by Cao Xueqin
‘You are too glib with your ridiculous oaths,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘This is no time for swearing. You can keep that kind of talk for that sensitive, easily upset person you were talking about. She knows how to handle you. Don’t try it on me: it makes me thick!’
With these words she walked off into the inner room of Grandmother Jia’s apartment and lay down on the kang in a rage.
Very much out of countenance, Bao-yu went off to look for Dai-yu. She must have been waiting for him, for just as he was entering the room, she pushed him out again and shut the door. Totally at a loss to understand her behaviour, he called to her softly through the window:
‘Dai, dear! Dai!’
But she took no notice.
Bao-yu stood there disconsolately, hanging his head in silence. Nightingale knew what was happening, but judged the time not ripe for her to intervene; so he continued to stand there like an idiot, until at last Dai-yu thought he must have gone back to his own room, and opened the door again. When she saw him still standing there, she had not the heart to shut the door on him a second time, and allowed him to follow her back into the room.
‘There’s always a reason for everything,’ he said. ‘If you tell people what it is, they don’t feel so bad about it. You can’t suddenly get angry with me for no reason whatever. What is all this about?’
‘Don’t ask me!’ said Dai-yu coldly. ‘I don’t know. I’m only a figure of fun – the sort of person you might compare with a child actor in order to get a good laugh from the others.’
‘I never made the comparison,’ said Bao-yu hotly, ‘and I never laughed at you. Why should you be angry with me?’
‘You would like to have made the comparison; you would like to have laughed,’ said Dai-yu. ‘To me your way of not comparing and not laughing was worse than the others’ laughing and comparing!’
Bao-yu found this unanswerable.
‘However,’ Dai-yu went on,’ that I could forgive. But what about that look you gave Yun ? Just what did you mean by that ? I think I know what you meant. You meant to warn her that she would cheapen herself by joking with me as an equal. Because she’s an Honourable and her uncle’s a marquis and I’m only the daughter of a commoner, she mustn’t risk joking with me, because it would be so degrading for her if I were to answer back. That’s what you meant, isn’t it ? Oh yes, you had the kindest intentions. Only unfortunately she didn’t want your kind intentions and got angry with you in spite of them. So you tried to make it up with her at my expense, by telling her how touchy I am and how easily I get upset. You were afraid she might offend me, were you? As if it were any business of yours whether she offended me or not, or whether or not I got angry with her!’
When Bao-yu heard her say this, he knew she must have overheard every word of his conversation with Xiang-yun. He reflected that he had only acted in the first place from a desire to keep the peace between them: yet the only outcome of his good intentions had been a telling-off by either party. It put him in mind of something he had read a day or two previously in Zbuang-zi:
The cunning waste their pains;
The wise men vex their brains;
But the simpleton, who seeks no gains,
With belly full, he wanders free
As drifting boat upon the sea.
and of another passage from the same book about timber trees inviting the axe and sweet springs being the cause of their own contamination. The more he thought about it, the more dejected he became.
‘If I can’t even get on with the few people I live with now,’ he asked himself, ‘how am I going to manage later on…?’
At that point in his reflections it seemed to him that there was no further point in arguing, and he turned to go back to his room.
Dai-yu realized that he must have thought of something upsetting to go off like this. But not to be answered was altogether too provoking. She felt the anger mounting inside her.
‘All right, go!’ she shouted after him. ‘And don’t ever come back! And don’t ever speak to me again!’
Bao-yu ignored her. He went straight back to his own room, threw himself on the bed, and lay staring at the ceiling. Aroma knew what the trouble was but dared not, for the time being at any rate, refer to it. She tried distracting him with talk of other matters.
‘I suppose there’ll be more plays after today, won’t there? Miss Bao is sure to give a return party, isn’t she?’
‘Whether she does or not,’ said Bao-yu, ‘what concern is it of mine ?’
