The Golden Lotus, Volume 1

by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng

  The next day she hired five or six porters to carry her belongings, and they were busy for four or five days. Ximen Qing said nothing to Yueniang, but simply gave orders that the things were to be put in the new house. On the twentieth day of the eighth month, he sent a large sedan chair for Li Ping’er, with a roll of silk, and four pairs of red lanterns. Daian, Ping’an, Huatong, and Laixing were sent to escort the sedan chair. It was afternoon when they arrived. Li Ping’er sent her two maids in charge of old woman Feng, and when the old woman returned, she got into the sedan chair, leaving her house in the care of the old woman and Tian Fu.

  That day Ximen Qing stayed at home and sat in the new summerhouse, wearing his everyday clothes and hat, waiting for Li Ping’er. The sedan chair reached the gate, but, for a long time, no one came out to receive it. Yulou went to Yueniang’s room. “Sister,” she said, “you are the mistress here. The woman has come, and, if you do not go out to welcome her, his Lordship will be angry. He is in the garden, and the sedan chair is at the gate. How can she come in if nobody goes out to receive her?”

  Yueniang at last decided to go, fearing that if she did not, her husband would fly into a temper. So, after hesitating a while, she went to the gate to receive Li Ping’er. With a precious vase in her hands, the new wife went to the room which the maids had prepared for her, and there waited for Ximen Qing. He was still angry with her and would not go that night. The next day she was taken to Yueniang’s room, and there was formally given her rank and place as the Sixth Lady in the household. For three days there were celebrations. Ximen Qing invited his relatives and friends, but still did not go to visit her. The first night he went to Jinlian’s room.

  “She is the last of us,” Jinlian said, “and this is her first night. You should not let her room be empty.”

  “You don’t realize that strumpet’s eagerness,” Ximen said. “I will leave her to herself for a day or two. Then I will go.”

  But even on the third day, when all the guests had left, instead of going to her, Ximen Qing went to Yulou’s room.

  Seeing that for three nights her husband kept away from her, Li Ping’er told her two maids to go to sleep, and, after sobbing for a long while, she stood upon her bed, and fastening her shoelaces to the beam, tried to hang herself.

  The two maids woke. They saw that the lamp in their mistress’s room was very low and got out of bed to turn it up. Then they saw the woman hanging there. They were frightened and ran at once to tell Chunmei. Jinlian got up and went to see Li Ping’er. She was hanging very stiff and straight above the bed, wearing a red dress. Jinlian and Chunmei quickly cut her down and laid her on the bed. After a while some saliva dribbled from her mouth and she began to come around.

  Jinlian told Chunmei to go to the back court and ask Ximen Qing to come. He was drinking wine with Yulou and had not gone to bed. Yulou had been remonstrating with him. “You have married her,” she said, “yet for three nights you do not go near her. She will be miserable and think that this is all our doing.”

  “You don’t understand,” Ximen said. “She is the sort of woman who, not content with the rice, must have the pan too. How do you expect me to be anything but annoyed? We were on the most intimate terms even before her husband’s death, and I know all there is to know about her. Then she went and married that Doctor Jiang. Evidently I wasn’t good enough for her. Now she wants me again.”

  “Oh, I understand how you feel,” Yulou said, “but the other fellow deceived her.”

  While they were talking a knock came at the door. Yulou told her maid Lanxiang to see who was there. The maid came back and said that Chunmei had come to ask for her master because the Sixth Lady had hanged herself in her room.

  “I told you so,” Yulou said excitedly, urging Ximen Qing to go at once. “I told you to go to her, and you wouldn’t listen to me. Now the trouble has begun.” They took a lantern and went to the Sixth Lady’s room.

  Yueniang and Li Jiao’er also heard the news, and went to see the woman. When they arrived, Jinlian was holding her up. They asked whether she had been given any ginger broth. Jinlian told them that she had given her some as soon as she had been cut down. Li Ping’er made a gurgling noise and then began to show signs of coming around. Yueniang and the others were much relieved. They spoke consolingly to her and made her lie down. Then they went back to their own places.

