Grandmother Jia, with several women of the family present, openly praised Wang Xifeng in a way she usually held back from doing. She said she had long wanted to speak, but had refrained partly because she did not want to make Fengjie too proud of herself, and partly because others might not have agreed. Now, before a room full of wives and in-laws who knew what household burdens meant, she asked whether any of them had ever seen another woman quite so attentive and considerate. Xue Auntie, Li-shen, Lady You, and the rest all laughed and admitted such a person was rare. Plenty of people, they said, behaved properly on the surface, but Fengjie genuinely cared for her younger brothers- and sisters-in-law, and was truly filial before Grandmother Jia as well.
Grandmother Jia sighed that cleverness in excess could also be dangerous. Fengjie instantly turned that into a joke. People always said that those who were too clever did not live long, she replied, but if that saying were true, how could the old matriarch herself be living in such complete blessing and longevity? She even declared that she might outdo her in years yet, and would only die after Grandmother Jia had gone first. The old lady laughed that it would be absurd if everyone else died and only the two of them remained behind as old monsters. The whole room broke into laughter.
Baoyu, however, had other things on his mind. He was worried about the disturbances in his own quarters and returned to the garden early.
When he entered the room, the place was heavy with the smell of medicine, but no one was there except Qingwen, lying alone on the kang. Her face was burning red. He touched her forehead and drew back at once from the heat, then warmed his hand by the brazier and reached under the covers to feel her again. She was feverish all over.
He complained that even if the others had gone out, surely Muskmoon and Qiuwen should not have left her unattended. Qingwen said Qiuwen had only been driven off to eat by her own insistence, and Muskmoon had just gone out because Ping'er had come looking for her. The two of them had been whispering together, she added suspiciously, no doubt saying that because she was sick she would not be going out.
Baoyu told her that Ping'er was not the sort of person to speak ill behind someone else's back. Most likely she had come to find Muskmoon, happened to see Qingwen ill, and naturally spoke a few words of concern. Since Ping'er and Qingwen were usually on good terms, there was no reason to sour the relationship over nothing. Qingwen admitted that was reasonable, but she still could not understand why Ping'er should suddenly keep something from her.
Baoyu offered, half teasingly, to slip out by the back door and listen under the window to hear what they were saying. He did exactly that.
Outside, he heard Muskmoon quietly ask how the matter had happened. Ping'er explained that the bracelet had gone missing when Xifeng washed her hands. Xifeng had immediately forbidden any commotion, and as soon as they left the garden she had sent word around for the old serving women in the various quarters to make discreet inquiries. At first they had suspected the maid of Miss Xing, since the girl came from poverty and might have been tempted by something she had never seen before. No one had expected the theft to have happened in Baoyu's own rooms.
Fortunately, Ping'er said, Xifeng had not been in the room when Song-mama from Baoyu's quarters brought in the bracelet and reported that a little maid named Zhuier had stolen it and been seen with it. Ping'er had quickly taken the bracelet and thought the matter over. Baoyu, she knew, was especially sensitive about the reputation of the girls around him, fiercely protective of them, and apt to take disgrace badly. The incident of the stolen jade from a previous year had not even fully cooled, and people still brought it up at idle moments. Now another theft had surfaced, this time not of jade but of gold, and worse still, the thing had been taken from outside their own household circle. If word spread, the disgrace would fall exactly where Baoyu would feel it most.
So Ping'er had immediately warned Song-mama not to tell Baoyu, not to mention it to anyone, and to treat the matter as though it had never happened. There were other reasons too: Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang would be angered if they heard; and Xiren, along with the others in the room, would lose face. Therefore she had gone back and told Xifeng a different story—that she had been on her way to the senior mistress's place when the bracelet, loosened at the clasp, must have dropped into the grass. Because the snow had been deep, it had not been seen; now that the snow had melted and the sun was striking it, the bracelet turned up bright yellow underfoot, and she had simply picked it up. Xifeng believed that explanation. Ping'er had now come only to warn them to keep an eye on the girl, not let her run errands elsewhere, and once Xiren returned they could discuss some way to dismiss her quietly.
Muskmoon cursed Zhuier as a shameless little thing who had evidently seen enough of the world and should have known better than to be so petty. Ping'er answered that the bracelet itself was not worth so very much—Xifeng called it a “shrimp-whisker bracelet”—and the pearl on it mattered more than the gold. But Qingwen, she said, was as explosive as a lump of live charcoal. If she heard, she would not be able to contain herself. In anger she might beat or scold the girl and still end by shouting the whole affair aloud, which would do nobody any good. For that reason Ping'er had told only Muskmoon and left.
Baoyu listened in a rush of conflicting feelings—gladness, anger, and regret all at once. He was glad that Ping'er understood him so well; angry that Zhuier should have stooped to theft; and sorry too that a lively and capable girl had brought herself to such an ugly pass.
Back inside, he repeated Ping'er's words to Qingwen, some in full and some in part. He also mentioned that Ping'er had called her quick-tempered and competitive, and had feared the news would worsen her illness if she heard it too soon. Qingwen flew into a rage at once. Her brows drew sharply together, her eyes flashed, and she immediately called for Zhuier. Baoyu hurried to stop her, reminding her that if she shouted the matter out, Ping'er's trouble on their behalf would have been wasted. Better to accept Ping'er's good intention and deal with the girl later. Qingwen said that might be reasonable, but how was she supposed to swallow the insult? Baoyu could only tell her to lie still and think of getting well.
That day she took her medicine, and by evening she had swallowed a second dose. At night she sweated a little, but it did not truly break the fever. Her head still throbbed, her nose was blocked, and her voice had grown heavy. The next day the physician came again and altered the prescription. Though the fever eased somewhat, the headache remained.
Baoyu then had Muskmoon fetch some snuff for her. If she could sneeze a few good times, he said, perhaps the blockage in her head would clear. Muskmoon brought a small flat box: gold-mounted, clasped on both sides, made of star-speckled glass. When Baoyu opened it, the lid revealed a Western enamel figure of a yellow-haired, bare-bodied woman with fleshy wings at her sides, and inside was fine imported snuff. Qingwen stared more at the painted figure than the medicine. Baoyu urged her to smell it before the fragrance dissipated.
She first scraped up a little with her fingernail and inhaled it, but felt almost nothing; then she took more. At once a sharp, sour heat rushed through her nose to the crown of her head, and she sneezed five or six times in a row. Tears and mucus ran freely. Laughing through the discomfort, she exclaimed at how fierce it was and asked for paper. A little maid quickly handed her a stack of fine tissue, and she wiped her nose one sheet at a time. Baoyu asked how she felt. She said the passage did seem clearer, though her temples still hurt.
He joked that perhaps they ought to cure her entirely with Western medicine, and told Muskmoon to go to Xifeng and ask for the headache plaster she often used, called Yifulna.
Muskmoon went and, after quite some time, returned with half a strip of it. She found a scrap of red satin, cut two circles about the size of fingertips, warmed the medicine, spread it with a hairpin, and Qingwen herself used a hand mirror to place the plasters on her temples. Muskmoon laughed that in illness Qingwen looked like a disheveled ghost, yet with these patches on she somehow seemed pert and pretty again; on Xifeng, who was used to wearing them, they did not stand out so much.
Then she passed on another message from Xifeng: the next day was Baoyu's maternal uncle's birthday, and Lady Wang had ordered him to go. What should be laid out for him to wear? Baoyu answered listlessly that anything convenient would do. The annual fuss over birthdays was tiresome enough to him.
He went out and wandered to Xichun's room to look at her paintings, but before reaching it he met Xiaoluo, Baoqin's little maid. She told him that both her young ladies were at Daiyu's place. Baoyu at once turned and headed to the Bamboo Lodge.
There he found not only Baochai and Baoqin, but also Xing Xiuyan, all four seated together around the warming cage, talking over family matters. Zijuan sat by the window in the heated side-room doing needlework. The girls laughed as soon as he entered, saying another one had come and there was not even a seat left for him. Baoyu answered that the scene looked like a painting of beauties gathered in a winter boudoir, and though he had arrived too late to improve it, Daiyu's room at least was warmer than the others. He sat in the chair Daiyu often used, covered with grey squirrel fur.
He noticed a stone trough in the warm alcove holding a cluster of single-petaled narcissus among scholar's rocks and praised it warmly. The warmer the room, he said, the richer the fragrance. Why had he not seen it the day before? Daiyu explained that the wife of the household steward had sent Baoqin two pots of wintersweet and two of narcissus; one narcissus had then been given to Daiyu and one wintersweet to Jiaohua. She herself had not wanted it, but had accepted it so as not to slight the sender's feelings. If Baoyu liked it, she asked, should she pass it to him?
Baoyu protested that he had two pots already, though neither as fine as this one. Since it had been given to her, how could she simply pass it to someone else? Daiyu replied that she lived all day beside a decoction kettle and was practically being raised on medicine. How could she bear flower fragrance drifting through a room already steeped in medicinal fumes? It only made her feel weaker, and the smell of medicine spoiled the flowers too. Better he take it away and let the blossoms keep their own clean scent.
Baoyu laughingly remarked that there happened to be a patient in his own room today as well, and medicine boiling there too. Daiyu smiled and said her words had been entirely casual—how was she to know what was happening in his quarters? If he had come earlier, he might have heard the old stories they had been telling, but now he arrived late and startled himself with imagined meanings.
The conversation drifted to poetry. Baoyu suggested that the next poetry gathering should use narcissus and wintersweet as themes. Daiyu immediately begged off, saying she no longer dared write poems: each time she did, she ended up being fined or teased, and it was too embarrassing. She covered her face with both hands. Baoyu laughed that she was mocking him again, since he was the one who had no shame left to lose.
Baochai then proposed, in a more exacting mood, that next time she would host the club herself with four poetry topics and four lyric topics, each person writing four poems and four ci. The first topic, she declared, would be “On the Taiji Diagram,” in regulated five-character verse, using the rhyme group yixian and exhausting every rhyme in it without leaving one unused.
Baoqin burst out laughing and said that proved Baochai was not inviting the club in earnest at all, only setting impossible tasks. One could force out something by turning the language of the Yijing upside down and filling in lines, but where would the fun be in that? She then recalled that when she was eight years old and traveling with her father along the western seacoast to buy foreign goods, they had met a girl from a place called the Real-Real Country. She was only fifteen, but as beautiful as one of those Western painted ladies: yellow hair in long braids, coral, cat's-eye, and emeralds all over her head, a coat of mail woven with gold thread over foreign brocade sleeves, and a Japanese sword mounted with gold and gems. Paintings, Baoqin said, did not do her justice. People said this girl knew Chinese poetry and books, could talk about the Five Classics, and could compose both poems and song lyrics. Baoqin's father had therefore begged an interpreter to ask the girl for a sample of her writing, and she wrote down one of her own poems.
The others were astonished. Baoyu eagerly asked to see it. Baoqin said it had been left stored in Nanjing and could not be produced now, to his great disappointment. Daiyu, however, caught hold of Baoqin with a smile and declared that she was not to be fooled. Since Baoqin had only recently arrived, surely she had brought such curiosities with her rather than leaving them all behind. The others might believe her, but Daiyu did not. Baoqin blushed and lowered her head with a smile, saying nothing. Baochai said that Daiyu had a habit of talking this sort of teasing nonsense, showing off how clever she was. Daiyu said that if Baoqin had brought it, then they should at least be allowed to see it. Baochai answered that Baoqin's trunks and chests were piled everywhere and not yet sorted; once things were arranged, they could look for it.
She then asked Baoqin whether she remembered the poem and could recite it instead. Baoqin said she remembered it as a five-character regulated verse, remarkable enough for a foreign girl. Baochai told her to wait until Xiangyun had been summoned to hear it too, and sent Xiaoluo to fetch her and also Xiangling, joking that a foreign beauty had arrived among them, one who wrote excellent verse, and that the “poetry maniac” and “poetry fool” must come at once.
Before long Xiangyun's laughing voice was already audible before she appeared in person, arriving with Xiangling. After the story was retold, everyone urged Baoqin to recite the poem. She did:
Last night a dream in crimson towers; tonight a song in waterside lands.
Island clouds steam over the great sea; mountain haze joins clustered woods.
The moon belongs neither to now nor olden times; bonds of feeling are shallow or deep by fate.
South of the Han, spring lies vivid before the eyes—how could it fail to stir the heart?
Everyone praised it, saying the girl had done astonishingly well, perhaps better than many Chinese writers. Just then Muskmoon arrived with a message: Lady Wang had sent word that Baoyu was to go early the next morning to his uncle's place, as Lady Wang herself was not well enough to go in person.
After the gathering dispersed, Baoyu let the girls go first and lingered behind. Daiyu stopped him and asked when Xiren would be back. He answered that naturally she would only return after the funeral arrangements were over. Daiyu seemed to have more to say, then lost herself in thought and merely told him to go. Baoyu too felt there were many things in his heart, yet nothing he could quite put into words. Finally he smiled and said they would speak tomorrow.
As he was stepping down, he turned back with sudden urgency and asked how often she had coughed the previous night and how many times she had awakened. Daiyu said the night before had been somewhat better: she had coughed only twice, though after the fourth watch she had been unable to sleep again. Baoyu then remembered some “important” words and moved closer to whisper them. He had just begun to mention the bird's nest soup Baochai had sent her when Zhao Auntie came in to see Daiyu, asking after her health. Daiyu understood at once that the visit was merely a courtesy made while passing by from Tanchun's place. She greeted her politely and, while ordering tea, signaled to Baoyu with her eyes. He understood and quietly withdrew.
At dinner time he saw Lady Wang, who again reminded him to leave early the next day. Returning to his own rooms, he found Qingwen had taken her medicine. That night he did not send her out of the warmed side-room. Instead he slept just outside her bed-space, while Muskmoon slept on the warming cage placed in front of the room. Nothing more happened until dawn.
Before daylight, Qingwen woke Muskmoon and said she ought to be up. Let her go out and have tea and washing water prepared for Baoyu; Qingwen herself would wake him. Muskmoon quickly put on her clothes and said they should first get him up, dress him, and move the brazier before letting the others in. The old serving women had already complained that he should not remain in the same room with a sick maid for fear of catching her illness. If they found them all crowded together again, there would be more scolding. Qingwen agreed.
By the time they called him, Baoyu was already awake. Little maids came in first to set things in order, and only then were Qiuwen, Tan Yun, and the rest allowed in to help him wash and dress. Muskmoon observed that the sky looked dark and threatening, perhaps with snow to come, and suggested he wear the felt-lined outfit. He agreed. A little maid brought him a covered bowl of red date and lotus-seed soup, of which he drank a few mouthfuls, and then Muskmoon offered him a small dish of prepared purple ginger, one piece of which he held in his mouth. After once more instructing Qingwen to rest, he went to Grandmother Jia.
She had not yet risen fully, but on hearing he was about to go out she had the room opened and called him in. Baoqin, still asleep, lay with her face turned inward behind the old lady. Grandmother Jia looked over Baoyu's clothing: a purplish-red riding jacket with narrow sleeves, and over it a bright scarlet felt over-robe edged in dark blue satin and embroidered in gold. She asked whether it was snowing yet. He said the sky was overcast but the snow had not begun.
