A Dream of Red Mansions (Book I) (17 page)

To resume our narrative. Chou Jui's wife having seen old goody Liu off, speedily came to report the visit to madame Wang; but, contrary to her expectation, she did not find madame Wang in the drawing-room; and it was after inquiring of the waiting-maids that she eventually learnt that she had just gone over to have a chat with "aunt" Hsüeh. Mrs. Chou, upon hearing this, hastily went out by the eastern corner door, and through the yard on the east, into the Pear Fragrance Court.

As soon as she reached the entrance, she caught sight of madame Wang's waiting-maid, Chin Ch'uan-erh, playing about on the terrace steps, with a young girl, who had just let her hair grow. When they saw Chou Jui's wife approach, they forthwith surmised that she must have some message to deliver, so they pursed up their lips and directed her to the inner-room. Chou Jui's wife gently raised the curtain-screen, and upon entering discovered madame Wang, in voluble conversation with "aunt" Hsüeh, about family questions and people in general.

Mrs. Chou did not venture to disturb them, and accordingly came into the inner room, where she found Hsüeh Pao-ch'ai in a house dress, with her hair simply twisted into a knot round the top of the head, sitting on the inner edge of the stove-couch, leaning on a small divan table, in the act of copying a pattern for embroidery, with the waiting-maid Ying Erh. When she saw her enter, Pao Ch'ai hastily put down her pencil, and turning round with a face beaming with smiles, "Sister Chou," she said, "take a seat."

Chou Jui's wife likewise promptly returned the smile.

"How is my young lady?" she inquired, as she sat down on the edge of the couch. "I haven't seen you come over on the other side for two or three days! Has Mr. Pao-yü perhaps given you offence?"

"What an idea!" exclaimed Pao Ch'ai, with a smile. "It's simply that I've had for the last couple of days my old complaint again, and that I've in consequence kept quiet all this time, and looked after myself."

"Is that it?" asked Chou Jui's wife; "but after all, what rooted kind of complaint are you subject to, miss? you should lose really no time in sending for a doctor to diagnose it, and give you something to make you all right. With your tender years, to have an organic ailment is indeed no trifle!"

Pao Ch'ai laughed when she heard these remarks.

"Pray," she said, "don't allude to this again; for this ailment of mine I've seen, I can't tell you, how many doctors; taken no end of medicine and spent I don't know how much money; but the more we did so, not the least little bit of relief did I see. Lucky enough, we eventually came across a bald-pated bonze, whose speciality was the cure of nameless illnesses. We therefore sent for him to see me, and he said that I had brought this along with me from the womb as a sort of inflammatory virus, that luckily I had a constitution strong and hale so that it didn't matter; and that it would be of no avail if I took pills or any medicines. He then told me a prescription from abroad, and gave me also a packet of a certain powder as a preparative, with a peculiar smell and strange flavour. He advised me, whenever my complaint broke out, to take a pill, which would be sure to put me right again. And this has, after all, strange to say, done me a great deal of good."

"What kind of prescription is this one from abroad, I wonder," remarked Mrs. Chou; "if you, miss, would only tell me, it would be worth our while bearing it in mind, and recommending it to others: and if ever we came across any one afflicted with this disease, we would also be doing a charitable deed."

"You'd better not ask for the prescription," rejoined Pao Ch'ai smiling. "Why, its enough to wear one out with perplexity! the necessaries and ingredients are few, and all easy to get, but it would be difficult to find the lucky moment! You want twelve ounces of the pollen of the white peone, which flowers in spring, twelve ounces of the pollen of the white summer lily, twelve ounces of the pollen of the autumn hibiscus flower, and twelve ounces of the white plum in bloom in the winter. You take the four kinds of pollen, and put them in the sun, on the very day of the vernal equinox of the succeeding year to get dry, and then you mix them with the powder and pound them well together. You again want twelve mace of water, fallen on 'rain water' day....."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Chou promptly, as she laughed. "From all you say, why you want three years' time! and what if no rain falls on 'rain water' day! What would one then do?"