  The next day about noon Li Ping’er was persuaded to eat some gruel. “Don’t give her a thought,” Ximen Qing said to Li Jiao’er and the others. “She is playing this game in the hope of frightening me, but I will see she does not get away with it. Tonight I shall go to her room and see that she hangs herself again. If she refuses, she shall taste my whip. That’s the only way to show her the kind of man I am.”

  When the ladies heard this, they were so afraid for Li Ping’er that the sweat rose upon their brows.

  That night Ximen Qing took a whip and went to her room. Yulou and Jinlian told Chunmei to shut the door and allow no one to come in. They both stood outside and quietly listened to all that went on. Ximen went into the room where Li Ping’er was lying upon the bed, sobbing. She did not get up when he came in, and this annoyed him all the more. He ordered the two maids out of the room and sat down on a chair.

  “Now, you strumpet,” he shouted, pointing his finger at the woman, “you have already caused me trouble once. What do you mean by coming and hanging yourself in my house? You should have gone on living with your little turtle. Nobody asked you to come here. I have done you no harm. Why should you come here with your piddling tricks? Well, I’ve never yet seen a woman hang herself, and I’ll begin by watching you.” He threw a cord to her.

  Li Ping’er remembered that Jiang Zhushan had told her of Ximen’s prowess as a wife beater, and wondered what misdeed in a former existence had brought her to such a pass that day. She sobbed more loudly.

  Ximen Qing, in a terrible rage, ordered her to get down from the bed, strip, and kneel before him. When she hesitated, he threw her to the ground and beat her several times. Then she took off her clothes and knelt down trembling. Ximen still sat still and related all her misdeeds. “I told you,” he said, “that you must wait a while for me because I was busy. You paid no attention but married that fellow Jiang. If it had been anybody else, I would not have cared, but to marry a miserable creature like him... You took him to live in your own house and gave him money to set up a shop beneath my very eyes. I suppose you thought you would try to start a rival shop to mine.”

  “It is too late for me to be sorry now,” the woman said. “But I did wait for you, and thought about you day and night till I became crazy. The garden of the noble family of Qiao is at the back of my house, and there were many foxes there, which came in the middle of the night in human form and sucked the marrow from my bones. When morning came, they disappeared. If you don’t believe me, ask old woman Feng and my two maids. I nearly died, and they sent for Doctor Jiang to cure me. I was quite helpless and he deceived me. He told me you had gone to the Eastern Capital, and there was nothing for me to do but marry him. I didn’t realize what a good-for-nothing braggart he was. Then someone came and set upon him at the door, there was trouble at the court, and it was all very troublesome for me. I lost my money and drove him away.”

  “You told him,” Ximen said, “to accuse me of having detained your property. Why do you come back to me now?”

  “Wherever did you hear that nonsense?” Li Ping’er cried. “I would have been torn in pieces first.”

  “It would not have mattered to me if you had,” Ximen said. “You may have money enough to get a new husband when you want a change, but you shall not behave like that here. Let me tell you this. It was I who got the men to set upon Doctor Jiang. It was no trouble to me, but it was quite enough to set that fellow spinning round and round looking for a hole to crawl into. If I had taken the matter more seriously, you would have been taken to the court too, and made to give up everything you have.”

  “I
knew it was your doing,” Li Ping’er said, ‘but forgive me, I beg you. If you treated me as you say, there would be nothing for me to do but die.”

  Ximen’s ill temper was gradually dying away. “Tell me, you strumpet, which is the better man, Jiang or I?”

  “How can he compare with you?” the woman said. “You are like the heavens, and he is nothing but a piece of clay. It was such a man as you who set the tiles upon the palace of the Jade Emperor in the thirty-third heaven, and he is fit only to dig coal for the King of Hell in the ninety-ninth abode beneath the earth. Don’t mention yourself in the same breath with him. Why, such food as you have upon your table every day, he has never seen and never will see, though he live to be hundreds of years old. How can I compare him with you? Not only he, but Hua, my first husband too. Had he been the least like you, I should never have desired you. But you are just what I need. Ever since I came into your hands I have never ceased to think about you day and night.”

