The Dream of the Red Chamber (Selection)

by Cao Xueqin

  Pao-yü smiled at her. "If I pass two remarks will you listen to me; yes or no?" he asked.

  At these words, Tai-yü twisted herself round and beat a retreat. Pao-yü however followed behind.

  "Since this is what we've come to now," he sighed, "what was the use of what existed between us in days gone by?"

  As soon as Tai-yü heard his exclamation, she stopped short impulsively. Turning her face towards him, "what about days gone by," she remarked, "and what about now?"

  "Ai!" ejaculated Pao-yü, "when you got here in days gone by, wasn't I your playmate in all your romps and in all your fun? My heart may have been set upon anything, but if you wanted it you could take it away at once. I may have been fond of any eatable, but if I came to learn that you too fancied it, I there and then put away what could be put away, in a clean place, to wait, Miss, for your return. We had our meals at one table; we slept in one and the same bed; whatever the servant-girls could not remember, I reminded them of, for fear lest your temper, Miss, should get ruffled. I flattered myself that cousins, who have grown up together from their infancy, as you and I have, would have continued, through intimacy or friendship, either would have done, in peace and harmony until the end, so as to make it palpable that we are above the rest. But, contrary to all my expectations, now that you, Miss, have developed in body as well as in mind, you don't take the least heed of me. You lay hold instead of some cousin Pao or cousin Feng or other from here, there and everywhere and give them a place in your affections; while on the contrary you disregard me for three days at a stretch and decline to see anything of me for four! I have besides no brother or sister of the same mother as myself. It's true there are a couple of them, but these, are you not forsooth aware, are by another mother! You and I are only children, so I ventured to hope that you would have reciprocated my feelings. But, who'd have thought it, I've simply thrown away this heart of mine, and here I am with plenty of woes to bear, but with nowhere to go and utter them!"

  While expressing these sentiments, tears, unexpectedly, trickled from his eyes.

  When Lin Tai-yü caught, with her ears, his protestations, and noticed with her eyes his state of mind, she unconsciously experienced an inward pang, and, much against her will, tears too besprinkled her cheeks; so, drooping her head, she kept silent.

  Her manner did not escape Pao-yü's notice. "I myself am aware," he speedily resumed, "that I'm worth nothing now; but, however imperfect I may be, I could on no account presume to become guilty of any shortcoming with you cousin. Were I to ever commit the slightest fault, your task should be either to tender me advice and warn me not to do it again, or to blow me up a little, or give me a few whacks; and all this reproof I wouldn't take amiss. But no one would have ever anticipated that you wouldn't bother your head in the least about me, and that you would be the means of driving me to my wits' ends, and so much out of my mind and off my head, as to be quite at a loss how to act for the best. In fact, were death to come upon me, I would be a spirit driven to my grave by grievances. However much exalted bonzes and eminent Taoist priests might do penance, they wouldn't succeed in releasing my soul from suffering; for it would still be needful for you to clearly explain the facts, so that I might at last be able to come to life."

  After lending him a patient ear, Tai-yü suddenly banished from her memory all recollection of the occurrences of the previous night. "Well, in that case," she said, "why did you not let a servant-girl open the door when I came over?"

  This question took Pao-yü by surprise. "What prompts you to say this?" he exclaimed. "If I have done anything of the kind, may I die at once."

  "Psha!" cried Tai-yü, "it's not right that you-should recklessly broach the subject of living or dying at this early morn! If you say yea, it's yea; and nay, it's nay; what use is there to utter such oaths!"

  "I didn't really see you come over," protested Pao-yü. "Cousin Pao-ch'ai it was, who came and sat for a while and then left."

  After some reflection, Lin Tai-yü smiled. "Yes," she observed, "your servant-girls must, I fancy, have been too lazy to budge, grumpy and in a cross-grained mood; this is probable enough."

  "This is, I feel sure, the reason," answered Pao-yü, "so when I go back, I'll find out who it was, call them to task and put things right."

  "Those girls of yours;" continued Tai-yü, "should be given a lesson, but properly speaking it isn't for me to mention anything about it. Their present insult to me is a mere trifle; but were to-morrow some Miss Pao (precious) or some Miss Pei (jewel) or other to come, and were she to be subjected to insult, won't it be a grave matter?"

  While she taunted him, she pressed her lips, and laughed sarcastically.

