by Cao Xueqin
The intensity of Caltrop’s application had, in fact, induced a concentration of the vital fluids which, finding no outlet during the daytime, had resulted in her being able to produce a whole eight-line poem in her sleep. She wrote it down as soon as she had combed and washed, and then went out to look for the others.
At Drenched Blossoms, in the little pavilion on the bridge, she came upon Li Wan and the cousins on the way back from their morning duty-call on Lady Wang. Bao-chai was just telling them how Caltrop had composed a poem while she was dreaming and how she had cried out in her sleep, and the others were laughing as they listened. When they looked up and saw Caltrop herself approaching them, they eagerly asked her if they might see her poem.
For further details, please see the following chapter.
Chapter 49
Red flowers bloom brighter in dazzling snow
And venison reeks strangely on rosebud lips
WHEN Caltrop saw the cousins talking and laughing about her, she came forward, smiling herself, and handed the poem she was carrying to Dai-yu.
‘See what you think of this one,’ she said. ‘If this one is all right, I shall go on learning; if it’s still no good, I shall just have to give up the whole idea.’
The others clustered round Dai-yu to look. This is what they read:
Ethereal splendour no cloud can blot out!
Chaste lovely presence of the cold night sky!
From a white world the washer’s dull thud sounds,
Till in the last watch cocks begin to cry,
While, by a fisherman’s sad flute entranced,
A lady leans out from her casement high;
And you, White Goddess, lulled in sweet delight,
Wish every night could be a fifteenth night.
There were exclamations from all of them when they had finished reading it.
‘But this is not just “all right”,’ they said, ‘this is a good and highly original poem. It shows the truth of the proverb: “Nothing is too difficult for one who has a mind to do it.” We shall definitely be inviting you now to join our poetry club.’
Caltrop, supposing that they were only saying this to humour her, could not quite believe them and continued to press Dai-yu and Bao-chai for the truth.
Just at that moment a number of maids and old serving-women came hurrying towards them in a state of great excitement:
‘Mrs Zhu! Young ladies! Come and meet your relations! A whole lot of young ladies and other people we’ve never seen before have just arrived.’
Li Wan laughed.
‘What are you talking about? Whose relations have just arrived?’
‘There are two young cousins of yours, Mrs Zhu,’ they said, ‘and there’s a young lady who says she’s Miss Bao’s cousin, and a young gentleman that’s cousin to Mr Xue. We’re on our way now to fetch Mrs Xue. Why don’t you and the young ladies go on ahead and meet them?’
They hurried off to complete their mission.
‘It sounds as if my cousin Xue Ke and his sister must have come,’ said Bao-chai. ‘Can it be them, though?’
‘And it sounds as if my Aunt Li must have decided to bring her two daughters to the capital,’ said Li Wan. ‘But how strange that they should have arrived together!’
When she and the cousins entered Lady Wang’s main reception room, they found it packed with people. Apart from the ones whom the servants had mentioned, they found Lady Xing’s brother’s wife with her daughter Xing Xiu-yan. The
three of them, Lady Xing’s brother and his wife and daughter, had come up to the capital to put themselves under the protection of Lady Xing. By a coincidence Xi-feng’s brother Wang Ren was starting out for the capital just as they were planning to set out themselves, so, on the strength of the marriage connection (Wang Ren being the brother of Lady Xing’s daughter-in-law), they had elected to travel in his company.
While stopping at one of the canal ports half-way along their route, they had made the acquaintance of Li Wan’s widowed aunt and her two daughters, Li Wen and Li Qi, also on their way to the capital, and when it emerged that all of them were
marriage-relations of the Jia family, these three, too, had joined the party. A little after this, Xue Pan’s cousin Xue Ke had decided to bring his sister Bao-qin to the capital to attend to the formalities of her betrothal. Some years previously
her father, while temporarily residing in the capital, had promised her to the son of a certain Academician Mei, but had died before the betrothal could be made formal. Hearing that his
aunt’s kinsman Wang Ren was also on his way to the capital, Xue Ke and his sister had pushed on ahead to join him. Thus it was that today all these people presented themselves simultaneously at the Rong mansion looking for their various relations.
When at last the introductions and courtesies were over, it became clear that Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang were delighted with the new arrivals.
‘I knew something nice was going to happen from the way the lampwick was behaving last night,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘It kept flaring up and then forming into little balls at the top. You see, I was right!’
A general exchange of family talk ensued, and the handing over by the visitors of the presents they had brought with them. After that Grandmother Jia invited them all to take lunch with her, with wine to celebrate.
Xi-feng, it goes without saying, was now busier than ever. Li Wan and Bao-chai, who had a great deal of catching up on family news to do, were also kept busy exchanging information with their relations about all the things that had happened during the years since they last met. Dai-yu, observing them, at first shared in their happiness, but when she began to reflect on the contrast with her own solitary and orphaned state, she was obliged to go away in order to hide her tears. Bao-yu, well aware of the reason for her sudden disappearance, went after her, and with a good deal of coaxing, succeeded at last in comforting her.
As soon as Dai-yu had dried her tears, Bao-yu hurried back to Green Delights to tell Aroma, Musk and Skybright about the visitors.
‘You ought to go and have a look,’ he told them. ‘This nephew of my Aunt Xue’s is completely different from Cousin Pan. From his looks and behaviour you’d think he was Bao-chai’s brother. He’s certainly more like her than Pan is. And as for the sister – you’re always saying what a beauty Cousin Chai is, but wait till you’ve seen her! And then there are my sister-in-law’s two cousins – well, words just fail me! Heavenly lord, what a store of beauty you must have at your disposal to be able to produce such paragons! I’ve been like the frog living at the bottom of the well who thought the world was a little round pool of water. Up to now I’ve always believed that the girls in this household were without equals anywhere; but now, even without my needing to go outside, here they come, each one more beautiful than the last! Today has been an education for me. Don’t tell me there are any more like this: the shock would be too great!’
He laughed excitedly. Aroma saw that he was in one of his crazy moods and refused to go and look. But Skybright and the others were more curious and at once hurried over for a peep. They returned soon after, full of smiles, to report on what they had seen.
‘Do go and look!’ they urged Aroma. ‘There’s Lady Xing’s niece and this cousin of Miss Bao’s and Mrs Zhu’s two cousins: it’s not often you get a chance to see four such beautiful bulrushes together!’
Scarcely had these words been uttered when a smiling Tan-chun came in looking for Bao-yu.
‘Our poetry club is in luck,’ she said, finding him indoors with the maids. ‘Think of all those new members!’
‘Yes,’ said Bao-yu. ‘What a happy inspiration of yours it was to start it! It’s almost as though providence had sent these people here to make it prosper. But are you sure they can all write poetry?’
‘I’ve already asked them,’ said Tan-chun. ‘They are too modest to say outright, of course, but from what I can judge I’m pretty sure that either they all can, or even if they can’t, wo
uld learn very quickly. Look how quick Caltrop has been.’
‘Which of the four do you think is the prettiest, Miss?’ said Skybright. ‘I say Miss Bao’s cousin.’
‘Yes, I think I agree,’ said Tan-chun. ‘I think even Bao-chai is not quite as beautiful as her.’
Aroma had been listening to all this with growing curiosity.
‘This is certainly news to me!’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it possible to find anyone more beautiful than Miss Bao. I must go and have a look.’
‘Grandmother was completely captivated as soon as she set eyes on her,’ said Tan-chun. ‘She’s already insisted that Mother should become her godmother, and it’s decided that Grandmother shall bring her up as her own grandchild.’
‘Really?’ Bao-yu seemed delighted.
‘When have I ever told you a lie?’ said Tan-chun. There was a glint of mischief in her eye: ‘Now that she’s got such a beautiful granddaughter, she’ll probably lose interest in her darling grandson.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Bao-yu unconcernedly. ‘She ought to give preference to girls. That’s as it should be. By the way, it’s the sixteenth today. It’s the day for our poetry club meeting.’
‘Cousin Lin has only recently got up, and Ying-chun is ill again,’ said Tan-chun. ‘We’re not really in any shape for a meeting at the moment.’
‘Ying-chun doesn’t care much about writing poetry anyway,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Surely we can manage without her?’
‘Yes, but I think we ought to wait a few days, even so,’ said Tan-chun. ‘Why don’t we wait until we’ve got to know the newcomers a bit better and then invite them to join us? I shouldn’t think sister-in-law or Cousin Chai can either of them be much in the mood for writing poetry at the moment. And Xiang-yun isn’t here. And Frowner has only just recovered. No one is really up to it yet. We ought to wait until Yun arrives and the new lot have settled in; then, when Frowner is completely better and sister-in-law and Cousin Chai are a bit less preoccupied and Caltrop has made some more progress, we can invite everyone to a plenary session. What you and I ought to do now is go round to Grandma’s and see what arrangements are being made about these people’s accommodation. We know that Chai’s cousin is staying here, because Grandma has adopted her; but we don’t know yet about the others. If there are no plans for them to stay here, we must ask Grandma to invite them. If possible we should get her to let them live in the Garden. It would be fun to have some more neighbours.’
Bao-yu grew quite radiant at the thought.
‘How clever you are, Tan!’ he told his sister admiringly. ‘I’m such a stupid ass. I get so carried away that I don’t think about the important things like you do.’
Brother and sister then went together to Grandmother Jia’s apartment, where they found the old lady in wonderful high spirits following Lady Wang’s recognition of Xue Bao-quin as her god-daughter. She considered that this entitled her to treat the girl as her grandchild, which she had begun doing by insisting that she spend the nights with her in her apartment and not in the Garden with Bao-chai. Xue Ke would naturally stay with his aunt and occupy the study that Xue Pan had vacated.
‘This niece of yours surely doesn’t need to go back to her parents yet?’ Grandmother Jia said to Lady Xing. ‘Let her stay in the Garden for a few days and enjoy herself.’
Lady Xing’s brother and sister-in-law had been living in extremely straitened circumstances, and now that they had come up to the capital, were relying on her to provide them with accommodation and financial assistance. She was naturally only too delighted to have one less person to her charge, and promptly handed Xiu-yan over to Xi-feng to dispose of.
Bearing in mind the varied, somewhat peculiar, temperaments of the Garden’s inhabitants, Xi-feng doubted the wisdom of putting Xiu-yan in with one of the others; on the other hand she foresaw disadvantages in opening up a separate establishment for her. In the end she put her in with Ying-chun, reflecting that if the girl did experience any difficulties in living with Ying-chun, then even if Lady Xing got to hear of it, she, Xi-feng, could not be held responsible, since Ying-chun was Lady Xing’s own half-daughter.
From this time onwards, not counting the time she spent at home with her parents, Xiu-yan received, for every whole month that she lived with Ying-chun in Prospect Garden, an allowance from Xi-feng of exactly the same amount as the monthly allowance that was paid to Ying-chun herself.
To Xi-feng’s dispassionate eye it soon became apparent that in both temperament and behaviour Xiu-yan was quite unlike Lady Xing and her parents – that she was in fact an extremely sweet and lovable person. Sorry that so gentle a soul should be so poor and unfortunate, Xi-feng treated her with a tact and considerateness that she did not always show the others. Lady Xing, on the other hand, seemed scarcely aware of her niece’s existence.
Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang esteemed Li Wan as a good and virtuous young woman who, having lost her husband at an early age, bore widowhood with fortitude and restraint. Now that this widowed aunt had arrived, they refused to hear of her taking lodgings outside, and though the good lady made many polite efforts to decline, insisted that she and her two daughters, Li Wen and Li Qi, should move into Sweet-rice Village and stay there with Li Wan at the family’s expense.
No sooner had the new arrivals begun settling in than news came that Grandmother Jia’s nephew Shi Ding, the Marquis of Zhong-jing, was being transferred to an important position in one of the outer provinces and would shortly be leaving for his new post, taking his family with him. Grandmother Jia could not bear the idea of a permanent separation from her great-niece, and so it was agreed that Xiang-yun, too, should move into residence with the Jias. It was Grandmother Jia’s
original intention that Xi-feng should set up a separate establishment for her in the Garden; but as Xiang-yun herself rigorously opposed this idea and insisted on living with her beloved Bao-chai, she was allowed to have her way.
The Garden’s society was now larger and livelier than it had ever been before. With Li Wan as its doyenne it numbered – if you counted Xi-feng as an honorary member – thirteen people: Li Wan, Ying-chun, Tan-chun, Xi-chun, Bao-chai, Dai-yu, Xiang-yun, Li Wen, Li Qi, Bao-qin, Xing Xiu-yan, Bao-yu and Xi-feng. Apart from the two young married women, the rest were all fifteen, sixteen or seventeen years old. Most of them were in fact born in the same year, several of them in the same month or even on the same day. Not only Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang and the servants, even the young people themselves had difficulty in remembering who was senior to whom, and soon gave up trying, and abandoned any attempt at observing the usual formalities of address.
Caltrop could now think of nothing else all day long but writing poetry. Up to now she had refrained from importuning Bao-chai too persistently for advice, but with the arrival of an unwearying talker like Shi Xiang-yun upon the scene she was in her element. Xiang-yun was only too willing to accede to her requests for instruction, and morning, noon and night the two of them were to be found together, always in animated discussion.
‘You two are deafening me with your perpetual chatter,’ Bao-chai complained. ‘Imagine how ridiculous and un-maidenly it would seem to a man of letters if he heard that girls were treating poetry as a serious occupation! Caltrop on her own was bad enough, but with a chatterbox like you on top of it, Yun, I’m finding it a bit too much. Everywhere I go it’s “the profundity of Du Fu”, or “Wei Ying-wu of Soochow’s limpidity”, or “the somewhat meretricious charm of Wen Ting-yun”, or “Li Shang-yin’s obscurity”. Still, there are two important living poets I’ve so far heard no mention of.’
‘Oh?’ said Xiang-yun, all agog. ‘Which two?’
‘I’ve heard no mention of Crazy Caltrop’s prodigious pertinacity or the linguipotent loquacity of Shi Xiang-yun,’ said Bao-chai.
The other two burst out laughing.
At that moment Bao-qin arrived. She was wearing a magnificent rain-cape that glittered as she moved with gold and greenish lig
hts. Bao-chai asked her where she had got it from.
‘Lady Jia gave me it,’ said Bao-qin. ‘She looked it out for me because it was beginning to sleet.’
Caltrop examined it curiously.
‘No wonder it looks so beautiful: this is woven out of peacock’s down.’
‘That’s not peacock’s down,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘It’s made from mallard’s head-feathers.’ She smiled at Bao-qin teasingly: ‘One can see how fond of you she must be. She’s fond of Bao-yu, but she’s never let him wear this.’
Bao-chai laughed:
‘To each a different fortune meted –
that’s certainly a true saying. I never dreamt that she would be coming here – much less that when she did, Lady Jia would immediately fall for her like this!’
‘Apart from the time you spend with Her Old Ladyship,’ Xiang-yun advised Bao-qin, ‘I should stick to the Garden as much as possible if I were you. In these two places you can eat and drink and play anywhere you please. But be careful of Lady Wang’s place. If she’s in when you go there, then you can sit and talk with her as long as you like; but if she’s not, it’s best not to go inside. There are a lot of nasty people in there who like to do us harm.’
This highly indiscreet warning was uttered so matter-of-factly that Bao-chai, Bao-qin, Caltrop and Oriole were compelled to laugh.
‘I won’t say you are thoughtless,’ said Bao-chai, ‘because you obviously mean well; but you really are a bit too outspoken. You and Qin ought to be sisters, since you are so concerned about her.’
Xiang-yun looked at Bao-qin appraisingly.
‘She is the only one of us who could wear this cape,’ she said. ‘Anyone else would look wrong in it.’
Just then Amber walked in with a message from Grandmother Jia:
‘Her Old Ladyship says please Miss Bao don’t be too strict with Miss Qin; she’s still only little and should be allowed to have her own way. And she says if there’s anything Miss Qin wants, she shouldn’t be afraid to ask for it.’
