“Where did you go then?” Jinlian asked.
“Daian, Qintong and I went to the old lady’s room. She gave us wine and cakes.”
This amused Yueniang and Yulou roared with laughter. They asked him if he knew the second of the two girls.
“She looked like one who was here the other day.”
“Ha! Guijie!” Yulou said.
“So he went there, did he?” said Yueniang.
“But there is no half-finished gate at our house,” Li Jiao’er said.
“Perhaps they have built one lately,” Jinlian suggested.
When Ximen Qing returned, he went straight out again to congratulate Magistrate Xia upon his birthday.
Pan Jinlian had a long-haired white cat. It was white all over except for a black streak that went down from its head along its back. It was called Coal in the Snow and sometimes Snow Lion. It could pick up fans and handkerchiefs in its mouth. When Ximen Qing was away, Jinlian often took it to bed with her. It never made a mess of her clothes. When it was wanted, it would come at once, and when it was not wanted, it would go away at once. Sometimes the woman called it Snowy Bandit. It ate not ox liver or dried fish, but raw meat, and this made it fat and strong. So long was its hair that you could hide an egg in it. Jinlian was fond of this cat, and often used to wrap a piece of meat in a red handkerchief and made the cat pounce forward to snatch it.
Guan’ge had been ill, but, after taking old woman Liu’s medicine, he improved considerably. Li Ping’er dressed him in a red silk shirt and put him on the bed to play. Yingchun and the nurse were there, and the nurse was having something to eat. Snow Lion was sitting on the bed. The baby was wearing a red shirt and moving about, and the cat imagined that the red shirt was the handkerchief in which Jinlian often wrapped up a piece of meat for him to play with. Suddenly, the cat pounced forward and scratched the child. The baby gave one shriek and began to choke. Then he had convulsions. The nurse was alarmed, put down the bowl she was holding, and took up the baby. She succeeded in stopping the convulsions, but the cat still came after the baby and tried to scratch him. Yingchun drove him away.
Ruyi’er thought that the baby would now be better, but he had one fit after another. She asked Yingchun to go at once to the inner court for Li Ping’er. When the maid told her mistress what had happened, Li Ping’er was terribly upset. Yueniang ran with her to her room. Guan’ge’s eyes were turned so that the pupils could not be seen. There was foam on his lips and the only sound he made was like the chirping of a young chicken. His hands and feet were trembling.
Li Ping’er felt as if her heart had been cut by a knife. She rocked the child in her arms and kissed him. “Oh, my baby,” she cried, “you were so well when I went to the inner court. What has made you have a fit like this?” Yingchun and Ruyi’er told her about the cat. Li Ping’er wept more bitterly than before. “Baby,” she said, “nobody has loved you, and now you have fallen into this trap.”
When Yueniang heard this, she said nothing, but sent for Jinlian and asked her whether it was her cat that had frightened the baby.
“Who said it was my cat?” Jinlian said.
Yueniang pointed to the nurse and Yingchun. “They said so,” she said.
“Then they have too much to say,” Jinlian cried. “My cat is asleep in my room. How can it have frightened the baby? What right have they to say such a thing? Just as, when they take a melon, they always pick out the soft spot, so, whenever anything goes wrong, the blame is put down to me.”
“How did the cat get in here?” Yueniang said.
“It often comes,” Yingchun told her.
“Then why hasn’t it scratched the baby before?” Jinlian cried. “As for you, young woman, don’t goggle at me like that. Don’t raise your eyebrows and don’t have so much to say. Oh, I never have any luck.” She went angrily to her own room.
Jinlian had secretly trained her cat with intent to kill the baby. If the child died, she hoped to win back Ximen Qing. It was the same as the very old story in which Tu’an Gu trained a dog to kill Zhao Dun, the minister.
When Yueniang and the others saw the child in such a state, they poured ginger broth down his throat and sent Laian for old woman Liu. The old woman came and felt the baby’s pulse. She tapped her foot upon the floor and said: “This is serious. I fear the child will die.” She hastily made a decoction of peppermint and Jinlian, then she produced a ball of gold foil, pounded her decoction in a cup, and filled the gold foil with it. Yueniang took a golden pin to open the baby’s mouth. It was tightly closed but they got the medicine down his throat. “If that cures him, well and good,” said the old woman. “If it doesn’t, I fear we shall have to burn moxa on him.”
