The Golden Days

  Bao-yu praised it enthusiastically.

  As they sat drinking wine, a troupe of twelve dancers entered and inquired what pieces they should perform for the company’s entertainment.

  ‘You can do the twelve songs of my new song-and-dance suite “A Dream of Golden Days”,’ said Disenchantment.

  At once the sandalwood clappers began, very softly, to beat out a rhythm, accompanied by the sedate twang of the zheng’s silver strings and by the voice of a singer.

  ‘When first the world from chaos rose…’

  The singer had got no further than the first line of the first song when Disenchantment interrupted.

  ‘This suite,’ she told Bao-yu, ‘is not like the music-dramas of your earthly composers in which there are always the fixed parts of sheng, dan, jing, mo and so on, and set tunes in the various Northern and Southern modes. In my suite each song is an elegy on a single person or event and the tunes are original compositions which we have orchestrated ourselves. You need to know what the songs are about in order to appreciate them properly. I should not imagine you are very familiar with this sort of entertainment; so unless you read the libretto of the songs first before listening to them, I fear you may find them rather insipid.’

  Turning to one of the maids, she ordered her to fetch the manuscript of her libretto of ‘A Dream of Golden Days’ and gave it to Bao-yu to read, so that he could listen to the songs with one eye on the text. These were the words in Dis-enchantment’s manuscript:

  Prelude: A Dream of Golden Days2

  When first the world from chaos rose,

  Tell me, how did love begin ?

  The wind and moonlight first did love compose.

  Now woebegone

  And quite cast down

  In low estate

  I would my foolish heart expose,

  And so perform

  This Dream of Golden Days,

  And all my grief for my lost loves disclose.

  First Song: The Mistaken Marriage

  Let others all

  Commend the marriage rites of gold and jade;

  I still recall

  The bond of old by stone and flower made;

  And while my vacant eyes behold

  Crystalline shows of beauty pure and cold,

  From my mind can not be banished

  That fairy wood forlorn that from the world has vanished.

  How true I find

  That every good some imperfection holds I

  Even a wife so courteous and so kind

  No comfort brings to my afflicted mind.

  Second Song: Hope Betrayed

  One was a flower from paradise,

  One a pure jade without spot or stain.

  If each for the other one was not intended,

  Then why in this life did they meet again ?

  And yet if fate had meant them for each other,

  Why was their earthly meeting all in vain ?

  In vain were all her sighs and tears,

  In vain were all his anxious fears:

  All, insubstantial, doomed to pass,

  As moonlight mirrored in the water

  Or flowers reflected in a glass.

  How many tears from those poor eyes could flow,

  Which every season rained upon her woe ?

  Third Song: Mutability

  In the full flower of her prosperity

  Once more came mortal mutability,

  Bidding her, with both eyes wide,

  All earthly things to cast aside,

  And her sweet soul upon the airs to glide.

  So far the road back home did seem

  That to her parents in a dream

  Thus she her final duty paid:

  ‘I that now am but a shade,

  Parents dear,

  For your happiness I fear:

  Do not tempt the hand of fate I

  Draw back, draw back, before it is too late!’

  Fourth Song: From Dear Ones Parted

  Sail, boat, a thousand miles through rain and wind,

  Leaving my home and dear ones far behind.

  I fear that my remaining years

  Will waste away in homesick tears.

  Father dear and mother mild,

  Be not troubled for your child I

  From of old our rising, falling

  Was ordained; so now this parting.

  Each in another land must be;

  Each for himself must fend as best he may;

  Now I am gone, oh do not weep for me!

  Fifth Song: Grief Amidst Gladness

  While you still in cradle lay,

  Both your parents passed away.

  Though born to silken luxury,

  No warmth or kind indulgence came your way.

  Yet yours was a generous, open-hearted nature,

  And never could be snared or soured

  By childish piques and envious passions -

  You were a crystal house by wind and moonlight scoured.

  Matched to a perfect, gentle husband,

  Security of bliss at last it seemed,

  And all your childish miseries redeemed.

  But soon alas! the clouds of Gao-tang faded,

  The waters of the Xiang ran dry.

  In our grey world so are things always ordered:

  What then avails it to lament and sigh ?

  Sixth Song: All at Odds

  Heaven made you like a flower,

  With grace and wit to match the gods,

  Adding a strange, contrary nature

  That set you with the rest at odds.

  Nauseous to you the world’s rank diet,

  Vulgar its fashion’s gaudy dress:

  But the world envies the superior

  And hates a too precious daintiness.

  Sad it seemed that your life should in dim-lit shrines be wasted,

  All the sweets of spring untasted:

  Yet, at the last,

  Down into mud and shame your hopes were cast,

  Like a white, flawless jade dropped in the muck,

  Where only wealthy rakes might bless their luck.

  Seventh Song: Husband and Enemy

  Zhong-shan wolf,

  Inhuman sot,

  Who for past kindnesses cared not a jot!

  Bully and spendthrift, reckless in debauch,

  For riot or for whoring always hot!

