Pao-ch'in thereupon recited:
Last night in the Purple Chamber I dreamt.
This evening on the 'Shui Kuo' Isle I sing.
The clouds by the isle cover the broad sea.
The zephyr from the peaks reaches the woods.
The moon has never known present or past.
From shallow and deep causes springs love's fate.
When I recall my springs south of the Han,
Can I not feel disconsolate at heart?
After listening to her, "She does deserve credit," they unanimously shouted, "for she really is far superior to us, Chinese though we be."
But scarcely was this remark out of their lips, when they perceived She Yüeh walk in. "Madame Wang," she said, "has sent a servant to inform you, Master Secundus, that 'you are to go at an early hour to-morrow morning to your maternal uncle's, and that you are to explain to him that her ladyship isn't feeling quite up to the mark, and that she cannot pay him a visit in person.'"
Pao-yü precipitately jumped to his feet (out of deference to his mother), and signified his assent, by answering 'Yes.' He then went on to inquire of Pao-ch'ai and Pao-ch'in, "Are you two going?"
"We're not going," Pao-ch'ai rejoined. "We simply went there yesterday to take our presents over but we left after a short chat."
Pao-yü thereupon pressed his female cousins to go ahead and he then followed them. But Tai-yü called out to him again and stopped him. "When is Hsi Jen, after all, coming back?" she asked.
"She'll naturally come back after she has accompanied the funeral,"
Pao-yü retorted.
Tai-yü had something more she would have liked to tell him, but she found it difficult to shape it into words. After some moments spent in abstraction, "Off with you!" she cried.
Pao-yü too felt that he treasured in his heart many things he would fain confide to her, but he did not know what to bring to his lips, so after cogitating within himself for a time, he likewise observed smilingly: "We'll have another chat to-morrow," and, as he said so, he wended his way down the stairs. Lowering his head, he was just about to take a step forward, when he twisted himself round again with alacrity. "Now that the nights are longer than they were, you're sure to cough often and wake several times in the night; eh?" he asked.