Qintong came and said that Han Daoguo had given him a paper to show his master. Ximen read it and said to the boy: “Take this to Doctor Ren’s house and ask him to go to the palace and have Han’s name taken off the list.”
“It is too late now to go outside the city,” Qintong said. “Shall I go tomorrow morning?”
Ximen Qing agreed. Then Laian brought a square box with several dishes and two large plates of pastries made of goose fat and rose flowers. Chen Jingji shared their meal. Ximen Qing told Wang Jing to give three dishes and some pastries to Zheng Chun and two large cups of wine. Zheng Chun knelt down and said: “I never drink wine.”
“You foolish boy,” Ying Bojue said, “it is very, very cold, and, besides, it is your father who offers it to you. You know your brother always has some.”
“My brother may drink wine, but it is not for me,” said the boy.
“Drink one cup,” Bojue said, “and I will ask Wang Jing to drink the other for you.”
But Wang Jing said he never touched wine.
“Foolish boy,” Bojue said, “I am asking you to drink one for Zheng Chun. You ought to know by now that young people should not refuse anything their eiders give them. You must drink it.” He stood up. Wang Jing held his nose and swallowed the wine.
“Dog!” Ximen Qing said. “What right have you to force him to drink?”
The boy drank only half a cup. Ying Bojue told Chunhong to drink the rest and asked him to sing some Southern songs.
“Wait a moment,” Ximen Qing said, “I am going to have a game with Scholar Wen, and he can sing while we drink. That will be fun.” He told Wang Jing to get the dice box and asked Scholar Wen to throw the dice first.
“I dare not,” said Wen. “I ought to ask Master Ying to begin. What is your honorable name, worthy Sir?”
“My poor name is Nanpo,”* Bojue said.
“I will explain it to you, Master,” Ximen Qing said jokingly. “So many gentlemen come to his place that there is no chance for him to get at the thing he keeps under the bed. In the evening, when he can get at it, he dare not pour it out in the street for fear his neighbors will curse him, so he tells his maid to take it to the south and empty it against the granary wall. That’s why his second name is Nanpo.”
Scholar Wen laughed. “But that is a different po. The character for ‘pouring’ has the water radical on one side and the word fa on the other. This po has the earth radical and the word pi.”
“Pi is the very word, Master,” Ximen said. “There are always pizi (Southerners) with his wife.”
“I did not mean that,” Scholar Wen said, laughing.
“Master,” Bojue said, “you don’t know him. He is always making nasty jokes about people.”
“A little joking serves to liven things up,” the scholar said.
“Let us begin our game,” Bojue said. “Don’t bother about him. His mouth is always dribbling. Please begin. Don’t stand on ceremony.”
“When I throw the dice,” Scholar Wen said, “we will have a quotation from some poem, or song, or some classical work, which must have the word ‘snow’ in it. If we can think of one, we drink a small cup; if not, a large one.” He threw a one. “I know,” he said, “it is long since snow fell on the wild bird’s island.” He passed the dice box to Ying Bojue, who threw a five.
Bojue thought for a long time but could not think what to say. “This is really terrible,” he muttered. Finally he cried: ‘I’ve got it! The plum flowers in the snow open their snow-white blossoms. What do you think of that?”
“That won’t do,” Scholar Wen said. “You said ‘snow’ twice.”
“That’s all right,” Bojue said, “big snow and little snow!”
“What nonsense you always talk, you dog,” Ximen said. He told Wang Jing to give Bojue a large cup of wine, and bade Chunhong sing a Southern song.
The night was chill and the traveler hungry
He went to the village to seek an inn.
Snow hovers gently over the temples
And drops thickly on the places for dancing.
Now he must stay awhile.
On the bank of the river he goes cheerfully
To see the plum blossoms.
In the courtyard, people with silver candles
Go to appreciate the snow
White snow, falling endlessly
Dancing in the air like willow fluff.
Bojue was enjoying his wine when Laian brought fresh pastries and dessert. There were conch-shaped light pastries and things that looked like small black balls, wrapped in orange leaves. Bojue picked one up and put it to his nose. It smelled very sweet. He put it into his mouth. It tasted like honey, and he thought it most delicious. He could not imagine what it was. Ximen Qing told him to guess.
