A Dream of Red Mansions – Chapter 51

0
216

Chapter 51

Baoqin Composes Poems

Recalling the Past

An Incompetent Physician Prescribes

Strong Medicine

Baoqin told the others that she had written ten riddles in the form of quatrains, about famous places she had visited in different provinces.

‘How original!’ they cried.

They crowded round to read the poems, which were as follows:

RED CLIFF

Wrecked by Red Cliff, choking the stream,

Nothing remains in the empty hulks but names;

Yet countless gallant souls are roaming there

Where cold winds sough and fan the leaping flames.

COCHIN CHINA2

His rule is strengthened by great bells of bronze,

Whose sound has spread to tribes beyond the seas;

Ma Yuan assuredly achieved great deeds,

And the iron flute of Zhang Liang3 needs no praise.

MOUNT ZHONGSHAN4

Fame and profit have never kept you company,

Abruptly haled into the dusty world;

To sever all the strings attached is hard;

Don’t murmur, then, if taunts at you are hurled.

HUAJYIN5

Even the brave must guard against savage hounds;

He was made Prince of Qi and died straightway;

But let not the worldly despise him ‘He remembered the gift of a meal till his dying day.

GUANGHNG6

Cicadas chirp, crows roost, in a flash they are gone;

How looks the landscape by Sui Dyke today?

I was the emperor’s romantic reputation

That was to blame for so much calumny.

PEACH-LEAFFORD7

Flowers bloom in idleness by the shallow pool,

Peach-Leaf must part company at last with the bough;

Many mansions stood here in the Six Dynasties,

Only a portrait hangs on the bare wall now.

THE GREEN TOMB8

The dark stream is stagnant, choked,

The icy strings of the lute all her grief proclaim;

How absurd they were, the rules of the House of Han;

Wood the carpenter scorns should feel eternal shame.

MAWEI SLOPE9

Lonely traces of rouge and perspiration remain,

But with the flowing water her beauty has gone;

Yet some vestiges of her charm still linger on,

And even today a fragrance clings to her gown.

PIJDONG MONASThRY’0

A young maid, low-born and flippant,

By stealth brings a couple together;

Though caught out at last by her mistress,

She has induced her young lady to join her lover.

PLUM-BLOSSOM NUNNERY’

Not by plum trees but by willows,

Who will pick up the beauty’s portrait here?

It is no use longing for a reunion in spring.

Autumn means parting for another year.

They all admired the subtlety of these riddles, Baochai, however, com­mented, ‘The first eight deal with authenticated incidents in history, but it’s harder for us to understand the last two fictitious ones. I think you ought to write two others instead.’

Daiyu at once objected, ‘Don’t be so sanctimonious and strait-laced, dear cousin. The last two incidents may not appear in historical records, and not having read the romances from which they come we may not know the details; but we’ve surely all seen the operas based on them. Why, even three-year-olds know them, not to say us.

‘That’s quite right,’ agreed Tanchun.

‘Besides,’ Li Wan added, ‘these poems are about places she’s vis­ited. What if these two stories are fictitious? Plenty of legends have come down from ancient times, and well-meaning busybodies have even faked relics to fool men. For instance, that year we come to the capital we passed three or four tombs on the way said to be Lord Guan’s. Well, there’s historical evidence for Lord Guan’s life and actions, but how could one man have so many tombs? They appeared, of course, as often happens, because later generations admired him and wanted to show their respect. I’ve since learned from a book of geography that Lord Guan isn’t the only one to have several tombs so do most famous men of old. As for legendary sites, there are even more of them. So though the stories referred to in these two riddles are fictitious, they’re mentioned in ballads and operas, even in temple oracles. The whole world knows them. Each one is a household word. Besides, it’s not as if we ourselves had read The Western Chamber and The Peony Pavilion, which are licentious works. So it doesn’t matter if these two verses are kept.’

Then Baochai did not insist, and they tried for a while to guess the answers, but with no success.

