The Debt of Tears

by Cao Xueqin

  But this is looking ahead. So far as The Debt of Tears is concerned, it can, I believe, stand side by side with the rest of the novel without shame. No amount of scholarly argument has succeeded in supplanting these last forty chapters as the ending, despite their shortcomings. They are here to stay, and indeed some of the scenes in them are deservedly among the most famous in the whole novel. As the mid-nineteenth-century commentator Yao Xie remarked of chapter 82:

  This is written with such feeling and truth! It says all there is to be said. Theirs was a love that would never change, not if the seas ran dry and rocks crumbled! If the author had not experienced this feeling at first-hand, he would never have been able to enter into their minds with such passionate intensity.

  *

  In translating this section of the novel, I am fortunate in having had help from many sources. I am grateful to the Australian National University; to Dr David Hawkes and Professor Liu Ts’un-yan for many hours of patiently given advice; to Professor Ting Su of Los Angeles for helping me with the fortune-telling (and telling my own son’s fortune); to Professor Matsudaira Chiaki of Kyoto University, and Professor Kakei Fumio of Ritsumeidan University, Kyoto, for help with Gō terminology; to Dr Laurence Picken for help with musical terminology; to Mr Gao Mingjie of Tientsin for the calligraphy on page 301; and to Miss Ludmilla Panskaya, Dr Pierre Ryckmans, Mr Stephen Soong and many others for all their encouragement and moral support. Since my arrival in China, I have been greatly helped by Professors Yang Xianyi and Wu Shichang. I hope all these, and other kindly readers, will point out the many errors which, I am sure, still remain.

  JOHN MINFORD

  Tientsin,

  ten days before the Spring Festival,

  1981

  Chapter 81

  Four young ladies go fishing and divine the future

  Bao-yu receives a homily and is re-enrolled in the Family School

  TO CONTINUE OUR STORY

  After Ying-chun’s departure, Lady Xing continued as though nothing had happened. It was Lady Wang who had gone out of her way to be kind, and her sympathy was genuine and deeply felt. In the morning, when Bao-yu came to her apartment to pay his respects, he found her alone, sighing pensively to herself. He thought he could see traces of tears on her cheeks, and not wanting to intrude, stood to one side. When she told him to sit down, he sidled up onto the kang and settled down next to her.

  He lapsed at once into a silent stare, and she could tell that he had something on his mind.

  ‘Well, and what are you looking so glum for?’

  ‘Nothing really… I just can’t stop thinking about Cousin Ying. It’s so awful. I haven’t mentioned it to Grannie, but I haven’t been able to sleep properly for two nights now. How helpless and defenceless she must feel, especially after growing up in a family like ours! She’s so weak too, and never could stand up for herself properly. Why should she of all people have to fall into the hands of such a bully, someone who’ll never be able to give her the sort of tenderness and understanding she needs?’

  He was on the verge of tears.

  ‘It is hard, I know,’ said Lady Wang. ‘But as they say, “marry a daughter, throw out the water”. At this stage, what is there I could possibly do?’

  ‘I’ve thought of something,’ replied Bao-yu somewhat unexpectedly. ‘It came to me last night. If we report the whole thing to Grannie, we can get her permission to fetch Ying and move her back to Amaryllis Eyot. Why not? She’ll be able to lead her old carefree life, we’ll all be together again, and that Mr Sun can go to hell and take his temper with him! If he dares to try and ask for her back, we’ll simply refuse to let her go. He can come a hundred times, we’ll never give in. We’ll just say that it’s Grannie’s orders, and he won’t be able to do a thing. Don’t you think it’s a brilliant plan?’

  ‘My dear child!’ exclaimed Lady Wang, her voice registering both amusement and motherly vexation at this effusion. ‘There you go again, carried away by yet another of your silly ideas! How can you be so hopelessly naive? Can’t you see that sooner or later every girl has to leave home, and that once she’s married her own family has no business to interfere? She must look to her own future. If fate has been kind to her, well and good. If not, she must learn to live with it all the same. You must know the old rhyme:

  When rooster crows at break of day,

  All his hen-folk must obey.

