Chapter 85Clear-sighted Tan-chun sets sail for the Southern Ocean; discerning Xi-chun cuts her hair and refuses the Prince of Xining.

Grandmother Jia's funeral was only just over; not all the mourning hangings had yet been taken down. A palace eunuch had come to the mansion the day before with a few words to deliver, and the next day the Board of Civil Office sent its dispatch: by imperial command, Jia Zheng was to interrupt his mourning and resume his duties, with promotion to Director in the Board of Works. Scarcely had the good news been cried at the gate when the stewards of all the households arrived to kowtow and congratulate him, with a great many flattering speeches. Jia Zheng was dressed in plain mourning and could hardly give a feast. He merely instructed them, “Attend to your duties as usual. No one is to use this good news as an excuse to draw extra gratuities.” Congratulatory letters kept coming in from outside. Vermilion visiting cards piled up on the desk, covering the plain sheet inscribed “Be guarded in speech and cautious in conduct”, until only “cautious in conduct” remained in view.

Lady Wang ordered gifts prepared in acknowledgment of the imperial favour, and accompanied Jia Zheng on a visit to the Prince of Beijing's mansion. The Prince was occupied and did not receive them himself, but had his chief secretary entertain Jia Zheng to tea in the front hall. The secretary offered him tea with his own hands, then bowed and smiled. “His Highness happens to be unable to get away today, and has specially instructed me to wait here for you. Your household has only just passed through its bereavement, and we would not presume to make a show of ceremony. Pray forgive anything wanting in our reception.” Lady Wang went into the inner apartments to pay her respects to the Princess. The Princess had recently been ill. Dressed informally in a pale-blue foreign-wool jacket in a “Joyful Meeting” pattern, she said only, “There is so much happening in the Palace lately. Those of us related to the court ought all the more to keep quietly to ourselves.” After a little further talk, she suddenly laughed. “Several families have sent girls here these past two years. But would you believe it? Our Prince has sent every one of them straight back. For all these rooms, there is still no one who knows when he is cold or warm.”

The lid of Lady Wang's teacup touched its rim lightly. With an answering smile she asked, “Has His Highness really not kept a single one?”

“Not one,” the Princess said, laughing again. “I suppose he has not yet found anyone to his liking.” She changed the subject, asking whether everything connected with Grandmother Jia's funeral had now been attended to.

Lady Wang answered each of her questions. Looking up, she suddenly noticed a gleaming yellow object on a table by the window, about a foot long: a little boat, complete with mast and sail, with wheels and an axle underneath. Lady Wang looked at it, then looked again. She held her cup without raising it to her lips.

Seeing her so absorbed, the Princess smiled. “It is a mechanical boat made by Westerners. Wind it up, and it will travel a little way over the water. Our Prince has always loved such things. I asked a man named Jiang to look for one outside, and it took him more than half a year to find this. It was terribly expensive, but I agreed to the price. I am only waiting for His Highness's birthday to give it to him. I hear it came from that family's things, when they were dispersed. Nowadays, money alone will not necessarily buy you something like this.”

“How thoughtful of Your Highness,” said Lady Wang. She set down her tea, exchanged a few more remarks, and took her leave.

Back at the mansion, when they had passed the inner gate, Lady Wang asked, “Did His Highness say anything?” “I only exchanged civilities with the chief secretary,” said Jia Zheng. “At the end, he passed on His Highness's instructions: with things so unsettled outside, we must be most careful how we act.” He fell silent. After a long while he asked, “What did the Princess talk to you about?” “Only household matters,” Lady Wang replied.

In her own room, Lady Wang handed Silver a box of incense cakes sent by the Prince's household and told her to put it away. Then she asked Zhou Rui's wife, “Has the Fourth Miss been quiet lately? Is Miss Adamantina still living at Green Bower Hermitage?”

“Yes, Your Ladyship,” Zhou Rui's wife replied. “The Fourth Miss keeps her door shut all day. Even her meals are handed to Cai-ping at the door and taken in. Miss Adamantina seldom comes out either.”