  With such words she made Ximen remember his old affection for her, and his heart was happy again. He threw the whip aside, lifted the woman up, made her put on her clothes again, and took her in his arms. “Daughter,” he said, “you say but the truth. Indeed he has never seen a sky as large as a plate.” He told Chunmei to set out a table and bring wine and food.

  CHAPTER 20

  The Reconciliation

  They walk along the flowery glades

  Where screening trees leave but a little space,

  Hiding themselves from curious eyes

  Always afraid lest others should see them.

  The thorns upon the bushes cut and tear

  They seek escape among the climbing roses.

  They brush aside the rustling branches

  Seeking to return again

  And look for some forsaken corner.

  The swallow, from his nest beneath the eaves,

  Guides them to the silken curtains.

  Li Ping’er, with her sweet ways and persuasive words, dispelled Ximen Qing’s anger. He raised her up and made her dress again. They embraced and were perfectly happy. Ximen told Chunmei to set a table and go to the inner court for wine.

  After Ximen Qing had gone in, Pan Jinlian and Meng Yulou stood outside the door to see what they could hear. As the other door was closed, there was no one but Chunmei about, and the two women peeped through the crack in the door. They could see the light but could not hear a word of what was said.

  “Chunmei, the young rascal, is better off than we are,” Jinlian said, “she can hear.”

  The maid stood outside the window for a while and then went over to them.

  “What are they doing?” Jinlian whispered.

  “Father made her take off her clothes and kneel down,” Chunmei said. “At first she would not, and Father was angry and took the whip to her.”

  “Did she take her clothes off then?”

  “Yes, when she saw that Father was really angry, she undressed and knelt down. Father asked her a lot of questions.”

  Yulou was afraid that Ximen would hear them, and, taking Jinlian by the hand, she drew her away to the other door.

  It was about the twentieth day of the eighth month and the moon was late in rising. Jinlian and Yulou stood together in the dark, waiting for Chunmei.

  “Sister,” Jinlian said, “she thought she would get something good here. That’s why she was so anxious to come. And now, at the very start, she has had a good thrashing. She seems to be one of those people who do not care for authority. If she does what she is told, all will be well, but if she behaves deceitfully, she will have to pay for it. Indeed, she will have to pay in any case. I remember how that young woman told stories to me and about me, and, although I was as careful as could be, I had to weep before him or I should not have been forgiven. You have been here for a long time. Do you understand him?”

  The door opened. Chunmei came out and went to the back court. Jinlian, from the shadows, called to ask where she was going, but Chunmei only laughed and went on. Then Jinlian called her again, and this time she stayed. “She wept and told Father a long story,” the maid said. “Now he is quite content. He has raised her up and made her put on her clothes again. He has told me to lay the table and bring them some wine.”

  “What a shameless creature!” Jinlian said to Yulou. “All that thunder, and so little rain to follow! It all ends in smoke. Nothing will come of it. She will just offer him wine. And you, you scamp,” she said to Chunmei, “she has maids of her own, why should you fetch wine for her? When you get to the kitchen, that Xue’e woman will make a fuss, and I simply won’t put up with it.”

  “I can’t help it,” Chunmei said, “I’m only doing what Father told me.” She laughed and went away.

  “The young rascal,” Jinlian cried. “Ask her to do something that is her business and she is as lazy as a corpse. But when it’s something she is not supposed to do, she rushes around and takes all the care in the world. That woman has two maids of her own. Why should Chunmei take this upon herself? She is a meddlesome young hussy.”

  “Oh, it is often so,” Yulou said. “There is my maid Lanxiang. If I ask her to do anything for me, she takes no pains at all, but if he has any trick for her to play, she bustles about and doesn’t mind what trouble she takes.”

  Yuxiao came to them. “Third Mother,” she said to Yulou, “I have come to take you to your room.”

