The Golden Lotus, Volume 2

by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng

  Li Jiao’er and Yulou were there but, seeing how angry Yueniang was, they went to their own rooms. Ximen Qing went on drinking wine. Yueniang went to the inner room to take off her ornaments and ceremonial dress.

  “Where have those four packets of silver on the chest come from?” she said to Yuxiao.

  Ximen Qing answered her. “General Jing sent them. He wants me to speak to Song for him.”

  “Brother-in-law brought them. I forgot to tell you,” Yuxiao said.

  “Silver belonging to other people should always be put in the chest at once,” Yueniang said.

  Yuxiao put it in the chest.

  Jinlian was still sitting there, waiting for Ximen Qing to go to the outer court. It was a Renzi day. She was going to take the medicine Nun Xue had given her and hoped that, after she had slept with him, she would conceive.

  Ximen Qing showed no sign of moving. At last, she pulled aside the lattice. “If you are not coming, I shall go,” she said. “I haven’t patience to wait any longer.”

  “You go first,” Ximen Qing said. “I will come when I’ve finished my wine.”

  Jinlian went away. Then Yueniang said: “I don’t wish you to go to her. I have something to say to you. The pair of you wear the same pair of trousers, and you are making my life unbearable. She even has the audacity to come to my room and call you away. The shameless hussy! She might be your only wife and the rest of us nobodies. You are a foolish scamp. No wonder people talk about you behind your back. We are all your wives and you ought to treat us decently. You needn’t make everybody aware of the fact that she has got you body and soul. Since you came back from the Eastern Capital, you haven’t spent a single night in the inner court. Naturally people are annoyed. You should put fire into the cold stove before you begin on the hot one. You have no right to allow one woman to monopolize you. So far as I am concerned, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care for games of this sort, but the others will not stand it. They don’t say anything, but they think a great deal. Yulou didn’t eat a thing all the time we were at Brother Ying’s place. She has probably caught a chill on the stomach. Mistress Ying gave her two cups of wine, but she couldn’t keep it down. Will you go and see her?”

  “Is that true?” Ximen Qing said. “Have these things taken away. I won’t drink any more.” He went at once to Yulou’s room. She was undressed and lying on the bed, sick. She was retching painfully. “My child, how do you feel?” Ximen said. “I will send for a doctor for you.” Yulou was vomiting. She did not answer. He helped her to lie down, but she pressed her hands to her breast.

  “My dear, how are you? Tell me.”

  “I have a good deal of pain. Why do you ask? Go and attend to your own affairs.”

  “I didn’t know,” Ximen said. “The Great Lady has only just told me.”

  “Of course you didn’t know,” Yulou said. “I am not your wife. You only love the one who has established herself in your heart.”

  Ximen Qing took her in his arms and kissed her. “Don’t tease me,” he said. “Lanxiang, make some strong tea for your mother at once.”

  “I have some already made,” Lanxiang said. She brought a cup. Ximen took it and held it to Yulou’s lips.

  “Give it to me,” she said, “I will drink it by myself. Don’t try to be pleasant. Go and sell your hot buns where they are wanted. I am not jealous. The sun must have risen in the west today, since you come to see me. I can’t imagine why the Great Lady said anything to you about it.”

  “You don’t understand,” Ximen Qing said. “The last few days, I have really been too busy to come.”

  “Yes,” Yulou said, “you have too much to think about; you can’t think about anyone but your sweetheart. We are stale. We’re only fit to be thrown into the dustbin. Perhaps in ten years’ time you will remember us.”

  Ximen Qing still went on kissing her. “Go away,” she said, “I can’t bear the smell of the wine you’ve been drinking. I have had nothing to eat all day and I haven’t strength enough to play with you.”

  “If you have had nothing to eat, let me tell the maid to bring something. I haven’t had my supper yet. I will have it with you.”

  “No,” Yulou said. “I feel too ill. If you want anything to eat, go and have it elsewhere.”

  “If you won’t eat,” Ximen said, “neither will I. Let us go to bed. Tomorrow I will send for Doctor Ren.”

  “Doctor Ren or Doctor Li, it’s all the same to me. I shall send for old woman Liu. She’ll give me medicine that will cure me.”