In winter the days are short, it was soon dinner-time, and they went to the mansion for a meal. Then a maid reported to Lady Wang that Xiren’s brother Hua Zifang had brought word that their mother was ill and wanted to see her daughter. He had come to beg permission to take her home.

‘Of course we can’t keep her if her mother wants her,’ was Lady Wang’s reply. She sent for Xifeng and told her to see to the matter.

Xifeng agreed and went back to her apartments. She asked Zhou Rui’s wife to break the news to Xiren, and gave her these instructions:

‘You must get another matron beside yourself and a couple of young maids to go with Xiren. Four older attendants are to escort her carriage. Take a big one yourselves and a smaller one for the girls.’

As Mrs. Zhou was leaving to carry out these orders, Xifeng added, ‘Xiren is a sensible girl. Tell her from me to dress smartly and to take a big bundle of good clothes in a handsome wrapper, as well as a good hand-stove. She must come and let me see her before she leaves.’

Mrs. Zhou assented and went off.

After some time, sure enough, Xiren arrived, having changed her clothes, accompanied by Mrs. Chou and two maids who were carrying her hand-stove and bundle. Xifeng saw that she had some fine gold pins ornamented with pearls in her hair, and was wearing an ermine-lined peach-red silk tapestry jacket with a hundred-beads design, a yellowish-green padded skirt embroidered with coloured silk and gold thread, and a black satin coat lined with squirrel.

‘These three garments which your mistress gave you are of good quality,’ acknowledged Xifeng with a smile. ‘But the coat’s on the drab side. It’s not warm enough either. You need one with thicker fur.’

‘The mistress gave me this squirrel, and the ermine too,’ Xiren re­plied. ‘She promised to give me a fox-fur as well at New Year.’

‘Well, I have a fox-fur, but I don’t care for the way the fringe hangs and was meaning to have it altered,’ said Xifeng. ‘You may as well have that for the time being. When the mistress orders a coat for you for New Year, I’ll have it made for myself instead. That’ 11 compensate me for the one I’m giving you.’

Everybody present laughed.

‘We know your way of talking, madam,’ they said. ‘You give with both hands, the whole year round, privately giving away all sorts of things to make up for the presents that the mistress forgets. There’s really no saying how much you’ve given. And you never charge the mistress for them, of course. Yet you talk in this stingy way to raise a laugh.’

‘How can the mistress remember all these things, which aren’t im­portant anyway?’ Xifeng retorted. ‘But if no one saw to them, it would reflect badly on the family; and I’m quite willing to put my hand in my pocket to keep everyone decently dressed for the sake of my own good name. I’m in charge of the household, after all, and if everyone here looked like scarecrows I’d be blamed for fitting you out in such a beggarly way.’

This impressed them all. ‘No one else can hold a candle to you, madam,’ they said. ‘So considerate as you are to Her Ladyship, and kindness itself to those of us beneath you.’

Pinger had been sent to fetch Xiren the fox-fur-lined coat of slate-­blue silk tapestry with eight circular designs which Xifeng had worn the previous day. Now, seeing that Xiren’s wrapper was of black and white silk gauze, lined with pink silk, and in it she had only two worn silk-padded jackets and one fur jacket, Xifeng told Pinger to bring her own jade-coloured velvet wrapper with a silk lining, as well as a cape for the snow. Pinger brought two capes, one of worn crimson felt, the other a rather newer one of red satin.

‘One is already too much,’ Xiren demurred.

‘The felt’s for you,’ chuckled Pinger. ‘I’ve brought the other at the same time to send to Miss Xiuyan. Yesterday, in that heavy snow, the others were all wearing felt, camlet or satin, and it was really a splendid sight a dozen or so red capes against the snow. She was the only one in a shabby cape, all hunched up with cold, poor thing! So we’d better give her this.’

‘See the way she gives away my property!’ cried Xifeng. ‘As if I’m not spending enough myself without her help. A fine thing!’

‘It’s your fault, madam, for being so dutiful to Her Ladyship and so good to us servants,’ they retorted, smiling. ‘If you were the stingy sort that hoards things up with no consideration for those below you, she wouldn’t dare do such a thing.

