And he would comply with ten.
Whatever she asked for, she received tenfold.
As a result, his legitimate wife who was in charge of the household had to take a back seat. If she wanted him to give a page boy ten strokes with the cane, Father would not venture to give him even as many as five.”
“It’s outrageous!” exclaimed Auntie Hsüeh. “The First Lady is making a mistake to act this way. To send off an attractive young woman who has been favored by her husband without allowing her to take a trunkful of her belongings with her, or even an outfit of clothing, but requiring her to leave empty-handed, will not seem right in the eyes of the neighbors.”
“Did she actually tell you not to let her take even an outfit of clothing with her?” the woman asked.
“The First Lady,” replied Auntie Hsüeh, “told Hsiao-yü to come with me and see to it that she does not take any clothes with her, other than those she has on.”
When Ch’un-mei, who was standing to one side, heard that she was being sold, she did not shed a single tear; but when she saw that her mistress was weeping, she said, “Mother, what are you crying about? Once I am gone, try to get on as patiently as you can. Don’t injure yourself by worrying too much. If you worry yourself to the point of falling ill, there will be no one to sympathize with you. Let me go if I must. If I am not permitted to take any extra clothes with me, so be it. It has always been true that:
A decent man does not consume
his inheritance;
A decent woman does not wear
her bridal clothes.”17
As they were speaking, who should appear but Hsiao-yü, who came in and said, “Fifth Lady, you need not comply with the topsy-turvy instructions of my mistress. After all, the young lady has served you faithfully for all this time. I am prepared to:
Ch’un-mei Refrains from Shedding a Single Parting Tear
Deceive my superiors but not my inferiors.
You ought to select two of the best outfits from her trunk, wrap them up, and entrust them to Auntie Hsüeh to take along for her, both as a memento of her years with you, and to assist her as she embarks on her new life.”
“My good sister,” exclaimed the woman, “you are actually exhibiting a trace of benevolence and righteousness.”
“After all,” responded Hsiao-yü:
“Who can be sure that nothing will ever happen to them?
Both the toad and the cricket,
Inhabit the same spadeful of earth.
When the hare dies, the fox is sad;
Creatures grieve for their fellows.”
They then brought out Ch’un-mei’s trunk and told her to pick out the kerchiefs and turquoise hairpins that she was accustomed to wear and take them with her. The woman selected two outfits of top-grade silk and satin garments, together with shoes and foot-bindings, and wrapped them up in a large package for her. She also gave her several of her own hairpins, combs, clasps, pendants, and rings. Hsiao-yü, too, pulled two pins out of her hair and gave them to Ch’un-mei. The remaining pearl necklaces, frets of silver filigree, and skirts and blouses of variegated and figured brocade, were all left undisturbed and carried back to the rear compound.
Ch’un-mei then bowed good-bye, and the woman and Hsiao-yü bade her farewell with tears in their eyes. As she was about to go out the gate, the woman wanted her to go pay a farewell obeisance to Yüeh-niang and the others, but Hsiao-yü stopped her with a negative wave of her hand. Ch’un-mei then proceeded to follow Auntie Hsüeh, without even turning her head, as she nonchalantly and resolutely marched out the main gate.
After the woman and Hsiao-yü had returned from seeing her out the gate, Hsiao-yü went back to the master suite to report to the First Lady, saying, “She left empty-handed, and her wardrobe has been retained, so she was not allowed to take anything with her.”
Chin-lien made her way back to her quarters, where she was used to having Ch’un-mei’s company. The two of them had been on intimate terms and were accustomed to sharing their innermost feelings with each other. But now that she had gone, her quarters seemed cold and desolate, and she felt so lonely that she commenced to weep out loud. There is a poem that testifies to this:
Her intimate words remain,
But now their love is severed;
In her room she is not seen,
In silence her soul melts.18
If you want to know the outcome of these events,
Pray consult the story related in the following chapter.
Chapter 86
SUN HSÜEH-O INSTIGATES THE BEATING OF CH’EN CHING-CHI;
DAME WANG MARRIES OFF CHIN-LIEN TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER
Since there’s no such thing in this life
as complete satisfaction;
In one’s way of coping with the world
do not be too demanding.
It’s a good thing always to pay heed
only to the words of superior men;
When disputes arise never listen
to the words of petty persons.
Only regard the customs of the age
as illusory performances;
While respecting the intentions of others
by keeping them at a distance.
If one were to address perceptive women with
a word to the wise;
It would be, “Don’t ever confide your troubles
to your sweetheart.”1
THE STORY GOES that from the time that Ch’un-mei left the household, P’an Chin-lien suffered from depression in her quarters. But no more of this.
To resume our story, after breakfast the next day, Ch’en Ching-chi went out on the pretext of settling accounts with a creditor and rode his mount to Auntie Hsüeh’s house, where she happened to be at home. She invited him in, and Ch’en Ching-chi tied up his mule, came inside, and sat down. Tea was served to him, and he drank it, but Ch’un-mei, who was in an inner room, did not come out.
Auntie Hsüeh knowingly questioned him, saying, “Son-in-law, what have you come here to talk about?”
“I am on my way to settle accounts with a creditor up the street,” said Ch’en Ching-chi, “and just happened to pass by here. “Is the young lady that you came to take away last night here with you?”
“Yes, she is here,” replied Auntie Hsüeh, “but I haven’t found a purchaser for her yet.”
“If she’s here,” said Ch’en Ching-chi, “I would like to be able to see her, and say a few words to her.”
Auntie Hsüeh deliberately put on a meretricious act, saying, “My dear son-in-law, yesterday your mother-in-law was insistent in telling me that because the two of you had been:
Colluding in chicanery,
and produced this ugly scandal, as soon as I have taken her away, I must take precautions to prevent the two of you from meeting or speaking to each other. You had better leave at once. I’m afraid that she might send a page boy here who, on seeing you, would go home and tell her about it, with the result that I would no longer have access to the household.”
Ch’en Ching-chi merely responded with an ingratiating smile as he groped a tael of silver out of his sleeve, and said, “You can buy yourself some tea with this for the time being. If you accept it, I will reward you further on another day.”
As for Auntie Hsüeh:
Her eyes opened at the sight of money,
and she said, “My good son-in-law, short of money as you are, you are willing to spare some for me, are you? The fact is, though, that during the twelfth month of last year I pawned someone’s two pairs of embroidered pillow ends in your shop. It has been almost a year since then and, including interest, it would probably cost me some eight mace of silver to redeem them. Could you retrieve them for me by any chance?”
“That’s not a problem,” responded Ch’en Ching-chi. “I’ll retrieve them for you tomorrow morning.”
Auntie Hsüeh, on the one hand, invited Ch’en Ching-chi into the inner room to get together with Ch’un-mei and, on the
other hand, told her daughter-in-law, Chin Ta-chieh, to prepare a meal, saying, “I’ll go buy some tea things and snacks, and pick up a jug of wine, some potted meat, and the like, for the two of them to eat.”
When Ch’un-mei caught sight of Ch’en Ching-chi, she exclaimed, “Son-in-law, a fine man you are! You’re just:
An executioner who likes to play with his victims,
leaving my mistress and me in such a predicament that we are at a loss for what to do in any direction. You have been responsible for putting us in this situation in which:
The exposure of misbehavior arouses disapproval.”2
“My sister,” responded Ch’en Ching-chi, “you have already been expelled from their household, and I do not intend to remain there much longer myself.
He and his wife, Chao Ying-ch’un,
Will each go their separate ways.3
You must urge Auntie Hsüeh to find a good place for you. As far as I’m concerned:
Marinated leeks cannot be replanted
in the vegetable bed.
I plan to go to the Eastern Capital to consult with my father, and when I come back I’ll not only divorce that daughter of theirs, but also demand the return of those boxes of valuables that my family entrusted to them.”