"Quite so!" Pao Ch'ai remarked smilingly; "how can there be such an opportune rain on that very day! but to wait is also the best thing, there's nothing else to be done. Besides, you want twelve mace of dew, collected on 'White Dew' day, and twelve mace of the hoar frost, gathered on 'Frost Descent' day, and twelve mace of snow, fallen on 'Slight Snow' day! You next take these four kinds of waters and mix them with the other ingredients, and make pills of the size of a lungngan. You keep them in an old porcelain jar, and bury them under the roots of some flowers; and when the ailment betrays itself, you produce it and take a pill, washing it down with two candareens of a yellow cedar decoction."

"O-mi-to-fu!" cried Mrs. Chou, when she heard all this, bursting out laughing. "It's really enough to kill one! you might wait ten years and find no such lucky moments!"

"Fortunate for me, however," pursued Pao Ch'ai, "in the course of a year or two, after the bonze had told me about this prescription, we got all the ingredients; and, after much trouble, we compounded a supply, which we have now brought along with us from the south to the north; and lies at present under the pear trees."

"Has this medicine any name or other of its own?" further inquired Mrs. Chou.

"It has a name," replied Pao Ch'ai; "the mangy-headed bonze also told it me; he called it 'cold fragrance' pill."

Chou Jui's wife nodded her head, as she heard these words. "What do you feel like after all when this complaint manifests itself?" she went on to ask.

"Nothing much," replied Pao Ch'ai; "I simply pant and cough a bit; but after I've taken a pill, I get over it, and it's all gone."

Mrs. Chou was bent upon making some further remark, when madame Wang was suddenly heard to enquire, "Who is in here?"

Mrs. Chou went out hurriedly and answered; and forthwith told her all about old goody Liu's visit. Having waited for a while, and seeing that madame Wang had nothing to say, she was on the point of retiring, when "aunt" Hsueh unexpectedly remarked smiling: "Wait a bit! I've something to give you to take along with you."

And as she spoke, she called for Hsiang Ling. The sound of the screen-board against the sides of the door was heard, and in walked the waiting-maid, who had been playing with Chin Ch'uan-erh. "Did my lady call?" she asked.

"Bring that box of flowers," said Mrs. Hsueh.

Hsiang Ling assented, and brought from the other side a small embroidered silk box.

"These," explained "aunt" Hsüeh, "are a new kind of flowers, made in the palace. They consist of twelve twigs of flowers of piled gauze. I thought of them yesterday, and as they will, the pity is, only get old, if uselessly put away, why not give them to the girls to wear them in their hair! I meant to have sent them over yesterday, but I forgot all about them. You come to-day most opportunely, and if you will take them with you, I shall have got them off my hands. To the three young ladies in your family give two twigs each, and of the six that will remain give a couple to Miss Lin, and the other four to lady Feng."

"Better keep them and give them to your daughter Pao Ch'ai to wear," observed madame Wang, "and have done with it; why think of all the others?"

"You don't know, sister," replied "aunt" Hsüeh, "what a crotchety thing Pao Ch'ai is! she has no liking for flower or powder."

With these words on her lips, Chou Jui's wife took the box and walked out of the door of the room. Perceiving that Chin Ch'uan-erh was still sunning herself outside, Chou Jui's wife asked her: "Isn't this Hsiang Ling, the waiting-maid that we've often heard of as having been purchased just before the departure of the Hsüeh family for the capital, and on whose account there occurred some case of manslaughter or other?"

"Of course it's she," replied Chin Ch'uan. But as they were talking, they saw Hsiang Ling draw near smirkingly, and Chou Jui's wife at once seized her by the hand, and after minutely scrutinizing her face for a time, she turned round to Chin Ch'uan-erh and smiled. "With these features she really resembles slightly the style of lady Jung of our Eastern Mansion."

"So I too maintain!" said Chin Ch'uan-erh.

Chou Jui's wife then asked Hsiang Ling, "At what age did you enter this family? and where are your father and mother at present?" and also inquired, "In what year of your teens are you? and of what place are you a native?"

But Hsiang Ling, after listening to all these questions, simply nodded her head and replied, "I can't remember."

When Mrs. Chou and Chin Ch'uan-erh heard these words, their spirits changed to grief, and for a while they felt affected and wounded at heart; but in a short time, Mrs. Chou brought the flowers into the room at the back of madame Wang's principal apartment.