‘That’s because she’s the only one with some inkling of my charac­ter,’ rejoined Xifeng. She told Xiren, ‘Let’s hope your mother is better. If not, you’ll just have to stay there; but send me word, and I’ll have your bedding sent over. Don’t use their bedding or combs.’ She turned to Mrs. Zhou. ‘You all know our rules, of course. I don’t have to remind you.’

‘We know, madam,’ replied Mrs. Zhou. ‘When we get there, we’ll ask the others to keep their distance. If we stay, we’ll insist on a couple of inner rooms.

She went out then with Xiren and ordered the servant-boys to light the lanterns. Mounting their carriages, they drove to Hua Zifang’s house.

Meanwhile Xifeng had summoned two old nannies from Baoyu’s quarters.

‘Xiren probably won’t be back today,’ she told them. ‘You know which of the older girls have most sense. Get a couple of them to keep watch at night in Baoyu’s rooms. You must see to things too. Don’t let Baoyu run wild.’

The two nannies assented and left, returning presently to report:

‘We’ve told Qingwen and Sheyue to attend Master Bao. The four of us will keep watch at night in turn.’

Xifeng nodded.

‘See that he goes to bed early and gets up early.’

They promised to do this and went back to the Garden.

Before long Zhou Rui’s wife sent word that Xiren’s mother was dying, and Xiren could not come back. Having reported this to Lady Wang, Xifeng sent to the Garden for Xiren’s bedding and dressing-case. Baoyu looked on while Qingwen and Sheyue got these ready and sent them off. This done, the two maids changed their clothes for the night, and Qingwen sat down on the big openwork bronze clothes-warmer over the brazier.

‘Stop putting on such ladified airs,’ Sheyue teased. ‘Do something, can’t you!’

‘I will after all the rest of you are gone,’ retorted Qingwen. ‘So long as you’re here, I mean to take it easy.’

‘I’ll make the bed, dear sister, but you must let down the cover over the mirror and hook back the clasp about ‘ you’re taller than I am.’ She then went to make Baoyu’s bed.

‘I was just nicely warm and you had to disturb me!’ Qingwen gave a mock sigh.

Baoyu had been sitting brooding, wondering whether Xiren’s mother would recover or not. Hearing this exchange between the girls, he got up and went out to cover the mirror and hook back the clasp himself.

‘You can stay in the warm,’ he said as he came in again. ‘I’ve seen to everything.’

‘I can’t toast myself here all the time,’ replied Qingwen smiling. ‘That reminds me, I’ve not fetched your pewter bed-warmer.’

‘How thoughtful you suddenly are!’ remarked Sheyue. ‘He never uses a bed-warmer. And we shall be snugger here on the clothes-warmer than on the cold kang in the other room. There’s no need for a bed­warmer today.’

‘If you both sleep on that clothes-warmer, I’ll be all alone out here.’ objected Baoyu. ‘I’d be too scared to get a wink of sleep.’

‘I mean to sleep here,’ declared Qingwen. ‘You sleep in his room, Sheyue.’

By this time it was already the second watch. Sheyue who had by this time drawn the curtains, removed the lamp and added incense to the burner, now helped Baoyu to bed. Then the two girls slept too, Qingwen on the clothes-warmer above the brazier, Sheyue outside Baoyu’s al­cove.

After the third watch had sounded, Baoyu called Xiren in his sleep. He called a couple of times but no one answered, and it dawned on him as he woke that she was away, at which he laughed at himself.

Qingwen, awake too now, called to Sheyue, ‘You really sleep like the dead! He’s even woken me, over here; but you right next to him didn’t hear a thing.’

Sheyue turned over, yawning.

‘It was Xiren he called. What’s that to do with me?’ She asked Baoyu what he wanted.

He told her, ‘Some tea.’

She got up at once then, wearing nothing over her night clothes but a padded red silk jacket.

‘Slip on my fur before you go out to the other room,’ he advised. ‘You mustn’t catch cold.’

So she put on the warm sable jacket he used as a dressing-gown, then washed her hands in the basin and took Baoyu a cup of warm water and a large rinse-bowl, so that he could rinse his mouth. Next she fetched a bowl from the cupboard, warmed it with hot water and half filled it with tea from the warm pot for him to drink. She then rinsed her own mouth and drank half a bowl of tea too.

‘Bring me a drop too, dearie!’ called Qingwen.

‘You’re getting above yourself, aren’t you?’ Sheyue retorted.

‘Good sister, tomorrow night you needn’t stir, and I’ll dance atten­dance on you. How about that?’

Then Sheyue gave her water to rinse her mouth and poured her half a bowl of tea.

‘Don’t go to sleep just yet, you two,’ she said. ‘You can have a chat while I slip out for a moment.’

‘Beware of the ghost out there waiting for you,’ teased Qingwen.

‘The moon’s bright tonight,’ said Baoyu, clearing his throat. ‘We’ll be talking. Just run along.’

Sheyue opened the back door then and, raising the felt portiere, found that it was indeed a bright moonlit night. As soon as she had gone, Qingwen felt tempted to give her a scare for fun. As she was stronger than the other girls and did not feel the cold, she slipped quietly down from the clothes-warmer wearing nothing but a light tunic, and tiptoed after Sheyue without putting on any wraps.

‘Don’t go out like that,’ warned Baoyu. ‘It’ll be no joke if you catch cold.’

Qingwen motioned to him to keep quiet and slipped out of the door. Once outside the room, however, a breath of wind chilled her to the bone and set her shivering.

‘No wonder they say you shouldn’t expose yourself to the wind when you’re warm,’ she thought. ‘This cold really cuts like a knife.’

Just then, before she had time to frighten Sheyue, Baoyu called loudly from inside, ‘Qingwen’s gone out!’

She turned back and went in again at once.

‘Did you think I was going to scare her to death’?’ She giggled. ‘What a fuss-pot you are ‘ a regular old woman!’

‘That wasn’t what worried me,’ Baoyu explained. ‘For one thing, I didn’t want you to catch cold. For another, if she’d been caught by surprise and screamed that might have woken the others; and instead of seeing the joke they’d accuse us of getting up to mischief as soon as Xiren was away. Now, come and tuck in my bedding for me, will you?’

Qingwen did so, putting her hands inside his quilt to warm them.

‘Your hands are icy!’ he exclaimed. ‘I warned you you’d catch cold.’

He noticed that her cheeks were as red as rouge, and feeling them found them as cold as ice as well.

‘Hop inside my quilt, quick, and warm up!’ he urged.

That same instant the door was flung open. Sheyue burst breathlessly m.

‘Goodness me! I’ve had such a fright,’ she cried laughing. ‘I thought I saw someone crouching in the dark, behind the rocks. I was just going to scream when I realized it was only that big pheasant ‘ it flapped out into the light at the sight of me, and then I saw it clearly. If I’d screamed, it would have woken all the others.’ Washing her hands then she re­marked, ‘So Qingwen’s gone out, has she? How come I didn’t see her? She must have been meaning to scare me.’

‘Here she is,’ chuckled Baoyu. ‘Thawing out under my quilt. If I hadn’t called out quickly, she’d have given you a fine fright.’

‘She didn’t need me for that. The wretch took fright herself,’ re­torted Qingwen, returning to her own bed.

‘Surely you didn’t slip out like that, in that tight-fitting horse-thief’s out fit?’ asked Shenyue.

‘Oh yes, she did,’ said Baoyu.

‘You deserve to catch your death!’ exclaimed Sheyue. ‘What a day to choose! Why, just standing outside for a minute would chap your skin.’

She took the copper guard off the brazier to shovel some ash over the glowing charcoal, then put in two slabs of incense before replacing the guard. After that stepping behind the screen, she trimmed the lamp and lay down to sleep again.

Qingwen, warm now after being chilled, gave a couple of sneezes.

‘What did I tell you?’ Baoyu sighed. ‘Now you’ve caught cold.’

‘She complained of not feeling well this morning,’ Sheyue told him. ‘And she hasn’t eaten anything all day. Yet instead of taking proper care of herself she tries to scare me. If she’s ill tomorrow it will serve her right.’

‘Do you have a fever?’ asked Baoyu.

‘It’s nothing.’ Qingwen coughed. ‘I’m not all that delicate.’

Just then the clock on the shelf in the outer room struck two. The old nanny on night duty outside coughed warningly.

‘Go to sleep now, young ladies,’ she said. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for chattering tomorrow.’

‘We’d better stop talking before they start to nag,’ whispered Baoyu.

And so the three of them settled down to sleep.

The next morning, sure enough, Qingwen woke feeling listless. Her nose was stopped up and her voice was hoarse.

‘Let’s say nothing about this,’ suggested Baoyu. ‘If the mistress heard, she’d want you to go home and rest; and though you might enjoy being back with your people, it would be colder there. Better stay here. Just lie down in the inner room. I’ll have a doctor fetched through the back gate and he can take a look at you on the quiet.’

‘That’s all very well,’ said Qingwen. ‘But at least let Madam Zhu know. Otherwise, how will you explain it when people ask what the doctor’s doing here?’

Baoyu saw sense in this and called in one of the old nannies.

‘Go and tell Madam Zhu that Qingwen has a slight cold, nothing seri­ous,’ he said. ‘But if she goes home to rest I’ll have nobody here, as Xiren’s away just now. Ask her to send for a doctor and have him come here quietly through the back gate. There’s no need to tell the mistress.’

The nanny returned in due course to announce, ‘I’ve told Madam Zhu. She says if a couple of doese will cure her, all right; otherwise she should be sent home. The weather now is treacherous. Infecting other people doesn’t matter much, but we mustn’t let the young ladies in the Garden catch anything.’

Qingwen heard this as she lay coughing in the alcove.

‘She talks as if I had the plague!’ she cried crossly. ‘Whom am I going to infect? All right, I’ll leave this place. But after this none of you must ever complain, as long as you live, of so much as a headache!’

She started getting up.

‘Don’t be angry.’ begged Baoyu, making her lie down again. ‘She’s only doing her job, afraid the mistress may scold if she hears about this. She doesn’t mean it seriously. You lose your temper far too easily, and of course being ill today makes you extra fractious.’

Just then the doctor was announced. Baoyu hid hurriedly behind a bookcase while a few matrons from the back gate ushered him in. The young maids had withdrawn, leaving three or four older women to let down the embroidered red curtains in front of the alcove, and Qingwen put her hand out through the curtains. The doctor hastily averted his eyes at the sight of two nails a good two to three inches long, stained crimson with balsam; and at once an old nanny covered the hand with a handker­chief. After feeling the patient’s pulse for a while, the doctor rose and withdrew to the outer room.

‘The young lady is suffering from a cold aggravated by indigestion,’ he told the nannies. ‘The weather has been trying recently, and this is a mild attack of influenza. Luckily she is a young lady who normally eats and drinks with moderation, and the trouble isn’t serious; but as she is rather delicate she has succumbed to a slight infection. A couple of doses of medicine will set her right.’ He then followed the matrons out again.

Since Li Wan had sent to order the attendants at the back gate and the maids in the various apartments to keep out of sight, the doctor could only feast his eyes on the Garden ‘ not a single young woman did he see on his way out. Upon reaching the back gate, he sat down in the gatehouse used by the pages on duty to make out his prescription.

The old nannies asked him not to leave at once.

‘Our young master is most particular,’ one of them explained. ‘He may want to ask you some questions.’

‘Young master!’ exclaimed the doctor. ‘Wasn’t that a young lady I examined just now? Surely it was a young lady’s boudoir. And the cur­tains were let down too, so how can it have been a young gentleman?’

‘Why, sir,’ chuckled the nanny, lowering her voice, ‘I see now why the boy told me they’d invited a new doctor. You don’t know our family. That was our young master’s room, and your patient was one of his maids, one of the more senior ones, true, but no young ‘lady.’ You wouldn’t have gained admission so easily to one of our young ladies’ boudoirs.’

With that she took the prescription back to the Garden.

Baoyu examined it and found it listed such herbs as perilla, platycodon, siler and nepeta, as well as citrus trifoliata and ephedra.

‘Confound the fellow!’ he swore. ‘He’s prescribing for her just as he would for a man. How could she stand such strong medicine? Even if she had bad indigestion how could she take citrus trifoliata and epbedra? Who sent for this fellow? Get rid of him, quick, and fetch some doctor we know.’

‘How were we to know what his prescriptions would be like?’ re­torted the nanny. ‘We can easily send for Doctor Wang, but we’ll have to pay for the hire of this other man’s sedan-chair, as we didn’t send for him through the chief steward.’

‘How much will it be?’

‘It wouldn’t look well to give too little,’ she answered. ‘A family like ours, in such a case, should pay at least a tael.’

‘How much do we usually pay Doctor Wang?’

‘Doctor Wang and Doctor Zhang, who come so often, aren’t paid for each separate visit. Our rule is to give them a lump sum at the chief festivals every year. Since this new man’s only coming this once, we should give him one tael.’

Baoyu then ordered Sheyue to fetch some silver.

‘I don’t know where our Mistress Xiren keeps it,’ she answered laughingly.

‘I often see her getting money from that small inlaid cabinet,’ he told her. ‘I’ll help you find it.’

They went together into the storeroom and opened the cabinet. The top compartment was full of brushes and sticks of ink, fans, incense slabs, multi-coloured pouches, sashes and the like. On the lower shelf lay a few strings of cash. But upon opening one of the drawers, they discovered a small wicker basket containing some silver ingots, as well as a balance for weighing them with.

Sheyue picked up the balance and one ingot of silver.

‘Which is the one-tael mark?’ she asked Baoyu.

‘Are you asking me?’ he chuckled. ‘You should know better.’

She smiled too and started out to consult someone else.

‘Just pick one of the biggest pieces,’ urged Baoyu. ‘We’re not shop­keepers ‘ why be so finicking?’

Setting down the balance, Sheyue picked up another ingot which she weighed in her hand.

‘This is probably about one tael,’ she remarked. ‘We’d better be on the generous side, so as not to have that poor devil laughing at us. It would never occur to him that we don’t know how to use a balance. Instead, he’d call us misers.’

The woman standing on the steps outside the door put in, ‘That’s half a five-tael bar, it must weigh at least two taels. As you’ve nothing here to cut it with, you’d better put it away, miss, and pick something smaller.’

By now, however, Sheyue had closed the cabinet.

‘I can’t be bothered,’ she laughed. ‘If it’s too much, you can pocket the difference yourself.’

‘Just go and fetch Doctor Wang here fast,’ ordered Baoyu.

The woman took the silver and went to do as she was told.

Before very long Mingyan brought Doctor Wang, who first examined the patient then made a diagnosis very similar to the previous one. But instead of such ingredients as citrus trifoliata and ephedra, his pre­scription called for angelica, orange peel and white peony; moreover the dosage was smaller.

‘This is more like medicine for girls,’ observed Baoyu approvingly. ‘Although we want to drive out the cold, drastic methods are no good. Last year when I had a chill and a bilious attack, and Doctor Wang exam­ined me, he said I couldn’t take strong drugs like ephedra, gypsum and citrus trifoliata. When I compare myself with you girls, I’m like a big poplar scores of years old in the graveyard, while you’re like that white begonia in bud which Jia Yun gave me last autumn ‘ how can you take medicines too potent even for me?’

‘Are poplars the only graveyard trees?’ Sheyue countered. ‘What about pines and cedars? Personally, I can’t stand poplars. They have so few leaves for their size, and they keep up that maddening rustling even when there’s not a breath of wind. How low-class to compare yourself to such a tree!’