Not long after he had finished speaking, Auntie Hsüeh came back with the tea things, wine, and other foodstuff that she had purchased, set up a bed-table on the k’ang, and laid out a repast so the two of them could drink wine and chat with each other. She also joined them for a cup or two. They carried on an animated dialogue for some time about Yüeh-niang’s hard-heartedness.
Auntie Hsüeh said, “For her to expel such an attractive young lady as she is from the household without even allowing her to take any clothing or jewelry with her will not serve to enhance her value in the eyes of a future purchaser. And she asked for no more than the return of her original purchase price. Even when you pour clean water from one bowl into another, some of it is likely to be spilled. How mean-spirited can you get? When Ch’un-mei was about to leave, the maidservant Hsiao-yü did her a favor by inducing the Fifth Lady to provide her with two outfits of clothing. If she had not done so, what would she have had to wear when being looked over by a prospective purchaser?”
By the time they began to feel the effects of the wine, Auntie Hsüeh told her daughter-in-law, Chin Ta-chieh, to take her baby with her and go visit for a while with a neighbor so that the two of them would be at liberty to enjoy themselves in the inner room. Truly:
Just like male and female phoenixes amid
the misty clouds,
Or like sporting mandarin ducks, diving
beneath the waves;4
Signing a compact never to be separated
during this lifetime;
They agree to be happily bound together
in the life to come.5
When the two of them had finished their encounter, they prepared to part but found it:
Difficult to separate and difficult to split.6
Auntie Hsüeh was afraid that Yüeh-niang might send someone to spy on them and hurriedly urged Ch’en Ching-chi to get on his way, so he proceeded to mount his mule and return home.
Less than two days later, Ch’en Ching-chi came to present two gold lamé handkerchiefs and two pairs of ankle leggings to Ch’un-mei and also returned the pawned pillow ends to Auntie Hsüeh. He then spent some silver to purchase wine and proceeded to share a drink with Ch’un-mei in Auntie Hsüeh’s quarters. Unbeknownst to them, while they were drinking together, Yüeh-niang sent the page boy Lai-an to find out why Auntie Hsüeh had not yet found a buyer for Ch’un-mei, and he happened to notice the mule tethered outside the gate.
When he got home, he reported this to Yüeh-niang, saying, “Your son-in-law is also there.”
Upon hearing this, Yüeh-niang became enraged, sent people to summon Auntie Hsüeh again and again, and criticized her severely when she showed up, saying, “You took that slave away with you:
Promising today that you would do it tomorrow,
And tomorrow that you would do it the next day,
while refusing to do your best to dispose of her as I commissioned you to do. It would seem that you are harboring her in order to exploit her propensity to engage in sexual affairs and thereby make some money for yourself. If you refuse to dispose of her, bring her back here. I’ll get Old Mother Feng to sell her for me and will no longer patronize you in the future.”
When Auntie Hsüeh heard this, with the loquaciousness of a go-between:
Wishing she had seven or eight more mouths
than nature had provided,
she exclaimed, “My Heavens! Venerable lady, you are mistaken in blaming me that way. Would you have me go after the God of Wealth with a stick? Under your patronage, venerable lady, how could I fail to do my best to dispose of her for you? Just yesterday, I took her to visit two or three potential purchasers, but none of them was willing to come up with the requisite sum. You asked me for the return of the original purchase price of sixteen taels of silver. But, as a mere go-between, how could I come up with such a sum out of my own pocket?”
“My page boy tells me,” said Yüeh-niang, “that that seedling of the Ch’en family was drinking wine with her at your place today.”
“Ai-ya! Ai-ya!” protested Auntie Hsüeh in consternation. “Here we go again. During the twelfth month of last year, I pawned someone’s two pairs of pillow ends at your shop on Lion Street, which they have now paid to redeem. Today, your son-in-law brought the pillow ends back to me, and I offered him a drink of tea, but without even drinking it, he hurriedly mounted his mule and went his way. Since when did he come into my place to drink wine with anybody? It seems that this servant of yours is prone to:
Making up lies and telling tales.”