Lady Wang nodded. “I see. You may go.”

Jia Zheng had returned to his study and was looking through the congratulatory cards when Aunt Zhao burst in, weeping. “Now you've been promoted, and Bao-yu is to be married according to Her Old Ladyship's wishes, there's happiness for everyone in the house. Only Huan isn't your son. He's growing up too. Have you ever asked a word about his future? You once said you'd picked out two maids, one for Bao-yu and one for Huan. It's been years since you said it, and there's not so much as the shadow of a maid! Is that household to have all the gold and jade for its marriages, while the two of us spend our lives at the back of the queue?”

“What nonsense have you come here to make now?” Jia Zheng thundered. “Our mourning is not over, and you come clamouring about such things! Huan will not study. He spends his time with a pack of disreputable idlers. What family would give him a decent daughter?”

“Whatever he is, he's still your son,” Aunt Zhao wept. “If he's no good, does that mean you won't find him a wife, but let him grow worse? The two of us might as well die and have done with it!”

“Impudence!” Jia Zheng struck the desk. “Turn her out! Turn her out!”

Aunt Zhao was about to launch into more threats of death when the pages outside hurried in to reason with her. She could only wipe her tears and sob, “We're neither of us wanted here, that's plain enough. Now Her Old Ladyship's gone, there's no one left to stand up for us.” Covering her face, she went out.

Jia Zheng sat for a long time. He picked up a congratulatory card and put it down again. Suddenly he gave a deep sigh and asked the page beside him, “How old is Huan this year?”

“Fifteen by the customary reckoning, sir.”

Jia Zheng said nothing. That evening, in Lady Wang's room, he mentioned Aunt Zhao's scene. “She may behave outrageously,” said Lady Wang, “but there is something in what she said. Only, with Huan's disposition, a girl from an ordinary family might not be able to keep him in order.”

“When my mother was alive,” said Jia Zheng, “she often spoke to me about the grandmother of this Adamantina at Green Bower Hermitage. They were old friends of many decades. Before either was married, one liked Lu'an tea and the other Old Man's Eyebrows. Every few days they would get together for tea, and argue endlessly over which was better. In the end they each wrote a poem to settle the contest. My mother's was on Old Man's Eyebrows.” Slowly he recited:

When he had finished, he went on, “Her old friend would not admit defeat. Her answering poem was on Lu'an tea.”

When he had finished, no one in the room spoke for a while. Lady Wang took a sip of tea. “Neither of those two would give way to the other.”

“My mother said her old friend was proud and solitary all her life, and died before her time,” Jia Zheng continued. “After Adamantina's grandmother died, her parents died one after the other. Adamantina alone remained, practising the religious life without taking the tonsure, and drifted here to the capital. Remembering their old friendship, my mother had meant to take her into the family. But other matters intervened, and in the end nothing came of it. Now my mother is gone, Adamantina has no one in this household to rely on either. I shall fulfil that wish my mother left unfulfilled: let Adamantina marry Huan as his lawful wife. It will accomplish three things: fulfil my mother's old wish, put a stop to the incessant clamour in those rooms, and raise up an orphan with no one to depend on. With someone like her to restrain him, Huan might improve a little too.”

Lady Wang considered. “She may follow the religious life with her hair unshorn, but she is still a young lady of good family. I am only afraid she is too proud, and will refuse.”

“Send someone to ask her first,” said Jia Zheng. “Be sure to make it clear that she would be his lawful wife, nothing else.”

Next day an elderly woman servant was sent to the hermitage with two kinds of sweetmeats for tea. Given this errand, the woman took it for the most wonderful news imaginable. She found Adamantina washing her hands, and began with a face full of smiles. “Congratulations, miss! Our Master and Her Ladyship have been thinking how you are all alone, without anyone to depend on, and how highly Her Old Ladyship used to think of you. They mean to take you into the family now, as Master Huan's wife. Don't you worry, miss: his properly wedded wife, not a concubine. With the household to look after you from now on, surely that's far better than keeping watch over this cold little hermitage.”

Water fell drop by drop from Adamantina's hands into the copper basin. She did not look up.

Finding that she got no answer, the woman edged a step closer and smiled. “You don't know, miss, what a favour our Lord Director is doing you. Master Huan may be a few years younger, but don't they say, ‘A wife five years older is better than a mother’? With those few years' advantage, you'll find it easier to manage him.”

Before the woman had finished speaking, Adamantina's face had changed. With a cold laugh she laid the towel across the rim of the basin. Without looking at the woman she rose, lifted the soft blue cotton curtain and slipped into the inner room. The curtain fell. She did not come out again.

The woman waited where she was. At length she heard the door being bolted inside, and withdrew in embarrassment. Once outside the hermitage gate, she muttered all the way back, “That young lady doesn't know a blessing when she sees one. Won't be the lawful wife of a gentleman from a noble family! Is she waiting for the Jade Emperor to come and ask her?”

Jia Zheng's face darkened when he heard her report. “Let it be,” was all he said. Lady Wang ordered the two kinds of sweetmeats put away.

A few days later, a night of cold rain had washed the bamboo leaves outside the Naiad's House a bright green. Dai-yu was a little better. Early that morning she had Snowgoose light a censer of Javan aloeswood, and sat by the window to try her qin. Nightingale hurried to tuck a soft fox-belly-fur cushion behind her back. “No sooner are you a little better than you take this up again,” she said, smiling. “Be careful not to tire your mind.”

“The qin would not wish to tire my mind,” Dai-yu said with a smile. “I only borrow it to ease it a little.”

She tuned the strings for a while. There were no visitors. Nightingale was boiling medicine in the outer room, and Snowgoose was tending the cut flowers under the verandah: within and without, there were only mistress and maids, the three of them. Dai-yu began with “The Solitary Orchid”. At first her fingers moved very slowly, the notes like a faint wind in an empty valley. After several phrases, the presence of the orchid deepened. Though no one answered, it had a pure fragrance of its own. Before the piece was over, someone outside the window improvised a quatrain:

Nightingale lifted the curtain to look. It was Adamantina, with only a little maid in attendance, wearing a plain pale-blue cloak. A few specks of wet mud clung to the edges of her shoes. Dai-yu hastened to have her shown in. Adamantina sat at one side of the qin table and listened until Dai-yu had played the last notes. She spoke first not of the orchid but of the music. “You leave more space in this piece than you used to.”

“The strings are old,” Dai-yu said, smiling, “and I have grown lazy.”

“The spaces are good,” said Adamantina. Nightingale brought in tea. Seeing that the strings were still faintly trembling, she did not venture to ask any questions, but set it down and went out. “I have none of that snow from plum blossoms here,” Dai-yu said with a smile. “You will have to make do.” “Today I shall not inquire about the water,” said Adamantina.

Dai-yu said no more either, but turned her hands to “High Mountains and Flowing Waters”. Now there were precipices a thousand fathoms high, now the sound of a spring falling into a ravine. Adamantina tapped a finger lightly against her teacup, humming softly with the music. Partway through, as the mountains gave way to flowing water, the current travelled farther and farther, with less and less to hold it. Adamantina's finger stopped tapping.

Dai-yu stilled the strings and smiled. “If it is found, there is no need to speak of it. If it is not found, there is no need to speak either.”

At this Adamantina improvised another quatrain:

Dai-yu looked at her. “That sounds rather as though you were speaking of yourself.”

Adamantina merely raised her cup and drank a little tea.

Presently Dai-yu turned to “Clouds and Waters of the Xiao and Xiang”. As the first notes sounded, the wind happened to scatter the bamboo shadows outside the window. The opening phrases were mist and water without end; later there came the sense of a lonely boat and a distant shore. At one passage Adamantina responded:

“Those two words, Xiao and Xiang, were never mine alone,” said Dai-yu.

