Volume Ii Part 32 (1/2)
CHAPTER x.x.xV.
Pai Yu-ch'uan tastes too the lotus-leaf soup.
Huang Chin-ying skilfully plaits the plum-blossom-knotted nets.
Pao ch'ai had, our story goes, distinctly heard Lin Tai-yu's sneer, but in her eagerness to see her mother and brother, she did not so much as turn her head round, but continued straight on her way.
During this time, Lin Tai-yu halted under the shadow of the trees. Upon casting a glance, in the distance towards the I Hung Yuan, she observed Li Kung-ts'ai, Ying Ch'un, T'an Ch'un, Hsi Ch'un and various inmates wending their steps in a body in the direction of the I Hung court; but after they had gone past, and company after company of them had dispersed, she only failed to see lady Feng come. ”How is it,” she cogitated within herself, ”that she doesn't come to see Pao-yu? Even supposing that there was some business to detain her, she should also have put in an appearance, so as to curry favour with our venerable senior and Madame w.a.n.g. But if she hasn't shown herself at this hour of the day, there must certainly be some cause or other.”
While preoccupied with conjectures, she raised her head. At a second glance, she discerned a crowd of people, as thick as flowers in a bouquet, pursuing their way also into the I Hung court. On looking fixedly, she recognised dowager lady Chia, leaning on lady Feng's arm, followed by Mesdames Hsing and w.a.n.g, Mrs. Chou and servant-girls, married women and other domestics. In a body they walked into the court.
At the sight of them, Tai-yu unwittingly nodded her head, and reflected on the benefit of having a father and mother; and tears forthwith again bedewed her face. In a while, she beheld Pao-ch'ai, Mrs. Hsueh and the rest likewise go in.
But at quite an unexpected moment she became aware that Tzu Chuan was approaching her from behind. ”Miss,” she said, ”you had better go and take your medicine! The hot water too has got cold.”
”What do you, after all, mean by keeping on pressing me so?” inquired Tai-yu. ”Whether I have it or not, what's that to you?”
”Your cough,” smiled Tzu Chuan, ”has recently got a trifle better, and won't you again take your medicine? This is, it's true, the fifth moon, and the weather is hot, but you should, nevertheless, take good care of yourself a bit! Here you've been at this early hour of the morning standing for ever so long in this damp place; so you should go back and have some rest!”
This single hint recalled Tai-yu to her senses. She at length realised that her legs felt rather tired. After lingering about abstractedly for a long while, she quietly returned into the Hsiao Hsiang lodge, supporting herself on Tzu Chuan. As soon as they stepped inside the entrance of the court, her gaze was attracted by the confused shadows of the bamboos, which covered the ground, and the traces of moss, here thick, there thin, and she could not help recalling to mind those two lines of the pa.s.sage in the Hsi Hsiang Chi:
”In that lone nook some one saunters about, White dew coldly bespecks the verdant moss.”
”Shuang Wen,” she consequently secretly communed within herself, as she sighed, ”had of course a poor fate; but she nevertheless had a widowed mother and a young brother; but in the unhappy destiny, to which I, Tai-yu, am at present doomed, I have neither a widowed mother nor a young brother.”
At this point in her reflections, she was about to melt into another fit of crying, when of a sudden, the parrot under the verandah caught sight of Tai-yu approaching, and, with a shriek, he jumped down from his perch, and made her start with fright.
”Are you bent upon compa.s.sing your own death!” she exclaimed. ”You've covered my head all over with dust again!”
The parrot flew back to his perch. ”Hsueh Yen,” he kept on shouting, ”quick, raise the portiere! Miss is come!”
Tai-yu stopped short and rapped on the frame with her hand. ”Have his food and water been replenished?” she asked.
The parrot forthwith heaved a deep sigh, closely resembling, in sound, the groans usually indulged in by Tai-yu, and then went on to recite:
”Here I am fain these flowers to inter, but humankind will laugh me as a fool.”
Who knows who will in years to come commit me to my grave.
As soon as these lines fell on the ear of Tai-yu and Tzu Chuan, they blurted out laughing.
”This is what you were repeating some time back, Miss.” Tzu Chuan laughed, ”How did he ever manage to commit it to memory?”
Tai-yu then directed some one to take down the frame and suspend it instead on a hook, outside the circular window, and presently entering her room, she seated herself inside the circular window. She had just done drinking her medicine, when she perceived that the shade cast by the cl.u.s.ter of bamboos, planted outside the window, was reflected so far on the gauze lattice as to fill the room with a faint light, so green and mellow, and to impart a certain coolness to the teapoys and mats.
But Tai-yu had no means at hand to dispel her ennui, so from inside the gauze lattice, she instigated the parrot to perform his pranks; and selecting some verses, which had ever found favour with her, she tried to teach them to him.
But without descending to particulars, let us now advert to Hsueh Pao-ch'ai. On her return home, she found her mother alone combing her hair and having a wash. ”Why do you run over at this early hour of the morning?” she speedily inquired when she saw her enter.
”To see,” replied Pao-ch'ai, ”whether you were all right or not, mother.
Did he come again, I wonder, after I left yesterday and make any more trouble or not?”