Ch'ing Wen herself laid hold of a looking-glass with a handle and stuck the bits on both her temples.
"While you were lying sick," She Yüeh laughed, "you looked like a mangy-headed devil! But with this stuff on now you present a fine sight! As for our lady Secunda she has been so much in the habit of sticking these things about her that they don't very much show off with her!"
This joke over, "Our lady Secunda said," she resumed, addressing herself to Pao-yü, "'that to-morrow is your maternal uncle's birthday, and that our mistress, your mother, asked her to tell you to go over. That whatever clothes you will put on to-morrow should be got ready to-night, so as to avoid any trouble in the morning.'"
"Anything that comes first to hand," Pao-yü observed, "will do well enough! There's no getting, the whole year round, at the end of all the fuss of birthdays!"
Speaking the while, he rose to his feet and left the room with the idea of repairing to Hsi Ch'un's quarters to have a look at the painting. As soon as he got outside the door of the court-yard, he unexpectedly spied Pao-ch'in's young maid, Hsiao Lo by name, crossing over from the opposite direction. Pao-yü, with rapid step, strode up to her, and inquired of her whither she was going.
"Our two young ladies," Hsiao Lo answered with a smile, "are in Miss Lin's rooms; so I'm also now on my way thither."
Catching this answer, Pao-yü wheeled round and came at once with her to the Hsiao Hsiang Lodge. Here not only did he find Pao-ch'ai and her cousin, but Hsing Chou-yen as well. The quartet was seated in a circle on the warming-frame; carrying on a friendly chat on everyday domestic matters; while Tzu Chüan was sitting in the winter apartment, working at some needlework by the side of the window.
The moment they caught a glimpse of him, their faces beamed with smiles. "There comes some one else!" they cried. "There's no room for you to sit!"
"What a fine picture of beautiful girls, in the winter chamber!" Pao-yü smiled. "It's a pity I come a trifle too late! This room is, at all events, so much warmer than any other, that I won't feel cold if I plant myself on this chair."
So saying, he made himself comfortable on a favourite chair of Tai-yü's over which was thrown a grey squirrel cover. But noticing in the winter apartment a jadestone bowl, full of single narcissi, in clusters of three or five, Pao-yü began praising their beauty with all the language he could command. "What lovely flowers!" he exclaimed. "The warmer the room gets, the stronger is the fragrance emitted by these flowers! How is it I never saw them yesterday?"
"These are," Tai-yü laughingly explained, "from the two pots of narcissi, and two pots of allspice, sent to Miss Hsüeh Secunda by the wife of Lai Ta, the head butler in your household. Of these, she gave me a pot of narcissi; and to that girl Yün, a pot of allspice. I didn't at first mean to keep them, but I was afraid of showing no consideration for her kind attention. But if you want them, I'll, in my turn, present them to you. Will you have them; eh?"
"I've got two pots of them in my rooms," Pao-yü replied, "but they're not up to these. How is it you're ready to let others have what cousin Ch'in has given you? This can on no account do!"
"With me here," Tai-yü added, "the medicine pot never leaves the fire, the whole day long. I'm only kept together by medicines. So how could I ever stand the smell of flowers bunging my nose? It makes me weaker than ever. Besides, if there's the least whiff of medicines in this room, it will, contrariwise, spoil the fragrance of these flowers. So isn't it better that you should have them carried away? These flowers will then breathe a purer atmosphere, and won't have any mixture of smells to annoy them."
"I've also got now some one ill in my place," Pao-yü retorted with a smile, "and medicines are being decocted. How comes it you happen to know nothing about it?"
"This is strange!" Tai-yü laughed. "I was really speaking quite thoughtlessly; for who ever knows what's going on in your apartments? But why do you, instead of getting here a little earlier to listen to old stories, come at this moment to bring trouble and vexation upon your own self?"
Pao-yü gave a laugh. "Let's have a meeting to-morrow," he proposed, "for we've also got the themes. Let's sing the narcissus and allspice."
"Never mind, drop that!" Tai-yü rejoined, upon hearing his proposal. "I can't venture to write any more verses. Whenever I indite any, I'm mulcted. So I'd rather not be put to any great shame."
While uttering these words she screened her face with both hands.
"What's the matter?" Pao-yü smiled. "Why are you again making fun of me? I'm not afraid of any shame, but, lo, you screen your face."
