Hung Lou Meng - book 2 | Page 9

and
the others indulged in tears with keener and keener anguish. They hung
between life and death. Mrs. Chao alone was the one who assumed an

outward sham air of distress, while in her heart she felt her wishes
gratified.
The fourth day arrived. At an early hour Pao-yü suddenly opened his
eyes and addressed himself to his grandmother Chia. "From this day
forward," he said, "I may no longer abide in your house, so you had
better send me off at once!"
These words made dowager lady Chia feel as if her very heart had been
wrenched out of her. Mrs. Chao, who stood by, exhorted her. "You
shouldn't, venerable lady," she said, "indulge in excessive grief. This
young man has been long ago of no good; so wouldn't it be as well to
dress him up and let him go back a moment sooner from this world.
You'll also be thus sparing him considerable suffering. But, if you
persist, in not reconciling yourself to the separation and this breath of
his is not cut off, he will lie there and suffer without any respite...."
Her arguments were scarcely ended, when she was spat upon by
dowager lady Chia. "You rotten-tongued, good-for-nothing hag!" she
cried abusively. "What makes you fancy him of no good! You wish
him dead and gone; but what benefit will you then derive? Don't give
way to any dreams; for, if he does die, I'll just exact your lives from
you! It's all because you've been continuously at him, inciting and
urging him to read and write, that his spirit has become so intimidated
that, at the sight of his father, he behaves just like a rat trying to get out
of the way of a cat! And is not all this the result of the bullying of such
a mean herd of women as yourselves! Could you now drive him to
death, your wishes would immediately be fulfilled; but which of you
will I let off?"
Now she shed tears; now she gave vent to abuse.
Chia Cheng, who stood by, heard these invectives; and they so
enhanced his exasperation that he promptly shouted out and made Mrs.
Chao withdraw. He then exerted himself for a time to console (his
senior) by using kindly accents. But suddenly some one came to
announce that the two coffins had been completed. This announcement
pierced, like a dagger, dowager lady Chia to the heart; and while

weeping with despair more intense, she broke forth in violent
upbraidings.
"Who is it,"--she inquired; "who gave orders to make the coffins? Bring
at once the coffin-makers and beat them to death!"
A stir ensued sufficient to convulse the heavens and to subvert the earth.
But at an unforeseen moment resounded in the air the gentle rapping of
a 'wooden fish' bell. A voice recited the sentence: "Ave! Buddha able to
unravel retribution and dispel grievances! Should any human being lie
in sickness, and his family be solicitous on his account; or should any
one have met with evil spirits and come across any baleful evils, we
have the means to effect a cure."
Dowager lady Chia and Madame Wang at once directed servants to go
out into the street and find out who it was. It turned out to be, in fact, a
mangy-headed bonze and a hobbling Taoist priest. What was the
appearance of the bonze?
His nose like a suspended gall; his two eyebrows so long, His eyes,
resembling radiant stars, possessed a precious glow, His coat in tatters
and his shoes of straw, without a home; Rolling in filth, and, a worse
fate, his head one mass of boils.
And the Taoist priest, what was he like?
With one leg perchèd high he comes, with one leg low; His whole
frame drenching wet, bespattered all with mud. If you perchance meet
him, and ask him where's his home, "In fairyland, west of the 'Weak
Water,' he'll say."
Chia Cheng ordered the servants to invite them to walk in. "On what
hill," he asked those two persons, "do you cultivate the principles of
reason?
"Worthy official!" the bonze smiled, "you must not ask too many
questions! It's because we've learnt that there are inmates of your
honourable mansion in a poor state of health that we come with the

express design of working a cure."
"There are," explained Chia Cheng, "two of our members, who have
been possessed of evil spirits. But, is there, I wonder, any remedy by
means of which they could he healed?"
"In your family," laughingly observed the Taoist priest, "you have
ready at hand a precious thing, the like of which is rare to find in the
world. It possesses the virtue of alleviating the ailment, so why need
you inquire about remedies?"
Chia Cheng's mind