A Dream of Red Mansion

by Cao Xueqin

  “You gave me quite a turn when you brought in that tray,” she teased. “I didn’t know you had the talisman on it, I thought you’d come to ask for donations.”

  This set the whole party laughing. Even Jia Zhen could not suppress a smile.

  “What a monkey you are!” cried the Lady Dowager turning to Xifeng. “Aren’t you afraid of going to the Tongue-Cutting Hell?”

  “I’ve done him no harm,” she countered. “Why is he always warning me that unless I do more good deeds I shan’t live long?”

  Zhang the Taoist chuckled.

  “I brought the tray for two reasons,” he explained. “Not to collect donations, but to borrow Master Bao’s jade to show my Taoist friends and disciples.”

  “If that’s the case,” said the Lady Dowager, “there’s no reason why an old man like you should run around. Take Baoyu out to show it to them all, then send him back. Wouldn’t that save trouble?”

  “No, Your Ladyship doesn’t understand. I may be more than eighty, but thanks to your shared good fortune I’m hale and hearty; and there are so many of them out there that the place stinks. Master Bao, not being used to this heat, might be over-powered by the stench. And that would be too bad.”

  Accordingly the old lady told Baoyu to take off his Jade of Spiritual Understanding and put it on the tray. Zhang the Taoist laid it reverently on the silk and carried the tray respectfully out with both hands.

  For their part, the Lady Dowager and her party went on strolling round the temple. They were climbing to the upper storey of one building when Jia Zhen reported that Granddad Zhang had brought back the jade. As he spoke, Zhang appeared with the tray.

  “Everyone felt most obliged to me for the chance to see Master Bao’s jade, which they think most wonderful,” he declared. “They’ve nothing else worth offering, so they’ve sent these Taoist amulets as tokens of their respect. If Master Bao thinks they’re nothing special, he can keep them as toys or give them away, just as he pleases.”

  The Lady Dowager saw in the tray several dozen amulets of gold and jade engraved with the inscriptions “May All Your Wishes Come True” and “Eternal Peace.” Each was studded with pearls or jewels and finely carved.

  “This won’t do,” she expostulated. “How can priests afford such things? It’s quite uncalled for. We can’t possibly accept them.”

  “These are just a small token of their esteem. I couldn’t stop them,” he said. “If Your Ladyship won’t accept them, they’ll think you look down on me and don’t consider me as your protege.”

  So she had to tell a maid to take the gifts.

  “Since Granddad Zhang won’t let us refuse, and these things are no use to me, madam,” said Baoyu, “why not let my pages carry them out with me now to distribute them to the poor?”

  “That’s a good idea,” agreed his grandmother.

  But Zhang the Taoist immediately objected, “That’s a charitable thought, Master Bao; but even if these things are of little value, some of them are well made. They’d be wasted on beggars, who’d have no use for them. If you want to help the poor, why not give them money instead?”

  “All right,” said Baoyu. “We’ll keep them and distribute some alms this evening.”

  Thereupon the priest withdrew, while the Lady Dowager and her party went upstairs to sit in the main balcony, Xifeng and her companions occupying that to the east. The maids, in the west balcony, took turns waiting on their mistresses.

  Presently Jia Zhen came to report that lots had been drawn before the shrine for the operas, and the first was to be The White Serpent.

  “What’s the story?” asked the old lady.

  “It’s about the First Emperor of Han who killed a serpent, then founded the dynasty. The second is Every Son a High Minister.”

  “So that’s the second?” The Lady Dowager nodded, smiling. “Well, if this is the wish of the gods, what must be must be. And what’s the third?”

  “The Dream of the Southern Tributary State. “ At this she made no comment. Jia Zhen withdrew to prepare the

  written prayers, burn incense and order the actors to start. But no more of this.

  Baoyu, seated next to his grandmother upstairs, told one of the maids to bring him the tray of gifts. Having put on his own jade again he rummaged through his presents, showing them one by one to the old lady. Her eye was struck by a gold unicorn decorated with turquoise enamel, which she picked up.