  A delicate young wife of gentle stock

  To you was no more than a lifeless block,

  And bore, when you would rant and rave,

  Treatment far worse than any slave;

  So that her delicate, sweet soul

  In just a twelvemonth from its body stole.

  Eighth Song: The Vanity of Spring

  When triple spring as vanity was seen,

  What use the blushing flowers, the willows green ?

  From youth’s extravagance you sought release

  To win chaste quietness and heavenly peace.

  The hymeneal peach-blooms in the sky,

  The flowering almond’s blossoms seen on high

  Dismiss, since none, for sure,

  Can autumn’s blighting frost endure.

  Amidst sad aspens mourners sob and sigh,

  In maple woods the poor ghosts thinly cry,

  And under the dead grasslands lost graves lie.

  Now poor, now rich, men’s lives in toil are passed

  To be, like summer’s pride, cut down at last.

  The doors of life and death all must go through.

  Yet this I know is true:

  In Paradise there grows a precious tree

  Which bears the fruit of immortality.

  Ninth Song: Caught By Her Own Cunning

  Too shrewd by half, with such finesse you wrought

  That your own life in your own toils was caught

  But long before you died your heart was slain,

  And when you died your spirit walked in vain.

  Fall’n the great house once so
secure in wealth,

  Each scattered member shifting for himself;

  And half a life-time’s anxious schemes

  Proved no more than the stuff of dreams.

  Like a great building’s tottering crash,

  Like flickering lampwick burned to ash,

  Your scene of happiness concludes in grief:

  For worldly bliss is always insecure and brief.

  Tenth Song: The Survivor

  Some good remained,

  Some good remained:

  The daughter found a friend in need

  Through her mother’s one good deed.

  So let all men the poor and meek sustain,

  And from the example of her cruel kin refrain,

  Who kinship scorned and only thought of gain.

  For far above the constellations

  One watches all and makes just calculations.

  Eleventh Song: Splendour Come Late

  Favour, a shadow in the glass;

  Fame, a dream that soon would pass:

  The blissful flowering-time of youth soon fled,

  Soon, too, the pleasures of the bridal bed.

  A pearl-encrusted crown and robes of state

  Could not for death untimely compensate;

  And though each man desires

  Old age from want made free,

  True blessedness requires

  A clutch of young heirs at the knee.

  Proudly upright

  The head with cap and bands of office on,

  And gleaming bright

  Upon his breast the gold insignia shone.

  An awesome sight

  To see him so exalted stand! -

  Yet the black night

  Of death’s dark frontier lay close at hand.

  All those whom history calls great

  Left only empty names for us to venerate.

  Twelfth Song: The Good Things Have An End

  Perfumed was the dust that fell

  From painted beams where springtime ended.

  Her sportive heart

  And amorous looks

  The ruin of a mighty house portended.

  The weakness in the line began with Jing;

  The blame for the decline lay first in Ning;

  But retribution all was of Love’s fashioning.

  Epilogue: The Birds Into The Wood Have Flown

  The office jack’s career is blighted,

  The rich man’s fortune now all vanished,

  The kind with life have been requited,

  The cruel exemplarily punished;

  The one who owed a life is dead,

  The tears one owed have all been shed.

  Wrongs suffered have the wrongs done expiated;

  The couplings and the sunderings were fated.

  Untimely death sin in some past life shows,

  But only luck a blest old age bestows.

  The disillusioned to their convents fly,

  The still deluded miserably die.

  Like birds who, having fed, to the woods repair,

  They leave the landscape desolate and bare.

  Having reached the end of this suite, the singers showed signs of embarking on another one. Disenchantment observed with a sigh that Bao-yu was dreadfully bored.

  ‘Silly boy! You still don’t understand, do you?’

  Bao-yu hurriedly stopped the girls and told them that they need not sing any more. He felt dizzy and his head was spinning. He explained to Disenchantment that he had drunk too much and would like to lie down.

  At once she ordered the remains of the feast to be removed and conducted Bao-yu to a dainty bedroom. The furnishings and hangings of the bed were more sumptuous and beautiful than anything he had ever seen. To his intense surprise there was a fairy girl sitting in the middle of it. Her rose-fresh beauty reminded him strongly of Bao-chai, but there was also something about her of Dai-yu’s delicate charm. As he was pondering the meaning of this apparition, he suddenly became aware that Disenchantment was addressing him.

  ‘In the rich and noble households of your mortal world, too many of those bowers and boudoirs where innocent tenderness and sweet girlish fantasy should reign are injuriously defiled by coarse young voluptuaries and loose, wanton girls. And what is even more detestable, there are always any number of worthless philanderers to protest that it is woman’s beauty alone that inspires them, or loving feelings alone, unsullied by any taint of lust. They lie in their teeth! To be moved by woman’s beauty is itself a kind of lust. To experience loving feelings is, even more assuredly, a kind of lust. Every act of love, every carnal congress of the sexes is brought about precisely because sensual delight in beauty has kindled the feeling of love.

  ‘The reason I like you so much is because you are full of lust. You are the most lustful person I have ever known in the whole world!’

