Fortunate ending
«It would appear», the Emperor’s confidant continued, «that Xueqin’s true version, if it is extant, has Jia Bayou and Lin Daiyu marry, after which all ends well.»
«I know naught of it», I replied truthfully, «but your speculation certainly evidences your accomplished taste, Lord Heshen. As I recall, Cao Xueqin himself worried over the book’s proper ending, night after sleepless night.»
«Lady! How could a writer of merit encounter any problem in allotting fortunate endings to characters he made up himself? Tell me, what obstacle blocked their glorious road to happiness?»
«Misgivings… doubts», I ventured. «His writer’s conscience.»
The chief Councillor burst out laughing. «Is that so? Do writers have consciences? I was not aware of it. You are a poet, Cao Baoqin. Do you have a conscience?»
«If you perceive my rhymes to be graced with any talent», I stammered, overwhelmed by the veiled compliment, «it is precisely because of my literary conscience. It is my sole guide while the reed-pen makes its way on the scroll.»
Whereupon Heshen proceeded to remind me that scholars of the Hanlin Academy, that venerable body of accumulated wisdom, recently dismissed conscience as a despicable Western invention.
«Good Sir!» was my rejoinder. «Well may the conscience be an outlandish thing: how could a worthless woman have cognizance of matters that rack the brains of lofty scholars? What I do know is that Cao Xueqin had a soft spot for readers. Many of them would be in dire distress had Xueqin’s alter ego Jia Baoyu been wedded to Lin Daiyu instead of to the virtuous Xue Baochai, the spouse whom his family—his doting grandmother included—had destined for him. To be sure, Daiyu, his kindred soul, is ever so dear to us, yet we’re not made to forget that she’s from an impoverished branch of that clan. Her constitution is weak, her temperament shaky, her feeling is––»
«Were you,» he interrupted, «perchance Daiyu’s original?» «Allow me to answer in the spirit of the Dream, Lord Heshen. My name is, as you are aware, Cao Baoqin. Well then, one of the smarter girls in the story is called Xue Baoqin; the author told me in person he had meant this as a compliment to me. Also, I’d say Lady Lin is less robust than I am. And yet––»
All benevolence receded from Heshen’s countenance, it turned white first and purple next. I had kindled his wrath, and though I was ignorant of its cause I knew I would have to pay for it.
Again these welling tears
«You must recall names», he said, all of a sudden affable again.
I had no idea what he meant.
«Of those who visited Author Xueqin and offered him counsel.»
«Lord Heshen, they were so many! Besides, I kept aloof.»
«Why?»
«Because…Well, you see…Xueqin told his guests—as he told his next of kin, yes, family and clan-members in the first place!—that his heroine Daiyu was modelled on a juvenile love; under no condition were they to know that… well, that Daiyu––»
«That the both of you slept on one couch. Why the secrecy? Gentlemen beyond a certain age will avail themselves of skittish young housemaids—come to think of it, I’d say it’s common, if not vulgar! Why on earth would Xueqin’s relatives be offended by a trifle?» The chief Councillor treated me to one of his icy gazes and went on: «Lady! Are you telling me the entire truth?»
«Can the truth in its entirety be told? For all I know, my master wanted no rumours, and real authors thrive on secrecy, I thought. Lord Heshen! I was innocent,inexperienced: I asked no further questions.»
«No rumours, you say?» Heshen seemed exasperated. «Rumour has it, Lady, that Xueqin kept the original version of the Dream, a seditious version, away from human eyes. Also from yours?»
I know nothing of an original version, let alone a seditious one, oh gentle reader: I even doubt its existence. So I demurely inquired why an allegedly hidden original written thirty years ago meant so much to him. His questions alarmed me. Heshen should leave the past alone. Ruminating on it in his presence was so painful that I could barely speak; the chief Councillor did not speak either. Yet he seemed disinclined to change the subject.
«My good Heshen!» I said to dispel the deepening silence, «Humans are burdened by secrets. If you had a secret, I swear it would be safe with me—and yet, how perilous it is to trust fellow humans: one slip of my tongue and the whole of China could know of your most intimate dealings.» His eyes narrowed. «To what dealings are you alluding? Are you threatening me, Baoqin?»
I swore this was not so; the Councillor did not believe me.
«Rumours are foul, Lady. I think you will agree on that.»
I agreed.
«Not only foul,» he raged, «also untrue. You must have heard about that grand trial: many people were beheaded in the past for attributing a vile intimacy to my relations with the Emperor. It was quite a scandal back then!»
«It is never rumours that are secret, but one’s feelings.»
«Are you insinuating those feelings are true?»
«Oh, I merely quoted a proverb! What goes on in your heart, Lord Heshen, is unbeknownst to me. Ages ago, the peasant girl Shuangqing wrote a poem about this theme:
By uttering feelings in this world I err,
Again these welling tears, which I perforce restrain
And oh, my hand is clutching a dead flower.»
China’s powerful man smiled, and for one fleeting moment he seemed utterly lost in thought. «Yes», he said, «Shuangqing... In the region I’m from, there are many girls like her: beaten by husbands, scorned by mothers-in-law, derided for talents not a soul understands.»
«If she existed at all», I reminded him, «instead of being a fabrication by one of those sentimental literati. Tell me, Heshen: does your region contain one peasant girl whose verse equals Shuangqing’s?»
Lost
Heshen stared at a point beyond space and time. He seemed lost—his birthplace far away; a man who has forfeited human sympathy. Even those notorious thrashings he administers at times seem attempts to get close. Is it possible for one man to amass so much power that merely an attempt to get close would inflict pain?
«I want the original!» he said. «I’ll reward you handsomely.» «I will find it. Provided you offer me a safe-conduct.»
«So you admit there is an original version!»
«Every book has an original version; it goes without saying.»
«One that differs from the Gao E edition I mean! Who has it?»
«If such a version exists, it could reside with CaoTianyou, the author’s favourite cousin of whose current whereabouts I am ignorant. Tianyou may well be dead, for all I know, and such an original, if there ever was one, is, in all likelihood, lost. Besides, I swore an oath to my lover––»
«Your lover…?» He gaped at me.
«My lover indeed!» A gust of courage swept through my veins. «No other than the writer Cao Xueqin!»
«But that man has been dead for thirty years!» He stared at me as if I had lost my wits. «Oh, and Baoqin: if you know the trail, you need not go there yourself. Just point it out to my men.»
«I will have the manuscript delivered to you as soon as I find it, Lord Heshen. But I shall not divulge names. Even the mentioning of Tianyou borders on betrayal! As I said, I have sworn an oath! I am not to divulge matters pertaining to Cao Xueqin or secrets he shared only with me.»
«I can force you to break that oath.»
«My Emperor alone enjoys this privilege!» I replied fiercely.«A prerogative he will exercise only when the Empire is in peril!»
«Indeed!» Heshen affirmed. «For instance, when conspiracies are being hatched against the Dragon Throne! I believe you and I do understand each other very well—don’t we, your Ladyship?»
«So that is why Chun Xian is accused of Ming-loyalism! To lend a pretext of justice to the
brutal treatment of her person!» I trembled with wrath; awe and fright dissolved like shadows in sunshine. «I demand an audience with the Son of Heaven!»
Heshen gallantly promised to submit my wish to the Throne. And thus, gentle reader, the consultation came to an end.
Imperial Decree 23.389
The Qianlong Emperor
to Qian Qianlin
Head of the Imperial Censorate
Chief Censor Qian! We are highly displeased with the portrayal of Our Grand Councillor Heshen that defiles the pages of the latest Court Gazette edition. It is beyond Our understanding that you should have let it pass. Not only because said article ridicules Heshen’s dignity—ridicule that may to some extent even be deserved! What displeases Us most is that its author, Lady Cao Baoqin, presented as ‘Lin Daiyu’—how in the name of Heaven could you bear with the false name?—insinuates a dalliance of an utterly and unutterably lewd nature to be going on betwixt the Councillor and Our Imperial Person! As you well know, similar rumours have in the past, after a protracted scandal, been proven as untrue as they are unworthy; those who disseminated this slander had their heads chopped off. Uncouth innuendo merits no place in the Court Gazette, as I shouldn’t have to tell you! But I can see what happened, Qian Qianlin. Even you succumbed to the mature charms of Cao Baoqin; even you were caught up in the mystification you ought to have combated: that Lady Cao was the model for Lin Daiyu, heroine in Dream of the Red Chamber—a falsehood she herself lavishly encourages by using that name as a pseudonym.
Lady Cao is disingenuous, Censor Qian: she speaks in two tongues. She depicts Heshen as one who would compel her to break vows, even if she ostentatiously sings his praises in the article under scrutiny. That you should have let her utterances pass proves your loyalty to be lacking and your mind susceptible to sedition.
The office of Censor has been taken from you. You are to return to your hometown of Nanking and await punishment there.
Memorandum,
by Qian Qianlin,
former Chief Censor,
to the Dragon Throne
Does His Majesty realize that Lord Heshen and the Writer’s Conscience imparts all the cues needed to recover His Imperial Authority and to put an end to whim and wantonness run rampant? Even while Lady Cao succeeded in toning down Heshen’s vitriolic outbursts in a most elegant manner, her article does betray the Grand Councillor’s wilful ways. Heshen had no business to bully her with a degrading interrogation, let alone enforce the publication of it in the Court Gazette. Obviously his aim is to discredit her person and soil her reputation.
Even if Lady Cao’s account were objectionable, not a speck of blame pertains to ‘Lin Daiyu’ nor myself. Before her article reached our offices, we received a visitor, Oh Majesty. It was Heshen, in person, who demanded to inspect the article. As soon as he had perused it, he raised his voice to command its immediate publication in a special edition of the Court Gazette, just as it was, uncorrected by the Censorate. I was dumbfounded: why did the Grand Councillor obstruct exercise of the Censor’s duty? He couldn’t possibly assent to everything Lady Cao had written,and the expression on his face proved it, as his mien displayed wrath. I had a sense of what passage offended him: the one that reignited ancient rumours, enmeshing Your Majesty in that old scandal, offering another opportunity for defiling Imperial prestige long awaited by and hoped for in seditious quarters. And perhaps, in an oblique and devious way, the defilement was even awaited by Heshen himself, if only to accelerate the demise of Lady Cao, who—as the article clearly proves—merely responded to a topic Heshen himself introduced during their consultation. Already, the Grand Councillor is gloating at the prospect of a huge tribunal condemning the Imperial Interpreter Second Class once and for all, implicating as many of his enemies as possible. In brief, any displeasure on Your part, Your Majesty, was caused by Heshen; the Censorate would surely have rectified certain passages had we been given the chance! Yet even without interventions on our part, Lady Cao’s written portrait of Heshen compares favourably with the original, who is hated by the entire populace.
And now that I—for the first and last time in my career!—need invoke that miscreant’s name, I shall save my skin while losing face. However, Your Majesty cannot dismiss me from service; I lay down the Censorship of my own accord. A grievous loss to me, I admit; the office was a vocation as well as an honour. How dedicated I was to the calling, and not just its privileges—for which I am grateful nevertheless. Never did I neglect my duty! Unless of course forbearance towards Imperial excesses should count as such.
During all of last night I laboured to make ready these offices for my pitiable successor. And in compliance with a previous request by Your Majesty, I obtained answers on the issue surrounding Dream of the Red Chamber as to whether the edition by Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan must be considered fraudulent or not. ‘Answers’ is too bold a term: one treads on shifting sands. The question is delicate and has more facets to it than a fly’s eye. So allow me, Majesty, to split the main query into its components.
Can Gao E’s Dream ever be a forgery if we are to assume that a true, definitive version was never written or completed?
Is it possible for one masterpiece to originate from more than one mind?
Does diligent comparison of extant texts reveal the one that is closest to an as yet unfinished masterpiece?
And should premature sketches and attempts betaken into account or not?
No matter how one addresses or endeavours to solve such questions, the facts seem to be as follows:
On the eve of his death, Cao Xueqin had completed his life’s work in crude form, but he still considered the Dream abortive. Had Fate allotted him a longer life-span, he would have required the best part of another year to hone his magnum opus to perfection, if intelligence supplied by Xueqin’s survivors is to be trusted. Should the work have reached completion as envisioned by Cao Xueqin, it would have comprised one hundred twenty chapters, as it does now, yet the ending would have differed starkly from the one in the Gao E edition—again, according to my informants’ speculations. None of them had ever actually laid eyes on such a version. Editor Gao E himself, whom I paid a brief visit, maintains there is no such thing as a clean original; he and his friend Cheng Weiyuan merely welded together what Cao Xueqin had jotted down—with increasing illegibility, as if his pen was trying to outrun death—during those last months of his life.
The testimonies rattle, unfortunately. No one of Xueqin’s survivors could tell in unequivocal terms how the author had willed his book. But out of testimony, opinion, and other scraps we may—leaving out half-truths, guesswork, and Gao E’s understandable attempts to exonerate him-self from suspicions of forgery—safely distil the following:
In the intended resolution of the book, the one its creator dreamed of, the hero Baoyu would not have been coupled to virtuous Xue Baochai but to the frail and ailing Lin Daiyu. Secondly, the author would have spent little ink, if any, on the hymns praising Your dynasty inserted by Gao E in the final chapters. Nobody, however, suspected Xueqin of Ming-loyalism. When in two minds, due to petty disputes with relatives, the author would first and foremost take aesthetic standards into account, hardly paying heed to morality, human conduct, or considerations of statecraft. If Cao Xueqin praised the dynasty less than is deemed desirable in certain circles, this lapse is owed to assessments of style and proportion alone. Unfortunately, all the above is conjecture, and all conjecture leads back to the main question: Did Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan treat their readers to a forgery or not?
The answer is forked.
Yes, because the name of the original author, Cao Xueqin, is nowhere to be found on the title page of the Gao edition—a reprehensible omission, if not an outright scandal!
And no, because the issue of whether the printed work should be seen either as a forgery or as a best possible approximati
on of a masterpiece hinges on issues one cannot dismiss with a simple yes or no.
Does the completion of Gao E, which is true to the novel’s outward form, approximate the original better or worse than extant drafts of the master himself? And does the term ‘original’ denote a manuscript or a vision slumbering in the author’s soul?
And should we prefer correct answers, or an ambiance of culture, humanity, and refinement in which questions thrive? I know one thing for certain, Your Majesty: such an ambiance is lacking in the current era. And I am unable to turn the tide. With each question mark inserted in this missive, I renounce one more of my privileges. And now that I have presented all matters concerning Dream of the Red Chamber to Your scrutiny, I’m just a nameless citizen, divested of office and prestige.
And so I bid Your Majesty farewell by expressing the hope that Heaven have mercy on You, despite the atrocities committed in Your name. Little would it surprise me to learn that Your dynasty had forfeited the Mandate of Heaven, even if I am no longer in any position to denounce Your misrule in public.
Qian Qianlin,
former Chief of the Censorate
Imperial Decree 23402
The Qianlong Emperor
To Lady Cao
Tomorrow afternoon Cao Baoqin will make her appearance at Court. She shall truthfully answer Imperial questions insofar as it pleases the Son of Heaven to submit these to her; she need not fear for her life. At noon she will be retrieved from the Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines by palanquin. She shall ready herself in time, lest His Majesty’s servants be kept waiting.
Cao Baoqin
Imperial Interpreter Second Class
to His Majesty
the Qianlong Emperor
The Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines Page 7