Chang, the Taoist, indulged in further laughter. "I brought out," he explained, "the tray so as to kill two birds with one stone. It wasn't, however, to beg for donations. On the contrary, it was in order to put in it the jade, which I meant to ask Mr. Pao to take off, so as to carry it outside and let all those Taoist friends of mine, who come from far away, as well as my neophytes and the young apprentices, see what it's like."

"Well, since that be the case," added old lady Chia, "why do you, at your age, try your strength by running about the whole day long? Take him at once along and let them see it! But were you to have called him in there, wouldn't it have saved a lot of trouble?"

"Your venerable ladyship," resumed Chang, the Taoist, "isn't aware that though I be, to look at, a man of eighty, I, after all, continue, thanks to your protection, my dowager lady, quite hale and strong. In the second place, there are crowds of people in the outer rooms; and the smells are not agreeable. Besides it's a very hot day and Mr. Pao couldn't stand the heat as he is not accustomed to it. So were he to catch any disease from the filthy odours, it would be a grave thing!"

After these forebodings old lady Chia accordingly desired Pao-yu to unclasp the jade of Spiritual Perception, and to deposit it in the tray.

The Taoist, Chang, carefully ensconced it in the folds of the wrapper, embroidered with dragons, and left the room, supporting the tray with both his hands.

During this while, dowager lady Chia and the other inmates devoted more of their time in visiting the various places. But just as they were on the point of going up the two-storied building, they heard Chia Chen shout: "Grandfather Chang has brought back the jade."

As he spoke, the Taoist Chang was seen advancing up to them, the tray in hand. "The whole company," he smiled, "were much obliged to me. They think Mr. Pao's jade really lovely! None of them have, however, any suitable gifts to bestow. These are religious articles, used by each of them in propagating the doctrines of Reason, but they're all only too ready to give them as congratulatory presents. If, Mr. Pao, you don't fancy them for anything else, just keep them to play with or to give away to others."

Dowager lady Chia, at these words, looked into the tray. She discovered that its contents consisted of gold signets, and jade rings, or sceptres, implying: "may you have your wishes accomplished in everything," or "may you enjoy peace and health from year to year;" that the various articles were strung with pearls or inlaid with precious stones, worked in jade or mounted in gold; and that they were in all from thirty to fifty.

"What nonsense you're talking!" she then exclaimed. "Those people are all divines, and where could they have rummaged up these things? But what need is there for any such presents? He may, on no account, accept them."

"These are intended as a small token of their esteem," responded Chang, the Taoist, smiling, "your servant cannot therefore venture to interfere with them. If your venerable ladyship will not keep them, won't you make it patent to them that I'm treated contemptuously, and unlike what one should be, who has joined the order through your household?"

Only when old lady Chia heard these arguments did she direct a servant to receive the presents.

"Venerable senior," Pao-yu smilingly chimed in. "After the reasons advanced by grandfather Chang, we cannot possibly refuse them. But albeit I feel disposed to keep these things, they are of no avail to me; so would it not be well were a servant told to carry the tray and to follow me out of doors, that I may distribute them to the poor?

"You are perfectly right in what you say!" smiled dowager lady Chia.

The Taoist Chang, however, went on speedily to use various arguments to dissuade him. "Mr. Pao," he observed, "your intention is, it is true, to perform charitable acts; but though you may aver that these things are of little value, you'll nevertheless find among them several articles you might turn to some account. Were you to let the beggars have them, why they will, first of all, be none the better for them; and, next, it will contrariwise be tantamount to throwing them away! If you want to distribute anything among the poor, why don't you dole out cash to them?"

"Put them by!" promptly shouted Pao-yu, after this rejoinder, "and when evening comes, take a few cash and distribute them."

These directions given, Chang, the Taoist, retired out of the place.

Dowager lady Chia and her companions thereupon walked upstairs and sat in the main part of the building. Lady Feng and her friends adjourned into the eastern part, while the waiting-maids and servants remained in the western portion, and took their turns in waiting on their mistresses.

Before long, Chia Chen came back. "The plays," he announced, "have been chosen by means of slips picked out before the G.o.d. The first one on the list is the 'Record of the White Snake.'"

"Of what kind of old story does 'the record of the white snake,' treat?"

old lady Chia inquired.

"The story about Han Kao-tsu," replied Chia Chen, "killing a snake and then ascending the throne. The second play is, 'the Bed covered with ivory tablets.'"

"Has this been a.s.signed the second place?" asked dowager lady Chia. "Yet never mind; for as the G.o.ds will it thus, there is no help than not to demur. But what about the third play?" she went on to inquire.

"The Nan Ko dream is the third," Chia Chen answered.

This response elicited no comment from dowager lady Chia. Chia Chen therefore withdrew downstairs, and betook himself outside to make arrangements for the offerings to the G.o.ds, for the paper money and eatables that had to be burnt, and for the theatricals about to begin.

So we will leave him without any further allusion, and take up our narrative with Pao-yu.

Seating himself upstairs next to old lady Chia, he called to a servant-girl to fetch the tray of presents given to him a short while back, and putting on his own trinket of jade, he fumbled about with the things for a bit, and picking up one by one, he handed them to his grandmother to admire. But old lady Chia espied among them a unicorn, made of purplish gold, with kingfisher feathers inserted, and eagerly extending her arm, she took it up. "This object," she smiled, "seems to me to resemble very much one I've seen worn also by the young lady of some household or other of ours."

"Senior cousin, Shih Hsiang-yun," chimed in Pao-ch'ai, a smile playing on her lips, "has one, but it's a trifle smaller than this."

"Is it indeed Yun-erh who has it?" exclaimed old lady Chia.

"Now that she lives in our house," remarked Pao-yu, "how is it that even I haven't seen anything of it?"

"Cousin Pao-ch'ai," rejoined T'an Ch'un laughingly, "has the power of observation; no matter what she sees, she remembers."

Lin Tai-yu gave a sardonic smile. "As far as other matters are concerned," she insinuated, "her observation isn't worth speaking of; where she's extra-observant is in articles people may wear about their persons."

Pao-chai, upon catching this sneering remark, at once turned her head round, and pretended she had not heard. But as soon as Pao-yu learnt that Shih Hsiang-yun possessed a similar trinket, he speedily picked up the unicorn, and hid it in his breast, indulging, at the same time, in further reflection. Yet, fearing lest people might have noticed that he kept back that particular thing the moment he discovered that Shih Hsiang-yun had one identical with it, he fixed his eyes intently upon all around while clutching it. He found however that not one of them was paying any heed to his movements except Lin Tai-yu, who, while gazing at him was, nodding her head, as if with the idea of expressing her admiration. Pao-yu, therefore, at once felt inwardly ill at ease, and pulling out his hand, he observed, addressing himself to Tai-yu with an a.s.sumed smile, "This is really a fine thing to play with; I'll keep it for you, and when we get back home, I'll pa.s.s a ribbon through it for you to wear." "I don't care about it," said Lin Tai-yu, giving her head a sudden twist.

"Well," continued Pao-yu laughingly, "if you don't like it, I can't do otherwise than keep it myself."

Saying this, he once again thrust it away. But just as he was about to open his lips to make some other observation, he saw Mrs. Yu, the spouse of Chia Chen, arrive along with the second wife recently married by Chia Jung, that is, his mother and her daughter-in-law, to pay their obeisance to dowager lady Chia.

"What do you people rush over here for again?" old lady Chia inquired.

"I came here for a turn, simply because I had nothing to do."

But no sooner was this inquiry concluded than they heard a messenger announce: "that some one had come from the house of general Feng."

The family of Feng Tzu-ying had, it must be explained, come to learn the news that the inmates of the Chia mansion were offering a thanksgiving service in the temple, and, without loss of time, they got together presents of pigs, sheep, candles, tea and eatables and sent them over.

The moment lady Feng heard about it she hastily crossed to the main part of the two-storied building. "Ai-ya;" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, clapping her hands and laughing. "I never expected anything of the sort; we merely said that we ladies were coming for a leisurely stroll and people imagined that we were spreading a sumptuous altar with lenten viands and came to bring us offerings! But it's all our old lady's fault for bruiting it about! Why, we haven't even got any slips of paper with tips ready."

She had just finished speaking, when she perceived two matrons, who acted as house-keepers in the Feng family, walk upstairs. But before the Feng servants could take their leave, presents likewise arrived, in quick succession, from Chao, the Vice-President of the Board. In due course, one lot of visitors followed another. For as every one got wind of the fact that the Chia family was having thanksgiving services, and that the ladies were in the temple, distant and close relatives, friends, old friends and acquaintances all came to present their contributions. So much so, that dowager lady Chia began at this juncture to feel sorry that she had ever let the cat out of the bag. "This is no regular fasting," she said, "we simply have come for a little change; and we should not have put any one to any inconvenience!" Although therefore she was to have remained present all day at the theatrical performance, she promptly returned home soon after noon, and the next day she felt very loth to go out of doors again.

"By striking the wall, we've also stirred up dust," lady Feng argued.

"Why we've already put those people to the trouble so we should only be too glad to-day to have another outing."

But as when dowager lady Chia interviewed the Taoist Chang, the previous day, he made allusion to Pao-yu and canva.s.sed his engagement, Pao-yu experienced, little as one would have thought it, much secret displeasure during the whole of that day, and on his return home he flew into a rage and abused Chang, the rationalistic priest, for harbouring designs to try and settle a match for him. At every breath and at every word he resolved that henceforward he would not set eyes again upon the Taoist Chang. But no one but himself had any idea of the reason that actuated him to absent himself. In the next place, Lin Tai-yu began also, on her return the day before, to ail from a touch of the sun, so their grandmother was induced by these two considerations to remain firm in her decision not to go. When lady Feng, however, found that she would not join them, she herself took charge of the family party and set out on the excursion.

But without descending to particulars, let us advert to Pao-yu. Seeing that Lin Tai-yu had fallen ill, he was so full of solicitude on her account that he even had little thought for any of his meals, and not long elapsed before he came to inquire how she was.

Tai-yu, on her part, gave way to fear lest anything should happen to him, (and she tried to re-a.s.sure him). "Just go and look at the plays,"

she therefore replied, "what's the use of boxing yourself up at home?"

Pao-yu was, however, not in a very happy frame of mind on account of the reference to his marriage made by Chang, the Taoist, the day before, so when he heard Lin Tai-yu's utterances: "If others don't understand me;"

he mused, "it's anyhow excusable; but has she too begun to make fun of me?" His heart smarted in consequence under the sting of a mortification a hundred times keener than he had experienced up to that occasion. Had he been with any one else, it would have been utterly impossible for her to have brought into play feelings of such resentment, but as it was no other than Tai-yu who spoke the words, the impression produced upon him was indeed different from that left in days gone by, when others employed similar language. Unable to curb his feelings, he instantaneously lowered his face. "My friendship with you has been of no avail" he rejoined. "But, never mind, patience!"

This insinuation induced Lin Tai-yu to smile a couple of sarcastic smiles. "Yes, your friendship with me has been of no avail," she repeated; "for how can I compare with those whose manifold qualities make them fit matches for you?"

As soon as this sneer fell on Pao-yu's ear he drew near to her. "Are you by telling me this," he asked straight to her face, "deliberately bent upon invoking imprecations upon me that I should be annihilated by heaven and extinguished by earth?"

Lin Tai-yu could not for a time fathom the import of his remarks. "It was," Pao-yu then resumed, "on account of this very conversation that I yesterday swore several oaths, and now would you really make me repeat another one? But were the heavens to annihilate me and the earth to extinguish me, what benefit would you derive?"

This rejoinder reminded Tai-yu of the drift of their conversation on the previous day. And as indeed she had on this occasion framed in words those sentiments, which should not have dropped from her lips, she experienced both annoyance and shame, and she tremulously observed: "If I entertain any deliberate intention to bring any harm upon you, may I too be destroyed by heaven and exterminated by earth! But what's the use of all this! I know very well that the allusion to marriage made yesterday by Chang, the Taoist, fills you with dread lest he might interfere with your choice. You are inwardly so irate that you come and treat me as your malignant influence."

Pao-yu, the fact is, had ever since his youth developed a peculiar kind of mean and silly propensity. Having moreover from tender infancy grown up side by side with Tai-Yu, their hearts and their feelings were in perfect harmony. More, he had recently come to know to a great extent what was what, and had also filled his head with the contents of a number of corrupt books and licentious stories. Of all the eminent and beautiful girls that he had met too in the families of either distant or close relatives or of friends, not one could reach the standard of Lin Tai-yu. Hence it was that he commenced, from an early period of his life, to foster sentiments of love for her; but as he could not very well give utterance to them, he felt time and again sometimes elated, sometimes vexed, and wont to exhaust every means to secretly subject her heart to a test.

Lin Tai-yu happened, on the other hand, to possess in like manner a somewhat silly disposition; and she too frequently had recourse to feigned sentiments to feel her way. And as she began to conceal her true feelings and inclinations and to simply dissimulate, and he to conceal his true sentiments and wishes and to dissemble, the two unrealities thus blending together const.i.tuted eventually one reality. But it was hardly to be expected that trifles would not be the cause of tiffs between them. Thus it was that in Pao-yu's mind at this time prevailed the reflection: "that were others unable to read my feelings, it would anyhow be excusable; but is it likely that you cannot realise that in my heart and in my eyes there is no one else besides yourself. But as you were not able to do anything to dispel my annoyance, but made use, instead, of the language you did to laugh at me, and to gag my mouth, it's evident that though you hold, at every second and at every moment, a place in my heart, I don't, in fact, occupy a place in yours." Such was the construction attached to her conduct by Pao-yu, yet he did not have the courage to tax her with it.