The Golden Days

by Cao Xueqin

  ‘Yes,’ said Jia Huan meekly and went off with Felicity.

  When he had got his money, he took himself off to play with Ying-chun and the girls.

  And there we must leave him.

  While Bao-yu was enjoying himself with Bao-chai, a servant announced that Miss Shi had arrived, and he hurriedly got up to go.

  ‘Wait!’ said Bao-chai. ‘Let’s go and see her together!’

  She got down from the kang as she said this, and accompanied him round to Grandmother Jia’s apartment. Shi Xiang-yun was already there, laughing and chattering away nineteen to the dozen, but rose to greet them as they entered. Dai-yu was there too.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked Bao-yu.

  ‘Bao-chai’s.’

  ‘I see’ (very frostily). ‘I thought something must have been detaining you. Otherwise you would have come flying here long since.’

  ‘Is one only allowed to play with you,’ said Bao-yu, ‘and keep you amused? I just happened to be visiting her. Why should you start making remarks like that?’

  ‘How thoroughly disagreeable you are!’ said Dai-yu. ‘What do I care whether you go to see her or not? And I’m sure I never asked to be kept amused. From now on you can ignore me completely, as far as I’m concerned.’

  With that she went back to her own room in a temper.

  Bao-yu came running after.

  ‘What on earth are you upset about this time? Even if I’ve said anything wrong, you ought, out of simple courtesy, to sit and talk with the others for a bit!’

  ‘Are you telling me how to behave ?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s just that you destroy your health by carrying on in this way.’

  ‘That’s my affair. If I choose to die, I don’t see that it’s any concern of yours.’

  ‘Oh, really, really! Here we are in the middle of the New Year holiday, and you have to start talking about death!’

  ‘I don’t care. I’ll talk about death if I like, Death! Death!

  Death! I’m going to die this minute. If you’re so afraid of death, I wish you long life. A hundred years, will that satisfy you?’

  ‘Do you think I’m afraid of dying when all you will do is quarrel? I wish I were dead. It would be a relief.’

  ‘Exactly!’ said Dai-yu. ‘If I were to die, it would be a relief from all this quarrelling!’

  ‘I said if 7 were to die,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Don’t twist my words. It isn’t fair.’

  Just then Bao-chai came hurrying in.

  ‘Cousin Shi’s waiting for you!’

  She took hold of Bao-yu’s hand and pulled him after her, to the great mortification of Dai-yu, who sat with her face to the window and shed tears of pure rage.

  After about as long as it would take to drink two cups of tea, Bao-yu came back again. During his absence Dai-yu’s sobs seemed to have redoubled in intensity. Seeing the state she was in he realized that it would need careful handling and began turning over in his mind all kinds of soft and soothing things to coax her with. But before he could get his mouth open, she had anticipated him:

  ‘What have you come for this time? Why can’t you just leave me here to die in peace ? After all, you’ve got a new playmate now – one who can read and write and compose and laugh and talk to you much better than I can. Oh yes, and drag you off to be amused if there’s any danger of your getting upset! I really can’t imagine what you have come back here for!’

  ‘“ Old friends are best friends and close kin are kindest,” ‘said Bao-yu, coming over to where she sat and speaking very quietly. ‘You’re too intelligent not to know that. Even a simpleton like me knows that much! Take kinship first: you are my cousin on Father’s side; Cousin Bao is only a mother-cousin. That makes you much the closer kin. And as for length of acquaintance: it was you who came here first. You and I have practically grown up together – eaten at the same table, even slept in the same bed. Compared with you she’s practi-ally a new arrival. Why should I ever be any less close to you because of her?’

  ‘Whatever do you take me for? Do you think I want you to be any less close to her because of me? It’s the way I feel that makes me the way I am.’

  ‘And it’s the way I feel,’ said Bao-yu, ‘that makes me the way I am! Do you mean to tell me that you know your own feelings about me but still don’t know what my feelings are about you ?’

  Dai-yu lowered her head and made no reply. After a pause she said:

  ‘You complain that whatever you do people are always getting angry with you. You don’t seem to realize how much you provoke them by what you do. Take today, for instance. It’s obviously colder today than it was yesterday. Then why of all days should you choose today to leave your blue cape off?’

