The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei

by Roy, David Tod

  “How old are you this year?” he went on to ask.

  “I am twenty-three years old,” replied Ch’en Ching-chi.

  “If you are as young as all that,” said Chang Sheng, “you ought to be devoting yourself to your duties as a Taoist priest, and studying the scriptures, rather than going out whoring, and drinking, and creating disturbances. What sort of insignificant yamen do you take the commandant’s yamen to be, that you should allow yourself to be brought here without any money in hand? This hairpin of yours is:

  Hardly enough to discolor the water.

  What would I want with it?”

  So saying, he tossed it back to him and told the jailers, “Wait a little, until His Honor takes his place on the bench, and then see that this case is given priority. It is obvious that this servile cur of a Taoist priest is a penny-pinching sort himself, though he feels free to solicit money and provisions from:

  The patrons in the four directions.

  Quite aside from the fact that you have been brought here because you are accused in a law case, even if you were coming to have a drink or attend a feast, you would be expected to bring along a handkerchief with which to wipe your mouth. When the time comes to administer punishment, see to it that this rascal is beaten and subjected to the squeezers as severely as possible.”

  He also called Cheng Chin-pao before him, but she had been accompanied by the pimp from the Cheng Family Brothel, who had expended three or four taels of silver on the staff of the yamen, both high and low.

  “Since you are a singing girl,” said Chang Sheng, “it is only natural that you should go where the pickings are good in order to support yourself. That’s no big deal. It all depends on the mood of His Honor. If he is angry, you may be subjected to a session or two with the squeezers; while if he is well disposed, he may simply let you go.”

  The jailer standing to one side said to her, “If you give me another mace of silver, should you be subjected to the squeezers, I will see to it that your two thumbs are spared.”

  Li An then said to the jailer, “You take her out of sight and wait. His Honor is about to take his place on the bench.”

  Before long, lo and behold, the cloud-shaped gong sounded and Commandant Chou Hsiu came in and took his place on the bench. The functionaries, soldiers, and jailers were neatly arrayed to either side in strict formation. Behold:

  The walls are decked with crimson silk;

  The tables covered with purple drapery.

  At the head of the chamber are suspended

  red hangings;

  On all four sides there hang kingfisher-

  hued screens.6

  The judge adheres strictly to the law;

  The admonitory stone tablet is incised with

  four lines in the Emperor’s hand.7

  The officers are meticulous and honest;

  Beside the external abatises are displayed

  two of the commandant’s standards.

  The soldiers and jailers stand sedately;

  The functionaries are arrayed imposingly.

  Holding their staffs, they stand before the steps

  ready to perform their duties;

  With writing materials in hand, they wait on the

  sidelines to hear the judgment.

  Though only the officers of one region;

  They resemble a courtroom full of gods.8

  On this occasion:

  Without coincidences there would be no stories.

  It was a case of:

  Five hundred kalpas ago, these lovers

  were fated to meet;

  It is those who are predestined to do so

  who come together.

  Ch’un-mei, after entering Commandant Chou Hsiu’s household, had given birth to a son during the eighth month of the previous year, and the young squire was now half a year old.

  His face was smooth as a jade cap ornament, and

  His lips looked as though they were rouged.

  The commandant cherished him as:

  A pearl in the palm;

  and valued him more than:

  A priceless treasure.

  Not much later, his first wife died, and the commandant formally raised Ch’un-mei to the status of his legitimate wife and moved her into the master suite of five rooms. He also bought two wet nurses to take care of breast feeding his infant son, one of whom was named Yü-t’ang, and the other Chin-kuei; and two maidservants to wait on his wife, one of whom was named Ts’ui-hua, and the other Lan-hua. He also had two singing girls as concubines, who were fifteen or sixteen years old, one of whom was named Hai-t’ang, and the other Yüeh-kuei, who also waited upon Ch’un-mei in her new quarters. His senior concubine, Sun Erh-niang, had only a single maidservant to wait on her, named Ho-hua. But no more of this.