This speech reduced Yüeh-niang to silence for a time, after which she said, “I am merely concerned that that seedling of the Ch’en family may have:
Developed ideas that induce depravity, and
Allowed his thoughts to be led astray.”
“Do you take me to be a three-year-old child?” expostulated Auntie Hsüeh. “If any such thing were taking place, how could I have been unaware of it? In view of your instructions to me, do you think that I am indifferent to the relative merits of:
Long-term profits, and
Short-term gains?
When he came to my place he did not:
Stick around or sit down for any time,
but simply handed me the pillow ends and then departed without even drinking his tea. Since when did he have a chance to see the young lady from your household?
The only thing that ought to matter is the truth,
yet you have seen fit to subject me to these accusations. The fact of the matter is that, at present, Commandant Chou Hsiu would like to purchase her in the hope of obtaining a son but is only willing to offer twelve taels of silver for her. If I can get him to come up with thirteen taels, I could then weigh out the silver and turn it over to you. It is said that His Honor Chou Hsiu, on previous occasions, when attending parties at your place, has seen the young lady and been impressed by the repertoire of songs she could sing, as well as her demeanor, and that is why he is willing to spend these few taels of silver for her, despite the fact that she is not a virgin. As for the other potential purchasers, none of them will offer to put up that much.”
Auntie Hsüeh thus succeeded in hammering out an agreement with Yüeh-niang on the purchase price.
Early the next day, she got Ch’un-mei’s things together and saw to it that she was properly dressed and made up. She sported a cloud-shaped chignon to hold her hair in place;
Her head was adorned with pearls and trinkets;
she wore a blouse of red chiffon over a skirt of blue chiffon; and her feet were clad in a pair of shoes with upturned toes. Auntie Hsüeh then hired a sedan chair and escorted her to the home of Commandant Chou Hsiu. When Chou Hsiu observed that Ch’un-mei’s countenanc
e was:
Both redder and whiter,
than it was before; that her stature was:
Neither short nor tall;
and that she had a pair of tiny bound feet; he was as delighted as could be and weighed out an ingot of fifty taels of silver as her purchase price. Auntie Hsüeh took this home with her, where she chiseled off a piece worth thirteen taels, took it to the Hsi-men residence, and gave it to Yüeh-niang.
She also brought out an additional tael of silver to show her, saying, “This was given to me by His Honor Chou Hsiu as a reward for my efforts. Venerable lady, will you not also give me a little something?”
Wu Yüeh-niang felt compelled to accede to this request and weighed out five mace of silver for her. As a result, Auntie Hsüeh made a profit of thirty-seven taels and five mace of silver out of the transaction. The fact is that nine out of ten go-betweens make the money to support their households this way.
To resume our story, Ch’en Ching-chi now found himself in a situation in which Ch’un-mei had been sold, he no longer had access to Chin-lien, and Yüeh-niang refused to pay any attention to him. She saw to it that the doors were tightly locked, personally came out every evening to check them by lantern light, and closed and locked the ceremonial gate between the front and rear compounds before going to bed at night. Because of this, he felt himself to be helpless and was extremely frustrated.
This led him to quarrel with Hsi-men Ta-chieh more than once, calling her a whore time after time, and saying, “Since I married into your family as a son-in-law I have scarcely been guilty of eating you out of house and home, and your family has possession of trunkloads of my family’s gold and silver. You are my wife after all, but you not only fail to look after my interests but accuse me of scrounging for food off your family. Since when have I been eating off your family for nothing?”
He attacked Hsi-men Ta-chieh so severely that he reduced her to tears.
The twenty-seventh day of the eleventh month was Meng Yü-lou’s birthday, and she prepared several saucers worth of hors d’oeuvres and snacks to go with the wine and told Ch’un-hung, with the best of intentions, to take them out to the shop on the street front of the residence for Ch’en Ching-chi and Manager Fu Ming to enjoy.
The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei Page 20