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

by Roy, David Tod

  When Yüeh-niang, Meng Yü-lou, and the others had returned to the rear compound after seeing him off, Sun Hsüeh-o surreptitiously whispered to him, “You should feel free to come back here as often as you like. What is there to be afraid of? If I have anything to say to you, I’ll have Lai-chao’s wife tell you about it. Tomorrow evening, I’ll wait for you here inside the ceremonial gate in the little anteroom next to the crape myrtle hedge.”

  The two of them exchanged winks with each other, the meaning of which was not lost on Lai-wang, and he went on to ask, “Is this ceremonial gate closed at night, or not?”

  Sun Hsüeh-o responded, thus and so, “When you come, go to Lai-chao’s quarters first, and wait until nightfall, after which, you can scale the wall with a ladder, and then make your way along the other side of the latticework partition. I’ll help you down on this side, and the two of us can get together again. There are some personal thoughts that I want to share with you.”

  When Lai-wang heard these words, truly:

  Joy manifested itself about his temples;

  Delight spread itself across his cheeks,

  and, saying good-bye to Sun Hsüeh-o, he proceeded to take up his carrying pole and go out the gate. Truly:

  Without the help of an insider,

  A household cannot be broached.

  There is a poem that testifies to this:

  Idle, with nothing to do, while merely

  leaning against the doorjamb,

  He encounters a lover with whom he once

  enjoyed a deeply felt affair.

  Not daring to speak loudly enough to

  be overheard by anyone else,

  She clearly reveals her ardor with the

  autumn ripples of her eyes.

  Lai-wang proceeded happily on his way home. Concerning that evening there is nothing more to relate.

  The next day, he did not take up his carrying pole and go out to peddle his wares but slowly sauntered back and forth in front of Hsi-men Ch’ing’s gate waiting for Lai-chao to come out.

  When he did so, Lai-wang greeted him with a bow, to which Lai-chao responded by saying, “What a rare bird you are, Brother Wang. Long time no see.”

  “Having nothing to do,” Lai-wang said, “I’ve dropped by for a visit. The young lady Sun Hsüeh-o from the rear compound owes me several mace of silver for some trinkets she purchased from me, and I have come by to collect the payment.”

  “In that case,” responded Lai-chao, “come into my place and have a seat.”

  So saying, he ushered Lai-wang into his quarters.

  “Why is my sister-in-law not to be seen?” asked Lai-wang.

  “Your sister-in-law is on duty in the kitchen in the rear compound today,” explained Lai-chao.

  Lai-wang then groped out a tael’s worth of silver and handed it to Lai-chao, saying, “These few pieces of silver should suffice to purchase a jug of wine for my brother and sister-in-law to enjoy with me.”

  “There is no need for that much,” said Lai-chao.

  So saying, he called over his son Little Iron Rod. Little Iron Rod, who had just recently put up his hair on reaching the age of fourteen, went out with a jug and came back with a large vessel of wine, after which, he was sent to the rear compound to summon “The Beanpole.”

  It was not long before “The Beanpole” showed up with a covered pewter pot of heated rice, a large bowl of boiled hash, and two side dishes, to go with the wine, saying, “How nice it is to see Brother Wang here.”

  Lai-chao then brought out the silver that Lai-wang had given him and showed it to “The Beanpole,” saying, “Our brother has given this to us with which to buy a jug of wine for our enjoyment.”

  “The Beanpole” laughed at this, saying, “To enjoy something we have done nothing to deserve is hardly the right thing to do.”

  She then set up a bed table on the k’ang, invited Lai-wang to sit down at it, laid out the refreshments, and decanted the wine. Lai-wang promptly responded by filling a cup of wine to the brim and offering it to Lai-chao, after which, he poured out another cup and presented it to “The Beanpole.”

  Bowing deeply to them, he said, “It is some time since I have seen my brother and sister-in-law. These cups of watery wine are intended to show my filial respect for the two of you.”

  “We are hardly likely to accuse you of sponging off us,” said “The Beanpole.” “But:

  When addressing sincere people,

  You must not speak insincerely.

  The young lady Sun Hsüeh-o in the rear compound appealed to us for help yesterday. She said that:

  Your old feelings for each other remained intact,14

  and asked the two of us, thus and so, if we could help you to get together again. You had better not pretend to be:

  Still asleep in dreamland.

  If you want to find the route down the mountain,

  You had better ask someone who has been over it.15

  If you should find a way to be reunited, and gain anything in the process:

  Don’t try to keep it all for yourself; but

  Spare us a mouthful of leftover gravy.

  After all, we are putting ourselves at considerable risk on your behalf.”

  Lai-wang responded by getting down on his knees and saying, “All I am hoping for is that my brother and sister-in-law will consent to help us get together again. If so:

  I will never dare to forget it.”

  When they had concluded this exchange, they proceeded to enjoy their wine for a while, after which “The Beanpole” went back to the rear compound to tell Sun Hsüeh-o about it.

  Upon returning, she said, “We have agreed that you should come back this evening and hide out in our quarters until the ceremonial gate has been closed for the night and the residents of the rear compound have gone to bed, after which, you can climb over the wall and:

  Seize the opportunity to do what you want.”16

  There is a poem that testifies to this:

  Just retribution is absolutely devoid of bias;17

  It follows as inevitably as shadows or echoes.

  If you seek the causes of bad or good fortune;

  Simply scrutinize the deeds that one has done.18

  On hearing these words, Lai-wang went home and could hardly wait for the evening, when he slipped surreptitiously into Lai-chao’s quarters and proceeded to share some wine with the two of them until late at night without anyone else being aware of his presence. After the main gate of the residence had been closed, and the crossbar had been locked in place on the ceremonial gate, the residents of the household, both high and low, all went to bed.

  The two of them had arranged a secret signal, so as soon as Lai-wang heard the sound of Sun Hsüeh-o coughing, he proceeded to mount a ladder, crawl onto the plastered wall, and make his way along the other side of the latticework partition to the point at which Sun Hsüeh-o stood ready to help him down onto a bench.

  The two of them then retired to the little anteroom on the western side of the courtyard that was used for storing saddles, where they fell to:

  Hugging and embracing each other,

  as they went on to engage in the game of clouds and rain together. It was a meeting between a widower and a widow with:

  The fire of lust in their hearts.

  As for Lai-wang:

  His tasseled spear was impetuous,

  and he worked it with all his strength for some time until his pleasure reached its height as his semen began to flow, and he:

  Ejaculated like a geyser.

  When they had finished their business together, Sun Hsüeh-o handed him a bundle containing some gold and silver head ornaments, several taels worth of silver, and two outfits of satin clothing and said, “You should come back again tomorrow evening. I still have some other valuables I can turn over to you then. You might as well start looking outside for a safe place for us to go. This household is no place for me to remain in the future. It would be better if the two of us could
abscond together and find a place to stay outside where we could become man and wife. Since you have mastered the craft of a silversmith, there is no reason to worry about our being able to make a living.”

  “At the present time,” responded Lai-wang, “there happens to be a maternal aunt of mine who lives on Polished Rice Lane outside the East Gate of the city. She practices midwifery and is well-known in the neighborhood as Midwife Ch’ü. It is an out-of-the-way location where we can safely escape observation. The two of us might as well seek refuge there for a while, and if we see that the coast is clear I can take you with me to my native place, buy a few acres of land, and plant some crops in order to support ourselves.”

  When the two of them had agreed on this plan, Lai-wang said good-bye to Sun Hsüeh-o, clambered back over the wall, and returned to Lai-chao’s quarters, where he waited until the main gate was opened early the next morning and slipped furtively outside.

  Lai-wang Absconds over the Wall with Sun Hsüeh-o

  At dusk that day, he returned to the gate and slipped back into Lai-chao’s quarters. That night, he climbed over the wall once again and made out with Sun Hsüeh-o. After this, as the mornings and evenings succeeded one another, he met with her in this way on more than one occasion. They also took advantage of the opportunity to make off with a lot of valuable objects, gold and silver utensils, clothing, and so forth. Lai-chao and his wife also fattened themselves by appropriating a share of these stolen goods, but there is no need to describe this in detail.

  One day, in the rear compound, Yüeh-niang, who was feeling out of sorts because she feared that Hsiao-ko might be coming down with smallpox, went to bed earlier than usual. The maidservant in Sun Hsüeh-o’s quarters at the time was Chung-ch’iu, who had originally worked for Hsi-men Ta-chieh but had been reassigned to Sun Hsüeh-o’s quarters by Yüeh-niang because Ch’en Ching-chi had asked for Yüan-hsiao, who had formerly served in Li Chiao-erh’s quarters. Yüeh-niang had complied with this request by reassigning Chung-ch’iu to Sun Hsüeh-o’s quarters, and ordering Yüan-hsiao to work for Hsi-men Ta-chieh. That night, after Sun Hsüeh-o had made sure that Chung-ch’iu was asleep, she proceeded to assemble a large bundle of hairpins, earrings, and head ornaments in her bedroom, packed them in a box, wrapped her head in a kerchief, and put on her traveling clothes. She had previously arranged with Lai-wang that he should wait for her in Lai-chao’s quarters so the two of them could abscond together.

  Lai-chao said to them, “I have no problem with your making good your escape, but I am responsible for the front gate and cannot afford to let so much as a duckling get away. If the First Lady finds out what has happened and demands to know why I didn’t stop you, what am I to say? It would be better if the two of you were to go out over the roof, and break a few tiles in the process, so there will be some evidence of how you got away.”

  “Brother,” responded Lai-wang, “what you say makes sense.”

  Sun Hsüeh-o also gave them a silver ewer with a hinged lid, a gold earpick, a black satin jacket, and a yellow satin skirt to thank them for their assistance. They decided to wait until the fifth watch when the moon was dark before climbing over the roof.

  Lai-chao and his wife poured out two large goblets of heated wine and offered them to Lai-wang and Sun Hsüeh-o, saying, “This will facilitate your escape, and serve to buck up your spirits on the way.”

  They continued drinking until the fifth watch, when the two of them, while holding sticks of incense, climbed up the ladder and helped each other onto the roof. As they moved across it:

  Step by step,

  they dislodged and broke a considerable number of tiles. When they had climbed as far as the eaves on the front of the building, they saw that there were still no pedestrians in the street, though they could hear the sound made by a patrolling watchman. Lai-wang was the first to jump to the ground and then helped Sun Hsüeh-o down by allowing her to stand on his shoulders and then lifting her the rest of the way.

  The two of them made their way forward, but when they arrived at a crossroads they were stopped by a patrolman, who demanded to know, “Where are the two of you going?”

  This had the effect of throwing Sun Hsüeh-o into a state of panic, but Lai-wang responded:

  Neither hurriedly nor hastily,

  by pointing to the stick of government-grade incense in his hand, and saying, “We are a married couple, and are on our way to burn incense at the Temple of the God of the Eastern Peak outside the city wall. We are earlier than we should be but hope that you will not hold it against us.”

  “And what have you got in that bundle you are carrying?” the officer went on to ask.

  “It is a supply of incense, candles, and paper money,” said Lai-wang.

  “If the two of you are going to burn incense at the Temple of the God of the Eastern Peak,” the officer responded, “that is a worthy undertaking, and you may continue quickly on your way.”

  This was just the signal Lai-wang was waiting for. Taking Sun Hsüeh-o by the hand, he proceeded to fly forward as fast as he could go. When they arrived at the city wall, the gate had just opened, and, insinuating themselves into the crowd, they made their way inconspicuously outside the city wall. After turning down a number of streets and alleys, they arrived at Polished Rice Lane, which was an out-of-the-way place, occupied by only a few families, living in:

  Low-lying houses and humble dwellings,

  that backed on the embankment of a large pond.

  When they arrived at Midwife Ch’ü’s house, she had not yet opened the door. They had to call out for what seemed like half a day before she got up to open the door, and caught sight of Lai-wang with a woman in tow. It so happens that Lai-wang’s surname had originally been Cheng, so he was known to her as Cheng Wang.

  “This woman is my newly acquired wife,” he explained to her. “If you have the room to accommodate us for a little while, we can go on to look for a place of our own.”