  No choice for a dog’s wife

  But to make the best of a dog’s life.

  Not all the girls can be called to court like your elder sister, you know. Besides, Ying is still an inexperienced wife, and her husband a young man. Their temperaments differ, and if at this early stage they don’t get on very well together, that’s only to be expected. Given time, when they’ve both learned to understand one another better and have a family of their own, things will sort themselves out, I’m sure they will. You’re certainly not to breathe a word of this to your grandmother! If I discover that you have, I shall be extremely cross. Now, off you go, I’ve heard quite enough of your nonsense.’

  Realizing that his mother was adamant, Bao-yu sat there a while longer in silence, then walked listlessly out of the room. Choking with frustration, he made his way back to the Garden and straight to the Naiad’s House. The instant he entered the door, he let out a great wail and burst into tears.

  Dai-yu, who had only just that minute finished washing and putting up her hair, was shocked to see the state he was in and asked in some alarm:

  ‘Whatever’s the matter? Who’s upset you?’

  Bao-yu, however, was already slumped over the table, sobbing his heart out and far too distraught to reply to her questions. From her chair Dai-yu studied him anxiously for a while, before asking again:

  ‘Well, at least let me know if I’m the culprit or not…’

  ‘That’s not it! It’s nothing like that!’ he replied at last, with a despairing motion of his hand.

  ‘Then why the tears and everything?’

  ‘I just think the sooner we all die the better! There’s no joy left in life!’

  ‘What do you mean? Have you gone quite mad?’

  ‘I’m not in the slightest mad. Let me explain and I’m sure you’ll feel as I do. When Ying was here, you saw how she looked, you heard everything she said, didn’t you? Why is it that the minute they’re grown up, girls are married off and have to suffer so? When I think of the happy times we all had together when we first started the Crab-flower Club, always inviting each other round for parties and holding poetry contests - there seemed no end of wonderful things to do. And now? Bao-chai has already moved out, which means Caltrop can’t come over either, and with Ying gone as well, our band of kindred spirits is being broken up, everything is being spoiled!

  ‘I had thought of a plan, to get Grannie on our side and rescue Ying. But when I told Mother, she just called me naive and silly and wouldn’t take me seriously. So I had to give up the idea.

  ‘You only have to look around you! Our Garden’s altered so much in such a short time. What could become of it in the next few years just doesn’t bear thinking about. Now do you see what I mean, and why I can’t help despairing?’

  As she listened to all that he was saying, Dai-yu very slowly bowed her head and moved back almost imperceptibly onto the kang. She did not say a word, but only sighed and curled up facing the wall.

  This was how Nightingale found them when she came in to serve tea. Her attempts to puzzle out what could have happened were cut short by the arrival of Aroma.

  ‘So this is where you are!’ she said as she came into the room. ‘You’re wanted at Her Old Ladyship’s, Master Bao. I thought I’d find you here…’

  Recognizing Aroma’s voice, Dai-yu sat up a little and nodded to her to sit down. Bao-yu noticed that her eyes were red from crying.

  ‘I got a bit carried away, coz,’ he said. ‘Please don’t take it to heart so. What you must do is look after yourself properly and get fit and well. And when I say t
hat, I mean it. So have a rest now. I’m wanted at Grannie’s. I’ll be back.’

  With these words he set off.

  ‘What’s up with you two then?’ whispered Aroma.

  ‘Oh, he’s upset about Miss Ying,’ Dai-yu replied. ‘I’m all right. My eyes have been itching and I’ve been rubbing them, that’s all.’

  Aroma said nothing and hurried out after Bao-yu. He reached Grandmother Jia’s only to find that she had already retired for her midday nap, and was obliged to go back to Green Delights.

  In the afternoon he woke from his sleep feeling very bored, and picked up a book to read. Aroma hurried off to make tea, eager to sustain him in his studies. He had chanced upon an anthology of early verse, and as he turned its pages found himself reading a stanza by Cao Cao:

  Come drink with me and sing,

  For life’s a fleeting thing.

