The Golden Days

by Cao Xueqin

  Grannie Liu looked at the silks and satins in which Patience was dressed, the gold and silver ornaments in her hair, her beauty of feature which in every respect corresponded with what she had been told of Wang Xi-feng, and taking the maid for the mistress, was on the point of greeting her as ‘Gou-er’s aunt’, when Zhou Rui’s wife introduced her as’ Miss Patience’. Then, when Patience shortly afterwards addressed Zhou Rui’s wife as ‘Mrs Zhou’, she knew that this was no mistress but a very high-class maid. So Grannie Liu and Ban-er got up on the kang at one side, while Patience and Zhou Rui’s wife sat near the edge of it on the other, and a little maid came in and poured them all some tea.

  Grannie Liu’s attention was distracted by a persistent tock tock tock tock not unlike the sound made by a flour-bolting machine, and she could not forbear glancing round her from time to time to see where it came from. Presently she caught sight of a sort of boxlike object fastened to one of the central pillars of the room, and a thing like the weight of a steelyard hanging down from it, which swung to and fro in ceaseless motion and appeared to be the source of the noise which had distracted her.

  ‘I wonder what that can be,’ she thought to herself, ‘and what it can be used for?’

  As she studied the strange box, it suddenly gave forth a loud dongi like the sound of a bronze bell or a copper chime, which so startled the old lady that her eyes nearly popped out of her head. The dongl was followed in rapid succession by eight or nine others, and Grannie Liu was on the point of asking what it meant, when all the maids in the house began scurrying about shouting, ‘The mistress I The mistress! She’ll be coming out now!’ and Patience and Zhou Rui’s wife hurriedly rose to their feet.

  ‘Just stay here, Grannie,’ they said. ‘When it is time for you to see her, we shall come in and fetch you’; and they went off with the other servants to greet their mistress.

  As Grannie Liu sat in silence, waiting with bated breath and head cocked to one side for her summons, she heard a far-off sound of laughter, followed presently by a sound of rustling dresses as between ten and twenty women entered the reception room and passed from it into the room beyond. Then two or three women bearing large red lacquer boxes took up their positions on the side nearest the room in which she sat and stood there waiting to be called. A voice in the far room called out,’ Serve now, please!’ at which, to judge from the noises, most of the women scuttled off, leaving only the few who were waiting at table. A long silence ensued in which not so much as a cheep could be heard; then two women came in bearing a small, low table which they set down on the kang. It was covered with bowls and dishes containing all kinds of meat and fish, only one or two of which appeared to have been touched. At the sight of it Ban-er set up a clamour for some meat and was silenced by Grannie Liu with a resounding slap.

  Just at that moment Zhou Rui’s wife appeared, her face all wreathed in smiles, and advanced towards Grannie Liu beckoning. Grannie Liu slipped off the kang, lifted down Ban-er, and exchanged a few hurried whispers with her in the reception room before waddling into the room beyond.

  A dark-red patterned curtain hung from brass hooks over the doorway. Inside, under the window in the south wall, there was a kang covered with a dark-red carpet. At the east end of the kang, up against the wooden partition wall, were a backrest and bolster, both covered in gold brocade, and a large flat cushion for sitting on, also glittering with gold thread. Beside them stood a silver spittoon.

  Wang Xi-feng had on a little cap of red sable, which she wore about the house for warmth, fastened on with a pearl-studded bandeau. She was dressed in a sprigged peach-pink gown, with an ermine-lined skirt of dark-red foreign crepe underneath it, and a cloak of slate-blue silk with woven coloured insets and lining of grey squirrel around her shoulders. Her face was exquisitely made-up. She was sitting on the edge of the kang, her back straight as a ramrod, with a diminutive pair of tongs in her hand, removing the spent charcoal from a portable hand-warmer. Patience stood beside her carrying a covered teacup on a tiny inlaid lacquer tray. Xi-feng appeared not to have noticed her, for she neither reached out for the cup nor raised her head, but continued picking ab-sorbedly at her hand-warmer. At last she spoke:

  ‘Why not ask them in, then?’