“We can’t decide that,” Yueniang said. “We shall have to wait until his father comes home or he will be angry.”
“Mother,” Li Ping’er cried, “we must save the child’s life. If we wait, it may be too late. If Father scolds us, I will take all the blame.”
“Well,” Yueniang said, “it is your boy. I will leave it to you, for I dare not take the responsibility.”
Old woman Liu burned moxa on the baby in five places, between his brows, on his neck, on both wrists and on his breast. Then he seemed to go to sleep. In the evening, when Ximen Qing arrived, he had not yet awakened. When the old woman knew that Ximen Qing had come, she took five qian of silver from Yueniang and slipped away by a back door. Ximen came to Yueniang’s room and she told him all about the child. He hurried to Li Ping’er’s room. Her eyes were very red. “What has made the boy ill?” Ximen asked her. She only wept and made no answer. Then he asked the maid and the nurse, but they dared not tell him. He noticed that the child’s hands were scratched and that he was burned in several places. He rushed back to question Yueniang. She could keep silence no longer and told him about the cat. “Old woman Liu declared that the boy had been terrified,” she said, “and that the only thing to do was to use the needle and burn moxa on him. She was afraid it would be too late if we waited for you. Since then the child has slept. He has not waked at all.”
Ximen Qing flew into a furious rage. He dashed to Jinlian’s room and, without a word, took the cat by the legs and dashed out its brains on the stone flags underneath the eaves. There was a crash. The cat’s brain was scattered like ten thousand peach blossoms, and its teeth like broken jade.
When Jinlian saw her cat destroyed, she sat on her bed and did not move. “You thief,” she muttered as Ximen Qing went away, “taking people’s property and killing it. That’s the sort of hero you are. All this fuss about a cat. Of course, the cat won’t demand its life at your hands when it meets you in Hades! You treacherous villain! you changeable creature! You will come to a bad end.”
Ximen Qing went back to the Sixth Lady’s room. “You were looking after the baby,” he said to Ruyi’er and Yingchun. “How did it happen that you allowed the cat to frighten and scratch him? Then you listened to old woman Liu and allowed her to burn the child. If he gets better, well and good. But if he doesn’t, that old whore shall go to the courts and I’ll have the screws on her.”
“What would you have done,” Li Ping’er said, “if you had thought the baby was at the point of death? Doctors only do the best they can to help people.”
Li Ping’er had hoped that after the operation the child would be better, but the only result was to drive the trouble farther in. The convulsions developed into a slow fit. The child’s water and motions issued freely and were strangely colored. His eyes opened and closed convulsively; he dozed, and took no food all day. In a terrible state of anxiety, Li Ping’er consulted fortune-tellers, but the omens were all unfavorable. Yueniang, without Ximen Qing’s knowledge, again sent for old woman Liu to come and work a charm. Then they sent for a doctor who specialized in children’s ailments. He proposed to blow some powder into the baby’s nostrils. “If the child sneezes,” he said, “well and good, but if he doesn’t, I fear there is no hope.” They blew the powder into the child’s n
ostrils but nothing happened. Not once did he sneeze. Li Ping’er gazed and gazed at the child all day and all night. She never dried her tears and she never wished to eat or drink.
The fifteenth day of the eighth month was Yueniang’s birthday, but she would not keep it. Her relatives sent presents but no invitations were sent to them. Only Aunt Wu, Aunt Yang and the two nuns came. The two nuns had not shared the money equally and they were not on the best of terms.
