The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei

by Roy, David Tod

  The visitor to the jade tower is drunk

  at apricot blossom time.

  When she held it up to the light to examine it, she realized that it belonged to Meng Yü-lou and thought to herself, “How did this happen to end up in his sleeve? He must have been engaged in hanky-panky with Meng Yü-lou. Otherwise, how could her hairpin have ended up in his sleeve? No wonder that short-life has treated me at times as though he were:

  Bereft of thought or feeling.

  If I don’t leave a few words for him, he won’t even know that I’ve been here. I’ll inscribe a quatrain on the wall as a message to him and interrogate him about it the next time I see him.”

  Thereupon, she took up a brush and wrote out a quatrain on the wall that read:

  On her solitary excursion to his studio, she

  is unable to awaken him;

  Which means the Goddess has descended from

  Witch’s Mountain in vain.

  It would appear that King Hsiang of Ch’u has

  become devoid of feelings;19

  To so betray their morning after morning and

  evening after evening love.

  After inscribing her composition, the woman returned to her quarters.

  To resume our story, when Ch’en Ching-chi had slept for some time, the effects of the wine wore off, and he woke up.

  As he got up and lit a lamp, he suddenly recalled, “The woman was going to come meet me here for a tryst, but I have let her down by getting drunk.”

  On turning around, he caught sight of the four lines of poetry on the wall and noticed that the ink with which they were written was still wet. Upon reading the poem, he realized that the woman had come as promised but had been obliged to return empty-handed; and that he had allowed the gift of a romantic assignation to slip through his fingers. The thought of this filled him with no end of remorse.

  “The night watches are just beginning by now,” he thought to himself. “Moreover, Hsi-men Ta-chieh and Yüan-hsiao are still in the rear compound and haven’t come out yet. If I go over to her place, the postern gate is likely to be locked.”

  He headed there and shook the branches of the woody hibiscus tree to signal his arrival but heard no response from within. By mounting onto the T’ai-hu rockery, he succeeded in climbing over the whitewashed wall.

  The woman, upon finding her lover to be drunk and fast asleep, had returned to her quarters in a fit of high dudgeon, feeling deeply depressed, and gone to sleep herself, after sprawling across her bed without bothering to undress. She did not anticipate that, in the middle of the night, he would come climbing over the wall. On seeing that the courtyard was deserted, and assuming that the maidservants must be asleep, he proceeded with:

  Skulking step and lurking gait,

  to make his way to the door of her room, which he found to be closed but unlocked. When he slipped inside, he observed by the light of the moon shining through the window that the woman was lying sprawled on the bed, all by herself, with her face to the wall.

  He whispered “My darling” to her several times, but she did not respond.

  “Don’t hold it against me,” he went on to say, “but today Ts’ui Pen and a bunch of his friends invited me to join them in an excursion to the estate at Wu-li Yüan outside the city gate to enjoy practicing archery together. By the time I got home, I was drunk and was unaware that you had visited me. I am guilty of failing to keep our agreed upon assignation. Forgive me. Forgive me.”

  The woman still failed to respond to his plea.

  When Ch’en Ching-chi saw that she would not respond, he fell to his knees in a state of panic and pled with her, over and over again.

  At this, the woman suddenly turned over and slapped his face with the back of her hand, as she railed at him, saying, “You lousy incorrigible fickle short-life! Keep it quiet or the maidservants will hear you. I know that you have someone else in your sights and no longer have a place for me in your heart. But where did you actually go off to today?”

  “I was really dragged off by Ts’ui Pen to practice archery outside the city gate,” replied Ch’en Ching-chi. “He managed to get me so drunk that I fell asleep on my return and failed to keep my date with you. Don’t hold it against me. I saw the poem that you left on the wall and understand that you are annoyed with me.”

  “You crazy incorrigible trickster!” the woman retorted. “Stop shooting your mouth off that way, and shut up. Your tricks are as slippery as balls of mud. I won’t let you get away with it. If it was really Ts’ui Pen who gave you too much to drink today, so that you came home drunk, how did this hairpin happen to end up in your sleeve?”

  “That’s something I picked up the other day in the garden,” said Ch’en Ching-chi. “It was only two or three days ago.”

  “You’re still ready to:

  Outwit the spirits and confound the ghosts,

  are you?” the woman exclaimed. “What garden did you pick it up in? You’d have to pick up another one just like it for me to take you seriously. This pin is one that Meng the Third, that pockmarked whore, wears in her hair. My identification of it is:

  As certain as certain can be.

  It even has her name engraved on it, yet you think you can pull the wool over my eyes. No wonder, the other day when I was away from home, she is said to have invited you into her quarters for a meal. The truth is you’ve been:

  Playing at sevens and eights,

  with her. When I taxed you with it, you refused to acknowledge anything. But if you haven’t been engaged in hanky-panky with her, how did this pin of hers end up in your hands? You must have been revealing things about me to her. No wonder she smiled at me the way she did the other day. What you told her about me must have lain behind it. From now on:

  You be yourself, and

  I’ll be myself.

  Just as the mung bean loses its color when peeled:

  You can get lost.”

  Thereupon, Ch’en Ching-chi became so disturbed that he began:

  Swearing by the gods and uttering oaths,

  as he wept, saying, “If I’ve had:

  So much as a thread’s worth of commerce,

  with her, I hereby invoke the numinous powers of the God of the Eastern Peak and the God of Walls and Moats, who will see that I do not live to the age of thirty; that I am afflicted with:

  Boils as big as bowls, and

  Three to five years of jaundice;

  and such thirst that:

  When I want soup, there will be none to be had;

  When I want water, there will be none to be had.”

  The woman still refused to believe him and said, “You lousy nincompoop! Swearing such oaths, as though you were suffering from a toothache! It’s a wonder you’re not ashamed of yourself.”

  The two of them continued to go at it for some time until, observing that it was late at night, they saw no alternative but to divest themselves of their clothes and lie down next to each other on the bed. The woman made a point of turning over with her back to him and venting her spite by refusing to pay him any attention. Allowing him to plead, “Sister this, and sister that,” her only response was to reach back and scratch his face with her hand, which so unnerved Ch’en Ching-chi that he felt he had to suppress his anger without uttering a sound. They squandered the remainder of the night without his being able even to blunder his way into her cunt. When the day dawned, fearing that the maidservants would get up, he felt compelled to climb over the wall as before and return to his quarters in the front compound. There is a song to the tune “Helping the Drunkard Back Home” that testifies to this:

  P’an Chin-lien Reveals an Ardent Heart but Cold Demeanor

  My mouth rubs against the oily fret

  on the top of her head;

  Her back is pressed against the skin

  of my chest and belly.

  I am not able to nuzzle her fragrant cheeks

  to left and right;20

  But can only breath into th
e hollows in the

  back of her neck.

  All night long I cannot catch even a

  glimpse of her face,

  But can only contemplate the back of

  her ivory comb.21

  Gentle reader take note: Subsequently, Chin-lien returned this hairpin to Ch’en Ching-chi; and later still, after Meng Yü-lou had married Li Kung-pi and moved to Yen-chou prefecture, Ch’en Ching-chi produced this pin as evidence for the claim that Meng Yü-lou was his elder sister, in the endeavor to consummate a surreptitious affair with her. Who could have anticipated that Meng Yü-lou would not only evade this trick of his but coerce Ch’en Ching-chi into suffering the calamity of incarceration. Now that this matter has been explained we will say no more about it. Truly:

  The three luminaries cast shadows, but

  who can catch them:

  The ten thousand things have no roots, they

  just arise of themselves.

  If you want to know the outcome of these events,

  Pray consult the story related in the following chapter.

  Chapter 83

  CH’IU-CHÜ, HARBORING RESENTMENT, REVEALS A CLANDESTINE AFFAIR;

  CH’UN-MEI TRANSMITS A NOTE TO FACILITATE A LOVERS’ RENDEZVOUS

  It is laughable, but Hsi-men Ch’ing’s perception

  leaves much to be desired;

  This fact encourages his peach and plum blossoms

  to smile in the spring breeze.

  Under his layers of embroidered quilts

  there sleeps a rogue;

  With three meals of delicacies a day

  he nurtures a tiger.

  Enamored of her person, his son-in-law

  covets his concubine;

  Attracted by his wealth, he is prepared

  to do his father-in-law in.

  And there is yet another privilege

  worthy of consideration;

  Traversing rooms and entering chambers

  he can dally as he likes.1

  THE STORY GOES that when P’an Chin-lien saw that Ch’en Ching-chi had climbed over the wall and departed at the crack of dawn, she felt regret over the way she had treated him.

  The next day was the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and Wu Yüeh-niang rode in her sedan chair to the Ksitigarbha Nunnery where Nun Hsüeh resided in order to burn a coffer of paper money on Hsi-men Ch’ing’s behalf in celebration of the Ullambana Festival.2 Chin-lien and the others escorted Yüeh-niang to the front gate and then returned inside. Meng Yü-lou, Sun Hsüeh-o, and Hsi-men Ta-chieh all went back to the rear compound, but Chin-lien lagged behind and, on reaching the ceremonial gate to the front courtyard, ran into Ch’en Ching-chi, who had gone up to the second floor of Li P’ing-erh’s quarters to fetch some articles of clothing that had been pawned and was on his way out with the package in hand.

  Chin-lien called him to a halt and questioned him, saying, “Although I criticized you with a few words last night, how come you jumped up and left in such a huff this morning? Are you really trying to break off your relationship with me?”

  “How can you say such things?” retorted Ch’en Ching-chi. “Who got any sleep last night anyway? You gave me such a hard time all night as to nearly do me in. Just take a look at the scratch marks you left on my face.”

  “You lousy short-life!” the woman swore back at him. “If you haven’t been engaged in hanky-panky with her:

  The thief suffers from a sense of guilt.

  Why did you run out on me that way for no good reason?”

  Ch’en Ching-chi reached into his sleeve and pulled out a slip of paper. When the woman unfolded it and took a look, it turned out to be inscribed with a song to the tune “Mistletoe” that read as follows:

  On the slightest pretext, she starts

  to abuse me;

  Even going so far as to scratch

  at my face.

  I humble myself and experience humiliation

  in a thousand ways,

  But whatever I say, she wants to call it

  quits with me.

  The word “quit” is enough to make me feel

  consternation at heart.

  “My cunning loved one, you are being both

  ungrateful and unjust.3

  When your eyebrows have lost their color,

  who will repaint them for you?”4

  When Chin-lien had finished reading this, she laughed, saying, “If you are really innocent, come to my place tonight and I will interrogate you further.”

  “You gave me such a hard time,” responded Ch’en Ching-chi, “that I didn’t get a wink of sleep all night. I will have to catch up on my sleep during the daylight hours.”

  “If you fail to show up,” said Chin-lien, “I’ll hold you to account.”

  When she had finished speaking, the woman returned to her room while Ch’en Ching-chi took the pawned articles of clothing back to the shop and continued to conduct business for a while, after which he returned to his quarters, sprawled out on the bed, and went to sleep. He could hardly wait for night to fall so he could go over to Chin-lien’s quarters. Unexpectedly, however, by twilight the sky grew dark, and outside the window the pitter-patter of falling raindrops became audible. Truly:

  The rustling sound in the courtyard5

  is made by evening rain;

  The drip of raindrops upon plantain

  leaves seems never-ending.

  When Ch’en Ching-chi saw that the rain was falling heavily, he said to himself, “What unobliging weather. Just when she has asked me to come resolve things with her today, it has unexpectedly begun to rain. How depressing and debilitating.”

  Thereupon, he commenced:

  Waiting for long periods as well as short,

  for the rain to end, but it did not stop and continued to fall with a swishing sound until the night watches began, so copiously that the water poured off the eaves. The young man could not wait any longer for the rain to stop, so he wrapped himself in a madder red blanket. Wu Yüeh-niang was at home at the time, and Hsi-men Ta-chieh and Yüan-hsiao were in the rear compound and had not come back out yet. Thereupon, he locked the door to his quarters, went into the garden in the pouring rain through the postern gate on the west side of the front courtyard, and gave a push to the gate into Chin-lien’s quarters.

  The woman, who was certain that he would show up that evening, had already instructed Ch’un-mei to befuddle Ch’iu-chü with several goblets of wine and go sleep with her in the room with the k’ang. For this reason, she had left the gate closed but unlocked. When Ch’en Ching-chi pushed at the gate and saw that it was ajar, he slipped inside and went straight into the woman’s bedroom, where he saw that:

  The gauze window was half open,

  Silver candles were burning high,

  while the table was spread with wine and delicacies, and

  Golden goblets were filled to the brim.

  When the two of them had sat down:

  Shoulder to shoulder and thigh over thigh,

  the woman asked him, “If you have not been carrying on with Meng Yü-lou, how did this hairpin fall into your hands?”

  “It was something that I picked up in the garden under the rose-leaved raspberry trellis the other day,” Ch’en Ching-chi replied. “If I am not telling the truth:

  May I suffer death and annihilation.”

  “As long as you are innocent,” the woman said, “I’ll give this pin back to you to put in your hair. I don’t want to confiscate anything of yours. But you must be sure to keep whatever pins, sachets, handkerchiefs, and keepsakes that I have given you safe and sound. If you lose track of a single one of them I’ll take you to task.”

  The two of them drank wine and played board games together until the first watch before they:

  Got into bed and prepared to sleep.

  They then:

  Tumbled and tossed like male and female phoenixes,

  and kept at it for fully half the night. The woman took all of the arts of the
bedchamber that she had formerly practiced with Hsi-men Ch’ing and tried them out on her lover during a single night.

  To resume our story, during the night, from her position in the adjacent room, Ch’iu-chü overheard what sounded like a male voice speaking but did not know who it was. When the cock crowed at dawn the next morning, she got up to urinate and suddenly heard the sound of the door being opened in the adjoining room. In the hazy moonlight, it had not yet stopped raining. On looking through the window, she saw someone draped in a red blanket on his way out the door.

  “That looks like Ch’en Ching-chi,” she said to herself. “So it turns out that he’s been sleeping with my mistress, night after night. She is forever protesting her own virtue in front of other people, while all the time she’s been carrying on an affair with her son-in-law.”

  That day, she went straight back to the kitchen in the rear compound and told Hsiao-yü, thus and so, all about what she had seen.

  She did not anticipate that Hsiao-yü, who was on friendly terms with Ch’un-mei, would go tell her about it, saying, “That Ch’iu-chü from your place says that your mistress is carrying on an affair with her son-in-law Ch’en Ching-chi. Yesterday, he spent the whole night in her room, and he only left this morning. His wife, Hsi-men Ta-chieh, and Yüan-hsiao did not spend the night in the front compound.”

  When Ch’un-mei returned to Chin-lien’s quarters, she told her all about it, word for word, and concluded, “If you don’t give that slave a few strokes of the rod, but allow her to carry on this way with her:

  Deceitful mouth and duplicitous tongue,

  you might as well be giving her the license to do you in.”

  On hearing this, Chin-lien became enraged, summoned Ch’iu-chü into her presence, and made her kneel down before her, saying, “I told you to boil up some congee, but you only managed to break the pot. I dare say:

  The hole in your bottom’s so big:

  Your mind has dropped out,

  or something of the sort. Since I haven’t beaten this slave for several days, her bones have begun to itch.”

  Thereupon, taking up a rod, she gave her thirty cruel strokes on the back with all her strength until she:

  Howled like a stuck pig,

  and the skin on her body was broken.