The Red Chamber Read Free

four, only Ping’er remained. One had gotten sick and died; Xifeng had married the other two off when they were twenty. Like Xifeng herself, Ping’er is twenty-three, but Xifeng would sooner cut off one of her own arms than give her up.
    Ping’er loosens Xifeng’s hair from the “lazy knot” that Xifeng has slept in. Then she gathers Xifeng’s hair like a skein of silk and begins to comb it, catching it in her hand between each stroke. When at last the comb slides through Xifeng’s hair without the least resistance, Ping’er scoops up a handful of hairpins.
    “Allowances are due today. Did you remember?” Xifeng asks, looking at Ping’er in the large West Ocean glass mirror mounted on the dressing table. Ever since her mother-in-law, Lady Xing, died three years ago, Xifeng has run the household.
    “Mmm,” Ping’er grunts. She has put the hairpins in her mouth, and plucks them out, one by one, as she coils Xifeng’s hair into a knot. She jerks her chin at the cloth-wrapped packets lined up neatly on a side table, and Xifeng counts them to make sure they are all there: two large ones for Baoyu’s and Lady Jia’s apartments; two small ones for the Two Springs; and then three even smaller ones: one for Uncle Zheng’s concubine Auntie Zhao, and two for Baochai and her mother, Mrs. Xue. Mrs. Xue is, of course, more than rich enough to pay the salaries of both her own and her daughter Baochai’s maids. The allowances they receive are purely symbolic, meant to indicate that they remain at Rongguo as honored guests, and are thus considered part of the household.
    “See that the allowances are delivered this morning,” Xifeng says. “And did you hear? A messenger from Uncle Zheng came last night. Their boat is only twenty li from the Capital. He and Miss Lin Daiyu should be here by this evening. Have a room prepared.”
    “Which one?”
    “How about that little room behind Granny Jia’s?”
    Xifeng sits back and looks at herself in the mirror. She catches up a loose tendril with a turquoise-blue kingfisher pin, and then reaches for her carved ivory box of face cream. With practiced fingers she smooths it over her face, working it over her eyelids and into the creases besideher nostrils, before dusting her whole face with a fine layer of jasmine-scented powder. Then she pulls the outer corner of her eyelid taut with her left index finger, and begins to line her eyes with sure, confident strokes. It is the shape of her eyes more than any other feature, she knows, that distinguishes her face, giving her the reputation for beauty. They are rounded at the inner corner, but long and tapered near her temples, like a teardrop, or a tadpole: “phoenix eyes,” they are called. Now that she has become a matron and it is permissible to wear heavy makeup, she always exaggerates their shape by lining them boldly with kohl and extending their outer corners into long points reaching nearly to her temples.
    Ping’er reappears at her elbow. She holds a steaming cup of the medicine Dr. Wang had prescribed to help Xifeng conceive.
    “But it’s been barely a week since my period.”
    “It can’t hurt to start taking it early, especially since you and he … you know … last night.”
    “Oh, all right.” Xifeng begins to sip it. When she is halfway through, the West Ocean clock on the wall bongs six times. Breakfast is served at seven, but if the table is not set by the time Granny Jia emerges from her bedroom, Xifeng will be blamed. She gulps the rest of the bitter-tasting brew down, and hurries towards the door.
    “Wait. Have a few mouthfuls,” says Ping’er, intercepting her with a small bowl of rice porridge. “It isn’t too hot.”
    “I don’t have time.” Xifeng waves it aside.
    Ping’er blocks her path. “Dr. Wang said you have to take better care of yourself. You can’t stand for hours on an empty stomach. No wonder you miscarried last time—”
    To stop Ping’er from saying more, Xifeng takes the