  Full many a day has fled

  Like the morning dew…

  Far from distracting him, this only served to increase his ennui, and he put the book down and picked up another. This time it was ‘The Gathering at Orchid Pavilion and other Prose Selections from the Jin Dynasty’. After a page or two he suddenly closed it, and when Aroma returned with his tea, she found him sitting there, head propped on hand, looking his most dazed and distant.

  ‘Why have you given up so soon?’ she asked.

  Bao-yu took his tea without a word of reply, drank a sip, then mechanically replaced the cup. Aroma was out of her depth and could do nothing but stand there dumbly looking on. Suddenly he stood up, and muttered sarcastically:

  ‘Ob gemlike ecstasy…’

  Aroma half-wanted to laugh, but on reflection thought it safer not to probe too far.

  ‘If you don’t feel like reading,’ she suggested tactfully, ‘why not go for a walk in the Garden? There’s no sense in sitting here and working yourself up into one of your states again.’

  Bao-yu mumbled something in reply and walked abstractedly out of the room.

  He soon came to Drenched Blossoms Pavilion, and gazed out over the lake. All around him he saw nothing but dereliction and decay. Walking on, he reached All Spice Court, which was locked and shuttered. Only its rockery was still tenanted by the familiar herbs and creepers. He was just turning to go on past the Lotus Pavilion, when something caught his eye. Looking across the water, he could just distinguish a small group of people leaning over the stone balustrade on Smartweed Bank, and some maids down below, squatting on their heels and apparently searching for something. He darted behind a large rock and crept up on them, listening all the while.

  ‘Will it come up? Will it…’

  He thought he recognized the voice of Li Wan’s cousin, Li Wen. Then came a laugh:

  ‘There! It’s gone! You see, I told you it wouldn’t bite!’ (There was no mistaking Tan-chun’s voice.)

  ‘Of course it won’t if you keep moving about like that, Wen!’

  ‘Look! It’s going to!’

  The last two voices were those of Li Wen’s younger sister Qi, and Lady Xing’s niece Xiu-yan.

  Such an opportunity was altogether too tempting. Picking a brickbat from the ground, Bao-yu lobbed it into the water right in front of the four girls. There was a resounding splash and they jumped for their lives, with cries of:

  ‘What the… Who’s that trying to give us a scare? Of all the mean…’

  A beaming Bao-yu sprang from his hiding-place.

  ‘Having a lovely time, are you? And why wasn’t I invited, pray?’

  It was Tan-chun who replied:

  ‘Typical! I knew it! That had “Bao-yu” written all over it! Well I’m not going to waste my breath scolding you, just hurry up and catch us another fish to make up for that one. It was practically on the hook when you had to come along and scare it away.’

  ‘Not likely!’ said Bao-yu with a grin. ‘Here you are on a fishing excursion and leaving me out – it’s you who owe me a penalty!’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘I know,’ he went on. ‘As we’re all fishing today, why don’t we try a round of “Fateful Fish”? It’s very simple. If you catch a fish it means a year of good luck, and if you don’t a year of bad luck. Come on, who’s going to have first go?’

  Tan-chun offered the rod to Li Wen, but she declined.

  ‘Oh well,’ said Tan-chun, ‘it looks as if I’ll have to start.’

  She turned to Bao-yu. ‘If you scare mine away again, brother, you’ll be for it.’

  ‘I only wanted to make you all jump. You’ll be perfectly safe this time, I promise.’

  Tan-chun cast her line, and in just a few seconds a little ‘leaf-wriggler’ swallowed the hook and down went the float. She pulled in and landed her catch, alive and jumping. Scribe, after a lot of scrambling about, managed to get a grip on the thing, and carrying it over in both hands, placed it carefully in a little earthenware jar of fresh water. Tan-chun passed the rod on to Wen. She too felt a tug on the line almost immediately, and pulled in excitedly, only to find nothing on the hook. She cast out again, and this time stood there angling for ages. At last the line tautened and she pulled in again. Another false alarm. She picked up the hook to examine it, and discovered that it was buckled.

  ‘No wonder I couldn’t catch anything!’