“Sugar-coated soap,” Bojue said.
Ximen Qing laughed. “Sugar-coated soap would hardly be so pleasant,” he said.
“I would say ‘Plum pastry balls,’ but there is a kernel.”
“Come here, you dog, and I’ll tell you,” Ximen said, “for I don’t suppose you will ever guess. They were brought for me from Hangzhou by one of my people, and are called coated plums. There are various kinds of medicine inside. The medicine is mixed with honey, and the plums are steeped in the mixture. Finally, they are covered with peppermint and orange leaves. That is why they taste so pleasant. Taken every morning, they are excellent for the chest. They get rid of foul breath, are useful against phlegm, tone down the effects of wine, and are splendid for the digestion. They are much better than plum pastry balls.”
“How should I ever have thought of that if you hadn’t told me?” Bojue said. “Master Wen, I think I’ll have another.” He said to Wang Jing: “Bring me some paper, I’m going to take a couple home to my wife.” He picked up one of the shell-shaped pastries. “Is it true,” he asked Zheng Chun, “that your sister made these herself?”
Zheng Chun knelt down and said: “Do you think I would lie to you? Zheng Aiyue spent hours over these few pastries.”
“She did good work,” Bojue said. “Look! They are marked exactly like real shells. The colors, red and white, stand out ever so clearly.”
“My son,” Ximen Qing said, “when you talk like this you make me think of her who is gone. She was the only one in my house who could make them, and, now she is no more, there is no one here to take her place.”
“I told you sometime ago that that does not trouble me,” Bojue said. “One of my daughters is dead, but there is still another to make such pastries for me. I must say you are a wonderful man to discover such wonderful people.”
Ximen Qing laughed until his eyes were no more than a narrow slit. He slapped Ying Bojue and told him not to talk such nonsense. Scholar Wen said: “Gentlemen, no one can help seeing what good friends you are.”
“Don’t say that,” Bojue said, “he is your nephew, you know.”
“For twenty years, Master,” Ximen Qing said, “I have been his step-father.”
Seeing them making fun with one another, Chen Jingji stood up and went away. Scholar Wen put his hand before his mouth and laughed. Ying Bojue drank his wine. It was Ximen Qing’s turn to throw the dice. He threw a seven. For a long time he racked his brains for a verse. Then he said: “I will give you a quotation from the ‘Perfumed Girdle’: ‘The Lord of the East will go away, for the pear flowers look like snow.’”
“No,” Ying Bojue said, “that won’t do. The word ‘snow’ must be the ninth. You must drink a large cup.” He filled a cup of wine to the brim, gave it to Ximen Qing, and told Chunhong to sing. “My child,” he said to him, “if one may judge by the number of date stones in your belly, you must know more than a song or two.” Chunhong sang another song.
It was getting dark and lights were brought. When Ximen Qing had finished his wine, Bojue said: “Your son-in-law has gone, so Scholar Wen will have to finish the game.” Scholar Wen again threw a one. As he was thinking what to say, his eyes caught sight of a pair of scrolls hanging on the wall.
On them was written, “The wind rustles the tender willows. It is night upon the bridge. The snowflakes gently touch the frozen plums. There is Spring in the tiny courtyard.” He took the line beginning “Snow-flakes” for his quotation.
“We can’t have that,” Ying Bojue said. “That doesn’t come from your memory. You must drink a large cup.” Chunhong offered wine to Scholar Wen. He drank it, and it made him drowsy. He nodded his head. Then he got up and excused himself. Bojue would have kept him, but Ximen Qing said:
“No, a scholar is a man of education and cannot drink much wine.” He told Huatong to take Master Wen home. This was what Scholar Wen desired. He got up and took leave of them.
Bojue said to Ximen Qing: “Scholar Wen is really a poor creature. He has had very little to drink, yet he is drunk already.” He and Ximen Qing went on with their drinking.
At last Bojue himself stood up. “The ground is slippery, and I must go now,” he said. “Don’t forget, Brother, to see that Daian takes the letter tomorrow.”
“Didn’t you see me give it to him?” Ximen said. “He will go in the morning.”