This was certainly not the sort of answer Aroma was used to getting. She tried again, smiling breezily:
‘That’s no way of looking at it! This is the New Year holidays, when their ladyships and the young ladies are all enjoying themselves. We can’t have you mooning around like this!’
‘Whether their ladyships and the young ladies are enjoying themselves or not,’ said Bao-yu, ‘what concern is it of mine?’
Aroma laughed.
‘Seeing that they’re all doing their best to be agreeable, couldn’t you try to do likewise? Surely it’s much better all round if everyone will give and take a bit ?’
‘What do you mean, “give and take a bit”?’ said Bao-yu in the same lack-lustre voice as before. ‘They can give and take a bit if they like. My destiny is a different one: naked and friendless through the world to roam.’
A tear stole down his cheek as he recalled the line from the aria.
He continued to ponder its words and to savour their meaning, and ended up by bursting into tears and crying outright. Jumping up from the bed, he went over to his desk, took up a writing-brush, and wrote down the following lines in imitation of a Buddhist gäthä:
I swear, you swear,
With heart and mind declare;
But our protest
Is no true test.
It would be best
Words unexpressed
To understand,
And on that ground
To take our stand.
After writing it, he was still not satisfied. Though now enlightened himself, he feared that someone reading his gäthä might not be able to share his enlightenment. Accordingly, with the words of the ‘Clinging Vine’ aria still running in his head, he added another set of verses after it to explain his point. That done, he read the whole through to himself out loud, then, with a wonderful feeling of liberation, went to bed and fell fast asleep.
Curious to know the sequel to Bao-yu’s departure, Dai-yu, on the pretext of wanting to see Aroma about something, eventually came round herself to have a look. Aroma told her that Bao-yu was already in bed asleep. She was on the point of going back again when Aroma smilingly detained her:
‘Just a moment, Miss! There’s a note here. Would you like to see what it says ?’
She handed her the sheet of paper containing Bao-yu’s gāthā and the ‘Clinging Vine’ poem. Dai-yu could see that they must have been written under the influence of their recent quarrel and could not help feeling both amused by them and a little sorry. But all she said to Aroma was:
‘It’s only a joke. Nothing of any consequence.’
She took it with her back to her own room and showed it to Xiang-yun. Next day she showed it to Bao-chai as well. Bao-chai glanced at the second poem. This is what Bao-yu had written:
You would have been at fault, if not for me;
But why should I care if they disagree ?
Free come, free go, let nothing bar or hold me!
No more I’ll sink and soar between gloom and elation,
Or endlessly debate the depth of our relation.
What was the point of all of that past pother ?
When I look back on it, it seems scarce worth the bother.
Then she read the gāthā. She laughed.
‘I’m afraid this is all my fault. It must have been that aria I told him about yesterday which started it all. Those Taoist writings and Zen paradoxes can so easily lead people astray if they do not understand them properly.
I shall never forgive myself if he is going to start taking this sort of nonsense seriously and getting it fixed in his head. It will all be because of that aria!’
She tore the paper into tiny pieces and gave them to one of the maids:
‘Here, burn this – straight away!’
Dai-yu laughed at her.
‘You needn’t have torn it up. If you will both come with me and wait while I put a question to him, I can guarantee to drive this nonsense from his mind once and for all.’
The three girls went round to Bao-yu’s room together.
‘Bao-yu,’ said Dai-yu, addressing him in a heavily mock-serious manner, ‘I wish to propound a question to you: “Bao” is that which is of all things the most precious and “ju” is that which is of all things the most hard. Wherein lies your preciousness and wherein lies your hardness?’
Bao-yu was unable to think of an answer. The girls all laughed and clapped their hands.
‘Ha, ha, ha! He can’t reply. For a student of Zen he does seem remarkably obtuse!’
‘You say in your gāthā’ Dai-yu continued,
‘“… It would be best
Words unexpressed
To understand,
And on that ground
To take our stand.”
