The Dream of the Red Chamber (Selection)

by Cao Xueqin

  So saying, she at once set to work to arrange the bed for Pao-yü.

  "Hai!" ejaculated Ch'ing Wen smiling, "one just sits down to warm one's self, and here you come and disturb one!"

  Pao-yü had at this time been sitting, plunged in a despondent mood. The thought of Hsi Jen's mother had crossed through his mind and he was wondering whether she could be dead or alive, when unexpectedly overhearing Ch'ing Wen pass the remarks she did, he speedily sprung up, and came out himself and dropped the cover of the glass, and fastened the contrivance, after which he walked into the room. "Warm yourselves," he smiled, "I've done all there was to be done."

  "I can't manage," Ch'ing Wen rejoined smiling, "to get warm at all. It just also strikes me that the warming-pan hasn't yet been brought."

  "You've had the trouble to think of it!" She Yüeh observed. "But you've never wanted a chafing-dish before. It's so warm besides on that warming-frame of ours; not like the stove-couch in that room, which is so cold; so we can very well do without it to-day."

  "If both of you are to sleep on that," Pao-yü smiled, "there won't be a soul with me outside, and I shall be in an awful funk. Even you won't be able to have a wink of sleep during the whole night!"

  "As far as I'm concerned," Ch'ing Wen put in, "I'm going to sleep in here. There's She Yüeh, so you'd better induce her to come and sleep outside."

  But while they kept up this conversation, the first watch drew near, and She Yüeh at once lowered the mosquito-curtain, removed the lamp, burnt the joss-sticks, and waited upon Pao-yü until he got into bed. The two maids then retired to rest. Ch'ing Wen reclined all alone on the warming-frame, while She Yüeh lay down outside the winter apartments.

  The third watch had come and gone, when Pao-yü, in the midst of a dream, started calling Hsi Jen. He uttered her name twice, but no one was about to answer him. And it was after he had stirred himself out of sleep that he eventually recalled to mind that Hsi Jen was not at home, and he had a hearty fit laughter to himself.

  Ch'ing Wen however had been roused out of her sleep, and she called She Yüeh. "Even I," she said, "have been disturbed, fast asleep though I was; and, lo, she keeps a look-out by his very side and doesn't as yet know anything about his cries! In very deed she is like a stiff corpse!"

  She Yüeh twisted herself round and yawned. "He calls Hsi Jen," she smilingly rejoined, "so what's that to do with me? What do you want?" proceeding, she then inquired of him.

  "I want some tea," Pao-yü replied.

  She Yüeh hastily jumped out of bed, with nothing on but a short wadded coat of red silk.

  "Throw my pelisse over you;" Pao-yü cried; "for mind it's cold!"

  She Yüeh at these words put back her hands, and, taking the warm pelisse, lined even up to the lapel, with fur from the neck of the sable, which Pao-yü had put on on getting up, she threw it over her shoulders and went below and washed her hands in the basin. Then filling first a cup with tepid water, she brought a large cuspidor for Pao-yü to wash his mouth. Afterwards, she drew near the tea-case, and getting a cup, she first rinsed it with lukewarm water, and pouring half a cup of tea from the warm teapot, she handed it to Pao-yü. After he had done, she herself rinsed her mouth, and swallowed half a cupful of tea.

  "My dear girl," Ch'ing Wen interposed smiling, "do give me also a sip."

  "You put on more airs than ever," She Yüeh laughed.

  "My dear girl;" Ch'ing Wen added, "to-morrow night, you needn't budge; I'll wait on you the whole night long. What do you say to that?"

  Hearing this, She Yüeh had no help but to attend to her as well, while she washed her mouth, and to pour a cup of tea and give it to her to drink.

  "Won't you two go to sleep," She Yüeh laughed, "but keep on chatting? I'll go out for a time; I'll be back soon."

  "Are there any evil spirits waiting for you outside?" Ch'ing Wen smiled.

  "It's sure to be bright moonlight out of doors," Pao-yü observed, "so go, while we continue our chat."

  So speaking, he coughed twice.

  She Yüeh opened the back-door, and raising the woollen portière and looking out, she saw what a beautiful moonlight there really was.