  “Lie down,” Ximen said, “and let me stroke your stomach. That will make you better. You know I am an expert at massage.” Then he suddenly remembered. “The other day,” he said, “Liu, the Director of Studies, gave me ten cow-bezoar pills from Guangdong. If you take one with some wine, you will be all right in no time.” He said to Lanxiang: “Go to the Great Lady and ask her for the medicine in the porcelain jar. And bring some wine with you.”

  “I’m sure you will be well as soon as you have taken it,” he said to Yulou.

  “I can’t think of anything horrid enough to say to you,” Yulou said. “What do you know about medicine? And, if you want wine, there is some here.”

  Lanxiang came back with two pills. Ximen Qing made her heat the wine. He took off the outer wax. There was a golden pill inside it. He gave it to Yulou.

  “Now heat another cup of wine for me,” he said to Lanxiang. “I am going to take some medicine myself.”

  Yulou looked at him. “You dirty creature! If you are going to take medicine, go somewhere else to do it. What do you think you’re going to do here? You’ve decided I’m not going to die just yet, so you think you’ll begin your tricks. In spite of all the pain I’ve had, you are ready to begin. No, I’ll have none of it.”

  Ximen Qing laughed. “Very well, my dear. I won’t take any medicine. We’ll go to bed.”

  When she had taken the pill, they went to bed. Ximen Qing fondled her soft breasts. With one hand he pressed her sweet nipples, and, with the other, drew her white neck closer.

  “How do you feel now that you’ve taken the pill?” he said.

  “Not so bad as I did, but still bad enough.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ximen said, “you’ll soon be better. Today, while you were out, I gave Laixing fifty taels of silver. We are going to give a banquet for Song the day after tomorrow. On the first of next month we must burn paper offerings, and, on the third, we must devote a couple of days to entertaining people. We can’t accept presents and give nothing in return.”

  “What do I care whether you have people coming or not?” Yulou said. “On the twentieth, I am going to get the boys to settle up the accounts, and I shall give up this housekeeping business. You will probably hand it over to Jinlian. It is time she did some work. Only yesterday she was saying there was nothing very hard about it, and there is no reason why I should always be bothered with it.”

  “You shouldn’t pay any attention to that little whore,” Ximen said. “She is always bragging, but, if she is given anything of importance to do, she can’t do it. If you really mean to hand it over to her, wait until these parties are over.”

  “Oh, you are very clever, Brother,” Yulou said. “You pretend you don’t love her more than the rest of us, but now you are giving yourself away. You say I am to hand the accounts over to her when the parties are over. Why should I have all the hard work? In the morning, when I am dressing my hair, the boys come in and out, measuring silver and getting change. It takes my breath away and uses me up. And nobody even says: ‘Well done!’”

  “My child,” Ximen said, “don’t you know the saying: ‘When anyone has managed the house for three years, even the dog hates him’?”

  He slowly lifted up one of her legs and put it over his arm. He embraced her, still holding it. He saw that she was wearing a pair of red silk slippers. “My child,” he said, “what could be more delightful to me than this white leg? If I had all the women in the world to choose from,
I could never find one so tender and so lovable as you.”

  “Oh, chatterbox!” Yulou said. “Do you imagine anybody believes that wooly mouth of yours? Other women have legs just as white. You really mean that my skin is rough, and you are calling black white.”

  “My dear, if I am lying to you, may I die this minute!”

  “Don’t take any oaths,” Yulou said.

  Ximen Qing put on the clasp and slipped his staff into her.

  “I know the fellow you are,” Yulou cried. “You always come to this.” Then she saw the clasp. “When did you put that thing on? Take it off at once.” But Ximen ignored her words, grasped her legs, and strove with all his might. Soon her juices of love flowed with a sound like that of a dog eating a fowl. She wiped her cunt with a handkerchief. She trembled and could not speak.

  “Don’t go any further, darling,” she said. “My back has recently been hurting and some white fluid has been escaping.”

  “We will get some medicine from Doctor Ren tomorrow. That will cure it.”

  Yueniang was talking to Aunt Wu and the nuns. By degrees they came to the subject of Chunmei and Miss Shen, and the whole story came out.

