Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber Volume Ii Part 94

"After every one is dead and gone," dowager lady Chia laughingly observed, "what pleasure will there be, if two antiquated elves, like you and I will be, remain behind?"

This joke excited general mirth.

But so concerned was Pao-yu about Ch'ing Wen and other matters that he was the first to make a move and return into the garden. On his arrival at his quarters, he found the rooms full of the fragrance emitted by the medicines. Not a soul did he, however, see about. Ch'ing Wen was reclining all alone on the stove-couch. Her face was feverish and red.

When he came to touch it, his hand experienced a scorching sensation.

Retracing his steps therefore towards the stove, he warmed his hands and inserted them under the coverlet and felt her. Her body as well was as hot as fire.

"If the others have left," he then remarked, "there's nothing strange about it, but are She Yueh and Ch'iu Wen too so utterly devoid of feeling as to have each gone after her own business?"

"As regards Ch'iu Wen," Ch'ing Wen explained, "I told her to go and have her meal. And as for She Yueh, P'ing Erh came just now and called her out of doors and there they are outside confabbing in a mysterious way!

What the drift of their conversation can be I don't know. But they must be talking about my having fallen ill, and my not leaving this place to go home."

"P'ing Erh isn't that sort of person," Pao-yu pleaded. "Besides, she had no idea whatever about your illness, so that she couldn't have come specially to see how you were getting on. I fancy her object was to look up She Yueh to hobn.o.b with her, but finding unexpectedly that you were not up to the mark, she readily said that she had come on purpose to find what progress you were making. This was quite a natural thing for a person with so wily a disposition to say, for the sake of preserving harmony. But if you don't go home, it's none of her business. You two have all along been, irrespective of other things, on such good terms that she could by no means entertain any desire to injure the friendly relations which exist between you, all on account of something that doesn't concern her."

"Your remarks are right enough," Ch'ing Wen rejoined, "but I do suspect her, as why did she too start, all of a sudden, imposing upon me?"

"Wait, I'll walk out by the back door," Pao-yu smiled, "and go to the foot of the window, and listen to what she's saying. I'll then come and tell you."

Speaking the while, he, in point of fact, sauntered out of the back door; and getting below the window, he lent an ear to their confidences.

"How did you manage to get it?" She Yueh inquired with gentle voice.

"When I lost sight of it on that day that I washed my hands," P'ing Erh answered, "our lady Secunda wouldn't let us make a fuss. But the moment she left the garden, she there and then sent word to the nurses, stationed in the various places, to inst.i.tute careful search. Our suspicions, however, fell upon Miss Hsing's maid, who has ever also been poverty-stricken; surmising that a young girl of her age, who had never set eyes upon anything of the kind, may possibly have picked it up and taken it. But never did we positively believe that it could be some one from this place of yours! Happily, our lady Secunda wasn't in the room, when that nurse Sung who is with you here went over, and said, producing the bracelet, 'that the young maid, Chui Erh, had stolen it, and that she had detected her, and come to lay the matter before our lady Secunda. I promptly took over the bracelet from her; and recollecting how imperious and exacting Pao-yu is inclined to be, fond and devoted as he is to each and all of you; how the jade which was prigged the other year by a certain Liang Erh, is still, just as the matter has cooled down for the last couple of years, canva.s.sed at times by some people eager to serve their own ends; how some one has now again turned up to purloin this gold trinket; how it was filched, to make matters worse, from a neighbour's house; how as luck would have it, she took this of all things; and how it happened to be his own servant to give him a slap on his mouth, I hastened to enjoin nurse Sung to, on no account whatever, let Pao-yu know anything about it, but simply pretend that nothing of the kind had transpired, and to make no mention of it to any single soul. In the second place,' (I said), 'our dowager lady and Madame w.a.n.g would get angry, if they came to hear anything. Thirdly, Hsi Jen as well as yourselves would not also cut a very good figure.' Hence it was that in telling our lady Secunda, I merely explained 'that on my way to our senior mistress,' the bracelet got unclasped, without my knowing it; that it fell among the roots of the gra.s.s; that there was no chance of seeing it while the snow was deep, but that when the snow completely disappeared to-day there it glistened, so yellow and bright, in the rays of the sun, in precisely the very place where it had dropped, and that I then picked it up.' Our lady Secunda at once credited my version. So here I come to let you all know so as to be henceforward a little on your guard with her, and not get her a job anywhere else. Wait until Hsi Jen's return, and then devise means to pack her off, and finish with her."

"This young vixen has seen things of this kind before," She Yueh e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "and how is it that she was so shallow-eyed?"

"What could, after all, be the weight of this bracelet?" P'ing Erh observed. "It was once our lady Secunda's. She says that this is called the 'shrimp-feeler'-bracelet. But it's the pearl, which increases its weight. That minx Ch'ing Wen is as fiery as a piece of crackling charcoal, so were anything to be told her, she may, so little able is she to curb her temper, flare up suddenly into a huff, and beat or scold her, and kick up as much fuss as she ever has done before. That's why I simply tell you. Exercise due care, and it will be all right."

With this warning, she bid her farewell and went on her way.

Her words delighted, vexed and grieved Pao-yu. He felt delighted, on account of the consideration shown by P'ing Erh for his own feelings.

Vexed, because Chui Erh had turned out a petty thief. Grieved, that Chui Erh, who was otherwise such a smart girl, should have gone in for this disgraceful affair. Returning consequently into the house, he told Ch'ing Wen every word that P'ing Erh had uttered. "She says," he went on to add, "that you're so fond of having things all your own way that were you to hear anything of this business, now that you are ill, you would get worse, and that she only means to broach the subject with you, when you get quite yourself again."

Upon hearing this, Ch'ing Wen's ire was actually stirred up, and her beautiful moth-like eyebrows contracted, and her lovely phoenix eyes stared wide like two b.a.l.l.s. So she immediately shouted out for Chui Erh.

"If you go on bawling like that," Pao-yu hastily remonstrated with her, "won't you show yourself ungrateful for the regard with which P'ing Erh has dealt with you and me? Better for us to show ourselves sensible of her kindness and by and bye pack the girl off, and finish."

"Your suggestion is all very good," Ch'ing Wen demurred, "but how could I suppress this resentment?"

"What's there to feel resentment about?" Pao-yu asked. "Just you take good care of yourself; it's the best thing you can do."

Ch'ing Wen then took her medicine. When evening came, she had another couple of doses. But though in the course of the night, she broke out into a slight perspiration, she did not see any change for the better in her state. Still she felt feverish, her head sore, her nose stopped, her voice hoa.r.s.e. The next day, Dr. w.a.n.g came again to examine her pulse and see how she was getting on. Besides other things, he increased the proportions of certain medicines in the decoction and reduced others; but in spite of her fever having been somewhat brought down, her head continued to ache as much as ever.

"Go and fetch the snuff," Pao-yu said to She Yueh, "and give it to her to sniff. She'll feel more at ease after she has had several strong sneezes."

She Yueh went, in fact, and brought a flat crystal bottle, inlaid with a couple of golden stars, and handed it to Pao-yu.

Pao-yu speedily raised the cover of the bottle. Inside it, he discovered, represented on western enamel, a fair-haired young girl, in a state of nature, on whose two sides figured wings of flesh. This bottle contained some really first-rate foreign snuff.

Ch'ing Wen's attention was fixedly concentrated on the representation.

"Sniff a little!" Pao-yu urged. "If the smell evaporates, it won't be worth anything."

Ch'ing Wen, at his advice, promptly dug out a little with her nail, and applied it to her nose. But with no effect. So digging out again a good quant.i.ty of it, she pressed it into her nostrils. Then suddenly she experienced a sensation in her nose as if some pungent matter had penetrated into the very duct leading into the head, and she sneezed five or six consecutive times, until tears rolled down from her eyes and mucus trickled from her nostrils.

Ch'ing Wen hastily put the bottle away. "It's dreadfully pungent!" she laughed. "Bring me some paper, quick!"

A servant-girl at once handed her a pile of fine paper.

Ch'ing Wen extracted sheet after sheet, and blew her nose.

"Well," said Pao-yu smiling, "how are you feeling now?"

"I'm really considerably relieved." Ch'ing Wen rejoined laughing. "The only thing is that my temples still hurt me."