  Bao-yu laughed.

  ‘I didn’t. I was wearing it this morning the same as usual; but when you started quarrelling just now, I got into such a sweat that I had to take it off.’

  ‘Next thing you’ll be catching a cold,’ said Dai-yu with a sigh, ‘and then Heaven knows what grumblings and scoldings there will be !’

  Just then Xiang-yun burst in on them and reproved them smilingly for abandoning her:

  ‘Couthin Bao, Couthin Lin: you can thee each other every day. It’th not often I get a chanthe to come here; yet now I have come, you both ignore me!’

  Dai-yu burst out laughing:

  ‘Lisping doesn’t seem to make you any less talkative! Listen to you: “ Couthin!” “Couthin!” Presently, when you’re playing Racing Go, you’ll be all “thicktheth” and “theventh” !’

  ‘You’d better not imitate her,’ said Bao-yu. ‘It’ll get to be a habit. You’ll be lisping yourself before you know where you are.’

  ‘How you do pick on one!’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Always finding fault. Even if you are tho perfect yourthelf, I don’t thee why you have to go making fun of everyone elthe. But I can show you thomeone you won’t dare to find fault with. I shall certainly think you a wonder if you do.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ said Dai-yu.

  ‘If you can find any shortcomings in Cousin Bao-chai’, said Xiang-yun, ‘you must be very good indeed.’

  ‘Oh her’ said Dai-yu coldly. ‘I wondered whom you could mean. I should never dare to find fault with her.’

  But before she could say any more, Bao-yu cut in and hurriedly changed the subject.

  ‘I shall never be a match for you as long as I live,’ Xiang-yun said to Dai-yu with a disarming smile. ‘All I can thay ith that I hope you marry a lithping huthband, tho that you have “ithee-withee” “ithee-withee” in your earth every minute of the day. Ah, Holy Name! I think I can thee that blethed day already before my eyeth!’

  Bao-yu could not help laughing; but Xiang-yun had already turned and fled.

  If you wish to know the conclusion of this scene, you must read the following chapter.

  Chapter 21

  Righteous Aroma discovers how to rebuke her

  master by saying nothing

  And artful Patience is able to rescue hers by being

  somewhat less than truthful

  As Shi Xiang-yun, fearful that Dai-yu would pursue her, turned and fled, Bao-yu shouted after her:

  ‘She’s tripped: you needn’t worry! She’ll never catch up with you now!’

  And when Dai-yu reached the doorway where he was standing, he spread his arms across it to stop her getting by and laughingly begged an amnesty for Xiang-yun.

  ‘Never!’ said Dai-yu, endeavouring to tug one of his hands away from the door-jamb. ‘I’ll get that Yun if it’s the last thing I do!’

  With Bao-yu blocking the doorway and Dai-yu evidently unable to get past him, Xiang-yun deemed it safe to stop running, and turned to plead with her pursuer:

  ‘Pleatbe cousin, just this once – spare me!’

  Just then Bao-chai appeared from behind her shoulder – the smiling peacemaker:

  ‘I advise you two to make it up, for Cousin Bao’s sake.’

  ‘I won’t!’ said Dai-yu. ‘You�
�re all in league against me. You have all come here to make fun of me.’

  ‘Oh, reallyV said Bao-yu. ‘Who would ever have the nerve to make fun of you ? Yun only said what she said because you mimicked her in the first place. She’d never have dared to otherwise.’

  It is hard to say how long the four of them might have remained there in this impasse had not a servant arrived at that moment and summoned them to dinner in Grandmother Jia’s room. It was already lighting-up time and Lady Wang, Li Wan, Xi-feng, Ying-chun, Tan-chun and Xi-chun had also forgathered for the meal. When dinner was over, the company conversed for a while and then retired to their various rooms for the night – Xiang-yun to sleep with Dai-yu in what had once, in the days when she lived with Grandmother Jia, been her own bedroom. Bao-yu saw the two of them back to their room and stayed there talking until well after ten, in spite of frequent summonses by Aroma.

