by Cao Xueqin
This surprised and delighted Daiyu but also distressed and grieved her. She was delighted to know she had not misjudged him, for he had now proved just as understanding as she had always thought. Surprised that he had been so indiscreet as to acknowledge his preference for her openly. Distressed because their mutual understanding ought to preclude all talk about gold matching jade, or she instead of Baochai should have the gold locket to match his jade amulet. Grieved because her parents had died, and although his preference was so clear there was no one to propose the match for her. Besides, she had recently been suffering from dizzy spells which the doctor had warned might end in consumption, as she was so weak and frail. Dear as she and Baoyu were to each other, she might not have long to live. And what use was their affinity if she were fated to die? These thoughts sent tears coursing down her cheeks. And therefore instead of entering she turned away, wiping her tears.
Baoyu hurried out after changing his clothes to see Daiyu walking slowly ahead, apparently wiping her tears. He overtook her.
“Where are you going, cousin?” he asked with a smile. “What, crying again? Who’s offended you this time?”
Daiyu turned and saw who it was.
“I’m all right.” She gave a wan smile. “I wasn’t crying.”
“Don’t fib—your eyes are still wet.”
He raised his hand instinctively to wipe away her tears. At once she recoiled a few steps.
“Are you crazy? Can’t you keep your hands to yourself?”
“I did it without thinking.” Baoyu laughed. “I was dead to all around me.”
“No one will care when you’re dead, but what about the gold locket and unicorn you’ll have to leave behind?” This remark made Baoyu frantic.
“How can you talk like that! Are you trying to put me under a curse, or set on annoying me?”
Reminded of what had happened the previous day, Daiyu regretted her thoughtlessness.
“Don’t get so excited,” she begged. “Why work yourself up over a slip of the tongue? The veins on your forehead are all swollen with anger, and what a sweat you’re in!”
So saying, she too stepped forward without thinking and reached out her hand to wipe his perspiring face. Baoyu fixed his eyes on her. After a while he said gently, “You mustn’t worry.”
Daiyu gazed at him in silence.
“Worry?” she repeated at last. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“Don’t you really understand?” He sighed. “Could it be that since I’ve known you all my feelings for you have been wrong? If I can’t even enter into your feelings, then you’re quite right to be angry with me all the time.”
“I really don’t understand what you mean by telling me not to worry.”
“Dear cousin, don’t tease.” Baoyu nodded and sighed. “If you really don’t understand, all my devotion’s been wasted and even your feeling for me has been thrown away. You ruin your health by worrying so much. If you’d take things less to heart, your illness wouldn’t be getting worse every day.”
These words struck Daiyu like a thunderbolt. As she turned them over in her mind, they seemed closer to her innermost thoughts than if wrung from her own heart. There were a thousand things she longed to say, yet she could not utter a word. She just stared at him in silence. As Baoyu was in similar case, he too stared at her without a word. So they stood transfixed for some time. Then Daiyu gave a choking cough and tears rolled down her cheeks. She was turning to go when Baoyu caught hold of her.
“Dear cousin, wait. Just let me say one word.”
She dried her tears with one hand, repulsing him with the other.
“What more is there to say? I understand.”
She hurried off without one look behind, while he just stood mere like a man in a trance.
Now Baoyu in his haste had forgotten his fan, and as Xiren ran after him with it she caught sight of Daiyu face to face with him. As soon as Daiyu left, the maid walked up to Baoyu, still standing there as if rooted to the ground.
“You forgot your fan,” she said. “Luckily I noticed it. And here it is.”
Too bemused still to know who was speaking, he seized her hands.
“Dear cousin, I never ventured before to bare my heart to you,” he declared. “Now that I’ve summoned up courage to speak, I’ll die content. I was making myself ill on account of you, but I dared not tell anyone and hid my feelings. I shan’t recover till you’re better too, I can’t forget you even in my dreams.”
“Merciful Buddha, save me!” cried Xiren in consternation. Shaking him she asked, “What sort of talk is this? Has some evil spirit taken possession of you? Go quickly!”
When Baoyu came to himself and saw Xiren there, blushing all over his face he snatched the fan and ran off without a word.
As the maid watched him go it dawned on her that his avowal had been meant for Daiyu, in which case it must surely lead to trouble and scandal. That would be truly fearful. She wondered how best to avert such a dreadful calamity.
She was still lost in thought when Baochai appeared.
“Why are you standing here dreaming?” asked Baochai. “This sun is scorching.”
“Two sparrows were fighting over there,” improvised Xiren hastily. “It was so amusing that I stayed to watch.”
“Where has Cousin Bao rushed off to all dressed up? I saw him passing and thought of stopping him; but because nowadays he often talks so wildly, I decided not to call out.”
“The master sent for him.”
“Aiya! On such a sweltering day. What for? Could it be that something’s made him angry and he’s sent for Cousin Bao to lecture him?”
“It’s nothing like that,” replied Xiren with a laugh. “I think a guest wants to see him.”