  Pao-yü heard her remarks and felt both disposed to gnash his teeth with rage, and to treat them as a joke; but in the midst of their colloquy, they perceived a waiting-maid approach and invite them to have their meal.

  Presently, the whole body of inmates crossed over to the front.

  "Miss," inquired Madame Wang at the sight of Tai-yü, "have you taken any of Dr. Pao's medicines? Do you feel any better?"

  "I simply feel so-so," replied Lin Tai-yü, "but grandmother Chia recommended me to go on taking Dr. Wang's medicines."

  "Mother," Pao-yü interposed, "you've no idea that cousin Lin's is an internal derangement; it's because she was born with a delicate physique that she can't stand the slightest cold. All she need do is to take a couple of closes of some decoction to dispel the chill; yet it's preferable that she should have medicine in pills."

  "The other day," said Madame Wang, "the doctor mentioned the name of some pills, but I've forgotten what it is."

  "I know something about pills," put in Pao-yü; "he merely told her to take some pills or other called 'ginseng as-a-restorative-of-the-system.'"

  "That isn't it," Madame Wang demurred.

  "The 'Eight-precious-wholesome-to-mother' pills," Pao-yü proceeded, "or the 'Left-angelica' or 'Right-angelica;' if these also aren't the ones, they must be the 'Eight-flavour Rehmannia-glutinosa' pills."

  "None of these," rejoined Madame Wang, "for I remember well that there were the two words chin kang (guardians in Buddhistic temples)."

  "I've never before," observed Pao-yü, clapping his hands, "heard of the existence of chin kang pills; but in the event of there being any chin kang pills, there must, for a certainty, be such a thing as P'u Sa (Buddha) powder."

  At this joke, every one in the whole room burst out laughing. Pao-ch'ai compressed her lips and gave a smile. "It must, I'm inclined to think," she suggested, "be the 'lord-of-heaven-strengthen-the-heart' pills!"

  "Yes, that's the name," Madame Wang laughed, "why, now, I too have become muddle-headed."

  "You're not muddle-headed, mother," said Pao-yü, "it's the mention of Chin kangs and Buddhas which confused you."

  "Stuff and nonsense!" ejaculated Madame Wang. "What you want again is your father to whip you!"

  "My father," Pao-yü laughed, "wouldn't whip me for a thing like this."

  "Well, this being their name," resumed Madame Wang, "you had better tell some one to-morrow to buy you a few."

  "All these drugs," expostulated Pao-yü, "are of no earthly use. Were you, mother, to give me three hundred and sixty taels, I'll concoct a supply of pills for my cousin, which I can certify will make her feel quite herself again before she has finished a single supply."

  "What trash!" cried Madame Wang. "What kind of medicine is there so costly!"

  "It's a positive fact," smiled Pao-yü. "This prescription of mine is unlike all others. Besides, the very names of those drugs are quaint, and couldn't be enumerated in a moment; suffice it to mention the placenta of the first child; three hundred and sixty ginseng roots, shaped like human beings and studded with leaves; four fat tortoises; full-grown polygonum multiflorum; the core of the Pachyma cocos, found on the roots of a fir tree of a thousand years old; and other such species of medicines. They're not, I admit, out-of-the-way things; but they are the most excellen
t among that whole crowd of medicines; and were I to begin to give you a list of them, why, they'd take you all quite aback. The year before last, I at length let Hsüeh P'an have this recipe, after he had made ever so many entreaties during one or two years. When, however, he got the prescription, he had to search for another two or three years and to spend over and above a thousand taels before he succeeded in having it prepared. If you don't believe me, mother, you are at liberty to ask cousin Pao-ch'ai about it."

  At the mention of her name, Pao-ch'ai laughingly waved her hand. "I know nothing about it," she observed. "Nor have I heard anything about it, so don't tell your mother to ask me any questions."

  "Really," said Madame Wang smiling, "Pao-ch'ai is a good girl; she does not tell lies."

  Pao-yü was standing in the centre of the room. Upon hearing these words, he turned round sharply and clapped his hands. "What I stated just now," he explained, "was the truth; yet you maintain that it was all lies."

  As he defended himself, he casually looked round, and caught sight of Lin Tai-yü at the back of Pao-ch'ai laughing with tight-set lips, and applying her fingers to her face to put him to shame.

