‘Thank you for inviting me to tea, Master Qian. Tell me: how long have you been in the possession of Cao Tianyou’s will?’
‘Why do you ask?’ he said curtly.
‘Oh well, Tianyou’s testament just seems a great collector’s item, particularly in conjunction with Xueqin’s manuscript.’
‘I can’t do much good in your eyes, can I?’
‘It was said in jest, Qianlin.’ We Lotuses relied on Qian Qianlin’s generosity; I had to relent. ‘Aren’t you our benefactor? But let me be frank with you. My sole critique of your person would be that you confound your former office—that of Chief Censor—with your current vocation—to become a leader of rebels and topple the ruling dynasty. I wish you would refrain from abusing this vocation—awe-inspiring as it is—to press me into your service! My dreams can never be your dreams.’
Crestfallen, he retorted that we are both Ming-loyalists.
‘Certainly, my good Qianlin. Yet there’s a significant difference. You are a collector. Of manuscripts, and of feminine beauty! You never summoned me because of my literary accomplishments alone.’
With a crumpled smile he said, ‘I…I see. Well then, Lady. I shall hand the will to you, having no intention whatsoever of causing you trouble.’
Now it was my turn to be reduced to shame. He did not desire money nor press me into any other service. ‘I suppose, Qianlin, that we could read it together.’ For the first time, I grieved for the man. Whatever his faults, no matter how dismal his fate or how unkempt his appearance, the Censor had been benevolent to me—to us all. He is not an evil man, I mused. Merely a man who has sunk deep and doesn’t take care of himself.
‘Along with me—here? This is no place for a lady.’
‘Then why did you invite me here, Qian? Still, I suppose you are right: living in these quarters can’t be all that pleasant.’ I was in a milder mood now. ‘You do have the means to hire servants, don’t you?’
‘I am saving up for better things,’ he retorted.
‘Better things?’
He cast a piercing glance at me. ‘Are secrets safe with you, Baoqin? I intend to take over the Chinese printing firm here. In a year, I shall strike—and hard! All the Emperor’s subjects will be inundated with pamphlets, exhorting them to revolt!’
One year! The news set my mind spinning. A year is too slow, I mused. In a year’s time, Chun Xian will be dead, without ever having perused the real Dream. I said: ‘The Empire is in turmoil, Qian: we must strike now! Why wait another year? Why not purchase part of this firm, or become shareholders?’
He raised an eyebrow, sipping tea. ‘Did I hear you say “we”?’
I stammered, ‘Well, I mean… We Ming-loyalists… Forgive me, Qianlin, I had too low an opinion of you.’
He folded his arms: a Mandarin still, disguised as a beggar. It no longer mattered why he’d sat on Tianyou’s will for so long. Besides, antagonizing one’s benefactor doesn’t serve any purpose.
‘Maybe, Qian, we should combine our talents after all. Join forces, as you call it. If you still want to, that is.’
‘What do you propose, Lady Cao?’
‘Well, in addition to printing those pamphlets––’
‘That you shall help me write!’
‘—you should publish Dream of the Red Chamber, the only true version, right now! In one swoop, we’ll acquire prestige with all those Peking literati. Perhaps the Jesuits next door might be willing to translate it into Portuguese. Just imagine, we could do it! Oh, I’m so glad, dear Qian! It is my deepest wish to see the only true Dream printed and disseminated in all the world’s tongues. I was even prepared to risk sending it to Ti Qing!’
‘Who left you in the lurch, I gather.’
‘No—not at all!’ I would have rushed to your defence convincingly, Isaac, had I not been in the throes of this exciting pursuit. ‘Listen, Qian, we can publish the glorious Dream of the Red Chamber, of which Gao E gave us but a pale shadow! But we must act now!’
‘I said, in a year’s time.’
‘Why wait?! I’m sure that you, the future owner of the printing firm––’
‘Why? Because Weigong had a most enlightening conversation with the current owners, that’s why! Forget it for the time being.’ He relented a little. ‘So sorry, Lady Cao. You see, the firm recently amassed a fortune with the Gao E book. Publishing the real Dream would entail a severe loss of face.’
‘Not if we extend to them the honour of its discovery, which would cover your part in it, Qian! And the trouble and costs of publishing the original would certainly recommend their trustworthiness, don’t you think?’
