Chapter Eighty-two## Jia Bao-yu Makes a Show of Reading Wan Zhang; Lin Dai-yu Receives Her Father's Brush in a Dream

Early next morning Bao-yu went to report to his father in the outer study. ‘What books have you been reading lately?’ Jia Zheng asked. Bao-yu hastened to reply, ‘I can still recite the Great Learning, the Doctrine of the Mean and both parts of the Analects, and I have revised the first part of Mencius.’ ‘And the second part?’ Only after a long pause did Bao-yu answer, ‘I am still rather uncertain of that.’ Jia Zheng gave a cold laugh. ‘Years ago I sent Li Gui to tell the old gentleman at the school not to waste time going through the motions with the Book of Poetry and classical prose and all the rest. The first and most important thing was to explain the Four Books straight through and have you learn them thoroughly by heart. Now all these years have gone by, and you are still uncertain of the Four Books!’ Bao-yu dared not answer. He merely chose a few passages he knew well from the first part of Mencius and recited them. Finding him at least willing to respond, Jia Zheng felt somewhat reassured. ‘Very well. From tomorrow you will study in the annexe out here. No more idling about in the garden. When I return from court, I shall come and examine you whenever I have time.’ He told Li Gui to get the annexe ready. Unwilling as Bao-yu was, he could only say ‘Yes, Father’ several times.

More than half a year passed in this way, and the ninth month had begun. Mornings and evenings were growing cool. Much of the greenery in the garden had withered; only a few clumps of chrysanthemums beside the fence still bore a scattering of flowers.

One day Jia Zheng came in from the outer study, paid his respects to Grandmother Jia, then went to Lady Wang's principal room. Lady Wang told Silver to pour tea and dismissed the servants, leaving only Zhou Rui's wife waiting beyond the curtain. Jia Zheng sat on the heated kang below the south window. On the low table he noticed an almanac for choosing auspicious dates, with several sheets of red paper bearing the birth particulars of prospective brides and grooms. ‘What are these for?’ he asked.

Lady Wang folded one of the red sheets. ‘Bao-yu is growing up. The girls in the garden are getting older too, and if they go on living all together as they do, people outside are bound to talk. Aroma warned me once: “A gentleman guards against trouble before it comes.” At the time I thought she was looking rather far ahead. But now we really ought to settle on a match for him soon.’

Jia Zheng lowered his head and said nothing. He took a sip of tea. ‘Whom do you have in mind?’

‘Why, Aunt Xue's Bao-chai, of course,’ Lady Wang said with a smile. ‘She is steady and knows how to behave. It would bring our families closer, and we know all about her family and her character. Besides, her golden locket was given her by a monk, who said she must wait and marry someone who had a jade. If we brought her here as his wife, the old lady would be pleased, for one thing, and for another, she could keep all these servants in order.’ As she spoke, she watched Jia Zheng closely.

Jia Zheng stroked his beard and considered for a while. ‘Miss Bao is certainly a good girl. But Ru-hai had only the one child. Now that he is dead, she is left an orphan, living with her mother's family, with nothing settled for her future. As her uncle, am I to take no interest at all? And the old lady's fondness for the two Jades is hardly a thing of yesterday.’

Lady Wang fingered her prayer beads and sighed. ‘Miss Lin is a good child too. Only look at her health: she is taking medicine every other day. And she feels things so deeply, takes everything to heart. I could never feel easy about putting this whole great household, high and low, into her hands.’

Jia Zheng shook his head. ‘Ru-hai brought her up well enough. Managing a household is a matter of upbringing. How can a monk's words be relied upon? Even the old lady has said that this boy is not destined to marry early.’ Before he had finished, Zhou Rui's wife lifted the curtain and came in to replenish the charcoal. Jia Zheng waved a hand. ‘There is no hurry. The old lady is ill. We can discuss it at leisure when she is quite recovered.’

Seeing how he felt, Lady Wang gathered up the red papers and put them in a box, then spoke of other things. The almanac lay open on the kang table. Having replenished the charcoal, Zhou Rui's wife picked up a paperweight and set it on the pages. Jia Zheng took another sip of tea and asked about the affairs of the country estates.

Now, whenever tradesmen came to the mansion to collect their bills, the answer at the gate was always, ‘The master is not at home. Come back another day.’ A little maid returned from the pawnbroker's and drew just three hundred cash from her sleeve. ‘A perfectly good lined silk jacket,’ she complained to someone, ‘and they only lent me three hundred cash on it. Said even that was a favour to the family!’ ‘Was it that Heng-shu pawnshop?’ the other asked. ‘The very one. And it belongs to Aunt Xue's family, too.’

One day Lady Wang asked for a good root of ginseng for Grandmother Jia's medicine. The keeper of the stores brought out an old paper packet containing only a few thin, shrivelled, yellow-brown rootlets, each as dry as a twig. Lady Wang took one and tried bending it. ‘Even this has turned to rotten wood,’ she sighed. ‘Last year we had Bao-chai to thank. She went home and asked her brother to have someone get good ginseng for us from the dealers. Now she has moved out too. Must we trouble her again over this?’ The storekeeper smiled. ‘Quite so, ma'am. And what the shops sell is so often cut and pieced together that you can't judge it by its thickness.’ Lady Wang lowered her eyes and thought a moment. ‘Use this for the present. If the old lady asks, just say it is good.’

With no money and no capable person to look after it, the clan school could no longer be kept open. A thick layer of dust lay in the schoolroom; the inkstones had dried white. A dry end of an inkstick lay on the windowsill; no one knew who had left it there. Passing one day, Bao-yu stopped and looked for a while. He thought of Qin Zhong, then of Sapientia, and turned back towards the garden.

On this particular day Bao-yu endured half a day in the study, then seized the chance while Jia Zheng was out visiting and went straight to the Naiad's House. Nightingale came out to meet him. ‘You are here, Master Bao,’ she said quietly. ‘Miss Lin has just taken her medicine. She is lying down.’ He went in to find Dai-yu in a little lined jacket of moon-pale blue silk damask, fastening down the front, with a subtle woven pattern of bamboo sprays in the ink-painting manner. Her finely pleated skirt was of tapestry-woven silk in pale pine-pollen green. She reclined against the warming frame, looking thinner than ever. On the table stood half a cup of pear broth and a celadon medicine bowl.

Bao-yu sat down quietly in the bamboo chair beneath the window. ‘Are you a little better today? Have you taken your medicine? How much have you eaten?’ Dai-yu smiled. ‘Three questions in one breath again. You ask more often than the doctor. You are a scholar now. You ought to ask about serious matters.’ Bao-yu smiled in return. ‘These are the most serious matters of all.’

Dai-yu noticed a patch of ink on his cuff. ‘Have you been copying books all morning?’ she asked with a smile. ‘No copying,’ he replied, smiling too. ‘Just sitting there all morning.’ ‘And sitting there has put all that ink on your hand! What skill there must be in sitting.’ Beside them Nightingale brought the tea, pressing her lips together to keep from laughing.

Bao-yu hastily drew his hand into his sleeve and pointed at the table. ‘Have you written anything these last few days, Cousin?’ ‘What can an invalid write?’ He went to look through the papers held down beneath her inkstone. Dai-yu quickly put out a hand to cover them. ‘They aren't finished. What is there to see?’ ‘Unfinished things are the best to look at.’ ‘You do know how to choose,’ she said with a smile, but would not let him have them. Seeing that he still kept one hand inside his sleeve, she smiled again. ‘Since you are so good at choosing, choose for me: is that ink of yours Mencius ink, or Great Learning ink?’ ‘Neither. It splashed on me while I was grinding it.’ ‘Ah, so you work harder at grinding ink than at reading. I am only afraid you have been learning all the sages' words on your sleeve. One wash when you get home, and they will all be gone. When your father examines you tomorrow, just present your sleeve.’ Nightingale could no longer keep from laughing. Bao-yu blushed, and thrust his hand out boldly. ‘Well, look as much as you please.’ ‘Who wants to? Only if you rub that ink on the chair-cover, I shall be blamed.’ Bao-yu hastily withdrew his hand again. Dai-yu could not keep a straight face herself. She laughed so hard that she began to cough, and quickly covered her mouth with her handkerchief, waving her other hand. When the coughing at last subsided, her cheeks were flushed. She leaned back against the warming frame.