  But Lady Feng, who had been in the inner rooms overseeing the servants laying the table, came out at once, as soon as she overheard the conversation. "Brother Pao tells no lies," she smilingly chimed in, "this is really a fact. Some time ago cousin Hsüeh P'an came over in person and asked me for pearls, and when I inquired of him what he wanted them for, he explained that they were intended to compound some medicine with; adding, in an aggrieved way, that it would have been better hadn't he taken it in hand for he never had any idea that it would involve such a lot of trouble! When I questioned him what the medicine was, he returned for answer that it was a prescription of brother Pao's; and he mentioned ever so many ingredients, which I don't even remember. 'Under other circumstances,' he went on to say, 'I would have purchased a few pearls, but what are absolutely wanted are such pearls as have been worn on the head; and that's why I come to ask you, cousin, for some. If, cousin, you've got no broken ornaments at hand, in the shape of flowers, why, those that you have on your head will do as well; and by and bye I'll choose a few good ones and give them to you, to wear.' I had no other course therefore than to snap a couple of twigs from some flowers I have, made of pearls, and to let him take them away. One also requires a piece of deep red gauze, three feet in length of the best quality; and the pearls must be triturated to powder in a mortar."

  After each sentence expressed by lady Feng, Pao-yü muttered an invocation to Buddha. "The thing is as clear as sunlight now," he remarked.

  The moment lady Feng had done speaking, Pao-yü put in his word. "Mother," he added, "you should know that this is a mere makeshift, for really, according to the letter of the prescription, these pearls and precious stones should, properly speaking, consist of such as had been obtained from, some old grave and been worn as head-ornaments by some wealthy and honourable person of bygone days. But how could one go now on this account and dig up graves, and open tombs! Hence it is that such as are simply in use among living persons can equally well be substituted."

  "O-mi-to-fu!" exclaimed Madame Wang, after listening to him throughout. "That will never do, and what an arduous job to uselessly saddle one's self with; for even though there be interred in some graves people, who've been dead for several hundreds of years, it wouldn't be a propitious thing were their corpses turned topsy-turvey now and the bones abstracted; just for the sake of preparing some medicine or other."

  Pao-yü thereupon addressed himself to Tai-yü. "Have you heard what was said or not?" he asked. "And is there, pray, any likelihood that cousin Secunda would also follow in my lead and tell lies?"

  While saying this, his eyes were, albeit his face was turned towards Lin Tai-yü, fixed upon Pao-ch'ai.

  Lin Tai-yü pulled Madame Wang. "You just listen to him, aunt," she observed. "All because cousin Pao-ch'ai would not accommodate him by lying, he appeals to me."

  "Pao-yü has a great knack," Madame Wang said, "of dealing contemptuously with you, his cousin."

  "Mother," Pao-yü smilingly protested, "you are not aware how the case stands. When cousin Pao-ch'ai lived at home, she knew nothing whatever about my elder cousin Hsüeh P'an's affairs, and how much less now that she has taken up her quarters inside the garden? She, of course, knows less than ever about them! Yet, cousin Lin just now stealthily treated my statements as lies, and put me to the blush."

  These words were still on his lips, when they perceived a waiting-maid, from dowager lady Chia's apartments, come in quest of Pao-yü and Lin Tai-yü to go and have their meal. Lin Tai-yü, however, did not even call Pao-yü, but forthwith rising to her feet, she went along, dragging the waiting-maid by the hand.

  "Let's wait for master Secundus, Mr. Pao, to go along with us," demurred the girl.

  "He doesn't want anything to eat," Lin Tai-yü replied; "he won't come with us, so I'll go ahead." So saying she promptly left the room.

  "I'll have my repast with my mother to-day," Pao-yü said.

  "Not at all," Madame Wang remarked, "not at all. I'm going to fast to-day, so it's only right and proper that you should go and have your own."

  "I'll also fast with you then," Pao-yü retorted.

  As he spoke, he called out to the servant to go back, and rushing up to the table, he took a seat.

  Madame Wang faced Pao-ch'ai and her companions. "You, girls," she observed, "had better have your meal, and let him have his own way!"

  "It's only right that you should go," Pao-ch'ai smiled. "Whether you have anything to eat or not, you should go over for a while to keep company to cousin Lin, as she will be quite distressed and out of spirits."

