CHAPTER XLV. Page 3 _The Dream of the Red Chamber
"You've certainly always treated people with extreme consideration," sighed Tai-yue, "but such a supremely suspicious person am I that I imagined that you inwardly concealed some evil design! Yet ever since the day on which you represented to me how unwholesome it was to read obscene books, and you gave me all that good advice, I've felt most grateful to you! I've hitherto, in fact, been mistaken in my opinion; and the truth of the matter is that I remained under this misconception up to the very present. But you must carefully consider that when my mother died, I hadn't even any sisters or brothers; and that up to this my fifteenth year there has never been a single person to admonish me as you did the other day. Little wonder is it if that girl Yuen speaks well of you! Whenever, in former days, I heard her heap praise upon you, I felt uneasy in my mind, but, after my experiences of yesterday, I see how right she was. When you, for instance, began to tell me all those things, I didn't forgive you at the time, but, without worrying yourself in the least about it you went on, contrariwise, to tender me the advice you did. This makes it evident that I have laboured under a mistaken idea! Had I not made this discovery the other day, I wouldn't be speaking like this to your very face to-day. You told me a few minutes back to take bird's nest congee; but birds' nests are, I admit, easily procured; yet all on account of my sickly constitution and of the relapses I have every year of this complaint of mine, which amounts to nothing, doctors have had to be sent for, medicines, with ginseng and cinnamon, have had to be concocted, and I've given already such trouble as to turn heaven and earth topsy-turvey; so were I now to start again a new fad, by having some birds' nests congee or other prepared, our worthy senior, Madame Wang, and lady Feng, will, all three of them, have no objection to raise; but that posse of matrons and maids below will unavoidably despise me for my excessive fussiness! Just notice how every one in here ogles wildly like tigers their prey; and stealthily says one thing and another, simply because they see how fond our worthy ancestor is of both Pao-yue and lady Feng, and how much more won't they do these things with me? What's more, I'm not a pucker mistress. I've really come here as a mere refugee, for I had no one to sustain me and no one to depend upon. They already bear me considerable dislike; so much so, that I'm still quite at a loss whether I should stay or go; and why should I make them heap execrations upon me?"
"Well, in that case," Pao-ch'ai observed, "I'm too in the same plight as yourself!"
"How can you compare yourself with me?" Tai-yue exclaimed. "You have a mother; and a brother as well! You've also got some business and land in here, and, at home, you can call houses' and fields your own. It's only therefore the ties of relationship, which make you stay here at all. Neither are you in anything whether large or small, in their debt for one single cash or even half a one; and when you want to go, you're at liberty to go. But I, have nothing whatever that I can call my own. Yet, in what I eat, wear, and use, I am, in every trifle, entirely on the same footing as the young ladies in their household, so how ever can that mean lot not despise me out and out?"
"The only extra expense they'll have to go to by and bye," Pao-ch'ai laughed, "will be to get one more trousseau, that's all. And for the present, it's too soon yet to worry yourself about that!"
At this insinuation, Tai-yue unconsciously blushed scarlet. "One treats you," she smiled, "as a decent sort of person, and confides in you the woes of one's heart, and, instead of sympathising with me, you make me the means of raising a laugh!"
"Albeit I raise a laugh at your expense," Pao-ch'ai rejoined, a smile curling her lips, "what I say is none the less true! But compose your mind! I'll try every day that I'm here to cheer you up; so come to me with every grievance or trouble, for I shall, needless to say, dispel those that are within my power. Notwithstanding that I have a brother, you yourself know well enough what he's like! All I have is a mother, so I'm just a trifle better off than you! We can therefore well look upon ourselves as being in the same boat, and sympathise with each other. You have, besides, plenty of wits about you, so why need you give way to groans, as did Ssu Ma-niu? What you said just now is quite right; but, you should worry and fret about as little and not as much as you can. On my return home, to-morrow, I'll tell my mother; and, as I think there must be still some birds' nests in our house, we'll send you several ounces of them. You can then tell the servant-maids to prepare some for you at whatever time you want every day; and you'll thus be suiting your own convenience and be giving no trouble or annoyance to any one."
"The things are, of themselves, of little account," eagerly responded Tai-yue laughingly. "What's difficult to find is one with as much feeling as yourself."
"What's there in this worth speaking about?" Pao-ch'ai said. "What grieves me is that I fail to be as nice as I should be with those I come across. But, I presume, you feel quite done up now, so I'll be off!"
"Come in the evening again," Tai-yue pressed her, "and have a chat with me."
While assuring her that she would come, Pao-ch'ai walked out, so let us leave her alone for the present.
