"Whether she gives a return feast or not," Pao-yü rejoined with an apathetic smirk, "is no concern of mine!"
When Hsi Jen perceived the tone, so unlike that of other days, with which these words were pronounced: "What's this that you're saying?" she therefore remarked as she gave another smile. "In this pleasant and propitious first moon, when all the ladies and young ladies are in high glee, how is it that you're again in a mood of this sort?"
"Whether the ladies and my cousins be in high spirits or not," Pao-yü replied forcing a grin, "is also perfectly immaterial to me."
"They are all," Hsi Jen added, smilingly, "pleasant and agreeable, and were you also a little pleasant and agreeable, wouldn't it conduce to the enjoyment of the whole company?"
"What about the whole company, and they and I?" Pao-yü urged. "They all have their mutual friendships; while I, poor fellow, all forlorn, have none to care a rap for me."
His remarks had reached this clause, when inadvertently the tears trickled down; and Hsi Jen realising the state of mind he was in, did not venture to say anything further. But as soon as Pao-yü had reflected minutely over the sense and import of this sentence, he could not refrain from bursting forth into a loud fit of crying, and, turning himself round, he stood up, and, drawing near the table, he took up the pencil, and eagerly composed these enigmatical lines:
If thou wert me to test, and I were thee to test,
Our hearts were we to test, and our minds to test,
When naught more there remains for us to test
That will yea very well be called a test,
And when there's naught to put, we could say, to the test,
We will a place set up on which our feet to rest.
After he had finished writing, he again gave way to fears that though he himself could unfold their meaning, others, who came to peruse these lines, would not be able to fathom them, and he also went on consequently to indite another stanza, in imitation of the "Parasitic Plant," which he inscribed at the close of the enigma; and when he had read it over a second time, he felt his heart so free of all concern that forthwith he got into his bed, and went to sleep.
But, who would have thought it, Tai-yü, upon seeing Pao-yü take his departure in such an abrupt manner, designedly made use of the excuse that she was bent upon finding Hsi Jen, to come round and see what he was up to.
"He's gone to sleep long ago!" Hsi Jen replied.