by Цао Сюэцинь
Pao-yue wended his way into the drawing rooms. Here he found dowager lady Chia, consulting with Madame Wang and the whole body of young ladies, about the return feast to be given to Shih Hsiang-yuen.
"I've got a plan to suggest," he consequently interposed. "As there are to be no outside guests, the eatables too should not be limited to any kind or number. A few of such dishes, as have ever been to the liking of any of us, should be fixed upon and prepared for the occasion. Neither should any banquet be spread, but a high teapoy can be placed in front of each, with one or two things to suit our particular tastes. Besides, a painted box with partitions and a decanter. Won't this be an original way?"
"Capital!" shouted old lady Chia. "Go and tell the people in the cook house," she forthwith ordered a servant, "to get ready to-morrow such dishes as we relish, and to put them in as many boxes as there will be people, and bring them over. We can have breakfast too in the garden."
But while they were deliberating, the time came to light the lamps. Nothing of any note transpired the whole night. The next day, they got up at early dawn. The weather, fortunately, was beautifully clear. Li Wan turned out of bed at daybreak. She was engaged in watching the old matrons and servant-girls sweeping the fallen leaves, rubbing the tables and chairs, and preparing the tea and wine vessels, when she perceived Feng Erh usher in old goody Liu and Pan Erh. "You're very busy, our senior lady!" they said.
"I told you that you wouldn't manage to start yesterday," Li Wan smiled, "but you were in a hurry to get away."
"Your worthy old lady," goody Liu replied laughingly, "wouldn't let me go. She wanted me to enjoy myself too for a day before I went."
Feng Erh then produced several large and small keys. "Our mistress Lien says," she remarked, "that she fears that the high teapoys which are out are not enough, and she thinks it would be as well to open the loft and take out those that are put away and use them for a day. Our lady should really have come and seen to it in person, but as she has something to tell Madame Wang, she begs your ladyship to open the place, and get a few servants to bring them out."
Li Wan there and then told Su Yuen to take the keys. She also bade a matron go out and call a few servant-boys from those on duty at the second gate. When they came, Li Wan remained in the lower story of the Ta Kuan loft, and looking up, she ordered the servants to go and open the Cho Chin hall and to bring the teapoys one by one. The young servant-lads, matrons and servant-maids then set to work, in a body, and carried down over twenty of them.
"Be careful with them," shouted Li Wan. "Don't be bustling about just as if you were being pursued by ghosts! Mind you don't break the tenons!" Turning her head round, "old dame," she observed, addressing herself smilingly to goody Liu, "go upstairs too and have a look!"
Old goody Liu was longing to satisfy her curiosity, so at the bare mention of the permission, she uttered just one word ("come") and, dragging Pan Erh along, she trudged up the stairs. On her arrival inside, she espied, pile upon pile, a whole heap of screens, tables and chairs, painted lanterns of different sizes, and other similar articles. She could not, it is true, make out the use of the various things, but, at the sight of so many colours, of such finery and of the unusual beauty of each article, she muttered time after time the name of Buddha, and then forthwith wended her way downstairs. Subsequently (the servants) locked the doors and every one of them came down.
"I fancy," cried Li Wan, "that our dowager lady will feel disposed (to go on the water), so you'd better also get the poles, oars and awnings for the boats and keep them in readiness."
The servants expressed their obedience. Once more they unlocked the doors, and carried down everything required. She then bade a lad notify the boatwomen go to the dock and punt out two boats. But while all this bustle was going on, they discovered that dowager lady Chia had already arrived at the head of a whole company of people. Li Wan promptly went up to greet them.
"Dear venerable senior," she smiled, "you must be in good spirits to have come in here! Imagining that you hadn't as yet combed your hair, I just plucked a few chrysanthemums, meaning to send them to you."
While she spoke, Pi Yueeh at once presented to her a jadite tray, of the size of a lotus leaf, containing twigs cut from every species of chrysanthemum. Old lady Chia selected a cluster of deep red and pinned it in her hair about her temples. But turning round, she noticed old goody Liu. "Come over here," she vehemently cried with a smile; "and put on a few flowers."
Scarcely was this remark concluded, than lady Feng dragged goody Liu forward. "Let me deck you up!" she laughed. With these words, she seized a whole plateful of flowers and stuck them three this way, four that way, all over her head. Old lady Chia, and the whole party were greatly amused; so much so, that they could not check themselves.
"I wonder," shouted goody Liu smiling, "what blessings I have brought upon my head that such honours are conferred upon it to-day!"
"Don't you yet pull them away," they all laughed, "and chuck them in her face! She has got you up in such a way as to make a regular old elf of you!"
"I'm an old hag, I admit," goody Liu pursued with a laugh; "but when I was young, I too was pretty and fond of flowers and powder! But the best thing I can do now is to keep to such fineries as befit my advanced age!"
While they bandied words, they reached the Hsin Fang pavilion. The waiting maids brought a large embroidered rug and spread it over the planks of the divan near the balustrade. On this rug dowager lady Chia sat, with her back leaning against the railing; and, inviting goody Liu to also take a seat next to her, "Is this garden nice or not?" she asked her.
Old goody Liu invoked Buddha several times. "We country-people," she rejoined, "do invariably come, at the close of each year, into the city and buy pictures and stick them about. And frequently do we find ourselves in our leisure moments wondering how we too could manage to get into the pictures, and walk about the scenes they represent. I presumed that those pictures were purely and simply fictitious, for how could there be any such places in reality? But, contrary to my expectations, I found, as soon as I entered this garden to-day and had a look about it, that it was, after all, a hundred times better than these very pictures. But if only I could get some one to make me a sketch of this garden, to take home with me and let them see it, so that when we die we may have reaped some benefit!"
Upon catching the wish she expressed, dowager lady Chia pointed at Hsi Ch'un. "Look at that young granddaughter of mine!" she smiled. "She's got the knack of drawing. So what do you say to my asking her to-morrow to make a picture for you?"
This suggestion filled goody Liu with enthusiasm and speedily crossing over, she clasped Hsi Ch'un in her arms. "My dear Miss!" she cried, "so young in years, and yet so pretty, and so accomplished too! Mightn't you be a spirit come to life!"
After old lady Chia had had a little rest, she in person took goody Liu and showed her everything there was to be seen. First, they visited the Hsiao Hsiang lodge. The moment they stepped into the entrance, a narrow avenue, flanked on either side with kingfisher-like green bamboos, met their gaze. The earth below was turfed all over with moss. In the centre, extended a tortuous road, paved with pebbles. Goody Liu left dowager lady Chia and the party walk on the raised road, while she herself stepped on the earth. But Hu Po tugged at her. "Come up, old dame, and walk here!" she exclaimed. "Mind the fresh moss is slippery and you might fall."
"I don't mind it!" answered goody Liu. "We people are accustomed to walking (on such slippery things)! So, young ladies, please proceed. And do look after your embroidered shoes! Don't splash them with mud."
But while bent upon talking with those who kept on the raised road, she unawares reached a spot, which was actually slippery, and with a sound of "ku tang" she tumbled over.
The whole company clapped their hands and laughed boisterously.
"You young wenches," shouted out dowager lady Chia, "don't you yet raise her up, but stand by giggling?"
This reprimand was still b
eing uttered when goody Liu had already crawled up. She too was highly amused. "Just as my mouth was bragging," she observed, "I got a whack on the lips!"
"Have you perchance twisted your waist?" inquired old lady Chia. "Tell the servant-girls to pat it for you!"
"What an idea!" retorted goody Liu, "am I so delicate? What day ever goes by without my tumbling down a couple of times? And if I had to be patted every time wouldn't it be dreadful!"
Tzu Chuan had at an early period raised the speckled bamboo portiere. Dowager lady Chia and her companions entered and seated themselves. Lin Tai-yue with her own hands took a small tray and came to present a covered cup of tea to her grandmother.
"We won't have any tea!" Madame Wang interposed, "so, miss, you needn't pour any."
