Forward ninety copies of the book to the Hanlin Academy and deliver ten exemplars to the Supreme Censor—mind you, the edition recently released in print by Gao E and Cheng something-or-other, comprising all those one hundred and twenty chapters. Corrupt or incomplete copies, predatory prints, lewd drawings in the wake of the Dream, and similar miscellanea will be dealt with later: first the work itself is to be subjected to the scrutiny of the Censor and Our Imperial scholars.
Rumour has it that the true author (not Gao E!) was a rebel who would gladly have seen the Mandate of Heaven taken from Our glorious dynasty! Yet his ancestors and relatives—if Cao Xueqin was who they say he was—could always count on the Court’s affection and were assigned the highest posts!
Such is the fate of Rulers, Heshen. They sow favours and reap resentment and never are they to waver or stray from the Way.
Imperial Decree 21827 concerning Cao
and her immoderate requests
in the name of the Throne
The Court rejects acquittal of Lady Cao. It will not meet her immoderate desires nor accommodate her wish to be restored to her former station: other interpreters will take her place should the Court be in need of their service.
As a reward for her sincerity, her life will be spared. However, she did conduct herself in an unseemly manner, an offense for which a thrashing of forty lashes is appropriate—the number of which will be reduced by half, due to the intercession of Old Imperial Concubine Chun Xian, the favourite of the Emperor’s father.
Furthermore, Cao Baoqin will reveal the full truth concerning her relations with the barbarian Ti Qing, former chief of the Dutch trading post at Deshima—in as bold a manner as she is wont to reveal all else under Heaven. Pretended inquisitiveness or simulated thirst for knowledge will not be looked upon favourably by those who judge her: such phrases merely mask the vulgar and voluptuous nature of her dealings with Red-Haired Devil Ti Qing. In no way shall she stray from the topic!
Lady Cao,
To the Son of Heaven,
in response to Decree 21827
Re: the former chief of Deshima
Titsingh, also written Ti Qing
May Heaven bestow longevity on Your Majesty! As soon as injuries permitted—nay, sooner—I set myself to the task of obeying Your command, and if my handwriting lacks its usual elegance this is due to the corporal punishment with which my previous request was rewarded. Yet to keep Your Majesty waiting seems more unbecoming than a faltering calligraphy.
It was the chief Councillor in person who, surrounded by four of his stalwarts, graced our Pavilion with his presence, and no other than he wielded the rod—corrective action apparently being too momentous a task with which to entrust inferiors. So far, I have not mentioned his name. Nevertheless, the tone and tenor of my previous pleas must have offended Grand Councillor Heshen deeply: he seemed beside himself with rage.
‘A whore, that’s what you are, a lowly harlot! Admit it!’
The bamboo swished above my bare back. I neither squirmed nor cried. My mouth was sealed, my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth, for I am not and have never been what Your servant made me out to be! True, after Xueqin’s death, in circumstances so straitened that maintaining residency in Peking seemed ill-advised, I went to Nanking and became a courtesan—a word which, if it has lost its lustre, still means something other than harlot. A courtesan used to be a lady who moved in eminent circles: scholars saluted her as a confidante, privy to tender sentiment and poetic mystery. Who would dare call the poetess Liu Rushi a whore?
Rest assured, Your Majesty: it was merely to chide bad taste that I gainsaid Heshen; never did I intend to defy You. I even owe Your Majesty gratitude for commanding Heshen to spare my soles; under Your glorious reign, the flogging of feet has fallen into disuse. Be that as it may, I would never call myself a harlot, and never will I stoop to mendacity, let alone betray those noble courtesans of yore!
And while the stick descended on my back, blow after blow, stab after stab of pain, my loyalty to the Throne wavered not. I counted the blows; I endured the pain. At eighteen I rose from the block. My tousled hair stuck to blood on my shoulder blades while I clamped the bodice of sackcloth to my bosom.
I advanced; Heshen and his cronies recoiled…
My back was in shreds; the blood dripped on the flagstones. I ignored it, and demanded permission to speak.
Heshen nodded with a chalk-white face.
In the deafening silence, I kowtowed to Your Majesty’s underling. My forehead touched the floor, while pain numbed my wits. High above me I heard: ‘Baoqin! If not a whore, what are you?’
As if stung, I blurted out, ‘The incarnation of Liu Rushi! I, Heshen, embody courtesans on a par with the poets,writing poetry themselves!’
‘Ha! What poem proves your literary merit? Erotic merit will do as well.’ His henchmen bellowed with laughter; I ignored them. Heshen drew closer. The stench of cheap jasmine tea vexed my nostrils while he whispered, ‘Tell me, woman, what’s the best verse you ever wrote?’
‘The best verse?’ Words, images, dreams tumbled through my waking mind like an infestation of butterflies. ‘I wouldn’t know, good Sir. Many a poem of mine can be found in any anthology worth its salt, at least those the Censorate didn’t burn. Better judge for yourself!’
Heshen stood motionless. None of the forgotten concubines has ever believed him to be a eunuch, although he had been sighted at night in the Forbidden City, a privilege never granted to a whole man. To me, though, Heshen was nothing but a eunuch: I could not envisage that man loving a woman—the thought of it! How such ideas could enter my head, I have no way of knowing, nor do I wish to know. I know only that I had to muster courage, Oh Majesty, courage that overcomes pain. ‘I care not for my poems,’ I continued. ‘My genre is the novel. If Heaven permits, my novel will be completed ere I die. And if Heaven does not permit, I shall perish with a work-in-progress to my name, as he did!’
‘He—who?’
I, being rather tall, rose above the Chief Councillor’s plump figure. At my eye level his shaved skull gleamed beneath his hat-with-peacock-feather. ‘He who created Dream of the Red Chamber!’
‘Not merely a harlot, I hear, but a harlot who thinks of herself as the paragon of sophistication!’
His words were like squeals of mice. Even Heshen must bow to the Imagination. ‘Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true; Real becomes not-real where the unreal’s real,’ I replied,quoting the deceased Cao Xueqin.
‘So she did read the Dream!’ he jeered to his company. ‘The entire first chapter, no less!’
I hope Your Majesty finds it in Him to chide His servant for this; in the presence of a Lady of Letters, such rudeness was most unseemly!
‘Not only did I read the book from cover to cover, Master Heshen, I had a part in the story myself. More adventures of mine will be found in the novel I am composing now. Who knows, I may even make you immortal!’
His face turned purple. ‘Hold your tongue, woman, or I’ll declare the thrashing invalid and have the procedure repeated from scratch!’
‘Heshen!’
Old Concubine Chun Xian—it was at her request that Heshen’s punitive exercise was reduced to half—had entered the hall without a stick to lean on. Startled, Heshen and his cronies stared at her. Indeed all eyes were glued to her frail yet proud stature, shuffling towards the couch we offered her. But she ignored the gesture. She pointed an arthritic finger at Heshen; the faint tinkle of her tiny bracelets accentuated the quiet.
‘Show us the Emperor’s Decree commanding what you did to Lady Cao.’
With reluctance, he produced the document, waving it disdainfully in front of her eyes. Oh Your Majesty, even in the blur of my unshed tears I noticed the Imperial Seal was lacking.
‘Has the Emperor endorsed the puni
shment?’ the venerable old lady inquired.
The Grand Councillor was at a loss for an answer.
‘A forgery!’ Chun Xian exclaimed with a quivering voice. ‘Out of my sight, you scum, and be damned! Yongzheng’s remembrance has been sufficiently profaned, wouldn’t you say?’
The name of Your forbidding Imperial Father, whose favourite Chun Xian once was, drove all who were present out of our wits for fear. Your confidant left the pavilion as if it had been he who had been administered a thrashing, his henchmen skulking at his tail. That’s how it was, Your Majesty: Old Concubine Chun Xian, Your youngest step-aunt, can testify.
They had left. I let go of the sackcloth and wept. Eyes of compassion set on my battered body, hands arrayed me in a robe of delicate silk—later on, I would have to commit it to the flames, because it was desecrated by the shedding of innocent blood.
I made a request to speak with Old Second Concubine Chun Xian alone. It was granted; within moments I had followed her through the moon gate, through the garden, past the song-bird cages, for she chose the seclusion of her own quarters. My back was chafing under the smooth, now blood-shot fabric. And I knelt for her, oh Your Majesty—even death-houses preserve a modicum of rank: that’s what dignity falls back on when the rest is taken from us.
‘Don’t!’ Silver strands sprang like frozen flames from her hairdo, her ancient eyes stern; only the wrinkles betrayed her compassion. ‘It is I who should kneel for you, Daiyu!’
It was as if a door opened to the light, Your Majesty: the venerable Chun Xian had called me Daiyu after Lin Daiyu, Baoyu’s tragic beloved in Dream of the Red Chamber! My tears, dry when the bamboo made me suffer, now freely flowed from my cheeks for joy. Lady Chun knew my secret, as she knows all secrets in Your palaces. She gave me strength, beneficent beyond the wondrous balm her stiff but skilful fingers applied to my bruised back. She restored hope; by addressing me as Lin Daiyu, she reminded me of my best years. For I began my literary career as the orphan Lin Daiyu, no other than the heroine in Dream of the Red Chamber.
And beyond being the heroine in his masterpiece, I was Cao Xueqin’s housekeeper, his refuge, and his joy-nymph. The very one who breathed the romance of Baoyu and Lin Daiyu in the author’s ear, after dreaming it up for nights on end. Young as I was—indeed for this reason—I demanded Xueqin spread rumours to the effect that he, a talented drunkard of the once-glorious Caoclan, celebrated the beauties of his youth in his life-work, a myth that would dispel suspicions of me. And yet, as Your Majesty will remember, it is not some girl from the past but I! I who am, or once was, the heroine Lin Daiyu, the passionate, mournful cousin of the hero,his one and only kindred soul. And the hero is Xueqin himself, no less: that Baoyu character, young, handsome, and bookishly unreal, merely served to distract attention from the author himself and his secret dealings with me.
And isn’t he extraordinary, this Baoyu! I have no way of knowing how the other readers—and You, Oh Majesty—felt about him, but when Baoyu first makes an appearance, the story’s skin draws taut, like human skin after a fragrant bath. One already has an affection for the orphan girl Daiyu, but as soon as Baoyu enters the story one is verily intoxicated. He is a divine element in a human shape, like Daiyu herself, and their clandestine love is not of this world.
This alone does not explain the spell, of course. Simple-minded readers may rave about Baoyu to their heart’s content, yet even they are aware that their beloved hero merely consists of calligraphy—the miracle being that this hero wins hearts nonetheless. No matter how much a writer may rhapsodize over twin souls born in some Fairyland before descending into the nether-world, he won’t convince a soul—unless the magic seeps through words and silences, through the pacing of the novel,and through its mounting tension. Only mastery of the pen can bring rapture to readers, even if they don’t care for style or form—yes, then! Style should be the business of authors, or of literary connoisseurs,while most readers eagerly lose themselves in narration. But as His Majesty has more poetic blood running through His veins than the sum total of all his courtiers, I shall venture to explore the marvels of Xueqin’s Dream from a wider angle, if only to offer Him moments of pleasure.
Baoyu charms us because he is ignorant of his divine origin. The jade stone that’s found in his mouth at birth he deems proof of his rotten nature. Your Majesty will recall Baoyu’s conviction that girls are made of water and boys or men are made of dung. Baoyu prefers frolicking with watery creatures to dealings with his own sex, save for his schoolmate Qin Zhong—with whom he becomes intimate and will eventually even share a bed. Like everyone else I used to believe that schoolmate Zhong mirrored Xueqin’s favourite cousin, Tianyou, the scribbler of those crimson comments. And it is true that the writer, from a very tender age, felt a profound fondness for Tianyou, which lingered all his life. Even so, one might hold another possibility to be true: that cousin Tianyou was not the inspiration for Qin Zhong but for Jia Baoyu himself. When we first met, Your Majesty, Tianyou was of an advanced age, yet he had something nimble and quicksilver about him that is true of Baoyu too, but couldn’t possibly be said of Cao Xueqin.
Well, whatever the case may be, the character Baoyu inhabits the Realms of Illusion. In my humble opinion this overrides all other considerations. Whoever wishes to draw parallels between fictitious characters and the living—or the dead—will certainly find consolation in the idea that Baoyu doesn’t derive from either Xueqin or Tianyou individually but from their glowing intimacy, their heartfelt friendship which so vexed Tianyou’s father.
Xueqin and his favourite cousin remained companions until the day the author died; Tianyou, better known as Red Ink-Stone or Ink-Stone of Rouge, was the only one whom Xueqin permitted to adorn the manuscript’s margins with blood-coloured ink; the rest of his family had to make do with speaking their comments. And because their intimate friendship garnered paternal disapproval, as well as the occasional thrashing, the fictitious hero grew into the delusion that he was a good-for-nothing. Whenever Baoyu forgets himself in one of his exuberant moods (often), he (and we) is perpetually reminded of it by those surrounding him. Time and again we read that he’s muddle-headed, cares for little, is too close with girls, neglects his studies,and brings his father to grief. Yet all of these failings never fail to enchant us!
Baoyu lives under a different law, we sense, than others made of dung—an exception that will hardly surprise You, Oh Son of Heaven. By the same token one cannot compare the Emperor with his officials, even though He is the Official-in-Chief. Who would want to trade Baoyu for crooked Jia Lian, for slick career-hunter Yucun, or for wretched Xue Pan? No one, surely! And the way he endears us to Baoyu proves Xueqin’s literary genius.
Whether Baoyu is modelled after cousin Tianyou or not—the latter will be dead by now—Baoyu is a fabrication. And fabricated characters exert a dark power over us. In my previous request I alluded to the so-called memories casting a spell on the entire Cao clan, whose members were wont to recall stories and glories that never were. If the real Cao Xueqin looked less appealing than his make-believe counterpart, at least by the time I met him, it was the moon-faced hero of his fiction who opened the gates to his soul for me. The soul of Xueqin, that is, not of cousin Tianyou!
But now I speak of Xueqin as a lover.
Yes, I loved Xueqin, Your Majesty, even if I hated his patience. The Empress Bee is surrounded by a thousand drones that don’t grant Her a moment of rest; likewise, the author of what could (and should) have been an even better book was perpetually vexed by half-brothers, cousins, friends, or neighbours, attracted to the one talent in their midst, not unlike basement moths who flock to a lantern. They inundated him with comments as frivolous as they were vacuous, as well as with their bloodless nagging. Their unasked-for counsels kept the writer from finishing his lifework ere he died, and as a result the last forty chapters were supplied—or distorted—by Gao E, who is not without merit as a poet but devoid of
Xueqin’s genius.
The Cao clan hoped to share in the glory—and in the silver—that might accompany the book’s publication. Of the nature of novels they had no notion at all, else they would have ensured Xueqin’s name graced the title page, not those trivial names of Gao E and the bookseller! Long before this corrupt (others might say groomed) version saw the light of day, the clan’s forebears sold off copies that were tampered with, and shady fragments—of eighty chapters or less—to temple merchants in order to fill rice bowls and regain favour at Court, for they had fallen from grace under Your father the Yongzheng Emperor after several clan members failed as Imperial Salt Inspectors and Textile Commissioners. Xueqin would indeed have merited the Imperial Pardon his family was so desperate for, yet they blithely allowed their most gifted clan-member to sink into oblivion! Cousin Tianyou might have merited pardon too perhaps; it was most considerate of him to lift the author’s spirits when less-enlightened minds in his circle tried to teach him petty lessons. However, Favourite Cousin overdid things by covering each and every copy he laid hands on with his crimson outcries. And it was only fair that Your Majesty refused to bestow favours on those who could boast no merit. What is more, Xueqin thought so too; in the hour of death, he confessed this to me in whispering tones, admitting at last that he’d been too lenient on his relatives.
Oh Majesty! Let our verdict on the Caos be lenient as well: they did what most of us would. Their decision to sell off a great novel in bits and pieces was reprehensible indeed, yet they felt a genuine sorrow over Xueqin’s decease. When the author left this world for the Yellow Springs, he was less than fifty years of age—younger than I am now! May he be remembered as a genius and a very kind man—virtues rarely in harmony during anyone’s lifetime. How ironic that Xueqin, unlike his novel, should have fallen into oblivion!
The Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines Page 3