The Golden Lotus, Volume 1

by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng

  “I have been ill,” she said. “When this good lady invited me yesterday to come here, I was only just able to come. If I had not been ill I should certainly have come to kowtow to you.”

  “Miss Yu,” Jinlian said, “since the Sixth Lady is displeased with you, you must sing a particularly good song. Then she may forgive you.”

  Li Ping’er laughed but said nothing. “Certainly,” Miss Yu said. “Give me my lute and I will sing.” Aunt Wu bade Miss Zheng pour out wine for the ladies. “They have not had any for a long time,” she said.

  Miss Yu took her lute and sang “There Is a Storm upon the River.” While she was singing, Yueniang said: “Why do I feel so cold now?”

  “It is snowing,” Laian said.

  “Sister,” Yulou said, “you should not be wearing such thin clothes. I have brought my heavy cloak.”

  “It is snowing,” Yueniang said, “and we had better send the boys home for our fur coats.”

  Laian hurried out. He said to Daian: “The mistress says you are to go home and bring furs for the ladies.”

  Daian said to Qintong: “You go and get them. I’ll stay here.” Qintong did what he was told, without a word. After a while, Yueniang remembered that Jinlian did not possess a fur coat. She said to Laian: “Who has gone to get the coats?” Laian told her that Qintong had gone. “Why did he go without coming to me first?” Yueniang said.

  Yulou said: “He has slipped off without a word. The Fifth Lady has no furs. We ought to have told the boy to bring the Great Lady’s and not to bother about ours.”

  “Oh, we have a fur that someone has pawned,” Yueniang said. “We will use that, and send for furs for everybody.” Then she added: “Why did Daian send Qintong instead of going himself? Send him here.”

  When Daian came in, Yueniang scolded him severely. “You slave,” she said, “what do you mean by ordering other people to do your work for you? You sent that slave away without asking my permission. You behave just like a cabinet minister. You are afraid you might disturb the set of your hat and so you tell someone else to go.”

  “You have no reason to be angry with me, Mother,” Daian said. “If you had sent word for me to go, of course I should not have dared to disobey. Laian simply said that one of us must go.”

  “How brave Laian must have been to give you orders,” said Yueniang. “Why, even I, who am the First Wife, do not venture to tell you to do anything. The truth is, we are too kind to you slaves, and you give yourselves airs in consequence. Your master has a picture of Buddha that was blackened by smoke and hung upon the wall. There are monks like that and there are benefactors like that. Your game is to curry favor with both sides at once, and you are so clever at it that your tongue might have been brought to a sharp point. You keep on the right side of those in the house and ally yourself with those without. You are idle, yet you must have your food. You are up to all kinds of dirty games on the sly, but don’t think you deceive me. The other day, your master never told you to take Guijie home. What right had you to do so? One of the other boys was carrying her things and you snatched them out of his hands. It was none of your business whether we kept our maid or did not keep our maid. Why should you mix yourself up in that business? It was simply because someone suggested that you should. You thought you would get something out of it. You told someone else to come to me, because you thought that, if I had anything nasty to say, the one you sent would get it and not you. Now, can you say you don’t play games like this?”

  “That is Huatong’s story,” Daian said. “Father saw Huatong carrying her things, and he told me to see her home and Huatong to come back. You say, Mother, that whether you kept the maid or not was no business of mine. That is true. Why then should I bother about it?”

  Yueniang was very angry and cursed him. “You thievish slave! Are you trying to argue with me? I have too much to do to say any more to you. You go too far. I tell you to do something: you don’t do it; then you try to put me off with some cock-and-bull story. Wait! You shall see if I don’t tell your father to treat you like a moldy sheep’s head.”

  “Daian,” Aunt Wu said, “go at once and bring your mother’s fur cloak.” Then she said to Yueniang: “Sister, tell him which one you wish him to bring for the Fifth Lady.”

  “Don’t send him,” Jinlian said. “I don’t want any fur coat, and, if he does go home, let him bring my cloak. The fur coat is one that someone or other has pawned and I know nothing about it. If it is yellow dog’s skin, people will laugh at me for wearing it. Besides, I can’t keep it long; it will be redeemed.”