Lin Tai-yue, hearing this, bade a waiting-maid fetch the chair from under the window where she herself often sat, and moving it to the lower side, she pressed Madame Wang into it. But goody Liu caught sight of the pencils and inkslabs, lying on the table placed next to the window, and espied the bookcase piled up to the utmost with books. "This must surely," the old dame ejaculated, "be some young gentleman's study!"
"This is the room of this granddaughter-in-law of mine," dowager lady Chia explained, smilingly pointing to Tai-yue.
Goody Liu scrutinised Lin Tai-yue with intentness for a while. "Is this anything like a young lady's private room?" she then observed with a smile. "Why, in very deed, it's superior to any first class library!"
"How is it I don't see Pao-yue?" his grandmother Chia went on to inquire.
"He's in the boat, on the pond," the waiting-maids, with one voice, returned for answer.
"Who also got the boats ready?" old lady Chia asked.
"The loft was open just now so they were taken out," Li Wan said, "and as I thought that you might, venerable senior, feel inclined to have a row, I got everything ready."
After listening to this explanation, dowager lady Chia was about to pass some remark, but some one came and reported to her that Mrs. Hsueeh had arrived. No sooner had old lady Chia and the others sprung to their feet than they noticed that Mrs. Hsueeh had already made her appearance. While taking a seat: "Your venerable ladyship," she smiled, "must be in capital spirits to-day to have come at this early hour!"
"It's only this very minute that I proposed that any one who came late, should be fined," dowager lady Chia laughed, "and, who'd have thought it, here you, Mrs. Hsueeh, arrive late!"
After they had indulged in good-humoured raillery for a time, old lady Chia's attention was attracted by the faded colour of the gauze on the windows, and she addressed herself to Madame Wang. "This gauze," she said, "may have been nice enough when it was newly pasted, but after a time nothing remained of kingfisher green. In this court too there are no peach or apricot trees and these bamboos already are green in themselves, so were this shade of green gauze to be put up again, it would, instead of improving matters, not harmonise with the surroundings. I remember that we had at one time four or five kinds of coloured gauzes for sticking on windows, so give her some to-morrow to change that on there."
"When I opened the store yesterday," hastily put in Lady Feng, "I noticed that there were still in those boxes, made of large planks, several rolls of 'cicada wing' gauze of silvery red colour. There were also several rolls with designs of twigs of flowers of every kind, several with 'the rolling clouds and bats' pattern, and several with figures representing hundreds of butterflies, interspersed among flowers. The colours of all these were fresh, and the gauze supple. But I failed to see anything of the kind you speak of. Were two rolls taken (from those I referred to), and a couple of bed-covers of embroidered gauze made out of them, they would, I fancy, be a pretty sight!"
"Pshaw!" laughed old lady Chia, "every one says that there's nothing you haven't gone through and nothing you haven't seen, and don't you even know what this gauze is? Will you again brag by and bye, after this?"
Mrs. Hsueeh and all the others smiled. "She may have gone through a good deal," they remarked, "but how can she ever presume to pit herself against an old lady like you? So why don't you, venerable senior, tell her what it is so that we too may be edified."
Lady Feng too gave a smile. "My dear ancestor," she pleaded, "do tell me what it is like."
Dowager lady Chia thereupon proceeded to enlighten Mrs. Hsueeh and the whole company. "That gauze is older in years than any one of you," she said. "It isn't therefore to be wondered, if you make a mistake and take it for 'cicada wing' gauze. But it really bears some resemblance to it; so much so, indeed, that any one, not knowing the difference, would imagine it to be the 'cicada wing' gauze. Its true name, however, is 'soft smoke' silk."
"This is also a nice sounding name," lady Feng agreed. "But up to the age I've reached, I have never heard of any such designation, in spite of the many hundreds of specimens of gauzes and silks, I've seen."
"How long can you have lived?" old lady Chia added smilingly, "and how many kinds of things can you have met, that you indulge in this tall talk? Of this 'soft smoke' silk, there only exist four kinds of colours. The one is red-blue; the other is russet; the other pine-green; the other silvery-red; and it's because, when made into curtains or stuck on window-frames, it looks from far like smoke or mist, that it is called 'soft smoke' silk. The silvery-red is also called 'russet shadow' gauze. Among the gauzes used in the present day, in the palace above, there are none so supple and rich, light and closely-woven as this!"