  As soon as it was light next morning, Bao-yu was off again to the girls’ room, shuffling along in his slippers and with a gown thrown loosely round his shoulders. The maids Nightingale and Kingfisher were not yet about, and their two young mistresses still lay fast asleep under the covers. Dai-yu was tightly cocooned in a quilt of apricot-coloured damask, the picture of tranquil repose. Xiang-yun, by contrast, lay with her hank of jet-black hair tumbled untidily beside the pillow, a white arm with its two gold bracelets thrown carelessly outside the bedding and two white shoulders exposed above the peach-pink coverlet, which barely reached her armpits.

  ‘A tomboy, even in her sleep!’ Bao-yu muttered ruefully as he gently drew the bedding up to cover her. ‘She’ll get a draught on those shoulders, and next thing she’ll be complaining of a stiff neck!’

  Dai-yu had by now awakened. She sensed that there was someone else in the room, and guessing that it must be Bao-yu, lifted her head up to look. Sure enough, it was he.

  ‘What are you doing here at this early hour?’

  ‘Early ? Get up and have a look and then tell me if you think it’s early !’

  ‘You’d better go outside a minute if you want us to get up,’ said Dai-yu.

  Bao-yu went into the outer room. Dai-yu got up as soon as he had gone out and roused Xiang-yun. When the two girls had slipped into some clothes, Bao-yu came inside again and sat himself down beside the dressing-table. Presently Nightingale and Kingfisher came in to help the girls with their toilet. Xiang-yun finished washing first. Kingfisher was on her way out to empty the basin, when Bao-yu called her back:

  ‘Just a moment I While you are about it I may as well wash too and save myself the trouble of going back to my own room.’

  He came over to where she stood, and bending his head down over the basin, scooped up two handfuls of water and began washing his face. Nightingale handed him some scented soap.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘there’s lots in here already.’

  Then he asked for a towel.

  Kingfisher pursed her lips up derisively:

  ‘You haven’t changed much, have you?’

  Ignoring the sarcasm, he demanded crude salt to clean his teeth with, and after rubbing it all round them vigorously with a finger, he rinsed his mouth out with water. That part of his toilet completed, he observed that Xiang-yun had just finished doing her hair and wandered over to where she was sitting.

  ‘Coz dear, do my hair for me, will you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ said Xiang-yun.

  Bao-yu smiled coaxingly:

  ‘Go on, be a dear! You used to do it for me once.’

  ‘Well, I can’t any longer,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I’ve forgotten how to.’

  ‘It doesn’t need very much doing to it,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I’m not going out anywhere today. Just a few plaits.’

  He continued to coax and wheedle until at last she gave in, and taking his head in her hands, sat him down in her place at the dressing-table and proceeded to comb and dress his hair.

  Bao-yu never wore any head-covering when he was at home. Instead he had his side-hair done up in a number of little plaits which were looped round over his ears and brought together by means of red silk thread into a single large queue at the back. It was fastened by a golden clasp at the end and by four pearl clips at regular intervals between the clasp and the crown of his head. As Xiang-yun plaited, she noticed that a pearl appeared to be missing.

  ‘What’s happened to this clip?’ she said. ‘I’m sure it used to be the same as the other three. Where has its pearl gone?’

  ‘I lost it,’ said Bao-yu.

  ‘I expect it fell off somewhere outside and somebody picked it up,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Lucky old somebody!’

  ‘Who knows whether or not he really lost it?’ said Dai-yu scoffingly. ‘For all we know he may have given it to someone to have remounted as a keepsake!’

  Bao-yu made no comment, but sat fiddling with the toilet articles that crowded the dressing-table on either side of the mirror. He picked up a pot of rouge, almost without realizing what he was doing, and sat with it poised in his hand, wanting to put it to his lips for a little taste, but afraid Xiang-yun would rebuke him. While he hesitated, Xiang-yun leaned forward from where she was sitting and administered a sharp slap to his hand, causing the rouge-pot to fall from it on to the dressing-table.

  ‘Nathty habit!’ she said. ‘It’s time you gave it up!’