  As she did so, she raised her head and saw Zhou Rui’s wife with her two charges already standing in front of her. She made a confused movement as if to rise to her feet, welcomed the old lady with a look of unutterable benevolence, and almost in the same breath said rather crossly to Zhou Rui’s wife, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  By this time Grannie Liu was already down on her knees and had touched her head several times to the floor in reverence to her ‘Aunt Feng’.

  ‘Stop her, Zhou dear !’ said Xi-feng in alarm. ‘She mustn’t do that, I am much too young! In any case, I don’t know her very well. I don’t know what sort of relations we are and what I should call her.’

  ‘This is the Grannie Liu I was just telling you about,’ said Zhou Rui’s wife.

  Xi-feng nodded, and Grannie Liu sat herself down on the edge of the kang. Ban-er at once hid himself behind her back and neither threats nor blandishments would induce him to come out and make a bow to his ‘Auntie’.

  ‘Relations don’t come to see us much nowadays,’ said Xi-feng affably. ‘We are getting to be quite strangers with everybody. People who know us realize that it is because you are tired of us that you don’t visit us oftener; but some spiteful people who don’t know us so well think it’s our fault, because we have grown too proud.’

  Grannie Liu invoked the Lord Buddha in pious disavowal of so shocking a view.

  ‘It’s hard times that keeps us away. We can’t afford to visit. We are afraid that if we came to see you looking the way we are, you would disown us; and even the people at the gate might think we were tramps!’

  ‘Now you are really being too hard on us! What if Grandfather did make a little bit of a name for himself and we do hold some miserable little appointment? What does it all amount to ? It’s all empty show, really. You know what they say: “Even the Emperor has poor relations.” It would be strange indeed if we didn’t have a few!’

  She turned to Zhou Rui’s wife.

  ‘Have you told Her Ladyship yet?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I was waiting for your instructions.’

  ‘Go and have a look, then. If she has anyone with her, you had better leave it; but if she is free, tell her about their visit and see what she says.’

  Zhou Rui’s wife departed on her errand.

  Xi-feng told one of the servants to give Ban-er a handful of sweets, and had just begun a desultory conversation with Grannie Liu when a number of domestics and underlings of either sex arrived to report on their duties.

  ‘I am entertaining a guest,’ said Xi-feng to Patience when she came in to announce their arrival. ‘Let them leave it until this evening. But if anyone has important business, bring them in and I will deal with it now.’

  Patience went out and returned a minute later to say that she had asked them and no one had any business of special importance, so she had sent them all away. Xi-feng nodded.

  At this point Zhou Rui’s wife returned with a message for Xi-feng.

  ‘Her Ladyship says she isn’t free today, but that if you will entertain them for her, it will be just the same as if she were to receive them herself. She says please thank them very much for coming. And she says if it’s just an ordinary visit she has nothing more to add; but if they have anything particular to say, she says tell them that they can say it to you instead.’

  ‘I hadn’t anything particular in mind,’ said Grannie Liu.

  ‘Only to look in on Her Ladyship and your mistress. Just a visit to relations.’

  ‘Well all right then, if you are sure you have nothing to say. But if you have got anything to say, you really ought to tell the mistress. It will be just the same as if you were to say it to Her Ladyship.’ Zhou Rui’s wife darted a meaningful look at Grannie Liu as she s
aid this.

  Grannie Liu perfectly well understood the significance of this look, and a blush of shame overspread her face. Yet if she did not speak up now, what would have been the purpose of her visit ? She forced herself to say something.

  ‘By rights I ought not to mention it today, seeing that this is our first meeting: but as I have come such a long way to see you, it seems silly not to speak . ..’

  She had got no further when the pages from the outer gate announced the arrival of ‘the young master from the Ning mansion’ and Xi-feng gestured to her to stop.

  ‘It’s all right. There is no need to tell me.’ She turned to the pages. ‘Where is Master Rong, then?’

  A man’s footstep sounded outside and a fresh-faced, willowy youth of seventeen or eighteen in elegant and expensive-looking winter dress came into the room.

  Grannie Liu, acutely embarrassed in this male presence, did not know whether to sit or stand, and looked round her in vain for somewhere to hide herself. Xi-feng laughed at het discomfiture.

  ‘Don’t mind him; just stay where you are! It’s only my nephew.’