“No place bears anyone's surname,” said Adamantina. “Once you have lived there, it has its share of clouds and waters that are yours.”

Dai-yu did not answer, but began “A Spring Outing”. This was a light and lively piece. Halfway through, Snowgoose, changing a vase under the verandah, set a narcissus stem inside it gently swaying. A little of the springtime of former days suddenly entered Dai-yu's playing. Adamantina offered another quatrain:

Dai-yu's fingers slowed a little when she heard this, but she played the piece to the end.

Last of all she played “Communion of Gods and Men”. The music was broad and expansive. Its first phrases rang clear and high; gradually it became like a great wind emerging from the mountain caves. Adamantina had been listening with her eyes closed. At one passage, the highest of all, she suddenly opened them and improvised:

“Doors are not always shut by other people,” Dai-yu said.

Adamantina looked at her. For a while neither spoke.

Adamantina drank half a cup of tea before asking, “Does Master Bao still come here often?”

“Often,” said Dai-yu.

“Oh,” said Adamantina. She put down her cup. After a while she said, “I shall be leaving before long.”

“Where are you going?” Dai-yu asked.

“South.”

Dai-yu reached out to adjust the tuning pegs and began “Thoughts of the Worthy”. This time the opening note was low, as though the ancients had gone and their footsteps still sounded in an empty hall. Adamantina sat upright, listening. At the middle of the piece she said, “This one is a little too sorrowful.” She reached out and laid two fingers lightly upon the vibrating strings.

Dai-yu did not stop playing. She let the fingers rest there, and the last note fell away beneath them. In the censer, the incense happened to burn out at the same moment.

When Adamantina left, Dai-yu saw her only to the door. “It is wet outside. Don't come out,” said Adamantina. Holding the door-frame, Dai-yu watched her cross the bamboo bridge before turning back to sit down.

On her way out of the Garden, Adamantina happened to meet Zhou Rui's wife taking two married women servants towards the House of Green Delights. Carrying bed-hangings and lengths of cloth, she was saying as they went, “The Master and Her Ladyship have given orders. The principal rooms are to be made ready. The birth-date cards have been found too. We're only waiting for the day to be fixed.” Adamantina stopped and listened to a sentence or two, then walked on. The little maid asked what it was about, but she did not answer.

The date of Bao-yu's marriage remained unsettled. So the last month of winter passed; in no time the first month of the new year was over, and the second had begun. One day Tealeaf came back from outside and told Bao-yu in confidence, “The Prince of Nan'an's household has been commanded to send a young lady to the distant sea frontier, in a marriage to make peace with a foreign people. The Dowager Princess cannot bear to send her own daughter three thousand li away. She means to adopt a daughter and have her go instead, under the name of a young lady of the princely house.” Bao-yu could make no sense of this. He went to the Naiad's House and told Dai-yu, “It makes me furious! What an absurd thing to do! If they want a marriage to make peace, the Prince's household has daughters of its own. Why adopt someone else's daughter and send her out in their place?” Dai-yu was leaning by the window, putting her books in order. She said only, “You find fault with the adoption. But who would willingly send her own daughter three thousand li away?” Bao-yu stood bewildered. He had no answer.

Who would have thought that only a few days later the Dowager Princess of Nan'an would come herself? Lady Wang hurried to receive her in the principal room with Li Wan, Tan-chun and the others. The Dowager Princess took Tan-chun's hand and studied her for a while. “At your grandmother's birthday, you were the only one of the young ladies of the house they brought out to see me. I remembered you. There is a matter concerning a distant place which I should like you to hear from me first.” She explained the proposed adoption and peace marriage from beginning to end. “It is a long way to go, over mountains and waters. It will not be like living in the capital. You will be acknowledged as my adopted daughter, and every ceremony will be performed just as for a daughter born to the Prince's house. If you are unwilling, we shall leave it here today. I shall look for someone in another family.”

Lady Wang was about to speak, but Tan-chun spoke first. “If I am fit to go, I ask Your Highness to arrange it.”

The Dowager Princess looked at her. “Will you not think it over?”

“I have thought it over,” said Tan-chun. “I only ask that Scribe should come with me. There is no need to add much else.”

The Dowager Princess nodded. “Good child. You shall have everything as you wish.”

She then sent the chief secretary who had accompanied her to see Jia Zheng in the outer study and explain the imperial command. Jia Zheng heard him out. After a long silence he said, “Since it is His Majesty's command, and my daughter herself has consented, I ask Her Highness to arrange it.”

Her new status was settled that day, and the twenty-sixth of the second month chosen for her departure. That year the Clear Brightness festival happened to fall on that very day. With the Board of Rites pressing them, the household had scarcely more than twenty days to prepare. Everyone was busy getting Tan-chun's clothes and trousseau ready. She herself first took out several small account-books left from her time managing the Garden and gave them to Li Wan. “There are rents on a few plots still unsettled in here, including old Mother Zhu's bamboos and old Mother Tian's rice fields. Two gardening families are still owed their wages too. The Garden has no use for so many people now. Settle what can be settled. Don't let them come for nothing.”

She also took out a ring of small keys and handed it to Ebony. “Let the young ladies divide up whatever I leave in my rooms, as they think best. Aunt Zhao is to draw her few taels each month as usual. They need not be reduced because I have gone.”

Ebony took the keys. “You needn't remind me again, miss.”

Tan-chun looked at her, then took out Aunt Zhao's usual prescription and placed it beneath the keys. Meanwhile Scribe kept reducing the number of trunks and chests to be taken, until only four remained. One of them, however, contained the calligraphy models her mistress habitually copied, and several inkstones. Two old women originally assigned to accompany her had heard that the sea passage was dangerous and were crying in private, unwilling to go. When Scribe found out, she called them in. “Our mistress hasn't asked you to throw your lives away. Anyone who's afraid can go home, and still have her travelling money. But if you wait till we're boarding to feign illness and hold everything up, don't blame me for exposing you in front of everyone.” She gave each of them a few taels of silver and replaced them with two married women who were willing to go.

The day before her departure, Tan-chun went from room to room to take her leave. When she reached Aunt Zhao's, Aunt Zhao was already wailing enough to shake heaven and earth. She seized Tan-chun's sleeve and howled louder still. “A fine young lady, and they're taking her to fill a pit of fire three thousand li away, in place of the Prince's daughter! Why is my life so bitter?” After weeping for a while, she suddenly dried her tears and drew closer to whisper, “Now you've been taken into the Prince's family, you're ten times grander than before. This time you really have flown up to a higher branch. Huan is your own brother, born of the same mother, after all. Once you've found your feet over there, don't forget to give him a helping hand.” Tan-chun merely laid a packet of silver on the kang. “Keep this, Aunt. The Master will see to Huan's affairs.”

Still holding her sleeve, Aunt Zhao asked, “When will you come back?”

Tan-chun gave a cold laugh. “The ship has a day to return. Its passengers may not.”

Aunt Zhao stared, her breath caught in her throat. Her tears fell without a sound. Tan-chun gently freed her sleeve, turned, and went out.

From Aunt Zhao's rooms, Tan-chun went to the Naiad's House to say goodbye to Dai-yu. Dai-yu forced herself to get up to receive her, and they sat facing each other for a long time. “Take care of yourself, Cousin Lin,” Tan-chun said with a smile. “I do understand,” said Dai-yu. “To go in this way is better than staying.” “I can see plainly enough how things stand in this house,” said Tan-chun. “When a tree is going to fall, those who can walk away by themselves must take the first step.” Dai-yu was silent for a long time. Her eyes grew a little moist. “I understand something of what you mean. Only I always feel you see further into things than I do.” Tan-chun smiled faintly. “There are things you have never needed to see so clearly, cousin. I have had to look up from underneath. If I see clearly, it is because I had no choice.” For a moment Dai-yu could find no reply. Tan-chun rose. “That is all there is to say. Take good care of your health, cousin. It matters more than anything.”

On the day of Clear Brightness, the sky was lightly overcast. Tan-chun first entered the ancestral shrine in plain mourning with a woven pattern of the same colour. Incense hung thick before the tablets of successive generations. Beginning at the highest place, she bowed to each in turn down to the last, making the whole sequence three times. When she stood, a little dust from the rush cushion clung to her forehead. There were no tears in her eyes. Jia Zheng was waiting outside the shrine. As she came out, he said only, “When you get there, be cautious in everything.”

Tan-chun hastily knelt on both knees and kowtowed in assent before replying, “Father, those four characters from Her Highness matter.”

Jia Zheng struck his walking-stick on the stone step. “I know.”

Tan-chun rose and got straight into the carriage. On the way to the landing, several children were flying kites on open ground south of the city. A great scarlet butterfly was riding high when a crosswind suddenly snapped its string. It swayed and drifted down towards the river flats. Tan-chun raised the carriage curtain a fraction to watch. The kite swept over the carriage roof and went on towards the flats. “What are you looking at, miss?” Scribe asked. Tan-chun lowered the curtain. “Nothing.”

At the landing they saw the official ship moored in midstream, with a small boat by the bank to ferry passengers out. A boatman called across the water, “You from the mansion! This way!” and poled his boat towards the stone bank. The Prince's ceremonial escort was not very large. The wind twisted its flags and pennants. A strong wind was blowing down the river, and wave pursued wave, flinging themselves against the stones and breaking into white foam. Jia Zheng, Lady Wang, Li Wan, Bao-yu, Bao-chai and the others came down to the bank to see her off. Aunt Zhao did not come at all; she merely sent Ebony with a scented sachet of figured satin, showing a magpie perched on plum blossom. As Ebony handed it to Tan-chun, she said, “I'll be there for Aunt Zhao.”

Tan-chun took it and tied it to the corner of a chest, without a word of instruction.

Seeing the two replacement servants still hesitating on the bank, Scribe called out, “The boat is leaving. Those who want to go, get aboard. Those who don't, take your travelling money and go home.” Only then did the two follow. As Tan-chun crossed the gangplank, Bao-yu called, “Third Sister!” She did not pause. “Go home, Second Brother,” was all she said.

Bao-yu would have gone closer, but the Prince's chief secretary was already inviting Tan-chun into the cabin. She did not go in, but stood in the bows. The mooring rope was cast off. The little boat pushed away from the stone bank, and the river made a deep sound beneath its hull. The mourners on shore gradually merged into one white blur.

Only when the small boat had drawn alongside the official ship and Tan-chun had boarded it did she go into the cabin and sit down. Finding the draught cold, Scribe hurried to open a chest and take out the scarlet broadcloth cloak to put about her shoulders. Tan-chun shook her head. “Put it away.” She asked Scribe for paper and brush and silently wrote a poem in the cabin. When she had finished, she read it through to herself in a low voice:

When she had finished reading, she folded the sheet twice and pushed it into the very bottom of a chest. Only later, when Scribe was arranging its contents, did she see the title on that plain sheet: “Song of Leaving the Net for the Southern Ocean”.

The ship was going farther away, its sails now full. Tan-chun looked once more towards the northern bank. North of the city a fine thread of blue smoke was rising, as though that hermitage had lit its first stick of incense that morning. She saw it, but did not ask who it was.

As the Jia family returned from the landing, Bao-yu said nothing all the way. Just inside the Garden gate he heard a page say that the official ship had rounded the bend and was no longer visible. He sat down beside a gallery pillar, tears streaming down his face. “Now Third Sister has gone, we'll be at opposite ends of earth and sea. Cousin Lin is ill, Second Sister has gone to a family like that, and one by one the girls are all scattered. How are we to live through these days?”

Bao-chai stood beside him. Only when his sobbing had quietened a little did she ask, “When Third Sister was boarding the boat, did she look back?”

Bao-yu was taken aback. “No.”

Bao-chai said nothing more, but handed him the handkerchief she was holding. Bao-yu took it and turned his face towards the Garden. The apricot tree had not yet shed all its flowers, and already a few new leaves had appeared among the branches. Swallow was directing two little maids as they raised a fallen rose trellis. No sooner was the rope tied than a gust of wind loosened it again.

The day after Tan-chun's ship left, the Prince of Xining's household first sent its chief secretary to the Ning mansion with word that the Prince wished to adopt the Fourth Miss as his daughter and choose a day to bring her into his household. Jia Zhen agreed at once. Only afterwards did a formal dispatch arrive at the Rong mansion. Lady Wang sent someone to Xi-chun's courtyard with the message. When the old woman reached the gate, she found Cai-ping sitting outside the door, a basin of cold water at her feet.

“Quickly, tell your mistress,” said the woman. “The wonderful news from the Prince's household has arrived in writing.”

Cai-ping did not answer. She merely drew the curtain more closely across the doorway.

Cai-ping had in fact already heard at the gate that the Prince's dispatch had arrived, and had hurried back with the news. The old woman grew impatient and put out a hand to push the door. It was bolted from within. All she could hear was a snipping sound inside, one snip following another, very slow, very steady. She called several times. No one answered.

When Lady Wang came herself, the door opened a crack. A swathe of black hair lay on the floor. Xi-chun sat with her back to the window, more than half her hair already cut away. She still held the little scissors and went on cutting, stroke by stroke, without stopping. The old flower box on her dressing-table stood open. Inside were two artificial flowers of gathered gauze, their gauze turned yellow. Lady Wang stood for a while before she spoke. “Fourth child, if you have something to say, we can talk it over quietly.”

There was silence within. Lady Wang could only take the dispatch away with her. Cai-ping remained outside the door until the lamps were lit, without making a sound.

Two days later Adamantina came to Xi-chun's courtyard with only the little maid. Cai-ping hurried to her feet. Before she could speak, the door opened from within.

Xi-chun stood inside, the short hair left by the scissors held together with a plain ribbon. Seeing Adamantina, she offered no greeting, but stepped aside to let her in. The room was much emptier than before. Against the wall stood the scroll of the Garden she had been painting for years and had still not finished, half rolled up. The low wall about Green Bower Hermitage was only sketched in; beneath the plum blossom stood a faint human figure. Adamantina's gaze rested on it for a moment. She said nothing. On the little table by the window stood a go board, still with the unfinished game they had left there before. They sat facing each other and resumed it. Cai-ping brought in tea. Adamantina looked at the cup but did not touch it. Xi-chun did not press her.

After a dozen or so moves, Xi-chun sacrificed an entire connected group in the left corner. Adamantina's hand stopped. “That group could still be saved.”

“What should I save it for?” said Xi-chun.

Adamantina held a stone for a long time, then placed it elsewhere. “All my life, the one word I could never bear was ‘dirty’. Someone came to see me the other day. First she said how cold and lonely my hermitage was, and by the end she was making remarks about my age. Even in places like yours and mine, people come to the door to arrange our whole lives for us. Those who can get away should get away early. That is the way to stay clean.”

Xi-chun did not answer. She looked at Adamantina's hair. “You have kept your hair, though.”

“To practise with one's hair unshorn is just the same,” Adamantina said.

“It is not the same,” said Xi-chun.

Neither said another word. They played out the half-finished game. Watching beside them, Cai-ping could not tell who had won or lost. Adamantina rose to leave, and Xi-chun saw her to the door. Adamantina looked at the short hair remaining by her temples. “You have made a clean cut.”

“I did not cut it to look clean,” said Xi-chun.

The little maid was about to put the game away when Adamantina looked back. “Leave it.” With that she went.

Every morning Swallow took a wooden bucket and watered all the way from the House of Green Delights to Allspice Court. Of the plants and trees in the old flower register, three or four in every ten had already died. Seeing a late-flowering crab-apple broken by the wind, she crouched down to firm the earth around it, then fenced it with lengths of straw rope to keep people from trampling it.

Another day Kingfisher brought festival gifts from Xiang-yun. Since the Jia household was still in mourning, Xiang-yun could not conveniently come herself. The gifts were only a few sorts of seafood, two bolts of plain silk and a box of cakes freshly made at the Weis'. The little maids in the courtyard had never seen these things from the sea and crowded round Kingfisher, asking questions. One had a prickly shell, and none of them could name it. A girl pointed. “Is this a fish or a fruit? Why has it got spines all over?” Another touched it with a fingertip, then snatched her hand back. “Whatever it is, it certainly pricks.” A third laughed. “You try it first. If it pricks your mouth, don't you blame Sister Kingfisher.” They all laughed, and the sound carried into Xi-feng's room.

Xi-feng had just taken half a bowl of medicine. Hearing the laughter outside, she braced her hand against the edge of the bed and tried to sit up. Patience hurried to support her. “Don't move, ma'am. Kingfisher has only come with gifts. I'll have her come in and pay her respects in a little while.”

Halfway up, Xi-feng's sight went black and she fell back on the pillow. “Who wants her kowtows? Bring me the gift list to look at. We mustn't send them less than we ought in return.”

“It's all been prepared,” said Patience. Xi-feng asked, “Do you still remember those few who came here with me?” “I remember,” Patience answered, and went no further.

In the next room a little maid gave a clear, ringing laugh. Xi-feng opened her eyes and listened. “Tell them to do their laughing farther outside. They must take care not to disturb Her Ladyship.”

Scarcely had she finished speaking when Patience hastily let down the bed-curtains and told Felicity to bring fresh hot water. On the windowsill, the dregs of medicine lay spread in two bamboo sieves. They had not yet been thrown out.

Presently Patience went outside to see to things, leaving Xi-feng alone. Through the window she heard Kingfisher taking her leave, still saying as she went, “My mistress said the errand wasn't done till the gifts were put into Mrs Lian's own hands.” Xi-feng lay motionless. Her hand felt over the quilt and found the half-width of old cloth that had been changed. She held it tight for a while, then let it go.

That night Xi-feng ran a fever and fell into a heavy, confused sleep. She saw Qin-shi come in through the curtain, as delicately beautiful as before, without so much as a blade of grass on the front of her dress, and nothing in her hands. Xi-feng tried to sit up. Qin-shi only stood before the bed and said, “The allotted fortune must come to its end.” Then she turned and went away. When Xi-feng opened her eyes, the lamp beyond the curtains had a very long burnt wick. Patience was asleep over the footstool, still clutching half a width of bloodstained old cloth. Xi-feng watched her for a while, but did not call to her.

Next day Jia Lian came in and stood at the bedside, looking at her. Xi-feng sent Patience out. “Whatever you have to say, say it.”

“Nothing,” said Jia Lian.

Xi-feng gave a cold laugh. “If you have nothing to say, why stand there?”

Jia Lian stood a little longer, then turned and went into the outer room. He sat there with a book in his hands, but did not open it. He only turned it over and over, his fingers gripping the spine, listening to the sounds within. Xi-feng picked up the medicine cup beside her bed, raised it to her lips and set it down again. When Patience brought gruel in the afternoon, she took only one mouthful. Jia Lian came in again but asked no questions. Xi-feng said nothing either, only told Sunshine to bring the old account-books to her pillow. She turned two pages. The vermilion brush slipped from her fingers onto the quilt and made a small red mark. Patience hurried to fetch a handkerchief to wipe it off, but Xi-feng shook her head and went on turning the accounts. What was later discovered in that account-book we do not yet know; listen to the next chapter for the explanation.