by Cao Xueqin
She plumped down on the edge of the kang hugging Baoyu to her. He had never seen such behaviour as this before. His heart beating fast he blushed all over his face.
“Good sister, don’t tease me!” he pleaded.
Miss Deng laughed tipsily.
“Bah! I’ve always heard that you were a lady’s man. What makes you so bashful today?”
Flushing crimson he implored, “Do let go of me, then we can talk properly. If the old woman outside hears—how awful!”
“I came back long ago and sent her to wait for you at the Garden gate,” she laughed. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for a chance like this, but now that you’re here I’ve discovered you’re a fraud. For all you’re so handsome, you’re nothing but a fire-cracker without powder— good only for show. Why, you’re much shyer than I am. This shows it’s no use listening to gossip. For instance, when my cousin came home I was sure you two must have been up to some monkey business; that’s why I came back to listen outside the window. If there’s been some goings-on between you, as you were alone you would have talked about it; but to my surprise there’d been nothing of the sort. So it’s clear lots of people get wrongly accused in this world. I’m sorry I misjudged you. Well, as this is the case, you’ve nothing to worry about. You can come whenever you like and I won’t pester you.”
Feeling very relieved he got up and straightened his clothes. “Good sister, please take good care of her for a couple of days,” he urged her. “I must be off now.”
He went out then to say goodbye to Qingwen. Both were reluctant to part, but part they must; and knowing how hard he found it, she covered her face with the quilt and ignored him until he left.
Baoyu had wanted to call on Fangguan and Sier too, but as it was dark and he had been out for some time he was afraid he would be missed and a search might be made for him, leading to more trouble. He had better return to the Garden and go out again the next day. When he reached the back gate, pages were bringing out bedding while nurses inside were checking up on people. A minute later and he would have been locked out. Luckily he was able to slip in unobserved.
Home again, he simply told Xiren that he had been with Aunt Xue and left it at that. Presently when preparing his bed, she had to ask him how they should sleep that night.
“Any way you like,” was his answer.
Now for the last couple of years, since Xiren got into the good books of Lady Wang, she had begun to stand on her dignity and broken off her intimacy with Baoyu even in private or at night, behaving more distantly than when they were young. And though she had no major business to attend to, all the needlework of the household, as well as the accounts and seeing to the clothing and shoes of Baoyu and the young maids kept her fully occupied. Moreover, though she no longer suffered from fluxions, when she was tired or caught cold she sometimes coughed blood; and for this reason she had avoided sleeping in the same room as Baoyu. However, he often woke up in the night and being very timid would always call for someone; so Qingwen, who was a light sleeper and soft-footed, had been given the task of pouring him tea and attending him at night and had slept on a bed near his.
Now Xiren had to ask who should sleep on the bed near his, as she considered this work at night more important than any daytime tasks. Told to do as she thought fit, she could only move in her own bedding to sleep in Baoyu’s room as in the old days.
That evening he was lost in thought. Finally she persuaded him to go to bed, but after she and the others had turned in she heard him groaning and tossing about in bed till after midnight, when finally he calmed down and started snoring. In relief she dozed off herself, but in less time than it takes to drink half a cup of tea he called for Qingwen. Xiren woke with a start and asked what he wanted. Some tea, he said. She got up, rinsed her hands in a basin of water, then poured him half a cup from the warm pot.
After sipping some tea Baoyu said with an apologetic smile, “I’m so used to calling her, I forgot it was you.”
“You were used to calling me in your sleep when she first took over. It took you months to get out of the habit. So I knew that though Qingwen’s gone her name would still be on your lips.”
They lay down again. Baoyu tossed and turned for another hour or two, not falling asleep till the fifth watch. Then he saw Qingwen come in, looking her usual self. Having entered the room, she told him with a smile:
“Take good care of yourselves. I must leave you now.” With that she turned and vanished.
Baoyu called her, waking Xiren again. She thought it was another slip of the tongue, but he sobbed:
“Qingwen is dead!”
“What a thing to say! How could you know? Don’t let other people hear you talk such nonsense.”
Baoyu insisted that he was right and could hardly wait till dawn to send to find out. Just at daybreak, however, a young maid sent by Lady Wang came to the Garden and called out asking to have the front side gate opened, as the mistress had instructions to be passed on.
“Baoyu must wash and dress quickly!” she cried. “The master has been invited out to enjoy the autumn scenery and the osmanthus in bloom. He is pleased with Baoyu because he wrote a good poem the other day, so he means to take him along. That’s what Her Ladyship said, so don’t get a word wrong. Hurry up and tell him to come as fast as he can. The master’s waiting in the principal apartments for the boys to come and have breakfast. Master Huan has already arrived, and someone’s been sent to fetch Master Lan as he’s to go as well.”
As she delivered this message, the serving-woman inside assented sentence by sentence while buttoning her clothes, then opened the gate. Several other maids, hastily dressing themselves, had run to pass on these instructions.
When Xiren heard knocking at the gate, she got up at once and sent to ask what was so pressing. This summons relayed to her, she quickly called for hot water and urged Baoyu to get up and wash while she fetched his clothes. Since he was going out with his father, instead of choosing his most splendid new clothes she selected a less conspicuous outfit.
Baoyu had no choice but to go as fast as he could. He found his father drinking tea, obviously in a good humour. Having paid his morning respects he was greeted by Jia Huan and Jia Lan in turn, and then Jia Zheng ordered him to sit down to breakfast.
“Baoyu doesn’t study as hard as you,” he told the other boys. “But when it comes to writing inscriptions or capping verses you haven’t got his flair. Today our hosts are bound to make you write poems, and Baoyu must help you both out.”
Lady Wang, who had never heard such praise from him, was both surprised and pleased. After father and sons had left, she was thinking of going over to see the old lady when the foster-mothers of Fangguan, Ouguan and Ruiguan were announced.
“Ever since Your Ladyship kindly allowed Fangguan to come home she’s behaved like a crazy creature,” one of them reported. “She’ll neither eat nor drink. And now the three of them—she’s got Ouguan and Ruiguan to do the same—insist on cutting their hair and becoming nuns. They threaten to kill themselves if we won’t let them. At first I thought the child was just unused to the way we live outside, and would get over this whim in a couple of days. But they’re carrying on worse and worse. We’ve scolded and beaten them, but it’s no use. We’re really at our wits’ end: that’s why we’ve come to beg Your Ladyship’s help. We’ll either have to allow them to become nuns or give them a good talking to and let other families take them. We haven’t the fortune to keep them!”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Lady Wang. “How can you let them have their own way? How can anyone enter a nunnery for fun? Give them a thrashing and they’ll show more sense.”
Now as this was just after the mid-autumn sacrifices, nuns from various nunneries had come to present sacrificial offerings, and Lady Wang had kept Abbess Zhitong of Water Moon Convent and Abbess Yuanxin of Ksitigarbha Nunnery to stay for a couple of days. When they heard this news, they thought it a chance to get two girls for nothing to work for them.
“After all,” they told Lady Wang, “it’s because your house is a virtuous one and you yourself do so many good deeds that these young girls have been influenced in this way. Though the house of Buddha isn’t easy to enter, we should remember that the law of Buddha extends to all alike. Our Buddha’s wish is to save all living creatures, yes, even chickens and dogs; but, alas, those who are deluded are hard to awaken. Anyone who has the root of goodness in her and can attain enlightenment can transcend transmigration. Why, even a number of tigers, wolves, snakes and insects have now entered Nirvana.
“These three orphan girls far from their native places lived here amid wealth and splendour but now they remember their early poverty which forced them to take to a despised profession, and they have no idea what will become of them in future. So turning away from this sea of sufferings they have decided to renounce the world and cultivate virtue, in the hope of doing better in their next life. This is a good and noble resolve. Please don’t stand in their way, madam.”
Now Lady Wang was fond of doing good deeds. She had not allowed Fangguan and the other girls to have their way because, to her mind, they were only children who had made this proposal in a fit of anger; they might prove unable to stand austerity, leading to more trouble in future. The speech of these two swindlers struck her as reasonable. Besides, she was quite distracted these days with a host of family problems, in addition to which Lady Xing had sent word that she intended to fetch Yingchun back tomorrow for a couple of days so that her prospective in-laws could inspect her, and official go-betweens had also come to propose a match for Tanchun. Unable to give much thought to these minor matters, she consented willingly.
“Well then, since that’s how you feel, why not take these girls away as your acolytes?”
“Merciful Buddha!” the abbesses exclaimed, “how good of you, madam! This is a most virtuous deed.” They forthwith bowed their thanks.
“They’d better be questioned first,” said Lady Wang. “If they are really in earnest they can come and, in my presence, pay their respects to you now as their Mothers Superior.”
The three foster-mothers fetched the three girls, and Lady Wang sounded them out carefully. As their minds were made up, they kowtowed to the two abbesses and then to Lady Wang by way of farewell. Seeing that they were determined and not to be dissuaded, she could not help feeling a pang of pity and sent for gifts for them as well as for the abbesses. Then Fangguan went off with Zhitong of Water Moon Convent, and the other two erstwhile actresses with Yuanxin of Ksitigarbha Nunnery.
To know what followed, read on.
Chapter 78
An Old Scholar at Leisure Has Eulogies Composed
His Unorthodox, Witless Son Laments the Hibiscus
After the two abbesses had taken the young actresses away, Lady Wang called to pay her morning respects to the Lady Dowager. And finding her in a good mood she reported:
“Baoyu’s maid Qingwen has grown up now, and this last year or so she’s kept falling ill. I’ve noticed too that she’s saucier and lazier than the others. Recently she was ill again for over ten days, and the doctor diagnosed it as consumption; so then and there I dismissed her with instructions not to come back when she’s better, giving her to her family to marry off. I also took it on myself to send away those few young actresses. Because, on account of their theatrical training, they talked in a wild way we don’t want our girls to hear; and as they performed for us here for a time, it wouldn’t have been right to ask for money for them. In any case, we have too many maids. If we need more in future, we can always pick a few others.”
“Quite right and proper.” The old lady nodded approval. “Exactly what I had in mind myself. But I always thought Qingwen a very nice girl. How could she have turned out so badly? She struck me as smarter than the other maids, with a ready tongue too and better at needlework the best choice as a concubine for Baoyu in future. Who could have dreamed that she’d change for the worse?”
“You made the right choice, madam, only she wasn’t fated to have such good fortune. That’s why she contracted this illness. As the saying goes, ‘A girl changes eighteen times before reaching womanhood.’ And the smarter the girl, the more out of hand she’ll get. You must have seen many such cases.
“Three years ago when I thought about this question too, she was my first choice. No one’s a match for her in other ways, it’s just that she’s a bit flighty. For steadiness and propriety, Xiren comes first. Though what’s wanted in a wife is virtue, they say, and in a concubine beauty, still it’s better to choose a girl with a sweet disposition and steady character. Xiren may not be up to Qingwen in looks, yet she’s the best for Baoyu’s chamber. Trustworthy, too, and honest. These last few years she’s never once led Baoyu into mischief. In fact, whenever he does wrong she tries her best to dissuade him—after watching her for two years I know this for certain. That’s why I secretly stopped her pay as a maid and gave her two taels a month from my own allowance, so that she’d understand and look after him even better. I didn’t make it public for two reasons: partly because Baoyu’s young, and if his father knew of this he might think it bad for his studies; partly because if she was known to be his concubine she wouldn’t dare gainsay him, and Baoyu would carry on more wildly than ever. This is why I didn’t report it to you earlier.” The Lady Dowager smiled.
“If that’s the case so much the better. Xiren’s always been so quiet I felt she was rather stupid; but as you know her so well you can’t be wrong. I’m all in favour, too, of not letting Baoyu know. None of us must mention this, just let it be understood. I’m well aware that in future Baoyu won’t listen to his wife’s or concubines’ advice. I can’t understand him either. I’ve never known another child like him. One expects a boy to be mischievous, but this extraordinary liking he has for maids has been preying on my mind. I’m for ever finding him fooling about with them. At first I thought this intimacy was because he’d grown big enough to know about sex; but watching him more closely I realized that wasn’t the reason, which makes it even odder. Could it be that he was really meant to be born a girl....”
This set every body laughing. Then Lady Wang went on to describe how Jia Zheng had praised Baoyu today and taken the boys out with him to pay a call. This pleased the old lady still more.
Soon Yingchun, dressed to go out, came to take her leave. Then Xifeng arrived to pay her respects and wait upon the old lady as she had breakfast. They chatted till it was time for her siesta, when Lady Wang called Xifeng over to ask her whether she had prepared her pills.
“Not yet,” was the answer. “I’m still taking herb-cordials. But don’t you worry, madam. I’m much better.”
Lady Wang believed her, having seen that she looked more energetic.
She told her of Qingwen’s dismissal.
“How come you didn’t know that Baochai—of her own accord—had moved home to sleep with her mother?” she continued. “A couple of days ago I made a search of all the other apartments in the Garden. And, just imagine, I found young Lan’s new nurse a regular vamp! I didn’t like the look of her at all. So I urged your sister-in-law to send her packing, as in any case he’s big enough now not to need so many nurses. And I asked her, ‘Surely you knew about Baochai’s leaving?”
“She said yes, but Baochai had told her she’d be coming back in a few days, once Aunt Xue was better. Actually, there’s nothing much the matter with Aunt Xue apart from that chronic cough and backache of hers which she gets every year. So Baochai must have moved out for some other reason. Do you think somebody offended her? She’s a sensitive child, and it would be too bad if we offended her after living together for so long.”
“Why should anyone offend them for no reason?” asked Xifeng cheerfully. “They spend all their time in the Garden, so if there has been any misunderstanding it must be among themselves.”
“Can Baoyu have been tactless?” wondered his mother. “He’s such a simpleton, so lacking in scruples, that in a fit of exc
itement he may have spoken wildly.”
“Don’t worry so much about him, madam. When Baoyu goes out on business, he may talk and behave like a simpleton. But when he’s at home with all these girl cousins of his, or even with the maids, he’s most considerate to them, afraid of giving offence. So no one could possibly be annoyed by him.
“I think Baochai must have left because of the search the other night, naturally concluding that we didn’t trust certain people in the Garden. As she’s a relative, we could hardly search her servants. But for fear that her household might be suspected, being sensitive as she is she took her self off so as to avoid suspicion. And quite right, too.”
Convinced by this estimate, Lady Wang lowered her head and after some reflection told a maid to invite Baochai over. She explained about the recent search to set her niece’s mind at rest then urged her to move back into the Garden.
“I’d been meaning to move out for some time,” said Baochai with a smile. “Only I didn’t find the occasion to ask you, as you have so much important business to attend to. But that day, as it happened, my mother was unwell again and our only two reliable maids were ill; so I took the chance to move out. Now that you know about it, I can explain the reason and ask leave today to move my things out too.”
Neither Lady Wang nor Xifeng would hear of this.
“Don’t be so stubborn!” they cried laughingly. “What you should really do is move in again, not let something so inconsequential come between us.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.” Baochai rejoined. “I didn’t leave because of anything that happened here, but because my mother’d been feeling less energetic and at night she had nobody to rely on but me. Besides, my brother will soon be getting married. There’s a lot of needlework to do, his rooms still have to be furnished, and I have to help her with all the preparations. You know, aunt and Cousin Xifeng, how it is in our family and that I’m not fibbing.
