Bao-yu had in fact written a few lines of one, but, feeling dissatisfied with what he had written, had crossed it all out and begun again, by which time the incense had almost burned itself out.
‘Bao-yu’s failed to make the grade as usual,’ said Li Wan, laughing. ‘But what about Miss Plantain?’
Tan-chun promptly began to write down what she had composed. The others read the words as she wrote them. It was the first half of a Nan-ge-zi lyric.
Once in the air you start,
The creatures of the wind, the breezes’ sport,
Not to be bound or held back by any art,
To north and south and east and west
You drift apart.
‘Very good,’ said Li Wan. ‘But why don’t you finish it?’
Bao-yu had been willing to concede defeat. When he saw that the incense was running out, he could see no point in writing an indifferent conclusion just for the sake of finishing, and so he had laid down his brush and occupied himself instead in reading what Tan-chun had written. As he did so, he had a sudden inspiration, and picking up his brush again, quickly scribbled out a second half for it:
Your drifting fate not fear:
I understand the message that you bear.
Though orioles mourn and the flowers’ end seems near,
Spring will return, but I must wait
Another year.
The girls were amused.
‘You’re a funny fellow. You can’t do your own, yet you can do someone else’s without any trouble. It’s very good, but unfortunately it doesn’t count.’
They had a look at Dai-yu’s poem then. It was a Tang-duoling.
The pollen is spent in the Island of Flowers;
From the House of the Swallow the perfume has fled.
The fluff-balls dance,
Pursue, embrace,
Their floating lives, as our lives, quickly sped,
That, craving Beauty,
Find it dead.
The creatures of nature, they too know our sorrow,
Their beauty, like ours, must soon end in decay.
Our fate, like theirs,
Uncertain hangs,
Wed to the wind, our bridegroom of a day,
Who cares not if we
Go or stay.
The others admired it, but with reservation.
‘Pity it’s so gloomy,’ they said. ‘Still, there’s no denying, it is very good.’
Then they had a look at Bao-qin’s. She had written a Xi-jiang-yue:
In the Han palace gardens a scatter thin and slight,
But along the Sui embankment in legions falling:
Spring’s three-month handiwork before the wind in flight,
A day-dream of pear-blossom on a moonlit night.
In many a courtyard petals fall through the air,
And the floss collects like fragrant snow on the casements:
In North and South the same sight is seen now everywhere,
But for the sad exile most hard to bear.
‘A more virile type of melancholy,’ said the others, laughing. ‘Very typical! That “In many a courtyard…” couplet is good.’
‘I don’t agree,’ said Bao-chai. ‘I think it suffers from the same pessimism as Cousin Dai’s. Willow floss is a light and airy thing. It seems to me that the best way to avoid the clichés that this subject invites is to give it a light and airy treatment. That is the principle on which I have tried to compose my poem; but you may not think I have succeeded.’
‘Don’t be so modest!’ said the others. ‘It’s sure to be good. Come on, hand it over! Permit us to admire!’
It was a Lin-jiang-xian that she had written.
In mazy dances over the marble forecourt,
Wind-whorled, into trim fluff-balls forming –
‘Bravo!’ said Xiang-yun. ‘“Wind-whorled, into trim fluff-balls forming”: that line is better than anything the rest of us have written.’
They read on.
Like fluttering moths or silent white bees swarming:
Not for us a tomb in the running waters,
Or the earth’s embalming.
The filaments whence we are formed remain unchanging,
No matter what separates or unifies.
Do not, earth-child, our rootlessness despise:
When the strong wind comes he will whirl us upwards
Into the skies.
They thumped the table enthusiastically.
‘Undoubtedly this poem is the best. There is a more haunting melancholy perhaps in River Queen’s poem and more liveliness and charm in Cloud Maiden’s; but all in all this is far and away the best poem. This time Little Xue and Plantain Lover fail to make the grade. We shall have to think of a penalty.’
‘That’s fair enough,’ said Bao-qin, laughing, ‘but what about someone who failed to submit anything at all? What should his penalty be?’
‘Don’t worry about him,’ said Li Wan. ‘He will be punished too – exemplarily!’
Just at that moment there was a crashing noise outside the window which made them jump. It sounded as if an outer casement had somehow come unfastened and fallen into the bamboos. The maids ran outside to look. Other maids, who had been waiting outside there all the time, told them what it was: a large kite shaped like a butterfly which had fallen down and got caught in the tops of the bamboo.