Now that’s all right as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. I should like to add a few lines to it. Like this:
But, I perpend,
To have no ground
On which to stand
Were yet more sound.
And there’s an end 1’
‘Ah, that’s better!’ said Bao-chai. ‘That sounds like a real “insight”. When the Sixth Patriarch Hui-neng first came to Shao-zhou looking for a teacher, he heard that the Fifth Patriarch Hong-ren was living at the monastery on Yellow-plum Mountain, so he found employment there in the monastery kitchen. When the Fifth Patriarch wanted to choose a successor, he ordered each of the monks to compose a gāthā. The Elder Shen-xiu recited this one:
“Our body like the Bo-tree is,
Our mind’s a mirror bright.
Then keep it clean and free from dust,
So it reflects the light!”
Hui-neng happened to be hulling rice in the kitchen at the time, and he shouted out, “That’s not bad, but it’s still not quite right.” Then he recited this gäthä of his own:
“No real Bo-tree the body is,
The mind no mirror bright.
Since of the pair none’s really there,
On what could dust alight?”
The Fifth Patriarch at once handed him his robe and bowl as a sign that he was to succeed him. Your improvement on Cousin Baa’s gättä is on very much the same lines, Dai. There’s just one thing, though: what about that “koan” of yours he couldn’t answer? Surely you’re not going to let him get away with it?’
‘Failure to answer means defeat,’ said Dai-yu. ‘In any case, if he were to answer now, it would hardly count. The only condition I impose as victor is that he should henceforth be forbidden to talk any more about Zen. You see,’ she told Bao-yu,’ even Bao-chai and I know more about it than you do. It’s too ridiculous that you should set yourself up as a Zen authority!’
Bao-yu had in fact believed that he had attained an Enlightenment; but now suddenly here was Dai-yu propounding koans he couldn’t answer and Bao-chai quoting with easy familiarity from the Sayings of the Patriarchs – though neither had shown any evidence of these accomplishments in the past. It was clear that their understanding of these matters was far in advance of his own. He consoled himself with the reflection that if they, whose understanding was so superior, were manifestly still so far from Enlightenment, it was obviously a waste of time for him to go on pursuing it. Having reached this comfortable conclusion, he accepted Dai-yu’s condition with a laugh:
‘Who wants to be an authority on Zen? It was only a joke, any way!’
Just then it was announced that the Imperial Concubine had sent someone round from the Palace with a lantern-riddle which they were to try and guess. After they had guessed the answer, they were each to make up a riddle of their own and send it back to her.
As soon as they heard this, the four of them hurried to the reception room in Grandmother Jia’s apartment, where they found a young eunuch with a square, flat-topped lantern of white gauze specially made for hanging riddles on. There was one hanging on it already which they crowded round to read while the eunuch gave them their instructions:
‘When the young ladies have guessed, will they please not tell anyone the answer, but write it down secretly. The answers will be collected and taken back to the Palace in a sealed envelope so that Her Grace can see for herself who has guessed correctly.’
Bao-chai went up to the lantern and looked at the riddle, which was in the form of a quatrain. It was not a particularly ingenious one, but she felt obliged to praise it, and therefore remarked that it was ‘hard to guess’ and pretended to have to think about the answer, though in truth it had been obvious to her at a glance. Bao-yu, Dai-yu, Xiang-yun and Tan-chun had also guessed the answer and were busy writing it down. Presently Jia Huan and Jia Lan were summoned, and they too wrote something down after a good deal of puzzling. After that everyone made up a riddle about some object of their choice, wrote it out in the best kai-shu on a slip of paper, and hung it on the lantern, which was then taken away by the eunuch.
Towards evening the eunuch returned and reported what the Imperial Concubine had had to say about the results:
‘Her Grace’s own riddle was correctly guessed by everyone except Miss Ying and Master Huan. Her Grace has thought of answers to all the riddles sent her by the young ladies and gentlemen, but she does not know whether or not they are correct.’
