The Red Chamber by Pauline A. Chen

Author:Pauline A. Chen [Chen, Pauline A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Sagas, Cultural Heritage, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780307958419
Google: BZIhwBwwh8UC
Amazon: B006XWYGCW
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2012-07-09T14:00:00+00:00

3

Daiyu suddenly feels that her robes are wet. She raises herself up on her elbows to look around, and discovers that she is lying on a raft in an endless, surging ocean. The raft is of thin boards, stitched together with string and vines. The waves are lapping over it and seeping through the cracks. She wants to tighten the string and vines, yet she fears that undoing any of them would simply cause the raft to disintegrate. She scans the four directions for help. There is nothing, just miles of empty, restless sea. She kneels and looks over the edge, glimpsing the limitless depths beneath her. She is overtaken by a strange dizziness, almost vertigo, as if she is perched not on a raft but on the top story of a pagoda. She squats down and clings to the edge of the raft with her eyes shut, feeling the uneasy heaving as she tries to stop herself from being sick.

She wakes up, blinking, from the nightmare. She had slept badly the night before, and slipped into a heavy slumber when she lay down after lunch. The familiar dream had come to her again, leaving her dull and dispirited. She gazes around the empty room, tempted to spend the afternoon in bed. Then she recalls Snowgoose’s injunctions that she take better care of herself: faithful Snowgoose, who comes over before Granny wakes to make sure that Daiyu gets out of bed. Sighing, she puts on her shoes.

She decides to visit Baochai, and begins to walk along the shore of the lake towards Mrs. Xue’s apartments. Baochai has visited her only once since her return to Rongguo, and she continues to be baffled by Baochai’s coldness. Doesn’t Baochai understand how lonely Daiyu is at Rongguo? Why doesn’t she show any sympathy for Daiyu’s loss? Could she have inadvertently offended Baochai?

She hears someone calling, and looks up to see a punt in the middle of the lake, Baoyu poling it from the stern, Huan seated in the bow. Her spirits rise at the sight of the half brothers together. She hardly sees Baoyu these days. He is busy until ten o’clock every night working with a “crammer” to prepare for the Exams. Sometimes he slips into her bedroom to see her afterwards, as he had on her first night back, but he stays for only a few minutes. She clambers down the bank to the water’s edge. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“The schoolmaster wasn’t feeling well. He let us out early, so we thought we’d take out one of the boats,” Huan says, as Baoyu pilots the boat in her direction. “We wanted to ask you to come, but were afraid that you were still napping.”

“I was. I just woke up,” she calls back, smiling. She has come to like Huan since her return to Rongguo. He has been kind to her, asking about her father’s illness and death, saying how sorry he was. He has grown taller, almost as tall as Baoyu, and no longer teases his cousins.

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