Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber Volume Ii Part 92

"You put on more airs than ever," She Yueh laughed.

"My dear girl;" Ch'ing Wen added, "to-morrow night, you needn't budge; I'll wait on you the whole night long. What do you say to that?"

Hearing this, She Yueh had no help but to attend to her as well, while she washed her mouth, and to pour a cup of tea and give it to her to drink.

"Won't you two go to sleep," She Yueh laughed, "but keep on chatting?

I'll go out for a time; I'll be back soon."

"Are there any evil spirits waiting for you outside?" Ch'ing Wen smiled.

"It's sure to be bright moonlight out of doors," Pao-yu observed, "so go, while we continue our chat."

So speaking, he coughed twice.

She Yueh opened the back-door, and raising the woollen portiere and looking out, she saw what a beautiful moonlight there really was.

Ch'ing Wen allowed her just time enough to leave the room, when she felt a wish to frighten her for the sake of fun. But such reliance did she have in her physique, which had so far proved better than that of others, that little worrying her mind about the cold, she did not even throw a cloak over her, but putting on a short jacket, she descended, with gentle tread and light step, from the warming-frame and was making her way out to follow in her wake, when "Hallo!" cried Pao-yu warning her. "It's freezing; it's no joke!"

Ch'ing Wen merely responded with a wave of the hand and sallied out of the door to go in pursuit of her companion. The brilliancy of the moon, which met her eye, was as limpid as water. But suddenly came a slight gust of wind. She felt it penetrate her very flesh and bore through her bones. So much so, that she could not help shuddering all over. "Little wonder is it," she argued within herself, "if people say 'that one mustn't, when one's body is warm, expose one's self to the wind.' This cold is really dreadful!" She was at the same time just on the point of giving (She Yueh) a start, when she heard Pao-yu shout from inside, "Ch'ing Wen has come out."

Ch'ing Wen promptly turned back and entered the room. "How could I ever frighten her to death?" she laughed. "It's just your way; you're as great a coward as an old woman!"

"It isn't at all that you might do her harm by frightening her," Pao-yu smiled, "but, in the first place, it wouldn't be good for you to get frost-bitten; and, in the second, you would take her so much off her guard that she won't be able to prevent herself from uttering a shout.

So, in the event of rousing any of the others out of their sleep, they won't say that we are up to jokes, but maintain instead that just as Hsi Jen is gone, you two behave as if you'd come across ghosts or seen evil spirits. Come and tuck in the coverlets on this side!"

When Ch'ing Wen heard what he wanted done she came accordingly and tucked in the covers, and, putting out her hands, she inserted them under them, and set to work to warm the bedding.

"How cold your hand is!" Pao-yu laughingly exclaimed. "I told you to look out or you'd freeze!"

Noticing at the same time that Ch'ing Wen's cheeks were as red as rouge, he rubbed them with his hands. But as they felt icy cold to his touch, "Come at once under the cover and warm yourself!" Pao-yu urged.

Hardly, however, had he concluded these words, than a sound of 'lo teng'

reached their ears from the door, and She Yueh rushed in all in a tremor, laughing the while.

"I've had such a fright," she smiled, as she went on speaking. "Goodness me! I saw in the black shade, at the back of the boulders on that hill, some one squatting, and was about to scream, when it turned out to be nothing else than that big golden pheasant. As soon as it caught sight of a human being, it flew away. But it was only when it reached a moonlit place that I at last found out what it was. Had I been so heedless as to scream, I would have been the means of getting people out of their beds!"

Recounting her experiences, she washed her hands.

"Ch'ing Wen, you say, has gone out," she proceeded laughing, "but how is it I never caught a glimpse of her? She must certainly have gone to frighten me!"

"Isn't this she?" Pao-yu inquired with a smile. "Is she not here warming herself? Had I not been quick in shouting, she would verily have given you a fright."

"There was no need for me to go and frighten her," Ch'ing Wen laughingly observed. "This hussy has frightened her own self."

With these words she ensconced herself again under her own coverlet.

"Did you forsooth go out," She Yueh remarked, "in this smart dress of a circus-performer?"

"Why, of course, she went out like this!" Pao-yu smiled.

"You wouldn't know, for the life of you, how to choose a felicitous day!" She Yueh added. "There you go and stand about on a fruitless errand. Won't your skin get chapped from the frost?"

Saying this, she again raised the copper cover from the brasier, and, picking up the shovel, she buried the live charcoal deep with ashes, and taking two bits of incense of Cambodia fragrant wood, she threw them over them. She then re-covered the brasier, and repairing to the back of the screen, she gave the lamp a thorough tr.i.m.m.i.n.g to make it throw out more light; after which, she once more laid herself down.

As Ch'ing Wen had some time before felt cold, and now began to get warm again, she unexpectedly sneezed a couple of times.

"How about that?" sighed Pao-yu. "There you are; you've after all caught a chill!"

"Early this morning," She Yueh smiled, "she shouted that she wasn't feeling quite herself. Neither did she have the whole day a proper bowl of food. And now, not to speak of her taking so little care of herself, she is still bent upon playing larks upon people! But if she falls ill by and bye, we'll let her suffer what she will have brought upon herself."

"Is your head hot?" Pao-yu asked.

"It's nothing at all!" Ch'ing Wen rejoined, after coughing twice. "When did I get so delicate?"

But while she spoke, they heard the striking clock, suspended on the part.i.tion wall in the outer rooms, give two sounds of 'tang, tang,' and the matron, on the night watch outside, say: "Now, young girls, go to sleep. To-morrow will be time enough for you to chat and laugh!"

"Don't let's talk!" Pao-yu then whispered, "for, mind, we'll also induce them to start chattering." After this, they at last went to sleep.

The next day, they got up at an early hour. Ch'ing Wen's nose was indeed considerably stopped. Her voice was hoa.r.s.e; and she felt no inclination to move.

"Be quick," urged Pao-yu, "and don't make a fuss, for your mistress, my mother, may come to know of it, and bid you also s.h.i.+ft to your house and nurse yourself. Your home might, of course, be all very nice, but it's in fact somewhat cold. So isn't it better here? Go and lie down in the inner rooms, and I'll give orders to some one to send for the doctor to come quietly by the back door and have a look at you. You'll then get all right again."

"In spite of what you say," Ch'ing Wen demurred, "you must really say something about it to our senior lady, Mrs. Chia Chu; otherwise the doctor will be coming unawares, and people will begin to ask questions; and what answer could one give them?"

Pao-yu found what she said so full of reason that he called an old nurse. "Go and deliver this message to your senior mistress," he enjoined her. "Tell her that Ch'ing Wen got a slight chill yesterday.

That as it's nothing to speak of, and Hsi Jen is besides away, there would be, more than ever, no one here to look after things, were she to go home and attend to herself, so let her send for a doctor to come quietly by the back entrance and see what's the matter with her; but don't let her breathe a word about it to Madame w.a.n.g, my mother."

The old nurse was away a considerable time on the errand. On her return, "Our senior mistress," she reported, "has been told everything. She says that: 'if she gets all right, after taking a couple of doses of medicine, it will be well and good. But that in the event of not recovering, it would, really, be the right thing for her to go to her own home. That the season isn't healthy at present, and that if the other girls caught her complaint it would be a small thing; but that the good health of the young ladies is a vital matter.'"

Ch'ing Wen was lying in the winter apartment, coughing and coughing, when overhearing (Li Wan's) answer, she lost control over her temper.

"Have I got such a dreadful epidemic," she said, "that she fears that I shall bring it upon others? I'll clear off at once from this place; for mind you don't get any headaches and hot heads during the course of your lives."

"While uttering her grievances, she was bent upon getting up immediately, when Pao-yu hastened to smile and to press her down.

"Don't lose your temper," he advised her. "This is a responsibility which falls upon her shoulders, so she is afraid lest Madame w.a.n.g might come to hear of it, and call her to task. She only made a harmless remark. But you've always been p.r.o.ne to anger, and now, as a matter of course your spleen is larger than ever."

But in the middle of his advice to her, a servant came and told him that the doctor had arrived. Pao-yu accordingly crossed over to the off side, and retired behind the bookcase; from whence he perceived two or three matrons, whose duty it was to keep watch at the back door, usher the doctor in.

The waiting-maids, meanwhile, withdrew out of the way. Three or four old nurses dropped the deep-red embroidered curtain, suspended in the winter apartment. Ch'ing Wen then simply stretched out her hand from among the folds of the curtain. But the doctor noticed that on two of the fingers of her hand, the nails, which measured fully two or three inches in length, still bore marks of the pure red dye from the China balsam, and forthwith he turned his head away. An old nurse speedily fetched a towel and wiped them for her, when the doctor set to work and felt her pulse for a while, after which he rose and walked into the outer chamber.

"Your young lady's illness," he said to the old nurses, "arises from external sources, and internal obstructive influences, caused by the unhealthiness of the season of late. Yet it's only a slight chill, after all. Fortunately, the young lady has ever been moderate in her drinking and eating. The cold she has is nothing much. It's mainly because she has a weak const.i.tution that she has unawares got a bit of a chill. But if she takes a couple of doses of medicine to dispel it with, she'll be quite right."

So saying, he followed once more the matron out of the house.

Li Wan had, by this time, sent word to the various female domestics at the back entrance, as well as to the young maids in the different parts of the establishment to keep in retirement. All therefore that the doctor perceived as he went along was the scenery in the garden. But not a single girl did he see.

Shortly, he made his exit out of the garden gate, and taking a seat in the duty-lodge of the servant-lads, who looked after the garden-entrance, he wrote a prescription.

"Sir," urged an old nurse, "don't go yet. Our young master is fretful and there may be, I fancy, something more to ask you."