  She laughed and without more ado told Candida to straighten it out for her, put on some fresh bait and fasten on the reed-float securely. This time after only a few minutes, down went the float, in she pulled with great determination, and there it was – a little two-inch silver carp. Delighted, she turned to Bao-yu.

  ‘You next.’

  ‘Qi and Xiu-yan must go first,’ replied Bao-yu. ‘I insist.’

  Xiu-yan was silent.

  ‘You go first, Cousin Bao,’ protested Qi. As she spoke a big bubble popped on the water.

  ‘Come on!’ cried Tan-chun. There’s no need to overdo it. Look, the fish are all over there by you, Qi. You have a go quickly!’

  Qi took the rod with a giggle of embarrassment. Sure enough, down went her float and she had a catch first time. Xiu-yan was the last of the girls to have her turn. She caught one and passed the rod back to Tan-chun, who handed it on to Bao-yu.

  ‘I shall follow in the footsteps of old Sire Jiang,’ he declared.

  ‘Straight was his hook,

  His bait a single grain:

  Yet of their own accord

  The fish unto him came…’

  Walking solemnly down the jetty, he sat at the water’s edge in the pose of the Fisherman Sage. Unfortunately, at the approach of this human shadow, the fish took refuge in the far end of the pond, and for all his exertions in the higher art of angling, a long time seemed to pass without the slightest sign of a bite. When once a fish did venture near and deigned to blow a few bubbles near the bank, he jerked the rod and scared it away.

  ‘Oh dear!’ he sighed. ‘It’s no good. The trouble is that I’m so confoundedly impatient, and the fish are so slow on the uptake. We must be incompatible. I shall never catch anything at this rate. Come on now, help me! Feel yourself being drawn, there’s my brave little fish!’

  There was a peal of laughter from the girls. Then, before anyone could say a word, the line was seen to move a fraction. A bite at last! The sage yanked in for all he was worth. The rod crashed into a protruding rock and broke clean in two. The line snapped, and the hook (with whatever it may or may not have secured) sank without trace. This final stroke of virtuosity had his audience in stitches. Tan-chun called out:

  ‘I’ve never seen such a clumsy fool!’

  As she was speaking, who should come rushing up but Musk, in a state of great excitement.

  ‘Master Bao, Her Old Ladyship has woken up and wants to see you at once!’

  The five of them exchanged startled glances.

  ‘But what about?’ asked Tan-chun.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Musk. ‘All I heard was something about a “scandalous revelation” they want to question Master Bao about. Th
ey’ve asked Mrs Lian to come and answer questions as well.’

  Bao-yu stood for a moment in stunned silence. Eventually he said:

  ‘I wonder which poor maid is in for the high jump this time?’

  ‘We’ve no idea what it’s about,’ said Tan-chun, ‘so Bao, ‘you’d better go straight away and as soon as you’ve any news, send Musk over to let us know.’

  The four girls went their way, and Bao-yu set off for Grandmother Jia’s apartment. He arrived to find her in the middle of a game of cards with Lady Wang, and realized to his relief that it could be nothing as serious as he had feared. Grandmother Jia saw him come in and asked him:

  ‘Bao darling, do you remember last year, when you were so seriously ill, and those two holy men – that mad-looking monk and that lame Taoist – came and cured you, in the nick of time – what did the illness feel like?’

  Bao-yu reflected for a moment.

  ‘I can remember how it started. I was standing in my room when suddenly someone seemed to come from behind and ram something hard, like a wooden bar, up against the back of my head. It hurt like anything, my eyes started throbbing and everything went pitch-black. All I could see in the room was a mob of green-faced devils with huge fangs, carrying swords and cudgels. I went to lie down on the kang, but then it felt as if I had tight bands round my head and the pain became so excruciating that I no longer knew what was happening.

  ‘I remember how I got better. There was a ray of golden light from the hall outside my room, that shone right onto my bed. The devils just took to their heels and vanished. They seemed scared of the light. My headache went away and I felt quite myself again.’

  ‘You see!’ exclaimed Grandmother Jia, turning to Lady Wang. ‘It ties in perfectly.’