The Golden Days

by Cao Xueqin

  a rosary of putchuk beads

  four lengths of ‘Fu Gui Chang Chun’ tribute satin

  four lengths of ‘Fu Shou Mian Chang’ tribute silk

  ten medallions of red gold with a design showing an

  ingot, a writing-brush and a sceptre (which in the

  riddling rebus-language used by the makers of

  such objects meant ‘All your heart’s desire’)

  ten silver medallions with a design showing a stone-

  chime flanked by a pair of little fish (carrying the

  rebus-message ‘Blessings in abundance’)

  Lady Xing, Lady Wang and Aunt Xue each received the same selection of gifts as Grandmother Jia with the omission of the sceptres, staff and rosary.

  To Jia Jing, Jia She and Jia Zheng (each):

  two new books of His Imperial Majesty’s own

  composition

  two boxes of ink-sticks (collector’s pieces)

  one solid gold wine-cup

  one solid silver ditto

  silks and satins as above.

  To Bao-chai, Dai-yu, Ying-chun, Tan-chun and Xi-chun (each):

  one new book

  one inkstone (collector’s piece)

  two specially designed medallions in gold

  two ditto in silver

  To Bao-yu and Jia Lan (each):

  one gold necklet

  one silver ditto

  two gold medallions

  two silver ditto

  To You-shi, Li Wan and Xi-feng (each):

  two gold medallions

  two silver ditto

  four dress-lengths of tribute silk

  (Also twenty-four lengths of silk and one hundred strings of unmixed Imperial Mint copper cash for the women-servants and maids in attendance on Grandmother Jia, Lady Wang and the girls)

  To Cousin Zhen, Jia Lian, Jia Huan and Jia Rong (each):

  one length of tribute satin

  one gold medallion

  one silver ditto

  There were also a hundred bales of variegated satins, a thousand taels of silver and an unspecified number of bottles of Palace wine for the senior servants of the Rong and Ning Mansions and Separate Residence responsible for construction and maintenance, attendance, theatre management, and lighting, and an additional five hundred strings of unmixed Imperial Mint copper cash for the cooks, entertainers and Miscellaneous.

  When all had expressed their thanks, one of the eunuchs in charge announced that it was a quarter to three and time for Her Grace to return to the Palace. At once Yuan-chun’s eyes filled with tears, and even though she forced herself to smile, she was unable to prevent a few drops from falling. Clinging to Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang as if she would never let them go, she begged them again and again not to grieve for her.

  ‘Now you mustn’t worry about me, my dears: just look after yourselves! Thanks to the Emperor’s kindness, we are now allowed visits in the Palace once a month: so you see we can see each other quite easily. It is silly of us to be so upset I And if His Majesty is gracious enough to permit another Visitation next year, you really mustn’t be so extravagant again on my account!’

  Grandmother Jia and the others were now sobbing audibly and were much too overcome to reply. But Yuan-chun, however hard it was to leave her family, dared not infringe the regulations of the Imperial Household, and steeled herself to re-enter the palanquin which was to carry her away. It was all the rest of the family could do to restrain Grandmother Jia from making a scene, and when she was somewhat calmed, she and Lady Wang had to be led weeping from the garden in a state of near-collapse.

  What followed will be told in the next chapter.

  Chapter 19

  A very earnest young woman offers

  counsel by night

  And a very endearing one is found to

  be a source of fragrance by day

  On the day following the Imperial Concubine’s return to the Palace, she called on the Emperor to offer thanks and gave him a full account of her Visitation. The Emperor was visibly pleased by her report and commanded that bounties of gold, silver and silks should be issued to Jia Zheng and the other fathers of visiting ladies by the Inner Treasury.

  But there is no need for us to pursue these matters in further detail.

  The events of the last few days had taxed the energies of all the inmates of the Ning-guo and Rong-guo mansions to the utmost, and by now all of them were feeling both physically and mentally exhausted. Even so, Xi-feng forced herself to supervise the taking down and storing away of all the decorations and other movables from the garden – an operation which took another two or three days to accomplish.

  Xi-feng’s duties and responsibilities were so many that she could not evade them and seek recuperation in rest and quiet as the others did. At the same time, however, the anxiety to be thought well of and the shrinking fear of criticism that were a part of her nature made her take pains, even when she was at her busiest, to appear outwardly as idle and unoccupied as the rest.

  Of those idle and unoccupied rest, the idlest and most unoccupied was Bao-yu. On this particular morning, Aroma’s mother had been round first thing to report to Grandmother Jia that she was taking her daughter home for a New Year’s party and would not be bringing her back until late that evening. After her departure Bao-yu played ‘Racing Go’ with the other maids. This was a game in which you moved your Go-piece across the board in accordance with the throw of dice, the object being to reach the opposite side before everyone else and pocket all the stakes.

  He was already tired of sitting indoors and was beginning to find the game boring, when one of the maids told him that someone had just been round from Cousin Zhen’s inviting him over to the other house to see their New Year lanterns and to join them in watching some plays. Bao-yu told the maids to fetch his going-out clothes and help him change. As he was on the point of leaving, someone arrived with a present of sweetened koumiss from the Imperial Concubine. He remembered how much Aroma had enjoyed this drink last time they had had some, and asked them to put it by for her. Then, having first called on Grandmother Jia to tell her he was leaving, he went over to the other house to watch the players.

  The plays they were performing turned out to be very noisy ones: Ding-lang Finds His Father, Huang Bo-yang and the Ghostly Army, Monkey Makes War in Heaven and The Investiture of the Gods. All of them, but especially the last two, seemed to involve much rushing in and out of supernatural beings, and the sound of drums and cymbals and blood-curdling battle-cries, as they whirled into combat across the stage with banners flying and weapons flashing or invoked the names of the Buddha with waving of burning joss-sticks, was positively deafening. It carried into the street outside, where the passers-by smiled appreciatively and told each other that only a family like the Jias could afford theatricals that produced so satisfying a volume of noise.

  To Bao-yu, however, a little of this kind of thing was more than enough, and after sitting for a short while with the rest, he drifted off to seek his amusement elsewhere. To begin with he went inside and spent some time in bantering conversation with You-shi and the maids and concubines in the women’s quarters. When he went off once more through the inner gate, the women assumed that he was going back to the play and made no attempt to detain him. The menfolk – Cousin Zhen, Jia Lian, Xue Pan and the rest – were engrossed in games of guess-fingers and other convivial aids to drunkenness, and if they noticed his absence at all, assumed that he was inside with the ladies and did not comment on it.

  As for the pages who had accompanied him: the older ones, estimating that he had almost certainly come over for the day, gave themselves time off to gamble and drink with their cronies or to visit friends and relations outside, confident that if they returned in the evening they would be in time for Bao-yu’s departure. The younger ones wormed their way into the green-room to watch the excitement and get in the way of the actors. Bao-yu was left without a single one of them in attendance.

 
Finding himself alone, he began thinking about a certain painting he remembered having seen in Cousin Zhen’s ‘smaller study’. It was a very life-like portrait of a beautiful woman. While everyone was celebrating, he reflected, she was sure to have been left on her own and would perhaps be feeling lonely. He would go and have a look at her and cheer her up.

  But as he approached the study, he experienced a sudden thrill of fright. A gentle moaning could be heard coming from inside it.

  ‘Good gracious!’ he thought. ‘Can the woman in the painting really have come to life?’

  He made a tiny hole in the paper window with his tongue and peeped through. It was no painted lady he saw, stepped down from her hanging scroll upon the wall, but Tealeaf, pressed upon the body of a girl and evidently engaged in those exercises in which Bao-yu had once been instructed by the fairy Disenchantment.

  ‘Good lord!’

  He cried out involuntarily, and kicking open the door, strode into the study, so startling the two inside that they shook in their clothes. Seeing that it was Bao-yu, Tealeaf at once fell upon his knees and begged for mercy.

  ‘In broad daylight!’ said Bao-yu. ‘What do you think you’re at? If Mr Zhen got to hear of this, it would be more than your life is worth.’

  As he spoke, his eye fell upon the girl. She had a soft, white skin, to whose charms he could not be insensible. At the moment she was red to the very tips of her ears and stood there in silence, hanging her head with shame. Bao-yu stamped his foot impatiently:

  ‘Why don’t you go?’

  The words seemed to bring her to herself, for she turned and fled immediately. Bao-yu ran after her, shouting.

  ‘Don’t be afraid! I won’t tell anyone!’

  Tealeaf, running out behind him, was frantic:

  ‘My dear little grandfather, that’s exactly what you are doing!’

  ‘How old is she?’ Bao-yu asked him.

  ‘Not more than fifteen or so,’ said Tealeaf.

  ‘You don’t even know her age!’ said Bao-yu. ‘You can do this to her without even knowing her age! She’s wasted on you, that’s evident. Poor girl! What’s her name?’

  ‘Ah now, that’s quite a story,’ said Tealeaf with a broad smile. ‘She says that just before she was born her mother dreamed she saw a beautiful piece of brocade, woven in all the colours of the rainbow, with a pattern of lucky swastikas all over it. So when she was born, she gave her the name “Swastika” .’

  Bao-yu smiled back.

  ‘She ought to have a lucky future ahead of her, then. Shall I ask them tomorrow if you can have her for your wife?’

  Tealeaf thought this was a huge joke.

  ‘Why aren’t you watching the plays, Master Bao?’ he asked. ‘They’re ever so good!’

  ‘I did watch for quite a while,’ said Bao-yu, ‘but I got rather deafened and came out to walk around for a bit. That’s how I found you here. But what are we going to do now?’

  Tealeaf gave a sly little smile:

  ‘What about going for a ride outside the city ? If we slipped off quietly we could get there and back without anyone knowing.’

  ‘Too risky,’ said Bao-yu. ‘We might get kidnapped or something. Besides, there would be terrible trouble if they found out. It’d better be somewhere nearer, so that we can get back quickly.’

  ‘Who do we know near here that we could call on?’ said Tealeaf. ‘I can’t think of anyone.’

  ‘I know,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Why don’t we go round to the Huas’ house and see what Aroma is up to?’

  ‘All right. But I’ve forgotten where they live,’ said Tealeaf untruthfully. ‘And suppose they do find out you’ve been gadding around outside’ (he added the real reason for his hesitation) ‘they’ll say I put you up to it, and I shall get a beating.’

  ‘I’ll see you don’t get into trouble,’ said Bao-yu.

  Reassured, Tealeaf fetched the horse, and the two of them slipped out by the back entrance.

  Luckily the Huas’ house was only a few hundred yards from the Ning-guo mansion, and in no time at all they had reached its gate. Tealeaf entered first and called out the name of Aroma’s elder brother, Hua Zi-fang.

  Aroma’s mother was not long back from collecting the various nieces, on both her own and her late husband’s side of the family, who had had to be fetched after she had been to call for Aroma, and the family had only just settled down to their tea when they heard this voice outside calling for Hua Zi-fang. To the latter’s considerable surprise and mystification he found, on going outside to look, his sister’s young master waiting at the gate with a servant. Having first lifted Bao-yu off his horse, he went back into the courtyard and bawled to the rest inside:

  ‘It’s Master Bao!’

  Aroma was dumbfounded and came running out to discover the cause of this unaccountable visit. As soon as she saw him she clung to him anxiously:

  ‘What is it? Are you all right?’

  Bao-yu laughed carelessly.

  ‘I was just feeling bored, so I came over to see what you were up to.’

  ‘Stupid!’ said Aroma, relieved to find that nothing was amiss. ‘What did you think I would be up to?’

  She turned to Tealeaf.

  ‘Who else is with you?’

  ‘Nobody,’ said Tealeaf with a grin. ‘Nobody else knows we’re here.’

  At this Aroma became alarmed once more.

  ‘That’s terrible! Suppose you were to run into someone? Suppose you were to meet the Master?’ She glanced at Bao-yu fearfully. ‘In any case, the streets are so crowded now, you could easily get ridden down or something. It would be no joke if you were to have an accident. You two certainly have a nerve!’ She turned to Tealeaf again. ‘You put him up to this, didn’t you ? Wait till I get back: I’ll tell his nannies about you. They’ll have you flogged like a felon, see if they don’t!’