  “Chunmei was really very rude,” Aunt Wu said. “She insulted Miss Shen in words that cut like knives. I was obliged to interfere. It was not surprising that Miss Shen was angry. I would never have believed that Chunmei could curse people like that. I’m sure she must have been drinking.”

  “Yes,” Xiaoyu said, “she and four others were drinking.”

  “It is all that unreasonable fellow’s fault,” Yueniang said. “He has encouraged her to give herself such airs. She doesn’t care who it is. She won’t suffer anybody to speak to her. I shouldn’t be surprised if, in the future, all sorts of people don’t get driven away, and nobody will have anything to do with us. Miss Shen is a girl who goes from one house to another. It won’t be very pleasant for us if this story gets about. People will say Ximen Qing’s wife must be a dreadful creature. In this household, it is impossible to say who is master and who the slave. People will not say she is an undutiful slave, but that we are a bad bunch. And what will that mean?”

  “Never mind,” Aunt Wu said, “since your husband says nothing about it, why should we bother?”

  The ladies went to their own rooms to sleep.

  When Jinlian realized that Yueniang had prevented Ximen Qing from going to her, so that she missed the Renzi day, she was very angry. Very early the next morning, she told Laian to fetch a sedan chair for old woman Pan.

  When Yueniang got up, the nuns were ready to go away. She gave each of them some cakes and five qian of silver, and promised that Nun Xue should hold a service in her own temple in the first month. She gave her another tael of silver to buy incense, candles and paper things, and said she would send oil, wheat flour, rice, and vegetarian food as an offering.

  The nuns had tea with Aunt Wu in the upper room, and Yueniang sent for Li Jiao’er, Yulou, and Ximen’s daughter, Ximen Dajie.

  “How do you feel after taking the pill?” she asked Yulou. “Is your stomach still painful?”

  “I brought up a little water this morning,” Yulou said, “but I feel better now.”

  Yueniang told Yuxiao to go for Jinlian and old woman Pan. Yuxiao said: “Xiaoyu is seeing about the buns. I will go myself.” She went to Jinlian’s room.

  “Where is Grandmother?” she said. “They want you to go and have tea with them.”

  “I sent her away this morning,” Jinlian said.

  “Why did you send her away without telling anybody?” Yuxiao said.

  “Why should she stay any longer? She seems to have made herself a nuisance.”

  “But I have a piece of dried meat and four preserved melons for her. I never dreamed she would go. You keep them for her.” The maid gave the food to Jinlian, who put it in a drawer.

  “Last night, when you had gone away,” Yuxiao said, “the Great Lady told Father you were the one who governed this household, and that you and he wore the same pair of trousers. She said you were a shameless thing, monopolizing him as you did, so that he was afraid to go to the inner court. She persuaded him to go and sleep in the Third Lady’s room. Then she told Aunt Wu and the nuns that you spoiled Chunmei so much that she even dared to insult Miss Shen. Father is going to send a tael of silver to Miss Shen to make things all right.”

  Yuxiao went back to Yueniang and said that the Fifth Lady was coming, but that her mother had gone home.

  Yueniang looked at Aunt Wu. “You see! I said something to her yesterday, and now she flies into a temper and sends her mother away without a word to me. She must be up to something, but what form the storm will take I can’t think.”

  Yueniang did not know it, but Jinlian was already in the room on the other side of the lattice. She came in suddenly.

  “Great Sister,” she said, “I have sent my mother home. Did you say that I monopolize our husband? I wish to know.”

  “Yes, I did say so,” Yueniang said. “What about it? Ever since he came back from the Eastern Capital, he has spent all his time in your room. He never comes near the inner court. Do you flatter yourself that you are his only wife, and the rest of us nothing? Whether the others realize what you are about, I don’t know, but I do. A few days ago, when Guijie went away, my sister-in-law asked me why she was in such a hurry and why our husband was angry with her. I told her I didn’t know. You pushed yourself forward and said you were the only one who knew all about it. Of course you know. You never lose hold of him for a moment.”

