The Golden Lotus, Volume 2

by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng

  “Now, Grand Marshal Huang is coming from the Capital, and friend Song, with all his staff, is going to receive him. He has asked me to say that, as he has no other friend here to whom he is able to appeal, he hopes you will entertain the Grand Marshal.”

  He bade his servants summon the messengers whom Song had sent. Two officials in black robes came and knelt down. They brought presents of gold silk, incense, candles and paper. “These are the things Song has sent on his own account. The other parcels contain the presents from his staff. From the Provincial Treasurer and the Provincial Judge, twelve; and from the officers of the Prefecture, eight. In all there are twenty-two presents, a hundred and six taels.”

  He offered the gifts to Ximen Qing and again asked if he would entertain the Grand Marshal.

  Ximen Qing hesitated. “I am in mourning, and I do not know what I ought to do. When is His Grace coming?”

  “There is plenty of time,” Huang said, “he won’t be here for another six weeks. He has not left the Capital yet.”

  “My wife is to be buried on the twelfth day of the tenth month,” Ximen Qing said. “Since you and his Lordship are good enough to give me such a proof of your confidence, I will do what you wish. But I cannot accept these presents. Say what you would have me do and I will make the necessary preparations.”

  “Nothing of the sort,” Huang said. “Song asked me to approach you on the matter, and these presents have been sent by all the officers of the province. They are not from Song alone. You can’t possibly refuse them. If you insist, I shall take them back and we will not ask you to do anything for us.”

  “In that case,” Ximen Qing said, “I have no option in the matter.” He told Daian and Wang Jing to remove the presents. Then he asked what preparations it would be necessary to make.

  “For his Grace,” said Huang, “a long state table. For Song, the Provincial Treasurer and the Provincial Judge, a table on the floor level, and, for the lower officers, tables of the common sort. We ourselves will provide for the servants and musicians. You need not trouble about them.”

  Tea was brought a second time and Huang stood up to take leave. Ximen Qing asked him to stay, but the Controller said: “I am on my way to see Shang Liutang. He used to hold the post I have now, and afterwards he was made a judge at Chengdu. His son, Liangquan, passed the examination when I did.”

  “I did not know you were a friend of Liangquan,” Ximen Qing said. “He is a good friend of mine too.”

  Huang made ready to go. “Please give my respects to his Excellency Song,” Ximen said, “and tell him I await his pleasure.”

  “When the time comes, he will send word,” Huang said. “Do not be too extravagant in your preparations.”

  Ximen Qing escorted Huang to the gate. He mounted his horse and rode away.

  When the magistrate and the officers heard that Huang had come with officials from the provincial government, they were tremendously alarmed, and ran away to hide in the small arbor near the artificial mound. They told their servants to take their horses and sedan chairs away. When Ximen Qing rejoined them, he told them that Song had asked him to entertain Grand Marshal Huang the following month. With one voice they made complaint: “Our district is poor enough already. If the Grand Marshal comes, we shall have to provide all kinds of things, banquets, materials and servants, and we shall have to extract the money from the people. What more dreadful calamity could have overtaken us? We only hope you will speak to his Excellency on our behalf, for we are all friends of yours.” They went away.

  The days passed until it was the twenty-first day after the death of Li Ping’er. The abbot Daojian of the Temple of Eternal Felicity outside the gates came with sixteen monks to perform the appropriate rites. They wore embroidered vestments and large hats, and, with their drums and great gongs, performed a very imposing ceremony.

  On the twenty-eighth day the priests of Baoqing Temple came to sing the Buddhist liturgy for the dead. Ximen Qing was not at home. He had gone to the grave with Xu, the Master of the Yin Yang, to watch the pit being dug. He came back in the afternoon, and, in the evening, all the monks departed. The next day, he sent wine, food, and other things to the grave, and instructed his servants to put up a temporary building, the size of three rooms, near the site of the grave. The neighbors were entertained and, afterwards, everybody was given a present.

  On the eleventh day, very early, a troop of singing boys came with their gongs and instruments to perform some farewell plays before the coffin. They played The Five Demons Playing Pranks on Ban Guan; Zhang Tianshi Being Led Astray by Devils; Zhong Kui and the Little Ghosts; Laozi Passing over Han Guan; The Six Thieves Deceiving Amida; Plums in the Snow; Zhuangzi Dreaming of the Butterflies; The Heavenly Prince Sending Down Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind; and many another. The ladies watched the plays from the other side of the screen. When they were over, all the relatives came and burned paper offerings before the coffin. They made loud lamentation.

  The next day was the funeral. At a very early hour the obituary banner was brought out, together with a host of other banners and objects made of paper. Musicians and Buddhist and Daoist clergy came. Ximen Qing had arranged with Major Zhou for fifty soldiers, all fully equipped with arms and horses. Ten of them were on duty at the house; the other forty marched on either side of the coffin. Another twenty men from his own department marched in front and attended to the paper objects. Still another twenty had gone before to the funeral ground to guard the gate and receive the offerings that might be sent there.

  Officers, scholars, relatives, friends and neighbors assembled for the funeral. There was a great din of horses and carriages arriving, and the street was full of people. Many more than a hundred sedan chairs brought ladies. Even the smaller sedan chairs of the singing girls might have been counted in scores.

  Xu, the Master of the Yin Yang, selected the moment for the procession to start.

  Ximen Qing gave directions for Sun Xue’e to stay at home with the two nuns.

  Ping’an and two soldiers stood at the gate.

  Chen Jingji, on his knees before the coffin, broke a cup into many pieces. Then sixty-four undertakers lifted the coffin upon their shoulders, their directors standing upon a raised platform and signaling instructions by striking a wooden gong. The priests of the Temple of Eternal Felicity chanted a dirge and the procession started down the main street and turned to the south. The masses of people on either side of the street seemed like a sea of men, a human mountain. The weather was fine, and it was a magnificently imposing funeral.

  Banners bearing characters of gold; banners with characters of silver Following close behind the coffin.

  Parasols of white silk and parasols of green silk

  Carried by those who walk before it.

  Banners for worthiness fluttering in the breeze.

  Cries and groans of lamentation all the way.

  Soldiers marching to clear the road

  Brandish staves of olive wood.

  Acrobats coming to meet the god, trying to display their skill

  Tumble and twist to left and right

  With bodies lithe as falcons

  Clambering like monkeys over their horses

  Standing on their heads

  Turning somersaults

  Passing coins through their bellies

  And standing on one leg like golden cockerels.

  The people applaud

  Each trying to praise more loudly than his neighbor.

  Shoulder to shoulder and back to back

  Wise and foolish undistinguishable

  Nobles and commonalty, all are there to see.

  Zhang the Fifth, the big blockhead

  Puffing and blowing.

  Li the Fourth, the dwarf

  On his toes all the time.

  White-haired old gentlemen

  Propping their beards on their sticks.

  Dark-haired beauties

  With babes in their arms

  All come to look a
t the funeral procession.

  There were more than ten sedan chairs for Wu Yueniang, Li Jiao’er and the other ladies. They followed the coffin one behind the other. Ximen Qing, wearing a hempen hat and mourning dress, walked with the others immediately after it. Chen Jingji placed his hand upon the coffin, and so they came to the beginning of East Street. There Ximen Qing, in accordance with the Rites, called upon Abbot Wu of the Temple of the Jade King to set up the portrait. The Abbot wore a gown embroidered with a scarlet stork, a hat of the Nine Thunders, and a pair of orange-colored shoes. In his hand was an ivory tablet. He rode in a sedan chair carried by four men. He advanced towards the coffin, bearing the large portrait of Li Ping’er. Chen Jingji knelt down, and the procession halted. Then, while all listened attentively, the Abbot began to read.

  “This is the dead lady of Ximen, officer of the Royal Guard. She was born at noon on the fifteenth day of the first month of the year Xinwei, and departed this life very early in the morning of the seventeenth day of the ninth month of the seventh year of the reign Zhenghe. She lived for twenty-seven years. The glorious dead was an excellent lady of high degree, most beautiful of wives. Nature endowed her with a loveliness like that of flowers and the moon. Her disposition was as fragrant as the orchid. In temper and behavior, she was gentle and sweet; in character, agreeable and harmonious. And as she was wise and gentle when in her own family, so, after her marriage, she lived most perfectly with her husband. A child she bore, like the jade of Lantian, but he drooped as the blossom of an orchid. We hoped that a hundred years of happy life might be before her, but, alas, she lived but twenty-seven. As the bright moon always fades, so the treasures of this world easily elude us. She, this excellent lady, died suddenly, for whether we die young or live to old age is for the Fates to decide.

  “Now we bear her coffin through the streets, and mourning banners wave in the breeze. Her worthy husband laments before her bier, and her household, here in the street, are broken-hearted. So deep is their affection that they can never forget her. But lest, being dead, the remembrance of her appearance should be dimmed, we, who unworthily assume this hat and these ornaments of the Daoist faith, unworthily because we failed to restore her to health, can only, with all due reverence, follow the traditions of our ancestors and set forth her portrait for exhibition.

  “We cannot bring back the butterfly of Zhuangzi’s dream, but we hope that in Paradise she may partake of sweet dew and precious refreshment. When she comes face to face with the True God, she will be adorned with a hundred jewels and her pure spirit will not long remain in Hades. Then will her mind forget all things, for all things, in very truth, are but illusion.

  “So, as her body is buried, may her spirit become a pure breeze. This true spirit will go away and return no more, and she will enter into eternal life. Hearken now, while we bid her a last farewell. We know not whither her spirit goeth, but her portrait will remain for people of future generations to gaze upon.”

  The sedan chair, with the Abbot sitting upright within it, slowly withdrew. The music played and there was a great lamentation. The funeral procession moved forward. When it came to the East Gate, the relatives and Ximen Qing mounted horses, but Chen Jingji continued on foot behind the coffin all the way to the grave. Captain Zhang and two hundred soldiers, and the two eunuchs, Liu and Xue, were at the burying place, stationed on the hillock. There they received the coffin with music. Paper offerings were burned, and the smoke reached the skies. When the body was brought to the hill, the undertakers set it down while Xu, the Master of the Yin Yang, went with them to examine the grave with a compass. When everything was ready, sacrifice was made to the god of the place; the coffin was lowered into the grave, and earth cast upon it.

  Then Ximen Qing changed his clothes, and, taking two rolls of silk to Major Zhou, asked him to put the final dot upon the tablet. After this, the officials of Ximen’s office, and his relatives and friends, offered wine to him. The music thundered and fireworks blazed everywhere. It was a magnificent scene.

  After taking some refreshment, they prepared for the return journey. Yueniang sat in the Spirit’s sedan chair, with the tablet and the banner. Chen Jingji went back with the Spirit’s bed, the fourteen Daoist novices accompanying him, playing music all the way. Both uncles Wu, Master Qiao, uncles Hua, Shen and Meng, Ying Bojue and Xie Xida, Master Wen and the clerks, came back with Ximen Qing. The ladies’ chairs followed. When they reached the gate, a fire was lighted. Then they went in, and set up the tablet in the room of Li Ping’er. Master Xu performed various ceremonies, purified the whole house, and set yellow charms upon all the doors to keep away evil spirits. He was given a roll of silk and five taels of silver, and went away. The other guests went too. Ximen Qing took twenty strings of small money, five for the policemen, five for the soldiers of his own department, and ten for those of Major Zhou. He sent a servant with his card to thank Major Zhou, Captain Zhang and Magistrate Xia. He urged Master Qiao and the others to remain, but they declined and went away.

  Laibao came. “The men who set up the temporary buildings await your orders,” he said. “They propose to remove everything tomorrow.”

  “I do not wish them taken down yet,” Ximen said. “Tell the men to come after I have entertained Censor Song.”

  In the inner court, Mistress Hua and Mistress Qiao waited to see the tablet set up, then they made a last lamentation and went away.

  That evening, Ximen Qing, still thinking of Li Ping’er, went to her room. The tablet was placed in the position of honor, facing her portrait. The smaller portrait was next to the tablet. There was a small silver bed and silver coverlets in a shrine, complete in every way with ornaments, and, beneath it, a pair of tiny shoes. On a table were incense, flowers, candles, plates, bowls and all kinds of things offered to the dead. Ximen Qing cried again. He bade Yingchun make a bed for him opposite the tablet. In the middle of the night he watched the lonely lamp and the moon shining through the window. He tossed about on his bed and sighed. All the time, he thought of the beauty he had lost.

  Mournfully he sighed before her shuttered window

  Lonely and broken-hearted, like the phœnix

  That has lost his mate.

  The orchids are withered, and the rain of autumn falls

  The maple leaves drop into the river

  In the frosty night.

  Their longing to be together was in vain

  In this life he will never more behold her.

  If the dead know what passes in the world

  Then there must be two heartbroken lovers

  One still on earth, the other in the underworld.

  When day came, Ximen Qing watched the maids offer food and tea to their dead mistress, and he took his own meals there. When he took up his chopsticks, he looked towards the tablet and invited his dead lady to eat with him. Seeing this, the maids and the nurse shed tears. When he was alone, Ruyi’er used to come and give him tea and things to eat. She would find means to touch him, and an excuse for saying something or other, and soon they were on very good terms with one another.

  One day, Ximen Qing invited a number of ladies and gentlemen to a service at the grave, and, when he came back, he was drunk. Yingchun helped him to bed. In the middle of the night he wished for some tea, but Yingchun was not there and Ruyi’er brought it for him. She noticed that his bedclothes had almost fallen on the floor, so, when she had given him the teacup, she gathered them up for him. This touched him; he put his arms around her neck and kissed her. Then he slipped his tongue between her lips. She let it pass, but did not speak. Ximen told her to undress, and they got into bed together and played with great delight.

  “Now my mistress is dead,” Ruyi’er said, “I will stay here and serve you, if you love me.”

  “If you serve me well,” said Ximen Qing, “you need not worry.”

  After this, the woman did all she could to give him satisfaction, and was ready to do everything he wished. This pleased him.

  The
next day she got up and brought his shoes and socks, made the bed, and would not allow Yingchun to do anything for him. Ximen took four pins that had belonged to Li Ping’er and gave them to her. She kowtowed and thanked him. Yingchun knew this and joined forces with her. Ruyi’er, realizing that her position was now secure, and that she no longer needed help from anyone else, became quite different in manner. Every day she dressed beautifully and mingled with the other maids. She talked and joked so much that Pan Jinlian remarked it.

  One morning, Ximen Qing was sitting with Ying Bojue, when one of the servants told him that a man had come from Song the Censor. He had brought a set of gold and silver wine cups, a pair of gold wine pots, two pairs of gold goblets, ten pairs of small silver cups, two pairs of silver jars, four pairs of large silver cups, two rolls of scarlet silk, two rolls of gold silk, ten jars of wine, and two sheep. He said that the Grand Marshal’s boat had now arrived at Dongchang, and brought a message asking Ximen Qing to prepare for his entertainment on the eighteenth. Ximen accepted all these things, and gave the man a tael of silver and his card. He ordered Ben the Fourth and Laixing to buy whatever might be necessary.

  “Ever since my sixth wife’s illness,” Ximen said to Ying Bojue, “I have never had a moment to myself. Now the funeral is over, there comes this business, and I shall be more occupied than ever.”

  “You must not complain, Brother,” Bojue said, “it is not of your seeking. They came to you. You will certainly have to spend a little money, but the presence of the high officers of the province will make your house glorious.”

  “That is not what is troubling me,” Ximen said, “but I expected they would come sometime after the twentieth. If they come on the eighteenth, things will have to be done in a hurry. It will be the thirty-fifth day after her death, too. I have made arrangements for a service with Abbot Wu, and I cannot alter the date. Even if I could alter it, I couldn’t manage with these two things coming on the same day.”