"I've always had a dread of such sensational plays as these!" Pao-yü retorted.
"If you call this play sensational," Pao-ch'ai smilingly expostulated, "well then you may fitly be looked upon as being no connoisseur of plays. But come over and I'll tell you. This play constitutes one of a set of books, entitled the 'Pei Tien Peng Ch'un,' which, as far as harmony, musical rests and closes, and tune go, is, it goes without saying, perfect; but there's among the elegant compositions a ballad entitled: 'the Parasitic Plant,' written in a most excellent style; but how could you know anything about it?"
Pao-yü, upon hearing her speak of such points of beauty, hastily drew near to her. "My dear cousin," he entreated, "recite it and let me hear it!" Whereupon Pao-ch'ai went on as follows:
My manly tears I will not wipe away,
But from this place, the scholar's home, I'll stray.
The bonze for mercy I shall thank; under the lotus altar shave my pate;
With Yüan to be the luck I lack; soon in a twinkle we shall separate,
And needy and forlorn I'll come and go, with none to care about my fate.
Thither shall I a suppliant be for a fog wrapper and rain hat; my warrant I shall roll,
And listless with straw shoes and broken bowl, wherever to convert my fate may be, I'll stroll.
As soon as Pao-yü had listened to her recital, he was so full of enthusiasm, that, clapping his knees with his hands, and shaking his head, he gave vent to incessant praise; after which he went on to extol Pao-ch'ai, saying: "There's no book that you don't know."
"Be quiet, and listen to the play," Lin Tai-yü urged; "they haven't yet sung about the mountain gate, and you already pretend to be mad!"
At these words, Hsiang-yün also laughed. But, in due course, the whole party watched the performance until evening, when they broke up. Dowager lady Chia was so very much taken with the young actor, who played the role of a lady, as well as with the one who acted the buffoon, that she gave orders that they should be brought in; and, as she looked at them closely, she felt so much the more interest in them, that she went on to inquire what their ages were. And when the would-be lady (replied) that he was just eleven, while the would-be buffoon (explained) that he was just nine, the whole company gave vent for a time to expressions of sympathy with their lot; while dowager lady Chia bade servants bring a fresh supply of meats and fruits for both of them, and also gave them, besides their wages, two tiaos as a present.
"This lad," lady Feng observed smiling, "is when dressed up (as a girl), a living likeness of a certain person; did you notice it just now?"
Pao-ch'ai was also aware of the fact, but she simply nodded her head assentingly and did not say who it was. Pao-yü likewise expressed his assent by shaking his head, but he too did not presume to speak out. Shih Hsiang-yün, however, readily took up the conversation. "He resembles," she interposed, "cousin Lin's face!" When this remark reached Pao-yü's ear, he hastened to cast an angry scowl at Hsiang-yün, and to make her a sign; while the whole party, upon hearing what had been said, indulged in careful and minute scrutiny of (the lad); and as they all began to laugh: "The resemblance is indeed striking!" they exclaimed.
After a while, they parted; and when evening came Hsiang-yün directed Ts'ui Lü to pack up her clothes.
"What's the hurry?" Ts'ui Lü asked. "There will be ample time to pack up, on the day on which we go!"
"We'll go to-morrow," Hsiang-yün rejoined; "for what's the use of remaining here any longer—to look at people's mouths and faces?"
Pao-yü, at these words, lost no time in pressing forward.
"My dear cousin," he urged; "you're wrong in bearing me a grudge! My cousin Lin is a girl so very touchy, that though every one else distinctly knew (of the resemblance), they wouldn't speak out; and all because they were afraid that she would get angry; but unexpectedly out you came with it, at a moment when off your guard; and how ever couldn't she but feel hurt? and it's because I was in dread that you would give offence to people that I then winked at you; and now here you are angry with me; but isn't that being ungrateful to me? Had it been any one else, would I have cared whether she had given offence to even ten; that would have been none of my business!"
