Bao-yu listened in silence. His only response was to stare at the ceiling and smile.
‘Since you’re stuck for an answer,’ Bao-chai continued, ‘you should listen to my advice. Pull yourself together from now on, and work as hard as you can. Do well in the examination, and even if you never achieve anything else in your entire life, that will at least be some return for Heaven’s favour and for your ancestors’ virtue.’
Bao-yu nodded and heaved a sigh:
‘Doing well in the examination is not that difficult. And what you say about never achieving anything else and making some return for Heaven’s favour and our ancestors’ virtue is very much to the point …’
Before Bao-chai could reply to this, Aroma put in her word:
‘I didn’t really understand what Mrs Bao was saying about the sages of old. All I know is that we’ve all stuck with you through thick and thin since we were children, tending you with more devotion than I can say. Of course, I know that’s only as it should be, but shouldn’t you show us a little consideration in return? And look at the devotion Mrs Bao has shown to the Master and Her Ladyship, all for your sake! Even if you don’t set great store by your marriage, surely you owe her a simple debt of gratitude for what she has done? As for all that stuff about immortality, that’s just a lot of hot air. Who ever actually saw an immortal set foot in this world of ours? Some monk turns up from goodness knows where, talking a lot of rubbish, and you go and take him seriously! You’re an educated man, surely you don’t give more weight to his words than you do to the Master’s and Her Ladyship’s?’
Bao-yu bowed his head in silence.
Aroma had more ammunition ready, but just then footsteps were heard outside, and a voice came through the window:
‘Is Uncle Bao at home?’
Bao-yu recognized Jia Lan’s voice, stood up and said pleasantly:
‘Come in!’
Jia Lan entered, his face wreathed in smiles. He paid his respects to Bao-yu and Bao-chai, and exchanged greetings with Aroma, before presenting Bao-yu with Jia Zheng’s letter, which Bao-yu took from him and read.
‘So my sister is coming back to town, then?’
‘Judging from the letter it seems more than likely,’ was Jia Lan’s reply.
Bao-yu nodded his head in thoughtful silence, and Jia Lan continued:
‘You see at the end of the letter, Uncle Bao, Grandfather urges us to get down to some serious work. I don’t suppose you’ve been doing many compositions recently, have you?’
Bao-yu laughed:
‘I’d like to do a few, just to keep my hand in. Why not? May as well pull the wool over their eyes!’
‘In that case,’ suggested Jia Lan, ‘why don’t you propose a few themes, and we’ll write them together. That will help us prepare for the exam. I certainly don’t want to hand in a blank sheet and make a fool of us both.’
‘I know you will do nothing of the kind,’ said Bao-yu.
Bao-chai asked Jia Lan to take a seat. Bao-yu sat down again himself in his original chair, while Jia Lan perched politely nearby, and they chatted for a while about their compositions, their conversation becoming quite animated. Bao-chai, seeing the two of them thus engrossed, discreetly withdrew, thinking to herself:
‘It almost seems as if Bao-yu may have seen the light. But I wonder what he meant just now by picking on my words “never achieving anything else” and repeating them so emphatically?’
She was still greatly puzzled. Aroma on the other hand was delighted to hear him talking about compositions and the examination.
‘Praise be to Buddha!’ she exclaimed silently to herself. ‘What a sermon it took though, to bring him to his senses!’
The boys continued their discussion, and Oriole made them some tea. Jia Lan rose to his feet to receive his cup, and talked a little longer about the regulations governing the examination, adding that he would also like to invite Zhen Bao-yu over one day. Bao-yu seemed willing that he should do so.
After a while, Jia Lan returned to his apartment, leaving Jia Zheng’s letter behind with Bao-yu. Bao-yu read it through again, and with a smile on his lips went in and handed it to Musk to put away. Then he returned and removed his copy of Zhuang-zi from the table, collecting up at the same time some of his other favourite esoteric books (a collection that included The Hermetic Clavicule, The Secret of the Primordial Flower and The Compendium of the Five Lamps). He gave instructions to Musk, Ripple and Oriole to store all of these away. Bao-chai was amazed to see him do this, and wished to sound out his true motives.
‘It’s very commendable of you to forgo reading such books,’ she said with a quizzical smile. ‘But why do you have to move them out of sight altogether?’
‘Because now I understand,’ replied Bao-yu. ‘None of those books is worth anything. It would be best to burn the lot and be rid of them once and for all!’
Bao-chai was delighted to hear him saying this. But the very next minute she heard him recite, as if to himself:
‘True Buddha Mind Within
Is not in Sutras to be found;
Beyond the Crucible,
There leads a path to Higher Ground.’
Bao-chai did not catch every word, but ‘Buddha Mind Within’ and ‘Higher Ground’ were enough to fill her once more with gloomy forebodings. She watched him anxiously. He told the maids to prepare a quiet room for him, looked out all his old copies of books like Zhucius’s Neo-Confucian Primer, and collections of examination essays and verses, and assembled them all in his new room. Then he sat down in earnest and began quietly working. Bao-chai felt she could finally set her mind at rest.
Aroma could hardly believe the evidence of her eyes and ears. She smiled conspiratorially at Bao-chai:
‘You certainly know how to talk him round, ma’am! Just that one lecture from you and he’s a new man! I only hope he hasn’t left it too late. The exams are looming very close.’
Bao-chai nodded and smiled:
‘These things are in the hands of fate. His success will not turn on how soon or late he begins preparing. I just hope that from now on he will learn to be more adult, and give up his old antics.’
Checking first that she and Aroma were alone in the room, she added in an undertone:
‘I’m certainly very pleased at this change of heart. But there is still one thing that worries me. His old weakness. We ought to try to isolate him from our own sex.’
‘You are quite right, ma’am,’ said Aroma. ‘So long as he was under the influence of that monk, he seemed to be quite indifferent to the girls around him. But now that he’s changed course again, we must once more be on our guard for a revival of his old habits. I don’t think he’s likely to show much interest in either of us, ma’am. With Nightingale gone, that only leaves the four other maids. Fivey is the little vixen among them, but I hear that her mother has been asking for permission to take her out of service to get married, so she’ll be leaving in a few days’ time. Musk and Ripple have never been particularly close to Master Bao, but we shouldn’t forget that they used to fool about with him when he was a child. That leaves Oriole. He doesn’t seem at all interested in her, and she’s a very dependable girl. I suggest that for day-to-day duties, like pouring tea and carrying water, Oriole should take charge, with a few of the junior maids to help her. What do you think, ma’am?’
‘I have been worrying about the same thing myself,’ replied Bao-chai. ‘Your proposal is a very sensible one.’
So from then on Oriole was put in charge. Bao-yu never left his room now. Every day he sent someone else to pay respects to his mother on his behalf. Lady Wang’s delight at this new regime of his needs no description.
When the third of the eighth came round (Grandmother Jia’s birthday), Bao-yu went early in the morning to kowtow at her shrine and then returned to his ‘quiet room’. After breakfast, Bao-chai, Aroma and some of the maids had gone to sit in the front room and were chatting with Ladies Xing and Wang, and he was sitting alone in his
room, deep in concentration, when Oriole came in with a tray of sweetmeats.
‘Her Ladyship asked me to bring these for you,’ she said. ‘They are offerings left over from Her Old Ladyship’s sacrifice.’
Bao-yu rose to his feet to thank her and then sat down again.
‘Put them over there,’ he said.
As she placed the tray to one side, Oriole said to him in an undertone:
‘Her Ladyship has been speaking very highly of you in the front room.’
Bao-yu smiled. Oriole continued:
‘She said that now you are studying so hard, you are sure to pass your exam and then if you go on and become a Palace Graduate and an official, your parents’ hopes for you will not have been in vain.’
Oriole suddenly remembered what Bao-yu had once said to her, the day she had knotted tassels for him.
‘I hope you do pass!’ she went on animatedly. ‘It will be such a blessing for our mistress. Remember what you said that day in the Garden, when you asked me to knot you a plum-blossom tassel? You wondered what lucky household the mistress would take me to when she married? Well, you were the lucky one after all!’
There was something about what she said and the way she said it that aroused in Bao-yu once more an old and all too human emotion. But the nostalgia soon passed; he composed himself again and said with a gentle smile:
‘So, according to you, I am lucky, and so is your mistress. But how do you feel about it?’
Oriole flushed at once, and forced a smile:
‘We’re just maids. Being lucky or not doesn’t really enter into it for us.’
Bao-yu smiled again:
As a matter of fact, even if you did spend your whole life as a maid, you might turn out to have been luckier than either of us.’
This sounded to Oriole like more of his foolishness. She was. afraid of being responsible for another of his scenes, and deemed it prudent to leave, but before she could do so, Bao-yu laughed:
‘Silly girl! Let me tell you something.’
If you want to know what it was, you must turn to the next chapter.
Chapter 119
Bao-yu becomes a Provincial Graduate and severs worldly ties
The House of Jia receives Imperial favour and renews ancestral glory
As we told in the last chapter, Oriole, perplexed by Bao-yu’s words, had been about to leave when she heard him speak again:
‘Silly girl! Let me tell you something. If your mistress is lucky, then so are you, since you are her maid. Aroma cannot be depended upon. In future, mark my words, you must look after your mistress with care and devotion, and in the end you may receive a fitting reward for your years of service.’
To Oriole Bao-yu’s speech, although it began with some semblance of sense, tailed off into rambling nonsense.
‘Well,’ she replied, ‘I’d better be going now. Madam is waiting for me. If you want any more sweets, Mr Bao, just send one of the junior maids to fetch me.’
Bao-yu nodded and Oriole went on her way. Shortly afterwards, Bao-chai and Aroma returned from the front room.
The time drew near for the examination. All the family were full of eager anticipation, hoping that the two boys would write creditable compositions and bring the family honour. All except for Bao-chai; while it was true that Bao-yu had prepared well, she had also on occasions noticed a strange indifference in his behaviour. Her first concern was that the two boys, for both of whom this was the first venture of its kind, might get hurt or have some accident in the crush of men and vehicles around the examination halls. She was more particularly worried for Bao-yu, who had not been out at all since his encounter with the monk. His delight in studying seemed to her the result of a somewhat too hasty and not altogether convincing conversion, and she had a premonition that something untoward was going to happen. So, on the day before the big event, she despatched Aroma and a few of the junior maids to go with Candida and her helpers and make sure that the candidates were both properly prepared. She herself inspected their things and put them out in readiness, and then went over with Li Wan to Lady Wang’s apartment, where she selected a few of the more trusty family retainers to accompany them the next day, for fear they might be jolted or trampled on in the crowds.
The big day finally arrived, and Bao-yu and Jia Lan changed into smart but unostentatious clothes. They came over in high spirits to bid farewell to Lady Wang, who gave them a few parting words of advice:
‘This is the first examination for both of you, and although you are such big boys now, it will still be the first time either of you has been away from me for a whole day. You may have gone out in the past, but you were always surrounded by your maids and nurses. You have never spent the night away on your own like this. Today, when you both go into the examination, you are bound to feel rather lonely with none of the family by you. You must take special care. Finish your papers and come out as early as possible, and then be sure to find one of the family servants and come home as soon as you can. We shall be worrying about you.’
As she spoke, Lady Wang herself was greatly moved by the occasion. Jia Lan made all the appropriate responses, but Bao-yu remained silent until his mother had quite finished speaking. Then he walked up to her, knelt at her feet and with tears streaming down his cheeks kowtowed to her three times and said:
‘I could never repay you adequately for all you have done for me, Mother. But if I can do this one thing successfully, if I can do my very best and pass this examination, then perhaps I can bring you a little pleasure. Then my worldly duty will be accomplished and I will at least have made some small return for all the trouble I have caused you.’
Lady Wang was still more deeply moved by this:
‘It is a very fine thing, what you are setting out to do. It is only a shame that your grandmother couldn’t be here to witness it.’
She wept as she spoke and put her arms around him to draw him to her. Bao-yu remained kneeling however and would not rise.
‘Even though Grandmother is not here,’ he said, ‘I am sure she knows about it and is happy. So really it is just as if she were present. What separates us is only matter. We are together in spirit.’
Li Wan feared that this scene might provoke Bao-yu to one of his fits. Besides, she sensed something inauspicious. She hurried forward:
‘Mother, today we should be filled with joy. You mustn’t upset yourself like this. Think how sensible and dutiful and hard-working Bao-yu has been of late. All he needs to do now is to sit the examinations with Lan, write his papers properly and come home early. Then he can show copies of what he has written to some scholars connected with the family, and we’ll just wait for the good news.’
She told one of the maids to help Bao-yu to his feet. Bao-yu turned and bowed to her:
‘Sister-in-law, you are not to worry. Lan and I are sure to pass. What is more, Lan has a brilliant future ahead of him, while you yourself will one day become a lady of noble rank and dress in the finest robes.’
Li Wan smiled:
‘If all this were ever to come true, it would at least be some compensation …’
She stopped short, fearing to cause Lady Wang further distress. Bao-yu felt no such inhibition:
‘If Lan does well and upholds our family tradition, my late brother may not have lived to witness it, but you will at least see his dearest wishes fulfilled.’
It was getting late, and since Li Wan did not wish to prolong this exchange any further, she contented herself with a brief nod. Bao-chai had already perceived the strangeness of the conversation. Not only were Bao-yu’s remarks ominous in themselves, but every word uttered by Lady Wang and Li Wan seemed laden with inauspicious meaning as well. Not daring to express this presentiment of hers openly, Bao-chai held back her tears and remained silent. Bao-yu came up to her and made her a deep bow. It seemed to them all such an eccentric way to behave, and no one could imagine what it was supposed to mean; nor did anyone dare to laugh. The general amazement increased w
hen Bao-chai burst into floods of tears, and Bao-yu bade her farewell:
‘Coz! I’m going now. Stay here with Mother and wait for the good news!’
‘It is time for you to go,’ replied Bao-chai. ‘There is no need to embark on another of your long speeches.’
‘Strange that you should be urging me on my way,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I know it is time to go.’
He glanced around him and saw that Xi-chun and Nightingale were absent.
‘Say goodbye to Xi-chun and Nightingale for me,’ he said. ‘I shall certainly be meeting them again.’
Everyone was forcibly struck by the strange blend of sense and nonsense in Bao-yu’s words. They thought him momentarily confused, in part by the unprecedented nature of the occasion, in part by Lady Wang’s injunctions. To all of them the best course of action in the circumstances seemed to be to speed him on his way and get the thing over with.
‘They’re waiting for you outside. No more dilly-dallying now, or you’ll be late.’
Bao-yu raised his head and laughed.
‘Off I go! Enough of this foolery! It’s over!’
‘Well – off you go then!’ they all cried, laughing nervously. Only Lady Wang and Bao-chai were sobbing inconsolably, as if they were parting from him for ever. Finally Bao-yu walked out through the door and on his way, giggling like a half-wit.
Entering the lists of worldly renown,
He breaks the first bar of his earthly cage.
We must leave Bao-yu and Jia Lan on their way to the examination, and return to Jia Huan. The excitement surrounding the candidates’ departure had left him feeling even more peeved and sour than usual, and with their absence he was now free to carry out his plan:
‘My own mother will be avenged! Now there’s not a man left in the house, and Aunt Xing will do as I say. I need fear no one.’
With determined stride he hurried over to Lady Xing’s to pay her his respects, and then conversed with her for a while in a most obsequious tone. She was naturally flattered, and said to him:
‘Now you are speaking like an intelligent child! Or course I’m the one who ought to take the decision in an affair such as this of Qiao-jie’s. It was very stupid of your cousin Lian to ignore his own mother and place this in someone else’s hands.’