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

by Roy, David Tod

  Sun Hsüeh-o Suffers Abuse in Chou Hsiu’s Household

  Wu Yüeh-niang consulted with her elder brother Wu K’ai about what to do, and they concluded that since she had already created a scandal by her conduct, there was no point in taking her back, since her presence would only serve to further damage the family’s reputation. They therefore paid off the runners and asked them to convey this message to the magistrate, who accordingly called in an official go-between and arranged for her to be put up for sale under judicial auspices.

  To resume our story, meanwhile, in the commandant’s quarters, Ch’un-mei heard it reported that Sun Hsüeh-o from Hsi-men Ch’ing’s household had, thus and so, been abducted by Lai-wang, who had also made off with some valuables, and then taken her to live with him elsewhere; but that the matter had come to light, and she had been taken before the magistrate and was now being offered for sale under judicial auspices. No sooner did Ch’un-mei hear this than it occurred to her that she would like to purchase her and put her to work in the kitchen, so she could slap her in the face, and thus repay her for her former hostility.

  She therefore said to Commandant Chou Hsiu, “This Sun Hsüeh-o is a skillful cook, capable of producing excellent fare. Why don’t we buy her so she can serve us here at home?”

  The commandant forthwith dispatched Chang Sheng and Li An to deliver his card to the magistrate and transmit this request. The magistrate, seeing this as a chance to curry influence by doing a favor, agreed to sell her for a mere eight taels of silver, and, after paying over the money, they brought her back to Chou Hsiu’s residence and introduced her first to his principal wife, and then to his concubine Sun Erh-niang. Only after this was she taken to meet Ch’un-mei in her quarters.

  Ch’un-mei had only just arisen from her bedstead with its incised gold ornamentation and its brocaded curtains, when her maidservants brought Sun Hsüeh-o in to meet her. Upon seeing that it was Ch’un-mei, all Sun Hsüeh-o could do was to bend low as she stepped forward, kneel down on the floor, and kowtow to her four times.

  Ch’un-mei responded by opening her eyes wide, calling for the servant’s wife who was on duty at the time, and ordering her, “Take charge of this worthless creature for me, strip off the fret from her coiffure, remove her outer garments, and drive her into the kitchen so she can light the stove and do the cooking for me.”

  On hearing this, Sun Hsüeh-o had no alternative but to groan to herself in silence. It has always been the case that:

  The planks used in wall building are sometimes

  on top and sometimes on the bottom;

  The servile sweeper of the rice will sometimes

  rise to become head of the granary.21

  When confronted with low eaves,

  How can we not lower our heads?

  Upon finding herself in this situation, all Sun Hsüeh-o could do was to remove the fret on her coiffure, change out of her fancy clothing, and head for the kitchen with a sorrowful expression on her face. There is a poem that testifies to this:

  The Calico Bag Monk22 has made his way as

  far as Ming-chou;

  With his walking stick and straw sandals

  he wanders at will.

  No matter how many myriad transformations

  you can perform;

  Every incarnation must cope with its own

  burden of sorrow.23

  If you want to know the outcome of these events,

  Pray consult the story related in the following chapter.

  Chapter 91

  MENG YÜ-LOU IS HAPPY TO MARRY LI KUNG-PI;

  LI KUNG-PI IN A FIT OF RAGE BEATS YÜ-TSAN

  Our hundred years of life pass by

  as though in flight;

  Among them, the flowering seasons

  do not last for long.

  When autumn congeals the white dew

  the crickets cry;

  At twilight during the late spring

  the cuckoos weep.

  Wealth, eminence, and luxury1 are

  blights upon the body;

  Renown and great achievements are

  specters in the eyes.

  Spring dreams are phenomena created

  by humans themselves;

  The retributions ordained by azure

  Heaven are not unjust.

