A Dream of Red Mansion

by Cao Xueqin

  Xifeng raised the curtain herself and walked in remarking, “The girl must-be out of her mind, trying to get the upper hand of me. You’d better watch out, little bitch!”

  Jia Lian had fallen back laughing on the kang.

  “I never knew Pinger had it in her,” he crowed, clapping his hands. “She’s gone up in my estimation.”

  “It’s you who’ve spoilt her. I hold you responsible.”

  “When you two fall out, why put the blame on me? I’d better make myself scarce.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be back presently.”

  “Wait,” said Xifeng. “There’s something I want to discuss with you.”

  To know what it was, read the next chapter.

  Truly:

  Virtuous maids have always harboured grief,

  And charming wives since of old have known jealousy.

  Chapter 22

  A Song Awakens Baoyu to Esoteric Truths

  Lantern-Riddles Grieve Jia Zheng with Their Ill Omens

  Hearing that Xifeng wanted to consult him about something, Jia Lian stopped to ask what it was.

  “It’s Baochai’s birthday on the twenty-first,” she said. “What do you intend to do about it?”

  “Why ask me that?” he retorted.” You’ve handled plenty of big birthday celebrations. Why can’t you cope with this?”

  “For big birthdays there are definite rules but this is neither big nor small, that’s why I wanted your advice.”

  He lowered his head to think before answering.

  “You’re losing your grip,” he said after a pause. “There’s a precedent in Baiyu’s birthday. Just celebrate this the same way.”

  “As if that hadn’t occurred to me too!” Xifeng smiled mockingly. “But yesterday the old lady told me she’d been asking everybody’s age and learned that Baochai would be fifteen this year, and although that’s not a round number it means she’s reached marriageable age. If the old lady wants to celebrate her birthday specially, it’ll have to be different from Daiyu’s in the past.”

  “In that case, have things on a more lavish scale.”

  “That’s what I thought, but I wanted to sound you out so as not to be blamed for doing something extra on my own initiative without consulting you.”

  “Well, well! Why this sudden show of consideration? Me blame you? I’m quite satisfied if you don’t find fault with me.”

  With that he left, but where he went does not concern us.

  Let us return now to Xiangyun. After spending several days in the Rong Mansion it was time for her to go home, but the Lady Dowager urged her to wait until after Baochai’s birthday and the performance of operas. So Xiangyun, having to stay on, sent home for two pieces of her embroidery as a birthday-present for her cousin.

  The fact was that the Lady Dowager had taken a fancy to Baochai since her arrival on account of her steady, amiable behaviour. And as this would be her first birthday in their house, the old lady summoned Xifeng and gave her twenty taels of silver from her own coffer for a feast and an opera.

  Xifeng teased, “When an Old Ancestress wants to celebrate some grandchild’s birthday, no matter how grandly, who are we to protest? So there’s to be a feast and opera too, is there? Well, if you want it to be lively you’ll have to pay for it yourself instead of trying to play host with a mouldy twenty taels. I suppose you expect me to make up the rest? If you really couldn’t afford it, all right. But your cases are bursting with gold and silver ingots of every shape and size—the bottoms of the chests are dropping out, they’re so full. Yet you’re still squeezing us. Look, aren’t all of us your children? Is Baoyu the only one who’ll carry you as an immortal on his head to Mount Wutai, that you keep everything for him? Even if the rest of us aren’t good enough, don’t be so hard on us. Is this enough for a feast or theatricals?”

  The whole company burst out laughing.

  “Listen to that tongue of hers”!” The old lady chuckled. “I’m not exactly tongue-tied myself but I’m no match for this monkey. Not even your mother-in-law would think of arguing with me, but you give me tit for tat.”

  “My mother-in-lay dotes on Baoyu just as much as you do,” retorted Xifeng with a smile. “So I’ve no one to take my side. Instead, you make me out a termagant.”

  That set the old lady crowing with laughter and put her in the highest of spirits.