At that, she ordered Yuanyang to fetch the cloak she had looked at the day before. Yuanyang brought it out. The garment shone with dazzling gold and green brilliance, unlike the duck-feather cloak Baoqin had worn before. Grandmother Jia explained that this was quejin ne, a cloth said to be woven in Russia from threads spun with peacock feathers. The wild-duck one had already been given to Baoyu's younger cousin; this one would now be his. He knelt in thanks and put it on. She told him to show it first to his mother before he left.
As he came out, he saw Yuanyang standing below and rubbing her eyes. Ever since the day she swore her famous vow, she had hardly spoken to him. Baoyu, who had been uneasy about that for some time, tried with a smile to stop her and ask whether the cloak suited him. Yuanyang only shook off his hand and went straight back inside.
He then went to Lady Wang's room, let her see the cloak, returned once more through the garden to show it to Qingwen and Muskmoon, and then went back to Grandmother Jia to report that Lady Wang had admired it and only said it was a pity such a precious thing should be worn carelessly. Grandmother Jia answered that this was the only one left. If he damaged it, there was no replacing it, and no one could simply have another made. She warned him not to drink too much and to come home early. He replied obediently several times.
Outside in the hall, the old serving women escorted him to where his attendants were already waiting: his foster-brother Li Gui, along with Wang Rong, Zhang Ruojin, Zhao Yihua, Qian Qi, Zhou Rui, and four young pages with baggage, saddle-cushions, and a white horse fully caparisoned. The women repeated their instructions. The men bowed and answered yes to everything, held the whip, steadied the stirrup, and helped him mount.
Baoyu suggested they take the side gate so he would not have to dismount near his father's study. Zhou Rui answered that the master was not at home and the study was locked every day, so he could probably remain mounted. Baoyu still insisted that even if the room were locked, proper respect required him to dismount there. The servants laughed and said he was right; if he failed to do it and happened to meet someone such as the senior steward or other elder household men, they would not dare scold Baoyu directly but would certainly blame the attendants for not teaching him proper manners.
As they were speaking, they actually encountered the steward Lai Da head-on. Baoyu at once checked his horse and prepared to get down, but Lai Da hurried forward and held his leg, preventing it. Standing up in the stirrups, Baoyu smiled, took his hand, and exchanged a few words. A little farther on he passed a group of laborers carrying brooms and baskets. They all stood respectfully aside against the wall while their leader bowed. Baoyu did not know his name and merely nodded in acknowledgment. Once out the side gate, the rest of the mounted party joined him, and in a rush they rode off.
Back in the garden, Qingwen's illness still had not broken. Irritable from fever and delay, she cursed the doctor for taking money while never giving a good dose of medicine. Muskmoon laughed and tried to soothe her. Illness comes like a mountain collapse and goes like threads slowly pulled loose, she said; it was not an immortal elixir from Laozi himself. If Qingwen would only rest for a few days, she would naturally improve. The more impatient she grew, the worse she made things.
Qingwen then turned her temper on the younger maids, demanding to know where they had all slunk off to now that she was ill, and threatening to skin them one by one once she recovered. The little maid Zhuaner, frightened, ran in to ask what was needed. Qingwen snapped whether everyone else in the world had died, leaving only her. At that very moment Zhuier too edged her way in.
Qingwen pounced on her at once. Look at that little wretch, she said: unless called, she would not even show her face, yet whenever wages were handed out or fruit was distributed, she would be first in line. She ordered her to come closer and mocked her for standing back as though facing a tiger. When Zhuier timidly approached, Qingwen suddenly reached out, seized her hand, snatched up an embroidery bodkin from beside the pillow, and jabbed wildly at the girl's fingers. What use were such claws, she cried—unable to hold needle or thread properly, good only for stealing things to eat; shallow-eyed, light-fingered, and a public disgrace. Better to stab the hand to pieces. Zhuier howled with pain. Muskmoon hurriedly pulled the girl away and pressed Qingwen back down, scolding her for making herself worse just after sweating a little. There would be time enough to beat people when she recovered; why flare up now?