  THE STORY GOES that, one day, Ch’en Ching-chi heard from Auntie Hsüeh that Sun Hsüeh-o from the household of Hsi-men Ch’ing had committed adultery with Lai-wang and absconded with him, along with a quantity of stolen property, to some place outside, but that their crimes had come to light, and she had been put up for sale by the district magistrate, and sold into the household of Commandant Chou Hsiu, where she was subjected to beating and abuse at the hands of Ch’un-mei both day and night.

  Ch’en Ching-chi took advantage of this opportunity to send Auntie Hsüeh to Hsi-men Ch’ing’s place to say to Yüeh-niang, “I have heard ‘wind-borne words’ to the effect that Ch’en Ching-chi has openly announced that he no longer wants Hsi-men Ta-chieh as his wife; and that he has drafted formal complaints to submit to the grand coordinator and the regional inspector of the province asserting that Hsi-men Ch’ing, while still alive, had sequestered trunks of gold and silver and other valuables that his family had entrusted to him for safekeeping.”

  Yüeh-niang, first, because Sun Hsüeh-o had absconded with Lai-wang and made off with a quantity of valuables; second, because the servant Lai-an had run away; and third, because Lai-hsing’s wife Hui-hsiu had died, and her obsequies had only just been concluded, already felt herself to be overburdened with:

  Seven of this and eight of that.

  Consequently, when she heard what Auntie Hsüeh had to say, she was thrown into a state of panic and promptly hired a sedan chair in which to send Hsi-men Ta-chieh back to her husband. She also got together all the furniture, trunks, and other things that she had been provided with as her dowry and had Tai-an hire bearers to deliver them to Ch’en Ching-chi’s place.

  Ch’en Ching-chi responded to this by saying, “These are merely the things that she brought with her as her dowry. The trunkloads of valuables and gold and silver that my family entrusted to them must also be returned to me.”

  “Your mother-in-law,” reported Auntie Hsüeh, “claims that when your father-in-law was still alive, he only took responsibility for accepting these articles from her dowry, and that she knows nothing of these other trunkloads that you refer to.”

  Ch’en Ching-chi also demanded that the maidservant Yüan-hsiao should be turned over to him.

  When Auntie Hsüeh and Tai-an reported this to Yüeh-niang, she said, “I would prefer not to turn Yüan-hsiao over to him. This maidservant originally worked in Li Chiao-erh’s quarters. Right now, I have nobody to look after Hsiao-ko, and I would like to keep her here for that purpose. I would be willing to let him have Chung-ch’iu, however, since she was originally purchased in order to serve Hsi-men Ta-chieh.”

  But Ch’en Ching-chi refused to accept Chung-ch’iu, and Auntie Hsüeh was obliged to go back and forth repeatedly to negotiate between the two households.

  Ch’en Ching-chi’s mother, née Chang, finally said to Tai-an, “Brother, when you return home please convey my respects to the First Lady, but since you have so many maidservants available in your household, how can she be so reluctant to relinquish this one on the grounds that she needs her to look after her child? Since she has been serving in Hsi-men Ta-chieh’s quarters all this time, and her son-in-law has already deflowered her, how can she be so insistent on retaining her?”

  When Tai-an went home and reported this to Yüeh-niang, she found herself:

  At a loss for words,2

  and felt compelled to deliver Yüan-hsiao to Ch’en Ching-chi.

  Ch’en Ching-chi was delighted to receive her and remarked to himself, “So it turns out that, somehow or other, things have ended up going my way after all:

  Though you may be as devious as any demon,

  You’ll drink the water I�
��ve washed my feet in.”

  Let us put this strand of our narrative aside for a moment and speak of something else.

  To return to the story of District Magistrate Li Ch’ang-ch’i’s son Li Kung-pi; ever since the day of the Ch’ing-ming Festival on which he had caught sight of Wu Yüeh-niang and Meng Yü-lou in front of the tavern in Apricot Blossom Village outside the city, when he had noticed that the two of them were similarly dressed and both good-looking, sent Trifler Chang to identify them, and thereby found out that they were womenfolk from Hsi-men Ch’ing’s household, he had fallen in love with Meng Yü-lou. He had observed that she had a tall and slender figure, and a face shaped like a melon seed, and though she had a few inconspicuous white pockmarks on her face, her demeanor was romantic and alluring.

  It so happens that Li Kung-pi’s wife had died, and he had been living the life of a widower for some time. He had engaged go-betweens to look for a suitable wife for him, but so far none of the prospects they came up with appealed to him. Now that he had encountered Meng Yü-lou, his heart was stirred, but:

  There was no way he could gain access to her;

  and he did not know whether she was prepared to remarry, or whether she would accept him or not. Unexpectedly, when Sun Hsüeh-o’s case happened to come before the magistrate’s court, and he learned that she had been a member of Hsi-men Ch’ing’s household, he exerted himself to see to it that the culprits were interrogated with the squeezers before his father’s bench, and the stolen property duly retrieved, in the expectation that someone from the Hsi-men Ch’ing household would come to take possession of it. But Yüeh-niang was afraid and refused to send anyone to appear before the court, with the result that Li Kung-pi was disappointed, the stolen property was confiscated by the state, and Sun Hsüeh-o was put up for sale.

  At this point, he consulted with his friend the clerk on the staff of the district yamen named Ho Pu-wei, and they decided to send Old Mother T’ao, the licensed go-between, to Hsi-men Ch’ing’s place to see if a match could be arranged; promising her that if she succeeded in bringing it about, she would no longer be required to report for duty at the yamen and would be rewarded with five taels of silver.

  Old Mother T’ao was delighted by this proposition and set out forthwith:

  Running as fast as though she had wings,

  straight to the gate of Hsi-men Ch’ing’s residence.

  Lai-chao was standing there at the time and saw Old Mother T’ao come forward, greet him with a bow, and inquire, “Brother, is this the residence of His Honor Hsi-men Ch’ing?”

  “Where have you come from?” asked Lai-chao. “This is the home of His Honor Hsi-men Ch’ing, but His Honor is deceased. What have you come for?”

  “I would trouble you,” said Old Mother T’ao, “to go inside and report my arrival. I am the officially licensed go-between of the district yamen, and my name is Old Mother T’ao. The young squire, the son of the district magistrate, has informed me that there is a lady in your household who wishes to be married, and I have come to respectfully propose a match between them.”

  “You old baggage!” Lai-chao shouted at her. “How unreasonable can you get? His Honor, the head of this household, has been dead for more than a year, and there are only two of his ladies left, who are both bent on preserving their widowhood, and are not about to marry anyone. As the saying goes:

  Even to escape wild winds and violent rains,

  One should not seek to enter a widow’s door.3

  How can a go-between like yourself:

  As if you didn’t know any better,

  barge in to propose such a match? You’d better get out of here. If the ladies in the rear compound find out about it, you’re likely to get a good beating for your pains.”

  Old Mother T’ao merely laughed at this, saying, “Brother, as the saying goes:

  Even if the order of an official or clerk is wrong,

  The person deputed to carry it out is not to blame.4

  If the young squire had not sent me on this mission, I would hardly have ventured to come on my own initiative. No matter whether she is willing to remarry or not, I would trouble you to go inside and convey the proposal so that I can report back on my mission.”

  “So be it,” responded Lai-chao.

  “To do someone else a favor,

  Is to do a favor to oneself.5

  If you will wait a little while, I will go inside and convey your message. Of the two ladies of the household, one of them has a son, and the other does not. Which of the two ladies do you think might be willing to remarry?”

  Old Mother T’ao responded, “The young squire from the district yamen said that he had seen her out in the suburbs on the day of the Ch’ing-ming Festival, and that it was the lady with a few white pockmarks on her face.”

