“Get off at once, you scandalmongering slave!” she cried. “My mistress is not well after her long journey, and she is still in bed. If you make her angry, it will be the worse for you.”
Qiuju swallowed her anger and went away.
One day, Chen Jingji came for some clothes, and Jinlian and he again amused themselves upstairs. While they were enjoying themselves to the utmost, Qiuju again went to the inner court, and asked Yueniang to come and see for herself.
“Lady,” she said, “I have warned you several times, but you would not listen. When you were away, they used to sleep together from morning till night and from night till morning. She even got in the family way. She and Chunmei have both been at the same tricks. Now they are upstairs doing wicked things together. If you do not believe me, come and see for yourself.”
Yueniang hurried to the outer court. The couple upstairs were busily engaged, but Chunmei happened to see Yueniang coming and rushed upstairs to warn them. They were greatly alarmed and could think of no place in which to hide. Jingji could only pick up some clothes and run downstairs.
“My son,” Yueniang said, “what are you doing here? You seem to have a very poor memory.”
“Someone is waiting in the shop and there was no one else to come and get the clothes,” Jingji said.
“Didn’t I give definite orders always to send a boy for the clothes?” Yueniang said. “What right have you in the room of this woman who has lost her husband? You are utterly shameless.”
Chen Jingji ran away as fast as his legs would carry him, and Jinlian stayed upstairs, not daring to come down. At last, however, she did come down, and Yueniang scolded her severely.
“Sister,” she said, “you must give up this shameless way of behaving. You and I are widows, and things are very different now from when our husband was alive. Even vases and jars have ears. Why do you associate with this young man? The servants are all saying the most terrible things about you. The proverb says that a man without character is like iron without any strength, and that a woman without character is as soft as honey. When we behave with proper decorum, people will do what they are told without our having to go to extremes, but, if we do not so behave, they will not obey, however severe our orders. If you were straightforward and conducted yourself decently, nobody would dare to say a word about you. I have been told this several times before, but I would never believe it. Now I have seen with my own eyes, and there is no choice left to me. Make up your mind that you will so live as to maintain our dead husband’s good name. Take my own case. If I had been a wicked woman, I should never have come back here when that bad man assaulted me.”
Jinlian flushed and paled in turns. She was full of denials. “I was burning incense upstairs when he came for some clothes, and I had no conversation at all with him.”
There was a good deal of argument, and then Yueniang went away.
In the evening, when Ximen Dajie and Jingji were in their own apartment together, Ximen Dajie said to him: “You villain! Will you still dare to say that I have no proofs? Will you argue with me now? What were you doing upstairs with her today? I can’t find words bad enough for you. The best thing would be to put you and her together in a big jar. And that whore, who has stolen my husband, swaggers about in my presence! She is like a tile out of the privy, hard and stinking. She always thinks she is better than anybody else. Do you think you will continue to have your meals here with me?”
“You whore!” Jingji said, in a fury, “isn’t my money kept here? I’m not begging for food in this place.” He went away in a very bad temper.
After that time, he always stayed at the shop and never came to get anything. Daian and Ping’an were sent to bring anything that was needed. Even the midday meal was served at the shop. Clerk Fu used to take some money and go to the street for noodles, then take them back with him. It was one of those cases where, as when there is a fight between a dragon and a tiger, the little wolf suffers. All the doors and windows were kept shut, even before the sun went down. And so the lovemaking between Chen Jingji and Jinlian was interrupted again.
There was a house belonging to Chen Jingji, which was lived in by his mother’s brother. This was a man named Chang, who had no work to do and spent all his time at home. To him Jingji went night and morning for his meals. Wu Yueniang asked no questions. Pan Jinlian and the young man were separated for about a month. She was desperately lonely. Each day seemed like a whole season, and each night was like half a summer. She could not bear the loneliness, and passion raged within her. There was no way she could see him. She could not send out a message, and he could not come near her.