But Qingwen was not done. She ordered someone to call Song-mama in and then announced, as though speaking on Baoyu's authority, that Baoyu had told her to say Zhuier was lazy, insolent when directly ordered, and even muttered behind Xiren's back. She must be sent away today, and tomorrow Baoyu himself would report it to Lady Wang.
Song-mama immediately understood that the bracelet affair must have been discovered. She answered cautiously that if so, perhaps they should wait until “Flower Girl” returned—meaning Xiren—and let her know before dismissing the maid. Qingwen retorted that Baoyu had repeated the instruction over and over, and what “flower girl” or “grass girl” thought of it was beside the point. They had their own reasons. Let Zhuier's people be called at once and take her away.
Muskmoon agreed that it was all the same whether she went early or late; if she was to go, better the room be quiet one day sooner.
With no better choice, Song-mama went out, summoned Zhuier's mother, and had the girl's belongings gathered. The woman came in protesting bitterly. Since the girl had done wrong, she said, the young ladies could correct her—but why drive her out entirely? At least leave the family some face. Qingwen replied that if she wanted an answer, she could wait and ask Baoyu when he returned. The woman gave a cold laugh and said she had no courage to question him, since in every matter he listened to these young ladies. Even if he consented to something, if the girls did not agree it might still not be done. And now, she added pointedly, though they had been speaking privately before, Qingwen had openly called him by his personal name. When the girls did it, it was acceptable; when common people did, it was called being uncouth.
That only inflamed Qingwen further. If she had called his name, she shouted, then the woman was welcome to report her before Grandmother Jia and have her turned out too for wild behavior. Muskmoon stepped in sharply before the quarrel could grow worse. She told the woman to take the girl and go. This was not a place for her to stand preaching rules of etiquette. Had she ever seen anyone come in there lecturing them on forms? Even women of much higher standing in the household had to yield them some space. As for calling Baoyu by name, Grandmother Jia herself had decreed it from his childhood, because people feared he might be difficult to rear and wanted his pet name pasted everywhere and called by everyone for good fortune. Water carriers, night-soil men, beggars—anyone might call it. Why not the maids around him? Even the day before, when another servant woman had addressed him as “young master,” Grandmother Jia had corrected her. Besides, they spent every day reporting matters to the old lady and naturally had to use his name again and again. If the woman were free another day, she might stand before Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang and hear them say “Baoyu” two hundred times. It was no wonder she did not know the customs inside the inner apartments, Muskmoon added, since she spent all year lingering beyond the gates and never held any proper duties before the senior ladies. This was no place for her to remain standing much longer; if she delayed, someone else would come ask why. If she had evidence or complaints, let her take the girl away and report to Lin-mama, who could then speak to Baoyu.
To end the scene, Muskmoon even told the little maids to bring the floor cloth and wipe the ground, as though the matter were beneath further notice.
The woman could not answer any of this and did not dare stay. Sulking, she led Zhuier away. Song-mama, trying to preserve some decency, told the girl that since she had spent time in this room, she should at least kowtow to the young ladies before leaving. No gifts of thanks were expected or wanted; a bow from the heart would be enough. So Zhuier came back in, knelt, and kowtowed twice to Qingwen and Muskmoon, then looked for Qiuwen and the rest, but no one paid her any attention. Her mother, grieving and resentful but afraid to speak aloud, took her away.
The uproar left Qingwen worse than before. The strain had made the fever rise again, and only around lamp-lighting time did she become a little calmer.
Then Baoyu returned.
The moment he came in, he stamped and sighed in distress. Muskmoon asked what had happened. He said Grandmother Jia had joyfully given him the new over-robe that very day, and yet by bad luck the back hem had somehow been scorched. Fortunately it was late and neither Grandmother Jia nor Lady Wang had looked closely enough to notice. As he spoke, he took it off. Muskmoon examined it and found a burned hole indeed, about the size of a fingertip. It must have been a spark from the hand-warmer, she said. That was not too serious; they should quietly send it out at once and have a clever mender weave the damage shut again.
She wrapped it in a cloth bundle and gave it to an old serving woman with strict instructions to find someone before dawn if possible and not let the senior ladies hear of it. But after a long while the woman came back with the garment untouched. Not only the expert menders, she reported, but tailors, embroiderers, and women who did fine sewing all admitted they did not even recognize the fabric and dared not take the job.
Muskmoon said despairingly that in that case he might simply not wear it tomorrow. Baoyu answered that tomorrow was the actual birthday visit, and Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang had specifically told him to wear this very thing. To ruin it on the first day and then fail to wear it would be a miserable ill omen.
Qingwen had been listening for some time. At last she could not restrain herself and turned over, saying they should bring it to her. If fate meant he had no luck to wear it, so be it—but what was the use of fretting? Baoyu laughed that this, at least, was something sensibly said, and handed it over. He moved the lamp closer while she looked closely for a while.
At length Qingwen said that the cloth was woven with peacock-gold thread. If they could find matching peacock thread and lay in the repair densely, almost like drawn-work or counted weaving, it might possibly pass. Muskmoon said the peacock thread was available, but aside from Qingwen who else in the room knew how to handle such work? Qingwen replied that she would simply have to stake her life on it.
Baoyu protested immediately. She had only just improved a little—how could she possibly do such work? Qingwen cut him off and told him not to buzz and sting around her like a scorpion; she knew her own condition.
Still, when she sat up, pushed back her hair, and put on an outer garment, the effort almost overcame her. Her head felt heavy, her body light and unstable, and sparks seemed to burst before her eyes. She truly could not bear it. Yet if she refused the task, Baoyu would only agonize, so she clenched her teeth and forced herself on. She told Muskmoon merely to help sort and hold the threads.
First she compared a strand and said that although it was not perfectly alike, once woven in it might not show much. Baoyu declared that this was already excellent; what, after all, were they to do—send for a Russian tailor?
Qingwen then carefully unpicked the lining and stretched the damaged section over the mouth of a teacup with a small bamboo frame fixed on the reverse. With a little gold knife she scraped and loosened the fibers around the burned edges, then drew out and separated the warp and weft, exactly as one would in fine counted mending. She first restored the ground and then, following the original pattern of the cloth, wove back and forth into the gap.
Every two stitches she had to pause and inspect the work. Then two more stitches, and another long look. Her dizziness, dim vision, weakness of breath, and general exhaustion made sustained work impossible. After only three or five stitches she would collapse face-down on the pillow to rest a moment before beginning again.
All the while Baoyu fussed anxiously at her side. One moment he asked if she wanted hot water; the next he told her to stop and rest; then he took a grey squirrel cape and draped it over her shoulders; then he ordered someone to fetch her a support pillow to lean on. At last Qingwen, almost driven mad by his solicitude, begged him for pity. If he stayed up half the night like this, what would happen to his eyes tomorrow? He should just go to sleep.
Seeing that his agitation only increased hers, Baoyu finally lay down carelessly, though he could not really sleep. Later the chiming clock sounded four. Only then was the patch finished. Qingwen even took a little brush and slowly teased the nap of the cloth back out so the repaired place would blend with the rest. Muskmoon examined it and said that if one did not look carefully, it could no longer be seen at all. Baoyu eagerly took it up, looked it over, and said with delight that it was truly the same as before.
But Qingwen had already coughed several times during the work, and when it was finally done she said weakly that repaired though it was, it still could not be completely identical, and as for herself, she could do no more. With a cry, she lost control of her body and fell back.