  When Lai-chao heard this, he went back to the rear compound and reported, thus and so, to Yüeh-niang, saying, “The district yamen has sent an official go-between to come here, and she is waiting outside.”

  This caught Yüeh-niang by surprise, and she exclaimed, “Not even half a word of what goes on here in our household is ever leaked abroad. How could anyone outside know anything about it?”

  “The young squire from the district yamen,” responded Lai-chao, “caught sight of the lady in question out in the suburbs on the day of the Ch’ing-ming Festival. He says that the lady in question is the one with a few white pockmarks on her face.”

  “It must be Sister Meng the Third that he’s referring to,” said Yüeh-niang. “It would seem that:

  Even during the twelfth month the frozen heart of

  the turnip is capable of being moved.6

  All of a sudden, she wants to better her condition by marrying someone, does she? Truly:

  In this world even the depth of the

  ocean may be gauged;

  It is the human heart alone that is

  difficult to measure.”7

  So saying, she went into Meng Yü-lou’s quarters, where she sat down and said, “Sister Meng the Third, there is something I would like to ask you about. There is a go-between out front, who says that the young squire from the district yamen claims that he saw you on the day of the Ch’ing-ming Festival, and that you would like to better your condition by getting married. Is there any truth to this?”

  Gentle reader take note: On that occasion:

  Without coincidences there would be no stories.

  It has always been true that:

  A marriage affinity connects people by a single thread.

  On that day, out in the suburbs, when Meng Yü-lou observed that the young squire possessed a handsome demeanor, was:

  As romantic and dashing as can be,

  and that the two of them were about the same age, as well as the fact that he was adept at horsemanship and archery:

  Their mutual feelings were visible in their four eyes,8

  There was no longer any need to express them in words.

  The only problem was that she did not know whether he already had a wife or not.

  From her mouth no word was uttered, but

  In her heart she figured to herself,

  “My husband is already dead, and I have not borne a child of my own. Although the First Lady has a son, when he grows up in the days to come, since:

  Everyone cares the most for his own flesh and blood,

  he is sure to cling to his own mother, and I will face the fact that:

  The fallen tree no longer provides shade,

  and that I will be obliged to:

  Try to dip up water with a bamboo basket.

  I have also observed that since Yüeh-niang gave birth to Hsiao-ko, her disposition has changed, and she does not care for me as much as she used to. I might as well take a step forward on my own, and seek a refuge where:

  The fallen leaves can return to the root.

  Why should I insist on foolishly preserving my widowhood here, only to end up:

  Squandering the springtime />
  season of my youth,

  And forgoing the pleasures

  of my early years?”

  She had just been engaged in pondering this question when Yüeh-niang unexpectedly came in and spoke to her about it. Thus it turned out to be the very gentleman that she had been attracted to out in the suburbs on the day of the Ch’ing-ming Festival that was expressing an interest in her.

  Meng Yü-lou Considers Marrying Li Kung-pi

  She was both delighted and embarrassed by this development, but although she responded by saying, “First Lady, don’t believe any such nonsense, I never expressed such a wish,” the blood flew to her cheeks.

  Truly:

  Suppressing her embarrassment, she is disinclined

  to open her mouth in public,

  Tidying the hair over her temples, without a word,

  she only adjusts her tresses.

  “This is the sort of question it is up to the individual to decide,” said Yüeh-niang. “I can’t be bothered by such things.”

  So saying, she called in Lai-chao and told him, “You go out and invite that go-between to come inside.”

  Lai-chao, accordingly, went out to the front gate and called for Old Mother T’ao to follow him back to the rear compound into the parlor in Yüeh-niang’s quarters, where Hsi-men Ch’ing’s spirit tablet was displayed in the position of honor at the head of the room. When Old Mother T’ao had finished exchanging the customary amenities with her host, she sat down, and the young maidservant Hsiu-ch’un poured her a serving of tea.

  When she had finished her tea, Yüeh-niang asked, “Go-between, what brings you here?”