A History of Chinese Literature

by Herbert Allen Giles

“And what lover do you think I could ever care to find now?” rejoined Tai-yü.

“Well,” replied Pao-yü, “I should of course wish it to be myself. I consider you indeed mine already; and if you think of the way I have always behaved towards you ...”

“What!” said Tai-yü, partly misunderstanding his words, “can it be you after all? and do you really wish me to remain with you?”

“You shall see with your own eyes,” answered Pao-yü, “even into the inmost recesses of my heart, and then perhaps you will believe.”

Thereupon he drew a knife, and plunging it into his body, ripped himself open so as to expose his heart to view. With a shriek Tai-yü tried to stay his hand, and felt herself drenched with the flow of fresh warm blood; when suddenly Pao-yü uttered a loud groan, and crying out, “Great heaven, my heart is gone!” fell senseless to the ground. “Help! help!” screamed Tai-yü; “he is dying! he is dying!” “Wake up! wake up!” said Tai-yü’s maid; “whatever has given you nightmare like this?”

So Tai-yü waked up and found that she had had a bad dream. But she had something worse than that. She had a bad illness to follow; and strange to say, Pao-yü was laid up at the same time. The doctor came and felt her pulse—both pulses, in fact—and shook his head, and drank a cup of tea, and said that Tai-yü’s vital principle wanted nourishment, which it would get out of a prescription he then and there wrote down. As to Pao-yü, he was simply suffering from a fit of temporary indigestion.

So Tai-yü got better, and Pao-yü recovered his spirits. His father had returned home, and he was once more obliged to make some show of work, and consequently had fewer hours to spend in the society of his cousin. He was now a young man, and the question of his marriage began to occupy a foremost place in the minds of his parents and grandmother. Several names were proposed, one especially by his father; but it was finally agreed that it was unnecessary to go far afield to secure a fitting bride. It was merely a choice between the two charming young ladies who had already shared so much in his daily life. But the difficulty lay precisely there. Where each was perfection it became invidious to choose. In another famous Chinese novel, already described, a similar difficulty is got over in this way—the hero marries both. Here, however, the family elders were distracted by rival claims. By their gentle, winning manners, Pao-ch‘ai and Tai-yü had made themselves equally beloved by all the inmates of these two noble houses, from the venerable grandmother down to the meanest slave-girl. Their beauty was of different styles, but at the bar of man’s opinion each would probably have gained an equal number of votes. Tai-yü was undoubtedly the cleverer of the two, but Pao-ch‘ai had better health; and in the judgment of those with whom the decision rested, health carried the day. It was arranged that Pao-yü was to marry Pao-ch‘ai.

This momentous arrangement was naturally made in secret. Various preliminaries would have to be gone through before a verbal promise could give place to formal betrothal. And it is a well-ascertained fact that secrets can only be kept by men, while this one was confided to at least a dozen women. Consequently, one night when Tai-yü was ill and alone in her room, yearning for the love that had already been contracted away to another, she heard two slave-girls outside whispering confidences, and fancied she caught Pao-yü’s name. She listened again, and this time without doubt, for she heard them say that Pao-yü was engaged to marry a lady of good family and many accomplishments. Just then a parrot called out, “Here’s your mistress: pour out the tea!” which frightened the slave-girls horribly; and they forthwith separated, one of them running inside to attend upon Tai-yü herself. She finds her young mistress in a very agitated state, but Tai-yü is always ailing now.

This time she was seriously ill. She ate nothing. She was racked by a dreadful cough. Even a Chinese doctor could now hardly fail to see that she was far advanced in a decline. But none knew that the sickness of her body had originated in sickness of the heart.

One night she grew rapidly worse and worse, and lay to all appearances dying. A slave-girl ran to summon her grandmother, while several others remained in the room talking about Pao-yü and his intended marriage. “It was all off,” said one of them. “His grandmother would not agree to the young lady chosen by his father. She had already made her own choice—of another young lady who lives in the family, and of whom we are all very fond.” The dying girl heard these words, and it then flashed across her that after all she must herself be the bride intended for Pao-yü. “For if not I,” argued she, “who can it possibly be?” Thereupon she rallied as it were by a supreme effort of will, and, to the great astonishment of all, called for a drink of tea. Those who had come expecting to see her die were now glad to think that her youth might ultimately prevail.