from Dream of Red Towers
Ts’ao Hsüeh-ch’in (1718?–1764)
To return now to Queen Yüan-ch’un in the Palace,1 when she had read over the poems written on the occasion of her visit to the Garden of Pomp and State2 and rearranged them as a collection with her own comments on their respective merits, it occurred to her that the Garden with its arbors and rockeries would be utterly desolate if, after her own visit, her father, Secretary of the Board of Works Chia Cheng,3 as he was in duty bound, had the gates locked and sealed, thus hiding it from the view of all. Besides, there were all her literary female cousins at home, and who better than they to inhabit a place so delightful? They need never feel their inspiration dry up; nor could the flowers and willows languish in such lovely company. She then thought of her own younger brother, Pao-yü,4 who, unlike her male cousins, had been brought up with the girls—how that, if he should be left out, he would certainly feel lonely and neglected, which in turn might affect the spirits of her own mother and grandmother, the Dowager Duchess: she therefore considered it best to allow Pao-yü to move into the Garden with the female cousins.
Having thus decided, Yüan-ch’un sent the Steward of the Palace, the eunuch Hsia Chung, to the Jung Residence 5 with the order that Pao-ch’ai and the other female cousins 6 should take up their abode in the Garden, which was on no account to be locked up with entry debarred to all, and that Pao-yü was also to move in, to pursue his studies along with the cousins. Secretary Chia and his lady respectfully received the Queen’s command and, when the eunuch had made his departure, reported the matter to the Dowager Duchess before ordering the servants to enter the Garden and sweep and tidy up each corner of it, and outfit the various buildings with curtains, screens, beds, and hangings.
While all who heard the news rejoiced, Pao-yü alone was in raptures: he began at once to demand this or that piece of her furniture from the Dowager. But his animated conference with his grandmother was interrupted by a servant girl entering to announce: “The master wants Pao-yü.” The effect of this upon Pao-yü was like a thunderbolt 7—his countenance fell, almost as if his face was charred; all his newly raised hopes seemed dashed; and like a stick of gum he attached himself to the Dowager, turning and twisting in every direction and refusing to come unstuck. The Dowager, however, said soothingly, “My precious! Go to your father, who won’t eat you! Remember, there’s always Grandmamma behind you. Besides, you’ve just written that good essay for him! Since the Queen would have you and the girls housed in the Garden, I suppose your father will have a few things to say to you, only so as to keep you out of mischief. Be a good boy and agree with whatever he might say.” And even as she calmed Pao-yü, she called two of her own serving women and told them to accompany Pao-yü and not let the master scare him.
Pao-yü was now obliged to obey his father’s summons and came away with the old women, though advancing no more than a few inches with each step he took. Eventually, however, he reached his mother’s apartments 8 where, a family council being in progress, the servant girls Gold Bangle, Rainbow Cloud, Sunset, Bird of Paradise, and Embroidered Phoenix stood waiting outside, under the eaves. At the sight of Pao-yü crawling along, they puckered up their mouths and sniggered. Suddenly Gold Bangle pulled Pao-yü toward her and announced with a chuckle, “I’ve just smeared my lips with rouge soaked in fragrant oil. Lick me! Now’s best!” 9 Rainbow Cloud hurriedly pushed Gold Bangle aside and, herself giggling, said below her breath, “We aren’t in the mood. No teasing!” And turning to Pao-yü, she continued, “You’ll find the master in a good temper—better go in at once!”
Pao-yü dragged himself into the room, only to learn that his parents were in the inner room. Madam Chao, the concubine, 10 who had remained in the outer room, now lifted the door curtain for Pao-yü, who entered the bedroom and made his bow. Secretary Chia and his lady were seated opposite each other on the heated brick-bed, talking. A row of chairs facing the brick-bed was occupied by the girls, Ying-ch’un, T’an-ch’un, and Hsi-ch’un, 11 and Pao-yü’s half-brother Huan; 12 the three last, being all younger than Pao-yü, stood up upon his entering. Secretary Chia raising his head, saw before him Pao-yü with his lofty and graceful air and his strikingly handsome appearance, which showed up all the more the drooping hangdog look and ill-bred, clownish manners of the son of the concubine—Huan, who stood beside him. Secretary Chia then remembered his eldest boy, 13 Chu, now dead, and realized with a twinge of remorse how deeply his wife loved and cherished her sole surviving son. He himself, too, was aging, his beard already turned gray. All these considerations combined to militate against his aversion for his son and his inclination to chastise him. After indulging for some time in this musing, which left him nine-tenths mollified, Secretary Chia said, not unkindly, “It is the Queen’s wish that you, who are in the habit of following your idle whims day after day outside the house, should now be confined to the Garden, where you will carry out your reading and writing in the company of your sister and cousins. Ply well at your books, my lad. If you persist in your dawdling, rest assured that you will hear about this.”
Pao-yü responded with a whole string of yeses, and his mother pulled him on to the brick-bed beside her. The others, too, sat down again. Gently rubbing her hand against Pao-yü’s neck, 14 Mrs. Secretary Chia asked, “Have you finished the pills, my boy?” Pao-yü said, “There is one left still.” His mother continued, “I’ll send for another ten tomorrow, and remind Bombarding Scent 15 to make you take it at bedtime.” Pao-yü protested, “Why, Bombarding Scent does give it to me every night! She has not once forgotten ever since you, Mother, told her to.” At this point, Secretary Chia broke in with some impatience, “Who is this Bombarding Scent?” Mrs. Chia replied blandly: “Oh, one of the maids.” The head of the family went on contemptuously, “A servant girl might of course be called anything. But why such a name? Whose farfetched conceit was this?” His manner alarmed his lady, who, to shield Pao-yü, declared: “It was our gracious mother who gave the girl the name.” Secretary Chia sneered, “Mother? Would Mother even dream of such an expression? It could only be Pao-yü.” Pao-yü saw that concealment no longer availed; slipping off the brick-bed, he justified himself thus before his father: “In reading the old poets, I chanced upon the line—‘The flowers’ bombarding scent proclaims a sultry morn’ 16 which came pat when I learned that the girl’s surname was Flower; so I gave her that name.” Mrs. Chia hurriedly added, “You had better hunt out another name for her, Pao-yü, as soon as you get back to Grandmamma.” 17 Then, turning to Secretary Chia, she said, “I should not have thought it necessary, my lord, to lose one’s temper over a thing like that.” Secretary Chia conceded, “There is no real harm in that name and certainly no need to change it now. But it does serve to show that Pao-yü wastes all his time on precious verse compositions to the detriment of his proper studies.” And suddenly rounding upon his son, he barked, “Wretch! Be off with you!” Mrs. Chia, anxious for Pao-yü to be gone, also said, “Go now. Don’t let Grandmamma keep waiting for you to come to dinner.”
Pao-yü assented gravely and slowly withdrew from his father’s presence. But when he found himself among the servant girls outside, he remembered their joke and stuck his tongue out at Gold Bangle before scurrying off, followed by the two old women. At the end of the corridor leading to the Dowager’s courtyard, he noticed Bombarding Scent herself leaning against the door, waiting for him. When Bombarding Scent saw Pao-yü return, safe and unscathed, she asked, beaming, “What was it about?” Pao-yü said, “Oh, hardly anything at all. Merely that I was to keep out of scrapes in the Garden, the usual words to that effect.” As he spoke, he started for the room of his grandmother, to whom he reported the interview with his father. His cousin Tai-yü 18 happening also to be there, he now asked her, “Which house would you rather have?” Tai-yü, whose mind had been engaged on the same subject, responded to his question with a smile; she said, “I was thinking of Hsiao-Hsiang Hermitage. I love those bamboos screening the curved railing—it’s so much quieter there than anywhere else.” Upon hearing this, Pao-yü grinned and clapped his hands in glee, crying, “Just as I thought! And it’s just where I wanted you to stay! I’ll live in Crab Red Court, where we shall be near each other and both in secluded spots.”
As the two of them went on planning in this fashion, a woman-servant entered with a message from the head of the household to the Dowager: “The cousins are to move on the twenty-second of the second month, an auspicious day, into the Garden, which is being swept. The houses will be got ready in the few intervening days.” Pao-ch’ai chose for her abode Aromatic Herb Rockery; Tai-yü, Hsiao-Hsiang Hermitage; Ying-ch’un, Tapestry Tower; T’an-ch’un, Autumn’s Breath Studio; Hsi-ch’un, Smartweed Bank Loggia; Li Wan, 19 Sweet Paddy Village; and Pao-yü himself, Crab Red Court. At each of the dwellings, two older women and four girls were to be in attendance, not counting the wet nurse and the personal maid, cleaners and gardeners being additionally provided. Thus on the twenty-second, the entire company took possession of the Garden of Pomp and State: embroidered waistbands now brushed against the flowers, and perfumed breezes intoxicated the willows, so that the place was no longer desolate.
Pao-yü dwelt in the Garden and found everything to his heart’s content and longed for no other happiness than that of spending each day in the company of the female cousins in reading or practicing calligraphy, in playing the guitar or games of chess, in painting or composing verse. And in such pastimes of theirs as the tracing of embroidery patterns, perhaps of some phoenix or bird of paradise, and the embroidery itself, or the hunting out of rare plants 20 and the arranging of flowers as part of their headdress, or singing or humming tunes, or word-games and riddles, he too joined with zest. And Pao-yü wrote some poems in which he described scenes in the Gardens at various times of year, of which four are quoted below, not, to be sure, for their excellence, but because they were based on his actual experience:
Night in Spring
Shut in by rainbow-colored silk bed-curtains,
I fancy I hear frogs croaking beyond the wall.
A chill creeps up my pillow; rain taps at the window.
Before my eyes, lo, she whom I wooed in my dream—
“The candle drips tears—tears shed for whom?
The flowers in the vase seem a cluster of griefs—my griefs!”
“Let alone a simple nurse-maid, poor sleepyhead me!
When lying abed, I can’t abide jesting and teasing.” 21
Night in Summer
The girl has fallen asleep at her embroidery;
The parrot in its gold cage 22 renews its call for “tea”;
The full moon shines through the open window—a rounded mirror;
Sandalwood fumes from rival censers circle about the room.
Amber cups overflow with sparkling “Dew on Lotus”;
Breezes rustling the willows spread cool through the glass verandah.
Silk fans now wave all over the water pavilion:
Roll up the curtain—my lady’s evening toilet is done.
Night in Autumn
A breathless hush reigns within the Crimson Library, 23
But shimmering moonlight will peep through gauze curtains.
Sheltered by the moss-grown rockery, the cranes curl up in sleep;
Crows perch on the well-curb wet with dew.
A drowsy maid brings a quilt, unrolling a golden phoenix; 24
The beloved one returns from the window, her hairpin undone.
Awake in the still night, athirst with too much wine,
I poke at the smoldering embers and infuse fresh tea.
Night in Winter
Flowering plums 25 and bamboos engulf each other’s dreams at the third watch:
But embroidered coverlet and kingfisher-down would still induce no sleep.
Amidst shadows of pines in the courtyard, a lonely crane flaps;
Frost, like pear blossoms, bestrews the ground, though no oriole sings.
The girl with the green sleeves tosses off verses about the cold;
His golden sable pledged for wine, 26
the gay young lord declares it insipid.
Luckily my lord’s page is thoroughly adept in blending tea—
Sweeping up the new snow, he makes an instant brew. 27
It being then known that these verses were by a scion of the Jung branch of the Chia ducal house, aged but twelve or thirteen, the crowd of sycophants made copies of them and took every opportunity of reading them aloud and praising them. Flippant young men, attracted by the showy, amatory diction, wrote them on their fans and on the walls of their rooms, reciting them repeatedly with undiminished pleasure. It thus came about that, through intermediaries, strangers would approach Pao-yü with requests for a poem or a piece of calligraphy or an inscription on some picture, which he, being much flattered, willingly obliged, spending days on end upon such extramural activities.
Nevertheless, the very tranquility of the Garden became a source of vexation. One day, Pao-yü suddenly felt out of sorts and declared himself dissatisfied with one thing after another, and wandered in and out of the place, moody and dispirited. For the Garden was inhabited mostly by young ladies in a state of primordial innocence, given over to childish candor and oblivious as yet of the proprieties, neither shunning one another while sitting or lying down nor intending by a smile or laugh more than the spontaneous expression of gladness or merriment. How indeed could they divine what went on in Pao-yü’s mind? For his part, being continually in an ill humor, he would no longer remain within the Garden but loafed away his time outside its precinct, looking all the while blank and abstracted.
When the library page, Tea-Tobacco, 28 saw his young master thus preoccupied, he took it upon himself to devise some means of diverting him. Tea-Tobacco considered one expedient after another, but Pao-yü seemed already familiar with them all, and tired of them all, unlikely to be amused by any of them. There remained, however, a source of delight not yet known to Pao-yü, which having at last hit upon, Tea-Tobacco went straight to the booksellers and bought many volumes of stories old and new, 29 and the Intimate and Revealing Histories of Chao Fei-yen and her sister Ho-te,30 and of the Empress Wu, 31 and of the beauteous Yang Kuei-fei, 32 and the texts of numerous plays, and showed them to Pao-yü, who, never having read such books before, rejoiced exceedingly in the new discovery. Tea-Tobacco then warned Pao-yü not to take the books into the Garden, 33 for if they should be seen, the wrath that would descend upon him, Tea-Tobacco, would be great and terrible. Pao-yü, however, would not now hear of being deprived of their company. After prolonged debate with himself, he picked out a few sets of elegant diction and refined sentiment, and these he brought with him into Crab Red Court, where he hid them above his bed 34 and read them when no one was about. But the ones that were low and coarse he kept in the library outside.
It being now the middle of the third month, 35 Pao-yü took with him after breakfast one day a copy of The Meeting with Fay, otherwise known as The West Chamber, and sat on a stone under the peach tree by the bridge above Soaking Fragrance Weir. 36 Opening the book, he read slowly from the beginning, drinking in each line. When he reached the lines:
“A fresh shower of red petals descending,
Ten thousand flakes of melancholy!” 37
a sudden gust shook the boughs and robbed the peach tree of a good half of its blossoms, the falling petals alighting all over Pao-yü and the pages of his open book and the surrounding earth. Pao-yü was on the point of dusting himself off but, at the thought of the flowers being scattered and trodden upon, he desisted; instead he lifted the skirt of his robe and, moving forward a few steps, emptied the blossoms into the pond. The red petals floated and whirled on the water until, drifting with the current, they disappeared down the weir. Returning to the spot where he had sat before, he now noticed the blossoms on the ground, and when he paused to consider what to do with them, a voice from behind called to him—“And what business brings you here?”
Pao-yü turned round: it was Tai-yü, who came up, shouldering a small hoe, from which hung a dainty silk bag, and holding a besom 38 in her hand. Pao-yü shouted with joy, “Well met! The very thing I wanted! Come and sweep up the blossoms so that we may throw them into the pond! I have already thrown a whole lot in.” Tai-yü, however, said, “It would be a pity to do that! The water is clear enough here, but once it leaves the Garden and flows through the crowded part of town, it will be polluted and the poor blossoms themselves outraged. Over there, in that corner, I have prepared a tomb for the flowers. I shall sweep up these petals and put them in my silk bag and consign the whole to earth so that the flowers may return to dust, a clean and proper end for them.” Struck by the idea, 39 Pao-yü was in transports; he agreed eagerly and then added: “Let me put down my book first. Then I can help you to gather them up.” Tai-yü asked, “What book?” At the recollection of which, Pao-yü tried hastily to conceal the book he had been reading and stammered, “Ah, well, only The Doctrine of the Mean and The Great Learning. 40 Why, what else could it be?” Tai-yü laughed, saying, “I know your tricks! Now surrender that book at once!” Pao-yü then said sheepishly, “Dearest cousin! It’s not that I am afraid of your seeing the book, but don’t—for heaven’s sake!—tell anyone. In truth, its style is inimitable! I wager you’ll be forgetting your meals when you’re reading it.” And with that he handed over the text of the plays.
Tai-yü laid down her gardening tools and took the book. Reading from the beginning, she became more and more absorbed in it as she went on, so that within a short while she had read through all sixteen scenes. 41 Being herself enthralled by its arresting tropes and frothy eloquence, she laid the book aside and, looking vacant and pensive, repeated in her mind many of its lines and phrases. Pao-yü ventured to smile; he asked, “Did you like it, cousin?” And when Tai-yü returned his smile and said, “Yes, I really have enjoyed it,” Pao-yü suddenly giggled and started to quote from the plays: “ ‘The melancholy and sickly lover’—that I am assuredly! And yours—yours, ‘the face that overthrew cities and kingdoms’!” Tai-yü instantly flushed, her cheeks, neck, and ears turned a furious crimson; she frowned, then half raised her eyebrows; 42 her sparkling eyes narrowed to two slits, then opened wide again in a disdainful stare: her exquisite features were now the picture of anger and reproach. Pointing her finger accusingly at Pao-yü, she exclaimed, “How dare you! It’s death that you deserve for this! Foisting lewd verses upon me and using such rude language too! What an affront! I’ll tell my uncle and aunt.”
At the word “affront,” two red rings showed around her eyes, and she turned abruptly to go. Pao-yü started up in a panic and barred her way, pleading: “Forgive me this once, dearest cousin! I was at fault in giving utterance to such absurdities, but if I really had intended any affront, then let me fall into the pond tomorrow and be swallowed by a monstrous turtle, and so be reborn as a large turtle myself that I might bear the stone tablet on your tomb 43 when one day you die, the lady of some great minister or other!” This grotesque protestation caused Tai-yü to burst out laughing again. Hurriedly rubbing her eyes, she cried triumphantly, “That scared the daylights out of you, didn’t it? I won’t stand any more nonsense from you:
‘Tut! A weak sapling—
A spearhead of tinfoil—that you are!’” 44
The allusion did not escape Pao-yü, who broke into hilarious laughter, saying, “What about yourself then? I’ll go and tell on you too!” Tai-yü, however, refused to be intimidated. She answered playfully, “But it did come out of your book. If—like the prodigy you are—you can memorize and recite whole essays after a single reading, will you not allow that I may be able to take in ten lines at a glance?”
Pao-yü now put away the book and, with a happy grin, declared, “To our task! Let us bury the flowers and forget the other part.” So the two of them swept up the fallen petals, which they placed in the silk bag and solemnly deposited in a hollow in the earth. When finally they had covered up the hollow with a tiny mound, 45 Bombarding Scent rushed up and said reproachfully to Pao-yü: “Here of all places! As if I haven’t looked all over the Garden for you! The cousins have gone across to ask after your uncle, the Duke, 46 who is indisposed, and the old mistress has ordered you to go, too. Come back now for a change of clothes.” Pao-yü thereupon picked up his book and, having excused himself to Tai-yü, returned with Bombarding Scent to Crab Red Court to dress for the visit to his uncle, which forms no part of our story.
Being now left alone and having heard that the female cousins were all away, Tai-yü turned her steps sadly toward the Hermitage. 47 As she reached the corner of Pear Courtyard, from across the wall came the sweet notes of pipes, now loud, now muted, blending with the melodious voices of singers, and it occurred to her that the troupe of twelve girls from Soochow were rehearsing the airs of their Southern repertory. 48 Only Tai-yü had never cared much for the Southern drama and, paying no regard to the music, she walked on. 49 But borne by the breezes, two lines of a song assailed her ears, each word falling clear and distinct:
“Gay purple and exquisite red abloom everywhere,
But all abandoned to a dried-up well and crumbled walls.” 50
The words filled Tai-yü with a deep melancholy and longing. She stopped and, inclining her head, listened intently. The song now went:
“That glorious moments amidst this splendid scene should enshroud despair!
In whose courtyard do hearts still rejoice in the present?”
These last two lines caused her to sigh and nod inadvertently in agreement. She thought to herself: “It is true, then, that one may come across fine verse even in the theater, but I suppose most people simply follow the action and do not pause to savor the language.”
The next moment, however, she blamed herself for letting her mind wander instead of attending to the song. And when she listened again, she heard:
“Because of your flowerlike beauty
And tender years like a rushing stream,” 51
and almost trembled with excitement. She then heard the lines that followed:
“I sought you in each nook and corner
But find you dejected in your chamber.”
Being now quite overcome with emotion, she could hardly remain on her feet but sank on to a rock to brood over the words,
“Because of your flowerlike beauty
And tender years like a rushing stream,”
alert to their every nuance and suggestion. Suddenly she recalled a line she had read in the T’ang poets only the other day:
“Faded blossoms borne on a plaintive stream: lovelorn both”; 52
and also from among the lyric compositions:
“The water rushing, the blossoms falling: Spring is gone forever!
Alas, heaven above and man’s despair!” 53
and the lines, too, she had just read in The West Chamber:
“The stream speckled with red petals falling,
Each speck a grain of sorrow.” 54
Buoyed up from the depths of memory, all these lines floated in her mind, juxtaposed as in some conspiracy. She pondered over each passage and her heart was touched to the quick; her crowding fancies raced one another; and tears dropped from her eyes. While Tai-yü was thus enveloped in her thoughts, she felt a sudden pat on her back, and when she turned to look…. 55
Translated by H. C. Chang
“A Burial Mound for Flowers” is taken from chapter 23 of Dream of Red Towers (Hung-lou meng), originally called A Record of the Stone (Shih-t’ou chi). Generally recognized as China’s greatest novel, Dream was left unfinished in eighty chapters by its young author, Ts’ao Hsüeh-ch’in. The novel was continued for another forty chapters by Kao Ŏ (fl. 1792).
Ts’ao Hsüeh-ch’in was the descendant of a once fabulously wealthy family that had its roots in Sung dynasty officialdom and had ably served the Manchus for nearly a century. By the time the author had achieved maturity, however, the family had suffered serious financial setbacks due to dramatic political changes at court. As a consequence, he was forced to live in much reduced circumstances. Brooding melancholily over the lost grandeur of the family, he poured his soul into the writing and rewriting of his masterwork.
The novel is so complex and is peopled with so many major and minor characters that it would be futile to attempt to summarize it in a paragraph or two. It is the story about the decay of an aristocratic family affiliated with the Manchus and gives an intimate picture of upper-class life as in no other Chinese work. The external world, however, is seen as reflected in the hero’s heart, and the book has a symbolic scheme. The stone of the original title is as old as the world itself and for one brief lifespan it was transformed—with the help of a mangy Buddhist monk and a crazy Taoist priest—into a young man and lover and tasted the joys and sorrows of the human lot before reverting to its stone-hearted existence. The young man, who is the hero, was born with a piece of jade in his mouth and named Pao-yü (“Precious Jade”), jade being stone carved, polished, and rendered artificial. His family, among the noblest in the land, bears the surname Chia (punningly interpreted as “Unreal”).
The present episode is one of the most memorable of the novel. It is highly symbolic in that the beautiful and flowerlike Tai-yü (“Lustrous Jade”), who laments the fallen petals and prepares a burial mound for them, may seem to be tending her own grave. The passage also shows something of the love tradition under which novelists and romancers labored. Upon looking into the famous Yüan drama, The West Chamber (see selections 207 and 215, unnumbered notes), Pao-yü is suddenly emboldened in his love prattle; and the stray lines from The Peony Pavilion (selection 217), overheard by Tai-yü while the tunes were being rehearsed on the other side of the garden wall, define and give shape to her own feelings. In the context of this book, the passage also reveals the reading habits of the young in rich households and the insidious influence—so greatly dreaded by their elders—of novels and plays.
1. Yüan-ch’un, i.e., Prime of Spring, was born on New Year’s Day; hence her name. She is the daughter of Chia Cheng (Pao-yü’s father) and is one of the emperor’s consorts. To enable her to visit her parents in comfort and seclusion, the family built for her sole use the Garden of Pomp and State adjoining their residence. Yüan-ch’un is a dozen or more years older than her brother Pao-yü, whom as a child she taught to read.
2. Ta-kuan-yü an, by which is meant “world in a nutshell,” including, as it does, buildings in various styles, an artificial village, and a temple in a varied landscape setting. The name has also been rendered as “Grand Prospect Garden.”
3. Chia Cheng, grandson of Duke Jung and son of the Dowager Duchess, is only Junior Secretary in chapter 2, but is made Senior Secretary of the Board of Works in chapter 85.
4. In this part of the story, he is about thirteen years of age.
5. Residence of Duke Jung, now inhabited by his descendants. The residence of Jung’s brother, Duke Ning, is similarly referred to as the Ning residence.
6. Pao-ch’ai (“Precious Hairpin”) is the daughter of Aunt Hsü eh, sister of Mrs. Secretary Chia; she is aged fifteen and a rival to the heroine, Tai-yü, who is mentioned below with the other female cousins. As a relative, rather than one of the Dowager Duchess’s granddaughters, Pao-ch’ai is given precedence over the others.
7. The strange antipathy between Pao-yü and his father is a recurrent theme in the novel.
8. As the lady of the house, Mrs. Secretary Chia occupies the center courtyard with a main suite of five stately rooms, but lives for the most part in three smaller rooms constituting the east wing. The center courtyard is connected by a rear passage to the Dowager Duchess’s courtyard, situated to its west.
9. It is Pao-yü ’s habit to lick the rouge off the lips of the servant girls.
10. Secretary Chia’s concubine, regarded as an inferior, is kept out of the family council, though her two children are not.
11. Ying-ch’un (“Welcome Spring”) is the daughter of Pao-yü’s uncle, the Duke, noted below; Hsi-ch’un (“Pity Spring”) is descended from Duke Ning and not one of the Dowager’s granddaughters; T’an-ch’un (“Seek Spring”) is Pao-yü’s half sister, i.e., the daughter of the concubine, but unlike her brother, Huan, she is in no way handicapped by her birth.
12. Huan, Pao-yü’s half brother, is the son of the concubine.
13. Chu, Pao-yü’s older brother, does not appear in the story but leaves a widow, Li Wan, mentioned below, and a son.
14. To detect any glandular swellings the pills were expected to cure.
15. A demure and level-headed girl who was one of the Dowager’s own maids before she is assigned to Pao-yü, whom she jealously guards and protects. Her surname is Hua (Flower). Pao-yü alters her own name, Pearl, to Bombarding Scent. She is a few years older than Pao-yü.
16. The line is derived from Lu Yu, “Joys of Village Life” (see selection 59).
17. Pao-yü, being the Dowager Duchess’s favorite grandchild, lives in his grandmother’s courtyard, as does Tai-yü, who, at least in the earlier part of the story, enjoys a position of privilege.
18. Tai-yü is the daughter of Aunt Lin, the Dowager’s daughter. When Aunt Lin dies, Taiyü is taken, at the age of six, from her father’s official residence in Yangchow to live with her grandmother in the capital. In chapter 3, Tai-yü describes herself as being a year younger than Pao-yü, whose favorite cousin she fast becomes.
19. Li Wan, the widow of Chu, Pao-yü ’s older brother. She is the only adult among the seven, her son Lan being only two or three years younger than Pao-yü .
20. A competitive game in which each participant produces an unusual plant or flower, or a branch or shoot notable for its shape or color, and sets forth the claims of his/her particular specimen in poetical or horticultural terms.
21. Personalities are deliberately vague in Chinese verse, and the apportioning of the lines to two speakers is the translator’s own. The more favored servant girls slept in the same beds as the children, often even when they ceased to be children.
22. The cloistered part of Crab Red Court is filled with exotic birds in cages of various colors, thus further adding to the “maze” and “trap” symbolism; and Tai-yü has a parrot that recites verses.
23. Crimson Library is used as an alternative name for Crab Red Court. It is to be regarded as the name of Pao-yü ’s study rather than any specific part of Crab Red Court.
24. A golden phoenix embroidered on the quilt.
25. The Chinese plum (mei-hua) with its five-petaled flower blooms in winter and early spring. The plum, the bamboo, and the pine are designated the “Three Friends of Winter,” symbolizing hardiness and purity.
26. Yüan Fu (279–327) exchanged his official cap of golden sable for wine, for which he was impeached, though later pardoned.
27. In chapter 41, the nun Miao-yü makes a special brew of tea with snow gathered from plum blossoms five winters earlier and sealed in a jar buried in the ground.
28. Tea-Tobacco (Ming-yen), whose duty it is to accompany Pao-yü to school during the fitful periods of the latter’s attendance and generally to wait upon his young master in and about the library. He would be a few years older than Pao-yü.
29. Light reading was anathema to Confucian orthodoxy and regarded as a source of corruption, which it often was. Stories Old and New was the title of Feng Meng-lung’s first collection of colloquial stories of about 1621, and a general title to all his three collections, but the reference here would seem to be to stories generally rather than specifically Feng’s collections (see selection 210).
30. Chao Fei-yen and her equally beautiful sister Ho-te were ladies in the harem of Emperor Ch’eng-ti of the Han dynasty. In such “intimate histories” (wai-chuan), the secrets of the harem are recounted with undisguised relish.
31. A fictional narrative bearing the title Tse-t’ien wai-shih (Intimate History of Wu Tse-t’ien) seems not to have survived, but the intrigues of the Empress Wu are part of traditional lore. Wu Tse-t’ien (624–705) was the only woman in Chinese history to found her own dynasty.
32. The celebrated favorite of Emperor Hsü an-tsung of the T’ang dynasty (see selection 149).
33. In spite of the fourth poem, “Night in Winter,” Tea-Tobacco is not allowed into the Garden.
34. I.e., above his four-poster bed, concealed by the bed-curtains.
35. About the middle of April.
36. The bridge is directly above Soaking Fragrance Weir, below which the stream flows into a river outside the garden.
37. Only the first line is quoted in the original, but the full force of the allusion is lost without the second line (itself taken from a poem by Tu Fu), which has therefore been supplied in the translation.
38. Broom made of twigs.
39. The sanctity of earth does not readily occur to Pao-yü, who places his trust in the purity of water.
40. Forming, with the Analects and The Book of Mencius, the Confucian “Four Books” studied by every schoolboy.
41. Strictly speaking, sixteen acts (che). The term “scene” (ch’ü) is taken over from the Southern drama, and the four plays regarded as one long play.
42. Tai-yü is noted for her frown, which is regarded as a sign of her poor health and for which she is nicknamed “Miss Eyebrows.” Here Pao-yü has already had more than his share of her smiles and laughter.
43. Stone steles often had for their pedestal the figure of a tortoise; “turtle” and “tortoise” are words of abuse which readily occur in oaths. Pao-yü ’s momentary fancy of himself as a stone tortoise at Tai-yü ’s tomb is, however, the foreboding of an unhappy end for both.
44. A quotation from near the end of The West Chamber which alludes to a line from the Analects about a plant that does not blossom.
45. “Which they placed … tiny mound” is the translator’s own version. The original merely reads: “So the two swept up the fallen petals, and just when they had buried them, Bombarding Scent….”
46. The Duke is Chia She, elder brother to Secretary Chia, who lives in a separate part of the Jung residence, entered through its own street gate. Being neither learned nor a man of affairs, he is content with a role secondary to his more ambitious younger brother.
47. The Hsiao-Hsiang Hermitage, which is her own residence. The Hsiao and Hsiang, two rivers of Hunan province, are the subject of numerous misty landscapes by painters and are redolent of tragic, suicidal poets and ethereal goddesses. These and other evocative aspects of the Hermitage make it perfectly suited for Tai-yü.
48. The twelve girls were brought to the capital from Soochow to give musical and dramatic performances on the occasion of the queen’s visit. They are appropriately housed in Pear Courtyard adjoining the Garden, Emperor Hsü an Tsung of T’ang having trained his three hundred musicians in a pear orchard.
49. Tai-yü ’s native place is Soochow and, in spite of her lack of interest, her ear would be attuned to southern melodies. Aside from Peony Pavilion, which is mentioned in the following notes, two of the most famous southern dramas were Kao Ming’s (c. 1305–1359) The Lute (P’i-p’a chi) and K’ung Shang-jen’s (1648–1718) The Peach Blossom Fan (T’ao-hua-shan).
Southern-style plays typically have a large cast of characters instead of just the four in Yüan drama that focus primarily on a single lead role. Contrasting groups of characters alternate in different scenes. They may sing solo, duet, or in chorus; the singing role is by no means restricted to a single character. There are also many more scenes in a southern-style play than in northern plays. The Peach Blossom Fan, for example, has forty plus a Prologue and Epilogue. Often four or five evenings would be required for the complete production of a southern-style drama. The scenes in southern drama vary greatly in length and complexity though there are standard themes that make love scenes, martial scenes, and comic scenes almost obligatory. The Lute was one of the very first plays written in the romance (ch’uan-ch’i; for the origin of this term, see selection 208), a form of drama that emerged during the fourteenth century from Southern drama (nan-hsi) to become a model for later playwrights of this genre. In contrast to Northern plays such as Yüan drama (tsa-chü), which are livelier and somewhat raucous, Southern romances tend to be slower and more languorous, both musically and theatrically.
50. The song is from Peony Pavilion, scene 10: it is sung by the heroine, Bridal Tu; see selection 217.
51. Peony Pavilion, scene 10; sung by the hero, Willow.
52. From Ts’ui T’u (late ninth century), “Evening in Spring.”
53. The last two lines of Li Yü, “Lang t’ao sha.” Li Yü (937–978, see selection 91) was the last ruler of the Southern T’ang kingdom, and the poem, written after he was deposed by the Sung in 976, contrasts his state of captivity with his regal past. The two concluding lines, which point out the contrast, lend themselves to a variety of interpretations. An alternative version reads:
“The water rushing, the blossoms falling—gone forever!
Alas, heaven above and man’s despair!”
54. These lines are from the introduction.
55. This is followed by “but as to who it was that she saw, it shall be told in the next chapter” and two lines of verse which end chapter 23.