The plays sung over at Chia Chen's consisted, who would have thought it, of "Ting L'ang recognises his father," and "Huang Po-ying deploys the spirits for battle," and in addition to these, "Sung Hsing-che causes great commotion in the heavenly palace;" "Ghiang T'ai-kung kills the general and deifies him," and other such like. Soon appeared the spirits and devils in a confused crowd on the stage, and suddenly also became visible the whole band of sprites and goblins, among which were some waving streamers, as they went past in a procession, invoking Buddha and burning incense. The sound of the gongs and drums and of shouts and cries were audible at a distance beyond the lane; and in the whole street, one and all extolled the performance as exceptionally grand, and that the like could never have been had in the house of any other family.
Pao-yü, noticing that the commotion and bustle had reached a stage so unbearable to his taste, speedily betook himself, after merely sitting for a little while, to other places in search of relaxation and fun. First of all, he entered the inner rooms, and after spending some time in chatting and laughing with Mrs. Yu, the waiting-maids, and secondary wives, he eventually took his departure out of the second gate; and as Mrs. Yu and her companions were still under the impression that he was going out again to see the play, they let him speed on his way, without so much as keeping an eye over him.
Chia Chen, Chia Lien, Hsúeh P'an and the others were bent upon guessing enigmas, enforcing the penalties and enjoying themselves in a hundred and one ways, so that even allowing that they had for a moment noticed that he was not occupying his seat, they must merely have imagined that he had gone inside and not, in fact, worried their minds about him. And as for the pages, who had come along with Pao-yü, those who were a little advanced in years, knowing very well that Pao-yü would, on an occasion like the present, be sure not to be going before dusk, stealthily therefore took advantage of his absence, those, who could, to gamble for money, and others to go to the houses of relatives and friends to drink of the new year tea, so that what with gambling and drinking the whole bevy surreptitiously dispersed, waiting for dusk before they came back; while those, who were younger, had all crept into the green rooms to watch the excitement; with the result that Pao-yü perceiving not one of them about bethought himself of a small reading room, which existed in previous days on this side, in which was suspended a picture of a beauty so artistically executed as to look life-like. "On such a bustling day as this," he reasoned, "it's pretty certain, I fancy, that there will be no one in there; and that beautiful person must surely too feel lonely, so that it's only right that I should go and console her a bit." With these thoughts, he hastily betook himself towards the side-house yonder, and as soon as he came up to the window, he heard the sound of groans in the room. Pao-yü was really quite startled. "What!" (he thought), "can that beautiful girl, possibly, have come to life!" and screwing up his courage, he licked a hole in the paper of the window and peeped in. It was not she, however, who had come to life, but Ming Yen holding down a girl and likewise indulging in what the Monitory Dream Fairy had taught him.
"Dreadful!" exclaimed Pao-yü, aloud, unable to repress himself, and, stamping one of his feet, he walked into the door to the terror of both of them, who parting company, shivered with fear, like clothes that are being shaken. Ming Yen perceiving that it was Pao-yü promptly fell on his knees and piteously implored for pardon.
"What! in broad daylight! what do you mean by it? Were your master Mr. Chen to hear of it, would you die or live?" asked Pao-yü, as he simultaneously cast a glance at the servant-girl, who although not a beauty was anyhow so spick and span, and possessed besides a few charms sufficient to touch the heart. From shame, her face was red and her ears purple, while she lowered her head and uttered not a syllable.
Pao-yü stamped his foot. "What!" he shouted, "don't you yet bundle yourself away!"
This simple remark suggested the idea to the girl's mind who ran off, as if she had wings to fly with; but as Pao-yü went also so far as to go in pursuit of her, calling out: "Don't be afraid, I'm not one to tell anyone," Ming Yen was so exasperated that he cried, as he went after them, "My worthy ancestor, this is distinctly telling people about it."
"How old is that servant girl?" Pao-yü having asked; "She's, I expect, no more than sixteen or seventeen," Ming Yen rejoined.
"Well, if you haven't gone so far as to even ascertain her age," Pao-yü observed, "you're sure to know still less about other things; and it makes it plain enough that her acquaintance with you is all vain and futile! What a pity! what a pity!"
He then went on to enquire what her name was; and "Were I," continued Ming Yen smiling, "to tell you about her name it would involve a long yarn; it's indeed a novel and strange story! She relates that while her mother was nursing her, she dreamt a dream and obtained in this dream possession of a piece of brocaded silk, on which were designs, in variegated colours, representing opulence and honour, and a continuous line of the character Wan; and that this reason accounts for the name of Wan Erh, which was given her."
"This is really strange!" Pao-yü exclaimed with a grin, after lending an ear to what he had to say; "and she is bound, I think, by and by to have a good deal of good fortune!"
These words uttered, he plunged in deep thought for a while, and Ming Yen having felt constrained to inquire: "Why aren't you, Mr. Secundus, watching a theatrical performance of this excellent kind?" "I had been looking on for ever so long," Pao-yü replied, "until I got quite weary; and had just come out for a stroll, when I happened to meet you two. But what's to be done now?"
Ming Yen gave a faint smile. "As there's no one here to know anything about it," he added, "I'll stealthily take you, Mr. Secundus, for a walk outside the city walls; and we'll come back shortly, before they've got wind of it."
"That won't do," Pao-yü demurred, "we must be careful, or else some beggar might kidnap us away; besides, were they to come to hear of it, there'll be again a dreadful row; and isn't it better that we should go to some nearer place, from which we could, after all, return at once?"
"As for some nearer place," Ming Yen observed; "to whose house can we go? It's really no easy matter!"
"My idea is," Pao-yü suggested with a smirk, "that we should simply go, and find sister Hua, and see what she's up to at home."
"Yes! Yes!" Ming Yen replied laughingly; "the fact is I had forgotten all about her home; but should it reach their ears," he continued, "they'll say that it was I who led you, Mr. Secundus, astray, and they'll beat me!"
"I'm here for you!" Pao-yü having assured him; Ming Yen at these words led the horses round, and the two of them speedily made their exit by the back gate. Luckily Hsi Jen's house was not far off. It was no further than half a li's distance, so that in a twinkle they had already reached the front of the door, and Ming Yen was the first to walk in and to call for Hsi Jen's eldest brother Hua Tzu-fang.
Hsi Jen's mother had, on this occasion, united in her home Hsi Jen, several of her sister's daughters, as well as a few of her nieces, and they were engaged in partaking of fruits and tea, when they heard some one outside call out, "Brother Hua." Hua Tzu-fang lost no time in rushing out; and upon looking and finding that it was the two of them, the master and his servant, he was so taken by surprise that his fears could not be set at rest. Promptly, he clasped Pao-yü in his arms and dismounted him, and coming into the court, he shouted out at the top of his voice: "Mr. Pao has come." The other persons heard the announcement of his arrival, with equanimity, but when it reached Hsi Jen's ears, she truly felt at such a loss to fathom the object of his visit that issuing hastily out of the room, she came to meet Pao-yü, and as she laid hold of him: "Why did you come?" she asked.
"I felt awfully dull," Pao-yü rejoined with a smile, "and came to see what you were up to."
Hsi Jen at these words banished, at last, all anxiety from her mind. "You're again up to your larks," she observed, "but what's the aim of your visit? Who else has come along with him?" she at the same time went on to
question Ming Yen.
"All the others know nothing about it!" explained Ming Yen exultingly; "only we two do, that's all."
When Hsi Jen heard this remark, she gave way afresh to solicitous fears: "This is dreadful!" she added; "for were you to come across any one from the house, or to meet master; or were, in the streets, people to press against you, or horses to collide with you, as to make (his horse) shy, and he were to fall, would that too be a joke? The gall of both of you is larger than a peck measure; but it's all you, Ming Yen, who has incited him, and when I go back, I'll surely tell the nurses to beat you."
Ming Yen pouted his mouth. "Mr. Secundus," he pleaded, "abused me and beat me, as he bade me bring him here, and now he shoves the blame on my shoulders! 'Don't let us go,' I suggested; 'but if you do insist, well then let us go and have done.'"