  At the time, the young squire enjoyed having Chang Sheng hold him in his arms and take him outside to play, and when Commandant Chou Hsiu was holding court, Chang Sheng would stand to one side and allow him to look on at the proceedings.

  On that day, when Commandant Chou Hsiu took his place on the bench and ordered that the tablet announcing the category of cases to be heard should be hung up, the local constables brought in the prisoners from their jurisdictions for trial, and Ch’en Ching-chi and Cheng Chin-pao were the first to be called before him.

  When the commandant had read the deposition and saw that there were wounds on Ch’en Ching-chi’s face, he said, “You rascal, you are a Taoist priest, yet you:

  Do not abide by the Rules of Purity.

  How can you indulge in sleeping with prostitutes, drinking, and creating disturbances in my jurisdiction?

  This kind of behavior is unacceptable.

  Lictors, take him down, give him twenty strokes of the bamboo, and revoke his ordination certificate. As for that singing girl, née Cheng, subject her to fifty blows on the squeezers, and have her sent back to work at the brothel from which she came.”

  The jailers standing to either side came forward, turned Ch’en Ching-chi over, stripped off his clothes, bound him with a length of rope, flourished their bamboo rods, and shouted for the beating to begin. At this juncture:

  Strange as it may seem,

  Chang Sheng was standing on the platform in front of the courtroom looking on, with the young squire in his arms, when the child broke away from him, approached Ch’en Ching-chi, and poked him out of a desire to be hugged. Chang Sheng fearing that the commandant would see what was going on, went over and picked him up, but the child started to cry out loud and continued to cry as he carried him back to Ch’un-mei in the rear compound.

  “What is he crying about?” asked Ch’un-mei.

  “His Honor is conducting affairs in the courtroom,” responded Chang Sheng, “and had just ordered that the Taoist priest named Ch’en from the Yen-kung Temple should be given a beating, when the child went over and poked him out of a desire to be hugged. When I took him away, he started to cry.”

  Upon hearing that the culprit was named Ch’en, Ch’un-mei:

  Lightly moved her lotus feet,

  Gently lifted her beige skirt,

  and made her way out to a position from which she could observe the proceedings from behind a hanging screen.

  When she saw that the voice and the appearance of the person being beaten in the courtroom resembled those of Ch’en Ching-chi, she wondered, “Why should he have taken orders and become a Taoist priest?”

  She then called over Chang Sheng and asked him, “What is this person’s name?”

  “According to the deposition of this Taoist priest,” responded Chang Sheng, “he is twenty-three years old, and his secular name is Ch’en Ching-chi.”

  Ch’un-mei thought to herself, “So it really is him after all.”

  She then turned to Chang Sheng and said, “Go ask His Honor to come see me.”

  At the time, as the commandant presided over the court, Ch’en Ching-chi had only been given ten strokes of his sentenced beating, and Cheng Chin-pa
o was still being subjected to the squeezers.

  When Chou Hsiu heard that his wife was calling for him, he ordered the jailers to suspend the beating and went to see her.

  “That Taoist priest you are beating is a cousin of mine,” said Ch’un-mei. “Please forgive him for my sake.”

  “My wife,” responded Chou Hsiu, “why didn’t you let me know before? I have already had him given ten strokes, and there is no remedy for that.”

  He then went back to the courtroom and ordered the jailers to let them both off, and to have the singing girl sent back to the brothel from which she came.

  He then privately instructed Chang Sheng to call back the Taoist priest and also said, “Go ask your mistress if she would like to see him.”

  Ch’un-mei was about to have Chang Sheng call him into the rear compound to see her, when she suddenly remembered something.

  From her mouth no word was uttered, but

  In her heart she thought to herself:

  “If I am able to eradicate the obstacle before my eyes,

  I may be able to replace it with the love of my heart;9

  If the obstacle before my eyes cannot be eradicated,

  How can I ever replace it with the love of my heart?”

  Thereupon, she said to Chang Sheng, “You can let that person go for the time being. I will call him back another time.”