  With a good deal of girlish simpering Grannie Liu sat down again, perching herself obliquely on the extreme edge of the kang.

  Jia Rong saluted his aunt Manchu fashion.

  ‘My father is entertaining an important visitor tomorrow and he wondered if he might borrow the little glass screen that your Uncle Wang’s wife gave you, to put on our kang while he is there. We can let you have it back again as soon as he has gone.’

  ‘You are too late,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I lent it yesterday to someone else.’

  Jia Rong flashed a winning smile at her and half-knelt on the side of the kang.

  ‘If you won’t lend it, my father will say that I didn’t ask properly and I shall get a beating. Come on, Auntie, be a sport! Just for my sake!’

  Xi-feng smiled maliciously.

  ‘I don’t know what’s so special about my family’s things. Heaven knows, you have enough stuff of your own over there; yet you have only to set eyes on anything of ours, and you want it for yourselves.’

  Jia Rong’s smile flashed again.

  ‘Please, Auntie! Be merciful!’

  ‘If it’s the tiniest bit chipped,’ said Xi-feng, Til have the hide off you !’

  She ordered Patience to take the key of the upstairs room and get some reliable servants to carry it over. Delighted with his good luck, Jia Rong hurriedly forestalled her.

  ‘I’ll get some of my own people to carry it. Don’t put yours to a lot of trouble!’ and he hurried out.

  Xi-feng suddenly seemed to remember something, and called to him through the window, ‘Rong, come back!’

  Servants in the yard outside dutifully took up the cry, ‘Master Rong, you’re wanted back again!’

  Jia Rong came hurrying back, wreathed in smiles, and looked at Xi-feng with eyebrows arched inquiringly.

  Xi-feng, however, sipped very intently from her teacup and mused for a while, saying nothing. Suddenly her face flushed and she gave a little laugh:

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Come back again after supper. I’ve got company now, and besides, I don’t feel in the mood to tell you.’

  ‘Yes, Aunt,’ said Jia Rong, and pursing his lips up in a complacent smile he sauntered slowly out of the room.

  Having all this while had time to collect herself, Grannie Liu began her speech again:

  ‘The real reason I have brought your little nephew here today is because his Pa and Ma haven’t anything in the house to eat, and the weather is getting colder, and – and – 1 thought I’d bring him here to see you…’ She gave Ban-er a despairing push. ‘What did your Pa tell you to say when we got here ? What was it he sent us for ? Look at you! All you can do is sit there eating sweets!’

  It was abundantly clear to Xi-feng that the old lady was too embarrassed to go on, and she put her out of her misery with a gracious smile.

  ‘It’s quite all right. There is no need to tell me. I quite understand.’ She turned to Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘I wonder if Grannie has eaten yet today ?’

  ‘We were on our way first thing this morning,’ Grannie Liu chimed in. ‘There was no time to think about eating.’

  Xi-feng gave orders for a meal to be brought in, and Zhou Rui’s wife went out and presently reappeared with a guest’s portion of various choice dishes on a little table, which she set down in the east wing, and to which she then conducted Grannie Liu and Ban-er for their meal.

  ‘Zhou, dear,’ said Xi-feng, ‘will you keep them company and see that they have enough to eat? I shan’t be able to sit with them myself.’ Then calling her aside for a moment she asked, ‘What did Her Ladyship say when you went to report about them just now?’

  ‘She said they don’t really belong to the family but were adopted into the clan years ago when your grandfather and theirs were working in the same office. She said they haven’t been round much of late years, but in the old days when they used to visit us we never sent them back empty-handed. She said it was nice of them to come and see us today and we should be careful to treat them considerately. And she said if they appear to want anything, she would leave it to you to decide what we should do for them.’

  ‘No wonder!’ exclaimed Xi-feng when she had heard this account. ‘I couldn’t understand how they could be really related to us if I had never even heard of them.’

  While they were talking, Grannie Liu came back from the other room having already finished eating, smacking her lips and sucking her teeth appreciatively, and voicing her thanks for the repast.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Xi-feng with a smile. ‘I have something to say to you. I quite understand what you were trying to tell me just now. As we are relations, we ought by rights not to wait for you to come to our door before helping you when you are in trouble; but there are so many things to attend to in this family, and now that Her Ladyship is getting on a bit she doesn’t always remember them all. And since I took over the management of the household, I find there are quite a lot of relations that I don’t even know about. And then again, of course, though we may look thriving enough from the outside, people don’t realize that being a big establishment like ours carries its own difficulties. They won’t believe it if you tell them, but it’s true. However, since you have come such a long way, and since this is the first time you have ever said a word about needing help, we obviously can’t let you go back empty-handed. Fortunately it so happens that I still haven’t touched any of the twenty taels of silver that Her Ladyship gave me the other day to make clothes for the maids with. If you don’t mind it being so little, you are very welcome to take it.’

  When Grannie Liu heard Xi-feng talk about ‘difficulties’ she concluded that there was no hope. Her delight and the way in which her face lit up with pleasure when she heard that she was, after all, to be given twenty taels of silver can be imagined.

  ‘We knew you had your troubles,’ she said, ‘but as the saying goes, “A starved camel is bigger than a fat horse.” Say what you like, a hair plucked from your arm is thicker than a man’s waist to folks like us !’

  Horrified by the crudity of these expressions, Zhou Rui’s wife, who was standing by, was meanwhile signalling frantically to the old lady to stop. But Xi-feng laughed quite unconcernedly and told Patience to wrap up the silver and also to fetch a string of cash to go with it. The money was set down in front of Grannie Liu.

  ‘Here is the twenty taels of silver,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Take this for the time being to make some winter clothes for the children with. Some time later on, when you have nothing better to do, look in on us for a day or two for kinship’s sake. It’s late now, so I won’t try to keep you. Give our regards to everybody who ought to be remembered when you get back!’

  She rose to her feet, and Grannie Liu, with heartfelt expressions of gratitude, picked up the money and followed Zhou Rui’s wife out of the room.

  ‘My dear good woman,’ said the latter when they were out of earshot, �
�whatever came over you? First, when you met her, you couldn’t get a word out; then, when you did start talking, it was all “your nephew” this and “your nephew” that 1 I hope you won’t mind my saying so, but even if the child was a real nephew you would still need to go a bit easy on the familiarities. Now Master Rong, he is her real nephew. That’s the sort of person a lady like that calls “nephew” . Where she would come by a nephew like this one, I just do not know!’

  ‘My dear,’ replied Grannie Liu with a laugh, ‘when I saw the pretty little darling sitting there, I took such a liking to her that my heart was too full to speak.’

  Back in Zhou Rui’s quarters the two women sat talking for a while. Grannie Liu wanted to leave a piece of silver to buy something for the Zhou children with, but Zhou Rui’s wife said she wouldn’t hear of it and refused absolutely to accept anything. And so, with many expressions of gratitude, the old lady took her leave and set out once more through the back gate of the mansion.

  And if you want to know what happened after she had left, you will have to read the next chapter.

  Chapter 7

  Zhou Rui’s wife delivers palace flowers and finds Jia

  Lian pursuing night sports by day

  Jia Bao-yu visits the Ning-guo mansion and has an

  agreeable colloquy with Qin-shi’s brother

  When Zhou Rui’s wife had finished seeing off Grannie Liu, she went to Lady Wang’s place to report. Lady Wang, however, was not in her apartment. The maids said that she had gone off to visit Aunt Xue. Zhou Rui’s wife accordingly went out by the gate in the east corner of the compound, crossed the eastern courtyard, and made her way to Pear Tree Court. As she reached the gate of the Court, she came upon Lady Wang’s maid, Golden, playing on the front steps with a young girl. Golden realized that Zhou Rui’s wife must have come with a message for Lady Wang and indicated that her mistress was inside by turning her chin towards the house and shooting out her lips.

  Zhou Rui’s wife gently raised a side of the portière and entered. She found the two sisters in the midst of a seemingly interminable discussion of some domestic odyssey. Not daring to interrupt it, she passed on into the inner room, where Xue Bao-chai, dressed in workaday clothes, her hair unadorned and twisted in a knot on top of her head, sat with her maid Oriole over a little table towards the back of the kang, tracing a pattern for her embroidery. Seeing Zhou Rui’s wife enter, she laid down her tracing brush, turned towards her with a smile, and invited her to sit with them.