  “The fur coat I am thinking of is not one that has been pawned,” Yueniang said. “It was brought in payment of debt by Li Zhi, who owed us sixteen taels of silver. It is the one Li Jiao’er wears that was pawned by General Wang’s people.” To Daian she said: “The fur coat is in the large chest. Ask Yuxiao to get it for you and bring my stepdaughter’s coat too.”

  Daian went out with a very angry face. Chen Jingji asked him where he was going. “Such nasty temper!” said Daian. “Now all the work has to be done over again. Late though it is, I must run home.” He went out. When he reached the house, Ximen Qing was still drinking at the gate. Fu and Yun had gone, but Ying Bojue, Xie Xida, Han Daoguo and Ben the Fourth were still there.

  “Have the ladies come?” Ximen Qing asked.

  “No,” said Daian, “they have sent me for their fur coats.” He went to the inner court.

  Qintong arrived before Daian and went to the upper room for the furs. Xiaoyu was sitting sulkily upon the bed. “Those four strumpets,” she told the boy, “have gone to Ben the Fourth’s wife’s to drink wine. I don’t know where the fur coats are. You had better go there and ask them.”

  So Qintong went to Ben the Fourth’s house. He did not knock at the door but stood quietly outside the window. Ben the Fourth’s wife was saying: “My dear eldest aunt, and you, Second Aunt, is it because you despise the preparations I have made for you in this small mean hovel that you have had no wine for so long?”

  “Fourth Sister,” Chunmei said, “really we have had wine enough.”

  “Oh, how can you say that?” Mistress Ben said. “Why must you stand so much on ceremony here?” Then she said to Mistress Han: “You are my near neighbor and I look upon you as a second hostess. You must urge the Third and Fourth Aunts to drink. Don’t sit there like a guest.” She said to her little daughter: “Heat some wine and pour it out for your Third Aunt. But don’t fill it quite full for your Fourth Aunt.”

  “I never drink wine,” Lanxiang said.

  “Ladies,” said Mistress Ben, “you have gone hungry today because I have no good food to offer you. Please don’t laugh at me on that account. I would have sent for some blind singers, but I was afraid the noise would disturb his Lordship. This is such a tiny place. Dear, dear! What a hard life poor people have!”

  Qintong knocked at the door. The little girl went to see who was there. Qintong looked at her and smiled, but said nothing. “You funny creature,” Yuxiao said, “what is it you want, standing there showing your teeth and grinning? Why don’t you speak?”

  “The ladies are drinking at Madam Wu’s house,” Qintong said. “When they saw it was snowing, they sent me for their furs. They all want them.”

  “They are in the gilded chest,” Yuxiao said. “Ask Xiaoyu to give them to you.”

  “Xiaoyu told me to come here and ask you,” Qintong said.

  “Don’t pay any attention to that little whore,” said Yuxiao. “She knows well enough where they are.”

  “Your ladies have fur coats,” Chunmei said, “and you must go and get them. My lady has none, so I can stay where I am.”

  “Go and ask Xiaoluan for the Third Lady’s coat,” Lanxiang said. Yingchun gave Qintong a key. “Ask Xiuchun,” she said, “to open the door of the inner room, and give you the Sixth Lady’s fur coat.”

  Qintong went back to the inner court. Xiaoyu and Xiaoluan wrapped up the fur coats belonging to the Great
Lady and Yulou and gave them to him. As he was coming away, he met Daian and asked what he had come for. “You may well ask,” Daian said. “It was all your fault that I got a scolding from the Great Lady and was told to come and bring a coat for the Fifth Lady.”

  “I am going for the Sixth Lady’s coat,” Qintong said.

  “Well,” said Daian, “when you have got it, wait here for me and we will go together. If you go back before I do we shall have another taste of the Great Lady’s temper.” Daian went to the upper room. Xiaoyu was still sitting on the bed, warming her hands at the fire and biting melon seeds.

  “Ah, Daian,” she said, “so you have come too?”

  “Yes,” said the boy, “and I have a bellyful of anger. The Great Lady complains that I order other people about too much. She has sent me for the fur coat that Li Zhi brought in payment of a debt, because the Fifth Lady has none of her own. It is in the great chest.”