  “If he didn’t wish to come to my room,” Jinlian said, “do you imagine I should keep him there with a pig’s-hair cord? Do you suggest that I am a whore?”

  “Aren’t you?” Yueniang said. “Yesterday, when he was here, you pulled the lattice aside and dashed in to take him away. What do you mean by it? Our husband is a man. He does a man’s work. What crime has he committed that you should tie him with a cord of pig’s hair? You foolish creature! I said nothing about it until you made me do so. On the sly, you asked him for a fur coat. You didn’t say a word to me about it, even when you put it on. If everybody behaved like that, my function here might as well be to look after the ducks. It is time you realized that, even in a poor house, there must be someone in authority. You allowed your maid to sleep with him. It was like cat and rat sleeping together. You indulge her in every possible way, and now she has the audacity to insult people. Yet you still stick up for her and won’t be contradicted.”

  “What about my maid?” Jinlian cried. “You think she is bad, and you would like to get rid of me. As for that fur coat, I did ask him for it, but it wasn’t only to get that for me that he opened the door. He got clothes for other people too. Why don’t you mention that fact? I spoil my maid. I am a whore. And I make my husband happy. Why don’t you say that woman is a whore too?”

  Yueniang became more and more angry. Her cheeks became crimson. “No,” she said, “not you, but I am the whore! But when I married him, I was a virgin, not a married woman who got him into her clutches. I am no whorish husband-stealer. It is clear enough which of us is a whore and which is virtuous.”

  “Sister, don’t lose control of yourself,” Aunt Wu said.

  But Yueniang went on. “You have killed one husband already, and now you are trying to kill another.”

  “Mother,” Yulou said, “why are you so angry today, beating us all with the same stick? You, Fifth Lady, must give way to the Great Lady. You must not quarrel with her.”

  “The proverb says: When there is fighting, no hand is gentle: when there is quarreling, no words are soft,” Aunt Wu said. “When you quarrel like this, it makes your relatives ashamed. If you won’t pay any attention to me, I shall take it that you are angry with me and call for my sedan chair and go home.”

  Li Jiao’er hastily begged her not to do so.

  Jinlian sat down on the floor and rolled about. She banged her face on the ground and knocked the hairnet from her head. Sh
e cried aloud.

  “Let me die!” she shouted. “Why should I go on living a miserable life like this? You were married in due and proper manner: I only followed him to the house. Very well! There need be no more difficulty, I will ask him to set me free. I will go, but I fear that, if you imagine you will capture a husband thereby, you are mistaken.”

  “Now, you disturber of the peace,” Yueniang said, “before one can get a word out, you pour forth a stream of words. You roll about on the floor. You put all the blame on us. Will you ask my husband to divorce me? Don’t think anybody is afraid of you, even if you are so clever.”

  “No, indeed!” Jinlian cried, “you are the only good and virtuous woman here. Who would dare to quarrel with you?”

  “Am I not good and virtuous? Do you suggest that I have had a lover in this house?” Yueniang was growing still more angry.

  “If you haven’t, has anybody else? Let me see you point to any lover I have had.”

  When the quarrel had reached this pitch, Yulou went forward and tried to pull Jinlian away. “Don’t behave like this,” she said. “These holy nuns will be ashamed of you. Stand up, and I will go with you to your room.”

  Jinlian would not get up. Yulou and Yuxiao pulled her up. They took her to her own room.

  “Sister,” Aunt Wu said to Yueniang, “you ought not to get into a state like this when you are in such delicate health. There is really nothing very much the matter. When you sisters are happy, I am content; but, if you spend all the time quarreling and will not listen to what I say, I shall not be able to come any more.”

  The nuns gave their novices something to eat. Then they took their boxes and came to say good-bye to Yueniang. “Teachers,” Yueniang said, “you must not scorn me.”

  “There is some smoke to every fire,” Nun Xue said. “A tiny flame in our mind can give rise to much smoke. My advice is: give way to each other. As Buddha says: Our minds should be as calm as a ship at anchor. We must cleanse our hearts and make them pure. If we leave the lock open and loose the chain, ten thousand diamond clubs can not control us. The first step towards Buddhahood is self-control. Thank you for all your kindness to us. We hope you will be very well.”