The Red Chamber (52 page)

It is only her own fortunes that are declining, she thinks, staring up at the black ceiling. Lian is harsh and forbidding to her. Now that they have moved back to Rongguo, his contempt for her is clear for all to see. He refuses to sleep in the same room, and has moved back across the courtyard to where he and Ping’er lived before Qiaojie’s birth. Last time he lived there it had not bothered her much. This time, she finds herself acutely self-conscious about what the others must be thinking. And she is terribly lonely, far lonelier than she has ever been. Living in the apartment that she used to share with Ping’er and Qiaojie, without even a maid to keep her company, she is haunted by memories of them: of putting her lips to Qiaojie’s downy little head and drinking in her sweet, milky scent; of Ping’er combing her hair two hundred strokes every morning. And she has no work or occupation with which to push away the memories. Uncle Zheng has used his salary to buy a handful of servants; it is no longer necessary for her and the other girls to shop and cook and clean. With their southern estates gone and such simple housekeeping, there are no rents and salaries and expenditures for her to keep track of. Despite her loneliness, she is too proud to seek out Baochai or the other girls to chat. Instead she spends her day weaving or sewing in a desultory fashion, or hoping that she will feel more energetic if she takes yet another nap on the
kang
.

Her health continues to trouble her. Despite the better food and more comfortable living conditions at Rongguo, she seems to grow weaker and more languid by the day. She sleeps poorly, drifting in and out of a light doze, instead of being able to fall into a deeper, more restorative, slumber. She has no appetite, and feels so cold that she has taken to wearing
two pairs of socks. More and more often, she feels sharp pains in her belly. Lian wouldn’t notice even if she collapsed on the floor, but Baochai had sent for Dr. Wang. After a long examination, he had said that a mass was growing in her female organs as a result of a severe stagnation of
qi
. He prescribed turtle shell,
longkui
, and oldenlandia. When she asked him how long it would take for her to get better, he said he did not know, and some strange dread had prevented her from questioning him further. She had the prescription filled, and took it dutifully, but did not feel she was getting any stronger.

Now she feels exhaustion overtaking her, and she shuts her eyes again. She feels the half-sleeping, half-waking state, which has replaced true sleep for her, stealing over her limbs. She is cold, but is too tired to rearrange her blankets. She feels those strange phantom pains burning in her abdomen. She shifts her position, trying to make herself more comfortable, but the pains do not go away. She tries to slip into deeper sleep, but instead her mind skips uneasily over scenes from her past: her childhood with Ping’er at the Wang mansion in Chang’an, the night of Qiaojie’s birth, her fights with Lady Jia at Drum Street.

She opens her eyes. The room is filled with sunlight. She has overslept. In a panic she leaps out of bed, but the sudden movement makes her dizzy. She clings to the wardrobe to steady herself, and manages to put on some clothes. Barely looking at the mirror, she twists her hair into a rough knot, and sets off across the forecourt towards Granny Jia’s apartments to serve breakfast. She tries to run at first, but it makes her so dizzy that she is forced to slow to a quick walk.

As she crosses the courtyard at Lady Jia’s, she hears the clink of china and the chattering voices of the family having breakfast. She steels herself for what everyone will say about her lateness, as she stops to catch her breath outside the door. Straightening her gown and drawing herself up, she passes through the door curtain. Everyone—Lady Jia, Uncle Zheng, Lian, Baoyu, Mrs. Xue, and the Two Springs—is sitting around the table eating. No one even turns their head at her entrance. Standing at the head of the table, behind Lady Jia’s chair, is Baochai, in Xifeng’s usual place. She has just ladled out a second serving of rice porridge for Uncle Zheng, and is now leaning over Lady Jia’s plate, using chopsticks to debone a small smoked fish for her, smiling and chatting with Granny.

A surge of desolation comes over Xifeng: no one seems even to have noticed her absence. Then she is outraged: Who is Baochai to take her place? She, Xifeng, is the senior daughter-in-law. She walks towards
Baochai, expecting her to jump guiltily and yield her place. Baochai, however, comes forward to meet her, drawing her a little away from the dining table, speaking in a low voice so that the others will not overhear.

“I thought that you must not be feeling well, so I didn’t send anyone to wake you,” Baochai says. She looks into Xifeng’s face. “No, you don’t look well at all. Do you want me to send for the doctor again?”

Xifeng shakes her head.

“Are you sure? Well, at least go back and lie down. You’re not needed here.”

Xifeng looks at Baochai’s terrible, inscrutable face. Is her concern real or feigned? Is she actually exulting in her chance to supplant Xifeng? How Xifeng both hates and fears that smooth perfection, that glossy surface off which every grief seems to slide! If only she herself were enclosed in that same porcelain armor, which nothing seems to penetrate. Instead, she has become weak, so weak. She is too weak to care what Baochai’s motives are, and too weak to fight for precedence in the household anymore. Silently she turns away and goes back to her room.

3

Baochai sits in the corner of the
kang
, sewing some blinds for the still bare windows of the new apartment. When the family moved back into Rongguo, Uncle Zheng had allotted to her and Baoyu the apartments that Uncle Jing had occupied before his death. Her mother occupies a room on the other side of the courtyard. It is a large apartment, so large that even after the new furniture from her trousseau had been moved over from Drum Street, it still looked empty. The walls and shelves had been stripped bare during the confiscation, but Baochai is determined to make the place as pleasant as possible. After she had made up the deficiencies in Baoyu’s wardrobe, she set herself to sewing bed hangings and a door curtain. With her mother’s help, she has sewn a backrest and half a dozen pillows and bolsters, which are now scattered about the red Kashmiri rug that covers the
kang
. Once Baochai has finished the blinds, the place will look quite home-like.

Occasionally, she glances up at Baoyu, sitting at his desk across the room. In the circle of light cast by the lamp on his desk, he is totally immersed in his studies. The table is covered with books and papers. There is a blot of ink on his right middle finger. She always keeps an eye on him when he studies, so that she can attend to his needs before he can be distracted by them. She makes sure there is a cup of tea by his side, dumping it out and pouring fresh tea when it gets cold. If she notices that his ink is almost gone, she grinds more for him. If the lamp sputters, she trims the wick. He cannot afford to be distracted. The Exams are only a month away.

As always since his illness, he works with an almost preternatural stillness and concentration, never brushing back his hair, never fidgeting with his papers or books. Now that he knows the Classics backwards and forwards—she has heard him flawlessly reciting long passages from them—he is concentrating on practice essays. He writes on every conceivable topic, likely or unlikely, consulting thick books of commentary for added insights, polishing his diction and tightening the rhetorical structure. At Baochai’s suggestion, he even asks his father to read the
essays and offer advice. This painstaking preparation will enable him to face the Exams, confident that no question will catch him unawares.

It is getting late. She puts away her sewing and takes the bedding out of the armoire, spreading it out on the
kang
. Then she begins to fold the clothes that she had laundered for him earlier. As she smooths out the creases in his tunics, carefully folding them in exactly the same shape and size, she is aware of a deep contentment. This is the life she is meant to lead: a deep and tranquil domesticity, with Baoyu at last throwing himself into the male world of the Exams and official life, while she excels equally in the women’s sphere of the home. She likes feeling that she is useful, even indispensable, to Baoyu. There is not a single practical task she does not do for him—from organizing his papers and books and clothes to reminding him when to wake, eat, bathe, and sleep. It is hard work, but she does it all, with only a little help from her mother. Perhaps one day soon they will have a maid to help. She knows that when that day comes, she will regret relinquishing part of her responsibilities to someone else.

As she looks at him, his sleek black hair, his angular nose, she feels a frisson of desire. She wants to do something she has never done before, go over and put her arms around him, or sit in his lap, maybe even unbutton her tunic. But she quashes the impulse. The last thing she should do is distract him from his studies. Besides, she tells herself, it is getting late and soon they will go to bed. She cannot articulate or admit to herself how much of her satisfaction in her marriage is due to her physical relations with Baoyu. Night after night since the wedding, she has only to lie in bed for a few minutes before he turns silently towards her, and begins to touch her. A few times, it is true, he seemed to have trouble getting an erection. Then he would swiftly manipulate himself under the covers, before pressing her down beneath him. Naturally, this always makes her feel a little awkward, but otherwise their sexual relations are satisfyingly regular. His desire convinces her that he is not indifferent to her, as she had first feared. He clearly wants to possess her body, and she does not believe he is someone who would want a physical relationship without caring and affection. She begins to believe that she has a power over him that he is reluctant to admit, out of pride or caution. That is why he touches her only under the cover of darkness. That is why he remains so silent during their lovemaking, as if afraid to betray his pleasure by even the faintest sound. She tells herself that Daiyu and he could have been together only a few times at the most. They simply could not have
known the intimacy that Baochai now shares with him, deepening with every night they spend together. And her own feelings for Baoyu are growing as well. He is so different from the old Baoyu, who was always chattering, always distracted.

At last he rests his brush on the inkstone. He reaches out his arms, stretching and yawning. This is the usual sign that his work is done for the night, and that she can begin to help him prepare for bed. She bustles over, taking up his inkbrush and inkstone to rinse them out.

“Did you finish the Mencius?” she calls from the basin, the ink clouding the water gray.

He gestures at the paper before him. “Yes, I think this looks pretty good.” He reaches his right arm behind him and massages a spot on his lower back. “I suppose I can go on to the Great Learning tomorrow.”

“That’s good.” She dries the inkstone and the brush, and walks over to his desk to return them to their spots. He is still rubbing his back, looking down at the page in front of him and frowning as if there is a passage that still displeases him.

On an impulse, she decides to give him a hint about what she is starting to suspect. “I’m late, you know,” she says, going around the desk to stand beside his chair.

He is still looking down at the essay. “Late for what?” he says absently.

She feels flustered at being forced to speak more explicitly. “I mean, I’m late,” she repeats, stammering and blushing. “I mean, it’s more than six weeks since my last …” She trails off in embarrassment.

Baoyu looks up. Suddenly the atmosphere in the room is tense.

“Are you sure?” he asks, at the same moment she blurts out, wishing that she hadn’t said anything, “I—I’m not really sure yet. It could be nothing, after all.”

He interrupts her. “Well, if that’s the case, it’s wonderful news,” he says. But he does not speak as if it is wonderful news. She cannot tell what he feels—she almost thinks that she sees relief in his eyes—but it certainly isn’t happiness. There is an awkward silence, which he breaks by rising from his chair and walking over to the wardrobe. He begins to take off his robe, instead of letting her assist him as she usually does.

She feels like crying, as she had the first night of their marriage, before he had touched her. The confidence and contentment she thought she felt seem fragile as eggshells, so easily crushed by the strangeness of his reaction to her news. She cannot help herself. “Aren’t you happy?” she blurts out.

He shrugs, not looking at her, folding his robe and putting it in the wardrobe. He turns to face her. “Why shouldn’t I be happy?” he says. “A child is always a reason for joy. After all, is there anything more pure and blameless than an infant?”

He is trying to evade her by speaking in generalities. “I was talking about our child, not—not some hypothetical child,” she says sharply.

He ignores her interruption. “In fact, I was just reading and thinking about that passage in Mencius about the ‘heart of a newborn.’ ” He goes back to his desk, opens one of the books, and holds it out for her to see.

She hesitates, deliberating whether to allow herself to show any interest, to be drawn from her own point. Pinching her lips tightly together, she walks over to his desk and looks down at the page.
“ ‘Daren zhe bushi qi chizi zhi xin zhe ye,’ ”
she reads. “ ‘A noble man is one who does not lose the heart of a newborn.’ ” She looks at him impatiently. “Well, what of it?”

“What do you think it means?”

She ponders, sensing that he is testing her. “Well, he is talking about virtue, of course,” she begins slowly, trying to dredge up what she remembers from long ago lessons. “He doesn’t really mean the heart of an infant, literally. It’s a metaphor for the purity of a sage’s heart, his freedom from selfishness, and desire to help mankind, like Emperor Yao and Emperor Shun, the early sage-kings,” she adds, gaining confidence.