The Dream of the Red Chamber (Selection)

by Cao Xueqin

  She Yüeh had already closed the press and walked out. "Who'll go and fumble about again?" she laughed. "If there's a little more, well, you take it and finish."

  "Be quick," Pao-yü remarked, "and tell Pei Ming to go for another doctor. It will be all right."

  The matron received the money and marched off to go and settle matters.

  Presently, Dr. Wang actually arrived, at the invitation of Pei Ming. First and foremost he felt the pulse and then gave the same diagnosis of the complaint (as the other doctor did) in the first instance. The only difference being that there was, in fact, no citrus or sida or other similar drugs, included in the prescription. It contained, however, false sarsaparilla roots, dried orange peel, peonia albifora, and other similar medicines. But the quantities were, on the other hand, considerably smaller, as compared with those of the drugs mentioned in the former prescription.

  "These are the medicines," Pao-yü ejaculated exultingly, "suitable for girls! They should, it's true, be of a laxative nature, but never over and above what's needful. When I fell ill last year, I suffered from a chill, but I got such an obstruction in the viscera that I could neither take anything liquid or substantial, yet though he saw the state I was in, he said that I couldn't stand sida, ground gypsum, citrus and other such violent drugs. You and I resemble the newly-opened white begonia, Yün Erh sent me in autumn. And how could you resist medicines which are too much for me? We're like the lofty aspen trees, which grow in people's burial grounds. To look at, the branches and leaves are of luxuriant growth, but they are hollow at the core."

  "Do only aspen trees grow in waste burial grounds?" She Yüeh smiled. "Is it likely, pray, that there are no fir and cypress trees? What's more loathsome than any other is the aspen. For though a lofty tree, it only has a few leaves; and it makes quite a confused noise with the slightest puff of wind! If you therefore deliberately compare yourself to it, you'll also be ranging yourself too much among the common herd!"

  "I daren't liken myself to fir or cypress;" Pao-yü laughingly retorted. "Even Confucius says: 'after the season waxes cold, one finds that the fir and cypress are the last to lose their foliage,' which makes it evident that these two things are of high excellence. Thus it's those only, who are devoid of every sense of shame, who foolishly liken themselves to trees of the kind!"

  While engaged in this colloquy, they perceived the old matron bring the drugs, so Pao-yü bade her fetch the silver pot, used for boiling medicines in, and then he directed her to prepare the decoction on the brasier.

  "The right thing would be," Ch'ing Wen suggested, "that you should let them go and get it ready in the tea-room; for will it ever do to fill this room with the smell of medicines?"

  "The smell of medicines," Pao-yü rejoined, "is far nicer than that emitted by the whole lot of flowers. Fairies pick medicines and prepare medicines. Besides this, eminent men and cultured scholars gather medicines and concoct medicines; so that it constitutes a most excellent thing. I was just thinking that there's everything and anything in these rooms and that the only thing that we lack is the smell of medicines; but as luck would have it, everything is now complete."

  Speaking, he lost no time in giving orders to a servant to put the medicines on the fire. Next, he advised She Yüeh to get ready a few presents and bid a nurse take them and go and look up Hsi Jen, and exhort her not to give way to excessive grief. And when he had settled everything that had to be seen to, he repaired to the front to dowager lady Chia's and Madame Wang's quarters, and paid his respects and had his meal.

  Lady Feng, as it happened, was just engaged in consulting with old lady Chia and Madame Wang. "The days are now short as well as cold," she argued, "so wouldn't it be advisable that my senior sister-in-law, Mrs. Chia Chu, should henceforward have her repasts in the garden, along with the young ladies? When the weather gets milder, it won't at all matter, if they have to run backward and forward."

  "This is really a capital idea!" Madame Wang smiled. "It will be so convenient during windy and rainy weather. To inhale the chilly air after eating isn't good. And to come quite empty, and begin piling up a lot of things in a stomach full of cold air isn't quite safe. It would be as well therefore to select two cooks from among the women, who have, anyhow, to keep night duty in the large five-roomed house, inside the garden back entrance, and station them there for the special purpose of preparing the necessary viands for the girls. Fresh vegetables are subject to some rule of distribution, so they can be issued to them from the general manager's office. Or they might possibly require money or be in need of some things or other. And it will be all right if a few of those pheasants, deer, and every kind of game, be apportioned to them."

  "I too was just thinking about this," dowager lady Chia observed. "The only thing I feared was that with the extra work that would again be thrown upon the cook-house, they mightn't have too much to do."

  "There'll be nothing much to do," lady Feng replied. "The same apportionment will continue as ever. In here, something may be added; but in there something will be reduced. Should it even involve a little trouble, it will be a small matter. If the girls were exposed to the cold wind, every one else might stand it with impunity; but how could cousin Lin, first and foremost above all others, resist anything of the kind? In fact, brother Pao himself wouldn't be proof against it. What's more, none of the various young ladies can boast of a strong constitution."

  What rejoinder old lady Chia made to lady Feng, at the close of her representations, is not yet ascertained; so, reader, listen to the explanations you will find given in the next chapter.

  Chapter LII

  *

  The beautiful P'ing Erh endeavours to conceal the loss of the bracelet, made of work as fine as the feelers of a shrimp. The brave Ch'ing Wen mends the down-cloak during her indisposition.

  But let us return to our story.

  "Quite so!" was the reply with which dowager lady Chia (greeted lady Feng's proposal). "I meant the other day to have suggested this arrangement, but I saw that every one of you had so many urgent matters to attend to, (and I thought) that although you would not presume to bear me a grudge, were several duties now again superadded, you would unavoidably imagine that I only regarded those young grandsons and granddaughters of mine, and had no consideration for any of you, who have to look after the house. But since you make this suggestion yourself, it's all right."

  And seeing that Mrs. Hsüeh, and 'sister-in-law' Li were sitting with her, and that Madame Hsing, and Mrs. Yu and the other ladies, who had also crossed over to pay their respects, had not as yet gone to their quarters, old lady Chia broached the subject with Madame Wang, and the rest of the company. "I've never before ventured to give utterance to the remarks that just fell from my lips," she said, "as first of all I was in fear and trembling lest I should have made that girl Feng more presumptuous than ever, and next, lest I should have incurred the displeasure of one and all of you. But since you're all here to-day, and every one of you knows what brothers' wives and husbands' sisters mean, is there (I ask) any one besides her as full of forethought?"

  Mrs. Hsüeh, 'sister-in-law' Li and Mrs. Yu smiled with one consent. "There are indeed but few like her!" they cried. "That of others is simply a conventional 'face' affection, but she is really fond of her husband's sisters and his young brother. In fact, she's as genuinely filial with you, venerable senior."

  Dowager lady Chia nodded her head. "Albeit I'm fond of her," she sighed, "I can't, on the other hand, help distrusting that excessive shrewdness of hers, for it isn't a good thing."

  "You're wrong there, worthy ancestor," lady Feng laughed with alacrity. "People in the world as a rule maintain that 'too shrewd and clever a person can't, it is feared, live long.' Now what people of the world invariably say people of the world invariably believe. But of you alone, my dear senior, can no such thing be averred or believed. For there you are, ancestor mine, a hundred times sharper and cleverer than I; and how is it that you now enjoy both perfect happin
ess and longevity? But I presume that I shall by and bye excel you by a hundredfold, and die at length, after a life of a thousand years, when you venerable senior shall have departed from these mortal scenes!"

  "After every one is dead and gone," dowager lady Chia laughingly observed, "what pleasure will there be, if two antiquated elves, like you and I will be, remain behind?"

  This joke excited general mirth.

  But so concerned was Pao-yü about Ch'ing Wen and other matters that he was the first to make a move and return into the garden. On his arrival at his quarters, he found the rooms full of the fragrance emitted by the medicines. Not a soul did he, however, see about. Ch'ing Wen was reclining all alone on the stove-couch. Her face was feverish and red. When he came to touch it, his hand experienced a scorching sensation. Retracing his steps therefore towards the stove, he warmed his hands and inserted them under the coverlet and felt her. Her body as well was as hot as fire.

  "If the others have left," he then remarked, "there's nothing strange about it, but are She Yüeh and Ch'iu Wen too so utterly devoid of feeling as to have each gone after her own business?"

  "As regards Ch'iu Wen," Ch'ing Wen explained, "I told her to go and have her meal. And as for She Yüeh, P'ing Erh came just now and called her out of doors and there they are outside confabbing in a mysterious way! What the drift of their conversation can be I don't know. But they must be talking about my having fallen ill, and my not leaving this place to go home."

  "P'ing Erh isn't that sort of person," Pao-yü pleaded. "Besides, she had no idea whatever about your illness, so that she couldn't have come specially to see how you were getting on. I fancy her object was to look up She Yüeh to hobnob with her, but finding unexpectedly that you were not up to the mark, she readily said that she had come on purpose to find what progress you were making. This was quite a natural thing for a person with so wily a disposition to say, for the sake of preserving harmony. But if you don't go home, it's none of her business. You two have all along been, irrespective of other things, on such good terms that she could by no means entertain any desire to injure the friendly relations which exist between you, all on account of something that doesn't concern her."

  "Your remarks are right enough," Ch'ing Wen rejoined, "but I do suspect her, as why did she too start, all of a sudden, imposing upon me?"

  "Wait, I'll walk out by the back door," Pao-yü smiled, "and go to the foot of the window, and listen to what she's saying. I'll then come and tell you."

  Speaking the while, he, in point of fact, sauntered out of the back door; and getting below the window, he lent an ear to their confidences.

  "How did you manage to get it?" She Yueh inquired with gentle voice.

  "When I lost sight of it on that day that I washed my hands," P'ing Erh answered, "our lady Secunda wouldn't let us make a fuss. But the moment she left the garden, she there and then sent word to the nurses, stationed in the various places, to institute careful search. Our suspicions, however, fell upon Miss Hsing's maid, who has ever also been poverty-stricken; surmising that a young girl of her age, who had never set eyes upon anything of the kind, may possibly have picked it up and taken it. But never did we positively believe that it could be some one from this place of yours! Happily, our lady Secunda wasn't in the room, when that nurse Sung who is with you here went over, and said, producing the bracelet, 'that the young maid, Chui Erh, had stolen it, and that she had detected her, and come to lay the matter before our lady Secunda. I promptly took over the bracelet from her; and recollecting how imperious and exacting Pao-yü is inclined to be, fond and devoted as he is to each and all of you; how the jade which was prigged the other year by a certain Liang Erh, is still, just as the matter has cooled down for the last couple of years, canvassed at times by some people eager to serve their own ends; how some one has now again turned up to purloin this gold trinket; how it was filched, to make matters worse, from a neighbour's house; how as luck would have it, she took this of all things; and how it happened to be his own servant to give him a slap on his mouth, I hastened to enjoin nurse Sung to, on no account whatever, let Pao-yü know anything about it, but simply pretend that nothing of the kind had transpired, and to make no mention of it to any single soul. In the second place,' (I said), 'our dowager lady and Madame Wang would get angry, if they came to hear anything. Thirdly, Hsi Jen as well as yourselves would not also cut a very good figure.' Hence it was that in telling our lady Secunda, I merely explained 'that on my way to our senior mistress,' the bracelet got unclasped, without my knowing it; that it fell among the roots of the grass; that there was no chance of seeing it while the snow was deep, but that when the snow completely disappeared to-day there it glistened, so yellow and bright, in the rays of the sun, in precisely the very place where it had dropped, and that I then picked it up.' Our lady Secunda at once credited my version. So here I come to let you all know so as to be henceforward a little on your guard with her, and not get her a job anywhere else. Wait until Hsi Jen's return, and then devise means to pack her off, and finish with her."

  "This young vixen has seen things of this kind before," She Yüeh ejaculated, "and how is it that she was so shallow-eyed?"

  "What could, after all, be the weight of this bracelet?" P'ing Erh observed. "It was once our lady Secunda's. She says that this is called the 'shrimp-feeler'-bracelet. But it's the pearl, which increases its weight. That minx Ch'ing Wen is as fiery as a piece of crackling charcoal, so were anything to be told her, she may, so little able is she to curb her temper, flare up suddenly into a huff, and beat or scold her, and kick up as much fuss as she ever has done before. That's why I simply tell you. Exercise due care, and it will be all right."

  With this warning, she bid her farewell and went on her way.

  Her words delighted, vexed and grieved Pao-yü. He felt delighted, on account of the consideration shown by P'ing Erh for his own feelings. Vexed, because Chui Erh had turned out a petty thief. Grieved, that Chui Erh, who was otherwise such a smart girl, should have gone in for this disgraceful affair. Returning consequently into the house, he told Ch'ing Wen every word that P'ing Erh had uttered. "She says," he went on to add, "that you're so fond of having things all your own way that were you to hear anything of this business, now that you are ill, you would get worse, and that she only means to broach the subject with you, when you get quite yourself again."

  Upon hearing this, Ch'ing Wen's ire was actually stirred up, and her beautiful moth-like eyebrows contracted, and her lovely phoenix eyes stared wide like two balls. So she immediately shouted out for Chui Erh.

  "If you go on bawling like that," Pao-yü hastily remonstrated with her, "won't you show yourself ungrateful for the regard with which P'ing Erh has dealt with you and me? Better for us to show ourselves sensible of her kindness and by and bye pack the girl off, and finish."

  "Your suggestion is all very good," Ch'ing Wen demurred, "but how could I suppress this resentment?"

  "What's there to feel resentment about?" Pao-yü asked. "Just you take good care of yourself; it's the best thing you can do."

  Ch'ing Wen then took her medicine. When evening came, she had another couple of doses. But though in the course of the night, she broke out into a slight perspiration, she did not see any change for the better in her state. Still she felt feverish, her head sore, her nose stopped, her voice hoarse. The next day, Dr. Wang came again to examine her pulse and see how she was getting on. Besides other things, he increased the proportions of certain medicines in the decoction and reduced others; but in spite of her fever having been somewhat brought down, her head continued to ache as much as ever.

  "Go and fetch the snuff," Pao-yü said to She Yüeh, "and give it to her to sniff. She'll feel more at ease after she has had several strong sneezes."

  She Yüeh went, in fact, and brought a flat crystal bottle, inlaid with a couple of golden stars, and handed it to Pao-yü.

  Pao-yü speedily raised the cover of the bottle. Inside it, he discovered, represente
d on western enamel, a fair-haired young girl, in a state of nature, on whose two sides figured wings of flesh. This bottle contained some really first-rate foreign snuff.

  Ch'ing Wen's attention was fixedly concentrated on the representation.

  "Sniff a little!" Pao-yü urged. "If the smell evaporates, it won't be worth anything."

  Ch'ing Wen, at his advice, promptly dug out a little with her nail, and applied it to her nose. But with no effect. So digging out again a good quantity of it, she pressed it into her nostrils. Then suddenly she experienced a sensation in her nose as if some pungent matter had penetrated into the very duct leading into the head, and she sneezed five or six consecutive times, until tears rolled down from her eyes and mucus trickled from her nostrils.

  Ch'ing Wen hastily put the bottle away. "It's dreadfully pungent!" she laughed. "Bring me some paper, quick!"

  A servant-girl at once handed her a pile of fine paper.

  Ch'ing Wen extracted sheet after sheet, and blew her nose.

  "Well," said Pao-yü smiling, "how are you feeling now?"

  "I'm really considerably relieved." Ch'ing Wen rejoined laughing. "The only thing is that my temples still hurt me."

  "Were you to treat yourself exclusively with western medicines, I'm sure you'd get all right," Pao-yü added smilingly. Saying this, "Go," he accordingly desired She Yüeh, "to our lady Secunda, and ask her for some. Tell her that I spoke to you about them. My cousin over there often uses some western plaster, which she applies to her temples when she's got a headache. It's called 'I-fo-na.' So try and get some of it!"

  She Yüeh expressed her readiness. After a protracted absence, she, in very deed, came back with a small bit of the medicine; and going quickly for a piece of red silk cutting, she got the scissors and slit two round slips off as big as the tip of a finger. After which, she took the medicine, and softening it by the fire, she spread it on them with a hairpin.