Tai-yue, meanwhile, drank a few sips of thin congee, and then once more lay herself down on her bed. But before the sun set, the weather unexpectedly changed, and a fine drizzling rain set in. So gently come the autumn showers that dull and fine are subject to uncertain alternations. The shades of twilight gradually fell on this occasion. The heavens too got so overcast as to look deep black. Besides the effect of this change on her mind, the patter of the rain on the bamboo tops intensified her despondency, and, concluding that Pao-ch'ai would be deterred from coming, she took up, in the lamp light, the first book within her reach, which turned out to be the 'Treasury of Miscellaneous Lyrics.' Finding among these 'the Pinings of a maiden in autumn,' 'the Anguish of Separation,' and other similar poems, Tai-yue felt unawares much affected; and, unable to restrain herself from giving vent to her feelings in writing, she, there and then, improvised the following stanza, in the same strain as the one on separation; complying with the rules observed in the 'Spring River-Flower' and 'Moonlight Night.' These verses, she then entitled 'the Poem on the Autumn evening, when wind and rain raged outside the window.' Their burden was:
In autumn, flowers decay; herbage, when autumn comes, doth yellow turn. On long autumnal nights, the autumn lanterns with bright radiance burn. As from my window autumn scenes I scan, autumn endless doth seem. This mood how can I bear, when wind and rain despondency enhance? How sudden break forth wind and rain, and help to make the autumntide! Fright snaps my autumn dreams, those dreams which under my lattice I dreamt. A sad autumnal gloom enclasps my heart, and drives all sleep away! In person I approach the autumn screen to snuff the weeping wick. The tearful candles with a flickering flame consume on their short stands. They stir up grief, dazzle my eyes, and a sense of parting arouse. In what family's courts do not the blasts of autumn winds intrude? And where in autumn does not rain patter against the window-frames? The silken quilt cannot ward off the nipping force of autumn winds. The drip of the half drained water-clock impels the autumn rains. A lull for few nights reigned, but the wind has again risen in strength. By the lantern I weep, as if I sat with some one who must go. The small courtyard, full of bleak mist, is now become quite desolate. With quick drip drops the rain on the distant bamboos and vacant sills. What time, I wonder, will the wind and rain their howl and patter cease? The tears already I have shed have soaked through the window gauze.
After scanning her verses, she flung the pen aside, and was just on the point of retiring to rest, when a waiting-maid announced that 'master Secundus, Mr. Pao-yue, had come.' Barely was the announcement out of her lips, than Pao-yue appeared on the scene with a large bamboo hat on his head, and a wrapper thrown over his shoulders. Of a sudden, a smile betrayed itself on Tai-yue's lips. "Where does this fisherman come from?" she exclaimed.
"Are you better to-day?" Pao-yue inquired with alacrity. "Have you had any medicines? How much rice have you had to eat to-day?"
While plying her with questions, he took off the hat and divested himself of the wrapper; and, promptly raising the lamp with one hand, he screened it with the other and threw its rays upon Tai-yue's face. Then straining his eyes, he scrutinised her for a while. "You look better to-day," he smiled.
As soon as he threw off his wrapper, Tai-yue noticed that he was clad in a short red silk jacket, the worse for wear; that he was girded with a green sash, and that, about his knees, his nether garments were visible, made of green thin silk, brocaded with flowers. Below these, he wore embroidered gauze socks, worked all over with twisted gold thread, and a pair of shoes ornamented with butterflies and clusters of fallen flowers.
"Above, you fight shy of the rain," Tai-yue remarked, "but aren't these shoes and socks below afraid of rain? Yet they're quite clean!"
"This suit is complete!" Pao-yue smiled. "I've got a pair of crab-wood clogs, I put on to come over; but I took them off under the eaves of the verandah."
Tai-yue's attention was then attracted by the extreme fineness and lightness of the texture of his wrapper and hat, which were unlike those sold in the market places. "With what grass are they plaited?" she consequently asked. "It would be strange if you didn't, with this sort of things on, look like a very hedgehog!"
"These three articles are a gift from the Prince of Pei Ching," Pao-yue answered. "Ordinarily, when it rains, he too wears this kind of outfit at home. But if it has taken your fancy, I'll have a suit made for you. There's nothing peculiar about the other things, but this hat is funny! The crown at the top is movable; so if you want to wear a hat, during snowy weather in wintertime, you pull off the bamboo pegs, and remove the crown, and there you only have the circular brim. This is worn, when it snows, by men and women alike. I'll give you one therefore to wear in the wintry snowy months."
"I don't want it!" laughed Tai-yue. "Were I to wear this sort of thing, I'd look like one of those fisherwomen, one sees depicted in pictures or represented on the stage!"
Upon reaching this point, she remembered that there was some connection between her present remarks and the comparison she had some time back made with regard to Pao-yue, and, before she had time to indulge in regrets, a sense of shame so intense overpowered her that the colour rushed to her face, and, leaning her head on the table, she coughed and coughed till she could not stop. Pao-yue, however, did not detect her embarrassment; but catching sight of some verses lying on the table, he eagerly snatched them up and conned them from beginning to end. "Splendid!" he could not help crying. But the moment Tai-yue heard his exclamation, she speedily jumped to her feet, and clutched the verses and burnt them over the lamp.