The fact is that dowager lady Chia had explained that as her granddaughters were too numerous, it would not be convenient to crowd them together in one place, that Pao-yü and Tai-yü should only remain with her in this part to break her loneliness, but that Ying Ch'un, T'an Ch'un, and Hsi Ch'un, the three of them, should move on this side in the three rooms within the antechamber, at the back of madame lady Wang's quarters; and that Li Wan should be told off to be their attendant and to keep an eye over them.

Chou Jui's wife, therefore, on this occasion came first to these rooms as they were on her way, but she only found a few waiting-maids assembled in the antechamber, waiting silently to obey a call.

Ying Ch'un's waiting-maid, Ssu Chi, together with Shih Shu, T'an Ch'un's waiting-maid, just at this moment raised the curtain, and made their egress, each holding in her hand a tea-cup and saucer; and Chou Jui's wife readily concluding that the young ladies were sitting together also walked into the inner room, where she only saw Ying Ch'un and T'an Ch'un seated near the window, in the act of playing chess. Mrs. Chou presented the flowers and explained whence they came, and what they were.

The girls forthwith interrupted their game, and both with a curtsey, expressed their thanks, and directed the waiting-maids to put the flowers away.

Mrs. Chou complied with their wishes (and handing over the flowers); "Miss Hsi Ch'un," she remarked, "is not at home; and possibly she's over there with our old lady."

"She's in that room, isn't she?" inquired the waiting-maids.

Mrs. Chou at these words readily came into the room on this side, where she found Hsi Ch'un, in company with a certain Chih Neng, a young nun of the "moon reflected on water" convent, talking and laughing together. On seeing Chou Jui's wife enter, Hsi Ch'un at once asked what she wanted, whereupon Chou Jui's wife opened the box of flowers, and explained who had sent them.

"I was just telling Chih Neng," remarked Hsi Ch'un laughing, "that I also purpose shortly shaving my head and becoming a nun; and strange enough, here you again bring me flowers; but supposing I shave my head, where can I wear them?"

They were all very much amused for a time with this remark, and Hsi Ch'un told her waiting-maid, Ju Hua, to come and take over the flowers.

"What time did you come over?" then inquired Mrs. Chou of Chih Neng. "Where is that bald-pated and crotchety superior of yours gone?"

"We came," explained Chih Neng, "as soon as it was day; after calling upon madame Wang, my superior went over to pay a visit in the mansion of Mr. Yü, and told me to wait for her here."

"Have you received," further asked Mrs. Chou, "the monthly allowance for incense offering due on the fifteenth or not?"

"I can't say," replied Chih Neng.

"Who's now in charge of the issue of the monthly allowances to the various temples?" interposed Hsi Ch'un, addressing Mrs. Chou, as soon as she heard what was said.

"It's Yü Hsin," replied Chou Jui's wife, "who's intrusted with the charge."

"That's how it is," observed Hsi Ch'un with a chuckle; "soon after the arrival of the Superior, Yü Hsin's wife came over and kept on whispering with her for some time; so I presume it must have been about this allowance."

Mrs. Chou then went on to bandy a few words with Chih Neng, after which she came over to lady Feng's apartments. Proceeding by a narrow passage, she passed under Li Wan's back windows, and went along the wall ornamented with creepers on the west. Going out of the western side gate, she entered lady Feng's court, and walked over into the Entrance Hall, where she only found the waiting-girl Feng Erh, sitting on the doorsteps of lady Feng's apartments.

When she caught sight of Mrs. Chou approaching, she at once waved her hand, bidding her go to the eastern room. Chou Jui's wife understood her meaning, and hastily came on tiptoe to the chamber on the east, where she saw a nurse patting lady Feng's daughter to sleep.

Mrs. Chou promptly asked the nurse in a low tone of voice: "Is the young lady asleep at this early hour? But if even she is I must wake her up."

The nurse nodded her head in assent, but as these inquiries were being made, a sound of laughter came from over the other side, in which lady Feng's voice could be detected; followed, shortly after, by the sound of a door opening, and out came P'ing Erh, with a large brass basin in her hands, which she told Feng Erh to fill with water and take inside.