  Ch'ing Wen allowed her just time enough to leave the room, when she felt a wish to frighten her for the sake of fun. But such reliance did she have in her physique, which had so far proved better than that of others, that little worrying her mind about the cold, she did not even throw a cloak over her, but putting on a short jacket, she descended, with gentle tread and light step, from the warming-frame and was making her way out to follow in her wake, when "Hallo!" cried Pao-yü warning her. "It's freezing; it's no joke!"

  Ch'ing Wen merely responded with a wave of the hand and sallied out of the door to go in pursuit of her companion. The brilliancy of the moon, which met her eye, was as limpid as water. But suddenly came a slight gust of wind. She felt it penetrate her very flesh and bore through her bones. So much so, that she could not help shuddering all over. "Little wonder is it," she argued within herself, "if people say 'that one mustn't, when one's body is warm, expose one's self to the wind.' This cold is really dreadful!" She was at the same time just on the point of giving (She Yüeh) a start, when she heard Pao-yü shout from inside, "Ch'ing Wen has come out."

  Ch'ing Wen promptly turned back and entered the room. "How could I ever frighten her to death?" she laughed. "It's just your way; you're as great a coward as an old woman!"

  "It isn't at all that you might do her harm by frightening her," Pao-yü smiled, "but, in the first place, it wouldn't be good for you to get frost-bitten; and, in the second, you would take her so much off her guard that she won't be able to prevent herself from uttering a shout. So, in the event of rousing any of the others out of their sleep, they won't say that we are up to jokes, but maintain instead that just as Hsi Jen is gone, you two behave as if you'd come across ghosts or seen evil spirits. Come and tuck in the coverlets on this side!"

  When Ch'ing Wen heard what he wanted done she came accordingly and tucked in the covers, and, putting out her hands, she inserted them under them, and set to work to warm the bedding.

  "How cold your hand is!" Pao-yü laughingly exclaimed. "I told you to look out or you'd freeze!"

  Noticing at the same time that Ch'ing Wen's cheeks were as red as rouge, he rubbed them with his hands. But as they felt icy cold to his touch, "Come at once under the cover and warm yourself!" Pao-yü urged.

  Hardly, however, had he concluded these words, than a sound of 'lo teng' reached their ears from the door, and She Yüeh rushed in all in a tremor, laughing the while.

  "I've had such a fright," she smiled, as she went on speaking. "Goodness me! I saw in the black shade, at the back of the boulders on that hill, some one squatting, and was about to scream, when it turned out to be nothing else than that big golden pheasant. As soon as it caught sight of a human being, it flew away. But it was only when it reached a moonlit place that I at last found out what it was. Had I been so heedless as to scream, I would have been the means of getting people out of their beds!"

  Recounting her experiences, she washed her hands.

  "Ch'ing Wen, you say, has gone out," she proceeded laughing, "but how is it I never caught a glimpse of her? She must certainly have gone to frighten me!"

  "Isn't this she?" Pao-yü inquired with a smile. "Is she not here warming herself? Had I not been quick in shouting, she would verily have given you a fright."

  "There was no need for me to go and frighten her," Ch'ing Wen laughingly observed. "This hussy has frightened her own self."

  With these words she ensconced herself again under her own coverlet. "Did you forsooth go out," She Yüeh remarked, "in this smart dress of a circus-performer?"

  "Why, of course, she went out like this!" Pao-yü smiled.

  "You wouldn't know, for the life of you, how to choose a felicitous day!" She Yüeh added. "There you go and stand about on a fruitless errand. Won't your skin get chapped from the frost?"

  Saying thi
s, she again raised the copper cover from the brasier, and, picking up the shovel, she buried the live charcoal deep with ashes, and taking two bits of incense of Cambodia fragrant wood, she threw them over them. She then re-covered the brasier, and repairing to the back of the screen, she gave the lamp a thorough trimming to make it throw out more light; after which, she once more laid herself down.

  As Ch'ing Wen had some time before felt cold, and now began to get warm again, she unexpectedly sneezed a couple of times.

  "How about that?" sighed Pao-yü. "There you are; you've after all caught a chill!"

  "Early this morning," She Yüeh smiled, "she shouted that she wasn't feeling quite herself. Neither did she have the whole day a proper bowl of food. And now, not to speak of her taking so little care of herself, she is still bent upon playing larks upon people! But if she falls ill by and bye, we'll let her suffer what she will have brought upon herself."

  "Is your head hot?" Pao-yü asked.

  "It's nothing at all!" Ch'ing Wen rejoined, after coughing twice. "When did I get so delicate?"

  But while she spoke, they heard the striking clock, suspended on the partition wall in the outer rooms, give two sounds of 'tang, tang,' and the matron, on the night watch outside, say: "Now, young girls, go to sleep. To-morrow will be time enough for you to chat and laugh!"

  "Don't let's talk!" Pao-yü then whispered, "for, mind, we'll also induce them to start chattering." After this, they at last went to sleep.

  The next day, they got up at an early hour. Ch'ing Wen's nose was indeed considerably stopped. Her voice was hoarse; and she felt no inclination to move.

  "Be quick," urged Pao-yü, "and don't make a fuss, for your mistress, my mother, may come to know of it, and bid you also shift to your house and nurse yourself. Your home might, of course, be all very nice, but it's in fact somewhat cold. So isn't it better here? Go and lie down in the inner rooms, and I'll give orders to some one to send for the doctor to come quietly by the back door and have a look at you. You'll then get all right again."

  "In spite of what you say," Ch'ing Wen demurred, "you must really say something about it to our senior lady, Mrs. Chia Chu; otherwise the doctor will be coming unawares, and people will begin to ask questions; and what answer could one give them?"

  Pao-yü found what she said so full of reason that he called an old nurse. "Go and deliver this message to your senior mistress," he enjoined her. "Tell her that Ch'ing Wen got a slight chill yesterday. That as it's nothing to speak of, and Hsi Jen is besides away, there would be, more than ever, no one here to look after things, were she to go home and attend to herself, so let her send for a doctor to come quietly by the back entrance and see what's the matter with her; but don't let her breathe a word about it to Madame Wang, my mother."

  The old nurse was away a considerable time on the errand. On her return, "Our senior mistress," she reported, "has been told everything. She says that: 'if she gets all right, after taking a couple of doses of medicine, it will be well and good. But that in the event of not recovering, it would, really, be the right thing for her to go to her own home. That the season isn't healthy at present, and that if the other girls caught her complaint it would be a small thing; but that the good health of the young ladies is a vital matter.'"

  Ch'ing Wen was lying in the winter apartment, coughing and coughing, when overhearing (Li Wan's) answer, she lost control over her temper. "Have I got such a dreadful epidemic," she said, "that she fears that I shall bring it upon others? I'll clear off at once from this place; for mind you don't get any headaches and hot heads during the course of your lives."

  "While uttering her grievances, she was bent upon getting up immediately, when Pao-yü hastened to smile and to press her down.

  "Don't lose your temper," he advised her. "This is a responsibility which falls upon her shoulders, so she is afraid lest Madame Wang might come to hear of it, and call her to task. She only made a harmless remark. But you've always been prone to anger, and now, as a matter of course your spleen is larger than ever."

  But in the middle of his advice to her, a servant came and told him that the doctor had arrived. Pao-yü accordingly crossed over to the off side, and retired behind the bookcase; from whence he perceived two or three matrons, whose duty it was to keep watch at the back door, usher the doctor in.

  The waiting-maids, meanwhile, withdrew out of the way. Three or four old nurses dropped the deep-red embroidered curtain, suspended in the winter apartment. Ch'ing Wen then simply stretched out her hand from among the folds of the curtain. But the doctor noticed that on two of the fingers of her hand, the nails, which measured fully two or three inches in length, still bore marks of the pure red dye from the China balsam, and forthwith he turned his head away. An old nurse speedily fetched a towel and wiped them for her, when the doctor set to work and felt her pulse for a while, after which he rose and walked into the outer chamber.

  "Your young lady's illness," he said to the old nurses, "arises from external sources, and internal obstructive influences, caused by the unhealthiness of the season of late. Yet it's only a slight chill, after all. Fortunately, the young lady has ever been moderate in her drinking and eating. The cold she has is nothing much. It's mainly because she has a weak constitution that she has unawares got a bit of a chill. But if she takes a couple of doses of medicine to dispel it with, she'll be quite right."

  So saying, he followed once more the matron out of the house.

  Li Wan had, by this time, sent word to the various female domestics at the back entrance, as well as to the young maids in the different parts of the establishment to keep in retirement. All therefore that the doctor perceived as he went along was the scenery in the garden. But not a single girl did he see.

  Shortly, he made his exit out of the garden gate, and taking a seat in the duty-lodge of the servant-lads, who looked after the garden-entrance, he wrote a prescription.

  "Sir," urged an old nurse, "don't go yet. Our young master is fretful and there may be, I fancy, something more to ask you."

  "Wasn't the one I saw just now a young lady," the doctor exclaimed with eagerness, "but a young man, eh? Yet the rooms were such as are occupied by ladies. The curtains were besides let down. So how could the patient I saw have ever been a young man?"

  "My dear sir," laughed the old nurse, "it isn't strange that a servant-girl said just now that a new doctor had been sent for on this occasion, for you really know nothing about our family matters. That room is that of our young master, and that is a girl attached to the apartments; but she's really a servant-maid. How ever were those a young lady's rooms? Had a young lady fallen ill, would you ever have penetrated inside with such ease?"

  With these words, she took the prescription and wended her way into the garden.

  When Pao-yü came to peruse it, he found, above, such medicines mentioned as sweet basil, platycodon, carraway seeds, mosla dianthera, and the like; and, below, citrus fusca and sida as well.

  "He deserves to be hanged! He deserves death!" Pao-yü shouted. "Here he treats girls in the very same way as he would us men! How could this ever do? No matter what internal obstruction there may be, how could she ever stand citrus and sida? Who asked him to come? Bundle him off at once; and send for another, who knows what he's about."

  "Whether he uses the right medicines or not," the old nurse pleaded, "we are not in a position to know. But we'll now tell a servant-lad to go and ask Dr. Wang round. It's easy enough! The only thing is that as this doctor wasn't sent for through the head manager's office his fee must be paid to him."

  "How much must one give him?" Pao-yü inquired.

  "Were one to give him too little, it wouldn't look nice," a matron ventured. "He should be given a tael. This would be quite the thing with such a household as ours."

  "When Dr. Wang comes," Pao-yü asked, "how much is he given?"

  "Whenever Dr. Wang and Dr. Chang come," a matron smilingly explained, "no money is ever given them. At the four seasons of
each year however presents are simply sent to them in a lump. This is a fixed annual custom. But this new doctor has come only this once so he should be given a tael."

  After this explanation, Pao-yü readily bade She Yüeh go and fetch the money.

  "I can't make out where sister Hua put it;" She Yüeh rejoined.

  "I've often seen her take money out of that lacquered press, ornamented with designs made with shells;" Pao-yü added; "so come along with me, and let's go and search."

  As he spoke, he and She Yüeh came together into what was used as a store-room by Hsi Jen. Upon opening the shell-covered press, they found the top shelf full of pens, pieces of ink, fans, scented cakes, various kinds of purses, handkerchiefs and other like articles, while on the lower shelf were piled several strings of cash. But, presently they pulled out the drawer, when they saw, in a small wicker basket, several pieces of silver, and a steelyard.

  She Yüeh quickly snatched a piece of silver. Then raising the steelyard, "Which is the one tael mark?" she asked.

  Pao-yü laughed. "It's amusing that you should appeal to me!" he said. "You really behave as if you had only just come!"

  She Yüeh also laughed, and was about to go and make inquiries of some one else, when Pao-yü interfered. "Choose a piece out of those big ones and give it to him, and have done," he said. "We don't go in for buying and selling, so what's the use of minding such trifles!"

  She Yüeh, upon hearing this, dropped the steelyard, and selected a piece, which she weighed in her hand. "This piece," she smiled, "must, I fancy, be a tael. But it would be better to let him have a little more. Don't let's give too little as those poor brats will have a laugh at our expense. They won't say that we know nothing about the steelyard; but that we are designedly mean."

  A matron who stood at the threshold of the door, smilingly chimed in. "This ingot," she said, "weighs five taels. Even if you cut half of it off, it will weigh a couple of taels, at least. But there are no sycee shears at hand, so, miss, put this piece aside and choose a smaller one."