On the fourteenth, Ben the Fourth and Nun Xue went to the printer’s and brought back with them fifteen hundred copies of the texts. Li Ping’er gave him a string of coppers to buy paper offerings, incense, and candles, and, on the fifteenth, he went with Chen Jingji to the temple, burned the paper offerings and the incense, and distributed the scriptures. Then he returned and told Li Ping’er what he had done. Every day the Qiao family sent old woman Kong to see Guan’ge. They recommended a certain Dr. Bao of the Imperial College of Medicine, who was a specialist in children’s diseases. When he came, he called the illness by a long name and said that it was hopeless. They gave him five qian of silver and dismissed him. Then they tried to pour some medicine down the baby’s throat, but he rejected it. He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth and made a gurgling noise. All night long Li Ping’er never took off her clothes. She carried the baby in her arms, crying all the time. Ximen Qing, except for his duty at the office, never went out, and, whenever he came back from the office, he went at once to see his son.
One night at the end of the eighth month Li Ping’er was lying on the bed with Guan’ge in her arms. A single lamp was burning on the table and the maids and the nurse were sound asleep. She looked at the window. The moonbeams shone through it and she could hear the mournful sound of the night watchman. To her sad heart it sounded like ten thousand knockings. Her grief was beyond expression.
The Milky Way is still, is still.
The stars are far, are far away.
The gleaming moon casts her cool beams through the window
And the cold night breeze drives through the door.
On the watchtower the drum beats quickly
One watch and then another.
In someone’s house, beating laundry,
A thousand strokes, and then again a thousand strokes. The wind chimes ring under painted eaves:
It breaks the grieving woman’s heart.
The lamp, burning on its silver stand,
Serves but to point out her unending sorrow.
One thought alone is in that heart
The longing for her child’s recovery.
Li Ping’er lay on her bed half sleeping, half waking. She dreamed that her old husband Hua Zixu came to her door, wearing white, and looking as he had looked in life. “Strumpet,” he said harshly, “what right had you to steal my wealth and give it to Ximen Qing? At this moment I go to accuse you.” Li Ping’er seized him by the sleeve. “Good Brother,” she pleaded, “be merciful.” But Hua Zixu escaped from her. She woke to find her hand grasping Guan’ge’s sleeve and knew it was a dream. “Strange! Strange!” she gasped. She heard the drum sounding the third night watch. Her hair was standing on end and her body was bathed in a cold sweat.
The next day when Ximen Qing came, she told him of her dream. “Where he is now we do not know,” Ximen Qing said. “It was only your fancy. Try and be calm and do not worry so much. I will get Wu Yin’er to come and stay with you, and old woman Feng to come and wait on you.” Daian was sent to bring Wu Yin’er.
That afternoon Guan’ge, lying upon his nurse’s breast, seemed hardly able to breathe. Ruyi’er was frightened. She called Li Ping’er. “Mother,” she cried, “look at the baby. His eyes are upturned and he seems able only to breathe out, not in.” Li Ping’er took the child from her, weeping. She told the maid to go at once for Ximen Qing and tell him that the baby was dying.
Chang Zhijie was there, telling Ximen Qing how he had found a house with four rooms and needed thirty-five taels more. When Ximen heard how ill his son was, he said to Chang Zhijie: “You must go now. I cannot take you to the gate. I will send you the money and come to see you in your new house.” He hurried to see Li Ping’er. Yueniang and the other ladies were already there, watching the child struggling in the last agony. Ximen Qing could not bear to look. He went into another room, sat down on a chair, and sighed deeply. Before he had time to drink half a cup of tea, Guan’ge died. It was around four in the afternoon of the twenty-third day of the eighth month. The boy had lived a mere fourteen months.
They all set up a great crying. Li Ping’er beat her ears, tore her cheeks, dashed her head upon the ground, and wept until she fell into a swoon. For a long time she stayed unconscious, then she came to herself and rocked the dead child in her arms, sobbing.
“Oh my poor unfortunate child,” she cried, “my heart is broken. Why could I not die with you? I will not live long in this world. Why have you left me so cruelly?”
Ruyi’er and Yingchun cried bitterly. Ximen Qing told some of the boys to prepare a room at the side of the great hall, and was going to put the child upon his bed on two benches there, but Li Ping’er clung to him with both hands and would not let him go. “My unfortunate child, my precious baby,” she cried, “you have taken my heart with you. Now all my labor is wasted. I can never see you more, my heart!”