“A guest with no sense.” Baochai appeared amused. “Why gad about in such hot weather instead of staying indoors and keeping cool?”
“Why indeed?”
“And what was Xiangyun doing in your compound?”
“She just dropped in for a chat. You know that pair of shoes I started the other day? I’ve asked her to finish them for me.”
Baochai glanced around to make sure no one was about.
“How could someone with your good sense suddenly be so inconsiderate?” she asked. “Piecing together what I’ve seen and heard recently, I guess Yun’s a nobody at home. To save expense, her people no longer employ sewing-women but make practically everything they need themselves. That’s why, during her last few visits, she’s confided to me when nobody was about that she gets quite tired out at home. And when I asked about their daily life, her eyes filled with tears and she made some evasive answer. So I gather she’s having a hard time of it because she lost her parents so early on. I can’t help feeling sorry for her.”
“That’s it, that’s it.” Xiren clapped her hands. “No wonder when I asked her last month to make ten butterfly knots, it took her so long to send them.
“‘I’ve stitched them just anyhow,’ she told me. ‘I hope they’ll do. If you want better ones, wait until I come to stay with you.’
“After what you’ve said, miss, I realize she couldn’t very well refuse but she probably has to work late into the night at home. How stupid of me! If I’d known, I wouldn’t have asked her.”
“Last time she did tell me she has to work till midnight at home, and if she does the least bit of work for other people the ladies of the house don’t like it.”
“But we have such a stubborn, wayward young master he won’t let the sewing-women make any of his things, big or small, and I haven’t the time for it all.”
“Never mind him. Just get the other girls to do it, and tell him you did it yourself.”
“There’s no fooling him. He’d know at once. No, I shall just have to slave away myself.”
“Wait a bit.” Baochai smiled. “Suppose I help you?”
“Will you really? What luck for me.” Xiren beamed. “I’ll bring the shoes over this evening.”
“Just imagine!” she gasped. “That girl Jinchuan, for no reason at all, has drowned herself in the well.”
Xiren gave a start.
“Which Jinchuan?”
“How many Jinchuans are there? The girl who worked for the mistress, of course. The other day, we don’t know why, she was dismissed. She wept and sobbed at home but no one took any notice, till they found she’d disappeared. Just now one of the water-carriers was drawing water from that well in the southeast corner when he discovered a corpse. He fetched people to get it out, and it was Jinchuan. Her family’s trying frantically to bring her round, but of course it’s too late.”
“This is rather odd!” exclaimed Baochai.
Xiren nodded and sighed, and the thought of her friendship with Jinchuan made tears run down her cheeks. She went back to Happy Red Court while Baochai hurried off to condole with Lady Wang.
All was strangely quiet in Lady Wang’s apartments, where she sat in the inner chamber shedding tears all by herself. Not wanting to mention the maid’s suicide, Baochai sat by her aunt in silence until asked where she had come from.
“From the Garden,” was her reply.
“Did you see your Cousin Bao?”
“Yes, I saw him just now going out in formal clothes, but I don’t know where he’s gone.”
Lady Wang nodded tearfully.
“Did you hear this extraordinary business about Jinchuan suddenly drowning herself in the well?”
“Why should she do a thing like that for no reason? It’s very strange.”
“The other day she broke something of mine, and in a fit of anger I struck her and sent her away. I was meaning to punish her for a couple of days and then to have her fetched back. I’d no idea she’d fly into such a passion she’d jump into the well. This is all my fault.”
“You feel that way, auntie, because you’re so kind-hearted. But I can’t believe she drowned herself in a tantrum. She was playing by the well, more likely, and fell in. After being rather confined in your rooms she’d want to play around once she left, stands to reason. How could she work herself into such a passion? If she did, that was very foolish. She doesn’t deserve any pity.”
Lady Wang nodded.
“But even if you’re right,” she sighed, “I still feel bad about it.”
“Don’t take it so much to heart, auntie. If you feel bad about it, just give them a few extra taels of silver for her burial and you’ll be doing all a kind mistress could.”
“Just now I gave her mother fifty taels. I wanted to give them two sets of your cousins’ new clothes to lay her out in as well; but according to Xifeng the only ones ready are two new sets for your Cousin Lin’s birthday. She’s such a sensitive child, so delicate too, that wouldn’t she think it unlucky to have the clothes made for her birthday made over to a dead girl? So I’ve told the tailors to make two new sets as fast as they can. If it had been any other maid, I’d have felt a few taels of silver would be enough; but Jinchuan was with me for some time and was just like a daughter to me.” As she was speaking she could not help shedding more tears.
“There’s no need to hurry the tailors,” said Baochai. “The other day I had two sets made. I can easily fetch them for her. That would save lots of trouble. When she was alive she wore my old clothes and they were a perfect fit.”
“But aren’t you afraid it may bring bad luck?”
Baochai smiled.
“Don’t worry, auntie. I’m not superstitious.”
She rose to go, and Lady Wang sent two maids along with her.
When Baochai returned with the clothes a little later she found Baoyu sitting in tears beside his mother. Lady Wang had been scolding him, but at Baochai’s entrance she stopped. The girl was shrewd enough to guess pretty well what had happened. She handed over the clothes to Lady Wang who sent for Jinchuan’s mother and gave them to her.
What happened next is related in the following chapter.
Chapter 33
A Jealous Younger Brother Tells Tales
A Worthless Son Receives a Fearful Flogging
Lady Wang, having summoned Jinchuan’s mother and given her some trinkets, issued orders then and there for monks to be called in to say masses for the dead girl. Then the mother kowtowed her thanks and left the house.
Now Baoyu, on his return from seeing Yucun, had been cut to the heart by the news that her disgrace had driven Jinchuan to suicide. He had nothing to say in reply to his mother’s scolding, but Baochai’s arrival gave him a chance to slip out. He wandered aimlessly along, his hands behind his back, hanging his head and sighing, until he found himself by the front hall. He was skirting the door-screen when as ill luck would have it he bumped full tilt into someone who shouted to him to stop.
Baoyu started and, looking up, saw to his dismay that it was no other than his father. He had to stand aside respectfully, gasping with fright.
“Why are you moping like this?” demanded Jia Zheng. “It took you a long time to come out when Yucun asked for you; and when you did come, you had nothing spirited or cheerful to say but looked quite down in the mouth, the picture of gloom. And now you’re sighing again. What have you to moan about? Is anything wrong? Why are you carrying on in this way?”
Baoyu normally had a ready tongue, but now he was so distressed by Jinchuan’s death that he wished he could follow her straight to the other world. He heard not a word his father said but just stood there in a daze. His stupefied silence—so unlike Baoyu—exasperated Jia Zheng, who had not to begin with been angry. Before he could say more, however, an officer from the household of Prince Zhongshun was announced.
Somewhat taken aback Jia Zheng wondered what this meant, for in general they had no dealings with this prince. He ordered the man to be shown in at once and, hurrying to meet him, found that it was the chief steward of the prince’s household. He hastily offered him a seat in the reception hall and tea was served.
The chief steward did not beat about the bush.
“Excuse the presumption of this intrusion,” he said. “I come at the order of the prince to request a favour. If you, my lord, will grant it, His Highness will remember your kindness and I shall be infinitely indebted to you.”
More mystified than ever, Jia Zheng rose to his feet with a smile.
“What instructions have you for me, sir, from the prince?” he asked. “I beg to be enlightened so that I may do my best to carry them out.”
The chief steward gave a faint smile.
“There is no need for you, my lord, to do more than say one word,” he answered. “There is in our palace an actor by the name of Qiguan, who plays female roles. He had never previously given any trouble, but several days ago he disappeared. After searching the city for him without success, we instituted careful inquiries. We are told by eight out of every ten persons questioned that he has recently been on the closest terms with your esteemed son who was born with jade in his mouth. Of course, we could not seize him from your honourable mansion as if it were an ordinary household. So we reported the matter to His Highness, who says he would rather lose a hundred other actors than Qiguan, for this clever well-behaved lad is such a favourite with our master’s father that he cannot do without him. I beg you, therefore, to ask your noble son to send Qiguan back, in compliance with the prince’s earnest request and to save me from wearing myself out in a fruitless search.”
He concluded this speech with a bow.
Alarmed and scandalized, Jia Zheng summoned Baoyu, who hurried in without knowing why he was wanted.
“You scoundrel!” thundered his father. “Not content with shirking your studies at home, you commit such wicked crimes outside! Qiguan is in the service of Prince Zhongshun; how dare a wretch like you lure him away and bring calamity on me?”
Baoyu on hearing this was consternated.
“I know nothing about it,” he cried. “I’ve never even heard the name Qiguan,
let alone lured him away.”
He burst into tears.
Before Jia Zheng could speak again the chief steward said with a sardonic smile:
“It is useless to keep it a secret, sir. Tell us whether he is hiding here or where else he has gone. A prompt avowal will save us trouble and win you our gratitude.”
Still Baoyu denied any knowledge of the matter.
“You may have been misinformed, I’m afraid,” he muttered.
The steward gave a scornful laugh.
“Why deny it when we have proof? What good can it do you to force me to speak out before your noble father? If you never heard of this actor, how is it that you wear his red sash round your waist?”
Baoyu was thunderstruck and stood aghast. “How did they find out?” he wondered. “If they’ve even found out such secrets, it’s not much use trying to keep the rest from them. Better send him off before he does any more blabbing.”
So he said, “If you know so much, sir, how is it you are ignorant of something as important as his purchase of property? I am told that twenty li to the east of the city, in a place called Sandalwood Castle, he has bought a house and a few mu of land. I should think he might possibly be there.”
The chief steward’s face brightened.
“He must be there if you say so. I shall go and investigate. If we find him, well and good. If not, we shall come back for further enlightenment.”
He took a hasty leave.
Jia Zheng’s eyes were nearly bursting from his head with rage. As he followed the chief steward out, he turned to order Baoyu:
