Fragrance happens to fall ill;
Mo Ai throws his weight about.
A month or more slipped by as the love-struck Lu Shu continued to spend all of his time at the Jinyulou. One morning, following breakfast at the Futura teahouse, he accompanied his sworn brothers to a restaurant for lunch, after which he went on to the Jinyulou, only to find Fragrance lying on her bed fully dressed but with her hair still not done. She did not even get up to greet him when she saw him come in. “You still haven’t washed or done your hair?” he remarked in surprise.
“I feel a little dizzy, my eyes are all puffy, and I’m shivering with cold. I had some breakfast this morning, but I brought it up straight afterward. I still feel nauseous, as if I were going to vomit, and I have no strength in my limbs. I didn’t eat any lunch. How could I wash and do my hair?”
Lu Shu put his hand on her forehead and then on her body. She did not feel very hot, but he at once sent for a doctor.
After a short wait, a doctor named Ren Wanlin arrived. He came up to Fragrance’s room, and Lu Shu greeted him and invited him to take a seat. The maid offered the doctor tea, and he joined in some casual conversation. Then, with Fragrance’s arm resting on a small pillow, he checked her pulse. “The cold and hot elements are blocking each other,” he said. “She needs to fast for a day or two to expel the evil factors. If she continues on her present course, I’m afraid that complications will develop.” Writing materials were brought out and placed on the table, and the doctor picked up the brush and wrote out a prescription. Lu Shu paid for it as well as for the sedan chair fare, and the doctor took his leave. Lu Shu looked at the prescription:
DAY MONTH
First examination of patient. Cold and hot elements blocking each other. Nauseous, inclined to vomit. Quickly expel the evil factors, to prevent complications.
Bupleurum falcatum, 1.5 qian1
Pericarpium citri reticulatae viride, 1.2 qian
Platycodon grandiflorum, 1.5 qian
Agastache rugosus, 2 qian
Schizonepeta tenuifolia, 1.5 qian
Fructus aurentii, 1.5 qian
Lentinus edodes, 1.5 qian
Radix sileris, 1.5 qian
Jiaozha, 3 qian
Yinzaoxintu, 5 qian
Green ginger, 2 pieces, in place of water
Lu Shu immediately sent someone off for the ingredients as well as a suitable sweetener. He watched as a servant fanned the portable stove and decocted the medicine with charcoal, then placed it on the table.
Fragrance, however, refused to take it. Despite all of Lu Shu’s coaxing, she shook her head and would not drink. In desperation he picked up the bowl of medicine himself and tried it, then persuaded her to take a couple of sips. But at that point she shook her head again. “I really can’t take any more. I’d only throw up.” She hastily rinsed out her mouth with water. Lu Shu gave her some crystal sugar to take away the taste and helped her undress and lie down. Then, sitting on the edge of the bed, he rubbed her chest and smoothed out the bedclothes. Listless and out of sorts, she ate a little supper and then fell asleep.
Early the next morning Lu Shu got up and asked, “Are you feeling any better today?”
“A little better, but I’m still awfully dizzy.”
As Lu Shu was having his wash, Mother Xiao came upstairs and said to him, “Master Lu, there’s something you ought to know. Ever since the celebration, Miss Fragrance has not had her period. When I saw her vomiting yesterday, it crossed my mind that she might be pregnant. In my opinion, you should not be too free with the medicine.”
“Let me call Dr. Ren back today and tell him what you’ve just told me. We’ll see whether he thinks she’s pregnant or not.”
“Quite right,” she said, going back downstairs.
Lu Shu lost no time in sending for Dr. Ren and telling him that Fragrance had missed her period. The doctor took her pulse with great care and said, “Today the hot and cold elements have moved slightly apart, but there is still a little blockage left. She should continue on a strict fast for one more day, and then, after she’s had a bowel movement, there should be no further problem. As for pregnancy, it’s been only a few weeks, and nothing has shown up in her pulse. But my knowledge is limited, and I wouldn’t presume to conjecture. You should call in someone better qualified than I to consider that question.” Before taking his leave, he canceled the Schizonepeta tenuifolia and the Radix sileris on the prescription and added one and a half qian of Pinellia ternate and three qian of radish seed.
Lu Shu asked Mother Xiao to come upstairs again. “I find this Dr. Ren rather indecisive,” he said. “He can’t tell whether she’s pregnant or not. Is there a good doctor around here?”
“The most famous doctor in Yangzhou has a very peculiar name, one you won’t find in the Hundred Surnames.2 His surname is the Ming of guangming,3 and his personal name is Chiyuan. I don’t know how many strange cases he has diagnosed correctly! Last year a general in Nanjing—I forget the man’s name—had a daughter who was suffering from bloat. Goodness knows how many doctors had failed to cure her. Her father sent four of his senior deputies on a large boat to Yangzhou, just to invite Dr. Ming to Nanjing. When the doctor arrived, he checked the daughter’s pulse through a curtain and was then invited into the reception room to prescribe a remedy. ‘Your daughter isn’t suffering from bloat,’ Dr. Ming told the general. ‘She’s pregnant. It’s a boy, and she’s in her eighth month.’ He wrote out a prescription to protect the fetus. The general received the news without any visible emotion and merely asked his aides and relatives to accompany the doctor at dinner in the study. He himself took a double edged sword and went into his daughter’s room, where, without asking her whether it was true or not, he slit open her belly with the sword and found a perfectly formed male fetus inside. He then went to the study and said to Dr. Ming, ‘Doctor, I salute you. You’re a great expert.’ When he told Dr. Ming what he had done, the doctor almost died of fright. ‘There’s no need to be afraid,’ said the general. He ordered a servant to bring out five hundred taels as a reward and told the deputies to escort Dr. Ming by boat back to Yangzhou. After that the doctor’s fame spread far and wide, and he was besieged by patients. Whenever he was asked to examine anybody, the cost of his medicines and fares would be several times what other doctors charged. As the saying goes, ‘Better a wise man than a doctor.’ Think it over, sir.”
“So long as he’s skilled at reading a pulse, I don’t mind how much he charges. Send someone to ask him to come. We’ll see what he has to say.” She went downstairs and sent for the doctor.
It was dark before Dr. Ming arrived in a sedan chair. He came upstairs, and Lu Shu invited him into Fragrance’s room. While the maid offered him tea, Lu Shu told him that Fragrance had missed her period and had been vomiting and still felt dizzy. He also showed the doctor the prescription Dr. Ren had written. Dr. Ming checked Fragrance’s pulse and said to Lu Shu, “Your young lady’s external evil factors of cold and heat have dissipated; Dr. Ren’s medicine was quite appropriate. As for the pregnancy, after one month the embryo is the size of a dewdrop, after two months it’s like a peach blossom, and only after three months does it separate into male or female. One needs to wait three months before it can be detected in a reading of the pulse. In your young lady’s case, she’s in her fortieth or fiftieth day, so it does not appear in her pulse. She should use her own judgment about the temperature and see that she eats regularly. I don’t imagine she’ll be engaging in any strenuous activity, but it’s important that she exercise caution in whatever she does.” On the bottom of Dr. Ren’s prescription he wrote: “I make so bold as to suggest adding one capsule of weeping forsythia, one and a half qian.” He then took his leave. The medicine and the chair fare cost Lu Shu a good deal of money.
Lu Shu now suspected that Fragrance was indeed pregnant, and he at once sent for the ingredients and had them decocted. Then, just as he was coaxing Fragrance to swallow the medicine, someone arrived in Lute’s room opposite and began causing a commotion. His name was Mo Ai, style Xuyou. His father, who had made a fortune of several thousand taels from his activities as a shyster, had just this one son and a daughter. Mo Ai was fifteen when his father died, and with no occupation of his own, he spent all of his time in the brothels and ran through the whole of his inheritance. Fortunately for him, however, while he still had money he had joined a group of rich men’s sons, and because he was always quick with a jest, they found him an indispensable companion on visits to the pleasure quarter and treated him as a kind of hanger-on. He had seen Fragrance in the Jinyulou before her deflowering, found her quite beautiful, and been strongly attracted. Since she was still a virgin and he had no money at the time, he could only dream about her. Later, in desperate financial straits, he arranged to sell his own sister to Suzhou. After settling on a price, he took her there and got a couple of hundred taels for her. While in Suzhou his old passion for whoring flared up again and he spent a good deal of the money that he had received. With no more than a few dozen taels left, he returned to Yangzhou, paid off a few debts, and redeemed some of his clothing from the pawnbroker. When he heard that Fragrance had been deflowered and was receiving clients, he was delighted and came rushing over excitedly with a couple of taels to spend the night with her.
He was shown into Lute’s room, where she and Cloud greeted him and the maid offered tea and tobacco. “What about your Miss Fragrance?” he asked.
“She’s in bed with an illness,” said Cloud.
Mo Ai stood up. “I’ll step across and take a look at her,” he said.
Cloud barred his way. “She has a client with her!”
“Now, there’s a real hot courtesan for you!” he said angrily. “I come along, and she pretends to be sick and won’t even come out and say hello. If she’s so ill, why does she have a client with her? I insist on spending the night. Get her in here at once!”
“There’s no need to be angry, Master Mo,” said Cloud, “Miss Fragrance really is ill. The client she has with her is a steady patron, and because she’s ill, the nights he spends with her are very quiet. Please come back some other time.”
This suggestion infuriated Mo Ai even more. Pounding the table, he roared, “What sort of three-eyed Marshal Wang,4 what low-life scoundrel, gets to spend the night with her? You think I have no money, do you?” He took out a purse and flung it on the table. “What’s this, if it isn’t money? I insist on staying here tonight. If this fellow won’t give way, let him come out and take me on instead of hiding away in that room!”
From across the hall in Fragrance’s room Lu Shu heard all of this and flew into a rage. He didn’t know who the speaker was, but he knew well enough that every word was aimed at him and he couldn’t stand it. He wanted nothing more than to rush out and thrash the man. However, Fragrance had only just taken her medicine, and when she saw how angry he was, she clutched weakly at his arm and refused to let him leave the room. “If you go out and fight him, I’ll kill myself!” she cried. Because she was ill, and also because he feared to disturb the fetus, Lu Shu did not like to pull himself away from her grasp. Instead he cursed the man from inside the room.
The Jinyulou steward was surnamed Hua, and because he was a convivial character and a born jester, he was known as Drummer Hua. When he heard the quarreling, he raced upstairs. He went first to Fragrance’s room, where he said to Lu Shu, “Please don’t be angry, sir. Quarrels are hard to prevent in the pleasure quarter. That man has no idea that it’s you in here. If he did know, he wouldn’t dare to cut loose like this. I expect he’s drunk. Let me go over there and have a word with him and send him on his way. If you get angry, won’t it give Miss Fragrance an attack of nerves?”
At these words, Lu Shu’s anger began to subside. “Hurry up and see who it is,” he said.
As Drummer entered Lute’s room, he saw her holding the man down beside the bed. He approached and saw that it was Mo Ai. “Is that Master Mo?” he asked. “It’s such a long time since you visited our humble establishment. What brings you here today?”
Mo Ai saw that it was Drummer. “How hot she must be, this courtesan of yours! I come here with money to spend the night, and she doesn’t even bother to show her face, she looks down on me so much. What big player is she hiding behind? I want to see her!”
“Just what are you saying, Master Mo? Did you ever visit us when she didn’t come out and make a fuss of you? But today she really is sick. She’s just taken her medicine and gone off to sleep. In her room with her is a steady patron, someone who’s here to attend on her. But even if she weren’t sick, since she already has an engagement for the night, she still couldn’t entertain you. Put yourself in this man’s place. If you had arranged to stay the night and then someone else came along and wanted to do the same thing, could you give way to him? First come, first served—that’s the rule in everything. You must have been visiting some house where you had a drink too many. Look, do me a favor, will you? Come back some other day, and I’ll guarantee to play the matchmaker for you. When you’ve enjoyed yourself with Miss Fragrance, you’ll thank me in a big way!”
Mo Ai gave a thin smile, and when Drummer picked up the tobacco pouch to replenish his tobacco, he got to his feet. “We’ll take this up some other time,” he said.
Drummer picked up Mo Ai’s purse from the table and handed it to him. “Put your purse away, sir. I’ll see you downstairs.” He shouted to the servant below to light a torch. Mo Ai took the purse and went down. Drummer held the torch and saw him as far as the main gate, where he handed the torch to Mo Ai. “Careful how you go, sir. I’ll say good-bye now. Come back and enjoy yourself some other day.” Mo Ai took the torch and went off muttering to himself.
Drummer returned to Fragrance’s room, where Lu Shu asked him, “Has that bastard left yet? What’s his name? What sort of person is he?”
“Master Lu, ‘A great man does not stoop to petty things.’ Don’t ask, just ignore him.”
But Lu Shu persisted, and Drummer said, “He’s Mo Ai, also known as Mo Xuyou. He doesn’t have a job but goes about with a group of gentlemen as a sort of hanger-on, popularly known as a lickspittle. An impossible person like that, why not just ignore him, let it go?”
“I know,” said Lu Shu. “Why don’t you go and get some rest?” Drummer went downstairs.
In attending on Fragrance, Lu Shu slept in the same bed, but he still seethed with anger. It’s true what they say, he thought. Life is always harder away from home. When I visited the pleasure quarter at home, I was the one who was the center of attention, and I always had my way with the courtesans; I never had to fight with anyone for a woman’s favor. I haven’t felt so low as this in my entire life. Tomorrow morning I’ll make a point of talking to my sworn brothers about how to find this Mo fellow and work off my anger on him. Thoughts such as this tormented him most of the night. At dawn he rose, washed, ate some lotus seeds, and told a servant to call the doctor to come and check Fragrance’s pulse. Then he left the Jinyulou and went to the Futura teahouse to meet his brothers and consult them about his feud with Mo Ai.
If you are wondering what happened, please turn to the next chapter.
