The Golden Lotus, Volume 1

by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng

  “If you had been a little earlier,” she said, smiling, “you would have found two of your ladies still here. They have only just gone. The Great Lady went away early, because she said you were not at home. If that is so, where have you been?”

  “Brother Ying and Brother Xie asked me to go and see the lanterns with them,” Ximen Qing said, “and we were passing your door when we met two other friends. They carried me off to the bawdy house, and I could not get away before this late hour. I thought you would be waiting for me, and, as soon as the boy came, I said I was going to wash my hands. I slipped away through the back door. If I hadn’t done so, they would have kept me and I should never have been able to get away.”

  “Thank you very much for the splendid present you sent me,” Li Ping’er said. “I could not prevail upon your ladies to stay. They said there was no one at home, but nonetheless I felt ashamed.”

  She heated some excellent wine and served food to him. The lanterns were lighted in the hall and the curtains drawn. Charcoal was put into the golden brazier and precious incense into the incense burner. She kowtowed before him and offered him a cup of wine.

  “My foolish husband is dead now,” she said, “and I have no other relatives. Today, my lord, I offer you this cup of wine and implore you to take me under your protection. Do not despise my lack of comeliness, for I wish nothing more than to be your slave and a sister to all your ladies. I have told you my wishes, but what you may think about it I do not know.” As she said this, she shed tears.

  Ximen took the wine and raised her up. “Do not kneel,” he said, “I am grateful for your love. When your period of mourning is over, I shall know what course to take. You need worry no longer. This is your lucky day, and we can enjoy our wine without a care.” He drank his own wine and poured a cup for Li Ping’er. Then they sat down and, in a little while, old woman Feng, who was in charge of the kitchen, brought them some dumplings.

  “Who were the singing girls today?” Ximen Qing said.

  “Dong Jiao’er and Han Jinchuan,” Li Ping’er said. “They went after your ladies to get some flowers from them.”

  They sat on the bed and drank wine, exchanging cups. Xiuchun and Yingchun waited upon them. Daian came and kowtowed to Li Ping’er to congratulate her upon her birthday. She rose quickly and returned his greeting. She asked Yingchun to tell old woman Feng to give him some birthday dumplings, cakes, and a jar of wine in the kitchen.

  “You may go home as soon as you have finished,” Ximen told him.

  “And when you get home,” Li Ping’er said, “if any of the ladies ask where your master is, don’t tell them he is here.”

  “I understand,” the boy said. “I will tell them that Father is spending the night somewhere else. Tomorrow morning I will come back for him.” Ximen nodded approval and Li Ping’er was very pleased. “What an intelligent boy he is,” she cried. “You can see it in his eyes.” She told Yingchun to give him two qian of silver with which to buy melon seeds. “Let me know what size you take,” she said to him, “and I will make you a pair of shoes.”

  Daian kowtowed again, thanked her, and went away when he had had a meal in the kitchen. Old woman Feng bolted the gate. Ximen Qing and Li Ping’er guessed fingers, and then, taking a set of thirty-two ivory tablets, set a cloth upon the table and played dominoes as they drank their wine. Then they told Yingchun to light them with a candle to the bedroom. Now that Hua Zixu was dead, both Yingchun and Xiuchun had yielded to Ximen’s desire. The lovers did as they pleased in the presence of these maids, and were quite at their ease. They called for the bed to be prepared and for fruit and wine to be placed within the purple silk net. Li Ping’er unveiled her white body and Ximen Qing sat beside her. They went on with their game of dominoes, and drank great cups of wine together.

  “When are you going to begin the rebuilding of the house?” Li Ping’er asked suddenly.

  “I shall get the work in hand at the middle of the second month,” Ximen said. “I propose to make the two properties into one and let the gardens run together. At the front I am having an artificial mound and a shelter made, and at the back a garden pavilion of three rooms where we can go to enjoy the flowers.”