  “I’m sure I’ve seen something like this on one of the girls,” she remarked.

  “Cousin Xiangyun has one like that, only a little smaller,” Baochai told her.

  “So that’s it!” exclaimed the Lady Dowager.

  “All this time she’s been staying with us, how come I’ve never noticed it?” asked Baoyu.

  “Cousin Baochai’s observant,” chuckled Tanchun. “She never forgets anything either.”

  “She’s not so observant about other things,” remarked Daiyu cuttingly. “But she’s most observant about other people’s trinkets.”

  Baochai turned away and pretended not to have heard.

  As soon as Baoyu knew that Xiangyun had a unicorn too, he picked this one up and slipped it into his pocket. Then, afraid people might see through him, he glanced surreptitiously round. The only one paying any attention was Daiyu, who was nodding at him with a look of speculation in her eyes. Embarrassed by this, he took the unicorn out again and showed it to her.

  “This is rather fun,” he said with a smile. “I’ll keep it for you till we get home, then put it on a cord for you to wear.” Daiyu tossed her head.

  “I don’t fancy it.”

  “If you really don’t, in that case I’ll keep it for myself.” He put it away again.

  Before he could say more, Madam You and Rong’s second wife—Jia Zhen’s wife and daughter-in-law—arrived to pay their respects.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” protested the old lady. “I’m just out for a little jaunt.”

  The next second it was announced that messengers had come from General Feng. For as soon as Feng Ziying heard that the Jia family were celebrating a mass in the abbey he had prepared gifts of pigs, sheep, incense, candles and sweetmeats and had them sent along. The moment Xifeng knew this she hurried over to the main balcony.

  “Aiya!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands. “I wasn’t prepared for this. We just looked on this as an outing, but they’ve sent offerings under the impression that we’re making a serious sacrifice of it. It’s all our old lady’s fault. Now I shall have to prepare some tips.”

  That same instant up come two stewards’ wives from the Feng family. And before they had left more presents arrived from Vice-Minister Zhao, to be followed in quick succession by gifts from all their relatives and friends who had heard that the ladies of the Jia family were holding a service in the abbey.

  The Lady Dowager began to regret the whole expedition. “This isn’t a regular sacrifice,” she said. “We just came out for fun, but we’ve put them to all this trouble.”

  So after watching only one performance she went home that same afternoon and refused to go back the next day.

  “Why not go the whole hog?” Xifeng reasoned. “Since we’ve already put everybody out, we may as well amuse ourselves again today.”

  But Baoyu had been sulking ever since Zhang the Taoist broached the subject of his marriage to his grandmother. He was still fulminating against the priest and puzzling other people by muttering: “I never want to set eyes on him again.” As for Daiyu she had been suffering since her return from a touch of the sun. For these reasons the old lady remained adamant. When Xifeng saw that she would not go, she took some others back with her to the abbey.

  Baoyu was so worried on Daiyu’s account that he would not touch his food and kept going over to find out how she was. Daiyu, for her part, was worried about him.

  “Why don’t you go and see the shows?” she asked. “Why should you stay at home?”

  The Taoist’s officiousness still
rankled with Baoyu, and when Daiyu, said this he thought: “I could forgive others for not understanding me, but now even she is making fun of me.” So his resentment increased a hundredfold. He wouldn’t have flared up had it been anyone else, but Daiyu’s behaving this way was a different matter. His face clouded over.

  “All right, all right,” he said sullenly. “We’ve known each other all these years in vain.”

  “I know that too.” She laughed sarcastically. “I’m not like those others who own things which make them a good match for you.”

  He went up to her then and demanded to her face, “Does this mean you really want to invoke Heaven and Earth to destroy me?” Before she could fathom his meaning he went on, “Yesterday I took an oath because of this, and today you provoke me again. If Heaven and Earth destroy me, what good will it do you?”

  Daiyu remembered their previous conversation and realized she had blundered. She was conscience-stricken and frantic.

