The Golden Days

by Cao Xueqin

  ‘I am not much of a manager really,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I haven’t got the knowledge, and I’m too poor at expressing myself and too simple-minded – always inclined to “ take a ramrod for a needle”, as they say. Besides, I’m too soft-hearted for the job. Anyone who says a few kind words can get the better of me. And my lack of experience makes me so nervous. Aunt Wang only had to be the slightest bit displeased and I would get so upset that I couldn’t sleep at night. I begged her not to make me do all these things, but she insisted. She said I only refused out of laziness and unwillingness to learn. I don’t think she realizes even now the state I have been in – too scared to move or even to open my mouth for fear of saying or doing something wrong. And you know what a difficult lot those old stewardesses are. The tiniest mistake and they are all laughing at you and making fun; the tiniest hint of favouritism and they are grumbling and complaining. You know their way of “cursing the oak-tree when they mean the ash”. Those old women know just how to sit on the mountain-top and watch the tigers fight; how to murder with a borrowed knife, or help the wind to fan the fire. They will look on safely from the bank while you are drowning in the river. And the fallen oil-bottle can drain away: they are not going to pick it up. On top of that, as I am so young, I haven’t got much authority over them; so it was all I could do to prevent them from ignoring me altogether. And to crown it all, when Rong’s wife died Cousin Zhen kept coming round to see Aunt Wang and begging her on his knees to let me help out for a day or two next door. I said again and again that I couldn’t do it; but Aunt Wang agreed just to please him, so there was nothing for it but to do as I was told. I’m afraid I made a terrible mess of it – even worse than I did here. And now it seems Cousin Zhen is beginning to grumble and says he wishes he had never asked me. When you see him tomorrow, do please try to make it up with him. Tell him it’s because I’m young and inexperienced. You might even hint that it’s his own fault for having asked me in the first place!’

  While she was saying this there was a sound of talking in the next room.

  ‘Who is it?’ said Xi-feng.

  Patience came in to reply.

  ‘Mrs Xue sent Caltrop over to ask me about something. I’ve already given her an answer and sent her back.’

  ‘Ah yes!’ said Jia Lian, apparently pleased by the recollection. ‘When I went to call on Aunt Xue just now to tell her I was back, I ran into such a pretty young woman! I couldn’t place her as any of the girls in our household, so in the course of conversation I asked Aunt Xue who she was. It seems that she’s the little maid they had that lawsuit about. Cal— something. Caltrop. She’s finally been given as “chamber-wife” to that idiot Xue. Now that she has been plucked and painted like a grown-up woman she really does look most attractive! What a waste to throw away a beautiful girl on that great booby!’

  Xi-feng made a little moue.

  ‘I should have thought that having just got back from Hangchow arid Soochow and seen something of the world, you would have settled down a bit; but I see you are still the same greedy-guts as ever. Well, if you want her, there’s nothing simpler: I’ll exchange our Patience for her. You know what Cousin Xue is like: always “one eye on the dish and the other on the saucepan”. Throughout the whole of this last year there have been I don’t know how many alarms and excursions between him and poor Aunt Xue because she wouldn’t let him get his hands on Caltrop. It wasn’t just her looks that made her concerned for the girl. Everything about her is so unusual. She is so gentle and so quiet. Even among our own young ladies there is scarcely her equal. In the end Aunt Xue decided that if she couldn’t stop him having her, at least she could make sure that the thing was done properly, with a party and invitations and all the rest of it. So that’s what she did, and made her his chamber wife. But would you believe it, before a fortnight had gone by he had completely lost interest…!’

  She was interrupted by an announcement from one of the pages on the inner gate:

  ‘Mr Zhen wants you, sir. He’s waiting for you in the larger study.’

  At once Jia Lian did up his gown and hurried out.

  ‘What on earth did Mrs Xue want, sending Caltrop here like that?’ Xi-feng asked Patience as soon as he had gone.