Hsiang-yün waved her hand: "Don't," she added, "come and tell me these flowery words and this specious talk, for I really can't come up to your cousin Lin. If others poke fun at her, they all do so with impunity, while if I say anything, I at once incur blame. The fact is I shouldn't have spoken of her, undeserving as I am; and as she's the daughter of a master, while I'm a slave, a mere servant girl, I've heaped insult upon her!"
"And yet," pleaded Pao-yü, full of perplexity, "I had done it for your sake; and through this, I've come in for reproach. But if it were with an evil heart I did so, may I at once become ashes, and be trampled upon by ten thousands of people!"
"In this felicitous firstmonth," Hsiang-yün remonstrated, "you shouldn't talk so much reckless nonsense! All these worthless despicable oaths, disjointed words, and corrupt language, go and tell for the benefit of those mean sort of people, who in everything take pleasure in irritating others, and who keep you under their thumb! But mind don't drive me to spit contemptuously at you."
As she gave utterance to these words, she betook herself in the inner room of dowager lady Chia's suite of apartments, where she lay down in high dudgeon, and, as Pao-yü was so heavy at heart, he could not help coming again in search of Tai-yü; but strange to say, as soon as he put his foot inside the doorway, he was speedily hustled out of it by Tai-yü, who shut the door in his face.
Pao-yü was once more unable to fathom her motives, and as he stood outside the window, he kept on calling out: "My dear cousin," in a low tone of voice; but Tai-yü paid not the slightest notice to him so that Pao-yü became so melancholy that he drooped his head, and was plunged in silence. And though Hsi Jen had, at an early hour, come to know the circumstances, she could not very well at this juncture tender any advice.
Pao-yü remained standing in such a vacant mood that Tai-yü imagined that he had gone back; but when she came to open the door she caught sight of Pao-yü still waiting in there; and as Tai-yü did not feel justified to again close the door, Pao-yü consequently followed her in.
"Every thing has," he observed, "a why and a wherefore; which, when spoken out, don't even give people pain; but you will rush into a rage, and all without any rhyme! but to what really does it owe its rise?"
"It's well enough, after all, for you to ask me," Tai-yü rejoined with an indifferent smile, "but I myself don't know why! But am I here to afford you people amusement that you will compare me to an actress, and make the whole lot have a laugh at me?"
"I never did liken you to anything," Pao-yü protested, "neither did I ever laugh at you! and why then will you get angry with me?"
"Was it necessary that you should have done so much as made the comparison," Tai-yü urged, "and was there any need of even any laughter from you? why, though you mayn't have likened me to anything, or had a laugh at my expense, you were, yea more dreadful than those who did compare me (to a singing girl) and ridiculed me!"
Pao-yü could not find anything with which to refute the argument he had just heard, and Tai-yü went on to say. "This offence can, anyhow, be condoned; but, what is more, why did you also wink at Yün Erh? What was this idea which you had resolved in your mind? wasn't it perhaps that if she played with me, she would be demeaning herself, and making herself cheap? She's the daughter of a duke or a marquis, and we forsooth the mean progeny of a poor plebeian family; so that, had she diverted herself with me, wouldn't she have exposed herself to being depreciated, had I, perchance, said anything in retaliation? This was your idea wasn't it? But though your purpose was, to be sure, honest enough, that girl wouldn't, however, receive any favours from you, but got angry with you just as much as I did; and though she made me also a tool to do you a good turn, she, on the contrary, asserts that I'm mean by nature and take pleasure in irritating people
in everything! and you again were afraid lest she should have hurt my feelings, but, had I had a row with her, what would that have been to you? and had she given me any offence, what concern would that too have been of yours?"
When Pao-yü heard these words, he at once became alive to the fact that she too had lent an ear to the private conversation he had had a short while back with Hsiang-yün: "All because of my, fears," he carefully mused within himself, "lest these two should have a misunderstanding, I was induced to come between them, and act as a mediator; but I myself have, contrary to my hopes, incurred blame and abuse on both sides! This just accords with what I read the other day in the Nan Hua Ching. 'The ingenious toil, the wise are full of care; the good-for-nothing seek for nothing, they feed on vegetables, and roam where they list; they wander purposeless like a boat not made fast!' 'The mountain trees,' the text goes on to say, 'lead to their own devastation; the spring (conduces) to its own plunder; and so on." And the more he therefore indulged in reflection, the more depressed he felt. "Now there are only these few girls," he proceeded to ponder minutely, "and yet, I'm unable to treat them in such a way as to promote perfect harmony; and what will I forsooth do by and by (when there will be more to deal with)!"
When he had reached this point in his cogitations, (he decided) that it was really of no avail to agree with her, so that turning round, he was making his way all alone into his apartments; but Lin Tai-yü, upon noticing that he had left her side, readily concluded that reflection had marred his spirits and that he had so thoroughly lost his temper as to be going without even giving vent to a single word, and she could not restrain herself from feeling inwardly more and more irritated. "After you've gone this time," she hastily exclaimed, "don't come again, even for a whole lifetime; and I won't have you either so much as speak to me!"
Pao-yü paid no heed to her, but came back to his rooms, and laying himself down on his bed, he kept on muttering in a state of chagrin; and though Hsi Jen knew full well the reasons of his dejection, she found it difficult to summon up courage to say anything to him at the moment, and she had no alternative but to try and distract him by means of irrelevant matters. "The theatricals which you've seen to-day," she consequently observed smiling, "will again lead to performances for several days, and Miss Pao-ch'ai will, I'm sure, give a return feast."
"Whether she gives a return feast or not," Pao-yü rejoined with an apathetic smirk, "is no concern of mine!"
When Hsi Jen perceived the tone, so unlike that of other days, with which these words were pronounced: "What's this that you're saying?" she therefore remarked as she gave another smile. "In this pleasant and propitious first moon, when all the ladies and young ladies are in high glee, how is it that you're again in a mood of this sort?"
"Whether the ladies and my cousins be in high spirits or not," Pao-yü replied forcing a grin, "is also perfectly immaterial to me."
"They are all," Hsi Jen added, smilingly, "pleasant and agreeable, and were you also a little pleasant and agreeable, wouldn't it conduce to the enjoyment of the whole company?"
"What about the whole company, and they and I?" Pao-yü urged. "They all have their mutual friendships; while I, poor fellow, all forlorn, have none to care a rap for me."
His remarks had reached this clause, when inadvertently the tears trickled down; and Hsi Jen realising the state of mind he was in, did not venture to say anything further. But as soon as Pao-yü had reflected minutely over the sense and import of this sentence, he could not refrain from bursting forth into a loud fit of crying, and, turning himself round, he stood up, and, drawing near the table, he took up the pencil, and eagerly composed these enigmatical lines:
If thou wert me to test, and I were thee to test,
Our hearts were we to test, and our minds to test,
When naught more there remains for us to test
That will yea very well be called a test,
And when there's naught to put, we could say, to the test,
We will a place set up on which our feet to rest.
After he had finished writing, he again gave way to fears that though he himself could unfold their meaning, others, who came to peruse these lines, would not be able to fathom them, and he also went on consequently to indite another stanza, in imitation of the "Parasitic Plant," which he inscribed at the close of the enigma; and when he had read it over a second time, he felt his heart so free of all concern that forthwith he got into his bed, and went to sleep.
But, who would have thought it, Tai-yü, upon seeing Pao-yü take his departure in such an abrupt manner, designedly made use of the excuse that she was bent upon finding Hsi Jen, to come round and see what he was up to.
"He's gone to sleep long ago!" Hsi Jen replied.