"The next time," Pao-ch'ai felt impelled to interpose laughingly, "I convene a meeting, we'll have four themes for odes and four for songs; and each one of us will have to write four odes and four roundelays. The theme of the first ode will treat of the plan of the great extreme; the rhyme fixed being 'hsien,' (first), and the metre consisting of five words in each line. We'll have to exhaust every one of the rhymes under 'hsien,' and mind, not a single one may be left out."
"From what you say," Pao-ch'in smilingly observed, "it's evident that you're not in earnest, cousin, in setting the club on foot. It's clear enough that your object is to embarrass people. But as far as the verses go, we could forcibly turn out a few, just by higgledy-piggledy taking several passages from the 'Canon of Changes,' and inserting them in our own; but, after all, what fun will there be in that sort of thing? When I was eight years of age, I went with my father to the western seaboard to purchase foreign goods. Who'd have thought it, we came across a girl from the 'Chen Chen' kingdom. She was in her eighteenth year, and her features were just like those of the beauties one sees represented in foreign pictures. She had also yellow hair, hanging down, and arranged in endless plaits. Her whole head was ornamented with one mass of cornelian beads, amber, cats' eyes, and 'grandmother-green-stone.' On her person, she wore a chain armour plaited with gold, and a coat, which was up to the very sleeves, embroidered in foreign style. In a belt, she carried a Japanese sword, also inlaid with gold and studded with precious gems. In very truth, even in pictures, there is no one as beautiful as she. Some people said that she was thoroughly conversant with Chinese literature, and could explain the 'Five classics,' that she was able to write odes and devise roundelays, and so my father requested an interpreter to ask her to write something. She thereupon wrote an original stanza, which all, with one voice, praised for its remarkable beauty, and extolled for its extraordinary merits."
"My dear cousin," eagerly smiled Pao-yü, "produce what she wrote, and let's have a look at it."
"It's put away in Nanking;" Pao-ch'in replied with a smile. "So how could I at present go and fetch it?"
Great was Pao-yü's disappointment at this rejoinder. "I've no luck," he cried, "to see anything like this in the world."
Tai-yü laughingly laid hold of Pao-ch'in. "Don't be humbugging us!" she remarked. "I know well enough that you are not likely, on a visit like this, to have left any such things of yours at home. You must have brought them along. Yet here you are now again palming off a fib on us by saying that you haven't got them with you. You people may believe what she says, but I, for my part, don't."
Pao-ch'in got red in the face. Drooping her head against her chest, she gave a faint smile; but she uttered not a word by way of response.
"Really P'in Erh you've got into the habit of talking like this!" Pao-ch'ai laughed. "You're too shrewd by far."
"Bring them along," Tai-yü urged with a smile, "and give us a chance of seeing something and learning something; it won't hurt them."
"There's a whole heap of trunks and baskets," Pao-ch'ai put in laughing, "which haven't been yet cleared away. And how could one tell in which particular one, they're packed up? Wait a few days, and when things will have been put straight a bit, we'll try and find them: and every one of us can then have a look at them; that will be all right. But if you happen to remember the lines," she pursued, speaking to Pao-ch'in, "why not recite them for our benefit?"
&nb
sp; "I remember so far that her lines consisted of a stanza with five characters in each line," Pao-ch'ai returned for answer. "For a foreign girl, they're verily very well done."
"Don't begin for a while," Pao-ch'ai exclaimed. "Let me send for Yün Erh, so that she too might hear them."
After this remark, she called Hsiao Lo to her. "Go to my place," she observed, "and tell her that a foreign beauty has come over, who's a splendid hand at poetry. 'You, who have poetry on the brain,' (say to her), 'are invited to come and see her,' and then lay hold of this verse-maniac of ours and bring her along."
Hsiao Lo gave a smile, and went away. After a long time, they heard Hsiang-yün laughingly inquire, "What foreign beauty has come?" But while asking this question, she made her appearance in company with Hsiang Ling.
"We heard your voices long before we caught a glimpse of your persons!" the party laughed.
Pao-ch'in and her companions motioned to her to sit down, and, in due course, she reiterated what she had told them a short while back.
"Be quick, out with it! Let's hear what it is!" Hsiang-yün smilingly cried.
Pao-ch'in thereupon recited:
Last night in the Purple Chamber I dreamt.
This evening on the 'Shui Kuo' Isle I sing.
The clouds by the isle cover the broad sea.
The zephyr from the peaks reaches the woods.
The moon has never known present or past.
From shallow and deep causes springs love's fate.
When I recall my springs south of the Han,
Can I not feel disconsolate at heart?
After listening to her, "She does deserve credit," they unanimously shouted, "for she really is far superior to us, Chinese though we be."
But scarcely was this remark out of their lips, when they perceived She Yüeh walk in. "Madame Wang," she said, "has sent a servant to inform you, Master Secundus, that 'you are to go at an early hour to-morrow morning to your maternal uncle's, and that you are to explain to him that her ladyship isn't feeling quite up to the mark, and that she cannot pay him a visit in person.'"
Pao-yü precipitately jumped to his feet (out of deference to his mother), and signified his assent, by answering 'Yes.' He then went on to inquire of Pao-ch'ai and Pao-ch'in, "Are you two going?"
"We're not going," Pao-ch'ai rejoined. "We simply went there yesterday to take our presents over but we left after a short chat."
Pao-yü thereupon pressed his female cousins to go ahead and he then followed them. But Tai-yü called out to him again and stopped him. "When is Hsi Jen, after all, coming back?" she asked.
"She'll naturally come back after she has accompanied the funeral," Pao-yü retorted.
Tai-yü had something more she would have liked to tell him, but she found it difficult to shape it into words. After some moments spent in abstraction, "Off with you!" she cried.
Pao-yü too felt that he treasured in his heart many things he would fain confide to her, but he did not know what to bring to his lips, so after cogitating within himself for a time, he likewise observed smilingly: "We'll have another chat to-morrow," and, as he said so, he wended his way down the stairs. Lowering his head, he was just about to take a step forward, when he twisted himself round again with alacrity. "Now that the nights are longer than they were, you're sure to cough often and wake several times in the night; eh?" he asked.
"Last night," Tai-yü answered, "I was all right; I coughed only twice. But I only slept at the fourth watch for a couple of hours and then I couldn't close my eyes again."
"I really have something very important to tell you," Pao-yü proceeded with another smile. "It only now crossed my mind." Saying this, he approached her and added in a confidential tone: "I think that the birds' nests sent to you by cousin Pao-chai...."
Barely, however, had he had time to conclude than he spied dame Chao enter the room to pay Tai-yü a visit. "Miss, have you been all right these last few days?" she inquired.
Tai-yü readily guessed that this was an attention extended to her merely as she had, on her way back from T'an Ch'un's quarters, to pass by her door, so speedily smiling a forced smile, she offered her a seat.
"Many thanks, dame Chao," she said, "for the trouble of thinking of me, and for coming in person in this intense cold."
Hastily also bidding a servant pour the tea, she simultaneously winked at Pao-yü.
Pao-yü grasped her meaning, and forthwith quitted the apartment. As this happened to be about dinner time, and he had been enjoined as well by Madame Wang to be back at an early hour, Pao-yü returned to his quarters, and looked on while Ch'ing Wen took her medicine. Pao-yü did not desire Ch'ing Wen this evening to move into the winter apartment, but stayed with Ch'ing Wen outside; and, giving orders to bring the warming-frame near the winter apartment, She Yueh slept on it.
Nothing of any interest worth putting on record transpired during the night. On the morrow, before the break of day, Ch'ing Wen aroused She Yueh.
"You should awake," she said. "The only thing is that you haven't had enough sleep. If you go out and tell them to get the water for tea ready for him, while I wake him, it will be all right."
She Yueh immediately jumped up and threw something over her. "Let's call him to get up and dress in his fine clothes." she said. "We can summon them in, after this fire-box has been removed. The old nurses told us not to allow him to stay in this room for fear the virus of the disease should pass on to him; so now if they see us bundled up together in one place, they're bound to kick up another row."
"That's my idea too," Ch'ing Wen replied.
The two girls were then about to call him, when Pao-yü woke up of his own accord, and speedily leaping out of bed, he threw his clothes over him.
She Yüeh first called a young maid into the room and put things shipshape before she told Ch'in Wen and the other servant-girls to enter; and along with them, she remained in waiting upon Pao-yü while he combed his hair, and washed his face and hands. This part of his toilet over, She Yüeh remarked: "It's cloudy again, so I suppose it's going to snow. You'd better therefore wear a woollen overcoat!"
Pao-yü nodded his head approvingly; and set to work at once to effect the necessary change in his costume. A young waiting-maid then presented him a covered bowl, in a small tea tray, containing a decoction made of Fu-kien lotus and red dates. After Pao-yü had had a couple of mouthfuls, She Yüeh also brought him a small plateful of brown ginger, prepared according to some prescription. Pao-yü put a piece into his mouth, and, impressing some advice on Ch'ing 'Wen, he crossed over to dowager lady Chia's suite of rooms.
His grandmother had not yet got out of bed. But she was well aware that Pao-yü was going out of doors so having the entrance leading into her bedroom opened she asked Pao-yü to walk in. Pao-yü espied behind the old lady, Pao-ch'in lying with her face turned towards the inside, and not awake yet from her sleep.
Dowager lady Chia observed that Pao-yü was clad in a deep-red felt fringed overcoat, with woollen lichee-coloured archery-sleeves and with an edging of dark green glossy satin, embroidered with gold rings. "What!" old lady Chia inquired, "is it snowing?"
"The weather is dull," Pao-yü replied, "but it isn't snowing yet."
Dowager lady Chia thereupon sent for Yüan Yang and told her to fetch the peacock down pelisse, finished the day before, and give it to him. Yüan Yang signified her obedience and went off, and actually returned with what was wanted.
When Pao-yü came to survey it, he found that the green and golden hues glistened with bright lustre, that the jadelike variegated colours on it shone with splendour, and that it bore no resemblance to the duck-down coat, which Pao-ch'in had been wearing.
"This," he heard his grandmother smilingly remark, "is called 'bird gold'. This is woven of the down of peacocks, caught in Russia, twisted into thread. The other day, I presented that one with the wild duck down to your young female cousin, so I now give you this one."
Pao-yü prostrated himself before her, af
ter which he threw the coat over his shoulders.
"Go and let your mother see it before you start," his grandmother laughingly added.
Pao-yü assented, and quitted her apartments, when he caught sight of Yüan Yang standing below rubbing her eyes. Ever since the day on which Yüan Yang had sworn to have done with the match, she had not exchanged a single word with Pao-yü. Pao-yü was therefore day and night a prey to dejection. So when he now observed her shirk his presence again, Pao-yü at once advanced up to her, and, putting on a smile, "My dear girl," he said, "do look at the coat I've got on. Is it nice or not?"
Yüan Yang shoved his hand away, and promptly walked into dowager lady Chia's quarters.
Pao-yü was thus compelled to repair to Madame Wang's room, and let her see his coat. Retracing afterwards his footsteps into the garden, he let Ch'ing Wen and She Yüeh also have a look at it, and then came and told his grandmother that he had attended to her wishes.
"My mother," he added, "has seen what I've got on. But all she said was: 'what a pity!' and then she went on to enjoin me to be 'careful with it and not to spoil it.'"
"There only remains this single one," old lady Chia observed, "so if you spoil it you can't have another. Even did I want to have one made for you like it now, it would be out of the question."
At the close of these words, she went on to advise him. "Don't," she said, "have too much wine and come back early." Pao-yü acquiesced by uttering several yes's.
An old nurse then followed him out into the pavilion. Here they discovered six attendants, (that is), Pao-yü's milk-brother Li Kuei, and Wang Ho-jung, Chang Jo-chin, Chao I-hua, Ch'ien Ch'i, and Chou Jui, as well as four young servant-lads: Pei Ming, Pan Ho, Chu Shao and Sao Hung; some carrying bundles of clothes on their backs, some holding cushions in their hands, others leading a white horse with engraved saddle and variegated bridles. They had already been waiting for a good long while. The old nurse went on to issue some directions, and the six servants, hastily expressing their obedience by numerous yes's, quickly caught hold of the saddle and weighed the stirrup down while Pao-yü mounted leisurely. Li Kuei and Wang Ho-jung then led the horse by the bit. Two of them, Ch'ien Ch'i and Chou Jui, walked ahead and showed the way. Chang Jo-chin and Chao I-hua followed Pao-yü closely on each side.