‘What a beauty!’ said the maids from inside. ‘I wonder whose it is. They must have cut the string. Let’s try and get it down.’
‘I recognize that kite,’ said Bao-yu. ‘It belongs to Uncle She’s new girl, Carmine. Let’s take it down and give it back to her.’
‘There must be other kites like that besides hers,’ said Nightingale. ‘I think it’s silly to say that it must be hers. Anyway, I don’t care. I’m going to get it down for us.’
‘How mean you are, Nightingale!’ said Tan-chun. ‘You’ve got a kite of your own already. And if you keep someone else’s, aren’t you afraid of catching their bad luck?’
‘You’re right,’ said Dai-yu. ‘We don’t know whose bad luck it mightn’t be bringing us. Take it away! Let’s take out our kite and get rid of our bad luck.’
Nightingale told the maids, who had by this time succeeded in getting the kite down, to take it to the women at the gate and hand it into their keeping. If anyone came looking for it, they were to give it back to them. The other maids rushed off excitedly to fetch Dai-yu’s kite. It was the kind called a ‘pretty lady’. While two of them carried out the kite, one of them brought out a stool to stand on, another fastened the crosspiece to the raising-stick, and another paid the string out from the winder. Bao-chai stood with the other cousins at the gate of the courtyard, directing operations. She told the girls to fly the kite in the open ground outside the courtyard.
‘This kite of yours isn’t nearly as pretty as Cousin Tan’s,’ Bao-qin told Dai-yu. ‘She has one shaped like a phoenix, with wings that move.’
‘Why don’t you get yours and fly it then?’ Bao-chai said, turning to Tan-chun’s maid Ebony.
Ebony hurried off excitedly to do so. Bao-yu, catching the enthusiasm, sent a maid off to fetch one of his own.
‘Bring the big fish one that Lai Da’s wife sent me yesterday,’ he told the girl.
After a long time gone, the girl came back empty-handed.
‘Skybright flew it yesterday and let it go.’
‘Really!’ said Bao-yu. ‘And I hadn’t even flown it once myself.’
Tan-chun laughed.
‘Never mind! At least she’s got rid of your bad luck for you!’
‘All right,’ said Bao-yu to the girl. ‘Go and fetch the big crab one.’
The girl went off and returned accompanied by two or three other maids carrying a large pretty lady kite and a winder.
‘Miss Aroma says she gave the crab one to Master Huan yesterday. She says why don’t you fly this one instead? It was sent to you yesterday by Mrs Lin.’
Bao-yu inspected i
t. The pretty lady was certainly a beautifully constructed creature. He was secretly pleased and told the girls to fly it.
Tan-chun’s kite had also arrived by now and Ebony was already standing on a little hill getting it up with the assistance of a few helpers. Bao-qin had sent for her kite, a large red bat, and Bao-chai, beginning to share the excitement herself, had had hers fetched too: it was a line of seven large geese flying one behind the other. Soon all the kites but one were up in the air being flown successfully. Bao-yu’s pretty lady was the exception. He said it was because the maids didn’t know how to do it properly and insisted on flying it himself; but after a good deal of manoeuvring he could get her no higher than the roof, and even then it was only to flop down weakly again upon the ground. Bao-yu was getting into quite a state and the perspiration stood out in beads upon his brow. The cousins all laughed. At this he became so exasperated that he picked the kite up, threw it down on the ground again, and pointed his finger at it in anger.
‘If you weren’t a lady, I’d stamp on you and smash you into pieces!’
Dai-yu laughed.
“The string isn’t fastened on right. If you could get someone to refasten it for you properly, it would fly just as well as any other.’
Bao-yu sent someone to take the kite back for restringing and fetch him another pretty lady that he could fly in the mean time.
All the cousins were now standing with their faces turned upwards, watching the kites as they soared higher and higher into the sky. A maid came round offering them all sweets. Presently there was a cry from Nightingale:
‘The wind’s getting stronger, Miss. Do you want to release it now?’
Dai-yu made her handkerchief into a pad for her hand and tested the tension on the string. The wind was certainly pulling it with some force. She took over the winder from Nightingale and let it run free, so that the kite could pull itself away in the wind. There was a whirring noise as the last of the string ran out. Dai-yu asked the others if any of them would like to cut it for her.
‘No, we’ve all got our own,’ they said. ‘You do yours first.’
‘It’s fun to see them fly away,’ said Dai-yu, ‘and yet it seems rather a pity.’
‘But that’s the main reason for flying kites,’ said Li Wan, ‘the pleasure of seeing them fly away. Not to mention the fact that it is supposed to get rid of your bad luck. You of all people ought to let yours go, so as to get rid of your illness.’
‘Come on, Miss, you’ve sent plenty of kites off in your time!’ said Nightingale. ‘Why be so stingy all of a sudden? If you won’t cut it, I’ll cut it for you.’
She snatched a little pair of West Ocean silver scissors out of Snowgoose’s hand and snipped through the kite-string, an inch or so from the winder.
‘Go away, kite!’ she cried merrily. ‘And take my mistress’s illness with you!’
The kite began to swoop and soar. Soon it appeared no bigger than an egg. A few moments later and it was only a dot in the sky. Another moment and it had disappeared from sight altogether.
‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’ cried the cousins, as they watched it disappear.
‘What a pity we don’t know where she will land!’ said Bao-yu. ‘It would be nice if she landed somewhere where there are people and some little child were to find her. But suppose she lands in some uninhabited wilderness: how lonely she will be! I think I shall send my lady after her, to keep her company!’
He asked for the scissors and cut the string himself, and a second pretty lady went hurrying after the first one until it, too, disappeared.
Tan-chun was just about to cut the string of her phoenix when another phoenix appeared in the sky, not far from hers.
‘I wonder whose that is?’ said Tan-chun.
‘Don’t cut yours yet,’ the others cried. ‘It looks as if that one is going to get caught up in it.’
And that is just what happened. The other phoenix drew nearer and nearer until the two strings crossed and tangled. The maids were all for winding Tan-chun’s kite in and capturing the other kite with it, but the owner of the other kite was not prepared to yield, and after a good deal of tugging and heaving on both sides, the strings finally snapped and the two phoenixes flew off companionably together. The cousins clapped their hands delightedly.
‘Well, I’ve released my kite and now I’m tired. I think I shall go in and rest,’ said Dai-yu.
‘Just wait until we’ve released ours,’ said Bao-chai, ‘and then we can all go.’
So she and Xiang-yun and Bao-qin each cut their kite-strings and watched their kites fly away, after which all of the cousins went back to their own apartments.
*
In spite of the reprieve, Bao-yu dared not abandon his lessons altogether and continued to do a little revision or calligraphy from time to time. When he was feeling bored, he would go out to seek the company of the girls, or go round to the Naiad’s House for a chat. The girls, for their part, knowing how much he was behind with his work, no longer sent anyone to invite him when they met together for poetry-reading or other diversions; and Dai-yu, in her anxiety lest he should once more incur his father’s wrath, frequently feigned sleep when he went round to see her, so as not to be the cause of keeping him from his studies. Bao-yu was reduced to spending more and more time in his own room, where work itself now often took the place of a diversion.
In this manner the summer gradually wore away. Autumn was just beginning when one day two of his grandmother’s maids came round in a very agitated state to summon him.
The purpose of the summons and the reason for their agitation will be explained in the chapter which follows.
CHAPTER 71
Lady Xing deliberately humiliates her daughter-in-law And Faithful inadvertently interrupts a pair of love-birds
It was the news of Jia Zheng’s imminent homecoming that had caused the maidservants’ agitation. As an Education Officer, Jia Zheng was supposed to report on his commission as soon as he arrived and, being a very conscientious man, he would have thought it improper even to look in on his family before doing so. When, therefore, at the news of his coming, Cousin Zhen, Jia Lian and Bao-yu went out to the first poststage beyond the walls to welcome him, he merely inquired after his mother’s health, bowing respectfully in her direction as he did so, and told them to go back and wait for him at home. After his interview next day with the All-highest, his mission was formally completed and he could return with a good conscience to his family. The All-highest had been graciously pleased to grant him a whole month’s leave of absence in which to rest and recuperate at home.
Jia Zheng was beginning to age now, and the worries and responsibilities of office had taken their toll of his health. It was good to be back after so long an absence from those nearest and dearest to him; he was determined to relax and enjoy himself to the utmost, refused even to think about money matters or domestic responsibilities, and spent all his time reading, or, when he felt in need of company, drinking and playing Go with his literary gentlemen, or enjoying the delights of family life with his wife and mother in the women’s apartments inside.
This year the third day of the eighth month was Grandmother Jia’s eightieth birthday. A formidable number of people would have to be invited and there was even some doubt whether they would be able to accommodate them all. After discussion by the menfolk of both mansions, it was decided that there should be eight days of entertaining, beginning on the twenty-eighth of the seventh month and ending on the fifth day of the eighth. On each of these days banquets would be given in both mansions: in the Ning-guo mansion for male guests and in the Rong-guo mansion for female ones. The Painted Chamber, Prospect Hall and one or two other of the larger buildings in Prospect Garden would be used as restrooms for the ladies. The programme of entertaining would be as follows: the twenty-eighth would be for Imperial kinsmen, Princes and Princesses of the Blood and their consorts, Royal Highnesses, Serene Highnesses and members of the high nobility; the twenty-ninth would be for Mi
nisters of State and Civil and Military Governors and their wives; the thirtieth for official colleagues and their wives and members of other clans related to the Jia family by marriage; on the first of the eighth month a family party would be given by Jia She, on the second one by Jia Zheng and on the third one by Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian; on the fourth a joint entertainment would be given by all members of the Jia clan irrespective of age and seniority; and on the fifth there would be another joint entertainment organized by Lai Da, Lin Zhi-xiao and the other senior domestics.
Ever since the beginning of the seventh month presents had been coming in almost continuously. From the highest source of all an order was received by the Board of Rites authorizing the bestowal of the following:
a ru-yi sceptre of gold and jade
four lengths of tribute satin
four gold and jade cups
five hundred taels of silver from the Imperial
Treasury
Yuan-chun’s gifts, which were delivered to the mansion by eunuchs, were:
a golden figurine of Old Longevity
a staff of aloeswood
a rosary of putchuk beads
a box of Fu Shou incense
a pair of golden medallions
four pairs of silver ingots
twelve lengths of tribute satin
four jade cups
And there were presents too numerous to mention from princes and princesses and from the families of a host of civil and military officials both great and small who were on visiting terms with the Jias. Several long tables were carried into the main reception hall and covered with red baize and the choicest presents set out on them every day for Grandmother Jia’s inspection. She went along for the first day or two and took some pleasure in examining her gifts, but soon grew tired of this and told Xi-feng to look after them for her: she would look at them herself some other day, when she had nothing better to do.
By the twenty-eighth both mansions had been hung with lanterns and festooned all over with garlands. Painted phoenixes gambolled on folding screens, embroidered lotuses blossomed on drapes and covers, and the sound of fluting and piping could be heard several streets away. The only guests that day at the Ning-guo mansion were the Prince of Bei-jing, the Prince of Nan-an, Princess Yang-chang’s Consort, the Prince of Luo-shan and a number of noblemen whose families had long been on friendly terms with the Jias. At the Rong-guo mansion the guests were the Dowager Princess of Nan-an, the Prince of Bei-jing’s Consort, and the ladies of the various aforementioned noblemen. Grandmother Jia and the others were dressed in full court rig to receive them. After the initial salutations were over, the visitors were conducted to Prospect Hall inside the Garden, where they took tea and ‘changed their clothes’. From there they were conducted to the Hall of Exalted Felicity, where they offered formal congratulations to Grandmother Jia before finally, after much polite bowing and deferring, taking their places at the banquet. The Dowager Princess of Nan-an and the Prince of Beijing’s Consort sat at the two central tables at the back of the hall; the two rows of tables arranged at right-angles to left and right of theirs were occupied in order of precedence, the Marchioness of Jin-xiang and the Countess of Lin-an heading the row upon the left, while Grandmother Jia, as hostess, occupied the first of the right-hand ones. Lady Xing and Lady Wang stood in attendance behind Grandmother Jia’s chair, with You-shi, Xi-feng and a number of other Jia ladies fanning out to left and right behind them. Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife and Lai Da’s wife stood by the bamboo curtain on one side of the hall supervising the transportation of dishes and winekettles by a small army of serving-women, while Zhou-Rui’s wife directed the waitresses from the other side of the folding screens. Meanwhile the attendants brought with them by the lady visitors were being entertained elsewhere.