  She also ordered him not to revoke his ordination certificate.

  Ch’en Ching-chi, having endured ten strokes with the bamboo, left the commandant’s yamen and hastily made his way back to the Yen-kung Temple.

  How could he have known that someone had told Abbot Jen, “That disciple of yours, Ch’en Tsung-mei, has been maintaining the harlot Cheng Chin-pao as his mistress in the Hsieh Family Tavern, which has annoyed the Turf-protecting Tiger Liu the Second, the owner of My Own Tavern, into beating him into a stinking pulp. Along with the woman, he has been tied up and escorted to the yamen of the Regional Military Command. On the grounds that:

  This kind of behavior is unacceptable,

  the commandant is sending soldiers to hold you for interrogation, and revoke your ordination certificate.”

  When Abbot Jen heard this, on the one hand, he was old and susceptible to fright, while on the other hand, he was suffering from obesity. When he opened his strongbox and found that it was nearly empty, he received such a shock that the phlegm in his heart rose up to choke him, and he:

  Fell to the floor in a faint.

  His disciples rushed to his assistance and engaged a physician to come and administer a dose of liquid medicine, but he remained:

  Oblivious to human affairs.

  Later that night, alas:

  He stopped breathing and died.

  At the time of his death he was sixty-two years old.

  The day after this, when Ch’en Ching-chi arrived back at the temple, the neighbors on the left side said to him, “Do you still dare to go into the temple? Your master, on your account, thus and so, has suffered such a severe shock that he died during the third watch last night.”

  When Ch’en Ching-chi heard this, he was:

  As flustered as a dog who has

  lost his way home;

  As flurried as a fish who has

  escaped the net;

  and made his way back to Ch’ing-ho district. Truly:

  The case of the deer was one that the minister

  of Cheng was unable to solve;

  Whether the butterfly was Chuang Chou, or vice

  versa, cannot be determined.10

  At this point the story divides into two. To resume our story, when Ch’un-mei had seen Ch’en Ching-chi in the commandant’s yamen, she had intended to keep him there, but an obstacle to doing so suddenly arose in her mind. She consequently sent Chang Sheng out to tell Ch’en Ching-chi to go his way for the time being. She then went back to her room, removed her headdress, took off her embroidered garments, and threw herself down on the bed, where she proceeded to stroke her chest and hug the covers, giving vent to moans and cries of pain. This had the effect of throwing the entire household, both high and low, into a state of consternation.

  The commandant’s secondary concubine Sun Erh-niang came in to see her and said, “First Lady, you have seemed to be in good health. What has happened to you?”

  “You can go,” responded Ch’un-mei. “Just leave me alone.”

  Later on, when the commandant came in from the courtroom and saw that she was lying on the bed and groaning with pain, he too became flustered, took hold of her hand, and asked, “What is it that is troubling you?”

  When she did not reply, he went on to ask, “Has anyone been annoying you?”

  Once again, she did not make a sound in response.

  The commandant then said, “It must be because I have given your cousin a beating just now that you are upset.”

  Yet again, she did not respond.

  The commandant:

  At a loss for what to do,11

  went outside and took Chang Sheng and Li An to task, saying, “If the two of you knew that he was your mistress’s cousin, why didn’t you tell me about it before I had him beaten ten strokes, and thus made your mistress unhappy? I told you to keep him here so that he could meet with your mistress. Why have you let him go instead? I demand an explanation from the two of you.”

  “I reported the situation to the mistress,” said Chang Sheng, “and she said that I should let him go for the time being. It was only then that I let him go.”

  So saying, he went into the room and wept bitterly as he pled with Ch’un-mei, saying, “Mistress, I beg you to say a word to His Honor on our behalf. Otherwise, he is bent on punishing us.”

  Ch’un-mei, thereupon:

  Opening wide her starry eyes, and

  Raising up her moth eyebrows,

  called the commandant into her presence, and said, “It’s just that I’ve been feeling out of sorts and has nothing to do with the two of them. It’s only because that rascal:

  Is not the sort to abide by his lot,

  and has gone so far as to go about masquerading as a Taoist priest, that I want to test his patience for a while before acknowledging him.”