Yueniang and the others cried with her and tried to console her. Ximen Qing, when he saw her torn face and her hair in disorder, said: “Do not take it so hard. He was not fated to be our child. We reared him for a spell but now his little life is done. Cry and be done with it. We cannot bring him back to life by weeping. Remember that you are dear to me. Now we must take him away and I must send for the Master of the Yin Yang.” He asked what the time was and Yueniang told him.
“As I thought,” Meng Yulou said, “he waited for this hour and then went. At this hour he was born and at this hour he has died. It was the twenty-third day too, only the month is different. He has lived one year and two months exactly.”
When Li Ping’er saw the boys waiting to take the body of her child away, she began to cry again. “Oh, why must you be in such a hurry? Great Mother, put your hand upon him. He is still warm. Oh, my son! How can I give you up? You cannot leave me so cruelly.” Again she threw herself upon the ground and sobbed bitterly.
The boys took Guan’ge and laid him in the room they had prepared. Yueniang said to Ximen Qing: “We must let our relatives the Qiaos know, and send for the priests.”
“We will send for the priests tomorrow,” Ximen said. He sent Daian to bear the news to Master Qiao. Xu, the Master of the Yin Yang, was summoned to write the certificate. Ben the Fourth was given ten taels of silver and told to buy a set of fir-wood boards and get the carpenters to make a little coffin for the child.
As soon as the Qiaos got the message, Mistress Qiao came. She cried. Yueniang and the others cried with her and told her all that had happened. Then Xu, the Master of the Yin Yang, came. “My young brother,” he said, “departed this life exactly at the hour of the monkey.” Yueniang told him to look at the black book. Master Xu took up his black book and read:
The young master was born at the hour of the monkey on the twenty-third day of the sixth month of the bingshen year in the Zhenghe reign period, and died at the hour of the monkey on the twenty-third day of the eighth month of the dingyu year of the same reign. This combination of a renzi day and a dingyu month indicates that another life and death are before him. We must have no mourners except the relatives, and, when he is put into the coffin, no one who was born under the sign of the Snake, the Dragon, the Rat or the Hare, must be present. It says in my black book that one who dies on a renzi day will go upwards to the Temple of the Precious Vase, or down to Qi (Shandong). In his previous existence he was a scion of the house of Cai in Yanzhou. He extorted money from people by violence and spent his substance in wild living. He paid no worship to Heaven and Earth and was lacking in due reverence for his kinsmen. He caught a chill, took to his bed, fouled
his bedclothes, and died. He was born again, suffered from convulsions, and, ten days ago, some animal terrified him. On that day his evil star was in the ascendant; his spirit was taken from him. On that day, too, he was born again in a family named Wang. He will grow to be a military officer and live to be sixty-eight years old.
This was what Master Xu found in his book. He asked whether Ximen Qing intended to bury or burn the body the following day.
“I do not wish him to be taken from here tomorrow,” Ximen Qing said. “I will have the appropriate ceremonies on the third day, and he shall be buried in my family sepulchre on the fifth day after his death.”
“The twenty-seventh will be a bingchen day and not inauspicious so far as the members of your household are concerned,” the Master of the Yin Yang said. “The burial should take place at noon.” He wrote a certificate and the child was placed in the coffin. It was the third night watch. Li Ping’er went to her room and, weeping, gathered together some of the child’s tiny religious garments and put them, with hat, shoes, and socks, into the coffin with him. It was nailed up. Everybody began to cry again. The Master of the Yin Yang went away.
The next day Ximen Qing was too busy to go to the office. Xia heard of his bereavement and came to offer his condolences. Ximen sent a man to give the news to Abbot Wu and ask him to send eight priests to sing a dirge on the third day after the decease. The Abbot and Master Qiao both offered the customary offering of three animals. The four uncles, Wu, Shen, Han, and Hua, did likewise and came to burn paper offerings. Ying Bojue, Xie Xida, Master Wen, Chang Zhijie, Han Daoguo, Gan, Ben the Fourth, Li and Huang, all made contributions and came in the evening to watch before the body with Ximen Qing. When the monks had performed their part and had gone away, the customary offerings were made before the baby’s coffin. Ximen Qing had tables set in the great hall for the entertainment of those who had come to condole with him.
The Golden Lotus, Volume 2 Page 10