Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber Volume Ii Part 93

"Wasn't the one I saw just now a young lady," the doctor exclaimed with eagerness, "but a young man, eh? Yet the rooms were such as are occupied by ladies. The curtains were besides let down. So how could the patient I saw have ever been a young man?"

"My dear sir," laughed the old nurse, "it isn't strange that a servant-girl said just now that a new doctor had been sent for on this occasion, for you really know nothing about our family matters. That room is that of our young master, and that is a girl attached to the apartments; but she's really a servant-maid. How ever were those a young lady's rooms? Had a young lady fallen ill, would you ever have penetrated inside with such ease?"

With these words, she took the prescription and wended her way into the garden.

When Pao-yu came to peruse it, he found, above, such medicines mentioned as sweet basil, platycodon, carraway seeds, mosla dianthera, and the like; and, below, citrus fusca and sida as well.

"He deserves to be hanged! He deserves death!" Pao-yu shouted. "Here he treats girls in the very same way as he would us men! How could this ever do? No matter what internal obstruction there may be, how could she ever stand citrus and sida? Who asked him to come? Bundle him off at once; and send for another, who knows what he's about."

"Whether he uses the right medicines or not," the old nurse pleaded, "we are not in a position to know. But we'll now tell a servant-lad to go and ask Dr. w.a.n.g round. It's easy enough! The only thing is that as this doctor wasn't sent for through the head manager's office his fee must be paid to him."

"How much must one give him?" Pao-yu inquired.

"Were one to give him too little, it wouldn't look nice," a matron ventured. "He should be given a tael. This would be quite the thing with such a household as ours."

"When Dr. w.a.n.g comes," Pao-yu asked, "how much is he given?"

"Whenever Dr. w.a.n.g and Dr. Chang come," a matron smilingly explained, "no money is ever given them. At the four seasons of each year however presents are simply sent to them in a lump. This is a fixed annual custom. But this new doctor has come only this once so he should be given a tael."

After this explanation, Pao-yu readily bade She Yueh go and fetch the money.

"I can't make out where sister Hua put it;" She Yueh rejoined.

"I've often seen her take money out of that lacquered press, ornamented with designs made with sh.e.l.ls;" Pao-yu added; "so come along with me, and let's go and search."

As he spoke, he and She Yueh came together into what was used as a store-room by Hsi Jen. Upon opening the sh.e.l.l-covered press, they found the top shelf full of pens, pieces of ink, fans, scented cakes, various kinds of purses, handkerchiefs and other like articles, while on the lower shelf were piled several strings of cash. But, presently they pulled out the drawer, when they saw, in a small wicker basket, several pieces of silver, and a steelyard.

She Yueh quickly s.n.a.t.c.hed a piece of silver. Then raising the steelyard, "Which is the one tael mark?" she asked.

Pao-yu laughed. "It's amusing that you should appeal to me!" he said.

"You really behave as if you had only just come!"

She Yueh also laughed, and was about to go and make inquiries of some one else, when Pao-yu interfered. "Choose a piece out of those big ones and give it to him, and have done," he said. "We don't go in for buying and selling, so what's the use of minding such trifles!"

She Yueh, upon hearing this, dropped the steelyard, and selected a piece, which she weighed in her hand. "This piece," she smiled, "must, I fancy, be a tael. But it would be better to let him have a little more.

Don't let's give too little as those poor brats will have a laugh at our expense. They won't say that we know nothing about the steelyard; but that we are designedly mean."

A matron who stood at the threshold of the door, smilingly chimed in.

"This ingot," she said, "weighs five taels. Even if you cut half of it off, it will weigh a couple of taels, at least. But there are no sycee shears at hand, so, miss, put this piece aside and choose a smaller one."

She Yueh had already closed the press and walked out. "Who'll go and fumble about again?" she laughed. "If there's a little more, well, you take it and finish."

"Be quick," Pao-yu remarked, "and tell Pei Ming to go for another doctor. It will be all right."

The matron received the money and marched off to go and settle matters.

Presently, Dr. w.a.n.g actually arrived, at the invitation of Pei Ming.

First and foremost he felt the pulse and then gave the same diagnosis of the complaint (as the other doctor did) in the first instance. The only difference being that there was, in fact, no citrus or sida or other similar drugs, included in the prescription. It contained, however, false sarsaparilla roots, dried orange peel, peonia albifora, and other similar medicines. But the quant.i.ties were, on the other hand, considerably smaller, as compared with those of the drugs mentioned in the former prescription.

"These are the medicines," Pao-yu e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed exultingly, "suitable for girls! They should, it's true, be of a laxative nature, but never over and above what's needful. When I fell ill last year, I suffered from a chill, but I got such an obstruction in the viscera that I could neither take anything liquid or substantial, yet though he saw the state I was in, he said that I couldn't stand sida, ground gypsum, citrus and other such violent drugs. You and I resemble the newly-opened white begonia, Yun Erh sent me in autumn. And how could you resist medicines which are too much for me? We're like the lofty aspen trees, which grow in people's burial grounds. To look at, the branches and leaves are of luxuriant growth, but they are hollow at the core."

"Do only aspen trees grow in waste burial grounds?" She Yueh smiled. "Is it likely, pray, that there are no fir and cypress trees? What's more loathsome than any other is the aspen. For though a lofty tree, it only has a few leaves; and it makes quite a confused noise with the slightest puff of wind! If you therefore deliberately compare yourself to it, you'll also be ranging yourself too much among the common herd!"

"I daren't liken myself to fir or cypress;" Pao-yu laughingly retorted.

"Even Confucius says: 'after the season waxes cold, one finds that the fir and cypress are the last to lose their foliage,' which makes it evident that these two things are of high excellence. Thus it's those only, who are devoid of every sense of shame, who foolishly liken themselves to trees of the kind!"

While engaged in this colloquy, they perceived the old matron bring the drugs, so Pao-yu bade her fetch the silver pot, used for boiling medicines in, and then he directed her to prepare the decoction on the brasier.

"The right thing would be," Ch'ing Wen suggested, "that you should let them go and get it ready in the tea-room; for will it ever do to fill this room with the smell of medicines?"

"The smell of medicines," Pao-yu rejoined, "is far nicer than that emitted by the whole lot of flowers. Fairies pick medicines and prepare medicines. Besides this, eminent men and cultured scholars gather medicines and concoct medicines; so that it const.i.tutes a most excellent thing. I was just thinking that there's everything and anything in these rooms and that the only thing that we lack is the smell of medicines; but as luck would have it, everything is now complete."

Speaking, he lost no time in giving orders to a servant to put the medicines on the fire. Next, he advised She Yueh to get ready a few presents and bid a nurse take them and go and look up Hsi Jen, and exhort her not to give way to excessive grief. And when he had settled everything that had to be seen to, he repaired to the front to dowager lady Chia's and Madame w.a.n.g's quarters, and paid his respects and had his meal.

Lady Feng, as it happened, was just engaged in consulting with old lady Chia and Madame w.a.n.g. "The days are now short as well as cold," she argued, "so wouldn't it be advisable that my senior sister-in-law, Mrs.

Chia Chu, should henceforward have her repasts in the garden, along with the young ladies? When the weather gets milder, it won't at all matter, if they have to run backward and forward."

"This is really a capital idea!" Madame w.a.n.g smiled. "It will be so convenient during windy and rainy weather. To inhale the chilly air after eating isn't good. And to come quite empty, and begin piling up a lot of things in a stomach full of cold air isn't quite safe. It would be as well therefore to select two cooks from among the women, who have, anyhow, to keep night duty in the large five-roomed house, inside the garden back entrance, and station them there for the special purpose of preparing the necessary viands for the girls. Fresh vegetables are subject to some rule of distribution, so they can be issued to them from the general manager's office. Or they might possibly require money or be in need of some things or other. And it will be all right if a few of those pheasants, deer, and every kind of game, be apportioned to them."

"I too was just thinking about this," dowager lady Chia observed. "The only thing I feared was that with the extra work that would again be thrown upon the cook-house, they mightn't have too much to do."

"There'll be nothing much to do," lady Feng replied. "The same apportionment will continue as ever. In here, something may be added; but in there something will be reduced. Should it even involve a little trouble, it will be a small matter. If the girls were exposed to the cold wind, every one else might stand it with impunity; but how could cousin Lin, first and foremost above all others, resist anything of the kind? In fact, brother Pao himself wouldn't be proof against it. What's more, none of the various young ladies can boast of a strong const.i.tution."

What rejoinder old lady Chia made to lady Feng, at the close of her representations, is not yet ascertained; so, reader, listen to the explanations you will find given in the next chapter.

CHAPTER LII.

The beautiful P'ing Erh endeavours to conceal the loss of the bracelet, made of work as fine as the feelers of a shrimp.

The brave Ch'ing Wen mends the down-cloak during her indisposition.

But let us return to our story.

"Quite so!" was the reply with which dowager lady Chia (greeted lady Feng's proposal). "I meant the other day to have suggested this arrangement, but I saw that every one of you had so many urgent matters to attend to, (and I thought) that although you would not presume to bear me a grudge, were several duties now again superadded, you would unavoidably imagine that I only regarded those young grandsons and granddaughters of mine, and had no consideration for any of you, who have to look after the house. But since you make this suggestion yourself, it's all right."

And seeing that Mrs. Hsueh, and 'sister-in-law' Li were sitting with her, and that Madame Hsing, and Mrs. Yu and the other ladies, who had also crossed over to pay their respects, had not as yet gone to their quarters, old lady Chia broached the subject with Madame w.a.n.g, and the rest of the company. "I've never before ventured to give utterance to the remarks that just fell from my lips," she said, "as first of all I was in fear and trembling lest I should have made that girl Feng more presumptuous than ever, and next, lest I should have incurred the displeasure of one and all of you. But since you're all here to-day, and every one of you knows what brothers' wives and husbands' sisters mean, is there (I ask) any one besides her as full of forethought?"

Mrs. Hsueh, 'sister-in-law' Li and Mrs. Yu smiled with one consent.

"There are indeed but few like her!" they cried. "That of others is simply a conventional 'face' affection, but she is really fond of her husband's sisters and his young brother. In fact, she's as genuinely filial with you, venerable senior."

Dowager lady Chia nodded her head. "Albeit I'm fond of her," she sighed, "I can't, on the other hand, help distrusting that excessive shrewdness of hers, for it isn't a good thing."

"You're wrong there, worthy ancestor," lady Feng laughed with alacrity.

"People in the world as a rule maintain that 'too shrewd and clever a person can't, it is feared, live long.' Now what people of the world invariably say people of the world invariably believe. But of you alone, my dear senior, can no such thing be averred or believed. For there you are, ancestor mine, a hundred times sharper and cleverer than I; and how is it that you now enjoy both perfect happiness and longevity? But I presume that I shall by and bye excel you by a hundredfold, and die at length, after a life of a thousand years, when you venerable senior shall have departed from these mortal scenes!"