Well, of course, first and foremost we came to see you,’ replied Grannie Liu mendaciously, ‘but we were also hoping to pay our respects to Her Ladyship. If you could take us to see her, that would be very nice; but if that’s not possible, perhaps we could trouble you just to give her our regards.’

  From the tone of this reply Zhou Rui’s wife was already able to make a pretty good guess as to the real purpose of the old woman’s visit; but because some years previously her husband had received a lot of help from Gou-er’s father in a dispute over the purchase of some land, she could not very well reject Grannie Liu now, when she came to her as a suppliant. She was, in any case, anxious to demonstrate her own importance in the Jia household; and so the answer she gave her was a gracious one.

  ‘Don’t you worry, Grannie! After you’ve made such a long pilgrimage, we won’t let you go home without seeing a real Buddha 1 By rights, of course, Callers and Visitors has nothing to do with me. You see, we each have our own jobs here. My man’s is collecting the half-yearly rents in the spring and autumn; and when he’s not doing that, he takes the young masters out when they go on visits. That’s all he ever does. Now my job is to attend to their ladyships and the young mistresses when they go out. But being as how you are a relation of Her ladyship, and since you’ve put your confidence in me and turned to me to help you, I don’t mind breaking the rules for once and taking in a message.

  ‘There’s only one thing, though. I don’t expect you know, but things here are very different from what they were five years ago. Nowadays Her Ladyship doesn’t run things here any longer. It’s Master Lian’s wife who does all the managing – You’ll never guess who that is: Her Ladyship’s niece Wang Xi-feng. You know, Her Ladyship’s eldest brother-’s daughter, that we used to call “Feng-ge” when she was a child.’

  ‘Bless you, my dear, for being such a help!’ said Grannie Liu.

  ‘Oh Grannie, how can you say such a thing?’ said Zhou Rui’s wife demurely. ‘You know what the old saying is, “He who helps others helps himself.” It’s only a question of saying a few words. No trouble at all.’

  So saying, she instructed the little maid to slip quietly round to the back of old Lady Jia’s quarters and ask if they were serving lunch yet. The little maid departed on her errand and the two women resumed their conversation.

  ‘This Mrs Lian,’ said Grannie Liu: ‘she can’t be more than eighteen or nineteen years old. She must be a very capable young woman. Fancy her being able to run a great household like this!’

  ‘Oh Grannie, you have no idea!’ said Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘Mrs Lian may be young, but when it comes to doing things, she’s got an older head on her shoulders than any I’ve ever come across. She’s grown up to be a real beauty too, has Mrs Lian. But sharp 1 Well, if it ever comes to a slanging match, she can talk down ten grown men any day of the week! Wait till you meet her, and you’ll see what I mean. There’s only one thing, though. She’s a bit too strict with those beneath her.’

  As she was speaking, the little maid came back, her errand completed.

  ‘They’ve finished serving lunch at Her Old Ladyship’s. Mrs Lian is still there.’

  Zhou Rui’s wife hurriedly rose to her feet and urged Grannie Liu to do likewise.

  ‘Quick! After she comes out from there she’ll be free for a few minutes while she has her meal. We must try and catch her then. If we delay a moment longer, people will start coming in with messages and we shan’t have a chance to speak to her. And once she goes off for her afternoon nap, we’ve really lost her!’

  Grannie Liu got off the kang, adjusted her clothing, conducted Ban-er through a rapid revision of his little stock of phra
ses and followed Zhou Rui’s wife through various twists and turns to Jia Lian’s quarters. Just before they reached them, Zhou Rui’s wife planted them both in a covered passage-way while she went on ahead round the screen wall and into the gate of the courtyard. First ascertaining that Wang Xi-feng had not yet left Lady Jia’s, she sought out Xi-feng’s chambermaid and principal confidante, Patience, and primed her with a full account of Grannie Liu’s antecedents.

  ‘She has come all this way today to pay her respects,’ she concluded. ‘At one time Her Ladyship used to see quite a lot of her, which is why I thought it would be in order for me to bring her in. I thought I would wait for the young mistress to come back and explain it all to her. I hope she won’t be angry with me for pushing myself forward.’

  Patience at once made up her mind what to do.

  ‘Let them come in here. They can sit here while they are waiting.’

  Zhou Rui’s wife went off again to fetch her charges. As they ascended the steps to the main reception room, a little maid lifted up the red carpet which served as a portiere for them to enter. A strange, delicious fragrance seemed to reach forward and enfold them as they entered, producing in Grannie Liu the momentary sensation that she had been transported bodily to one of the celestial paradises. Their eyes, too, were dazzled by the bright and glittering things that filled the room. Temporarily speechless with wonder, Grannie Liu stood wagging her head, alternating clicks of admiration with pious ejaculations.

  From the glittering reception room they passed to a room on the east side of it in which Jia Lian’s baby daughter slept. Patience, who was standing by the edge of the kang, made a rapid assessment of Grannie Liu and judged it sufficient to greet her with a civil ‘how-do-you-do’ and an invitation to be seated.