The Golden Lotus, Volume 1

by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng

  They sat there a long time till Li Ping’er said: “Let us go. He will be coming back in a moment.”

  “What if he does?” Jinlian said. “I don’t care.” But they took Guan’ge and went to the inner court.

  When Ximen Qing had finished his dinner, he ordered a servant to get ready his horse. Then he went to Master Shang’s house for the party. Old woman Pan left that afternoon. When Nun Wang was about to go, Yueniang told her she must not speak to the Reverend Mother about the arrangement between them. She gave the nun a tael of silver and asked her to remember the charms and the medicine. Nun Wang took the silver. “I cannot come before the sixteenth,” she said, “but then I will bring what you wish for.” Yueniang promised that she should have more silver, and the nuns went away.

  My dear readers: monks, nuns and go-betweens should never be allowed to enter the palaces and dwellings of the gentry where there are ladies. They pretend to talk of religion and to tell edifying stories, but secretly they do all manner of mischief.

  In the evening, Jinlian stood before her dressing table, dressed her hair in simple braids, powdered her face till it was as white as snow, and freshly painted her lips. She put on two earrings like tiny lanterns, set ornaments upon her cheeks, and bound her hair with a ribbon of purple and gold. Then she took a gown of scarlet woven with gold, and a skirt of blue satin. She dressed up like a maid, to make fun with Yueniang. She sent for Li Ping’er, who laughed until she shook.

  “Sister,” Li Ping’er said, “you look exactly like a maid. I have a red handkerchief in my room, and you shall have it to put over your head. Then I’ll go to the back court and tell them that Father has bought a new maid. They will certainly be taken in.”

  Chunmei took a lantern and they went to the front court. When they came to the second door they met Chen Jingji. He laughed. “I should never have dreamed it was the Fifth Lady,” he said.

  “Come here, Brother-in-Law,” Li Ping’er said, “I’ll tell you what to do. You go in first and say so and so.”

  “Oh, I’ll deceive them,” Chen Jingji said.

  He went before them to Yueniang’s room. The people there were sitting on the bed drinking tea.

  “Mother,” said Jingji, “Father has gone and told old woman Xue to buy a maid for sixteen taels of silver. She is twenty-five years old and knows how to play and sing. She has just come in a sedan chair.”

  “Indeed?” Yueniang said. “Why didn’t Xue come and tell me?”

  “She was afraid you would scold her, so she only brought the sedan chair as far as the gate and then went away. The servants received the maid.”

  Aunt Wu was silent. Aunt Yang said: “He has so many wives already that I should have thought he had enough without buying another girl.”

  “My good Lady,” Yueniang said, “you don’t understand. If a man is rich, he may buy a hundred women and still not be satisfied. We are like a regiment of women soldiers.”

  “I will go and have a look at her,” Yuxiao said. She went out, and saw Chunmei coming along in the moonlight, a lantern in her hand. Chunmei gave the lantern to Laian, and she and Li Ping’er assisted the new maid. The girl’s head was covered with a red cloth, and she wore a scarlet gown. Yulou and Li Jiao’er were greatly excited. They came out to see. The maid came in. Yuxiao stood beside Yueniang.

  “This is our mistress,” she said to the maid. “Kowtow to her.”

  She took off the cloth that covered the new maid’s head, and Jinlian gracefully kowtowed to Yueniang. But she could not help laughing.

  “You maid,” Meng Yulou said, “what do you mean by laughing instead of making your reverence?”

  Yueniang laughed too. “Fifth Sister,” she said, “you might have been a spirit, you deceived us all so well.”

  “She didn’t deceive me,” Yulou said.

  “How could you tell?” said Aunt Yang.

  “Because the Fifth Lady always kowtows in this way. She went backwards two steps and then bowed her body.”

  “You are quite right,” Aunt Yang said, “but she certainly deceived me.” “She deceived me too,” Li Jiao’er said. “I should never have recognized her with that cloth on her head, or until she laughed.”

  Qintong came with the wrapper and said his master had come.

  “Hide yourself in the other room,” Yulou said to Jinlian. “We will have some fun with him.” Ximen Qing came in.

  “Today,” Yulou said to him, “Xue brought a maid in a sedan chair. She said you told her to buy her. You are not young, and the burden of the household is upon your shoulders. Why do you play games like this?”