  “If I wish you harm, may Heaven and Earth destroy me too,” she sobbed. “Why take on like this? I know. When Zhang the Taoist spoke of your marriage yesterday, you were afraid he might prevent the match of your choice. And now you’re working your temper off on me.”

  Now Baoyu had always been deplorably eccentric. Since childhood, moreover, he had been intimate with Daiyu, finding her a kindred spirit. Thus now that he knew a little more and had read some improper books, he felt none of the fine girls he had seen in the families of relatives and friends fit to hold a candle to her. He had long since set his heart on having her, but could not admit as much. So whether happy or angry, he used every means to test her secretly.

  And Daiyu, being rather eccentric too, would disguise her feelings to test him in return.

  Thus each concealed his or her real sentiments to sound the other out.

  The proverb says, “When false meets false, the truth will out.” So inevitably, in the process, they kept quarrelling over trifles.

  So now Baoyu was reflecting. “I can forgive others not understanding me, but you ought to know you’re the only one I care for. Yet instead of comforting me you only taunt me. It’s obviously no use my thinking of you every minute of the day—you’ve no place for me in your heart.” To tell her this, however, was beyond him.

  As for Daiyu, she was reflecting, “I know I’ve a place in your heart. Naturally you don’t take that vicious talk about gold matching jade seriously, but think of me seriously instead. Even if I raise the subject, you should take it perfectly calmly to show that it means nothing to you, that the one you really care for is me. Why get so worked up at the mention of gold and jade? This shows you’re thinking about them all the time. You’re afraid I suspect this when I mention them, so you put on a show of being worked up—just to fool me.”

  In fact, to start with their two hearts were one, but each of them was so hyper-sensitive that their longing to be close ended in estrangement.

  Now Baoyu was telling himself, “Nothing else matters to me so long as you’re happy. Then I’d gladly die for you this very instant. Whether you know this or not, you can at least feel that in my heart you’re close to me and not distant.”

  Daiyu meanwhile was thinking, “Just take good care of yourself. When you’re happy, I’m happy too. Why should you be upset because of me? You should know that if you’re upset, so am I. It means you won’t let me be close to you and want me to keep at a distance.”

  So their mutual concern for each other resulted in their estrangement. But as it is hard to describe all their secret thoughts, we shall have to content ourselves with recording their actions.

  Those words “the match of your choice” infuriated Baoyu. Too choked with rage to speak, he tore the jade from his neck and dashed it to the floor.

  “You rubbishy thing!” he cried, gnashing his teeth. “I’ll smash you to pieces and have done with it.”

  The jade was so hard, however, that no damage was done. So he looked around for something with which to smash it.

  Daiyu was already weeping.

  “Why destroy that dumb object?” she sobbed. “Better destroy me instead.”

  Zijuan and Xueyan dashed in to stop this quarrel. Seeing Baoyu hammering at the jade they tried to snatch it away from him but failed. And since this was more serious than usual they had to send for Xiren, who hurried in and managed to rescue the stone.

  Baoyu smiled bitterly.

  “I can smash what’s mine, can’t I? What business is it of yours?” Xiren had never before seen him so livid with rage, his whole face contorted.

  “Because you have words with your cousin is no reason to smash this up,” she said coaxingly, taking his hand. “Suppose you broke it, think how bad she’d feel.”

  This touched Daiyu’s heart, yet it only made her more wretched to think that Baoyu had less consideration for her than Xiren. She sobbed even more bitterly, so distraught that she threw up the herbal medicine she had just taken. Zijuan hastily brought her a handkerchief which soon was completely soaked through. Xueyan meanwhile massaged her back.

  “No matter how angry you are, miss, do think of your health!” Zijuan urged. “You were feeling a little better after the medicine; it’s this tiff with Master Bao that’s made you retch. If you fall ill, how upset Master Bao will be.”

  This touched Baoyu’s heart, yet also struck him as proof that Daiyu had less consideration for him than Zijuan. But now Daiyu’s cheeks were flushed and swollen. Weeping and choking, her face streaked with tears and sweat, she looked most fearfully frail. The sight filled him with compunction.

