"If I do ruin my health," Tai-yü rejoined, "and I die, it's my own lookout! what's that to do with you?"
"What's the good," protested Pao-yü, "of talking in this happy first moon of dying and of living?"
"I will say die," insisted Tai-yü, "die now, at this very moment! but you're afraid of death; and you may live a long life of a hundred years, but what good will that be!"
"If all we do is to go on nagging in this way," Pao-yü remarked smiling, "will I any more be afraid to die? on the contrary, it would be better to die, and be free!"
"Quite so!" continued Tai-yü with alacrity, "if we go on nagging in this way, it would be better for me to die, and that you should be free of me!"
"I speak of my own self dying," Pao-yü added, "so don't misunderstand my words and accuse people wrongly."
While he was as yet speaking, Pao-ch'ai entered the room: "Cousin Shih is waiting for you;" she said; and with these words, she hastily pushed Pao-yü on, and they walked away.
Tai-yü, meanwhile, became more and more a prey to resentment; and disconsolate as she felt, she shed tears in front of the window. But not time enough had transpired to allow two cups of tea to be drunk, before Pao-yü came back again. At the sight of him, Tai-yü sobbed still more fervently and incessantly, and Pao-yü realising the state she was in, and knowing well enough how arduous a task it would be to bring her round, began to join together a hundred, yea a thousand kinds of soft phrases and tender words to console her. But at an unforeseen moment, and before he could himself open his mouth, he heard Tai-yü anticipate him.
"What have you come back again for?" she asked. "Let me die or live, as I please, and have done! You've really got at present some one to play with you, one who, compared with me, is able to read and able to compose, able to write, to speak, as well as to joke, one too who for fear lest you should have ruffled your temper dragged you away: and what do you return here for now?"
Pao-yü, after listening to all she had to say, hastened to come up to her. "Is it likely," he observed in a low tone of voice, "that an intelligent person like you isn't so much as aware that near relatives can't be separated by a distant relative, and a remote friend set aside an old friend! I'm stupid, there's no gainsaying, but I do anyhow understand what these two sentiments imply. You and I are, in the first place, cousins on my father's sister's side; while sister Pao-ch'ai and I are two cousins on mother's sides, so that, according to the degrees of relationship, she's more distant than yourself. In the second place, you came here first, and we two have our meals at one table and sleep in one bed, having ever since our youth grown up together; while she has only recently come, and how could I ever distance you on her account?"