  “In some tea chests behind that bed,” Li Ping’er said, “there are thirty or forty pounds of aloes, two hundred pounds of white wax, two jars of quicksilver, and eighty pounds of pepper. Take them all away and sell them; you can use the money to help pay the building expenses. If I find favor in your sight, when you get home tell the Great Lady that I hope to take a sister’s place among your ladies. Give me any place you choose, but I cannot live without you.” She began to sob again.

  Ximen Qing took out his handkerchief and wiped away her tears. “I understand perfectly,” he said, “but you must wait till the building is finished and your mourning is over. Until then there will be no place where you can live.”

  “If you really intend to marry me, you will build a little pavilion for me near that of your Fifth Lady. She is so nice, and I am very fond of her. The Third Lady too is very kind to me. One would never take them to be anything but sisters. The Great Lady is not quite so agreeable. Somehow those eyebrows of hers seem supercilious.”

  “My foolish wife is really one of the kindest of souls,” Ximen Qing said, “or she would never have managed to keep such a large household in order. I will build a three-roomed pavilion with two little doors for you, as fine as the place in which you live now. What do you think of that?”

  “Oh, Brother, what more could I wish for?” Li Ping’er said.

  They played together unrestrainedly, as the male phoenix plays with his mate, and their delight was so great that it was the fourth night watch before they went to sleep. Then, close pressed in each other’s arms, they slept until morning. Breakfast time came, but they did not rise, and Yingchun brought them some rice porridge. They ate a little of it, and then called for wine. Li Ping’er liked to play at being a horse. She made Ximen Qing take up his position on a pillow, and she placed herself in the manner of a flower inverted. They were enjoying themselves like this when Daian, who had brought Ximen Qing’s horse, came and knocked at the door. Ximen called him to the window and asked what he wanted.

  “Three merchants from Sichuan and Guangdong have come to see you,” the boy said. “They are waiting with a host of fine things. They have shown them to Uncle Fu. All they ask for them is a hundred taels of silver on the signing of the contract, and the rest in the eighth month. My mistress told me to ask you to come and see them.”

  “You didn’t tell her I was here, did you?” Ximen Qing said.

  “No,” said the boy, “I told them you were spending the night at Guijie’s house.”

  “They have no sense,” Ximen said. “Your uncle Fu could have managed this perfectly well. Why send and bother me?”

  “Uncle Fu has talked to them,” Daian said, “but the strangers will not settle with him. They will not sign the contract unless you go yourself.”

  “Your family has sent the boy for you,” Li Ping’er said. “Business must come first. You must go, or the Great Lady will be angry.”

  “You don’t know these thievish barbarians,” Ximen said. “They miss the proper season, can’t get rid of their goods, and then come to me. If I show myself at all eager to accept their terms, they will very soon ask for more. In the whole of this district mine is the only wholesale house, and they must come to me, whatever I choose to offer.”

  “In business matters,” Li Ping’er said, “you should take care not to turn friends into enemies. Please do as I tell you. Go home, and get rid of them. There are still as many days before us as there are leaves upon a willow tree.”

  Ximen agreed to do as she wished. He got out of bed in a leisurely manner, combed his hair, washed his face, and put on his hairnet and clothes. Li Ping’er served him with food. When he had eaten it, he put on his eye-shades and rode home.

  Four or five merchants were waiting in the shop for him to check th
e goods and give them the money. When this had been done, they signed the contract and went away. Ximen Qing went to Jinlian’s room.

  “Where did you spend last night?” Jinlian cried. “Tell me the truth, or I will stir the dust with my complainings.”

  “You were all drinking wine with Mistress Hua,” Ximen said, “so I went to the Lantern Fair with my friends. Afterwards we went to the bawdy house and spent the night there. This morning Daian came to bring me back, and here I am.”