Bao-yu took one sip of tea and set the cup down. ‘You don't know how wretched I have been feeling these last few days,’ he said with a sigh. ‘The other day one of Cousin Xue's people was telling me about Caltrop. Ever since he married that wife of his, she has been stirring him up against her day after day, and beating and scolding her at the slightest thing. After listening to her once, Cousin Xue beat Caltrop with a door-bar. They have even made her change her name. She mustn't be called Caltrop now, but something like Lily. Although she is with Cousin Bao-chai now, she has fallen ill. Such a gentle, unspoilt creature, and she is so thin she scarcely looks human. Then I think of Cousin Ying-chun, suffering just the same now she is married into the Sun family. Neither of them has anywhere to turn. And here I am all day, unable to save either one!’ His face had gone white with anger.

Dai-yu heard him out, but did not take up his lament. She merely gave a cold little laugh. ‘Will a whole day of your fretting here spare her a single scolding in the Xue household? If you make yourself ill with anger, will the Suns let Cousin Ying-chun come home?’ ‘Must I simply stand by and watch?’ he demanded. Dai-yu lowered her head without answering. At last she said, ‘Whether they can be saved is not yours to decide. If you have a way, then do it. If you haven't, are you going to work yourself into an illness and give me someone else to look after?’

Bao-yu said nothing. He reached for the half-cup of pear broth and found it cold. ‘This has gone cold,’ he told Nightingale. ‘Do bring some hot.’ Nightingale assented and took it away. Noticing a book on the table, he picked it up. It was a volume of Zhuang-zi.

‘So you read this too, Cousin,’ Bao-yu said, smiling. ‘I couldn't sleep while I was ill. It happened to be at hand.’

Bao-yu turned a couple of pages. ‘I read it once, some years ago.’ Dai-yu smiled. ‘I know you did. You even wrote a continuation, saying you would burn up Aroma, scatter Musk, and reduce my understanding to ashes.’ Bao-yu reddened. ‘I had been drinking. It was nonsense.’ ‘And very well remembered, for nonsense,’ she said with a cold smile.

He said no more, but went on turning the pages. After a few, he came upon several lines of minute, neat handwriting. It was Dai-yu's. On the next page there was more. ‘You have been writing in this, Cousin.’ Dai-yu reached to snatch it away. He turned aside. ‘You wouldn't let me see those sheets just now,’ he said with a smile. ‘Surely I may see this.’

Dai-yu stopped trying to take it. ‘The True Man of the Southern Flower goes on speaking of greater and greater things, till there are no bounds left at all. It is rather exhilarating. Other people write to make you believe them. He writes without caring whether you believe him or not.’

As Bao-yu listened, he read the small writing. His eyes stopped at one place, and he turned no more pages. Dai-yu tilted her head to glance at it, then left him alone.

‘Could you lend me this for a few days?’ he asked. ‘Take it.’ Then she smiled. ‘Bring it back when you have finished. And don't write another continuation.’