  So saying, he handed her three taels of silver with which to purchase kindling and rice. When Midwife Ch’ü saw the gold and silver head ornaments they had with them, she realized that their provenance was suspicious.

  Her son, Ch’ü T’ang, upon seeing that his mother had agreed to accommodate Cheng Wang and his wife, and that they had brought these things with them:

  On seeing their value developed ideas.

  Prizing open the door to their room, he made off with some of the valuables and went out to gamble with them but was apprehended, confessed to the circumstances, and was brought before the district magistrate. When District Magistrate Li Ch’ang-ch’i saw that they were stolen objects, and that the evidence of this was clear, he dispatched runners to take Ch’ü T’ang to his home and trussed Cheng Wang and Sun Hsüeh-o together with a single length of rope. Sun Hsüeh-o was so frightened that her face turned as sallow as wax, and she proceeded to change into her everyday clothes, put on a pair of eye shades, and tear the rings off her fingers to give to the runners. They were then escorted under guard to confront the magistrate. This event created something of an uproar in the neighborhood, and people came out onto the street to see what was going on.

  Among them there were those who recognized them and said, “She is a concubine from Hsi-men Ch’ing’s household who has run away with the servant Lai-wang. He was formerly driven into exile but has come back under the name Cheng Wang, fornicated with her, and colluded with her in running off with stolen property, in order to go live together somewhere else. Once there, they have been ripped off in turn by this Ch’ü T’ang, and now that their crimes have been brought to light, they are being taken to confront the magistrate.”

  There and then:

  The news spread from one person to ten,

  And then from ten persons to a hundred.19

  The mouths of the pedestrians on the road

  cause stories to fly.20

  Let us revert to the story of Yüeh-niang back at home. When Sun Hsüeh-o absconded, and her maidservant
Chung-ch’iu discovered that the valuables and head ornaments in her cabinet were all gone, and that her clothes had been left:

  Scattered about in a state of disorder,

  and reported these facts to Yüeh-niang, she was taken completely by surprise.

  “Since you slept with her,” said Yüeh-niang, “how could you have failed to detect the fact that she was bent on eloping?”

  “She was in the habit,” responded Chung-ch’iu, “of sneaking outside during the night, and only returning after what seemed like half a day. I did not know what she was up to.”

  Yüeh-niang also interrogated Lai-chao, saying, “Since you are in charge of the main gate, how could anyone have escaped without your knowing it?”

  “The main gate is locked every night,” responded Lai-chao. “She could hardly have gotten out unless she flew off like a bird.”

  Later on, it was only when the broken tiles on the top of the building were discovered that she realized she must have escaped by going over the roof. Yüeh-niang did not venture to send anyone out to look for her, deciding that she had better repress her feelings and put up with the situation.

  Who could have anticipated that when the district magistrate undertook to hear the case he started out by subjecting Ch’ü T’ang to the squeezers, which resulted in the recovery of four gold head ornaments, three silver ornaments, a pair of gold earrings, two silver goblets, five taels worth of loose silver, two outfits of clothing, a handkerchief, and a box. From Cheng Wang he recovered thirty taels of silver, a pair of gold hairpins with bowl-shaped ends, a pin in the shape of a Taoist goddess, and four rings. From Sun Hsüeh-o he recovered a gold clasp for the top of the coiffure, a pair of silver bracelets, five sets of gold buttons, four pairs of silver hairpins, and a package of loose silver. From Midwife Ch’ü he recovered three taels of silver. The magistrate issued a tentative ruling that Lai-wang was guilty of the crime of a servant engaging in fornication with his employer and stealing her goods, that Ch’ü T’ang was also guilty of larceny, both of which were miscellaneous capital crimes, commutable to five years of penal exile, and that the stolen goods were all subject to confiscation by the state. He then sentenced Sun Hsüeh-o, Hsi-men Ch’ing’s former concubine, as well as Midwife Ch’ü, to be subjected to the squeezers before the court. Midwife Ch’ü acknowledged her guilt and was released; but as for Sun Hsüeh-o, the magistrate directed runners from the district yamen to go to Hsi-men Ch’ing’s household and request a formal document agreeing to resume responsibility for her.