  The commandant, upon hearing this, no longer held Chang Sheng and Li An to blame but, seeing that Ch’un-mei was continuing to groan with pain, sent Chang Sheng to summon a doctor to come and take her pulse.

  The doctor said, “Your venerable wife is suffering from a condition engendered by the six desires and seven passions, that has produced a heavy feeling of congestion in the chest.”

  The medication he prescribed was prepared for her, but she refused to take it, simply letting it grow cold. Her maidservants did not dare to reproach her for this but brought the commandant in to try to get her to take it, whereupon, she did swallow one mouthful but refused to take any more.

  When the commandant left the room, his concubine Yüeh-kuei brought the medication over to her again and said, “Mistress, please take the medicine.”

  But Ch’un-mei picked it up and threw it in her face, reviling her with the words, “You lousy wanton slave! Why should you keep on trying to get me to swallow this bitter liquid? There’s nothing in my stomach.”

  She then made her kneel in penance before her.

  Sun Erh-niang came in and asked, “What has Yüeh-kuei done that has caused the mistress to make her kneel this way?”

  The concubine Hai-t’ang explained, “When she tried to get the mistress to take her medicine, the mistress said, ‘My stomach is empty, so why should you try to force this medicine on me?’ That’s why she has made her kneel.”

  “Mistress,” inquired Sun Erh-niang, “have you really not eaten anything today? Yüeh-kuei could not have known that. You ought not to beat her. Pray forgive her this once, for my sake.”

  She then said to Hai-t’ang, “Go into the kitchen and boil some congee for the mistress to eat.”

  Ch’un-mei then allowed Yüeh-kuei to get up from her kneeli
ng position, while Hai-t’ang went into the kitchen and, carefully and conscientiously, prepared a small pot of thick congee made from nonglutinous rice, along with four saucers of side dishes. After putting the congee in a large bowl, and providing a pair of ivory chopsticks, she brought the steaming hot congee into the room.

  At the time, Ch’un-mei was asleep on the bed, with her face to the wall, and she did not venture to disturb her but waited until she turned over before offering it to her, saying, “Mistress, the congee is here. Won’t you eat some of it?”

  But Ch’un-mei kept her eyes closed and did not respond.

  Hai-t’ang appealed to her once again, saying, “The congee is getting cold.

  Won’t you get up, Mistress, and have some congee?”

  Sun Erh-niang, who was standing by her side, said, “Mistress, you haven’t had anything to eat for half a day. If you are feeling any better now, why not get up and have something to eat? It will help to maintain your stamina.”

  Ch’un-mei hastily crawled into an upright position, told the wet nurse to bring over a lamp, and took the bowl of congee into her hands. After swallowing only one mouthful, she shoved it onto the floor, but fortunately the wet nurse caught it in her hands, so that it did not break.

  She then raised her voice and shouted at Sun Erh-niang, “You urged me to get up and have some congee for no good reason. Just take a look at the fine batch of congee that lousy slave boiled up. I’m not recuperating from childbirth, so why should she come up with such a thin batch of congee that I can see my face in it?”

  She then said to the wet nurse Chin-kuei, “You give that slave four slaps in the face for me.”

  There and then, she actually did give Hai-t’ang four slaps in the face.

  Sun Erh-niang then said, “Mistress, if you don’t want to eat the congee, what would you like to eat instead, in order to relieve your hunger?”

  “You want me to eat something,” responded Ch’un-mei, “but my abdomen is feeling congested, and I can’t keep anything down.”

  After a little while, she called over her junior maidservant Lan-hua and said to her, “I’d like to try some soup flavored with wing tips of chicken. Go into the kitchen and get that whore of a slave to wash her hands and make me a bowl of soup flavored with wing tips of chicken. Have her put in a good number of marinated bamboo shoots, and see that it is both sour and spicy.”