  Bao-yu was scared by the vehemence of her words.

  ‘Madam Fairy, you are wrong! Because I am lazy over my lessons, Mother and Father still have to scold me quite often; but surely that doesn’t make me lustful? I’m still too young to know what they do, the people they use that word about.’

  ‘Ah, but you are lustful!’ said Disenchantment. ‘In principle, of course, all lust is the same. But the word has many different meanings. For example, the typically lustful man in the common sense of the word is a man who likes a pretty face, who is fond of singing and dancing, who is inordinately given to flirtation; one who makes love in season and out of season, and who, if he could, would like to have every pretty girl in the world at his disposal, to gratify his desires whenever he felt like it. Such a person is a mere brute. His is a shallow, promiscuous kind of lust.

  ‘But your kind of lust is different. That blind, defenceless love with which nature has filled your being is what we call here “lust of the mind”. “Lust of the mind” cannot be explained in words, nor, if it could, would you be able to grasp their meaning. Either you know what it means or you don’t.

  ‘Because of this “lust of the mind” women will find you a kind and understanding friend; but in the eyes of the world I am afraid it is going to make you seem unpractical and eccentric. It is going to earn you the jeers of many and the angry looks of many more.

  ‘Today I received a most touching request on your behalf from your ancestors the Duke of Ning-guo and the Duke of Rong-guo. And as I cannot bear the idea of your being rejected by the world for the greater glory of us women, I have brought you here. I have made you drunk with fairy wine. I have drenched you with fairy tea. I have admonished you with fairy songs. And now I am going to give you my little sister Two-in-one – “Ke-qing” to her friends – to be your bride.

  ‘The time is propitious. You may consummate the marriage this very night. My motive in arranging this is to help you grasp the fact that, since even in these immortal precincts love is an illusion, the love of your dust-stained, mortal world must be doubly an illusion. It is my earnest hope that, knowing this, you will henceforth be able to shake yourself free of its entanglements and change your previous way of thinking, devoting your mind seriously to the teachings of Confucius and Mencius and your person wholeheartedly to the betterment of society.’

  Disenchantment then proceeded to give him secret instructions in the art of love; then, pushing him gently inside the room, she closed the door after him and went away.

  Dazed and confused, Bao-yu nevertheless proceeded to follow out the instructions that Disenchantment had given him, which led him by predictable stages to that act which boys and girls perform together – and which it is not my intention to give a full account of here.

  Next morning he lay for a long time locked in blissful tenderness with Ke-qing, murmuring sweet endearments in her ear and unable to tear himself away from her. Eventually they emerged from the bedroom hand in hand to walk together out-of-doors.

  Their walk seemed to take them quite suddenly to a place where only thorn-trees grew and wolves and tigers prowled around in pairs. Ahead of t
hem the road ended at the edge of a dark ravine. No bridge connected it with the other side. As they hesitated, wondering what to do, they suddenly became aware that Disenchantment was running up behind them.

  ‘Stop! Stop!’ she was shouting. ‘Turn back at once! Turn back!’

  Bao-yu stood still in alarm and asked her what place this was.

  ‘This is the Ford of Error,’ said Disenchantment. ‘It is ten thousand fathoms deep and extends hundreds of miles in either direction. No boat can ever cross it; only a raft manned by a lay-brother called Numb and an acolyte called Dumb. Numb holds the steering-paddle and Dumb wields the pole. They won’t ferry anyone across for money, but only take those who are fated to cross over.

  ‘If you had gone on walking just now and had fallen in, all the good advice I was at such pains to give you would have been wasted!’

  Even as she spoke there was a rumbling like thunder from inside the abyss and a multitude of demons and water monsters reached up and clutched at Bao-yu to drag him down into its depths. In his terror the sweat broke out over his body like rain and a great cry burst from his lips,

  ‘Ke-qing! Save me !’

  Aroma and his other maids rushed upstairs in alarm and clung to him.

  ‘Don’t be frightened, Bao-yu! We are here!’

  But Qin-shi, who was out in the courtyard telling the maids to be sure that the cats and dogs didn’t fight, marvelled to hear him call her name out in his sleep.

  ‘“Ke-qing” was the name they called me back at home when I was a little girl. Nobody here knows it. I wonder how he could have found it out ?’

  If you have not yet fathomed the answer to her question, you must read the next chapter.

  Chapter 6

  Jia Bao-ju conducts his first experiment

  in the Art of Love

  And Grannie Liu makes her first entry into the

  Rong-guo mansion

  Qin-shi was surprised to hear Bao-yu call out her childhood name in his sleep, but did not like to pursue the matter. As she stood wondering, Bao-yu, who was still bemused after his dream and not yet in full possession of his faculties, got out of bed and began to stretch himself and to adjust his clothes, assisted by Aroma. As she was doing up his trousers, her hand, chancing to stray over his thigh, came into contact with something cold and sticky which caused her to draw it back in alarm and ask him if he was all right. Instead of answering, he merely reddened and gave the hand a squeeze.