Courtesans and Opium: Romantic Illusions of the Fool of Yangzhou

In a fit of jealousy Fragrance rages at Sturgeon;

In a fight over a courtesan Wei Bi beats Turtle.

Lu Shu returned to the Jinyulou with the three courtesans and, as love struck as ever, continued to spend his days and nights in revelry. On his first visit to the brothel, he had been attracted by the seductive looks of Maid Zhang, the woman with the unbound feet, and had wanted to start an affair with her. He had often engaged her in suggestive banter, but later, after taking Fragrance’s virginity, he had been prevented from acting on his desire by fear of the latter’s jealousy. Maid Zhang, for her part, was impressed by his youth and good looks as well as his free-spending ways, but when he joked with her, she was too afraid of Fragrance to flirt openly and merely made eyes at him. Secretly, however, she put in countless requests for money and clothing, requests that he always complied with. The pair could be described as intimate friends who could go no further than friendship for fear of being observed.

One day Lu Shu was joking with Fragrance in her room when a new client arrived in Cloud’s room downstairs and began shouting for Fragrance to come down. “I don’t know who the bastard is, yelling like that,” said Fragrance. “Wait a moment while I go down and have a word with him and send him on his way. I’ll be back soon.” Having soothed Lu Shu’s feelings, she went down to receive the newcomer.

Soon afterward Maid Zhang entered with a white copper canister and proceeded to replenish the tobacco in Lu Shu’s water pipe. He was sitting on Fragrance’s bed when she came in and put the pipe to his mouth. There was no one else in the room at the time, and on a sudden impulse he pulled her down beside him. “You know how I feel about you,” he said. “With her downstairs, this is a heaven-sent opportunity for a little kiss. If there’s anything you want from me, it’s yours.” As he tried to plant a kiss on her lips, she jumped up to evade it, but he held her firmly, and the pipe fell to the floor.

“All you’re after is what you call fun,” she said, “but what if she comes in and sees us? How could I ever hold my head up again?”

“She’s only just gone down. It’ll be some time before she comes up again. Come on, do me a favor.” He leaned over her and tugged at her trousers.

Fragrance, however, had tiptoed upstairs and was standing just outside the door. When she heard this exchange, anger welled up inside her, she flung aside the door curtain, charged into the room, rushed up to the bed, and, seizing Lu Shu by the ear, screamed at him, “What a low, vulgar creature you are! If you’d wanted to make out with her, I would never have stood in your way. But you couldn’t do your dirty business anywhere else, could you? Oh no, you had to come in here and muck up my bedclothes!” She shouted for Maid Wang: “Strip off that coverlet and take it away and wash it! I can’t sleep in dirty bedclothes that have been fouled by other people!”

When Maid Zhang saw Fragrance come rushing into the room, she pushed Lu Shu aside and wriggled free, then ran downstairs. Maid Wang came in and picked up the pipe from in front of the bed and put it on the table. Taking a firm grip on Lu Shu, Fragrance began ramming her head furiously into him, raging and sobbing without a moment’s pause. Cloud came in to calm her down, but Fragrance took no notice. Mother Xiao, who had heard the quarreling and rushed upstairs, managed to persuade her to move to Lute’s room opposite, where she continued her sobbing and screaming. Among other unreasonable charges, she cursed Maid Zhang as a slut who had stolen her client.

From downstairs Maid Zhang heard the endless tirade, and her feeling of shame turned to one of rage. She screamed upstairs, “I was just refilling the pipe when Master Lu said a few playful things and pulled me down on the bed, but you keep insisting that we were up to something. Anyway, you needn’t pretend to be so perfect yourself. You were closeted behind the door with that hairdresser. We all knew what was going on; we just didn’t want to give you away. For us servants, our good name means everything. You’ve just ruined mine, and I’ll never be able to find a place anywhere else. Not only that, but my husband’s a wild animal where these things are concerned, and if he hears any gossip about me in Yangzhou, that’ll be the end of me. Now that you’ve shredded my reputation, I just don’t want to go on living anymore. You may be a red-hot courtesan, but even you will have to answer for it with your life!” She banged her head and beat her chest while hunting about for a knife or a pair of scissors.

Her threat so alarmed Mother Xiao and the staff that they tried everything to talk her out of killing herself, but her quarrel with Fragrance only grew more vicious. When Mother Xiao pulled Fragrance into Lute’s room, Lu Shu had tried to sneak downstairs, but Fragrance heard him and came rushing out of the room, grabbed hold of him, and sobbed, “Just where do you think you’re going? You were planning to enjoy yourself and have it off with her, but now that she’s kicking up such a fuss, you want to clear out and leave me to face the abuse. Well, if I’m going to die, we’ll die together.” She pulled him back into the room and continued to revile him.

The steward, Drummer Hua, saw that neither Fragrance nor Maid Zhang would listen to reason and concluded that no one in the house was capable of resolving the dispute. Rushing over to Qiang Da’s, he found the brothers all there, and as soon as he told them what had happened, they set off for the Jinyulou. In Fragrance’s room, Lu Shu sprang up to greet them and invited them to sit down. They noticed that Fragrance’s chignon was undone and her hair askew, that her eyes were swollen with crying and her cheeks stained with tears. She was lying facedown on the bed, sobbing brokenheartedly. Downstairs they could hear Maid Zhang still carrying on. Feigning ignorance of the circumstances, Jia Ming asked Fragrance, “Sister-in-Law, why aren’t you paying any attention to us? I suppose you’re sick of our coming here all the time?”

She twisted over to face them. “Master Jia, I can’t bear to hear you say that sort of thing. We had a spat, he and I, and when you gentlemen came in I was slow to greet you. I hope you’ll forgive me for it.”

“No one’s blaming you for anything. We couldn’t blame you, anyway, out of regard for Brother Lu. But what were you squabbling about? Tell us, and we’ll decide who’s in the right.”

Neither Fragrance nor Lu Shu would say anything, but the brothers persisted, and in the end Cloud said, “Brother-in-Law and Sister aren’t willing to say it, so let me be the one to tell you. Just now Fragrance left the room, and Master Lu and Maid Zhang were joking about when Fragrance came in again and caught them at it. She started badmouthing the maid, who got upset and wants to kill herself. The quarrel is going on right now. You’ve come at exactly the right time. Sort out the rights and wrongs for them, and spare us all these pointless recriminations.”

“Miss Fragrance, use a little soy sauce, by all means, but there’s no need for any vinegar,”1 said Jia Ming with a smile. “After all, what cat doesn’t like meat? Please leave it at that, for all our sakes.”

As they were talking, Mother Xiao came upstairs and quietly asked the brothers to go down to Cloud’s room. “Gentlemen,” she said, “your friend Master Lu started this off on a sudden impulse. What Miss Fragrance said to her was too much for Maid Zhang, and now she wants to kill herself. I don’t have a very big brain in this poor old head of mine, and I wish you gentlemen would take over the task of mediating.”

The brothers called Maid Zhang into the room and pleaded with her in a friendly fashion, but she refused to back down. When they repeated their arguments, she said, “Gentlemen, she’s ruined my reputation in this job, and I can’t stay here. Tell her to find me a good place. Since she accused me of having an affair with Master Lu, which is an unspeakable lie, get her to pay me something to compensate me for the scandal. Otherwise, I’ll just bide my time, whether this is settled in a court of law or privately.”

“We must always listen to advice,” Jia Ming urged her. “Newness may be a good thing in clothes, but not in our friends. Let’s clear this matter up for you and work out a compromise that will allow you to stay on here.” But Maid Zhang was adamant.

“Mistress Zhang, you’re determined to leave,” said Wu Zhen, “and it just so happens that Mistress You, who’s been at Qiang Da’s house for three or four years without taking a leave to return home, has somehow gotten herself pregnant and wants to quit her job and go back to have the baby. Now if we recommend you to Qiang Da, I can guarantee that he’ll accept you on the spot. In addition, we’ll get Master Lu to give you a few taels without letting Miss Fragrance know. As a favor to us, don’t breathe a word about it.” After conferring with his brothers, he promised her ten taels, and she finally agreed.

The brothers went back upstairs to Fragrance’s room, where they ordered wine and tried to mediate between Lu Shu and Fragrance. “I can’t let you play the host here,” said Lu Shu. After some polite sparring, he again ended up as host.

Once the wine had been brought, Lute put herself out to seduce Wei Bi. She sang several sweetly flattering songs to the music of the lute, and he was attracted and bandied jokes with her. By this time he was also rather drunk. After the party broke up, Lute wanted him to stay the night, but since he had come with the others, he was afraid that when they returned to Qiang Da’s they might tell Lucky, so he felt he had to go back to town. “Since you’ve favored me with your love, let’s have a tacit agreement,” he said to Lute. “Some other day I’ll come back on my own.” On that understanding, she allowed him to go back to the city with the others.

Meanwhile, despite all the pleas of the sworn brothers, Fragrance’s fury continued unabated. She climbed onto the bed, pulled Lu Shu’s hair, and bit him. She raged at him, cursed him, dug her nails into him, and cried and sobbed, all the while making every kind of malicious and unreasonable accusation. Lu Shu responded by paying her every conceivable compliment, swearing countless oaths, and taking innumerable vows. After spending a great deal of time and effort on the bed, he finally managed to bring her around. And there I shall leave them.

The four brothers arrived at Qiang Da’s and went to Cassia’s room, where Phoenix, Paria, and Lucky joined them, having heard them arrive. “Have you had any supper?” they asked. Jia Ming told them in detail why they had been held up at the Jinyulou and explained that Lu Shu had insisted they have supper there. The courtesans couldn’t stop laughing at the story. Wu Zhen called Qiang Da in and recommended Maid Zhang for a position, and he agreed.

Sanzi then came in and asked, “Are you gentlemen going back tonight?”

Wei Bi, who was lying on Cassia’s bed, was the first to reply. “I’m drunk. I’m not going back.”

“Since you’re not going back, we’ll stay and keep you company,” said the others. Sanzi left the room.

“Stay where you are for a while,” Lucky said to Wei Bi in private. “I have a steady client in my room, one who hasn’t been by in a long time. Let me send him off first, then I’ll come and invite you to my room.”

“See you get rid of him as soon as you can. I’m dead tired.”

“I know.” She excused herself to the others and left the room.

The client in Lucky’s room was one Mi Shengmo, a young man in his twenties with a large head and a face full of pockmarks who was also short and stout. For these reasons, and also because his speech was rather slow and he was an eldest brother, people called him Big Face Mi and gave him the nickname Turtle. His father had worked in the Salt Administration and acquired a great deal of property, and when he died, he left many contracts behind. Mi Shengmo had no job or profession of any kind; he relied on rents and loan repayments for a living. In the past he had had a relationship with Lucky that had brought her in a good deal of money, clothing, and jewelry, but because he had been out of town collecting debts, he had not been to see her for a considerable time. He had now been sitting in her room for quite a while. Lucky had intended to have him stay the night, but she had also been afraid that Wei Bi might come and want to stay over himself, so she had never actually asked Mi. For his part he fully intended to catch up with her after a long absence and had taken it for granted that she would invite him to stay. But here he was, sitting for a long while, and she hadn’t said a word about his staying over. Moreover, she had spent much of her time in another room, leaving him on his own, and he had begun to feel a trifle uneasy. And now she came in and sat herself down but still said nothing. He grew impatient and called Sanzi into the room and announced, “Sanzi, I’m staying over.”