Ying Bojue pulled aside the lattice. The sky was full of clouds, and the ground was like ice. He asked for a lantern and for Zheng Chun to go with him. Ximen Qing gave the boy five qian of silver, and filled a jar with the coated plums and put them in a box for Zheng Aiyue. As they were going away, Ximen said to Bojue: “Be good with your younger brother.”
“That is enough!” Bojue replied. “We are father and son and shall behave as such. But I may go and have a chat with that little whore Zheng Aiyue.”
Qintong took them to the gate. Ximen Qing saw that the tables were cleared, then, supported by Laian, who carried a lantern, he went to the corner door. He passed by Jinlian’s door, which was closed, and quietly went on to the rooms of Li Ping’er. He knocked gently and Yingchun opened the door. Laian went back. Ximen entered the room and looked at the portrait of his dead wife. He asked whether they had offered food before it. “We have just made an offering,” Ruyi’er told him.
Ximen sat down on a chair and Yingchun brought him tea. He told her to help him undress. Ruyi’er, finding that he was going to spend the night, quickly made the bed and warmed it with a hot-water bottle. Then she helped him to bed, and Xiuchun went out to shut the corner door. The two maids went to sleep in the other room.
When he asked for more tea, the maids were too sleepy to wish to get it. They told Ruyi’er to hurry. She took off her clothes and got into bed with him. The wine he had drunk had aroused Ximen’s passions. He took some of the secret medicine and put the clasp on his penis. She lay on her back, he parted her legs and pushed hard until her tongue froze and her cunt ran with abundant stream. She called him all the tender names she could think of. It was the middle of the night and so silent that the noise they made might have been heard far away. Ximen Qing found the woman’s body as yielding as down. He put his arms around her and kissed her, then told her to squat upon the bed and suck. She did so, to his great satisfaction.
“My child,” Ximen said to her, “your skin is as white as the Sixth Lady’s was. Being with you is like being with her. Treat me well and faithfully, and I will be kind to you.”
“You must not say that,” Ruyi’er said. “Comparing me with her is like comparing Earth with Heaven. But my husband is dead, and, if you do not hate a creature so ugly as I am, look at me sometimes and I shall be more than content.”
Ximen Qing asked how old she was.
“My animal is the Hare, and I am thirty-one.”
“You are a year younger than I am,” he said. He was delighted to find that not only did she talk sensibly, but she was no mean performer on the bed. Next morning she waited upon him hand and foot, put on his shoes and socks, and helped him to dress his hair. The two maids, Yingchun and Xiuchun, could not get near him. Ruyi’er asked him to give her some white silk to make a mourning gown for her dead mistress. Ximen Qing sent a boy to the shop to get three rolls of white silk so that both she and the maids might have white gowns. He gave them money and clothes and ornaments, and Wu Yueniang knew nothing about it.
But Pan Jinlian knew, and she went to see Yueniang. “You really must speak to him,” she said. “The shameless fellow went and slept with that woman yesterday. The wretch might be starved. He is ready to carry on with anybody he can get. We can’t let him go on like this. What shall we do if she has a baby? She would play the same game as Laiwang’s wife did. We ought not to allow her such liberties.”
“You always try to get me to do things of this sort,” Yueniang said. “He is carrying on with this woman. You all want to keep in his good graces and let me bear the brunt. Why should I be such a fool? You tell me to talk to him about it. Well, I’m not going to do anything of the sort.”
Jinlian went back to her room without another word.
The snow had stopped, and Ximen Qing told Daian to set out with the letter for Qian. When he returned from the office, Ping’an told him that Zhai’s messenger had come for his answer. Ximen Qing gave it to him and asked why he had not come the day before. The messenger told him that he had been delayed because he had had to go to Governor Hou. He took Ximen’s letter and went away.
When he had had his dinner, Ximen went to the shop and watched his men weighing out silver and packing up. On the twenty-fourth, they burned paper offerings and started for the South. Han Daoguo and Cui Ben took with them the two boys Rong Hai and Hu Xiu. Ximen gave them a letter and some presents for Miao Xiaohu.