  That night, after the family had gathered to pay their evening respects to the Lady Dowager and then gone on to chat, she asked Baochai to name her favourite operas and dishes. Knowing the old lady’s partiality for lively shows and sweet, pappy food, Baochai gave these as her own preferences, adding even more to the Lady Dowager’s pleasure.

  The first thing next day she had presents of clothing and trinkets sent to the girl. Lady Wang, Xifeng, Daiyu and the others also sent theirs according to the status of each. But these need not be enumerated in detail.

  On the twenty-first a small stage was set up in the Lady Dowager’s inner courtyard and a new troupe of young actresses had been hired who were able to perform both Kunqu and Yiyang operas. Tables were laid in the hall for a family feast, to which no outsiders were asked: apart from Aunt Xue, Xiangyun and Baochai, who were guests, all the rest would be members of the family.

  Not seeing Daiyu that morning, Baoyu went to look for her and found her curled up on her kang.

  “Come on to breakfast,” he said, “The show will soon be starting. Tell me which opera you’d like and I’ll ask for it.”

  Daiyu smiled disdainfully.

  “If that’s how you feel, you’d better hire a special company to play my favourite pieces instead of expecting me to cash in on someone else’s birthday.”

  “That’s easy, we’ll hire a company next time and let the rest of them cash in on us.”

  He pulled her up and they went off hand in hand.

  After breakfast it was time to choose the plays and the Lady Dowager called on Baochai to name her choice. The girl declined the honour at first but finally, to the old lady’s delight, named a scene from Pilgrimage to the West. Next, Xifeng was ordered to take her pick. And knowing the old lady’s liking for lively plays, especially comedies and burlesques, she pleased her even more by selecting Liu Er Pawns His Clothes.

  Daiyu, told to choose next, deferred to Aunt Xue and Lady Wang.

  “I planned today as a treat for you girls,” said the Lady Dowager, “So make your choice and never mind your aunts. I didn’t lay on this show and feast for them. They’re lucky to be here at all, able to watch and eat free of charge, but I won’t let them choose any items.”

  All laughed at that, and then Daiyu suggested one piece. She was followed by Baoyu, Xiangyun, the three Jia girls and Li Wan, and their choices were put on in turn.

  When the feast was ready the Lady Dowager told Baochai to select another opera, and she asked for The Drunken Monk.

  “You always choose something rowdy,” objected Baoyu.

  “You’ve been watching operas all these years for nothing if you don’t know how good this is,” retorted Baochai. “Besides being spectacular it has some magnificent lines.”

  “I never could stand noisy shows,” he persisted.

  “If you call this noisy that just shows how little you know about opera,” she rejoined. “Come over here and let me explain. This opera has most stirring arias sung in the northern mode Dian Jiang Chun, which needless to say is an excellent melody; and the verses set to Ji Sheng Cao are quite superb, did you but know it.”

  Baoyu edged closer then and begged her to recite them to him.

  Baochai declaimed:

  “Dried are the hero’s tears.

  My patron’s house left behind;

  By grace divine

  Tonsured below the Lotus Throne.

  Not destined to stay,

  I leave the monastery in a flash,

  Naked I go without impediment;

  My sole wish now

  To roam alone in
coir cape and bamboo hat.

  And in straw sandals with a broken alms bow!

  To wander where I will.”

  Baoyu pounded his lap to the rhythm of the verse and nodded appreciatively, loud in his praise of these words as well as of her erudition.

  “Do be quiet and watch,” said Daiyu. “Before we’ve seen The Drunken Monk you’re playing The General Feigns Madness.”

  This set Xiangyun giggling.

  They went on watching operas until dusk. By then the Lady Dowager had taken a special fancy to the girl who played the part of the heroines and the one who took the clown’s role. She had them brought to her and on closer inspection found them even sweeter. All marvelled when it was disclosed that the heroine was only eleven, the clown only nine. The old lady rewarded them with some extra delicacies and two additional strings of cash.

  “When that child’s made up she’s the living image of someone here,” remarked Xifeng. “Have none of you noticed?”

  Baochai knew whom she meant but she just smiled. Baoyu too had guessed but did not dare to speak out.

  Xiangyun, however, blurted out, “I know! She looks just like Cousin Daiyu.”

  Too late Baoyu shot her a warning glance, for by now everyone had noticed the resemblance and laughingly declared that it was most striking. Soon afterwards they scattered.

  That evening while undressing, Xiangyun ordered Cuilu to pack her things.

  “What’s the hurry?” asked the maid. “We can start packing when it’s time to leave.”

  “We’re leaving tomorrow morning. Why should we stay here and put up with dirty looks?”

  Baoyu overheard this exchange and hurried in to take Xiangyun by the hand.

  “Dear cousin, you’ve got me wrong,” he said. “Daiyu is so terribly sensitive that the others didn’t name her for fear of upsetting her. How could she help being annoyed, the way you blurted it out? I looked at you warningly because I didn’t want you to hurt her feelings. It’s ungrateful as well as unfair of you to be angry with me. If it had been anybody else but you, I wouldn’t care how many people she offended.”

  Xiangyun waved him crossly away.

  “Don’t try to get round me with your flattering talk. I’m not in the same class as your Cousin Daiyu. It’s all right for other people to make fun of her, but I’m not even allowed to mention her. She’s a grand young lady, I’m a slave—how dare I offend her?”

  “I was only thinking of you, yet now you put me in the wrong. “Baoyu was desperate. “If I meant any harm, may I turn into dust this instant and be trampled on by ten thousand feet!”

  “Stop talking such nonsense just after the New Year. Or go and rave if you must to those petty-minded creatures who are so quick to take offence, and who know how to manage you. Don’t make me spit at you!

  She flounced off to the Lady Dowager’s inner room and threw herself down angrily on a couch.

  After this snub Baoyu went to look for Daiyu, but scarcely had he set foot in her room than she pushed him out and closed the door in his face. Mystified, he called in a subdued voice through the window:

  “Dear cousin!”

  But Daiyu simply ignored him.

  He hung his head then in dejected silence. Xiren knew it would be useless to reason with him just then. So he was standing there like a fool when Daiyu opened the door, thinking him gone. When she saw him still standing there, she hadn’t the heart to shut him out again. She turned away and curled up on her bed, while he followed her into the room.

  “There’s always a reason for everything,” he said. “If you’d explain, people wouldn’t feel so hurt. What’s upset you suddenly?”

  “A fine question to ask!” Daiyu gave a short laugh. “I don’t know. For you I’m a figure of fun, to be compared with an actress in order to raise a laugh.”

  “But why be angry with me? I didn’t make the comparison. I didn’t laugh.”

  “I should hope not, indeed! But what you did was even worse than the others laughing and making comparisons.”

  Baoyu did not know how to defend himself and was silent. “I wouldn’t have minded so much if you hadn’t made eyes at Xiangyun,” Daiyu went on. “Just what did you mean by that? That she’d lower and cheapen herself by joking with me? She’s the daughter of a noble house, I’m a nobody. If she were to joke with me and I answered back, that would be degrading for her—was that the idea? That was certainly kind on your part. Too bad she didn’t appreciate your thoughtfulness, but flared up all the same. Then you tried to excuse yourself at my expense, calling me ‘petty-minded and quick to take offence.’ You were afraid she might offend me, were you? But what is it to you if I get angry with her? Or if she offends me?”

  Baoyu realized that she had overheard his conversation with Xiangyun. He had intervened in an attempt to prevent bad feeling between them but, having failed, was now held to blame by both sides. This reminded him of the passage in Zhuangzi:

  “The ingenious work hard, the wise are full of care; but those without ability have no ambition. They enjoy their food and wander at will like drifting boats freed from their moorings.”

  And again:

  “Mountain trees are the first to be felled, clear fountains the first to be consumed.”

  The more he thought the more depressed he grew.

  “If I can’t even cope now with just these two, what will it be like in future?” he reflected. At this point it seemed quite useless to attempt to justify himself, so he started back to his room.

  Daiyu realized that he must be very dejected by what had occurred to go off so sulkily without a word. But this only made her angrier than ever.

  “Go, then!” she cried. “And don’t ever come back! Don’t speak to me again!”

  Baoyu paid no attention. Returning to his room, he lay down on his bed staring fixedly before him. Although Xiren knew what had happened, she dared not mention it and tried to distract him with some more cheerful subject.

  “Today’s plays are bound to lead to others,” she prophesied. “Miss Baochai is sure to give a return party.”

  “What do I care whether she does or not?” he snapped back, quite unlike his usual self.

  “What do you mean?” asked Xiren. “This is the beginning of a new year when all the ladies and girls are enjoying themselves. Why carry on like this?”

  “I don’t care whether they’re enjoying themselves or not.”

  “If they are so obliging to each other, shouldn’t you be obliging too? Wouldn’t that be pleasanter for everyone?”

  “For everyone? Let them oblige each other while ‘naked I go without impediment.’“

  Tears ran down his cheeks and, seeing them, she said no more.

  Baoyu, pondering the significance of that line, suddenly burst out sobbing. Getting up, he went to his desk, took up a brush and wrote this verse in the style of a Buddhist gatba:

  Should you test me and I test you,

  Should heart and mind be tested too,

  Till there remained no more to test,

  That test would be of all the best.

  When nothing can be called a test,

  My feet will find a place to rest.

  For fear that others might not grasp the meaning, he then appended a verse after the melody Ji Sheng Cao and read the whole through again. Then he went to bed, feeling less frustrated, and slept.

  Now some time after Baoyu’s abrupt departure Daiyu came, ostensibly to see Xiren, to find out how things were. Told that he was asleep she was turning to leave when Xiren said with a smile:

  “Just a minute, miss! He wrote something you might like to look at.”

  She quietly fetched and handed Daiyu the verses Baoyu had just written, and the girl was both touched and amused to see what he had tossed off in a fit of pique.

  “It’s just a joke, nothing serious,” she told Xiren.

  She took it back to her own room and showed it to Xiangyun. Next day she showed it to Baochai as well. Baochai read the second ve
rse. It ran:

  If there’s no “I,” then neither is there “you,”

  If she misunderstands you then why rue?

  Freely I come and freely too I go.

  Giving myself to neither joy nor woe,

  Close kin or distant—it’s the same to me.

  What did it serve, my assiduity?

  Today I see its true futility.

  Having read this she read the first verse then laughed.

  “So that’s the enlightenment he’s attained! This is all my fault for reciting that song to him yesterday. There’s nothing so apt to lead people astray as these Taoist teachings and Chan paradoxes. If he really starts taking such nonsense seriously and gets it fixed in his head just because of that song I quoted, I’m the first to blame.”

  She tore up the verses and told her maids to burn them at once.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” protested Daiyu with a smile. “I’ve some questions to ask him. Come with me, both of you. We’ll soon cure him of this nonsense.”

  So the three girls went together to Baoyu’s rooms. Daiyu opened the attack by saying:

  “Listen, Baoyu. Bao means that which is most precious, and yu that which is most solid. But in what way are you precious? In what way are you solid?”

  When Baoyu could not answer, the girls clapped their hands and laughed.

  “And this stupid fellow wants to dabble in metaphysics!”

  Daiyu continued, “The last two lines of your verse are all very well —

  When nothing can be called a test

  My feet can find a place to rest.

  But it seems to me they still lack a little something. Let me add two more:

  When there’s no place for feet to rest,

  That is the purest state and best.”

  “Yes, that shows real understanding,” put in Baochai. “In the old days when the Sixth Patriarch Huineng of the Southern Sect went to Shaozhou in search of a teacher, he heard that the Fifth Patriarch Hongren was in the monastery on Mount Huangmei, so he took a job as cook there. The Fifth Patriarch, on the look-out for a successor, ordered each of his monks to compose a Buddhist gatba. His senior disciple Shenxiu recited: