CHAPTER LII. Page 4 _The Dream of the Red Chamber
"What's the reason of such behaviour?" She Yueeh promptly asked him.
"My old grandmother," Pao-yue explained, "was in such capital spirits that she gave me this coat to-day; but, who'd have thought it, I inadvertently burnt part of the back lapel. Fortunately however the evening was advanced so that neither she nor my mother noticed what had happened."
Speaking the while, he took it off. She Yueeh, on inspection, found indeed a hole burnt in it of the size of a finger. "This," she said, "must have been done by some spark from the hand-stove. It's of no consequence."
Immediately she called a servant to her. "Take this out on the sly," she bade her, "and let an experienced weaver patch it. It will be all right then."
So saying, she packed it up in a wrapper, and a nurse carried it outside.
"It should be ready by daybreak," she urged. "And by no means let our old lady or Madame Wang know anything about it."
The matron brought it back again, after a protracted absence. "Not only," she explained; "have weavers, first-class tailors, and embroiderers, but even those, who do women's work, been asked about it, and they all have no idea what this is made of. None of them therefore will venture to undertake the job."
"What's to be done?" She Yueeh inquired. "But it won't matter if you don't wear it to-morrow."
"To-morrow is the very day of the anniversary," Pao-yue rejoined. "Grandmother and my mother bade me put this on and go and pay my visit; and here I go and burn it, on the first day I wear it. Now isn't this enough to throw a damper over my good cheer?"
Ch'ing Wen lent an ear to their conversation for a long time, until unable to restrain herself, she twisted herself round. "Bring it here," she chimed in, "and let me see it! You haven't been lucky in wearing this; but never mind!"
These words were still on Ch'ing Wen's lips, when the coat was handed to her. The lamp was likewise moved nearer to her. With minute care she surveyed it. "This is made," Ch'ing Wen observed, "of gold thread, spun from peacock's feathers. So were we now to also take gold thread, twisted from the feathers of the peacock, and darn it closely, by imitating the woof, I think it will pass without detection."
"The peacock-feather-thread is ready at hand," She Yueeh remarked smilingly. "But who's there, exclusive of you, able to join the threads?"
"I'll, needless to say, do my level best to the very cost of my life and finish," Ch'ing Wen added.
"How ever could this do?" Pao-yue eagerly interposed. "You're just slightly better, and how could you take up any needlework?"
"You needn't go on in this chicken-hearted way!" Ch'ing Wen cried. "I know my own self well enough."
With this reply, she sat up, and, putting her hair up, she threw something over her shoulders. Her head felt heavy; her body light. Before her eyes, confusedly flitted golden stirs. In real deed, she could not stand the strain. But when inclined to give up the work, she again dreaded that Pao-yue would be driven to despair. She therefore had perforce to make a supreme effort and, setting her teeth to, she bore the exertion. All the help she asked of She Yueeh was to lend her a hand in reeling the thread.
Ch'ing Wen first took hold of a thread, and put it side by side (with those in the pelisse) to compare the two together. "This," she remarked, "isn't quite like them; but when it's patched up with it, it won't show very much."
"It will do very well," Pao-yue said. "Could one also go and hunt up a Russian tailor?"
Ch'ing Wen commenced by unstitching the lining, and, inserting under it, a bamboo bow, of the size of the mouth of a tea cup, she bound it tight at the back. She then turned her mind to the four sides of the aperture, and these she loosened by scratching them with a golden knife. Making next two stitches across with her needle, she marked out the warp and woof; and, following the way the threads were joined, she first and foremost connected the foundation, and then keeping to the original lines, she went backwards and forwards mending the hole; passing her work, after every second stitch, under further review. But she did not ply her needle three to five times, before she lay herself down on her pillow, and indulged in a little rest.
Pao-yue was standing by her side. Now he inquired of her: "Whether she would like a little hot water to drink." Later on, he asked her to repose herself. Now he seized a grey-squirrel wrapper and threw it over her shoulders. Shortly after, he took a pillow and propped her up. (The way he fussed) so exasperated Ch'ing Wen that she begged and entreated him to leave off.
"My junior ancestor!" she exclaimed, "do go to bed and sleep! If you sit up for the other half of the night, your eyes will to-morrow look as if they had been scooped out, and what good will possibly come out of that?"
Pao-yue realised her state of exasperation and felt compelled to come and lie down anyhow. But he could not again close his eyes.
In a little while, she heard the clock strike four, and just managing to finish she took a small tooth-brush, and rubbed up the pile.
"That will do!" She Yueeh put in. "One couldn't detect it, unless one examined it carefully."
Pao-yue asked with alacrity to be allowed to have a look at it. "Really," he smiled, "it's quite the same thing."
Ch'ing Wen coughed and coughed time after time, so it was only after extreme difficulty that she succeeded in completing what she had to patch. "It's mended, it's true," she remarked, "but it does not, after all, look anything like it. Yet, I cannot stand the effort any more!"
As she shouted 'Ai-ya,' she lost control over herself, and dropped down upon the bed.
But, reader, if you choose to know anything more of her state, peruse the next chapter.