Hua Tzu-fang promptly interceded. "Let things alone," he said; "now that they're already here, there's no need whatever of much ado. The only thing is that our mean house with its thatched roof is both so crammed and so filthy that how could you, sir, sit in it!"
Hsi Jen's mother also came out at an early period to receive him, and Hsi Jen pulled Pao-yü in. Once inside the room, Pao-yü perceived three or five girls, who, as soon as they caught sight of him approaching, all lowered their heads, and felt so bashful that their faces were suffused with blushes. But as both Hua Tzu-fang and his mother were afraid that Pao-yü would catch cold, they pressed him to take a seat on the stove-bed, and hastened to serve a fresh supply of refreshments, and to at once bring him a cup of good tea.
"You needn't be flurrying all for nothing," Hsi Jen smilingly interposed; "I, naturally, should know; and there's no use of even laying out any fruits, as I daren't recklessly give him anything to eat."
Saying this, she simultaneously took her own cushion and laid it on a stool, and after Pao-yü took a seat on it, she placed the footstove she had been using, under his feet; and producing, from a satchet, two peach-blossom-scented small cakes, she opened her own hand-stove and threw them into the fire; which done, she covered it well again and placed it in Pao-yü's lap. And eventually, she filled her own tea-cup with tea and presented it to Pao-yü, while, during this time, her mother and sister had been fussing about, laying out in fine array a tableful of every kind of eatables.
Hsi Jen noticed that there were absolutely no things that he could eat, but she felt urged to say with a smile: "Since you've come, it isn't right that you should go empty away; and you must, whether the things be good or bad, taste a little, so that it may look like a visit to my house!"
As she said this, she forthwith took several seeds of the fir-cone, and cracking off the thin skin, she placed them in a handkerchief and presented them to Pao-yü. But Pao-yü, espying that Hsi Jen's two eyes were slightly red, and that the powder was shiny and moist, quietly therefore inquired of Hsi Jen, "Why do you cry for no rhyme or reason?"
"Why should I cry?" Hsi Jen laughed; "something just got into my eyes and I rubbed them." By these means she readily managed to evade detection; but seeing that Pao-yü wore a deep red archery-sleeved pelisse, ornamented with gold dragons, and lined with fur from foxes' ribs and a grey sable fur surtout with a fringe round the border. "What! have you," she asked, "put on again your new clothes for? specially to come here? and didn't they inquire of you where you were going?"
"I had changed," Pao-yü explained with a grin, "as Mr. Chen had invited me to go over and look at the play."
"Well, sit a while and then go back;" Hsi Jen continued as she nodded her head; "for this isn't the place for you to come to!"
"You'd better be going home now," Pao-yü suggested smirkingly; "where I've again kept something good for you."
"Gently," smiled Hsi Jen, "for were you to let them hear, what figure would we cut?" And with these, words, she put out her hand and unclasping from Pao-yü's neck the jade of Spiritual Perception, she faced her cousins and remarked exultingly. "Here! see for yourselves; look at this and learn! When I repeatedly talked about it, you all thought it extraordinary, and were anxious to have a glance at it; to-day, you may gaze on it with all your might, for whatever precious thing you may by and by come to see will really never excel such an object as this!"
When she had finished speaking, she handed it over to them, and after they had passed it round for inspection, she again fastened it properly on Pao-yü's neck, and also bade her brother go and hire a small carriage, or engage a small chair, and escort Pao-yü back home.
"If I see him back," Hua Tzu-fang remarked, "there would be no harm, were he even to ride his horse!"
"It isn't because of harm," Hsi Jen replied; "but because he may come across some one from the house."
Hua Tzu-fang promptly went and bespoke a small chair; and when it came to the door, the whole party could not very well detain him, and they of course had to see Pao-yü out of the house; while Hsi Jen, on the other hand, snatched a few fruits and gave them to Ming Yen; and as she at the same time pressed in his hand several cash to buy crackers with to let off, she enjoined him not to tell any one as he himself would likewise incur blame.