  ‘It wasn’t Caltrop!’ said Patience. ‘I had to make something up and hers was the first name that came to mind. That wife of Brightie’s is such a stupid woman! Just imagine’ – she drew closer to Xi-feng’s ear and lowered her voice – ‘of all the times she could have chosen to bring you the interest on that money, she had to pick on the very moment when the Master has just got home! It’s lucky I was in the outside room when she came, otherwise she might have come blundering in here and Master would have heard her message. And we all know what Master is like where money is concerned: he’d spend the fat in the frying-pan if he could get it out! Once he found out that you had savings, he’d pluck up courage to spend them in too time. Anyway, I took the money from her quickly and gave her a piece of my mind – which I am afraid you must have heard. That’s why I had to say what I did. I’d never have mentioned Caltrop in the Master’s presence otherwise!’

  Xi-feng laughed.

  ‘I was going to say! Why, for no apparent reason, should Mrs Xue choose a chamber-wife to send here the moment Master gets back? So it was you up to your tricks, you little monkey!’

  At this point Jia Lian came in again and Xi-feng ordered her maids to serve the wine and various choice dishes to go with it. Husband and wife sat cross-legged at opposite sides of the low table on the kang and began their drinking – Xi-feng with some restraint, although she was normally a fairly hard drinker, in view of the occasion.

  They had not been drinking long when Jia Lian’s old wet-nurse, Nannie Zhao, walked in. The young couple at once invited her to drink with them and tried to make her join them on the kang. This last honour she would under no circumstances accept, and Patience and the girls laid a little table for her at the side of the kang and set a little stool beside it, on which she sat down very contentedly. Jia Lian made a selection with his chopsticks from the dishes on the table, and after heaping up two platefuls, set them down on Nannie Zhao’s own little table for her to eat there by herself. Xi-feng was critical:

  ‘Nannie can’t chew stuff like that. She’ll break her teeth on it!’ She turned to Patience. ‘That piece of boiled gammon in the bowl I said this morning was so tender: that would be just the thing for Nannie. Why don’t you run round to the kitchen and ask them to heat it up for her? – Nannie,’ she said, addressing the old woman, ‘you must try some of the rice wine your Lian brought back with him from the South!’

  ‘Ooh yes!’ said Nannie Zhao,’ I must try some of thatl And you must have some too, Mrs Lian. Never fear 1 As long as you don’t drink too much, ‘twill do you good. But I didn’t come all the way here for vittles and drink, bless you. I came on more serious business. And you heed my words, Mrs Lian, and stick up for me; because that Master Lian of yours he always says he’ll do something, but when you go to see him later, he’s clean forgot all about it! To think I reared you up on the milk of my own bosom, Master Lian! And a fine young man you’ve growed into, thanks be! Well, I’m old and of no account now. But there are these two sons of mine, d’ye see ? If only you would be more like a foster-brother to them and look after them a bit, no one would dare say a word agen them. But dearie me! I’ve asked you again and again to help them, and you always says yes; yet to this very day nothing has ever come of it. Well, what I thought was this, Mrs Lian. With this great blessing of Heaven that’s come on the family on account of your eldest young lady, surely, I thought to myself, there must be jobs in this for someone? I’ll talk to Mrs Lian about it, I said to myself; because if I rely on Master Lian to help us, we’ll starve to death for certain sure!’

  Xi-feng laughed.

  ‘Leave your two boys to me, Nannie. I’ll look after them! You know all about Lian’s little ways because you nursed him when he was a baby: he’ll give the dearest thi
ng he has to some nobody he’s picked up outside, yet his own two foster-brothers who are much nicer young men than any of his favourites he neglects completely. If only you would take a bit of interest in them, Lian, you wouldn’t hear a word of complaint from anyone, instead of wasting your kindnesses on those – those little male misses of yours! I shouldn’t have called them “misses” , though. You treat the misses as your missus and give me the miss!’

  There was a loud laugh from everyone present, including Nannie Zhao, who concluded her cackles with a pious invocation:

  ‘Bless his Holy Name! Here at last comes a just judge to set all things to rights – But oh Mrs Lian, those naughty things you said about “misses” : that’s not my Master Lian. It’s just that he’s so soft-hearted he can’t bring himself to say “no” to anyone who spins him a tale.’