  “I never told her to buy a maid,” Ximen said, laughing. “Do you believe everything that old rascal tells you?”

  “Ask the Great Lady whether I am telling the truth or not,” Yulou said.

  “The maid is here now. If you don’t believe me, send for her.” She said to Yuxiao: “Go and bring the new maid to see your father.”

  Yuxiao laughed and put her hand before her mouth, but she did not go. She took a few steps forward, then came back again. “I don’t think she will come,” she said.

  “You are a brave maid to disobey your master’s orders,” Yulou said. “I will go for her. If she will not do what she is told, she will be no use as a maid.”

  She went into the next room. Then they heard: “You wonderful creature. I won’t go. And don’t pull me about like that.”

  Then Yulou said: “You slave, where were you brought up? Wherever did you learn to be so stubborn as to refuse to do reverence to your master?” Jinlian was dragged out.

  In the light of the lamp, Ximen saw that it was Jinlian dressed as a maid, her hair done as a servant’s. He laughed till he could not open his eyes. Jinlian took a chair and sat down.

  “You bold maid,” Yulou said, “you have only just come to the house, and yet you take such liberties that you even dare to sit in your master’s presence.”

  “This is your master,” Yueniang said. “Kowtow to him.”

  Jinlian did not move. After a while, she went to Yueniang’s room, took off her ornaments and redressed her hair. They all laughed.

  “Today,” Yueniang said to Ximen Qing, “the Qiaos have sent six cards of invitation asking us to go on the twelfth and see the lanterns. I think we ought to send them some presents first.”

  “Tell Laixing to buy some food and a jar of Jinhua wine. That will be enough. We will send invitations to Madam Qiao, Madam Zhou, Madam Jing, Madam Xia and Madam Zhang for the fourteenth. Aunt Wu will be able to stay until then. I will tell Ben the Fourth to get the firework makers to make some fireworks for us. We will engage the young actors from the household of the Wangs, and Li Guijie and Wu Yin’er can come. You can all stay at home, see the fireworks, and drink wine, and I, Brother Ying, and Brother Xie will go to a wineshop in Lion Street.”

  The tables were set and wine was brought. Jinlian served the wine and all the ladies drank her health. Ximen Qing thought how pretty she had looked in the lamplight, dressed as a maid, and his heart grew warm towards her. He looked meaningly at her. Jinlian realized what was in his mind and went to her own room. She dressed herself again, doing her hair after the manner of Hangzhou. She painted her lips and powdered her face. Then she prepared some especially dainty dishes, set out wine, and waited for her husband.

  Before very long Ximen Qing came. He noticed that she had dressed her hair again, and was pleased. He sat down on a chair and took her upon his knee. They laughed and talked, and Chunmei brought in food and wine. Jinlian again offered wine to him.

  “Little oily mouth,” Ximen said, “you have offered me wine already in the outer court. Why do you take the trouble to do so again?”

  Jinlian smiled. “That was nothing,” she said. “There, you were drinking with the others. This is my special offering to you and to no one else. Year after year you have been good enough to spend your money on me, and I trust you have no reason to complain.”

  This speech delighted Ximen
. He took the wine immediately and set the woman on his knees. Chunmei served the wine, and Qiuju served the dishes.

  “The Qiaos have asked us all to go to their place on the twelfth,” Jinlian said, “but I think only our Great Lady ought to go.”

  “Since you have all been invited,” Ximen Qing said, “why shouldn’t you all go? I will tell the nurse to take the baby, so that he will not cry for his mother.”

  “The Great Lady and the others all have dresses,” Jinlian said. “I am like an old priest: I only have old ones. Not one of them is fit to be seen. Won’t you give me some of the new clothes you have just had made in the South, or some material so that I can make a dress for myself? There is no sense in your hoarding it up. Surely you don’t expect it to increase and multiply! When it is our turn to give a party, and all the honorable ladies come, I shall have to dress properly to receive them or they will laugh at me. I have spoken to you about it several times, but you never pay any attention.”

  Ximen Qing laughed. “I will send for the tailor tomorrow, and he shall make you some clothes.”

  “It will be too late tomorrow. There are only two days left.”

  “I will tell him to bring more tailors with him and make two or three dresses for you at once. The rest can be done more slowly.”

  “I have mentioned it before,” Jinlian said. “This time I shall expect some first-class material. All the others have beautiful clothes, and I have none. You have never bothered about clothes for me.”