  “I should never have argued with her and got her into this state,” he scolded himself. “I can’t even suffer instead of her.” He, too, shed tears.

  Xiren’s heart ached to see how bitterly both of them were weeping. She felt Baoyu’s hands. They were icy cold. She wanted to urge him not to cry, but feared that bottling up his resentment would be bad for him; on the other hand, comforting him might seem like slighting Daiyu. Thinking that tears might calm them all, she wept in sympathy.

  Zijuan, who had cleaned up and was gently fanning Daiyu, was so affected by the sight of the three of them weeping in silence that she had to put a handkerchief to her own eyes.

  So all four of them wept in silence until Xiren, forcing a smile, said to Baoyu:

  “Just because of the tassel on your jade, if not for any other reason, you shouldn’t quarrel with Miss Lin.”

  At this Daiyu forgot her nausea and rushed over to snatch the jade, seizing a pair of scissors to cut off the tassel. Xiren and Zijuan intervened too late to save it.

  “All my work for nothing,” sobbed Daiyu. “He doesn’t care for it. He can get someone else to make him a better one.”

  Xiren hastily took the jade from her.

  “Why do that?” she protested. “It’s my fault. I should have held my tongue.”

  “Go ahead and cut it up,” Baoyu urged Daiyu. “I shan’t wear it anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

  During this commotion, some old nurses had bustled off without their knowing to inform the Lady Dowager and Lady Wang. For having heard Daiyu crying and vomiting and Baoyu threatening to smash his jade, they did not want to be held responsible should any serious trouble come of it. Their flurried, earnest report so alarmed the old lady and Lady Wang that both came to the Garden to see what dreadful thing had happened. Xiren was frantic and blamed Zijuan for disturbing their mistresses, while Zijuan held Xiren to blame.

  When the Lady Dowager and Lady Wang found both the young people quiet and were told there was nothing amiss, they vented their anger on their two chief maids.

  “Why don’t you look after them properly?” they scolded. “Can’t you do something when they start quarrelling?”

  The two maids had to listen meekly to a long lecture, and peace was only restored when the old lady took Baoyu away.

  The next day, the third of the month, was Xue Pan’s birthday, and the whole Jia family was invited to a feast and the
atricals. Baoyu had not seen Daiyu since he offended her and was feeling too remorseful and depressed to enjoy any show. He pleaded illness, therefore, as an excuse not to go.

  Daiyu was not seriously ill, simply suffering from the heat. When she heard of Baoyu’s refusal to go she thought, “He has a weakness for feasts and theatricals. If he’s staying away today, it must either be because yesterday’s business still rankles or because he knows I’m not going. I should never have cut that tassel off his jade. I’m sure he won’t wear it again now unless I make him another.” So she felt thoroughly conscience-stricken too.

  The Lady Dowager had hoped they would stop sulking and make it up while watching operas together. When both refused to go she grew quite frantic.

  “What sins have I committed in a past existence to be plagued with two such troublesome children?” she lamented. “Not a day goes by without something to worry about. How true the proverb is that ‘Enemies and lovers are destined to meet.’ Once I’ve closed my eyes and breathed my last, they can quarrel and storm as much as they like. What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve for. But I’m not at my last gasp just yet.” With that she wept too.

  When word of this reached Baoyu and Daiyu, neither of whom had heard that proverb before, they felt as if a great light had dawned on them. With lowered heads they pondered its meaning and could not hold back their tears. True, they were still apart: one weeping to the breeze in Bamboo Lodge, the other sighing to the moon in Happy Red Court. But although apart, at heart they were as one.

  Xiren scolded Baoyu, “It’s entirely your fault. You used to blame boys who quarrelled with their sisters, or husbands who disputed with their wives, for being too Stupid to understand girl’s hearts. Yet now you’re being just as bad yourself. The day after tomorrow, the fifth, is the festival. If you two go on looking daggers at each other that will make the old lady even angrier and no one will have any peace. Do get over your temper and apologize! Let bygones be bygones. Wouldn’t that be better for both sides?”

  Whether Baoyu took her advice or not you may read in the next chapter.