As she uttered these words, she straightway escorted Pao-yü as far as outside the door, from whence having seen him mount into the sedan chair, she dropped the curtain; whereupon Ming Yen and her brother, the two of them, led the horses and followed behind in his wake. Upon reaching the street where the Ning mansion was situated, Ming Yen told the chair to halt, and said to Hua Tzu-fang, "It's advisable that I should again go, with Mr. Secundus, into the Eastern mansion, to show ourselves before we can safely betake ourselves home; for if we don't, people will suspect!"
Hua Tzu-fang, upon hearing that there was good reason in what he said, promptly clasped Pao-yü out of the chair and put him on the horse, whereupon after Pao-yü smilingly remarked: "Excuse me for the trouble I've surely put you to," they forthwith entered again by the back gate; but putting aside all details, we will now confine ourselves to Pao-yü.
After he had walked out of the door, the several waiting-maids in his apartments played and laughed with greater zest and with less restraint. Some there were who played at chess, others who threw the dice or had a game of cards; and they covered the whole floor with the shells of melon-seeds they were cracking, when dame Li, his nurse, happened to come in, propping herself on a staff, to pay her respects and to see Pao-yü, and perceiving that Pao-yü was not at home and that the servant-girls were only bent upon romping, she felt intensely disgusted. "Since I've left this place," she therefore exclaimed with a sigh, "and don't often come here, you've become more and more unmannerly; while the other nurse does still less than ever venture to expostulate with you; Pao-yü is like a candlestick eighty feet high, shedding light on others, and throwing none upon himself! All he knows is to look down upon people as being filthy; and yet this is his room and he allows you to put it topsy-turvey, and to become more and more unmindful of decorum!"
These servant-girls were well aware that Pao-yü was not particular in these respects, and that in the next place nurse Li, having pleaded old age, resigned her place and gone home, had nowadays no control over them, so that they simply gave their minds to romping and joking, and paid no heed whatever to her. Nurse Li however still kept on asking about Pao-yü, "How much rice he now ate at one meal? and at what time he went to sleep?" to which questions, the servant-girls replied quite at random; some there being too who observed: "What a dreadful despicable old thing she is!"
"In this covered bowl," she continued to inquire, "is cream, and why not give it to me to eat?" and having concluded these words, she took it up and there and then began eating it.
"Be quick, and leave it alone!" a servant-girl expostulated, "that, he said, was kept in order to be given to Hsi Jen; and on his return, when he again gets into a huff, you, old lady, must, on your own motion, confess to having eaten it, and not involve us in any way as to have to bear his resentment."
Nurse Li, at these words, felt both angry and ashamed. "
I can't believe," she forthwith remarked, "that he has become so bad at heart! Not to speak of the milk I've had, I have, in fact every right to even something more expensive than this; for is it likely that he holds Hsi Jen dearer than myself? It can't forsooth be that he doesn't bear in mind how that I've brought him up to be a big man, and how that he has eaten my blood transformed into milk and grown up to this age! and will be because I'm now having a bowl of milk of his be angry on that score! I shall, yes, eat it, and we'll see what he'll do! I don't know what you people think of Hsi Jen, but she was a lowbred girl, whom I've with my own hands raised up! and what fine object indeed was she!"
As she spoke, she flew into a temper, and taking the cream she drank the whole of it.
"They don't know how to speak properly!" another servant-girl interposed sarcastically, "and it's no wonder that you, old lady, should get angry! Pao-yü still sends you, venerable dame, presents as a proof of his gratitude, and is it possible that he will feel displeased for such a thing like this?"
"You girls shouldn't also pretend to be artful flatterers to cajole me!" nurse Li added; "do you imagine that I'm not aware of the dismissal, the other day, of Hsi Hsüeh, on account of a cup of tea? and as it's clear enough that I've incurred blame, I'll come by and by and receive it!"
Having said this, she went off in a dudgeon, but not a long interval elapsed before Pao-yü returned, and gave orders to go and fetch Hsi Jen; and perceiving Ching Ling reclining on the bed perfectly still: "I presume she's ill," Pao-yü felt constrained to inquire, "or if she isn't ill, she must have lost at cards."
"Not so!" observed Chiu Wen; "she had been a winner, but dame Li came in quite casually and muddled her so that she lost; and angry at this she rushed off to sleep."