One day, the young man saw old woman Xue going past the door and it occurred to him that she might be able to take a letter to tell Jinlian how much he loved her and how greatly he was distressed by their separation. As soon as he had an opportunity, he pretended to be going out to collect some money, but actually he took a donkey and went to see the old woman. When he came to her door, he tied up the donkey and asked if the old woman was at home. Her son, Xue Ji, and his wife were sitting on the bed nursing their baby. There were two girls in the room, waiting to be sold. When the young woman heard somebody asking for old woman Xue, she went out to see who it was.
“I should like to know if Madam Xue is at home,” Jingji said.
The young woman asked him to go in. “Mother has gone to change some ornaments and to collect some money,” she said. “If there is anything we can do for you, I will send for her.” She made tea for Chen Jingji.
After a while, old woman Xue came back. She made a reverence to Jingji and said: “What wind has blown you here?” She bade her daughter-in-law make him a cup of tea, but the young woman told her she had already done so.
“I would not trouble you,” Jingji said, “except on a matter of some importance. You know I have been on very close terms with the Fifth Lady for a long time. Now Qiuju has been blabbing, and we cannot get a chance to meet. The Great Lady and my wife, too, are treating me very badly. I can’t live without that woman, yet we have been parted all this time and have no way even of sending a message one to the other. I have thought of sending a letter, but there is no one I can trust it with. So I have come to you. I am sure you can help me.”
He took a tael of silver from his sleeve. “This,” he said, “may serve to buy you a cup of tea.”
The old woman laughed and clapped her hands. “I never heard of such a thing,” she said, “a son-in-law carrying on with his mother. Tell me, however did you manage to get her?”
“Sister Xue,” Jingji said, “this is not a joke. Here is my letter. You must take it to her for me.”
The old woman took the note. “I have not been to see the Great Lady since she returned. I will go to pay her my respects.”
“When shall I expect the answer?” Jingji said.
“I will come to your shop and tell you there,” the old woman said.
Jingji mounted his donkey and went back to the shop. The next day, old woman Xue took her box and went to Ximen’s house. First she went to see Yueniang, then Yulou, and finally Jinlian.
Jinlian was eating some rice gruel and talking to Chunmei, who was trying to make her more cheerful. “Mother,” she said, “don’t let yourself be so upset. Right or wrong, let people talk if they feel like it. After Father died, the Great Lady had a baby. Did anybody suggest there was anything wrong about that? She cannot control the things we do in secret. Cheer up. If the skies fall, there is always one who upholds them to put them back again. So long as we’re alive let us be as merry as we can.”
She heated some wine and gave a cup to her mistress. “Drink this,” she said, “and drown your sorrow.”
Then she looked out into the courtyard. Two small dogs were there, seemingly glued together.
“There!” she said, “even animals must have their enjoyment. Why not we human beings?”
Then old woman Xue came. She made a reverence to Jinlian and again to Chunmei.
“I see you are having some fun,” she said. Then she saw the two dogs.
“A good omen for this house,” she said. “When one sees a thing like that, one ceases to feel lonely.”
“You have not been here for a long time,” Jinlian said. “What has brought you today?” She asked old woman Xue to sit down.
“I don’t know what I have been doing all the time,” old woman Xue said, “but I am never idle. I wasn’t able to come and see your Great Lady when she came back from her pilgrimage. I have just come from her, and she was quite annoyed with me. The Third Lady was there too. She bought a pair of ornaments and some ribbon from me. She is a good lady, that. She just handed me eight qian of silver. But the lady Sun Xue’e, who bought two pairs of flowers in the eighth month and still owes me two qian for them, doesn’t want to pay me. So mean she is! But why were you not in the inner court?”
“I have not been very well lately,” Jinlian said. “I didn’t feel like leaving my room.”
Chunmei heated a cup of wine and gave it to the old woman. Old Xue made a reverence and thanked her. “Ought I to take it, when I have only just come in?” she said.
“It will bring you a good baby,” Jinlian said.
“No more babies for me,” old woman Xue said, “but my daughter-in-law had one a little while ago. He is two months old. I expect you have been very lonely since your husband’s death, Lady?”
“Naturally,” Jinlian said. “We have to suffer now in all kinds of ways. There are too many talkers in this household. The Great Lady herself, since her child has been born, has been quite a different woman. We are not so friendly as we used to be. As I told you, I have not been well lately, but we had a quarrel and that is one reason why I have not been near her.”
“It was all Qiuju’s fault,” Chunmei said. “When the Great Lady was away, that slave told a pack of lies about my mistress, and even dragged me into it. It is most provoking.”
“She is your maid,” old woman Xue said. “How dare she say things about her mistress? One who wears a black gown should stand by a black pillar. She ought not to do things like that.”
“Go and have a look,” Jinlian said to Chunmei. “She may be listening to us again.”
“No,” Chunmei said, “she is in the kitchen, picking rice. She is like a torn sack or a leaking manger, going about and telling everybody our business.”
“Since there is nobody here, I have something to tell you,” the old woman said. “Yesterday, Master Chen came to my house. He told me your maid Qiuju had got you into this pickle. He said that the Great Lady had scolded him, and that she kept the doors and windows tightly closed. He said he was no longer allowed to come here for clothes and medicine, and that his wife had gone to live in a room in the east wing. Nobody sends him anything to eat, and he has to go to his Uncle Zhang’s for his meals. It is not right that the Great Lady should not trust her own son-in-law but put all her confidence in the boys. He told me it was ever so long since he had seen you, and that he is dying to do so. He sends this letter and his love. Don’t worry, he says. Now that the master is dead, you would perhaps be wise to come out into the open. There is nothing to fear. Sometimes, we are afraid of the incense making too much smoke, but now there is no reason why it should not.”
She took Jingji’s letter from her sleeve and gave it to Jinlian. It was in the form of a poem written to the meter of “The Embroidered Scarlet Shoe.”
The fires of hell consume me
The waters beneath the dark blue bridge are almost to my neck.
What we have to do, let us do quickly
For scandal spreads over the districts of the south
And there is no avoiding it.
Let us then complete the work of joy
For if we do it not, it is as though we did.
When Jinlian read this, she put it into her sleeve.
“He would like you to give him some token, or write a few words to him,” the old woman said. “Otherwise, he will not believe that I have given you the message.”
Jinlian told Chunmei to drink with old woman Xue and herself went to the inner room. She came back with a white silk handkerchief and a gold ring. On the handkerchief, she wrote a poem to express her love. When she had finished, she wrapped the handkerchief and the ring up together and gave them to the old woman.
“Give him my love,” she said, “and bid him be patient. Tell him if he keeps going to his uncle’s for his meals, his uncle may get tired of him and say: ‘You are doing your father-in-law’s business, why do you come here to eat?’ It looks as though our people have not food enough to feed themselves. So tell him not to go to his uncle, but to take some money from the shop and spend it on food and cakes and things to eat with Clerk Fu. And tell him to come to the house as usual. If he does not come, it will look as though he were afraid of somebody here.”
The old woman promised to tell him all these things. Then Jinlian gave her five qian of silver, and she went to the shop to make her report to Chen Jingji.
They found a quiet place, and old woman Xue gave him the things that Jinlian had sent. “The Fifth Lady says you must be patient,” she told him. “Don’t allow yourself to be drawn into a quarrel. Come to the house as usual and don’t go to your uncle’s for your meals. It may displease him.”
She showed him the five qian of silver Jinlian had given her. “You see there are no secrets between us,” she said. “I am sure things will go well with you, and I tell you about this money because, if she told you about it herself sometime, it would look bad for me.”
“I am very grateful to you, old lady,” Jingji said, and bowed low to old woman Xue.
She had hardly taken two steps away from him when she came back. “I nearly forgot one very important thing,” she said. “When I came away, the Great Lady sent Xiuchun after me. She told me to sell Chunmei. She said that the maid, as well as the mistress, had been carrying on with you.”
“Take her to your house,” Jingji said, “and I will come and see her there.”
The old woman went home.
That evening, when the moon was shining, old woman Xue came to take Chunmei away. First she went to Yueniang’s room.
“We paid sixteen taels of silver for her,” Yueniang said, “and I will take sixteen taels now.”
Then she said to Xiaoyu: “Go and tell Chunmei. She is to go without her clothes.”
Old woman Xue went to Jinlian and broke the news to her. “The Great Lady,” she said, “has told me to take Chunmei away because she helped you to receive your lover secretly. She is only asking the price for which she bought her.”
Jinlian opened her eyes very wide, but she could not speak. Then she began to cry. “Oh, Sister Xue,” she said, “you see the kind of treatment we receive now that my husband is dead. It is only a few months since he died, yet now they mean to rob me of my maid. How utterly heartless the Great Lady is. She thinks that, now she has a child of her own, she can drag us all through the mud. But Li Ping’er’s child died when it was only eighteen months old. Children have been known to die of smallpox, and we never know what Heaven may have in store for us. She will do well not to raise her hopes too high.”
“I suppose his Lordship, when he was alive, took his pleasure with Sister Chunmei,” the old woman said.
“‘Took his pleasure’ indeed!” Jinlian cried. “He treated her like part of himself. She had only to say one word and he believed ten. When she asked for one thing, he gave her a dozen. Even his wives were less considered than she was. If she suggested that he should give one of the boys ten strokes of the rod, he would not dare to give them five.”
“The Great Lady is in the wrong, then,” old woman Xue said. “You say his Lordship had taken his pleasure of her, yet the Great Lady is sending her away without boxes and without any clothes. She is to go just as she came. The neighbors will think that very strange, I’m sure.”
“Did she tell you Chunmei was not to be allowed to take away her clothes?” Jinlian cried
.
“Yes, that was her order. Xiaoyu is coming to see about it.”
Chunmei heard the whole of this conversation, but she did not shed a single tear. When she saw how her mistress was crying, she said: “Mother, why do you cry? You must not worry about me when I have gone away. It would make you ill and, if you are ill, there will be no one to look after you. Let me go. I don’t want any clothes. A good man will not eat food that other people throw to him, and a good girl does not wear her wedding dress.”
Then Xiaoyu came. “Mother,” she said, “surely you are not going to pay any attention to what the Great Lady says now. She is obstinate at the moment. Sister Chunmei has served you well. Take some of the best clothes, and let Madam Xue take them away for Chunmei as a parting gift from you. She is going away now, and there is no reason why we should say anything to the Great Lady about it.”
“You are very kind,” Jinlian said.
“Lady,” Xiaoyu said, “we never know what is coming to us. We are like frogs and crickets living here. A fox is sorrowful when it sees a dead rabbit; creatures are always sympathetic with their own kind.”
They filled Chunmei’s box with the things like kerchiefs and ornaments that had belonged to her. Jinlian gave her two of her own best dresses and some socks, making a large parcel of them. She gave her pins and rings and earrings. Xiaoyu took two pins from her hair and gave them to the girl. The pearls and headdresses and embroidered clothes she took back to Yueniang.
Chunmei said good-bye to Jinlian. Xiaoyu cried. When they were on their way to the gate, Jinlian wanted her to go and say good-bye to Yueniang and the others, but Xiaoyu advised them not to do so. Chunmei walked proudly behind old woman Xue and never turned her head. Jinlian and Xiaoyu went with her to the gate. Then Xiaoyu went back to Yueniang. “She has gone now,” she said, “and she has left all her clothes behind.” Jinlian returned to her room. She had been accustomed to talking to Chunmei, and now Chunmei was taken away from her. She was very lonely and cried bitterly.
The Golden Lotus, Volume 2 Page 61