  "Who cares about her!" Pao-yü rejoined, "she'll get all right again after a time."

  Shortly, they finished their repast. But Pao-yü apprehended, in the first place, that his grandmother Chia, would be solicitous on his account, and longed, in the second, to be with Lin Tai-yü, so he hurriedly asked for some tea to rinse his mouth with.

  "Cousin Secundus," T'an Ch'un and Hsi Ch'un interposed with an ironic laugh, "what's the use of the hurry-scurry you're in the whole day long! Even when you're having your meals, or your tea, you're in this sort of fussy helter-skelter!"

  "Make him hurry up and have his tea," Pao-ch'ai chimed in smiling, "so that he may go and look up his cousin Lin. He'll be up to all kinds of mischief if you keep him here!"

  Pao-yü drank his tea. Then hastily leaving the apartment, he proceeded straightway towards the eastern court. As luck would have it, the moment he got near lady Feng's court, he descried lady Feng standing at the gateway. While standing on the step, and picking her teeth with an ear-cleaner, she superintended about ten young servant-boys removing the flower-pots from place to place. As soon as she caught sight of Pao-yü approaching, she put on a smiling face. "You come quite opportunely," she said; "walk in, walk in, and write a few characters for me."

  Pao-yü had no option but to follow her in. When they reached the interior of her rooms, lady Feng gave orders to a servant to fetch a pen, inkslab and paper.

  "Forty rolls of deep red ornamented satin," she began, addressing herself to Pao-yü, "forty rolls of satin with dragons; a hundred rolls of gauzes of every colour, of the finest quality; four gold necklaces...."

  "What's this?" Pao-yü shouted, "it is neither a bill; nor is it a list of presents, and in what style shall I write it?"

  Lady Feng remonstrated with him. "Just you go on writing," she said, "for, in fact, as long as I can make out what it means, it's all that is needed."

  Pao-yü at this response felt constrained to proceed with the writing.

  This over lady Feng put the paper by. As she did so, "I've still something more to tell you," she smilingly pursued, "but I wonder whether you will accede to it or not. There is in your rooms a servant-maid, Hsiao Hung by name, whom I would like to bring over into my service, and I'll select several girls to-morrow to wait
on you; will this do?"

  "The servants in my quarters," answered Pao-yü, "muster a large crowd, so that, cousin, you are at perfect liberty to send for any one of them, who might take your fancy; what's the need therefore of asking me about it?"

  "If that be so," continued lady Feng laughingly, "I'll tell some one at once to go and bring her over."

  "Yes, she can go and fetch her," acquiesced Pao-yü.

  While replying, he made an attempt to take his leave. "Come back," shouted lady Feng, "I've got something more to tell you."

  "Our venerable senior has sent for me," Pao-yü rejoined; "if you have anything to tell me you must wait till my return."

  After this explanation, he there and then came over to his grandmother Chia's on this side, where he found that they had already got through their meal.

  "Have you had anything nice to eat with your mother?" old lady Chia asked.

  "There was really nothing nice," Pao-yü smiled. "Yet I managed to have a bowl of rice more than usual."

  "Where's cousin Lin?" he then inquired.

  "She's in the inner rooms," answered his grandmother.

  Pao-yü stepped in. He caught sight of a waiting-maid, standing below, blowing into an iron, and two servant-girls seated on the stove-couch making a chalk line. Tai-yü with stooping head was cutting out something or other with a pair of scissors she held in her hand.

  Pao-yü advanced further in. "O! what's this that you are up to!" he smiled. "You have just had your rice and do you bob your head down in this way! Why, in a short while you'll be having a headache again!"

  Tai-yü, however, did not heed him in the least, but busied herself cutting out what she had to do.

  "The corner of that piece of satin is not yet right," a servant-girl put in. "You had better iron it again!"

  Tai-yü threw down the scissors. "Why worry yourself about it?" she said; "it will get quite right after a time."

  But while Pao-yü was listening to what was being said, and was inwardly feeling in low spirits, he became aware that Pao-ch'ai, T'an Ch'un and the other girls had also arrived. After a short chat with dowager lady Chia, Pao-ch'ai likewise entered the apartment to find out what her cousin Lin was up to. The moment she espied Lin Tai-yü engaged in cutting out something: "You have," she cried, "attained more skill than ever; for there you can even cut out clothes!"