Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber Volume Ii Part 89

Nothing of any interest transpired the whole night. The next day, the snowy weather had cleared up. After breakfast, her grandmother Chia again pressed Hsi Ch'un. "You should go on," she said, "with your painting, irrespective of cold or heat. If you can't absolutely finish it by the end of the year, it won't much matter! The main thing is that you must at once introduce in it Ch'in Erh and the maid with the plum blossom, as we saw them yesterday, in strict accordance with the original and without the least discrepancy of so much as a stroke."

Hsi Ch'un listened to her and felt it her duty to signify her a.s.sent, in spite of the task being no easy one for her to execute.

After a time, a number of her relatives came, in a body, to watch the progress of the painting. But they discovered Hsi Ch'un plunged in a reverie. "Let's leave her alone," Li Wan smilingly observed to them all, "to proceed with her meditations; we can meanwhile have a chat among ourselves. Yesterday our worthy senior bade us devise a few lantern-conundrums, so when we got home, I and Ch'i Erh and Wen Erh did not turn in (but set to work). I composed a couple on the Four Books; but those two girls also managed to put together another pair of them."

"We should hear what they're like," they laughingly exclaimed in chorus, when they heard what they had done. "Tell them to us first, and let's have a guess!"

"The G.o.ddess of mercy has not been handed down by any ancestors."

Li Ch'i smiled. "This refers to a pa.s.sage in the Four Books."

"In one's conduct, one must press towards the highest benevolence."

Hsiang-yun quickly interposed; taking up the thread of the conversation.

"You should ponder over the meaning of the three words implying: 'handed down by ancestors'," Pao-ch'ai smiled, "before you venture a guess."

"Think again!" Li Wan urged with a smile.

"I've guessed it!" Tai-yu smiled. "It's:

"'If, notwithstanding all that benevolence, there be no outward visible sign...'"

"That's the line," one and all unanimously exclaimed with a laugh.

"'The whole pond is covered with rush.'"

"Now find the name of the rush?" Li Wan proceeded.

"This must certainly be the cat-tail rus.h.!.+" hastily again replied Hsiang-yun. "Can this not be right?"

"You've succeeded in guessing it," Li Wan smiled. "Li Wen's is:

"'Cold runs the stream along the stones;'

"bearing on the name of a man of old."

"Can it be Shan T'ao?" T'an Ch'un smilingly asked.

"It is!" answered Li Wan.

"Ch'i Erh's is the character 'Yung' (glow-worm). It refers to a single word," Li Wan resumed.

The party endeavoured for a long time to hit upon the solution.

"The meaning of this is certainly deep," Pao-ch'in put in. "I wonder whether it's the character, 'hua,' (flower) in the combination, 'hua ts'ao, (vegetation)."

"That's just it!" Li Ch'i smiled.

"What has a glow-worm to do with flowers?" one and all observed.

"It's capital!" Tai-yu ventured with a smile. "Isn't a glow-worm transformed from plants?"

The company grasped the sense; and, laughing the while, they, with one consent, shouted out, "splendid!"

"All these are, I admit, good," Pao-ch'ai remarked, "but they won't suit our venerable senior's taste. Won't it be better therefore to compose a few on some simple objects; some which all of us, whether polished or unpolished, may be able to enjoy?"

"Yes," they all replied, "we should also think of some simple ones on ordinary objects."

"I've devised one on the 'Tien Chiang Ch'un' metre," Hsiang-yun pursued, after some reflection. "But it's really on an ordinary object. So try and guess it."

Saying this, she forthwith went on to recite:

The creeks and valleys it leaves; Travelling the world, it performs.

In truth how funny it is!

But renown and gain are still vain; Ever hard behind it is its fate.

A conundrum.

None of those present could fathom what it could be. After protracted thought, some made a guess, by saying it was a bonze. Others maintained that it was a Taoist priest. Others again divined that it was a marionette.

"All your guesses are wrong," Pao-yu chimed in, after considerable reflection. "I've got it! It must for a certainty be a performing monkey."

"That's really it!" Hsiang-yun laughed.

"The first part is all right," the party observed, "but how do you explain the last line?"

"What performing monkey," Hsiang-yun asked, "has not had its tail cut off?"

Hearing this, they exploded into a fit of merriment. "Even," they argued, "the very riddles she improvises are perverse and strange!"

"Mrs. Hsueh mentioned yesterday that you, cousin Ch'in, had seen much of the world," Li Wan put in, "and that you had also gone about a good deal. It's for you therefore to try your hand at a few conundrums.

What's more your poetry too is good. So why shouldn't you indite a few for us to guess?"

Pao-ch'in, at this proposal, nodded her head, and while repressing a smile, she went off by herself to give way to thought.

Pao-ch'ai then also gave out this riddle:

Carved sandal and cut cedar rise layer upon layer.

Have they been piled and fas.h.i.+oned by workmen of skill!

In the mid-heavens it's true, both wind and rain fleet by; But can one hear the tingling of the Buddhists' bell?

While they were giving their mind to guessing what it could be, Pao-yu too recited:

Both from the heavens and from the earth, it's indistinct to view.

What time the 'Lang Ya' feast goes past, then mind you take great care.

When the 'luan's' notes you catch and the crane's message thou'lt look up: It is a splendid thing to turn and breathe towards the vault of heaven, (a kite)