  ‘Soft-hearted with his boy friends, maybe,’ said Xi-feng with a lubricious smile; ‘but when he has to do with us women he is hard enough.’

  ‘Tee, hee, hee, what a one you are, Mrs Lian! I don’t know when I was last so merry. Come on, let’s have another cup of that good wine I – Now that I’ve got Mrs Lian to stand up for me I shall have no more worries!’

  Jia Lian was by now thoroughly embarrassed and laughed sheepishly.

  ‘Stop all this nonsense now and serve the rice! I’ve still got to go round to Cousin Zhen’s after this to discuss things.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Xi-feng. ‘We mustn’t make you late for that. What did Cousin Zhen want you for just now ?’

  ‘It was about the visitation business,’ said Jia Lian.

  ‘Has it been settled, then?’

  ‘Well, not absolutely. Eight or nine parts settled, you might say.’

  ‘That’s a great favour of the Emperor’s, isn’t it?’ said Xi-feng. ‘Something you don’t hear of even in plays and stories about the olden days.’

  ‘Very true!’ chimed in Nannie Zhao. ‘But I must be getting old and stupid, for everywhere these last few days have been a-buzz with talk of “visitations” , but blessed if I can make head or tail of it. You tell us now: just what manner of thing is this “visitation” ?’

  Jia Lian undertook to do so.

  ‘Our present Emperor, who has always had a great sympathy for the common man, believes that the filial affection of a child for its parents is the most important thing in the world, and that family feeling is the same everywhere, irrespective of social rank. He has found that in his own case, even after seeing the Ex-Emperor and Ex-Empress morning, noon and night every day of his life, he is still unable to express more than a fraction of the devotion he feels for them; and this has led him to think of all those concubines and maids of honour and other court ladies, taken from their homes and shut up in the Palace for years and years on end, and to realize how much they must miss their parents. And from there he got to thinking of the parents themselves, how they must long for the daughters they can never see again. And then he thought what a crime against Nature it would be if any of those parents were to become ill as a result of not seeing their daughters. And so he addressed a Memorial to the Ex-Emperor and Ex-Empress requesting permission to allow the families of palace ladies to visit them in the Palace on the twelfth day of every month. When Their Old Majesties saw this Memorial they were very pleased and praised the Emperor for his piety and goodness -“doing Heaven’s work among men” they called it. But they pointed out in their Rescript that when the families of court ladies entered the Palace on these visits, they would inevitably be hampered by the restrictions of court etiquette in the expression of their natural feelings. So in the end, by an act of supreme generosity, the Emperor issued a special decree in which he said that, apart from allowing the families of court ladies to visit their daughters in the Palace on the twelfth day of each month, he would allow any family which had a separate house or annexe capable of being maintained in the degree of security specified for a Temporary Imperial Residence to make written application for permission to receive a Visitation in their own home, where the pleasures of reunion could be enjoyed in an atmosphere of intimacy and affection. The proclamation of this decree has created quite a stir. The Imperial Concubine Lady Zhou’s father already has the builders at work on a special wing for visitations in his house, and Lady Wu’s father, Wu Tian-you, has been outside the city looking for a site. So it’s already eight or nine parts settled, as I said.’

  ‘Bless my soul!’ said Nannie Zhao. ‘So that’s what it is! Well, I suppose in that case we shall soon be getting ready to receive our young lady?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jia Lian. ‘What else do you think we’re all so busy about ?’

  ‘If we do receive her,’ said Xi-feng, ‘it should be an experience worth remembering. I’ve often wished I’d been born twenty or thirty years earlier so that the old folk wouldn’t be able to look down on me for having missed so much. To hear them talk about the Emperor Tai-zu’s Southern Progress is better than listening to a story-teller. How I wish I’d been there to see it all!’

  ‘Ah, now!’ said Nannie Zhao. ‘That’s the sort of thing that scarce comes once in a thousand years! I was not so young then that I can’t still remember. The head of the Jia family in those days was Superintendant of Shipyards and Harbour Maint’nance in the Soochow-Yangchow area and was chosen to receive the Emperor on one of his visits. The way they spent silver on that visit, why, it was like pouring out salt sea water! I call to mind…’

  Xi-feng in her eagerness cut her short:

  ‘We Wangs received the Emperor on one of his visits, too. At that time my grandfather was in charge of all the foreign tribute and the embassies going up to Court. Whenever any foreigners arrived, it was aiways my family that put them up. All the goods brought by the foreign ships to the seaports in Kwangtung, Fukien, Yunnan and Chekiang passed through our hands.’

  ‘Everybody knows that,’ said Nannie Zhao. ‘There’s even a rhyme about it:

  The King of the Ocean

  Goes along,

  When he’s short of gold beds,

  To the Nanking Wang.

  That’s your family: the “Nanking Wangs”. But then there’s the Zhens, who still live down thatway in Kiangnan. My word I There’s riches for you! That family alone received the Emperor four times! If I hadn’t seen with my own two eyes, I don’t care who told me, I wouldn’t have credited it, the sights I saw then] Never mind silver. Silver was just dirt to them. Every precious thing in the world you can think of they had there in mountains! Words like “save” and “spare” they just didn’t seem to know the meaning of!’

  ‘I believe you,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I’ve heard my grandfather talk about it, and he said it was just like that. But it still amazes me that a single family could have so much wealth.’

  ‘I’ll tell you something, Mrs Lian,’ said the knowledgeable Nannie. ‘Twere no more than paying for the Emperor’s entertainment with the Emperor’s own silver. No family that ever lived had money enough of its own to pay for such spectacles of vanity!’

  While they were chatting, Lady Wang sent someone round to see if Xi-feng had finished her dinner yet. Xi-feng realized that there must be something which demanded her attention and, finishing hurriedly, rinsed out her mouth and prepared to go. Before she could leave, however, the pages from the second gate announced the arrival of Jia Rong and Jia Qiang from the Ning-guo mansion next door. Jia Lian had just finished rinsing his mouth and was washing his hands in a basin held out for him by Patience when the two young men came into the room.

  ‘What is your message?’ he asked them.

  Xi-feng, curious, stayed to hear.

  ‘Father sent us to tell you that the uncles have already reached a decision,’ said Jia Rong.’ They have measured off an area just over a quarter of a mile square which takes in a part of our grounds, including the All-scents Garden, on the east side, and the north-west corner of your grounds on the west, to be turned into a Separate Residence for the Visitation. They’ve already commissioned so
meone to draw a plan, which should be ready tomorrow. Father says as you’ve just got home he’s sure you must be tired, so don’t bother to come round tonight. If there’s anything to discuss, you can tell him about it first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank your father for me very much,’ said Jia Lian with a grateful smile.’ It is very good of him to let me off tonight, and I shall do as he says and not go over until tomorrow. I think the great advantage of this proposal is that it is so economical and makes the job of construction so much easier. It would mean very much more trouble if we were to build on land outside, yet at the same time we should lose the convenience this present scheme gives us of a single layout. Tell him when you get back that I think it is an excellent proposal, and that I leave it to him to protest in any way he thinks fit if the others show signs of going back on it. The one thing we must under no circumstances do is to go looking for land outside. Anyway, I shall be round to see him first thing tomorrow and we can talk about it in detail then.’

  Jia Rong promised to retail this message.

  Jia Qiang now stepped forward with a message of his own:

  ‘Uncle Zhen has given me the job of going to Soochow to engage music and drama teachers and to buy girl players and instruments and costumes so. that we can have our own theatricals for the visitation. I’m to take Lai Sheng’s two sons with me; and two of Great-uncle Zheng’s gentlemen, Dan Ping-ren and Bu Gu-xiu, are coming as well. Uncle said I ought to have a word with you about it before I go.’

  Jia Lian looked the youth up and down appraisingly and laughed:

  ‘Do you think you are qualified for the job? It may not be a very big one, but I should say the pickings would be pretty good for someone who knew the ropes.’

  Jia Qiang laughed too.

  ‘I shall have to learn as I go along!’