“Thank you, cousin,” cried she, starting up and seizing him rudely by the arm. “Now I know you for the false, fickle creature you are!”
“What is the matter, dear girl?” inquired Pao-yü in amazement. “I was only glad for your sake that you had found a lover at last.”
“And what lover do you think I could ever care to find now?” rejoined Tai-yü.
“Well,” replied Pao-yü, “I should of course wish it to be myself. I consider you indeed mine already; and if you think of the way I have always behaved towards you …”
“What!” said Tai-yü, partly misunderstanding his words, “can it be you after all? and do you really wish me to remain with you?”
“You shall see with your own eyes,” answered Pao-yü, “even into the inmost recesses of my heart, and then perhaps you will believe.”
Thereupon he drew a knife, and plunging it into his body, ripped himself open so as to expose his heart to view. With a shriek Tai-yü tried to stay his hand, and felt herself drenched with the flow of fresh warm blood; when suddenly Pao-yü uttered a loud groan, and crying out, “Great heaven, my heart is gone!” fell senseless to the ground. “Help! help!” screamed Tai-yü; “he is dying! he is dying!” “Wake up! wake up!” said Tai-yü’s maid; “whatever has given you nightmare like this?”
So Tai-yü waked up and found that she had had a bad dream. But she had something worse than that. She had a bad illness to follow; and strange to say, Pao-yü was laid up at the same time. The doctor came and felt her pulse – both pulses, in fact – and shook his head, and drank a cup of tea, and said that Tai-yü’s vital principle wanted nourishment, which it would get out of a prescription he then and there wrote down. As to Pao-yü, he was simply suffering from a fit of temporary indigestion.
So Tai-yü got better, and Pao-yü recovered his spirits. His father had returned home, and he was once more obliged to make some show of work, and consequently had fewer hours to spend in the society of his cousin. He was now a young man, and the question of his marriage began to occupy a foremost place in the minds of his parents and grandmother. Several names were proposed, one especially by his father; but it was finally agreed that it was unnecessary to go far afield to secure a fitting bride. It was merely a choice between the two charming young ladies who had already shared so much in his daily life. But the difficulty lay precisely there. Where each was perfection it became invidious to choose. In another famous Chinese novel, already described, a similar difficulty is got over in this way – the hero marries both. Here, however, the family elders were distracted by rival claims. By their gentle, winning manners, Pao-ch’ai and Tai-yü had made themselves equally beloved by all the inmates of these two noble houses, from the venerable grandmother down to the meanest slave-girl. Their beauty was of different styles, but at the bar of man’s opinion each would probably have gained an equal number of votes. Tai-yü was undoubtedly the cleverer of the two, but Pao-ch’ai had better health; and in the judgment of those with whom the decision rested, health carried the day. It was arranged that Pao-yü was to marry Pao-ch’ai.
This momentous arrangement was naturally made in secret. Various preliminaries would have to be gone through before a verbal promise could give place to formal betrothal. And it is a well-ascertained fact that secrets can only be kept by men, while this one was confided to at least a dozen women. Consequently, one night when Tai-yü was ill and alone in her room, yearning for the love that had already been contracted away to another, she heard two slave-girls outside whispering confidences, and fancied she caught Pao-yü’s name. She listened again, and this time without doubt, for she heard them say that Pao-yü was engaged to marry a lady of good family and many accomplishments. Just then a parrot called out, “Here’s your mistress: pour out the tea!” which frightened the slave-girls horribly; and they forthwith separated, one of them running inside to attend upon Tai-yü herself. She finds her young mistress in a very agitated state, but Tai-yü is always ailing now.
This time she was seriously ill. She ate nothing. She was racked by a dreadful cough. Even a Chinese doctor could now hardly fail to see that she was far advanced in a decline. But none knew that the sickness of her body had originated in sickness of the heart.
One night she grew rapidly worse and worse, and lay to all appearances dying. A slave-girl ran to summon her grandmother, while several others remained in the room talking about Pao-yü and his intended marriage. “It was all off,” said one of them. “His grandmother would not agree to the young lady chosen by his father. She had already made her own choice – of another young lady who lives in the family, and of whom we are all very fond.” The dying girl heard these words, and it then flashed across her that after all she must herself be the bride intended for Pao-yü. “For if not I,” argued she, “who can it possibly be?” Thereupon she rallied as it were by a supreme effort of will, and, to the great astonishment of all, called for a drink of tea. Those who had come expecting to see her die were now glad to think that her youth might ultimately prevail.
So Tai-yü got better once more; but only better, not well. For the sickness of the soul is not to be cured by drugs. Meanwhile, an event occurred which for the time being threw everything else into the shade. Pao-yü lost his jade tablet. After changing his clothes, he had forgotten to put it on, and had left it lying upon his table. But when he sent to fetch it, it was gone. A search was instituted high and low, without success. The precious talisman was missing. No one dared tell his grandmother and face the old lady’s wrath. As to Pao-yü himself, he treated the matter lightly. Gradually, however, a change came over his demeanour. He was often absent-minded. At other times his tongue would run away with him, and he talked nonsense. At length he got so bad that it became imperative to do something. So his grandmother had to be told. Of course she was dreadfully upset, but she made a move in the right direction, and offered an enormous reward for its recovery. The result was that within a few days the reward was claimed. But in the interval the tablet seemed to have lost much of its striking brilliancy; and a closer inspection showed it to be in reality nothing more than a clever imitation. This was a crushing disappointment to all. Pao-yü’s illness was increasing day by day. His father had received another appointment in the provinces, and it was eminently desirable that Pao-yü’s marriage should take place previous to his departure. The great objection to hurrying on the ceremony was that the family were in mourning. Among other calamities which had befallen of late, the young lady in the palace had died, and her influence at Court was gone. Still, everything considered, it was deemed advisable to solemnise the wedding without delay. Pao-yü’s father, little as he cared for the character of his only son, had been greatly shocked at the change which he now saw. A worn, haggard face, with sunken, lack-lustre eyes; rambling, inconsequent talk – this was the heir in whom the family hopes were centred. The old grandmother, finding that doctors were of little avail, had even called in a fortune-teller, who said pretty much what he was wanted to say, viz., that Pao-yü should marry some one with a golden destiny to help him on.
So the chief actors in the tragedy about to be enacted had to be consulted at last. They began with Pao-ch’ai, for various reasons; and she, like a modest, well-bred maiden, received her mother’s commands in submissive silence. Further, from that day she ceased to mention Pao-yü’s name. With Pao-yü, however, it was a different thing altogether. His love for Tai-yü was a matter of some notoriety, especially with the slave-girls, one of whom even went so far as to tell his mother that his heart was set upon marrying her whom the family had felt obliged to reject. It was therefore hardly doubtful how he would receive the news of his betrothal to Pao-ch’ai; and as in his present state of health the consequences could not be ignored, it was resolved to have recourse to stratagem. So the altar was prepared, and naught remained but to draw the bright death across the victim’s throat.
In the short time which intervened, the news was broken to Tai-yü in an exceptionally cruel manner. She heard by accident in conversation with a slave-girl in the garden that Pao-yü was to marry Pao-ch’ai. The poor girl felt as if a thunderbolt had pierced her brain. Her whole frame quivered beneath the shock. She turned to go back to her room, but half unconsciously followed the path that led to Pao-yü’s apartments. Hardly noticing the servants in attendance, she almost forced her way in, and stood in the presence of her cousin. He was sitting down, and he looked up and laughed a foolish laugh when he saw her enter; but he did not rise, and he did not invite her to be seated. Tai-yü sat down without being asked, and without a word spoken on either side. And the two sat there, and stared and leered at each other, until they both broke out into wild delirious laughter, the senseless crazy laughter of the madhouse. “What makes you ill, cousin?” asked Tai-yü, when the first burst of their dreadful merriment had subsided. “I am in love with Tai-yü,” he replied; and then they both went off into louder screams of laughter than before.
At this point the slave-girls thought it high time to interfere, and, after much more laughing and nodding of heads, Tai-yü was persuaded to go away. She set off to run back to her own room, and sped along with a newly acquired strength. But just as she was nearing the door, she was seen to fall, and the terrified slave-girl who rushed to pick her up found her with her mouth full of blood.
By this time all formalities have been gone through and the wedding day is fixed. It is not to be a grand wedding, but of course there must be a trousseau. Pao-ch’ai sometimes weeps, she scarcely knows why; but preparations for the great event of her life leave her, fortunately, very little leisure for reflection. Tai-yü is in bed, and, but for a faithful slave-girl, alone. Nobody thinks much about her at this juncture; when the wedding is over she is to receive a double share of attention.
One morning she makes the slave-girl bring her all her poems and various other relics of the happy days gone by. She turns them over and over between her thin and wasted fingers until finally she commits them all to the flames. The effort is too much for her, and the slave-girl in despair hurries across to the grandmother’s for assistance. She finds the whole place deserted, but a moment’s thought reminds her that the old lady is doubtless with Pao-yü. So thither she makes her way as fast as her feet can carry her, only, however, to be still further amazed at finding the rooms shut up, and no one there. Utterly confused, and not knowing what to make of these unlooked-for circumstances, she is about to run back to Tai-yü’s room, when to her great relief she espies a fellow-servant in the distance, who straightway informs her that it is Pao-yü’s wedding-day, and that he had moved into another suite of apartments. And so it was. Pao-yü had joyfully agreed to the proposition that he should marry his cousin, for he had been skilfully given to understand that the cousin in question was Tai-yü. And now the much wished-for hour had arrived. The veiled bride, accompanied by the very slave-girl who had long ago escorted her from the south, alighted from her sedan-chair at Pao-yü’s door. The wedding march was played, and the young couple proceeded to the final ceremony of worship, which made them irrevocably man and wife. Then, as is customary upon such occasions, Pao-yü raised his bride’s veil. For a moment he seemed as though suddenly turned into stone, as he stood there speechless and motionless, with fixed eyes gazing upon a face he had little expected to behold. Meanwhile, Pao-ch’ai retired into an inner apartment; and then, for the first time, Pao-yü found his voice.
“Am I dreaming?” cried he, looking round upon his assembled relatives and friends.
“No, you are married,” replied several of those nearest to him. “Take care; your father is outside. He arranged it all.”
“Who was that?” said Pao-yü, with averted head, pointing in the direction of the door through which Pao-ch’ai had disappeared.
“It was Pao-ch’ai, your wife…”
“Tai-yü, you mean; Tai-yü is my wife,” shrieked he, interrupting them; “I want Tai-yü! I want Tai-yü! Oh, bring us together, and save us both!” Here he broke down altogether. Thick sobs choked his further utterance, until relief came in a surging flood of tears.
All this time Tai-yü was dying, dying beyond hope of recall. She knew that the hour of release was at hand, and she lay there quietly waiting for death. Every now and again she swallowed a teaspoonful of broth, but gradually the light faded out of her eyes, and the slave-girl, faithful to the last, felt that her young mistress’s fingers were rapidly growing cold. At that moment, Tai-yü’s lips were seen to move, and she was distinctly heard to say, “O Pao-yü, Pao-yü…” Those words were her last.
Just then, breaking in upon the hushed moments which succeed dissolution, sounds of far-off music were borne along upon the breeze. The slave-girl crept stealthily to the door, and strained her ear to listen; but she could hear nothing save the soughing of the wind as it moaned fitfully through the trees.
But the bridegroom himself had already entered the valley of the dark shadow. Pao-yü was very ill. He raved and raved about Tai-yü, until at length Pao-ch’ai, who had heard the news, took upon herself the painful task of telling him she was already dead. “Dead?” cried Pao-yü, “dead?” and with a loud groan he fell back upon the bed insensible. A darkness came before his eyes, and he seemed to be transported into a region which was unfamiliar to him. Looking about, he saw some one advancing towards him, and immediately called out to the stranger to be kind enough to tell him where he was. “You are on the road to the next world,” replied the man; “but your span of life is not yet complete, and you have no business here.” Pao-yü explained that he had come in search of Tai-yü, who had lately died; to which the man replied that Tai-yü’s soul had already gone back to its home in the pure serene. “And if you would see her again,” added the man, “return to your duties upon earth. Fulfil your destiny there, chasten your understanding, nourish the divinity that is within you, and you may yet hope to meet her once more.” The man then flung a stone at him and struck him over the heart, which so frightened Pao-yü that he turned to retrace his steps. At that moment he heard himself loudly called by name; and opening his eyes, saw his mother and grandmother standing by the side of his bed.
They had thought that he was gone, and were overjoyed at seeing him return to life, even though it was the same life as before, clouded with the great sorrow of unreason. For now they could always hope; and when they saw him daily grow stronger and stronger in bodily health, it seemed that ere long even his mental equilibrium might be restored. The more so that he had ceased to mention Tai-yü’s name, and treated Pao-ch’ai with marked kindness and respect.
All this time the fortunes of the two grand families are sinking from bad to worse. Pao-yü’s uncle is mixed up in an act of disgraceful oppression; while his father, at his new post, makes the foolish endeavour to be an honest incorrupt official. He tries to put his foot down upon the system of bribery which prevails, but succeeds only in getting himself recalled and impeached for maladministration of affairs. The upshot of all this is that an Imperial decree is issued confiscating the property and depriving the families of their hereditary rank. Besides this, the lineal representatives are to be banished; and within the walls which have been so long sacred to mirth and merrymaking, consternation now reigns supreme. “O high Heaven,” cries Pao-yü’s father, as his brother and nephew start for their place of banishment, “that the fortunes of our family should fall like this!”
Of all, perhaps the old grandmother felt the blow most severely. She had lived for eighty-three years in affluence, accustomed to the devotion of her children and the adulation of friends. But now money was scarce, and the voice of flattery unheard. The courtiers of prosperous days forgot to call, and even the servants deserted at their posts. And so it came about that the old lady fell ill, and within a few days was lying upon her death-bed. She spoke a kind word to all, except to Pao-ch’ai. For her she had only a sigh, that fate had linked her with a husband whose heart was buried in the grave. So she died, and there was a splendid funeral, paid for out of funds raised at the pawnshop. Pao-ch’ai appeared in white; and among the flowers which were gathered around the bier, she was unanimously pronounced to be the fairest blossom of all.
Then other members of the family die, and Pao-yü relapses into a condition as critical as ever. He is in fact at the point of death, when a startling announcement restores him again to consciousness. A Buddhist priest is at the outer gate, and he has brought back Pao-yü’s lost tablet of jade. There was, of course, great excitement on all sides; but the priest refused to part with the jade until he had got the promised reward. And where now was it possible to raise such a sum as that, and at a moment’s notice? Still it was felt that the tablet must be recovered at all costs. Pao-yü’s life depended on it, and he was the sole hope of the family. So the priest was promised his reward, and the jade was conveyed into the sick-room. But when Pao-yü clutched it in his eager hand, he dropped it with a loud cry and fell back gasping upon the bed.
In a few minutes Pao-yü’s breathing became more and more distressed, and a servant ran out to call in the priest, in the hope that something might yet be done. The priest, however, had disappeared, and by this time Pao-yü had ceased to breathe.
Immediately upon the disunion of body and soul which mortals call death, the spirit of Pao-yü set off on its journey to the Infinite, led by a Buddhist priest. Just then a voice called out and said that Tai-yü was awaiting him, and at that moment many familiar faces crowded round him, but as he gazed at them in recognition, they changed into grinning goblins. At length he reached a spot where there was a beautiful crimson flower in an enclosure, so carefully tended that neither bees nor butterflies were allowed to settle upon it. It was a flower, he was told, which had been to fulfil a mission upon earth, and had recently returned to the Infinite. He was now taken to see Tai-yü. A bamboo screen which hung before the entrance to a room was raised, and there before him stood his heart’s idol, his lost Tai-yü. Stretching forth his hands, he was about to speak to her, when suddenly the screen was hastily dropped. The priest gave him a shove, and he fell backwards, awaking as though from a dream.
Once more he had regained a new hold upon life; once more he had emerged from the very jaws of death. This time he was a changed man. He devoted himself to reading for the great public examination, in the hope of securing the much coveted degree of Master of Arts. Nevertheless, he talks little, and seems to care less, about the honours and glory of this world; and what is stranger than all, he appears to have very much lost his taste for the once fascinating society of women. For a time he seems to be under the spell of a religious craze, and is always arguing with Pao-ch’ai upon the advantages of devoting one’s life to the service of Buddha. But shortly before the examination he burned all the books he had collected which treated of immortality and a future state, and concentrated every thought upon the great object before him.
At length the day comes, and Pao-yü, accompanied by a nephew who is also a candidate, prepares to enter the arena. His father was away from home. He had gone southwards to take the remains of the grandmother and of Tai-yü back to their ancestral burying-ground. So Pao-yü first goes to take leave of his mother, and she addresses to him a few parting words, full of encouragement and hope. Then Pao-yü falls upon his knees, and implores her pardon for all the trouble he has caused her. “I can only trust,” he added, “that I shall now be successful, and that you, dear mother, will be happy.” And then amid tears and good wishes, the two young men set out for the examination-hall, where, with several thousand other candidates, they are to remain for some time immured.
The hours and days speed apace, full of arduous effort to those within, of anxiety to those without. At last the great gates are thrown wide open, and the vast crowd of worn-out, weary students bursts forth, to meet the equally vast crowd of eager, expectant friends. In the crush that ensues, Pao-yü and his nephew lose sight of each other, and the nephew reaches home first. There the feast of welcome is already spread, and the wine-kettles are put to the fire. So every now and again somebody runs out to see if Pao-yü is not yet in sight. But the time passes and he comes not. Fears as to his personal safety begin to be aroused, and messengers are sent out in all directions. Pao-yü is nowhere to be found. The night comes and goes. The next day and the next day, and still no Pao-yü. He has disappeared without leaving behind him the faintest clue to his whereabouts. Meanwhile, the list of successful candidates is published, and Pao-yü’s name stands seventh on the list. His nephew has the 130th place. What a triumph for the family, and what rapture would have been theirs, but for the mysterious absence of Pao-yü.
Thus their joy was shaded by sorrow, until hope, springing eternal, was unexpectedly revived. Pao-yü’s winning essay had attracted the attention of the Emperor, and his Majesty issued an order for the writer to appear at Court. An Imperial order may not be lightly disregarded; and it was fervently hoped by the family that by these means Pao-yü might be restored to them. This, in fact, was all that was wanting now to secure the renewed prosperity of the two ancient houses. The tide of events had set favourably at last. Those who had been banished to the frontier had greatly distinguished themselves against the banditti who ravaged the country round about. There was Pao-yü’s success and his nephew’s; and above all, the gracious clemency of the Son of Heaven. Free pardons were granted, confiscated estates were returned. The two families basked again in the glow of Imperial favour. Pao-ch’ai was about to become a mother; the ancestral line might be continued after all. But Pao-yü, where was he? That remained a mystery still, against which even the Emperor’s mandate proved to be of no avail.
It was on his return journey that Pao-yü’s father heard of the success and disappearance of his son. Torn by conflicting emotions he hurried on, in his haste to reach home and aid in unravelling the secret of Pao-yü’s hiding-place. One moonlight night, his boat lay anchored alongside the shore, which a storm of the previous day had wrapped in a mantle of snow. He was sitting writing at a table, when suddenly, through the half-open door, advancing towards him over the bow of the boat, his silhouette sharply defined against the surrounding snow, he saw the figure of a shaven-headed Buddhist priest. The priest knelt down, and struck his head four times upon the ground, and then, without a word, turned back to join two other priests who were awaiting him. The three vanished as imperceptibly as they had come; before, indeed, the astonished father was able to realise that he had been, for the last time, face to face with Pao-yü!