"Were you to treat yourself exclusively with western medicines, I'm sure you'd get all right," Pao-yu added smilingly. Saying this, "Go," he accordingly desired She Yueh, "to our lady Secunda, and ask her for some. Tell her that I spoke to you about them. My cousin over there often uses some western plaster, which she applies to her temples when she's got a headache. It's called 'I-fo-na.' So try and get some of it!"

She Yueh expressed her readiness. After a protracted absence, she, in very deed, came back with a small bit of the medicine; and going quickly for a piece of red silk cutting, she got the scissors and slit two round slips off as big as the tip of a finger. After which, she took the medicine, and softening it by the fire, she spread it on them with a hairpin.

Ch'ing Wen herself laid hold of a looking-gla.s.s with a handle and stuck the bits on both her temples.

"While you were lying sick," She Yueh laughed, "you looked like a mangy-headed devil! But with this stuff on now you present a fine sight!

As for our lady Secunda she has been so much in the habit of sticking these things about her that they don't very much show off with her!"

This joke over, "Our lady Secunda said," she resumed, addressing herself to Pao-yu, "'that to-morrow is your maternal uncle's birthday, and that our mistress, your mother, asked her to tell you to go over. That whatever clothes you will put on to-morrow should be got ready to-night, so as to avoid any trouble in the morning.'"

"Anything that comes first to hand," Pao-yu observed, "will do well enough! There's no getting, the whole year round, at the end of all the fuss of birthdays!"

Speaking the while, he rose to his feet and left the room with the idea of repairing to Hsi Ch'un's quarters to have a look at the painting. As soon as he got outside the door of the court-yard, he unexpectedly spied Pao-ch'in's young maid, Hsiao Lo by name, crossing over from the opposite direction. Pao-yu, with rapid step, strode up to her, and inquired of her whither she was going.

"Our two young ladies," Hsiao Lo answered with a smile, "are in Miss Lin's rooms; so I'm also now on my way thither."

Catching this answer, Pao-yu wheeled round and came at once with her to the Hsiao Hsiang Lodge. Here not only did he find Pao-ch'ai and her cousin, but Hsing Chou-yen as well. The quartet was seated in a circle on the warming-frame; carrying on a friendly chat on everyday domestic matters; while Tzu Chuan was sitting in the winter apartment, working at some needlework by the side of the window.

The moment they caught a glimpse of him, their faces beamed with smiles.

"There comes some one else!" they cried. "There's no room for you to sit!"

"What a fine picture of beautiful girls, in the winter chamber!" Pao-yu smiled. "It's a pity I come a trifle too late! This room is, at all events, so much warmer than any other, that I won't feel cold if I plant myself on this chair."

So saying, he made himself comfortable on a favourite chair of Tai-yu's over which was thrown a grey squirrel cover. But noticing in the winter apartment a jadestone bowl, full of single narcissi, in cl.u.s.ters of three or five, Pao-yu began praising their beauty with all the language he could command. "What lovely flowers!" he exclaimed. "The warmer the room gets, the stronger is the fragrance emitted by these flowers! How is it I never saw them yesterday?"

"These are," Tai-yu laughingly explained, "from the two pots of narcissi, and two pots of allspice, sent to Miss Hsueh Secunda by the wife of Lai Ta, the head butler in your household. Of these, she gave me a pot of narcissi; and to that girl Yun, a pot of allspice. I didn't at first mean to keep them, but I was afraid of showing no consideration for her kind attention. But if you want them, I'll, in my turn, present them to you. Will you have them; eh?"

"I've got two pots of them in my rooms," Pao-yu replied, "but they're not up to these. How is it you're ready to let others have what cousin Ch'in has given you? This can on no account do!"

"With me here," Tai-yu added, "the medicine pot never leaves the fire, the whole day long. I'm only kept together by medicines. So how could I ever stand the smell of flowers bunging my nose? It makes me weaker than ever. Besides, if there's the least whiff of medicines in this room, it will, contrariwise, spoil the fragrance of these flowers. So isn't it better that you should have them carried away? These flowers will then breathe a purer atmosphere, and won't have any mixture of smells to annoy them."

"I've also got now some one ill in my place," Pao-yu retorted with a smile, "and medicines are being decocted. How comes it you happen to know nothing about it?"