Next day Bao-yu was already in the study with Mencius open on his desk at the Wan Zhang chapter. The volume of Zhuang-zi lay beneath it, with only a narrow strip of its blue cover showing. The annexe faced away from the sun, and even in daylight a lamp burning vegetable oil stood lit at the corner of the desk. Jia Zheng came in and saw him bent over his book, reading aloud. ‘Do you know the passage I told you to revise yesterday?’ Bao-yu rose at once and read from the page: ‘Wan Zhang asked, “Shun went into the fields and cried aloud to compassionate Heaven. Why did he cry aloud?”’ He went on to give the explanation from the old commentary. ‘This passage says that Shun could not win his parents' favour, and so cried aloud to Heaven. Mencius says it was “grievance and longing”.’ His reading was reasonably fluent. Jia Zheng stood stroking his beard for a little while. ‘The sages' books must be understood through the duties of everyday life. Learning them by heart is not the end of it. Revise the second part of the chapter for tomorrow.’ With that, he went out, his hands behind his back.

Li Gui accompanied him out. Bao-yu stood for a while, then, seeing no one outside the door, quietly closed Mencius and moved it aside. From beneath it he drew the volume of Zhuang-zi's Inner Chapters. He opened it at the passage beginning ‘In the northern darkness there is a fish whose name is Kun’, held down the corner with his finger, and read on.

Meanwhile, although the elders had come to no decision about Bao-yu's marriage, word of their discussions had already reached the servants. A few of the older women, with no errand to run, had gathered to rest beside the whitewashed wall on the sheltered side of Drenched Blossoms Pavilion. One was shelling water-caltrops, another stitching shoe-soles, and they chatted about this household and that. Empty shells piled up at their feet. The woman stitching soles rubbed her needle against the hair at her temple; the hemp thread left white grooves across her fingers. Presently the talk turned to Bao-yu's marriage. Pushing some shells aside with her hand, the first woman laughed. ‘They were putting the mistress's rooms to rights the other day. I dare say Master Bao's turn is coming.’ The woman with the shoe-sole turned it over. ‘Indeed it is. When we went to collect our monthly money, I heard them asking about birth dates.’ Another put in, ‘Bless the Buddha, I heard the master has someone else in mind. Says he pities her for having neither father nor mother. But I wouldn't venture to say who.’ Between them they produced three or four different versions. ‘If you ask me,’ said one, ‘it will be Miss Lin. The year before last, at the Naiad's House, Aunt Xue said with her own lips that she would make a match between Miss Lin and Master Bao. Said it before a whole roomful of people.’ ‘What do you know? Aunt Xue was joking. I heard the Xues are moving in to arrange the wedding.’ ‘Nonsense, all of it,’ said another. ‘Neither family has settled anything. They're only using it to keep Master Bao at his books.’ ‘Books? If you ask me, the only one left in this household who really studies is young Master Lan at Sweet-rice Village. You can hear him reading before daylight.’ ‘True enough. Miss Xi-chun has the best of it, painting that picture of the garden all day long. She's been at it more than a year, and they say she's only halfway through.’

Simple came up giggling, with a pheasant feather she had found in her hand. She squeezed in among the women, listened for a moment, and clapped her hands. ‘Master Bao is going to have a wife! He's marrying Miss Lin, and Miss Bao too. Both at once!’ One of the women gave her a push. ‘Off with you!’ she scolded, laughing. ‘Wasn't it enough last year, finding that thing behind the rocks and getting the whole garden searched? Whoever Master Bao marries, it's not for you to decide.’ The women laughed all the more. Simple went off carrying her feather and calling as she went, ‘No, no, only one!’ But when anyone asked her which one, she could not say.

That day Dai-yu was turning the pages of a book by her window. She could hear the women talking outside, but not clearly enough to make out their words. Two or three brushes rested on a little mountain-shaped stand on her small table, and beneath a paperweight lay several sheets of unfinished verse. Snowgoose returned with hot water, looking uneasy as she came in. Dai-yu stopped her. ‘If you have heard something, tell me.’ Snowgoose looked down. ‘Some of the old women outside are gossiping. They say Her Ladyship is arranging a marriage for Master Bao. You would think it was all true, the way they tell it.’ Dai-yu had a brush in her hand and was about to write. At these words its tip paused on the paper, and a drop of ink spread into a blot. She put the brush on its stand. ‘Nothing but idle talk. Why listen to them?’ Nightingale, who had seen it, merely peeled a segment from a tangerine and offered it to her. Dai-yu shook her head and said she did not want any.

That night Dai-yu's cough was worse than usual, one bout pressing close upon another. Alarmed, Snowgoose and Nightingale put on their clothes and hurried to her, one bringing warm water, the other rubbing her back. After half a cup of water the coughing eased a little. ‘Go back to bed,’ she said. ‘There is no need for both of you to sit up.’ Nightingale spread a little mattress beside the couch. ‘I'm not sleepy anyway,’ she said with a smile. ‘Snowgoose can sleep first and take over after the third watch.’ Snowgoose was putting away the medicine packets. ‘Yes, you sit up for the first half of the night and I'll take the second. Then we shan't both be nodding off tomorrow.’ Dai-yu only waved a hand as she listened to them. Snowgoose brewed the medicine in the outer room that night, and they took turns to watch until morning. Next day Dai-yu's cheeks were redder still, but her voice was fainter. Lady Wang sent a little maid to ask, ‘Her Ladyship wants to know how Miss Lin's cough was last night.’ Nightingale answered from behind the curtain. ‘She has only caught a little chill. She has taken her medicine. Please be sure not to alarm the old lady.’

Another night came, and Dai-yu still slept uneasily. Seeing that the little bronze censer on the table had gone cold, Snowgoose added a pinch of powdered rue. ‘A little incense may help you sleep more peacefully, miss.’ The smoke rose at first in one straight thread, then spread into a thin mist beneath the lamp.

Half propped against her pillow, Dai-yu watched the slender blue-grey smoke. Through her drowsiness a memory came to her: long ago, under the peach blossom beside the Drenched Blossoms sluice-bridge, she and Bao-yu had bent their heads together over a copy of The Western Chamber. Ying-ying had burned incense in the moonlight like this. ‘At least she had Hong-niang,’ Dai-yu sighed to herself. She watched the smoke grow fainter. Her hand relaxed its hold on the handkerchief. She did not know when her eyes closed.

Through the haze she seemed to have come to another place. It was not the Naiad's House, nor anywhere in this mansion. It was very like the old home in Yangchow where she had lived as a child. A few green bamboos grew in the courtyard, and under the covered walk stood a writing-table. Behind it sat a man in a somewhat worn cross-collared gown of warm-brown Huzhou silk, with a broad sash of blue silk at his waist. His face was lean and clear-cut; on his head was a Dongpo cap of black gauze. There was not a white hair at his temples. It was her father, Lin Ru-hai, just as she remembered him from childhood.

It was something that had happened that year. Her tutor had been teaching her to write song lyrics. He had set her the tune ‘Rouged Lips’ and the subject ‘The Lotus-gatherer’. Dai-yu had written a lyric and carried the sheet straight to her father's study.

She hurried up to him. ‘Father!’ she said, and handed him the paper. Lin Ru-hai took it and read by the window:

When he had finished, he asked, ‘Did you write this yourself?’ ‘Yes. There is only one place I'm not sure of.’ She pointed to the line. ‘“Join” would do here, or I could use “follow”. I can't decide. Will you choose one for me, Father?’

Lin Ru-hai looked at it for a while. He said neither that the words were good nor that they were bad. He simply pushed the paper back towards her, then gently turned the Duan inkstone halfway round so that its well faced her. He took a small brush from the stand and laid it beside the paper. Drawing back his hand, he smiled. ‘It is your lyric. You choose.’

‘But what if I choose badly?’ Dai-yu asked anxiously. Lin Ru-hai looked at her and gently stroked her head, without a word.

A very large drop of water suddenly fell from a plantain leaf outside the window and struck the ground before the steps, but made no sound. Dai-yu looked at the paper, the inkstone, the brush, then up at her father. He was still smiling. He only pushed the brush a little closer. She gazed at him. After a long while she slowly reached for it. Just as her fingers touched the shaft, the lamp on the table suddenly dimmed. ‘Father!’ she cried.

Hearing a sound from the couch, Snowgoose hurried in. ‘Wake up, miss. Have you had a bad dream?’ Dai-yu opened her eyes. The incense had burned away; the moonlight had moved to the corner of the window. Her hand was still stretched out beyond the quilt, its palm empty. For a long time she lay staring. Then, without her knowing it, tears began to roll down her face, though she made no sound. Snowgoose tucked the quilt round her and only then noticed the wet patch beside her head. She was about to change the pillow-cloth, but Dai-yu raised a hand to stop her. ‘It will soon be light. Leave it for now.’

Dai-yu lay still, turning over in her mind, again and again, the paper, the inkstone and the brush from her dream. The window slowly grew pale.

That day Xi-feng was attending to household business in her room, with several of the married women in charge of different departments standing before her to report on their accounts. An abacus lay on the kang table; little flames stirred in the charcoal brazier on the floor. Grandmother Jia's medicine expenses had risen considerably, while rents from several of the family's estates had yet to arrive, so Xi-feng told Sunshine to read out the expenditure for each set of rooms, item by item. A woman from the kitchens reported that rice and flour had grown dearer over the past month, adding more than twenty taels to the bill. Xi-feng gave a cold laugh. ‘Rice has gone up. Does firewood eat rice to grow, then? Last month you charged twenty-eight taels for wood; this month it's forty-six. Tell me whose belly you burned the extra eighteen taels in.’ The woman reddened and hastened to smile. ‘Madam, you can see for yourself, the fires have had to be kept going day and night to brew the old lady's medicine.’ ‘Utter nonsense!’ Xi-feng snapped. ‘The charcoal for brewing medicine is charged separately in the dispensary accounts. You would have us pay for it twice. Sunshine, mark that entry. Her husband can come and go through it with us tomorrow.’

Sunshine had only just circled it with his brush when Xi-feng pressed a hand against the edge of the kang and bent slightly at the waist. Seeing her turn white, Patience hurried forward. ‘What is it, ma'am?’ Xi-feng shook her head, then demanded sharply, ‘Is there any more?’ She had barely spoken before her fingers clenched the kang mattress into folds. Patience looked down at the hem of Xi-feng's skirt, and her own face changed. After a moment Xi-feng said very quietly, ‘Help me inside.’

Seeing how bad matters were, Patience at once sent the women away and helped Xi-feng into the inner room to lie down. She sent for a doctor and brought old cloths to place beneath her. Xi-feng lay with her eyes shut, panting for a few breaths. Hearing a whisper outside, she opened her eyes. ‘Don't let this reach the old lady. Say I have caught a chill.’ The doctor soon arrived and felt her pulse with the bed-curtain still drawn. He considered for a while. ‘This is the condition called “a mountain-collapse of blood”. It has not come on in a day or two. She must rest quietly. Above all she must avoid mental exertion and agitation.’ Shaking his head as he spoke, he went to write his prescription.

When Patience returned from seeing the doctor out, she found that Xi-feng had struggled into a sitting position. ‘Please lie down, ma'am.’ ‘Where is that account-book? Once the kitchen woman sees me laid up, she'll be changing eighteen taels to thirty-eight tomorrow.’ Sunshine had no choice but to bring it in. Propped against a bolster, Xi-feng pressed one hand to her lower belly and turned the pages with the other. Finding a discrepancy in the silk and satin figures, she ordered a separate list to be made of the people who had drawn them. ‘Pay for the medicines in the old lady's rooms and for the sick in the garden first. The monthly allowances must wait three days. If anyone dares to deduct a single extra cash on account of those three days, they can bring their accounts to me.’ She spoke for a long time. Her voice grew fainter, but she would not close the book. Patience could bear it no longer. She went up and took it from her. ‘What business have you with accounts at a time like this? The doctor has only just told you that exertion is the very worst thing. Do rest a little, if only out of kindness to us. The book won't run away. I'll read it to you line by line tomorrow.’ Xi-feng had no strength to take it back. ‘Keep a proper note of the turned-down corners. Don't let them change any pages.’ Then, more quietly, ‘That chest of the old lady's gold and silver plate was pawned last year. It still hasn't been redeemed. Remember that for me. Don't let it get forgotten in the muddle.’ Patience promised. Not until the third watch did Xi-feng settle down for the night.

Next day Lady Wang heard that Xi-feng was ill and sent Silver over with a packet of medicinal ingredients. When Silver returned, Lady Wang was sorting through some old jewellery on the kang. Seeing how red the girl's hands were with cold, she asked, ‘Why didn't you take your muff?’ Silver smiled. ‘I hurried out and forgot it.’ She handed Lady Wang her tea. Lady Wang pointed to the jewellery. ‘Put these away, and give them quietly to Zhou Rui's wife tomorrow. Tell her to pawn them for the old lady's medicine money. Don't let the old lady hear of it.’ Silver assented.

As Lady Wang took the tea, she noticed an old bracelet in the box and picked it up. ‘You may have this to wear. There used to be a pair. One by itself is no use now.’ Silver looked at it but did not put out her hand. She only smiled. ‘Keep it, ma'am. The medicine shop is pressing for payment. Even old things will fetch some money.’ Lady Wang's hand stopped. ‘It's a young girl's bracelet. How much could it fetch?’ Silver lowered her head and added water to the teacup. ‘My hands are rough. I'd knock it against something and break it while I was working.’ Lady Wang put the bracelet back in the box and closed the lid. ‘What did they say at Xi-feng's?’ ‘Patience said the doctor had ordered her to rest, but she's still looking at the accounts.’ Lady Wang sighed and merely told her to lower the curtain.

As Silver went to lower it, the lid of the box, not quite shut, left a bracelet visible inside. She saw it when she turned back, went over, and gently closed the lid. But let us leave that.

As for Chess, she had gone home after being dismissed from Prospect Garden the year before. Her maternal grandmother had come with Lady Xing as a dowry servant, but had now fallen on hard times too. Seeing that Chess was grown up, and fearing that word of the old affair would get about, her parents had talked it over several times. ‘If she stays at home, sooner or later people will talk,’ her father said. ‘Find her a husband and send her off. Then we can all be rid of it.’ They engaged a matchmaker, who found a widowed fur-dealer in his forties, with two children from his first marriage. Her mother locked the door and gave the key to Chess's sister-in-law. ‘Keep a close eye on her. When the day comes, she'll go into that bridal chair if we have to tie her up. If you let her make any more trouble, I might as well throw away this old face of mine.’ The old brass padlock on the door had once been used on the family's rice chest.

Lotus had formerly served in Ying-chun's rooms, and often gone to the kitchens to ask for things on Chess's behalf. Later she had been released from service, and now earned her living minding a stall for someone at a pickle shop in the West Market. One day an old woman buying needles and thread told her that Chess was to marry a widower. The cord on which she was counting cash fell still in her hand. ‘What's wrong with being over forty?’ the woman said with a laugh. ‘He has a house and land. Better off than the likes of us.’ ‘You're right, Mother,’ Lotus said. She lowered her head and went on counting her money. Once the woman had gone, she asked the people next door to mind the stall and went out.

First she asked a man who drove a mule-cart in the market to make inquiries. Two days later he came back. ‘There's a fellow copying accounts for a paper mill outside the city, to the south. Only came last autumn. Ask him his family name, and he won't tell you the truth. But his age and looks fit.’ Towards dusk Lotus went to find him. She stood outside the door for a while, then called. From within came the steady pounding of paper pulp, stroke after stroke. Papermaking screens hung drying against the wall and rattled when the wind passed. Presently Pan You-an came out in an old cotton-padded jacket. His face was much thinner than before. Seeing her, he took half a step back. ‘How did you find me here?’

‘Chess is getting married,’ Lotus said.

Pan You-an half closed the door. ‘When?’

‘The eighteenth of this month, they say. He's a widower, over forty.’ She went on, ‘You know what she's like. That time over a bowl of steamed egg: I was the one sent to ask for it. She took us to Cook Liu's kitchen and tossed everything about till it was all over the floor. And now they want her to marry a widower. Will she stand for that?’

Pan You-an asked no more questions. He lowered his head and began straightening his cuff. Twice he tried, and still it would not lie flat. Seeing him like this, Lotus grew impatient. ‘I shouldn't have come. Pretend I never did, and I'll pretend I never saw you.’

‘No, it isn't that,’ Pan You-an said quickly. ‘Please, please, don't tell anyone where I am when you go back. It's getting dark. The road won't be easy. You'd better go.’ After ten or so paces Lotus turned. He was still in the doorway, holding an old scent-bag. Chess had given it to him back then. It was one of a matching pair. The search had turned up other things, but not those two: he had had them on him.

What happened over the next few days reached the outside world only in scraps. Some said Chess had climbed through the back window and over the wall on the eve of the wedding; others, that she had left by the side gate before dawn. Some said Pan You-an had been waiting outside the city; others, that he had sent someone to fetch her.

Next morning Chess's mother called and got no answer, so she sent her daughter-in-law in to look. The woman came out in a flurry. ‘She isn't there.’ Chess's mother slapped her thighs and began crying and cursing. ‘You can't even keep watch over one girl! After that disgraceful business in the garden last year, when they sent her home, I'd already lost all the face I had. Now she's run away too. How am I ever to show myself again?’ Her daughter-in-law grew angry as well. ‘I didn't let her go. Why blame only me?’ Chess's father, who was outside, heard them and came in shouting, ‘Must you go on bawling? Afraid the neighbours won't hear?’ ‘What am I to tell them when they come for her?’ his wife wept. He shouted again, while his daughter-in-law went on defending herself. The uproar lasted all morning. In the end they did no more than send an old woman quietly to report it to the Jia household.

‘I see,’ said the person in charge. ‘With the old lady ill and Mrs Lian laid up too, who has time for such things?’ The news was noted on a scrap of paper and thrust beneath some old account-books. When the books were looked through later, no one knew where the scrap had got to.

Two days later, towards dusk, Lotus went outside the city to the south again. The paper mill's door stood wide open. Stacks of paper rose to different heights inside, and the table was covered with offcuts. The smell of damp paper met her. Two workers were sorting sheets. One looked up as she came. ‘Looking for the accounts fellow? He left a few days ago. Took his bedding and all. Didn't say where he was going.’ ‘Who said I was looking for him?’ Lotus spat. ‘Owes our shop two strings of cash for bean paste, and off he goes!’ Then she asked, ‘Are there any empty rooms to rent round here?’ ‘Are you moving here?’ ‘I'm asking for someone. Small doesn't matter, as long as the rent's low.’ The other worker said, ‘There's an empty room next door, facing the street. Ask the landlord.’ ‘Facing the street is better still.’ She found out which door to go to, thanked them, and went next door to look. Only then did she return to the West Market.

That night the doors were shut early throughout the Rong mansion. In the outer study, a vegetable-oil lamp stood before Bao-yu. Mencius lay open beneath it, one corner weighing down Zhuang-zi. Jia Zheng had not come to examine him that day, and he had not switched the books round. He simply sat there, drew out Zhuang-zi, turned a couple of pages, and closed it again.

Bao-yu got up and looked out of the window. A few windows were still lit, near and far beyond the intervening courtyard walls, each a point of light. He could not see what the people beneath those lamps were doing. He closed the window and sat down again. The volume of Zhuang-zi still lay under Mencius.

To learn the truth of the matter, listen to the next chapter.