At these words, Tai-yü felt inclined to betake herself back at once; but Hsi Jen smiled and said: "Please stop, miss. Here's a slip of paper, and see what there is on it!" and speedily taking what Pao-yü had written a short while back, she handed it over to Tai-yü to examine. Tai-yü, on perusal, discovered that Pao-yü had composed it, at the spur of the moment, when under the influence of resentment; and she could not help thinking it both a matter of ridicule as well as of regret; but she hastily explained to Hsi Jen: "This is written for fun, and there's nothing of any consequence in it!" and having concluded this remark, she readily took it along with her to her room, where she conned it over in company with Hsiang-yün; handing it also the next day to Pao-ch'ai to peruse. The burden of what Pao-ch'ai read was:
In what was no concern of mine, I should to thee have paid no heed,
For while I humour this, that one to please I don't succeed!
Act as thy wish may be! go, come whene'er thou list; 'tis naught to me.
Sorrow or joy, without limit or bound, to indulge thou art free!
What is this hazy notion about relatives distant or close?
For what purpose have I for all these days racked my heart with woes?
Even at this time when I look back and think, my mind no pleasure knows.
After having finished its perusal, she went on to glance at the Buddhistic stanza, and smiling: "This being," she soliloquised; "has awakened to a sense of perception; and all through my fault, for it's that ballad of mine yesterday which has incited this! But the subtle devices in all these rationalistic books have a most easy tendency to unsettle the natural disposition, and if to-morrow he does actually get up, and talk a lot of insane trash, won't his having fostered this idea owe its origin to that ballad of mine; and shan't I have become the prime of all guilty people?"
Saying this, she promptly tore the paper, and, delivering the pieces to the servant girls, she bade them go at once and burn them.
"You shouldn't have torn it!" Tai-yü remonstrated laughingly. "But wait and I'll ask him about it! so come along all of you, and I vouch I'll make him abandon that idiotic frame of mind and that depraved language."
The three of them crossed over, in point of fact, into Pao-yü's room, and Tai-yü was the first to smile and observe. "Pao-yü, may I ask you something? What is most valuable is a precious thing; and what is most firm is jade, but what value do you possess and what firmness is innate in you?"
But as Pao-yü could not, say anything by way of reply, two of them remarked sneeringly: "With all this doltish bluntness of his will he after all absorb himself in abstraction?" While Hsiang-yün also clapped her hands and laughed, "Cousin Pao has been discomfited."
"The latter part of that apothegm of yours," Tai-yü continued, "says:
"We would then find some place on which our feet to rest.
"Which is certainly good; but in my view, its excellence is not as yet complete! and I should still tag on two lines at its close;" as she proceeded to recite:
"If we do not set up some place on which our feet to rest,
For peace and freedom then it will be best."
"There should, in very truth, be this adjunct to make it thoroughly explicit!" Pao-ch'ai added. "In days of yore, the s
ixth founder of the Southern sect, Hui Neng, came, when he went first in search of his patron, in the Shao Chou district; and upon hearing that the fifth founder, Hung Jen, was at Huang Mei, he readily entered his service in the capacity of Buddhist cook; and when the fifth founder, prompted by a wish to select a Buddhistic successor, bade his neophytes and all the bonzes to each compose an enigmatical stanza, the one who occupied the upper seat, Shen Hsiu, recited:
"A P'u T'i tree the body is, the heart so like a stand of mirror bright,
On which must needs, by constant careful rubbing, not be left dust to alight!
"And Hui Neng, who was at this time in the cook-house pounding rice, overheard this enigma. 'Excellent, it is excellent,' he ventured, 'but as far as completeness goes it isn't complete;' and having bethought himself of an apothegm: 'The P'u T'i, (an expression for Buddha or intelligence),' he proceeded, 'is really no tree; and the resplendent mirror, (Buddhistic term for heart), is likewise no stand; and as, in fact, they do not constitute any tangible objects, how could they be contaminated by particles of dust?' Whereupon the fifth founder at once took his robe and clap-dish and handed them to him. Well, the text now of this enigma presents too this identical idea, for the simple fact is that those lines full of subtleties of a short while back are not, as yet, perfected or brought to an issue, and do you forsooth readily give up the task in this manner?"