  The words were scarcely out of her mouth when Aroma entered. She concluded from the scene that met her eyes that Bao-yu had already completed his toilet, and went back again to attend to her own. Soon after this Bao-chai dropped in.

  ‘Where’s Cousin Bao?’ she asked.

  ‘“ Cousin Bao” has no time to spend in here nowadays,’ said Aroma bitterly.

  Bao-chai immediately understood.

  Aroma sighed.

  ‘I say nothing against being friendly,’ she said. ‘But this hanging around there morning, noon and night is another matter. However, nothing I say makes any difference. It’s just a waste of breath.’

  Bao-chai was impressed.

  ‘One mustn’t underestimate this maid,’ she thought to herself. ‘She is obviously a girl of some intelligence.’

  And she sat down on the kang with her for a chat. In the course of conversation she inquired casually about her age, family, and various other personal matters, paying careful attention to her answers and gaining from them and from the tone in which they were uttered an increasing respect for this uneducated maid.

  Presently Bao-yu came in, whereupon Bao-chai got up and left. Bao-yu commented on her departure:

  ‘Cousin Bao-chai seemed to be very thick with you just now. Why should she suddenly rush off when I come into the room?’

  There was no reply, so he repeated his question.

  ‘Are you asking me?’ said Aroma. ‘I don’t know what reasons you all have for your comings and goings.’

  The expression on her face as she uttered these words was angrier than he had ever seen her look before.

  He laughed.

  ‘Oh dear! Are you in a rage again?’

  Aroma laughed mirthlessly.

  ‘It’s not for the likes of me to get into rages. But I wish that from now on you would stop coming into this room. After all, you have got people to wait on you elsewhere. You don’t really need my services. I shall go back to serving Her Old Ladyship, like I used to before.’

  With that she closed her eyes and lay back upon the kang.

  Bao-yu was alarmed to see her in such a state and impulsively rushed over to the kang to soothe her. But Aroma kept her eyes tightly shut and would take no notice. Bao-yu did not know what to do. Just then Musk chanced to enter and he turned to her for help:

  ‘What’s up with Aroma?’

  ‘How should I know?’ said Musk. ‘You’d do better to ask yourself that question.’

  Bao-yu was so taken aback that for a while he said nothing. Then, finding their combined hostility too much for him, he got up with a sigh from his suppliant position on the kang.

>   ‘All right, ignore me then! I’m going off to sleep, too.’

  And he slid from the kang and went off to his own bed to lie down.

  For a long time there was no sound from him except for a gentle snoring. Judging that he must be really asleep, Aroma rose from the kang and took a large travelling-cloak to cover him with. A moment later she heard a gentle thud. He had whipped it from him and thrown it to the floor as soon as her back was turned. But when she looked, his eyes were closed as before and he was still pretending to be asleep. The significance of the gesture did not escape her. She nodded slowly and regarded the feigned sleeper sarcastically:

  ‘All right, then! There’s no need for you to get angry. From now on I’ll just pretend I’m dumb. I won’t say another word of criticism. Will that satisfy you?’

  This was too much for Bao-yu. He sat bolt upright on his bed.

  ‘What am I supposed to have done this time? And what’s all this “criticism” you’re talking about? If you had been criticizing me it wouldn’t be so bad; but when I came in just now, you didn’t say anything: you simply ignored me. You went and lay down in a huff without my having the faintest idea what it was all about, and now you accuse me of behaving unreasonably ! I haven’t heard a single peep out of you yet to explain what it is that you are angry about!’

  ‘Your own conscience ought to tell you that,’ said Aroma. ‘You don’t need me to tell you.’

  They were still arguing when Grandmother Jia sent a servant round to summon him to lunch. He went off to the front apartment, but returned almost immediately after bolting a single bowlful of rice. He found Aroma asleep on the kang and Musk sitting beside her playing Patience with some dominoes. He had long known that Musk was a close ally of Aroma’s, so ignoring them both, he marched past them into the inner room, raising the door-curtain for himself as he passed through. Musk followed him automatically, but he pushed her out:

  ‘No, no, I wouldn’t presume to trouble you!’

  She laughed and went back to her Patience, having first ordered a couple of the younger maids to wait on him in her stead.