He showed them the answers written down. Some were right and some were wrong, but even those whose riddles had been incorrectly answered deemed it prudent to pretend that the answers they had received were the right ones.
The eunuch proceeded to distribute prizes for answering the Imperial Concubine’s riddle. Everyone who had guessed correctly received an ivory note-case made by Palace craftsmen and a bamboo tea-whisk. Ying-chun and Jia Huan were the only ones who did not receive anything. Ying-chun treated the matter as a joke and rapidly dismissed it from her mind, but Jia Huan was very much put out. To make matters worse, the eunuch went on to query Jia Huan’s own riddle:
‘Her Grace says that she has not answered Master Huan’s riddle because she could not make any sense of it. She told me to bring it back and ask him what it means.’
Intrigued, the others crowded round to look. This is what Jia Huan had written:
‘Big brother with eight sits all day on the bed;
Little brother with two sits on the roof’s head.’
There was a loud laugh when they had finished reading it. Jia Huan told the eunuch the answer: a head-rest and a ridge-end. The eunuch made a note of it and, after taking tea, departed once more.
Fired with enthusiasm by Yuan-chun’s example, old Lady Jia decided to hold a riddle party. A very elegant lantern in the form of a three-leaved screen was hurriedly constructed on her orders and set up in the hall. When that had been done, she told all the boys and girls to make up a riddle – being careful to keep the answers to themselves – write it on a slip of paper, and stick it on her lantern-screen. Then, having prepared the best fragrant tea to drink, a variety of good things to eat, and lots of little gifts to serve as prizes, she was ready to begin. Jia Zheng observed the old lady’s excitement when he got back from Court and came along himself in the evening to join in the fun.
There were three tables. Grandmother Jia, Jia Zheng, Bao-yu and Jia Huan sat at the table on the kang, while below, Lady Wang, Bao-chai, Dai-yu and Xiang-yun sat at one table and Ying-chun, Tan-chun and Xi-chun at another. The floor below the kang was thronged with old women and maids in attendance. Li Wan and Xi-feng had a table to themselves in an inner room.
‘Where’s my little Lan?’ sai
d Jia Zheng, not seeing Jia Lan at any of the tables.
One of the serving-women went into the inner room to ask Li Wan. She rose to reply out of respect for her father-in-law:
‘He refuses to come because he says his Grandpa Zheng hasn’t invited him.’
The others were much amused when the woman relayed this answer back to Jia Zheng.
‘He’s a stubborn little chap when he’s made his mind up!’ they said. But they thought none the worse of him for that.
Jia Zheng quickly sent Jia Huan with two of the old women to fetch him. When he arrived, Grandmother Jia made him squeeze up beside her on her side of the table and gave him a handful of nuts and dried fruits to eat. The little boy’s presence provided the company with something to laugh and talk about. But not for long. Bao-yu, who normally did most of the talking on occasions like this, was today reduced by his father’s presence to saying no more than ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to remarks made by other people. As for the rest: Xiang-yun, in spite of her sheltered upbringing, was normally an animated, not to say indefatigable talker, but this evening she too seemed to have been afflicted with dumbness by Jia Zheng’s presence; Dai-yu was at the best of times unwilling to say very much in company from a sort of aristocratic lethargy which was a part of her nature; and Bao-chai, whose punctilious correctness made her always sparing in the use of words, even though on this occasion she was probably the least uncomfortable of those present, said little to advance the conversation. As a consequence, what should have been a jolly, intimate family party was painfully unnatural and restrained.
Grandmother Jia knew as well as everyone else that this state of affairs was entirely owing to Jia Zheng’s presence, and after the wine had gone round for the third time, she attempted to drive him off to bed. Jia Zheng, for his part, was perfectly well aware that he was being driven away so that the younger people could feel freer to enjoy themselves and, smiling forcedly, appealed against his banishment: