pressing round Pao-yue. The moment the four dames caught sight of him, they speedily rose to their feet. 'He has given us such a start!' they exclaimed smilingly. 'Had we not come into your worthy mansion, and perchance, met him, elsewhere, we would have taken him for our own Pao-yue, and followed him as far as the capital.'
While speaking they came forward and took hold of his hands and assailed him with questions.
Pao-yue however also put on a smile and inquired after their healths.
'How do his looks compare with those of your young gentleman?' dowager lady Chia asked as she smiled.
'The way the four dames ejaculated just now,' Li Wan and her companions explained, 'was sufficient to show how much they resemble in looks.'
'How could there ever he such a coincidence?' old lady Chia laughed. 'Yet, the children of wealthy families are so delicately nurtured that unless their faces are so deformed as to make them downright ugly, they're all equally handsome, as far as general appearances go. So there's nothing strange in this!'
'As we gaze at his features,' the quartet added, with smiling faces, 'we find him the very image of him; and from what we gather from your venerable ladyship, he's also like him in waywardness. But, as far as we can judge, this young gentleman's disposition is ever so much better than that of ours.'
'What makes you think so?' old lady Chia precipitately inquired.
'We saw it as soon as we took hold of the young gentleman's hands,' the four women laughingly rejoined, 'and when he spoke to us. Had it been that fellow of ours, he would have simply called us fools. Not to speak of taking his hand in ours, why we daren't even slightly move any of his things. That's why, those who wait on him are invariably young girls.'
Before the four dames had time to conclude what they had to say, Li Wan and the rest found it so hard to check themselves that with one voice they burst into loud laughter.
Old lady Chia also laughed. 'Let's also send some one now,' she said, 'to have a look at your Pao-yue. When his hand is taken, he too is sure to make an effort to put up with it. But don't you know that children of families such as yours and mine are bound, notwithstanding their numerous perverse and strange defects, to return the orthodox civilities, when they come across any strangers. But should they not return the proper civilities, they should, by no manner of means, be suffered to behave with such perverseness. It's the way that grown-up people doat on them that makes them what they are. And as they can, first and foremost, boast of bewitching good looks and they comport themselves, secondly, towards visitors with all propriety-, in fact, with less faulty deportment than their very seniors-, they manage to win the love and admiration of such as only get a glimpse of them. Hence it is that they're secretly indulged to a certain degree. But if they don't show the least regard to any one inside or outside, and so reflect no credit upon their parents, they deserve, with all their handsome looks, to be flogged to death.'
These sentiments evoked a smile from the four dames. 'Your words venerable lady,' they exclaimed, 'are quite correct. But though our Pao-yue be wilful and strange in his ways, yet, whenever he meets any visitors, he behaves with courteousness and good manners; so much so, that he's more pleasing to watch than even grown-up persons. There is no one, therefore, who sees him without falling in love with him. But you'll say: 'why is he then beaten?' You really aren't aware that at home he has no regard either for precept or for heaven; that he comes out with things that never suggest themselves to the imagination of grown-up people, and that he does everything that takes one by surprise. The result is that his father and mother are driven to their wits' ends. But wilfulness is natural to young children. Reckless expenditure is a common characteristic of young men. Antipathy to school is a common feeling with young people. Yet there are ways and means to bring him round. The worse with him is that his disposition is so crotchety and whimsical. Can this ever do?....'
This reply was barely ended when a servant informed them that their mistress had returned. Madame Wang entered the room, and saluted the women. The four dames paid their obeisance to her. But they had just had sufficient time to pass a few general observations, when dowager lady Chia bade them go and rest. Madame Wang then handed the tea in person and withdrew from the apartment. But when the four dames got up to say good-bye, old lady Chia adjourned to Madame Wang's quarters. After a chat with her on domestic affairs, she however told the women to go back; so let us put them by without any further allusion to them.
During this while, old lady Chia's spirits waxed so high, that she told every one and any one she came across that there was another Pao-yue, and that he was, in every respect, the very image of her grandson.
But as each and all bore in mind that there were many inmates among the large households of those officials with official ancestors, called by the same names, that it was an ordinary occurrence for a grandmother to be passionately fond of her grandson, and that there was nothing out-of-the-way about it, they treated the matter as of no significance. Pao-yue alone however was such a hair-brained simpleton that he conjectured that the statements made by the four dames had been intended to flatter his grandmother Chia.
But subsequently he betook himself into the garden to see how Shih Hsiang-yuen was getting on.
'Compose your mind now,' Shih Hsiang-yuen then said to him, 'and go on with your larks! Once, you were as lonely as a single fibre, which can't be woven into thread, and like a single bamboo, which can't form a grove, but now you've found your pair. When you exasperate your parents, and they give you beans, you'll be able to bolt to Nanking in quest of the other Pao-yue.'
'What utter rubbish!' Pao-yue exclaimed. 'Do you too believe that there's another Pao-yue?'
'How is it,' Hsiang-yuen asked, 'that there was some one in the Lieh state called Lin Hsiang-ju, and that during the Han dynasty there lived again another person, whose name was Ssu Ma Hsiang-ju?'
'This matter of names is all well enough,' Pao-yue rejoined with a smile. 'But as it happens, his very appearance is the counterpart of mine. Such a thing could never be!'
'How is it,' Hsiang-yuen inquired, 'that when the K'uang people saw Confucius, they fancied it was Yang Huo?'
'Confucius and Yang Huo,' Pao-yue smilingly argued, 'may have been alike in looks, but they hadn't the same names. Lin and Ssu were again, notwithstanding their identical names, nothing like each other in appearances. But can it ever be possible that he and I should resemble each other in both respects?'
Hsiang-yuen was at a loss what reply to make to his arguments. 'You may,' she consequently remarked smiling, 'propound any rubbish you like, I'm not in the humour to enter into any discussion with you. Whether there be one or not is quite immaterial to me. It doesn't concern me at all.'
Saying this, she lay herself down.
Pao-yue however began again to exercise his mind with further surmises. 'If I say,' he cogitated, 'that there can't be one, there seems from all appearances to be one. And if I say that there is one, I haven't, on the other hand, seen him with my own eyes.'
Sad and dejected he returned therefore to his quarters, and reclining on his couch, he silently communed with his own thoughts until he unconsciously became drowsy and fell fast asleep.
Finding himself (in his dream) in some garden or other, Pao-yue was seized with astonishment. 'Besides our own garden of Broad Vista,' he reflected, 'is there another such garden?' But while indulging in these speculations, several girls, all of whom were waiting-maids, suddenly made their appearance from the opposite direction. Pao-yue was again filled with surprise. 'Besides Yuean Yang, Hsi Jen and P'ing Erh,' he pondered, 'are there verily such maidens as these?'
'Pao-yue!' he heard that company of maids observe, with faces beaming with smiles, 'how is it you find yourself in here?'
Pao-yue laboured under the impression that they were addressing him. With hasty step, he consequently drew near them, and returned their smiles. 'I got here,' he answered, 'quite listlessly. What old family friend's garden is this, I wonder? But sisters, pray, take me for a stroll.'
The maids smiled with one consent. 'Really!' they exclaimed, 'this isn't our Pao-yue. But his looks too are spruce and nice; and he is as precocious too with his tongue.'
Pao-yue caught their remarks. 'Sisters!' he eagerly cried, 'is there actually a second Pao-yue in here?'
'As for the two characters 'Pao-yue,'' the maids speedily explained, 'every one in our house has received our old mistress' and our mistress' injunctions to use them as a spell to protract his life for many years and remove misfortune from his path, and when we call him by that name, he simply goes into ecstasies, at the very mention of it. But you, young brat, from what distant parts of the world do you hail that you've recklessly been also dubbed by the same name? But beware lest we pound that frowzy flesh of yours into mincemeat.'
'Let's be off at once!' urged another maid, as she smiled. 'Don't let our Pao-yue see us here and say again