  “You frightened me, you little wretch,” Yulou said. “Does your mistress know you’re here?”

  “I have just helped her to bed,” the maid said, “and now I’ve come to see what is happening. I saw Chunmei going to the inner court. What is Father doing?”

  Jinlian pointed to the door. “Go there,” she said, “and you’ll hear a strange story.” Yuxiao wished to hear more, and Jinlian told her.

  “Did Father really make her take off her clothes, and beat her?” the maid asked.

  “He beat her,” Yulou said, “because she would not take them off.”

  “Well,” the maid said, laughing, “it is better to be beaten with them on than with them off. The bare skin is not too fond of punishment.”

  Chunmei brought the wine. Xiaoyu, with a square food box, came with her. They both went into the room.

  “Look at those young rascals,” Jinlian cried. “Why are they doing this? They are like rats flying in the skies. Take it in quickly,” she said to Chunmei, “and let her own maids serve them. You must not occupy yourself there. I have something else for you to do.”

  Chunmei laughed and went in with Xiaoyu. After setting the things on the table they came out again, and her own maids served Li Ping’er and Ximen Qing. Yulou and Jinlian had many questions to ask Chunmei. Then Yuxiao said: “Third Mother, it is time for us to go,” and they went away together. Jinlian told Chunmei to shut the door, and went to sleep by herself.

  Ximen Qing and Li Ping’er drank together and talked till midnight, rejoicing in their love. Then they spread the coverlets and arranged the bed. In the bright candlelight they might have been the phoenix and his mate singing in harmony before a mirror. Fragrant incense was in the burner, and they were like a pair of butterflies dancing among the flowers. That night they took the silver lamp and gazed upon each other, fearful lest their coming together might be but fantasy.

  Next day they slept till breakfast time. Then Li Ping’er got up and dressed her hair before the mirror. Yingchun brought in the breakfast. Li Ping’er rinsed her mouth and ate with Ximen, but very little. She told her maid to heat what remained of the wine, and drank it with her husband. After a little while she went on with her dressing. Then she opened her boxes and showed all her fine headdresses and clothes to Ximen Qing. There were a hundred pearls from the Western Ocean that had once belonged to Grand Secretary Liang, and a cap button of dark green that, she said, had been her father-in-law’s. She weighed this and asked Ximen to take it to the silversmith’s and have a pair of earrings made from it. Then she brought out a hairnet of gold thread that
weighed about nine taels and asked him if the Great Lady or any of the others had a net like it. When she heard that they had silver nets but nothing to compare with hers, she said it would be unbecoming for her to wear it. “It will be better for you to take it to the silversmith’s and get him to make a nine-phoenix pin, with pearls between the teeth. And with what is left he can make a comb like the Great Lady’s, a Guanyin of gold and jade.”

  When Ximen Qing had taken the things and was about to go out, Li Ping’er said: “There is now nobody in my house. It would be well to send a man there to take care of it, and let Tian Fu come here to wait on me. Old woman Feng is too old to walk, and herself causes me more than a little anxiety.”

  Ximen Qing agreed and went out. On his way he came upon Jinlian, with her hair in disorder, standing by the gate.

  “You are up very late, Brother,” she called to him. “Where are you going?”

  “I am going out on business,” Ximen said.

  “What is your hurry, you funny creature? Come here. I have something to say to you.”

  When Ximen saw that she was serious, he turned back and went with her into her room. She sat on a chair, and held his two hands.

  “It is hard to find words bad enough for you,” she said. “Are you afraid someone is going to put you in a pan and boil you, that you are in such a hurry to get away? Stay here. I want to tell you something.”

  “Oh, you little strumpet,” Ximen said, “what is it you want? I have something to attend to, and you must wait till I come back.”

  He started out, but Jinlian caught him by the sleeve. It seemed very heavy. “What have you got there?” she asked. “Take it out and let me see.”

  “It is my purse,” Ximen said.

  Jinlian would not believe him. She put her hand into his sleeve and took out the golden hairnet. “This is her net,” she said. “What are you going to do with it?”