‘I wouldn’t venture to compare myself with the pine or cedar,’ chuck­led Baoyu. ‘Even Confucius said, ‘When winter comes, we realize that the pine and cedar are evergreen.’ You see, they’re so magnificent, only really thick-skinned people would compare themselves with them.’

As they were chatting, a serving-woman brought in the drugs. Baoyu ordered them to fetch the silver medicine-pot and brew the decoction over the brazier.

‘Why not let the kitchen do it?’ asked Qingwen. ‘You don’t want the whole place reeking of medicine, do you?’

‘The smell of medicine is sweeter than any flower or fruit,’ asserted Baoyu. ‘What could be finer than these herbs which immortals, as well as hermits and recluses, pick to decoct as medicine? I was thinking only just now that we lack nothing here except the fragrance of herbs; but now it will be perfect.’

With that he had the medicine brewed. He also made Sheyue prepare some things to send by an old nanny to Xiren, with a message begging her not to grieve too much. After having seen to all this, he went to pay his respects to his grandmother and mother and to have his meal.

Just then Xifeng was saying to the Lady Dowager and Lady Wang, ‘Now that it’s so cold and the days are shorter, wouldn’t it be better for the girls to have their meals with my elder sister-in-law in the Garden? They can come here to eat again once it is warmer.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ said Lady Wang. ‘Especially if there’s a high wind or snow. Exposure to cold after eating isn’t good; neither is breath­ing cold air on an empty stomach. Some maids are always on duty in those five large rooms inside the back gate of the Garden, and we can send two women from our kitchen there to cook for the girls. They can get their share of fresh vegetables and any money or things they need from the chief steward’s office. And when we have game like pheasant or roebuck, we can send them a share.’

‘The idea did occur to me too,’ said the Lady Dowager. ‘But I was afraid it would mean more work, setting up another kitchen.’

‘It won’t,’ Xifeng assured her. ‘They’ll get their usual share. More in one place means less in another. And even if it causes a little more trouble, it will prevent the girls from being exposed to the cold. The others might stand it all right, but not Daiyu, or even Cousin Bao for that matter. In fact, none of the girls is really strong.’

‘Quite so,’ approved the Lady Dowager. ‘I would have proposed this myself, but saw you were all so busy, even if you didn’t complain of the extra work you might well feel that I only care about my younger grandchildren, with no consideration for those of you who run the house­hold. I’m glad you suggested this.’

It so happened that Aunt Xue and Aunt Li had called, while Lady Xing and Madam You were still there paying their respects.

‘I’m going to say something today which I’ve been keeping back for fear of giving Xifeng a swelled head or causing jealousy,’ the old lady told them. ‘All of you have been sister-in-law yourselves, before and after your own marriages. So tell me ‘ have you ever known a sister-in-law as thoughtful as she is?’

Aunt Xue, Aunt Li and Madam You agreed.

‘She’s one in a thousand!’ they said. ‘Other young married women do no more than politeness requires, whereas she has genuine feeling for her husband’s younger relatives and is truly dutiful to you as well, madam.’

The Lady Dowager nodded.

‘But fond as I am of her, I’m afraid she may be too clever for her own good,’ she sighed.

‘You’re wrong there, Old Ancestress,’ laughed Xifeng. ‘It’s said that the cleverest people don’t live long. It’s all right for everyone else to say that and believe it. But you’re the last person who should subscribe to that. Our Old Ancestress is at least ten times more intelligent that I am, and since you’re enjoying both good fortune and long life, I ought to do even better. I may live to be a thousand, not dying until our Old Ancestress has ascended to the Western Paradise.’

‘What fun would that be, pray?’ the Lady Dowager parried. ‘Ev­erybody else dead and only we two old hags left?’

The whole party burst out laughing at this retort.

What followed is related in the next chapter.

Previous articleA Dream of Red Mansions – Chapter 50
Next articleA Dream of Red Mansions – Chapter 52
Discover the wonders of China through studying abroad - a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to expand your horizons, immerse yourself in a rich and diverse culture, and gain a world-class education.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here