‘You are forgetting something, my dear Baoqin.’ A sad smile crosses his face.
‘What could that be?’
‘You are naive, Lady, pardon me for saying so. Why do you think I’m sending Weigong to this firm? Why did I not proudly present myself? I will tell you why! Ming-loyalism, that’s why! Those printers are blindly loyal to the ruling dynasty. Staunch supporters of a rotten regime, they would not even consider publishing the true Dream! Can’t you see? They’re Heshen’s people; he has them all in his pocket.’
A year is too long; in a year’s time Chun Xian, who desires nothing so much as to peruse the real, unhampered, seditious and glorious Dream of the Red Chamber, the last thing she’s hoping for and looking forward to… will be dead. I understand the former Censor has to tread carefully,but why can’t he co-opt another firm, a Portuguese firm perhaps, or Jesuits printing Chinese bibles?
Alas, the Censor doesn’t share my fervour for novels filled with butterfly words. Picture me there, Isaac, in the squalor of that top-storey studio: I have to proceed cautiously. I have to win him over, humour him, please him if there was no other way. Overcoming my reluctance, I even offer to clean his putrid studio, as doing so might be conducive to both his scholarly studies and our fundings.
‘How sweet of you, Baoqin, but Meilong has already kindly offered her help.’
Don’t interfere, I admonish myself, while Qian, amidst a barrage of papers, goes on a fishing hunt to fetch Tianyou’s testament. Do not be meddlesome…
‘Here it is!’ he hollered, ‘I found it. Tell me, Baoqin, why would you want to read the testament with me?’
‘Oh, I am curious to know why cousin Tianyou should dedicate his will to me of all people. It baffles me, Qian. I was, you see, the deadly rival who robbed him of his lover! Besides,’ I added lightly, ‘I bear you no ill-will. Reading this document together might soothe your hurt. I do not intend to spurn you so harshly as I once spurned Tianyou.’
The Censor turned crimson and thundered: ‘Lady, you’re not comparing me to that effeminate Rouge Ink-Stone, are you!’
‘I wouldn’t dare! Still, you might learn from his sorrow. By dedicating his will to me, he clearly got over the fact that I rejected him once.’
‘What? From what I heard, it was Cao Xueqin who rejected him, not you.’
‘Some get rejected by more than one party, Qianlin!’
To my astonishment, the former Censor dissolved in laughter. ‘By Heaven, you really are naive, Baoqin—and conceited too! Tianyou’s so-called infatuation with you was sheer envy, nothing more. That man, dear Baoqin, was Xueqin’s lover—beloved rather—until you pushed him from the scene! Tianyou’s grandson told me.’
‘Yes,’ I replied wearily. ‘That is true. No, it’s also true. But tell me one thing: why did the grandson impart such intimate details to you?’
The Censor stiffened visibly. ‘Why Lady, you don’t think that I––’
It was my turn to laugh. ‘Ah! So that’s why you go through life unshaven: for fear of being beleaguered by lusty Macao sailors! Well, what do you expect: an attractive beau like you…’
Qian Qianlin growled, then commenced to read Tianyou’s w
ill.
In the basement of Xueqin’s home I, Cousin Tianyou, better known as Red Ink-Stone, found this manuscript after the author’s death. It is the original and finished version of Dream of the Red Chamber, which Cao Xueqin completed in secrecy, disregarding advice from me and others, with a zeal that bordered on recklessness.
I don’t know what Xueqin wished to do with the original—assuming he was intent on doing anything with it at all. While alive, he never mentioned this secret endeavour. And that housekeeper of his, who was no real housekeeper, for Xueqin’s home was gathering dirt under our very eyes––
‘Like yours!’ I felt like teasing Qian, but failed to elicit so much as a smile.
––his housekeeper never mentioned it either. I was hoping to find coded clues as to his intentions within the text itself: precisely the sort of thing my bosom friend Xueqin would have loved to do! Long ere the mourning period was over, I set about reading and fought the habit—the temptation—to cover the margins with crimson exclamations. What I read left me agape;it was not the margins that turned red but my cheeks—with fervour. Such were the heights to which Ming-loyalism could elevate the soul of a genius! Indeed, the original Dream outshone any version I’d laid eyes on so far. Xueqin had fooled us all,including his beautiful mistress. A true alchemist, he probed the sentiments each chapter evoked in loyal readers and listeners, in order to improve the true version no one knew about. And who would play the part of loyal readers better than we did, year after year—we, his relatives and friends, who, cowards that we were, tried to shield him against the Censorate’s wrath, thus clipping his wings?
Indeed, one bedroom secret of Xueqin and me was his obdurate Ming-loyalism; we bickered over it, unyieldingly yet good-naturedly, as behoved bosom friends. I flatly refused to adopt his rebellious leanings, and Xueqin couldn’t stand my refusal. At some point,after he had spurned me, his favourite cousin, for that wench Cao Baoqin, I threatened to betray his secret. I am not proud of this impulse; jealousy is a snake that throttles the heart. But I swear by All-Under-Heaven that I would never have followed up on the threat! And Xueqin knew this—oh, he knew me so well; he knew I would disclose neither his Ming-loyalism nor his affair with the so-called housekeeper Baoqinto others. Indeed, he even sensed that Baoqin’s charms had affected me too—which was one reason why he counted on my discretion. In an odd way, I loved them both, Xueqin and Baoqin.
Old wounds reopened when Xueqin’s very best version—which I regarded as the original henceforth—enchanted my innermost soul at long last. Not only does the true Dream display the splendours of Ming-loyalism, the dalliance of Baoyu and his schoolmate Qin Zhong comes into its own at last. The true Dream brings to light that the moon-faced, dazzlingly handsome Baoyu must have been modelled after me, while the author’s self-portrait lies buried in the less-than-handsome Qin Zhong: a sublime touch, by means of which Xueqin silently made up for having betrayed our intimate comradeship. Not only did he carve those characters with more precision than ever before, their amorous pursuits acquired a bolder shape as well.
‘Those pursuits are obvious enough, even in the Gao E version,’ I interrupt. ‘Besides, Tianyou insists on calling Qin Zhong a fellow schoolmate, while the truth is that Zhong attends school for one season only, on behest of an infatuated Baoyu. It was Baoyu who took the initiative.’
The Censor looks up. ‘Does it matter who takes the initiative?’
‘Maybe not.’ I say it with a smile. ‘Love will be love.’
The Censor blushes. ‘Where was I? Oh yes…’
…acquired a bolder shape as well. By the same token,budding beauty Daiyu has more spunk than ever. Of course we all knew, as it was beyond Xueqin to hide such secrets from friends and relatives, that Daiyu was modelled after Baoqin, though we conspired to keep the author under the illusion that we accorded credence to the notion of his entire novel being a lament for a young, dead sweetheart.
Hence, it is to Lady Cao Baoqin that I bequeath this priceless manuscript, in the hope that my son or grandsons will one day find her. For after Xueqin’s decease, his ‘housekeeper’ disappeared without a trace. And now that I am meeting my own death, nothing stands between me and the truth. I never truly hated Cao Baoqin: this was a lie—a face-saving expedient, nothing more. If anything, I hated yearning after the unattainable. My heart was lonely and riveted to a man and a girl, each of whom had eyes only for each other. I felt doubly victimized by the rapture of their love! And I could never attempt to win the one, for then I would have hurt the other, whom I loved as much, and their joint hatred would make me thrice a victim!
Despite my caution, the friendship suffered and crumbled to dust. No longer did the treasured intimacy of old prevail between Xueqin and Red Ink-Stone. The soothing warmth of our mutual trust and confidence had gone. It is true that the original Dream contains many a sensuous scene in which the Baoyu character, who has my looks (though not my soul), finds physical comfort with Lin Daiyu; in actuality, ‘housekeeper’ Baoqin had not the slightest interest in me. She and I are always surrounded by others, I soothed myself. And while I never saw evidence of Baoqin’s affection for Xueqin,I sometimes saw him cast furtive glances in her direction,and rightly so: wasn’t she ravishing?! Back then, I would have done anything to regard her with the eye of a possessor, if only for one night!
But I shall cease to wallow in sorrows bygone.
The Censor cried out in grief. Perhaps Tianyou’s sad story had reminded him of his own longings, parallel and equally insatiable, with, at their intersection in infinity, me—a remote, intangible, elusive figure.
For a while, he was unable to continue.
‘Please take it from here, Baoqin…’
‘You read beautifully, Qian,’ I said, being more kind than truthful. ‘Fine then; hand it over. I need not sit at your desk.’
Sorrow has lost its hold on me now. Soon, I shall descend to the Yellow Springs. But ere I do, I must explain why Xueqin’s masterpiece ought to part from the male line of my family and be returned to Cao Baoqin, better known as Lin Daiyu. I will do my utmost to keep this will concise: for one owning scarcely more than a chicken in this world, this testament is sufficiently long-winded as it stands!
Oh, you’ll inherit, dear son and grandsons, have no fear. Our benefactor, the patriarch of the Nanking Caos, has agreed to offer a sum to all of you, provided you show him this document. You are to be exempt from funeral expenditure and mourning encumbrances. Limit Rites to a bare minimum: death sets me free from an ignoble life, spent in feeble and hopeless longing.
I speak without a speck of rancour. While perusing Dream of the Red Chamber, the real and only one, a weight was lifted off my shoulders. In the oblique manner so typical of writers, Cao Xueqin hinted that he loved me, even if he devoted himself in those last years to Baoqin. In Dream he boldly brings together what Heaven set apart.
Xueqin left me for Cao Baoqin. It had to be, though he himself found it painful. In the novel, Lin Daiyu loves Baoyu, but in the real world, she would love Qin Zhong more than Baoyu—just like ‘housekeeper’ Baoqin loved Xueqin and never cared for me, his favourite cousin. She preferred the novelist to commentator Red Ink-Stone, and all of this is in harmony with Heaven. That Baoyu, my fictitious counterpart, fiercely loves Daiyu is the main theme in the book. Beyond the book, these feelings are a matter between him and his heart. Yes, and Xueqin knew it all, as he knew that the true novel would be found by me. Maybe he even suspected that I would hand it over to Baoqin; I am sure he hoped for it.
Shortly before passing away, Xueqin said a most peculiar thing. To paint the chamber fully red, dear Ink-stone of mine, you must look in the basement first. This remark I rashly attributed to brain deterioration, heralding impending death. But it proved to be the clue: the original manuscript was found down there.
Dear nephews, nieces, children, grandchildren! Promise me you will give the manuscript to Cao Baoqin one
day. After all, she is a distant relative of ours. I would have given it to her myself had I only known her whereabouts.
Oh sweet Baoqin—and never during my lifetime did I dare address you so tenderly: I had neither the right nor the courage—my very last words shall be devoted to you.
You were the only woman in my life who aroused such feelings as I was wont to reserve for comrades of the heart. You kissed dormant stirrings to life and fuelled my poetic yearning for a fictitious Daiyu, in the proud if vainglorious knowledge, confirmed by the true Dream, that I—I and not he!—was moon-faced Baoyu. It no longer matters. My sorrow is your sorrow now; we are both mourning for dear Xueqin. I can’t give you his love, but I blithely bequeath this manuscript to you as a token of it. May it also speak, albeit in a hidden way, of my own undying love for you, the love of a dying, useless Ink-Stone; none of the true manuscript’s glorious pages has a speck of red. This monument of Ming-loyalism is the original, Baoqin, the original that Xueqin so cleverly hid from the world, even from your eyes and mine! The true story, in which Lin Daiyu kills the Emperor; thus she avenges Baoyu’s concubine sister who, after the Son of Heaven had savoured her body once, withered away and died in that chilly pavilion.
Upon reciting these cruel lines devoted to Baoyu’s sister, dear Isaac, it was my turn to shed tears. I was howling like a wolf, and it took a while ere I could ask the Censor to read the closing paragraph to me: I have not cast eyes upon it to this day. I can’t even entrust it to this letter—and perhaps it is a good thing that you shall never read those last words by Red Ink-stone, the man whose life I ruined. Those words were addressed to me; they will bring misfortune if I repeat them to you. Tianyou was restored to grace by the manuscript his former lover bequeathed to us both; at least, that’s how I see it. It’s unseemly to tax you, whom I never wished to disappoint (though I know I did), with his last farewell.
The Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines Page 17