Turning then to his son, he pleasantly requested him to excuse himself to the assemblage, and follow him for a few minutes to a private apartment.
As soon as they were alone, the adipose ex-censor of the highest board said:—"My son, have you thought of wedding this maiden?"
"Nothing shall divert me from that purpose, O my father," confidently answered Mien-yaun.
"Nothing but my displeasure," said the ex-censor of the highest board.
"You will not marry her."
Mien-yaun was thunderstruck. When he had said that nothing should awe him from the career of his humor, he had never contemplated the appalling contingency of the interposition of paternal authority. He wept, he prayed, he raved, he gnashed his teeth, he tore out as much of his hair as was consistent with appearances. He went through all the various manifestations of despair, but without producing the slightest effect upon the inexorable ex-censor of the highest board. That worthy official briefly explained his objections to a union between his son, the pride and joy of the Tse, and a daughter of one of the Kung, and then, taking the grief-stricken lover by the hand, he led him back to the gardens.
"Good friends," said he, "my son has just conveyed to me his lively appreciation of the folly he was about to commit. He renounces all connection with the black-haired daughter of the Kung, whom he now wishes a very good evening."
And the ex-censor of the highest board gravely and gracefully bowed the family of Tching-whang out of the premises. The moment they crossed the threshold, Mien-yaun and Ching-ki-pin went into a simultaneous fit.
VIII.
Mien-yaun now abandoned himself to grief. He laid away the peacock's feather on a lofty shelf, and took to cotton breeches. Mien-yaun in cotton breeches! What stronger confirmation could be needed of his utter desolation? As he kept himself strictly secluded, he knew nothing of the storm of ridicule that was sweeping his once illustrious name disgracefully through the city. He knew not that a popular but unscrupulous novelist had caught up the sad story and wrought it into three thrilling volumes,—nor that an enterprising dramatist had constructed a closely-written play in five acts, founded on the event, and called "The Judgment of Taoli, or Vanity Rebuked," which had been prepared, rehearsed, and put upon the stage by the second night after the occurrence. He would gladly have abdicated the throne of fashion; he cared nothing for that;—but it was well that he was spared the humiliation of seeing his Ching-ki-pin's name held up to public scorn; that would have destroyed the feeble remains of intellect which yet inhabited his bewildered brain.
Occasionally he would address the most piteous entreaties to his cruel parent, but always unavailingly. He had not the spirit to show resentment, even if the elementary principles would have permitted it. The reaction of his life had come. This first great sorrow had completely overwhelmed him, and, like most young persons in the agony of a primal disappointment, he believed that the world had now no charms for him, and that in future his existence would be little better than a long sad bore. He looked back upon his career of gaudy magnificence without regret, and felt like a blasé butterfly, who would gladly return to the sober obscurity of the chrysalis. He found that wealth and station, though they might command the admiration of the world, could not insure him happiness; and he thought how readily he would resign all the gifts and glories which Fortune had showered on him for the joyous hope, could he dare to indulge it, of a cottage on the banks of the Grand Canal, with his darling Ching-ki-pin at his side.