"If both of you are to sleep on that," Pao-yü smiled, "there won't be a soul with me outside, and I shall be in an awful funk. Even you won't be able to have a wink of sleep during the whole night!"
"As far as I'm concerned," Ch'ing Wen put in, "I'm going to sleep in here. There's She Yüeh, so you'd better induce her to come and sleep outside."
But while they kept up this conversation, the first watch drew near, and She Yüeh at once lowered the mosquito-curtain, removed the lamp, burnt the joss-sticks, and waited upon Pao-yü until he got into bed. The two maids then retired to rest. Ch'ing Wen reclined all alone on the warming-frame, while She Yüeh lay down outside the winter apartments.
The third watch had come and gone, when Pao-yü, in the midst of a dream, started calling Hsi Jen. He uttered her name twice, but no one was about to answer him. And it was after he had stirred himself out of sleep that he eventually recalled to mind that Hsi Jen was not at home, and he had a hearty fit laughter to himself.
Ch'ing Wen however had been roused out of her sleep, and she called She Yüeh. "Even I," she said, "have been disturbed, fast asleep though I was; and, lo, she keeps a look-out by his very side and doesn't as yet know anything about his cries! In very deed she is like a stiff corpse!"
She Yüeh twisted herself round and yawned. "He calls Hsi Jen," she smilingly rejoined, "so what's that to do with me? What do you want?" proceeding, she then inquired of him.
"I want some tea," Pao-yü replied.
She Yüeh hastily jumped out of bed, with nothing on but a short wadded coat of red silk.
"Throw my pelisse over you;" Pao-yü cried; "for mind it's cold!"
She Yüeh at these words put back her hands, and, taking the warm pelisse, lined even up to the lapel, with fur from the neck of the sable, which Pao-yü had put on on getting up, she threw it over her shoulders and went below and washed her hands in the basin. Then filling first a cup with tepid water, she brought a large cuspidor for Pao-yü to wash his mouth. Afterwards, she drew near the tea-case, and getting a cup, she first rinsed it with lukewarm water, and pouring half a cup of tea from the warm teapot, she handed it to Pao-yü. After he had done, she herself rinsed her mouth, and swallowed half a cupful of tea.