'Why, the men themselves were deaf,' lady Feng rejoined.
After listening to her, they pondered for a while, and then suddenly they laughed aloud in chorus. But remembering that her first story had been left unfinished, they inquired of her: 'What was, after all, the issue of the first story? You should conclude that too.'
Lady Feng gave a rap on the table with her hand. 'How vexatious you are!' she exclaimed. 'Well, the next day was the sixteenth; so the festivities of the year were over, and the feast itself was past and gone. I see people busy putting things away, and fussing about still, so how can I make out what will be the end of it all?'
At this, one and all indulged in renewed merriment.
'The fourth watch has long ago been struck outside,' lady Feng smilingly said. 'From what I can see, our worthy senior is also tired out; and we should, like when the cracker was let off in that story of the deaf people, be bundling ourselves off and finish!'
Mrs. Yu and the rest covered their mouths with their handkerchiefs and laughed. Now they stooped forward; and now they bent backward. And pointing at her, 'This thing,' they cried, 'has really a mean tongue.'
Old lady Chia laughed. 'Yes,' she said, 'this vixen Feng has, in real truth, developed a meaner tongue than ever! But she alluded to crackers,' she added, 'so let's also let off a few fireworks so as to counteract the fumes of the wine.'
Chia Jung overheard the suggestion. Hurriedly leaving the room, he took the pages with him, and having a scaffolding erected in the court, they hung up the fireworks, and got everything in perfect readiness. These fireworks were articles of tribute, sent from different states, and were, albeit not large in size, contrived with extreme ingenuity. The representations of various kinds of events of antiquity were perfect, and in them were inserted all sorts of crackers.
Lin Tai-yue was naturally of a weak disposition, so she could not stand the report of any loud intonation. Her grandmother Chia therefore clasped her immediately in her embrace. Mrs. Hsueeh, meanwhile, took Hsiang-yuen in her arms.
'I'm not afraid,' smiled Hsiang-yuen.
'Nothing she likes so much as letting off huge crackers,' Pao-ch'ai smilingly interposed, 'and could she fear this sort of thing?'
Madame Wang, thereupon, laid hold of Pao-yue, and pulled him in her lap.
'We've got no one to care a rap for us,' lady Feng laughed.
'I'm here for you,' Mrs. Yu rejoined with a laugh. 'I'll embrace you. There you're again behaving like a spoilt child. You've heard about crackers, and you comport yourself as if you'd had honey to eat! You're quite frivolous again to-day!'
'Wait till we break up,' lady Feng answered laughing, 'and we'll go and let some off in our garden. I can fire them far better than any of the young lads!'
While they bandied words, one kind of firework after another was lighted outside, and then later on some more again. Among these figured 'fill-heaven-stars;' 'nine dragons-enter-clouds;' 'over-whole-land-a-crack-of- thunder;' 'fly-up-heavens;' 'sound-ten shots,' and other such small crackers.
The fireworks over, the young actresses were again asked to render the 'Lotus-flowers-fall,' and cash were strewn upon the stage. The young girls bustled all over the boards, snatching cash and capering about.
The soup was next brought. 'The night is long,' old lady Chia said, 'and somehow or other I feel peckish.'
'There's some congee,' lady Feng promptly remarked, 'prepared with duck's meat.'
'I'd rather have plain things,' dowager lady Chia answered.
'There's also some congee made with non-glutinous rice and powder of dates. It's been cooked for the ladies who fast.'
'If there's any of this, it will do very well,' old lady Chia replied.
While she spoke, orders were given to remove the remnants of the banquet, and inside as well as outside; were served every kind of
On the seventeenth, they also repaired, at an early hour, to the Ning mansion to present their compliments; and remaining in attendance, while the doors of the ancestral hall were closed and the images put away, they, at length, returned to their quarters.
Invitations had been issued on this occasion to drink the new year wine at Mrs. Hsueeh's residence. But dowager lady Chia had been out on several consecutive days, and so tired out did she feel that she withdrew to her rooms, after only a short stay.
After the eighteenth, relatives and friends arrived and made their formal invitations; or else they came as guests to the banquets given. But so little was old lady Chia in a fit state to turn her mind to anything that the two ladies, Madame Hsing and lady Feng, had to attend between them to everything that cropped up. But Pao-yue as well did not go anywhere else than to Wang Tzu-t'eng's, and the excuse he gave out was that his grandmother kept him at home to dispel her ennui.
We need not, however, dilate on irrelevant details. In due course, the festival of the fifteenth of the first moon passed. But, reader, if you have any curiosity to learn any subsequent events, listen to those given in the chapter below.
CHAPTER LV.
The stupid secondary wife, dame Chao, needlessly loses her temper and
insults her own daughter, T'an Ch'un.
The perverse servant-girls are so full of malice that they look down
contemptuously on their youthful mistresses.
We will now resume our narration with the Jung Mansion. Soon after the bustle of the new year festivities, lady Feng who, with the most arduous duties she had had to fulfil both before and after the new year, had found little time to take proper care of herself, got a miscarriage and could not attend to the management of domestic affairs. Day after day two and three doctors came and prescribed for her. But lady Feng had ever accustomed herself to be hardy, so although unable to go out of doors, she nevertheless devised the ways and means for everything, and made the various arrangements she deemed necessary, and whatever concern suggested itself to her mind, she entrusted to P'ing Erh to lay before Madame Wang. But however much people advised her to be careful, she would not lend an ear to them. Madame Wang felt as if she had been deprived of her right arm. And as she alone had not sufficient energy to see to everything, she bestowed her own attention upon such important affairs, as turned up, and entrusted, for the time being, all miscellaneous domestic matters to the co-operation of Li Wan.
Li Wan had at all times held virtue at a high price, and set but little value on talents of any kind, so that she, as a matter of course, displayed leniency to those who were placed under her. Madame Wang accordingly bade T'an Ch'un combine with Li Wan in the management of the household. 'In a month,' she argued, 'lady Feng will be getting all right again, and then you can once more hand over charge to her.'
Little, however, though one would think it, lady Feng was endowed with a poor physique. From her youth up, moreover, she had not known how to husband her health; and emulation and contentiousness had, more than anything else, combined to undermine her vital energies. Hence it was that although her complaint was a simple miscarriage, it had really, after all, been the outcome of loss of vigour. After a month symptoms of emissions of blood began also to show themselves. And notwithstanding her reluctance to utter what she felt every one, at the sight of her sallow and emaciated face, readily concluded that she was not nursing herself as well as she should.
Madame Wang therefore enjoined her merely to take her medicines and look to herself with due care; and she would not allow her to disquiet her mind about the least thing. But (lady Feng) herself also gave way to misgivings lest her illness should assume some grave phase, and much though she laughed with one and all, she was ever mindful to steal time to attend to her health, feeling inwardly vexed at not being able to soon get back her old strength again. But she had, as it happened, to dose herself with medicines and to nurse herself for three whole
