‘If you’re still worried, Mother,’ said Bao-yu, ‘then by all means send for a doctor and I’ll take some medicine.’
Lady Wang accordingly sent a maid to fetch a doctor, and was thus far too preoccupied with Bao-yu to think of Xi-chun’s predicament. The doctor arrived presently, examined Bao-yu and made out a prescription, after the administration of which Lady Wang returned to her own apartment.
Over the next few days, however, Bao-yu seemed to become more of an imbecile than ever. He stopped eating completely, and his condition began to cause general concern. When the time came for the ceremony to mark the end of the formal mourning period for Grandmother Jia, and since the family were especially busy at the temple, Jia Yun was called in to receive Bao-yu’s doctor; and because of the shortage of men in Jia Lian’s compound, Wang Ren also had to be asked to attend and help supervise there. Qiao-jie had made herself ill crying day and night for her mother, and in every respect Rong-guo House presented a picture of sad disarray.
When the family returned from the service at the temple, Lady Wang went at once to visit Bao-yu. She found that his condition had greatly deteriorated. He was unconscious, and the servants were in a helpless panic; some were standing there in tears, some had already gone to Jia Zheng’s, where they announced:
‘The doctor says it’s a waste of time to prescribe any more medicine, and we must be prepared for the worst …’
Jia Zheng heaved a bitter sigh and went to inspect for himself. Bao-yu indeed showed every sign of being at death’s door, and Jia Zheng ordered Jia Lian to make the necessary preparations. Jia Lian did not dare gainsay him, and reluctantly gave instructions for Bao-yu’s last things to be prepared. He was just wondering how they could possibly raise the money for yet another funeral, when one of the servants rushed into the room in a state of great agitation, crying:
‘Mr Lian! Something terrible! Another disaster!’
Jia Lian had no notion what the man could be referring to and stared at him transfixed with fear:
‘What is it?’
‘There’s a monk at the gate and he says he’s brought back Mr Bao’s lost jade. He wants ten thousand taels for it …’
Jia Lian spat in the servant’s face:
‘Hng! I thought from the fluster you were in that it was something serious. Didn’t you hear about that last hoax? And even if this jade were genuine, what good could it do now, when the boy’s already past hope?’
‘That’s what I said myself, sir. But the monk swore that Mr Bao would be cured as soon as we paid him the money.’
As he was speaking, another servant rushed in crying:
‘The monk’s gone berserk! He’s crashing his way in and none of us can stop him!’
‘This is unbelievable!’ exclaimed Jia Lian. ‘Send him packing this instant!’
When he learned what had happened, Jia Zheng was as flummoxed as Jia Lian. Meanwhile more cries came from within:
‘Bao-yu is sinking!’
Jia Zheng was growing desperate, when he heard the monk’s voice calling:
‘If you want the boy to live, just bring me the money!’
Jia Zheng suddenly thought:
‘It was a monk who cured Bao-yu’s earlier illness; perhaps this monk can save him after all. But if the jade is genuine, how will we ever raise the money for it?’
After a moment’s reflection, he concluded to himself:
‘Oh well, we can think of that in due course. Let’s cure him first, and bargain later.’
By the time he had reached this decision and despatched a servant with an invitation, the monk was already on his way, and without so much as a bow or a word of acknowledgement went striding into Bao-yu’s room. Jia Lian tried to restrain him, saying:
‘There are ladies in there! A tramp like you can’t go barging in!’
‘Any delay,’ cried the monk, ‘and it may be too late to save him!’
Jia Lian was too flustered to be able to do anything but follow him, calling out in confusion:
‘Quiet now! Stop your weeping! The monk has arrived!’
He continued calling out like this, but Lady Wang and the others were far too overwrought by Bao-yu’s condition to pay him any attention. When eventually they did look round, they were shocked to see the great burly figure of the monk descending on them, and at the last moment tried unsuccessfully to conceal themselves, while the monk made straight for the kang on which Bao-yu lay. Bao-chai withdrew to one side, but Aroma felt she should stay with Lady Wang, who had remained standing where she was.
‘Ladies, I have brought the jade,’ proclaimed the monk.
He held it up, as he continued:
‘Give me the money, and I can save the lad.’
Shock had utterly incapacitated Lady Wang, and she and the other ladies were certainly in no fit state to judge the authenticity of the stone exhibited to them.
‘Just save him,’ they cried, ‘and the money will be yours!’
The monk laughed.
‘I want it now!’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Lady Wang. ‘You shall have the money without fail, even if we have to pawn everything we have.’
The monk seemed to find this suggestion hysterically funny, and after a good deal of laughter he held the jade out in one hand, bent down and whispered in Bao-yu’s ear:
‘Bao-yu! Precious Jade! Your Stone has returned!’
No sooner had he spoken than Bao-yu opened his eyes a slit.
‘He lives!’ cried Aroma ecstatically.
‘Where is it?’ asked Bao-yu.
The monk placed the jade in Bao-yu’s hand.
At first Bao-yu clutched it tightly, then slowly he turned his hand palm upwards and brought the Stone up to eye-level. He peered at it closely and exclaimed:
‘Ah! We are reunited at last!’
Everyone began uttering fervent prayers to the Lord Buddha, and even Bao-chai now seemed oblivious of the monk’s male presence. Jia Lian came across to see what had happened, and the sight of a revivified Bao-yu brought momentary cheer to his heart too. Suddenly he slipped out, and without a word the monk raced after him and overtook him. Jia Lian had no choice but to escort the monk to the reception hall and then hurry over to inform Jia Zheng, who was enormously relieved by the news, and sent for the monk straight away, bowing to him and expressing his profound thanks. The monk returned the salutation and sat down. Jia Lian thought to himself apprehensively:
‘Now he won’t budge till he’s been paid …’
Jia Zheng scrutinized the monk. It was not, he concluded, one of the two he had seen on the previous occasion.
‘From which holy establishment do you hail?’ he enquired. ‘And what pray is your reverend’s own name in religion? Where did you obtain my son’s stone talisman? How is it that the sight of it has cured him so quickly?’
The monk greeted this stream of questions with an inscrutable smile:
‘Don’t ask me. I have not the slightest idea. Just give me my ten thousand taels, and we’ll call it a day.’
Jia Zheng could see he was dealing with rather a brusque sort of fellow, and was nervous of offending him:
‘The money? Why yes, of course you shall have it …’
‘I’d like it now. I’m in a hurry.’
‘Please be seated for a moment, while I go in and see whether it is ready.’
‘You’d better get a move on.’
Jia Zheng went in to the others. He said nothing of his interview with the monk but went straight to the kang where Bao-yu was lying. When Bao-yu saw his father coming, he tried to raise himself up, but was too weak to do so. Lady Wang held him down and told him on no account to move, while Bao-yu smiled from where he lay and handed the jade to his father, with the words:
‘You see, Bao-yu has returned!’
Jia Zheng was aware of the Stone’s reputedly supernatural properties. He glanced at it and said to Lady Wang:
‘Now that Bao-yu has recovered consciousness, how are we
to pay the monk?’
‘Pawn everything I own!’ replied Lady Wang at once. ‘That should be enough.’
‘I hardly think he wants money,’ put in Bao-yu. ‘Do you?’
Jia Zheng nodded thoughtfully:
‘I thought it rather strange, I must say. But he absolutely insists.’
‘You must go out and entertain him,’ said Lady Wang. ‘We’ll see what we can do.’
As Jia Zheng went out, Bao-yu began clamouring for food. First he consumed a bowl of congee and then he demanded some rice, which the old women even brought him. But Lady Wang forbade him to eat it.
‘It’ll be perfectly all right,’ protested Bao-yu. ‘I’m better now.’
He leant forwards and promptly tucked into a bowl of rice. His spirits seemed greatly revived. He wanted to sit up properly, and Musk came forward and supported him gently. Carried away by her excitement at his recovery she blurted out:
‘What a treasure that Stone of yours is! Just seeing it has made you better! Thank goodness you never managed to smash it to pieces!’
Her words caused a sudden change to come over Bao-yu’s face. He threw the Stone aside and slumped back. But to learn if he survived, you must turn to the next chapter.
Chapter 116
Human destinies are revealed in a fairy realm, and the Stone is restored to its rightful owner
Mortal remains are transported to their terrestrial home, and duty is discharged by a filial son
Musk’s untimely reference to a sensitive episode from the past sent Bao-yu into a sudden swoon and he slumped back onto his bed once more. Lady Wang and the assembled family broke into a fresh bout of wailing and weeping, while Musk herself, realizing that her thoughtlessness was to blame for this terrible turn (though Lady Wang had not yet had time to scold her), began to weep and at the same time made a desperate resolution:
‘If Bao-yu dies, I shall take my own life and die with him!’
Lady Wang could see that this time none of their efforts to rouse Bao-yu was having any effect, and sent an urgent message to the monk, begging him to come to the rescue again. But the monk was nowhere to be seen. Jia Zheng had returned earlier to the hall, only to find that his eccentric guest had vanished into thin air. This fresh outcry from the inner apartment now reached Jia Zheng’s ears and he hurried back, to find Bao-yu unconscious again, teeth clenched and with no trace of a pulse. He felt his chest, and finding it still quite warm, sent in desperation for a doctor, to attempt resuscitation by forcing down a draught of some kind.
But Bao-yu’s spirit had already quit its mortal frame. Then that means he was dead, you say? The exact situation, dear Reader, was as follows: the spirit had flitted in its incorporeal fashion out to the reception hall, where it saw the jade-bearing monk and saluted him with a bow. The monk hurriedly rose to his feet, grasped the spirit by the hand and set off. Bao-yu (spirit) followed, light as a leaf drifting in the breeze. They made their way out not by the main entrance but by a route he failed to recognize, and presently they reached an open space, a wilderness, whence in the far distance he spied a strangely familiar monumental archway. He was on the point of asking the monk what it was, when a misty female form came gliding towards him.
‘What is a beautiful creature like that doing in such a desolate place as this?’ Bao-yu asked himself. ‘She must be some goddess come to earth.’
He approached her and looked more closely. Her face was as familiar as the archway had been, but somehow he was unable to remember exactly who she was. She greeted the monk, and then in an instant vanished from view. In that same instant Bao-yu knew who it was that she resembled: You San-jie. More puzzled than ever (for what could she be doing here?), he wanted to question the monk. But before he could do so, the monk was leading him by the hand on through the archway. On the lintel of the arch were inscribed in large characters the words:
THE PARADISE OF TRUTH
A couplet in smaller characters ran down on either side:
When Fiction departs and Truth appears,
Truth prevails;
Though Not-real was once Real, the Real
is never unreal.
Having negotiated the archway, they presently came to the gate of a palace, above which ran a horizontal inscription:
Blessing for the Virtuous; Misfortune for the Wicked
whilst the following words were inscribed vertically on the two sides:
Human Wit can ne’er unveil the Mysteries of Time,
Nor Closest Kin defy the Stern Decrees of Fate.
‘So …’ thought Bao-yu to himself. ‘It is time I began to learn more about the operation of fate.’ Even as this thought was passing through his mind, he saw (of all people) Faithful standing a little way off, beckoning and calling to him.
‘All this time and I’m still at home in the Garden!’ he reflected in astonishment. ‘But why is it so changed?’