  “Yuxiao keeps the keys of the inner room,” the girl said. “She and the others have gone to drink wine at Ben the Fourth’s place. You will have to go to her.”

  “Qintong has gone to the Sixth Lady’s room to get her furs,” said Daian. “He will be back soon and he can go to Yuxiao. I am going to rest and get warm.”

  Xiaoyu invited Daian to sit on the bed. They sat close together and warmed their hands at the fire. “There is some wine in the jar,” Xiaoyu said;.“Would you like a drink?”

  “You are very kind,” said Daian. Xiaoyu got down from the bed, took the wine jar and set it on the fire. She opened the cupboard and took out a plate of preserved goose. There was nobody else about, and they kissed one another.

  While Daian was drinking his wine, Qintong came back. Daian gave him a cup of wine and told him to go to Yuxiao to ask for a fur coat for the Fifth Lady. Qintong left the other coats behind and went again to Ben the Fourth’s place. Yuxiao cursed him. “You young jailbird!” she said. “What has brought you back here?” She refused to come with him, but gave him the keys. The boy returned and asked Xiaoyu to open the door. Xiaoyu did so and picked up the bundle of keys. For a long time she tried to open the chest, but without success. Again Qintong went to Ben the Fourth’s place to Yuxiao. “These are not the keys,” Yuxiao said. “The key of the chest is under the bed in the Great Lady’s room.”

  When the boy returned this time, Xiaoyu began to curse. “The whore might be nailed there,” she said. “Instead of coming herself, she lets me have all the trouble.” She opened the chest, but the fur coat was not inside it. Qintong had to run backwards and forwards, and he too cursed. “If I am going to die,” he said, “it will take me three days and three nights to do so. These young ladies are like the ghosts of some infectious disease. I’m almost exhausted.” He said to Daian: “What a fine scolding we shall get from the Great Lady when we get back. She won’t have a word to say against the maids. We shall have to take the blame for being late.” He went back to Yuxiao. “There is no fur coat in the chest,” he told her.

  Yuxiao thought for a while. Then she laughed. “I forgot. It is in the chest in the other room.”

  Qintong went back again. “The whore is crazy,” cried Xiaoyu. “Her naughty lover has been too much for her. First she tells us it is in one place and it is not. Then she tells us to look somewhere else.” However, she found the coat and wrapped it up with Ximen Dajie’s. She gave them both to Daian and Qintong, and the two boys took them to Aunt Wu’s house.

  Yueniang scolded them again. “You two thievish slaves have been putting your heads together. You didn’t want to come.”

  Daian did not dare to say anything, but Qintong said: “We got all the other coats, but had to wait until the maid found this one.” He produced it and Aunt Wu looked at it.

  “This is a splendid coat,” she said. “Why did you call it a yellow dog’s skin, Fifth Sister? I should be very glad to have one like it.”

  “It is really new,” Yueniang said. “A little worn, perhaps, at the front. We will replace that part by a golden stomacher and then it will be perfect.”

  Yulou said jokingly to Jinlian: “Come here, my child, and put this yellow dog’s skin on you. Let mother see whether it suits you or not.”

  “I shall have to ask my husband for one,” Jinlian said. “I don’t care to wear other people’s old clothes.”

  “You are too clever,” Yulou said, laughing. “You ought to thank Buddha you have a coat like this.” She put it on Jinlian. It was very large and cozy. Jinlian was somewhat appeased. Yueniang, Yulou and Li Ping’er put on their fur coats, all of which were made of sable. Then they said good-bye to the Wu ladies, and Yueniang gave Miss Yu two qian of silver.

  Wu Yin’er said she too must say farewell. She knelt down and kowtowed to all the ladies. Aunt Wu gave her a set of silver flower ornaments; Yueniang and Li Ping’er each gave her a tael of silver. She again kowtowed and thanked them.

  The two aunts and Miss Zheng would have taken the ladies to the gate, but Yueniang would not let them because it was snowing.

  “A little while ago it was snowing very heavily,” Qintong said. “Now it is more like rain. I am afraid the ladies’ clothes will get wet, and I suggest borrowing umbrellas from our aunt.” The younger uncle Wu quickly found some umbrellas and Qintong took them. Two soldiers with lanterns led the way. After passing through a few lanes, they came to the main street. Chen Jingji set off fireworks all along the road. He said to Wu Yin’er: “Sister Wu Yin’er, your home is not far away. Let us take you home.”

  “Where does she live?” said Yueniang.

  “You go down this street,” Jingji said, “and halfway down you come to a house with a high gateway. That is where she lives.”

  “I must say good-bye to you, ladies,” Wu Yin’er said.

  “Go straight home,” Yueniang said. “Don’t stop to make reverence to us. You have done so already, and the ground is wet. I will send a boy with you to see you to your door.” She told Daian to go with the girl.

  Then Jingji said: “Mother, I think I ought to go with Daian.”

  “Very well,” said Yueniang, “you can both go with her.” This was what Jingji was hoping for: he and Daian went off together.

  Yueniang and the others went on their way. Jinlian said to Yueniang: “Mother, you talked about our taking her home. Why didn’t we?” Yueniang laughed.

  “What a child you are! I was only joking, and you took every word I said seriously. What kind of a place do you imagine this ‘Home of Spring’s Delights’ to be? We could not possibly go there with her.”

  “But when men go to amuse themselves at such places,” said Jinlian, “I have heard of their wives going after them and making a disturbance.”

  “Then, next time our lord goes there,” Yueniang said, “you go and look for him. The chances are you will be driven out by another man who will take you for one of the ladies there.”

  They came to East Street. Outside the Qiaos’ house, Madam Qiao herself and Miss Duan were standing. When they saw Yueniang and the others coming, they came forward and invited them to go in. Yueniang thanked them. “It is very kind of you,” she said, “but it is late and we must not stay.” Madam Qiao begged them not to stand on ceremony, and insisted that they should go in for a while. In her room, lanterns were hanging, and wine and fruit were set out upon the tables. Two singing girls were there to entertain the company.

  At the gateway, Ximen Qing and his friends at last had wine enough. Ying Bojue and Xie Xida had been eating all day, and now the food had reached so high a point in their throats that they could not swallow another morsel. They saw that Ximen Qing was nodding in his chair and, not to miss a chance, they emptied the plates of fruit into their sleeves and went off with Han Daoguo. Only Ben the Fourth remained. He helped Ximen Qing to pay the musicians, told the boys to clear away, saw that the lanterns and candles were blown out and assisted Ximen Qing to the inner court.

  Ping’an went to Ben the Fourth’s place and said to the maids there: “Father has gone t
o the inner court. Why don’t you come?”

  When they heard this, Yuxiao, Yingchun and Lanxiang hurried away as fast as they could without even saying good-bye to Mistress Ben. They were off like a streak of smoke. Chunmei alone thanked Mistress Ben, and went back in a leisurely way. She overtook Lanxiang, who had been left behind because her shoe had come off. Chunmei scolded her. “You are like someone who steals a coffin for her own funeral,” she said. “What kind of manners are these, letting your shoe fall off like that?”

  When they came to the back court, they found that Ximen Qing had gone to Li Jiao’er’s room, and all went in to kowtow to him. When the nun saw him come in, she left that room and went to Yueniang’s room where she sat with Xiaoyu. When Yuxiao came in, she made a reverence to the nun.

  “Sister,” Xiaoyu said to her, “when Mother sent a boy for the ladies’ furs, why didn’t you come and look for them yourself instead of making me do so? I didn’t know which was the key of the chest, and when I opened it, there was no coat inside. In the end, I found it in the great chest in the other room. You put the fur there, and you must have known where it was. You must have been off your head. You had food enough at Mistress Ben’s, and now you are fatter than ever.”

  In truth, Yuxiao had had a good deal to eat, and her face was red. “You little whore,” she cried, “what do you mean by behaving like a mad dog? If she didn’t invite you, that’s no reason why you should be angry with me. Do you think I wanted the whore to invite me?”

  “Sisters,” said the nun, “be calm, and do not let your master hear you. The ladies will be back in a moment and you had better have tea ready for them.”