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Updated: May 2, 2025
"But do you remember when we were living, about ten years back, in those warm rooms on the west side and you confided in me one evening, you didn't feel any shame then; and how is it you blush like this now?" "Do you still speak about that!" exclaimed Shih Hsiang-yuen laughingly. "You and I were then great friends.
But it just happened that Pao-ch'ai, who was coming along, was at the back of Hsiang-yuen, and with a face also beaming with smiles: "I advise you both," she said, "to leave off out of respect for cousin Pao-yue, and have done." "I don't agree to that," Tai-yue rejoined; "are you people, pray, all of one mind to do nothing but make fun of me?" "Who ventures to make fun of you?"
Tai-yue also smiled while suggesting: The broom, with which the bonze sweepeth the hill, is sunk in snow. Pao-ch'in too smilingly cried: The young lad takes away the lute interred in snow. Hsiang-yuen laughed to such a degree that she was bent in two; and she muttered a line with such rapidity that one and all inquired of her: "What are you, after all, saying?"
Pao-yue laughed. "If you imitate her," he interposed, "and get into that habit, you'll also begin to bite your tongue when you talk." "She won't make even the slightest allowance for any one," Hsiang-yuen rejoined; "her sole idea being to pick out others' faults.
But how was it possible for one so loquacious as Hsiang-yuen to avoid the subject of verses, when Hsiang Ling repeatedly begged her for explanations? This inspirited her so much the more, that not a day went by, yea not a single night, on which she did not start some loud argument and lengthy discussion.
Then puffing out her cheeks, she added not a word. The whole party was at first taken quite aback. But, as soon as they heard the drift of her remarks, every one, both high as well as low, began to laugh boisterously. Hsiang-yuen found it so difficult to restrain herself that she spurted out the tea she had in her mouth.
During this while, Pao-ch'ai continued her conversation with Hsiang-yuen. "The themes for the verses," she advised her, "mustn't also be too out-of-the-way. Just search the works of old writers, and where will you find any eccentric and peculiar subjects, or any extra difficult metre! If the subject be too much out-of-the-way and the metre too difficult, one cannot get good verses.
By lamplight, Hsiang-yuen consulted with her how she was to play the hostess and fix upon the themes; but, after lending a patient ear to all her proposals for a long time, Pao-ch'ai thought them so unsuitable for the occasion, that turning towards her, she raised objections. "If you want," she said, "to hold a meeting, you have to pay the piper.
"I'm well aware," dowager lady Chia said, "that as you're up to something again to-day, you people have no mind even for your meal. Let them keep," she therefore cried, "that venison for their evening repast!" "What an idea!" lady Feng promptly put in. "We'll have enough with what remains of it." Shih Hsiang-yuen thereupon consulted with Pao-yue.
And as to the rest, Hsiang-yuen had, though a young girl, and of delicate physique, nevertheless ever been very fond of talking and discussing; but, on this instance, Chia Cheng was at the feast, so that she also held her tongue and restrained her words.
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