adding laughingly: 'In your hands, it would be a source of woe, so that it's better that I should burn it, and have done with it!' Saying this he simultaneously shoved it down the sides of his boot, while P'ing Erh shouted as she set her teeth close: 'You wicked man! you cross the river and then demolish the bridge! but do you imagine that I'll by and by again tell lies on your behalf!'
Chia Lien perceiving how heart-stirring her seductive charms were, forthwith clasped her in his arms, and begged her to be his; but P'ing Erh snatched her hands out of his grasp and ran away out of the room; which so exasperated Chia Lien that as he bent his body, he exclaimed, full of indignation: 'What a dreadful niggardly young wench! she actually sets her mind to stir up people's affections with her wanton blandishments, and then, after all, she runs away!'
'If I be wanton, it's my own look-out;' P'ing Erh answered, from outside the window, with a grin, 'and who told you to arouse your affections? Do you forsooth mean to imply that my wish is to become your tool? And did she come to know about it would she again ever forgive me?'
'You needn't dread her!' Chia Lien urged; 'wait till my monkey is up, and I'll take this jealous woman, and beat her to atoms; and she'll then know what stuff I'm made of. She watches me just as she would watch a thief! and she's only to hobnob with men, and I'm not to say a word to any girl! and if I do say aught to a girl, or get anywhere near one, she must at once give way to suspicion. But with no regard to younger brothers or nephews, to young and old, she prattles and giggles with them, and doesn't entertain any fear that I may be jealous; but henceforward I too won't allow her to set eyes upon any man.'
'If she be jealous, there's every reason,' P'ing Erh answered, 'but for you to be jealous on her account isn't right. Her conduct is really straightforward, and her deportment upright, but your conduct is actuated by an evil heart, so much so that even I don't feel my heart at ease, not to say anything of her.'
'You two,' continued Chia Lien, 'have a mouth full of malicious breath! Everything the couple of you do is invariably proper, while whatever I do is all from an evil heart! But some time or other I shall bring you both to your end with my own hands!'
This sentence was scarcely at an end, when lady Feng walked into the court. 'If you're bent upon chatting,' she urgently inquired, upon seeing P'ing Erh outside the window, 'why don't you go into the room? and what do you mean, instead, by running out, and speaking with the window between?'
Chia Lien from inside took up the string of the conversation. 'You should ask her,' he said. 'It would verily seem as if there were a tiger in the room to eat her up.'
'There's not a single person in the room,' P'ing Erh rejoined, 'and what shall I stay and do with him?'
'It's just the proper thing that there should be no one else! Isn't it?' lady Feng remarked grinning sarcastically.
'Do these words allude to me?' P'ing Erh hastily asked, as soon as she had heard what she said.
Lady Feng forthwith laughed. 'If they don't allude to you,' she continued, 'to whom do they?'
'Don't press me to come out with some nice things!' P'ing Erh insinuated, and, as she spoke, she did not even raise the portiere (for lady Feng to enter), but straightway betook herself to the opposite side.
Lady Feng lifted the portiere with her own hands, and walked into the room. 'That girl P'ing Erh,' she exclaimed, 'has gone mad, and if this hussey does in real earnest wish to try and get the upper hand of me, it would be well for you to mind your skin.'
Chia Lien listened to her, as he kept reclining on the couch. 'I never in the least knew,' he ventured, clapping his hands and laughing, 'that P'ing Erh was so dreadful; and I must, after all, from henceforth look up to her with respect!'
'It's all through your humouring her,' lady Feng rejoined; 'so I'll simply settle scores with you and finish with it.'
'Ts'ui!' ejaculated Chia Lien at these words, 'because you two can't agree, must you again make a scapegoat of me! Well then, I'll get out of the way of both of you!'
'I'll see where you'll go and hide,' lady Feng observed.
'I've got somewhere to go!' Chia Lien added; and with these words, he was about to go, when lady Feng urged: 'Don't be off! I have something to tell you.'
What it is, is not yet known, but, reader, listen to the account given in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XXII.
Upon hearing the text of the stanza, Pao-yue comprehends the Buddhistic
spells.
While the enigmas for the lanterns are being devised, Chia Cheng is
grieved by a prognostic.
Chia Lien, for we must now prosecute our story, upon hearing lady Feng observe that she had something to consult about with him, felt constrained to halt and to inquire what it was about.
'On the 21st,' lady Feng explained, 'is cousin Hsueeh's birthday, and what do you, after all, purpose doing?'
'Do I know what to do?' exclaimed Chia Lien; 'you have made, time and again, arrangements for ever so many birthdays of grown-up people, and do you, really, find yourself on this occasion without any resources?'
'Birthdays of grown-up people are subject to prescribed rules,' lady Feng expostulated; 'but her present birthday is neither one of an adult nor that of an infant, and that's why I would like to deliberate with you!'
Chia Lien upon hearing this remark, lowered his head and gave himself to protracted reflection. 'You're indeed grown dull!' he cried; 'why you've a precedent ready at hand to suit your case! Cousin Lin's birthday affords a precedent, and what you did in former years for cousin Lin, you can in this instance likewise do for cousin Hsueeh, and it will be all right.'
At these words lady Feng gave a sarcastic smile. 'Do you, pray, mean to insinuate,' she added, 'that I'm not aware of even this! I too had previously come, after some thought, to this conclusion; but old lady Chia explained, in my hearing yesterday, that having made inquiries about all their ages and their birthdays, she learnt that cousin Hsueeh would this year be fifteen, and that though this was not the birthday, which made her of age, she could anyhow well be regarded as being on the dawn of the year, in which she would gather up her hair, so that our dowager lady enjoined that her anniversary should, as a matter of course, be celebrated, unlike that of cousin Lin.'
'Well, in that case,' Chia Lien suggested, 'you had better make a few additions to what was done for cousin Lin!'
'That's what I too am thinking of,' lady Feng replied, 'and that's why I'm asking your views; for were I, on my own hook, to add anything you would again feel hurt for my not have explained things to you.'
'That will do, that will do!' Chia Lien rejoined laughing, 'none of these sham attentions for me! So long as you don't pry into my doings it will be enough; and will I go so far as to bear you a grudge?'
With these words still in his mouth, he forthwith went off. But leaving him alone we shall now return to Shih Hsiang-yuen. After a stay of a couple of days, her intention was to go back, but dowager lady Chia said: 'Wait until after you have seen the theatrical performance, when you can return home.'
At this proposal, Shih Hsiang-yuen felt constrained to remain, but she, at the same time, despatched a servant to her home to fetch two pieces of needlework, which she had in former days worked with her own hands, for a birthday present for Pao-ch'ai.
Contrary to all expectations old lady Chia had, since the arrival of Pao-ch'ai, taken quite a fancy to her, for her sedateness and good nature, and as this happened to be the first birthday which she was about to celebrate (in the family) she herself readily contributed twenty taels which, after sending for lady Feng, she handed over to her, to make arrangements for a banquet and performance.
'A venerable senior like yourself,' lady Feng thereupon smiled and ventured, with a view to enhancing her good cheer, 'is at liberty to celebrate the birthday of a child in any way agreeable to you, without any one presuming to raise any objection; but what's the use again of giving a banquet? But since it be your good pleasure and your purpose to have it celebrated with eclat, you could, needless to say, your own self have spent several taels from the private funds in that old treasury of yours! But you now produce those twenty taels, spoiled by damp