  “I know the boy went to fetch you, but pray, in which of the bawdy houses does your particular ghost live? You fickle rogue, you are trying to deceive me. Last night that strumpet turned us out and invoked the aid of gods and devils alike to get you to go to her. When you have had enough, you come home. That thievish lump of knavery, Daian, is cunning enough to tell one story to his mistress, but it is quite another one he tells me. Last night when he came back, the Great Lady said, ‘Why hasn’t your Father come back? Where is he drinking?’ and he said you and Uncle Fu had gone to see the lanterns, and that you had gone to Guijie’s house to drink, and he was going to bring you back this morning. But afterwards, when I questioned him, he laughed and kept his mouth shut. When I pressed him, he admitted that you were spending the night with Mistress Hua in Lion Street. You villain, how does he know that I always let you do as you please? I suppose you told him.”

  “Indeed I did nothing of the sort,” Ximen Qing said. He told her how Li Ping’er had asked him to take wine with her, how sorry she was that Jinlian had returned so early, how she cried and told him that she had no one to help her and was always terrified at night because her house was so lonely. “She begged me to marry her, and asked when I was going to rebuild the house. She has some incense and candles and all kinds of valuable stuff there, and she asked me to take it and use the money to pay the builder. She is very anxious that I should get the house finished quickly, so that she can come here and live with you as a sister. But it looks as though that won’t suit you.”

  “One shadow more or less will not worry me,” Jinlian said. “I shall be glad to have her, for, as things are, I’m very lonely, and, if she comes, she will keep me company. The fact that there are many ships on a river does not necessarily mean a block, and a road is not stopped because there are many carts upon it. There is no more reason why I should refuse to welcome her than others might have found when I came here myself. But I’m very much afraid you will not find everybody so amiably disposed as I am. You still have to see what our mistress thinks about it.”

  “Although I am talking about this matter now,” Ximen said, “of course she is still in mourning.”

  Jinlian took Ximen’s silken gown. Something dropped out of the sleeve, and fell tinkling to the ground. She picked it up and weighed it in her hand. It was like a little ball, but very heavy. She looked at it for a long time, but could not imagine what it was for. Jinlian stared at it.

  “What is it?” she said, “and why does it seem so heavy?”

  “Don’t you know?” Ximen said, laughing. “They call it the Bell of Fecundity, and it comes from Burma, a country somewhere in the south. A good one is worth four or five taels of silver.”

  “Where do you put the thing?” the woman asked.

  “First, you put it inside, then get on with what has to be done. The results are quite indescribable.”

  “Did you use it with Mistress Hua?” Jinlian asked.

  Ximen Qing told her all that had passed during the night, and this so stirred up Jinlian’s ardent mind that, though it was still day, these two disrobed themselves and behaved in a manner better befitting the night.

  Ximen Qing went to see the valuers, taking with him the candles and wax and other things that belonged to Li Ping’er. They were all weighed up and sold for about three hundred and eighty taels of silver. Out of this Li Ping’er would take only one hundred and eighty taels, making Ximen Qing spend the rest on the house. He consulted the Master of the Yin Yang, and work was begun on the eighth day of the second month. He gave five hundred taels to his servant Laizhao and his manager Ben the Fourth, to buy bricks, tiles, timber, and stone, and gave them instructions to superintend the work and keep account of the expenditure. Ben the Fourth was a dissipated young fellow, something of a windbag, but efficient and cunning. He began life as servant to a eunuch, but was sent away because of some irregularity. Then he lent himself to practices of doubtful morality and, still later, took employment as domestic in a family of position. But he seduced the nurse and ran off with her. For a while he acted as a tailor’s tout. He could play the lute, the flute, and the double flute. Ximen Qing, who appreciated such accomplishments, gave Ben the Fourth help from time to time, and finally found a place for him in his shop, so that he could earn commission. In this way Ben the Fourth came to have a finger in the pie of all Ximen’s enterprises.

  Ben the Fourth and Laizhao supervised the workers during the building of the house. To begin with, the old rooms of Hua’s house were demolished, then the walls were pulled down and new foundations laid. They constructed the shelter, the artificial mound, and all the arbors and apartments. This took a considerable time.

  The days passed quickly. The sun and moon crossed and recrossed like the shuttles of a weaver. A little more than a month after Ximen’s setting to work upon the gardens, it was a hundred days since Hua Zixu died. Li Ping’er asked Ximen to go and see her, to talk over the future. “I will have Hua’s tablet burned,” she said, “and you must decide whether you wish to have this house sold or not. You need only to give your orders, but you must marry me as soon as you can. Give me any position you like in your household. So long as I can be your chambermaid, I shall be quite happy.” Her tears fell like rain.

  “Don’t cry,” Ximen said. “I have told the Fifth Lady that, as soon as the house is finished and your mourning is over, I am going to marry you.”

  “If you really want me,” Li Ping’er cried, “get my apartment finished first, and take me there. If I spend a single day in it and then die, I shall die content. Anything would be better than staying here, where each day seems like a year.”

  “I know,” said Ximen.

  “Why should I not go to live with the Fifth Lady for a few days, as soon as the tablet has been burned, and move into the new apartment as soon as it is finished? Go home and see what the Fifth Lady thinks of that, and I will wait. The hundredth day is the tenth of the third month, and I will arrange to have the dirge sung and the tablet burned.”

  Ximen Qing agreed, and spent the night with Li Ping’er. The next day he went home and told Jinlian all she had proposed.

  “Very well,” Jinlian said, “I am quite ready to clear a couple of rooms for her, but you must go and ask the Great Lady first. As for me, I am like the water in the river, there is no reason why I should not do my part in washing the boats.”

  Ximen Qing went at once to see Yueniang. She was dressing her hair, and Ximen told her the whole story.

  “It is not at all a suitable arrangement,” Yueniang said. “To begin with, she is still in mourning. Secondly, you were a very intimate friend of her husband. Thirdly, you have already had dealings with her, purchased her house, and stored many of her goods. The proverb says, If the loom is not speedy, the shuttle is. I understand that one member of her family, Hua the Elder, is a rogue. If he gets wind of this, I very much fear we shall find many fleas about our heads. What I have said is plain common sense. By Zhao, Qian, Sun and Li, think the matter over and see if you don’t agree with me.”

  Ximen could think of no answer to make. He went and sat on a chair in the hall, and pondered the matter. He was by no means decided how he should answer Li Ping’er, but he could not make up his mind to give her up. The problem troubled him for a long time, and finally he went back to Jinlian’s room.

  “What did the Great Lady say?” Jinlian said. Ximen told her all that had passed.

  “She is right,” Jinlian said. “You did buy her house and you do wish to ma
rry the widow of one of your most intimate friends. And, for that reason, you must forgo what otherwise you might have had. If you do not, your influential friends will look upon you with grave suspicion.”

  “That doesn’t trouble me in the least,” Ximen said, “but I am anxious about that fellow Hua the Elder. I don’t want him to start interfering. If he hears what is going on, he will bring pressure to bear upon her before she is out of mourning. What can I do then? But I really don’t know what to say to her.”

  “I see no difficulty at all,” Jinlian said. “All you need do is to go and say to her, ‘I have mentioned the matter to the Fifth Lady, but it appears that there is a great stock of merchandise stored on the upper floor of her apartments, and there is no room for your things. You must wait a few days more. My place is nearly finished, and I will hurry on the workmen and get the painting and decorating done as soon as possible. By that time your mourning will be over and I will marry you. That seems much the best plan, far better than your staying with the Fifth Lady, packed like herrings in a barrel, neither one thing nor another.’ That ought to satisfy her.”

  Ximen Qing was delighted with this counsel, and went at once to see Li Ping’er. “The Fifth Lady says: Wait till the painting and decoration of your apartment are finished, and go straight there. At present there is a whole heap of things in her place, and there would be no room for your belongings. There is one thing more I must remind you of. May not your brother-in-law say that your period of mourning has not been duly fulfilled? What can we do about it?”