"I've already committed them sufficiently to memory!" Pao-yue laughed.
"I want to have a little rest," Tai-yue said, "so please get away; come back again to-morrow."
At these words, Pao-yue drew back his hand, and producing from his breast a gold watch about the size of a walnut, he looked at the time. The hand pointed between eight and nine p.m.; so hastily putting it away, "You should certainly retire to rest!" he replied. "My visit has upset you. I've quite tired you out this long while." With these apologies, he threw the wrapper over him, put on the rain-hat and quitted the room. But turning round, he retraced his steps inside. "Is there anything you fancy to eat?" he asked. "If there be, tell me, and I'll let our venerable ancestor know of it to-morrow as soon as it's day. Won't I explain things clearer than any of the old matrons could?"
"Let me," rejoined Tai-yue smiling, "think in the night. I'll let you know early to-morrow. But harken, it's raining harder than it did; so be off at once! Have you got any attendants, or no?"
"Yes!" interposed the two matrons. "There are servants to wait on him. They're outside holding his umbrella and lighting the lanterns."
"Are they lighting lanterns with this weather?" laughed Tai-yue.
"It won't hurt them!" Pao-yue answered. "They're made of sheep's horn, so they don't mind the rain."
Hearing this, Tai-yue put back her hand, and, taking down an ornamented glass lantern in the shape of a ball from the book case, she asked the servants to light a small candle and bring it to her; after which, she handed the lantern to Pao-yue. "This," she said, "gives out more light than the others; and is just the thing for rainy weather."
"I've also got one like it." Pao-yue replied. "But fearing lest they might slip, fall down and break it, I did not have it lighted and brought round."
"What's of more account," Tai-yue inquired, "harm to a lantern or to a human being? You're not besides accustomed to wearing clogs, so tell them to walk ahead with those lanterns. This one is as light and handy as it is light-giving; and is really adapted for rainy weather, so wouldn't it be well if you carried it yourself? You can send it over to me to-morrow! But, were it even to slip from your hand, it wouldn't matter much. How is it that you've also suddenly developed this money-grabbing sort of temperament? It's as bad as if you ripped your intestines to secrete pearls in."
After these words, Pao-yue approached her and took the lantern from her. Ahead then advanced two matrons, with umbrellas and sheep horn lanterns, and behind followed a couple of waiting-maids also with umbrellas. Pao-yue handed the glass lantern to a young maid to carry, and, supporting himself on her shoulder, he straightway wended his steps on his way back.
But presently arrived an old servant from the Heng Wu court, provided as well with an umbrella and a lantern, to bring over a large bundle of birds' nests, and a packet of foreign sugar, pure as powder, and white as petals of plum-blossom and flakes of snow. "These," she said, "are much better than what you can buy. Our young lady sends you word, miss, to first go on with these. When you've done with them, she'll let you have some more."
"Many thanks for the trouble you've taken!" Tai-yue returned for answer; and then asked her to go and sit outside and have a cup of tea.
"I won't have any tea," the old servant smiled. "I've got something else to attend to."
"I'm well aware that you've all got plenty in hand," Tai-yue resumed with a smiling countenance. "But the weather being cool now and the nights long, it's more expedient than ever to establish two things: a night club and a gambling place."
"I won't disguise the fact from you, miss," the old servant laughingly observed, "that I've managed this year to win plenty of money. Several servants have, under any circumstances, to do night duty; and, as any neglect in keeping watch wouldn't be the right thing, isn't it as well to have a night club, as one can sit on the look-out and dispel dullness as well? But it's again my turn to play the croupier to-day, so I must be getting along to the place, as the garden gate, will, by this time, be nearly closing!"
This rejoinder evoked a laugh from Tai-yue. "I've given you all this bother," she remarked, "and made you lose your chances of getting money, just to bring these things in the rain." And calling a servant she bade her present her with several hundreds of cash to buy some wine with, to drive the damp away.
"I've uselessly put you again, miss, to the expense of giving me a tip for wine," the old servant smiled. But saying this she knocked her forehead before her; and issuing outside, she received the money, after which, she opened her umbrella, and trudged back.
Tzu Chuean meanwhile put the birds' nests away; and removing afterwards the lamps, she lowered the portieres and waited upon Tai-yue until she lay herself down to sleep.
While she reclined all alone on her pillow, Tai-yue thought gratefully of Pao-ch'ai. At one moment, she envied her for having a mother and a brother; and at another, she mused that with the friendliness Pao-yue had ever shown her they were bound to be the victims of suspicion. But the pitter-patter of the rain, dripping on the bamboo tops and banana leaves, fell on her ear; and, as a fresh coolness penetrated the curtain, tears once more unconsciously trickled down her cheeks. In this frame of mind, she continued straight up to the fourth watch, when she at last gradually dropped into a sound sleep.
For the time, however, there is nothing that we can add. So should you, reader, desire to know any subsequent details, peruse what is written in the next chapter.