By the twenty-sixth, Ximen had finished paying his visits of thanks to relatives and friends. One morning he was sitting in Yueniang’s room, having his breakfast. His wife said to him: “The first day of next month is Zhangjie’s birthday. We ought to send some sort of present to the Qiaos. The proverb says: ‘Once a relative, always a relative,’ and we ought not to cease these courtesies now that our baby is dead.”
“I see no reason why we should,” Ximen said. He told Laixing to buy enough presents to fill four boxes, silken clothes, two kerchiefs and a box of ornaments. Then he wrote a card and told Wang Jing to take the things to Master Qiao’s house. After this he went to his study in the garden.
Daian came back. “His Lordship Qian,” he said, “received your letter. He wrote a letter to Captain Li and gave it to the officer with whom Huang the Fourth’s son-in-law went to Dongchangfu. Captain Li asked the magistrate Tong to send the prisoners and all the documents to him, so that he could go into the case himself. Old Sun was discharged and all that happened was that they had to give ten taels of silver to pay for the other man’s funeral expenses. Sun Wen was sentenced for some trivial offense, given seventy stripes, and made to pay a small fine. The officer came back to tell his Lordship Qian, and now we have Captain Li’s letter.”
Ximen Qing was very pleased with Daian for handling the matter so adroitly. He opened the letter and read it. It was from Li to Qian and explained the situation.
I have received your letter [it read] and the matter is now quite clear. Feng the Second beat his son and, when his son fought with Sun Wen, both parties received injuries. The man’s death took place after the statutory limit. It would be unjust to condemn the other man to death, and I have adjudged that he shall pay Feng ten taels of silver towards the funeral expenses. So there is an end to the case.
The letter was signed Li Jiyuan.
Ximen Qing asked where Sun Wen was now.
“He went home as soon as he came out of prison,” Daian said. “Tomorrow he is coming with Huang the Fourth to kowtow to you. Huang gave me a tael of silver.”
Ximen Qing told the boy to spend the money on shoes and socks and anything else he needed; Daian made a reverence to his master and went away. Ximen Qing lay down on the bed and went to sleep. Wang Jing burned some incense in a small burner and went out quietly.
Suddenly, Ximen Qing heard someone pushing aside the lattice. Li Ping’er came in. She was wearing a violet coat and a white silk skirt. Her hair was
disordered and her face very pale. She came forward and, standing beside the bed, said to him: Brother, you are sleeping here. I have come to see you. You know I was accused by that fellow, and I have been in prison. I still suffer from an issue of blood and I have suffered greatly, for I have been unable to escape from the unpleasantness. The other day you were kind enough to pray for mercy for me, and my sentence was reduced by three parts. Still that fellow insists that I must be punished severely. He demanded your arrest. I have come to warn you lest, sooner or later, you should fall into his hands. Now I am going to find a place for myself. Take care of yourself. Do not go to too many parties, and, when you go, come back early. Remember what I say.” She threw her arms around him and sobbed.
“Sister,” Ximen Qing cried, “tell me where you are going.” But she pulled her hands away from him. He woke up and found it was a dream. And, when he woke, his eyes were filled with tears. From the shadow of the blind upon the floor, he knew that it was about noon. He was very sad.
The snow has settled
Its brightness shines upon the window.
The fire is nearly out and the bed is cold.
They meet again in a dream of love
And the breeze sends the fragrance of plum blossom
Through the curtains.
That morning they had sent presents to the Qiaos. Now Mistress Qiao sent Qiao Tong with an invitation to Yueniang and the other ladies. Yueniang was told that Ximen Qing was asleep in his study, so she did not wish to disturb him. She entertained Qiao Tong in the inner court. But Jinlian said: “Give me the card. I will go and see what he says.” She came to the study and found Ximen lying on the bed. She sat down on the bed. “My son,” she said, “you are talking to yourself. What is the matter with you? No wonder nobody ever sees you nowadays. You are too comfortable here.”
As she talked, she looked more closely at him and saw that he had been crying. “What makes your eyes sore?” she said.
“Perhaps because I fell off the pillow,” Ximen said.
“No, you have been crying.”
The Golden Lotus, Volume 2 Page 25