  Ximen Qing laughed. “Ah, little oily mouth,” he said, “you always insist on having the best of everything.”

  They talked and drank till the first night watch. Then they went to bed, and were like the love bird and his mate beneath the bedclothes, or a couple of phoenixes behind the curtains. They sported wildly for half the night.

  The next day, when Ximen Qing came back from the office, he opened his boxes and took out some rolls of southern silk, enough to make a long gown, a suit of figured satin, and another embroidered suit. For Yueniang he ordered two long-sleeved scarlet satin gowns and four embroidered dresses. Then, sitting under the arbor, he ordered Qintong to go for the tailor. The tailor came and kowtowed. He took his tape and scissors, covered the tables, and cut out the material. First he cut out the long-sleeved satin gown of five colors; then another with a stomacher embroidered with the head of a wild beast; a black cloak with the five colors and gold ribbons, with designs of gourds and flowers intertwined; a gown of scarlet satin woven with gold, and another stomacher with the head of a wild beast; and a skirt of light blue woven with gold. Then he prepared a gown with a stomacher of sandalwood color, with embroidered flowers, and a scarlet skirt to match, of the hundred flower design, and all the flowers had gold branches and green leaves. These were for Wu Yueniang. For Li Jiao’er, Meng Yulou, Pan Jinlian and Li Ping’er, a long-sleeved satin cloak of scarlet with the five colors, embroidered with flowers and birds, and two dresses of embroidered silk. There was no cloak for Sun Xue’e, and only one dress.

  The tailor cut them out very quickly, though there were more than thirty pieces in all. Ximen Qing gave him five taels of silver, and then he brought another ten tailors to make up the clothes in his house.

  CHAPTER 41

  The Baby Guan’ge Is Betrothed

  Ximen Qing watched the tailors as they hastily made up the dresses, and the work was finished in two days. On the twelfth, a messenger came from the Qiao household to renew the former invitation. That morning Ximen Qing had sent presents. Wu Yueniang, Aunt Wu, and the others set off together in six sedan chairs, leaving Sun Xue’e behind to look after the house. The nurse, Ruyi’er, took Guan’ge, and Laixing’s wife, Huixiu, went with them to act as tiring maid. They too went in sedan chairs. At home Ximen Qing watched the firework makers making their fireworks, and superintended the hanging of the lanterns in the great hall. He sent a boy with his card to the house of the princely family of Wang to engage the actors.

  In the afternoon he went to Pan Jinlian’s room. Jinlian was not there, and Chunmei gave him something to eat.

  “I have invited several ladies to come on the fourteenth,” he told her. “You four girls must wear your best clothes when you wait upon them.”

  Chunmei leaned over the table. “You should say that to the other girls. There will be no dressing for me.”

  “Why?” said Ximen.

  “The ladies will all be dressed in their new clothes,” Chunmei said. “They will be very smart, and we shall look like burned paper. Everybody will laugh at us.”

  “But you all have dresses and ornaments, and pearls and flowers,” Ximen Qing said.

  “The ornaments are all right, but we have no clothes,” Chunmei said. “I have only two old dresses and I am not fit to be seen.”

  “I see,” Ximen said, laughing. “I have had clothes made for the ladies, and you are jealous, little oily mouth. Never mind. I am going to tell the tailor to make three dresses for my daughter, and you four girls shall each have a suit and a short dress of figured satin.”

  “Don’t put me in the same class with the rest,” Chunmei said. “I want a white silk coat and a scarlet-figured silk wrapper.”

  “If it were only for you,” Ximen said, “it would be all right; but if you have one, my daughter will have to have one.”

  “Your daughter has one already,” Chunmei said. “I have not. I don’t see how she can object.”

  Ximen Qing took the keys and went upstairs. He chose enough material for five dresses and two figured satin wrappers, and took a roll of white silk for two double-breasted white cloaks. The wrappers for his daughter and Chunmei were scarlet; those for the other three maids were bluish green. There were scarlet satin short coats and light blue skirts for all of them, seventeen pieces of material in all. Ximen told the tailor to make the clothes, and gave him a roll of thin yellow silk for the tops of the skirts, and Hangzhou lining silk for the linings. Chunmei was satisfied. She laughed and talked all day with Ximen Qing and served him with wine when he wished for it.

  Madam Qiao had invited several ladies to her party. There was the wife of Master Shang, Censor Song’s wife, a young woman named Cui who was connected with the family, two nieces, Miss Duan and Wu Shunzhen’s sister-in-law Zheng. She had engaged two singing girls to play for them. When Wu Yueniang, Aunt Wu, and the others arrived, Madam Qiao went to the second door to welcome them and took them to the great hall. There they exchanged greetings. She called Yueniang Aunt, and the others Second Aunt, and Third Aunt, and so on. Then she introduced the other ladies and took their places in due order. The maids brought tea, and Master Qiao came to greet the ladies. When they had greeted him, he told his wife to ask them to go to the inner room to take off their cloaks. A table was set, tea brought, and they all sat down to drink it. Ruyi’er and Huixiu looked after the baby and were entertained in another place.

  After tea they came back to the great hall, where handsome screens were placed about and cushions embroidered with lotus flowers. Four tables were set and Yueniang was asked to take the place of honor. The eleven ladies all sat at one table, except for Miss Duan and Miss Zheng, who were at a table apart. The two singing girls sang for them. When soup and rice had been served, the cooks served up a crystal goose. Yueniang gave them two qian of silver. Then stewed trotters were served, and Yueniang gave the cooks another qian. Then came roast duck and again Yueniang gave the cooks a qian. After this course Madam Qiao rose and offered wine, first to Yueniang and then to Master Shang’s wife. Yueniang left the table and went to the inner room to change her clothes and powder her face.

  Yulou went to Madam Qiao’s room, where Ruyi’er had the baby Guan’ge. He was in a small crib placed on the bed, and, lying beside him, was the little girl baby of the Qiaos. The two babies were playing together, putting out their hands to touch one another. This delighted Wu Yueniang and Meng Yulou. “These two babies,” they said, “are like bride and bride groom.” Aunt Wu came in, and they said to her: “Come here,
Aunt Wu, and look at this young couple.”

  “Yes,” Aunt Wu said, smiling, “they are stretching out their hands and kicking their little heels, touching one another, just like a young husband and wife.”

  Madam Qiao and the other ladies heard what Aunt Wu said. “How might an inconsiderable family like mine,” Madam Qiao said, “aspire so high as to ally itself with that of my aunts?”

  “You are very kind,” Yueniang said, “but indeed what manner of lady are you, and Miss Zheng too? I should very much like to enter into an alliance with this household, if only my son will not make your house ashamed. Do not say that.”

  Yulou pushed forward Li Ping’er. “Sister,” she said, “what have you to say?” Li Ping’er smiled but said nothing.

  “If Madam Qiao does not agree,” Aunt Wu said, “I shall be very disappointed.”

  Master Shang’s wife and the Censor’s lady both said together: “For the sake of your kinswoman, Lady Wu, you must not stand too much on ceremony. Your Zhangjie was born in the eleventh month of last year.”

  “And our baby,” Yueniang said, “was born on the twenty-third day of the sixth month. He is just five months older. Their ages could not be more suitable.”

  The others would allow no further parley. They urged Madam Qiao, Wu Yueniang and Li Ping’er to the great hall. There, pieces were cut from the bosoms of their dresses. The two singing girls sang for them and Master Qiao was told. He brought out fruits, three pieces of red cloth, and offered wine. Yueniang told Daian and Qintong to go home and refer the matter to their master. In a short time, two jars of wine, three rolls of silk, red and green thread, flowers of gold wire, and four large boxes of cakes and fruit were brought from Ximen’s place, and the two households together hung up red charms and drank wine to celebrate their union.

  Tall silver candlesticks blazed with light in the hall. Flower-shaped lamps burned brightly. Incense filled the air with delightful perfume. Smiling serenely, the two singing girls opened their ruby lips, showed their white teeth and gently plied their jade plectrums. They held their lutes in one hand and sang. The ladies put flowers and red talismans on the heads of Yueniang, Madam Qiao, and Li Ping’er. When wine had been served, the ladies made reverence to one another and began their banquet again. As the first course, the cook brought in a snowflake pie, filled with mincemeat. The word “Long Life” was fashioned upon it. There was lotus-seed soup, which looked as delightful as a pool, the seeds floating side by side upon its surface. Yueniang sat in the place of honor; she was very happy. She told Daian to give the cook a roll of silk, and each of the singing girls a roll of silk also. They all kowtowed to thank her.