  Tealeaf pulled a face.

  ‘Don’t go trying to pin the blame on me! Master Bao was cursing and swearing at me to make me go with him. I kept telling him not to come. Anyway, we’d better be going back now, if that’s the way you feel!’

  ‘You might as well stay, now you’re here,’ said Hua Zi-fang in a conciliatory manner. ‘There’s no point in quarrelling about it. The only trouble is, this is not much of a place we live in here: poor and cramped and not too clean and that. Hardly a fit place for the likes of Master Bao, I’m thinking.’

  By this time Aroma’s mother had joined them outside to welcome the visitors. Aroma took Bao-yu by the hand and led him in. He saw four or five girls sitting down inside who hung their heads and blushed when he entered. Despite their blushes, Hua Zi-fang and his mother insisted that Bao-yu should get up on the kang with them, as they were afraid that he would find their house cold. Having installed him on the kang, they bustled to and fro fetching things to eat and pouring tea.

  ‘Now don’t you two rush about, Mother,’ said Aroma. ‘I know how to look after him. There’s no point in your giving him a lot of things he won’t be able to eat.’

  As she said this she took her own cushion that she had been sitting on, put it on top of a little short-legged kang table, and made Bao-yu sit on it with his feet on her metal foot-warmer. Then she took a couple of rose-shaped perfume lozenges from a little purse she was wearing, opened up her hand-warmer, popped the lozenges onto the burning charcoal, and closing it up again, stuffed it into the front of his gown. Having at last got him settled comfortably and to her own satisfaction, she served him with tea which she poured out for him into her own cup.

  Hua Zi-fang and his mother had by now finished laying an elaborate tea. The cakes, nuts and dried fruits were arranged on their plates, and the plates themselves on the table, with painstaking attention to symmetry and design. Aroma could tell at a glance that there was nothing there which Bao-yu could possibly be expected to eat. But her family must not be offended.

  ‘Since you’ve decided to come,’ she said to Bao-yu with a smile, ‘we can’t let you go without having t
asted something of ours. You’ll have to try something, just to be able to say that you have been our guest!’

  She took a handful of pine nuts from one of the dishes on the table, and blowing away the skins, handed them to him on her handkerchief.

  Bao-yu noticed that Aroma’s eyes were slightly red and that there were recent tear-stains on her powdered cheeks.

  ‘Why have you been crying?’ He spoke the words in an undertone as she handed him the pine nuts.

  ‘Who’s been crying?’ said Aroma with a feigned laugh. ‘I’ve just been rubbing my eyes.’

  Her little fiction was successful, for he made no further comment.

  Bao-yu was wearing his dark-red gown with the pattern of golden dragons and white fox-fur lining, and a sable-lined slate-blue jacket with fringed edges.

  ‘Fancy!’ said Aroma, ‘you got yourself all dressed up just to come and see us. Didn’t anyone ask you where you were going?’

  ‘No,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Actually I changed because I was going to Cousin Zhen’s. He invited me over to watch the players.’

  Aroma nodded.

  ‘You’d better go back after you’ve sat a bit longer,’ she said. ‘This is really no place for you here.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be too long, either,’ said Bao-yu with a smile. ‘I’ve got something nice waiting for you when you get back.’

  ‘Sh!’ said Aroma. ‘Do you want them all to hear you?’

  As she said this, she reached out and took the Magic Jade from his neck.

  ‘Here’s something that will interest you all,’ she said, holding it out to the others. ‘You know how often you’ve spoken about that wonderful jade of Master Bao’s and said how much you’d give for a look at it ? Well, here it is! Now you can look to your heart’s content. There you are, that’s all it is! Not so wonderful, really, is it?’

  They passed it from hand to hand, and when it had gone full circle and all had examined it, she hung it once more round his neck.

  Aroma told her elder brother to go out and hire the cleanest, smartest-looking cab he could find to take Bao-yu home in.