"Not to speak of that girl Feng not having seen it," Mrs. Hsueeh laughed, "why, even I have never so much as heard anything of it."
While the conversation proceeded in this strain, lady Feng soon directed a servant to fetch a roll. "Now isn't this the kind!" dowager lady Chia exclaimed. "At first, we simply had it stuck on the window frames, but we subsequently used it for covers and curtains, just for a trial, and really they were splendid! So you had better to-morrow try and find several rolls, and take some of the silvery-red one and have it fixed on the windows for her."
While lady Feng promised to attend to her commission, the party scrutinised it, and unanimously extolled it with effusion. Old goody Liu too strained her eyes and examined it, and her lips incessantly muttered Buddha's name. "We couldn't," she ventured, "afford to make clothes of such stuff, much though we may long to do so; and won't it be a pity to use it for sticking on windows?"
"But it doesn't, after all, look well, when made into clothes," old lady Chia explained.
Lady Feng hastily pulled out the lapel of the deep-red brocaded gauze jacket she had on, and, facing dowager lady Chia and Mrs. Hsueeh, "Look at this jacket of mine," she remarked.
"This is also of first-rate quality!" old lady Chia and Mrs. Hsueeh rejoined. "This is nowadays made in the palace for imperial use, but it can't possibly come up to this!"
"It's such thin stuff," lady Feng observed, "and do you still say that it was made in the palace for imperial use? Why, it doesn't, in fact, compare favourably with even this, which is worn by officials!"
"You'd better search again!" old lady Chia urged; "I believe there must be more of it! If there be, bring it all out, and give this old relative Liu a couple of rolls! Should there be any red-blue, I'll make a curtain to hang up. What remains can be matched with some lining, and cut into a few double waistcoats for the waiting-maids to wear. It would be sheer waste to keep these things, as they will be spoilt by the damp."
Lady Feng vehemently acquiesced; after which, she told a servant to take the gauze away.
"These rooms are so small!" dowager lady Chia then observed, smiling. "We had better go elsewhere for a stroll."
"Every one says," old goody Liu put in, "that big people live in big houses! When I saw yesterday your main apartments, dowager lady, with all those large boxes, immense presses, big tables, and spacious beds to match, they did, indeed, present an imposing sight! Those presses are larger than our whole house; yea loftier too! But strange to say there were ladders in the back court. 'They d
on't also,' I thought, 'go up to the house tops to sun things, so what can they keep those ladders in readiness for?' Well, after that, I remembered that they must be required for opening the presses to take out or put in things. And that without those ladders, how could one ever reach that height? But now that I've also seen these small rooms, more luxuriously got up than the large ones, and full of various articles, all so fascinating and hardly even known to me by name, I feel, the more I feast my eyes on them, the more unable to tear myself away from them."
"There are other things still better than this," lady Feng added. "I'll take you to see them all!"
Saying this, they straightway left the Hsiao Hsiang lodge. From a distance, they spied a whole crowd of people punting the boats in the lake.
"As they've got the boats ready," old lady Chia proposed, "we may as well go and have a row in them!"
As she uttered this suggestion, they wended their steps along the persicary-covered bank of the Purple Lily Isle. But before reaching the lake, they perceived several matrons advancing that way with large multi-coloured boxes in their hands, made all alike of twisted wire and inlaid with gold. Lady Feng hastened to inquire of Madame Wang where breakfast was to be served.
"Ask our venerable senior," Madame Wang replied, "and let them lay it wherever she pleases."
Old lady Chia overheard her answer, and turning her head round: "Miss Tertia," she said, "take the servants, and make them lay breakfast wherever you think best! We'll get into the boats from here."
Upon catching her senior's wishes, lady Feng retraced her footsteps, and accompanied by Li Wan, T'an Ch'un, Yuean Yang and Hu Po, she led off the servants, carrying the eatables, and other domestics, and came by the nearest way, to the Ch'iu Shuang library, where they arranged the tables in the Hsiao Ts'ui hall.