He hurried forward to speak to Faithful, but a second later she too had vanished and he was left standing there, more perplexed than ever. He continued to advance towards the place where Faithful had been, and as he did so he observed a range of buildings on either side of him, and above the entrance to each building a board proclaiming its name. He felt no great inclination to inspect any of these buildings closely, but hurried on in quest of Faithful. The entrance beyond the spot where she had stood was ajar, but he did not dare to enter, thinking he should consult his guide first. And yet when he turned to find him, the monk had vanished. The buildings all around him suddenly seemed very grand, and it began to occur to Bao-yu that perhaps this was not Prospect Garden after all. He stood still and raised his head to read the words above the doorway immediately in front of him:
AWAKEN FROM LOVE’S FOLLY
The couplet on either side ran:
Smiles of gladness, tears of woe, all are false;
Every lust and every longing stems from folly.
Bao-yu nodded his head and sighed. He still wanted to enter the doorway and go in search of Faithful, to ask her what this place was that he had come to. He felt a growing certainty that he had been here on some previous occasion. Finally he plucked up the courage to push the door open, and went in. There was no sign whatsoever of Faithful. It was pitch dark inside and he was about to give in to fear and retrace his steps when his eyes discerned, looming in the darkness, the shapes of a dozen large cupboards, their doors apparently pushed to but unlocked. A sudden realization swept over him:
‘I know I’ve been somewhere like this before. I remember it now. It was in a dream. What a blessing this is, to return to the scene of my childhood dream!’
Somehow in his confusion his original intention of finding Faithful had gone, giving way to a new and more generalized curiosity about what lay before him. He plucked up his courage again and opened the door of the first cupboard. Within it he saw a number of albums, and a thrill of excited delight ran through him.
‘People always say that dreams are false,’ he thought to himself. ‘But it seems that this one was real! How often I’ve wished I could dream that dream of mine again! And now here I am, and my wish is coming true. I wonder if these are the very albums I saw?’
Stretching out his hand he took the top one, and held it in his hand. It bore the label ‘Jinling, Twelve Beauties of, Main Register’.
‘I do remember seeing this,’ he thought to himself. ‘I think I do … If only I could remember more clearly!’
He opened it at the first page, and found himself looking at a picture, but one that was so blurred he could hardly tell what it represented. There followed a few rows of characters, written in an almost indecipherable hand, among which he could faintly trace the forms of ‘jade belt’ (dai yu) and ‘greenwoo’ (lin).
‘Surely that must be a riddle for Cousin Lin?’ he thought to himself, and read on in earnest. The next line contained the words ‘the gold pin beneath the snow (xue)’.
‘Why that’s Bao-chai’s surname!’ he exclaimed aloud.
&nbs
p; He read to the end of the fourth and last line.
‘It doesn’t seem to say very much. It’s just a series of riddles on the names Lin Dai-yu and Xue Bao-chai. There’s nothing very exceptional about that. But some of the phrases sound rather ominous. I wonder what it’s all supposed to mean?
‘Silly me! I’m not really supposed to be here at all,’ he rebuked himself. ‘If I spend my time daydreaming like this and someone comes, I’ll have wasted my chance to look through the rest.’
He continued his inspection of the albums. He did not allow himself time to linger over the next picture, but went straight to the poem, which ended with the words:
When hare meets tiger, your great dream shall end.
They brought a sudden burst of illumination:
‘What a brilliant prediction! It must refer to the death of my eldest sister. If they are all as clear as this, I should copy them down and study them carefully. That way I can find out everything about my sisters and cousins, how long they’re going to live, whether they will fail or succeed in life, be wealthy or poor. At home I shall have to keep my knowledge a secret of course. But my inside information will at least save me a lot of unnecessary worrying …’
He looked everywhere for writing implements, but could see neither brush nor inkstone, and fearing that someone might surprise him, he hurriedly scanned through the rest of the album. The next leaf bore an impressionistic representation of a figure flying a kite. He did not feel in the mood to dwell on the pictures but quickly read the remaining poems in the set of twelve. In some cases he was able to grasp the hidden meaning at a first reading, others required a moment’s reflection, while some remained obstinately unintelligible. He committed all of them carefully to memory none the less. With a sigh he took out the next album, labelled ‘Supplementary Register No. 1’, and began to read. He stopped at the lines: