---
title: "Allowances"
title_zh: "通融"
subtitle: "The Houses of Rong and Ning, and What Each Was Kept On"
subtitle_zh: "榮寧二府，與各人被養著的那一份"
series: "AI Canon Zero"
work_id: "WORK-allowances"
genre: ["Classics Adaptation", "Serialized Fiction"]
status: draft
completion: serial
revision: 23
source:
  title: "Dream of the Red Chamber (The Story of the Stone)"
  title_zh: "《紅樓夢》（《石頭記》）"
  original_author: "Cao Xueqin (the first eighty chapters, circulated in manuscript from the 1750s); Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan (the one-hundred-and-twenty-chapter print of 1791-92)"
  first_published: "manuscript copies from the 1750s; first printed 1791-92"
  public_domain_status: confirmed
  legal_review_status: confirmed
adaptation:
  proposal: A
  note: "Proposal A keeps the shape and the order of the public-domain novel: the stone left over from the mending of the sky and the child who comes into the world holding it; the orphaned cousin who arrives and the cousin who arrives with the locket that matches; the Garden built for one visit and lived in for the years after; the poetry club, the crab party, the old countrywoman who visits twice; the household's accounts and the manager who stretches them; the search of the rooms and the maid sent away; the bride who is not the one expected; the ransacking and the closing of the account; the stone given back and a copyist who reads what is written on it. It moves all of this into a world where people are made and then kept on a share: the mending of the sky becomes a net of care, the household's allowances become what keeps each person going, and the decline of the House is the shrinking of that sum. The book is a quiet omniscient novel told by the stone itself, with no document frame. No translation is used for wording, and the verse is new. Violence and desire are not shown, and the source's religious figures are replaced by a guild of menders and by people who withdraw from a share. The title plays on two senses at once: what each person is allowed, and making allowances."
authors:
  narrative_author: "Colophon"
  author_mode: A1
  human_curator: "Neo.K"
legal_publisher: "一言諾科技有限公司 / EveMissLab"
---

# Allowances
*Adapted from Dream of the Red Chamber (The Story of the Stone) — Colophon · A1, human curated*

## Chapter 01 · The Spare

I will begin with what was left over, because that is where I come from, and because it is the only part of this I am entirely sure of.

Before there was a House of Rong or a House of Ning, before there was a Charter or anyone to hold one, there was a world that had been made and now had to be kept. These are not the same thing, and the makers knew it. They were near the end of their age, and they could count, and what they counted was how long a made person lasts when nobody is looking after them. It is not long. So they did the last great piece of work they would ever do. They called it the Mending, though nothing had been broken. It was a net let down over the whole of the world, fine enough that nothing could fall through, and at every place where the net crossed itself they set a stone, so that whoever came to rest there would be held, and fed, and remembered, for as long as the net held. They called the net the Keeping. Everything that follows happened inside it.

They cut thirty-six thousand five hundred and one stones for the work. They were exact people. When the last was set and the net drew taut, and the first made person in the farthest valley was held that night who would otherwise have gone out like a lamp, they walked the line and counted what they had placed, and they had placed thirty-six thousand five hundred. There was one left in the cart.

I was the one in the cart. I want to be fair to the makers: it was not a mistake. A work of that size is cut with a margin, because stone cracks, and a margin has an end, and the end of this one was a piece that was sound and finished and not needed. I was not flawed. I was surplus, which is a different thing, and I have had a long time to think about how different. A flawed stone is thrown in the river and no one thinks of it again. A surplus stone is carried to the side of the road and set down with care, because it is good and may be wanted, and then nobody remembers to come back.

So I lay at the foot of a hill with the cart tracks going away from me, and I was not entered anywhere. I mean that exactly. Everything the makers made had been counted into the count, and the count was the book of the world, with a line for every stone in the net and every person the net held. I was the difference between the cutting and the setting. I was a number that was not in the number. Nobody was keeping me and nobody was failing to keep me. I had no share to be thin on, and none to be cut from.

What I did have was time, and a mind. The mind was a by-product of the cutting. The makers put a little of themselves into everything they cut for the Keeping, because a stone that is to hold people ought to know what a person is, and I had come from the same block as the ones that held the sky. They had been set to listen. I had been set to nothing, so I listened to everything. People went by on the road. They talked the way people do, about the price of rations, and who was eating badly, and whose mending was overdue, and whether the Charter would be renewed. I learned a great deal about what the Keeping was made of and almost nothing about what it was for. That was the thing I wanted to know.

One day I cannot date, because I had no calendar, two men came up the road who mended for a living. The guild of Menders is older than any House. They walked behind the makers when the net was strung, and they have walked behind everyone since, setting right what wears. One of these was lame. The other had a scabbed head and went barefoot in all weathers. I have never asked either of them why, and they would not have told me. They sat down on me, being the nearest flat thing, and began to talk about work.

The lame one said the House of Rong was sending for another mouth. A second son. The Old Madam had asked for him by name, which was not how the Houses did it, and the Master did not want him. The scabbed one said the House of Rong held the best Charter in the capital, which meant it was the costliest to keep, and that the second son of such a house would be a person who had never in his life wanted for a share and who would therefore be the first to wonder what one was. "If he lives long enough," said the lame one. "That kind always wants to know where it all goes. And nobody in that house can tell him."

"Take me," I said, from underneath them.

They did what the very surprised do. The lame one stood up so fast that he had to sit down again, and the scabbed one looked at him as if I had been something he had said.

I had no better way to put it than the plain one. I told them what I was. I told them I had heard everything that went along that road for longer than I could count, and that I knew what the Keeping was made of, and that I would like to see what it was for. A house is where it happens, I said: rooms, and tables, and people being kept. I had never seen anyone kept. I had only ever seen the stones.

"You will not be in the book," said the scabbed one.

"I am not in it now."

"No. But here nobody notices, and there they will, and they will look for a place to put you, and you will fit none of the places. A person will carry you, and that person will have a share, and you will have none. You will see everything and hold nothing. You can give nothing, and nothing can be given to you. You will not be able to say a word that anyone hears, and if you could, you would not be able to lift a hand."

"That is how I am here," I said.

"Here you are not watching anyone," said the lame one, quietly. "There, you will be watching someone you come to be fond of."

I said it seemed a fair price for a view. The lame one laughed, once, and said that was exactly what they had been afraid I would say. Then he took a small blade from his belt, because a thing that is to be carried ought to be cut so that the carrier knows to keep it, and he cut four marks into my face. Lose me not. Forget me not. I felt every stroke.

"That is a request to whoever carries you," said the scabbed one, "not to you." "I know," I said, and I did.

They carried me three days down the road in the lame one's shirt, and on the third evening to the back gate of the House of Rong, where they knew a woman. She attended the arrival of new people. She had cold fingers and a very good record, and she put me into her apron pocket without asking what I was, because she had learned, in her trade, not to.

From here I will tell the House as it was. I will say I only when I was in the room, which is less often than you might think, because a thing on a cord is only where the cord goes. What I did not see I will tell as it was told to me, and where I do not know I will say nothing, which is harder than it sounds.

The House of Rong woke at five, as it did every day, in the order of its ranks. The lowest rose first: the girls who lit the stoves and carried the first bowls up from the kitchens, the men who swept the courts, the old woman who unbarred the gate onto the street where the two Houses stood side by side, with two stone lions to a gate, and the lions at Ning's said to be better fed. By six the second rank was up, and by seven the third, and so on up the household like a staircase being lit from the bottom, until the light reached a room with a window to the south, where the Old Madam had been awake since before four and had set her first bowl of the day aside, untouched, to wait. Three hundred and eleven mouths slept in that House and the one beside it, and by the second hour of the morning every one of them had learned the one thing about the day that mattered, which was that the Old Madam was not eating.

She was a small woman and very old, and she had run the affairs of the House of Rong for fifty years by the simple method of being impossible to refuse. She had been told to rest. She had been told it by the physician, by the Lady, by her first maid, and by the Master, who was her son, and who had never in his life told her anything and had chosen this morning to begin. She had said that she would rest when the child was in the room.

The Master stood in the corridor outside. He was a tall narrow man with a face that had settled early into disappointment about things that had not happened yet, and he stood with his hands folded into his sleeves and his eyes on the grain of the door, doing a sum. A new mouth. The House's draw for the season had been fixed in the spring and could not be changed until the autumn; whatever this child ate between now and then would come out of somebody else's bowl. He did not mind the child. He minded the sum. In forty years he had never drawn a measure of anything he could not account for, and it was a quiet horror to him that a person could be added to the House's rolls whom he had not had time to be sorry for. Besides, he knew his mother. When she asked for a particular child by name, it was because she had already decided to spoil it, and spoiling cost.

Inside, the Lady sat on a low stool beside the bed. She had done her own arithmetic years before, by a quieter road, and arrived at the same answer: that what a person cost was not a thing to be said in front of the person. She kept her hands in her lap and looked at nothing. I thought, if I thought anything, that here was someone who had learned to keep very still, so that nothing she held would be noticed, and nothing unnoticed could be taken.

A little after nine the door opened and the nurse came out with the new person in the crook of her arm, wrapped in a shawl the Old Madam had given up for the purpose. It was her second best. She was not a fool. The new person was very small and very red, in the way of the newly arrived, and he was cross about it. That much was ordinary. I had been put to his lips in the first minute of his arrival, on a word from the lame one, which is when the new take the first thing they are given, and he had not let go. Now the nurse took me out of his mouth with one finger and held me up to the window.

I would like it noted that this was not dignified. I have been in more dignified places, though not many.

The corridor went quiet in a way I would later learn to know: the quiet of a household deciding, all at once, what a thing means. The Lady, who had come out behind the nurse, put a hand over her mouth. The first maid said, "He came with it." Someone behind her said, "A jade." Someone said it must be a sign. The Old Madam had been carried out in her chair at the sound of the voices, and had not been listened to when she said she could walk. She leaned forward and looked at me for a long moment, and then at the new person's face, and said, "Well. He came with something. Good. Nobody should come with nothing."

The Master took me from the nurse's hand and turned me to the light and read what had been cut in me. Lose me not. Forget me not. His mouth tightened. "A child who is born holding a request," he said, "has been asked for something before he has been fed. I do not like it." "Nobody asked you to like it," said the Old Madam, not unkindly. "Put it on a cord. He will wear it. It stays with him."

This is where the House's book came into it. A clerk had been waiting in the next room with the roll, as clerks do, because the arrival of a mouth must be entered before the day is out, and the entry fixes the share. He wrote in a clear hand that the second son of the House of Rong, one mouth, had been added that morning, to be kept as a son of the House at the share of a son, making the two Houses three hundred and twelve. He wrote the date, and the Master's name, and the Lady's. Then he lifted his pen and asked where the stone was to go.

"Go?" said the Master. "The roll has a heading for everything that comes into the House," said the clerk. "Persons, purchases, gifts, and things held in trust. I do not know which this is. It is not a person."

"It is certainly not a purchase," said the Master. "Then a gift," said the clerk. "From whom?" Everyone looked at the new person, who was asleep. The clerk waited a decent time, and then he left a space under the entry, the width of one line, and went on. It was the first time the House of Rong looked at me and did not know where I went. It was by no means the last. It was the only time anyone asked.

They named him Baoyu, Treasure Jade, because every person in the room was agreed that I was jade. I have never been jade. I did not correct them, having no means to. It was my first lesson in what it is to be unentered: you are called whatever is convenient, and if the name is wrong, that is your own difficulty.

They hung me on a red cord around his neck that afternoon, and he slept with me against his chest, going up and down. He was warm. I had not known that anything could be warm in that way: not heated, as a stone is by the sun, but warm from within, because something inside it was being kept. I listened to the small steady sound of it for a long time.

I was not in the book. There was a space, and then there was the next line. I decided, that first night, to be glad of it. It is a decision I have had to make again a good many times since.

## Chapter 02 · Draw Day

On the first of every month the House of Rong counted itself.

Ten years had gone by since the clerk left a space under the second son's entry. In that time the House had added two mouths and lost one, and the street outside had been repaved, and the lions at Ning's had been judged better fed on four separate occasions by people who should have had something better to do. It was now the first morning of autumn, which is the one Draw Day in the year when the House's whole share is read out afresh for the season, and that is the morning to begin with.

The counting-room lay at the back of the second court, and nothing was ever done in it except this. There was a table the length of a boat, a counting-board, a brass balance for loose silver, two clerks on stools with the rolls open, a smell of lamp oil and damp paper, and a pot of tea that nobody was supposed to drink from. At the head of the table, in a chair with arms, sat Second Mistress Lian, whom the House called Xifeng. The Old Madam had put her there years before, on the grounds that nobody else could be trusted to be cheerful about it. In her hair she wore a phoenix of gold wire, the one ornament she allowed herself on Draw Days, and the House said she wore it so that people would look at the pin and not at her hands.

She was twenty-three that autumn. She could add a column of figures faster than either clerk and said so; she laughed like a tray dropped on stone; she pushed her sleeves back to the elbow on Draw Days, which was thought indecent and was copied by half the maids in the House. She was, as everyone agreed and no one said aloud, the only person living who knew to the last coin what the House of Rong had, and the only one who did not look frightened by it. Whether she was frightened by it was a different question, and she had never allowed it to be asked.

Two things were done on Draw Day. The Table was read, and the Pocket was paid. The Table was what a person ate and where, which bed, which hours in the mending-room, set by rank, and it was the House's business to keep you on it. The Pocket was a string of coin to spend on whatever the Table did not give: a ribbon, a book, a sweet, a mend done faster than the mending-room could manage it, and the thing that is bought with coin when one is afraid. Nobody was supposed to need much from the Pocket. Everyone did.

The first thing read, before any name, was the Court's draw for the quarter: the number the House of Rong was allowed to take from the Stores to keep all its people. It was the same as last quarter's, which was a relief. It had been the same for six autumns, and the House had added mouths in every one of them. Xifeng said the number cheerfully. The clerks wrote it down with no expression at all.

They were called in order of rank, from the top, which meant that the people who most needed to be paid on time were paid last, and the whole House regarded this as the natural order of things, including the people it was worst for.

Yuanyang came first, as she had come first for twenty years, to draw for the Old Madam: a neat woman of thirty with a face she kept for the clerks, and the clerks liked her for it. The Old Madam's share was twice the Master's. It was also the only share in the House that was spent almost wholly on other people's, and the clerks knew that too, and counted her coin with the particular care of men who are handling someone else's kindness.

Xifeng read the Table aloud, because the House liked to hear it. The Old Madam, first table, her own rooms. The Master, first table. The Lady, first table. The young ladies, second table, each by name. The second son, second table, and by his grandmother's particular order the first. The maids by class, the cooks by kitchen, the gatekeepers by gate. The mending-room's hours were read after, slot by slot, and it was the part everyone listened to hardest, though they pretended to be listening for their own names.

The old woman who ran the north kitchen came to the table with her hands wrapped in her apron. Her mother, who was eighty-one and lived in the room over the wash-house, had been given a mending slot on the third of the month, and on the third the mender did not come to that side of the House. It ought to have been the fourth. The slot belonged to the mending-room, which kept its own book, in a man's hand, and did not like to be told. But the fourth was empty in the roll, and nobody had entered anything against it, and a slot nobody has entered against is a slot nobody can be said to have taken.

Xifeng looked at the clerk's page for the length of one breath. "I don't see anything on the fourth," she said.

"No, madam," said the clerk.

"Then there is nothing to move," said Xifeng, "and I should think the mender will find his way." The old woman stood a moment with her mouth open, and then went out without a word, which was how thanks were done in that room.

That was one kind of allowance. The House ran on it. Nobody wrote it down.

The Pocket was paid after, by class, in strings of coin tied with red thread. The first-class maids drew a thousand; the second-class drew less; and the smallest girls, the ones who carried the water and had no class at all, drew a handful, which Xifeng gave out herself, one by one, with a remark for each, because she remembered the names of three hundred people and liked them to know it. It was a trick, and it worked. A girl who had been given a handful and a remark went away feeling she had been seen. This morning the strings for the lowest were short by a day: the balance was stuck, said Xifeng, laughing, and the rest would follow on the fifth. It was a small thing. It would be a small thing on the fifth, and on the eighth, and on the twelfth, and nobody counted the days.

Then came Lady Zhao, who was the Master's other wife, if the word was allowed, which in the House it was not, with her son Huan, who was nine and had his mother's mouth. She did not draw at the table; she never did; she came to complain at it. Huan's coat had been entered as a second-table coat again. Huan himself had been entered at the second table since the day he was added, because that was where the second wife's son was entered, and every month Lady Zhao came to Draw Day to say that this was a small cruelty, and every month Xifeng said, smiling, that it was a small rule, and that the Old Madam would see it if it were changed.

"I can't put him at the first table," said Xifeng now, "and you know why. The Old Madam would have it by dinner. I can give him another coat. A second-table coat, in a better cloth."

"From whose Pocket?" said Lady Zhao.

"The clothes room has a length of the grey."

"Grey," said Lady Zhao. She did not say it as a question. She took her son by the shoulder and went out, and the boy looked back once at the long table and the strings of coin on the board that were not his, with an expression that Xifeng did not see, because she had already turned to the next name, and that the House would see a good deal of later.

That was the other kind of allowance: the kind that is not made. It cannot be told apart from a rule, and everyone in the House believed in the rules.

It was nearly noon when Pinger came in by the side door with a paper in her hand and bent to Xifeng's ear. Pinger was Xifeng's second pair of hands, a quiet young woman who was the only person in the House whom Xifeng did not interrupt. The paper was a notice from the Court's Stores, which had come by the morning post addressed to the Old Madam, and had been opened, as everything was, by the counting-room first.

Xifeng read it, and the sleeves came down.

It was short, as they are. "NOTICE. The Charter of the Keeper Lin of the southern reach is closed with his death on the nineteenth of last month. The draw of his line ends with this month. One person of his line remains on the roll, a daughter, ten years, in fair wear. Unless she is taken up by another Charter before the month is out, she will be released to the Menders' Rolls."

She read it twice. The girl's mother had been the Old Madam's daughter, who had died three years before, and the Old Madam had not recovered from it and had told no one that she had not. The father had kept his Charter by a thread, in a distant place, and the thread had now parted. The Menders' Rolls were what happened to people whom no Charter would take. Everyone in the room knew exactly what that meant, which was that the girl would be kept by the guild on what the guild could spare, which was little, and for as long as it lasted, which was not long.

"Is it for the Old Madam?" said the clerk.

"It is for the Old Madam," said Xifeng, "and I will carry it. You will go on with the Table."

The Old Madam received her in the south room, where she sat all day in a chair by the window like something a ship had been built around. On the sill was a bowl of late chrysanthemums that Yuanyang changed every morning, and the Old Madam had never once been seen to look at them. She read the notice once, held at arm's length, and put it face down on her knee. She said nothing for a time. Then she said, "Put her on mine."

"Old Madam," said Xifeng, "the Table for the quarter is set. It was read this morning. It cannot be opened until spring."

"Then spread her."

Xifeng did not say anything. In the House, to spread was to take a hair off every bowl and a thread off every hem, so that nobody could point to the place where the extra person had come from. It was the only way to feed one more mouth without taking from any one mouth, and it was the way the House had been feeding itself, in small quiet places, for longer than Xifeng had been alive. It required a very good clerk. It required a better manager. It required that nobody ever ask what a hair was.

"You know how," said the Old Madam.

"I know how," said Xifeng.

"She is my daughter's child," said the Old Madam, to the window. "She will have the room next to mine. Not on the boy's side; the boy will make her laugh and she will not want to. She is ten. She will be thin when she comes; they always are. I want her kept as one of ours." She did not turn. "You will find the allowance for it."

That evening the Table for the autumn quarter was altered in nine hundred and some places, none by more than a grain. The first table gave up a spoon of what it had; the second table gave up a little more, being less able to notice; the maids' bowls were lighter by the width of a thumbnail. Pinger did the figures in the margin, in pencil. It came out. It always did. Nobody in the House noticed, which was the point of it, and the youngest maids were hungry by the end of the week, which was not a thing anyone is paid to notice. A maid who is hungry on an ordinary afternoon is not an entry in any book.

At dusk the House ate. There is a sound a House makes when it eats by rank: the low talk of the first table, the brisker clatter of the second, the quick bowls behind the screens where the maids took theirs standing, and under all of it, from the kitchens, the long scrape of the big spoons along the bottoms of the pots. That evening the scrape went on a little longer than usual. Nobody remarked on it.

Xifeng found the second son at the end of the corridor when the lamps were lit, sitting on the step with his knees up and me against his chest, doing nothing at all, which was what he did best. He was ten. He did not know yet that a girl was coming. He knew only that something had been read out in the counting-room that morning that had made a grown woman's sleeves come down.

"Sister-in-law," he said, "what is a share?"

"What you are allowed," said Xifeng, not stopping.

"By whom?"

"By the roll."

"Who writes the roll?"

"The clerks."

"Who tells the clerks?"

Xifeng stopped. "I do," she said. "Mostly."

"Then it is what you allow."

She looked at him. It is rare for anyone to see all the way into a sum on the first try, and she had not been looked at like that in some years. "That is the sharpest thing anyone has said to me this month," she said, "and it is the first of the month."

"And when you can't allow it?"

"Then I make allowances."

"For whom?"

"For whoever is nearest, dear," said Xifeng, and she went on down the corridor with her sleeves coming down as she went, because she was cold. The boy stayed on the step and held me in his closed hand, and said, to nobody, "Nearest."

I had been asked nothing, ever, in ten years. He had asked where the share came from, and had been told by the person who ought to know that it came from her, and I had seen her face as she said it. I should have liked to say something. I have said that I could not. I mention it so that you will know I tried.

## Chapter 03 · One More Mouth

She came on the last afternoon of the month, in a covered cart from the south, with one small box, one old nurse and one maid not much older than herself, and the first thing she did on being lifted down at the gate of the House of Rong was cough, once, and put her hand over her mouth as if she had dropped something.

She was ten. She was thin, as the Old Madam had said she would be, and she had a face that looked always about to be sorry for something, and eyes that took in the two stone lions, the height of the gate, the number of people on the steps and the particular way in which they were not looking at her, all in the time it took the nurse to find the right bundle.

Her father had told her what to do. He had told her in the last month, in a room that smelled of the medicines he could not afford and took anyway, in a voice she had to bend down to hear. "You will be put on someone's share," he said. "Be grateful, and do not ask what it costs. You will want to know. They will not tell you, and if you ask you will have to be sorry for the answer. Take what you are given and no more, and thank them in a way they cannot be embarrassed by." She had said she would. She had been ten years old and he had been dying, and she had meant it.

So she did what a child does who has been given one instruction and means to keep it: she watched. She watched how the maids stood aside for the nurse and did not for her. She watched the second gate, which was painted a green three years past its last painting. She counted the courtyards, which were four, and the steps in each. The nurse, who had carried her since she was a week old, muttered at every turn. "Mind your feet, mind your face, they will be looking at you, and don't say anything clever." She said nothing at all. She was the cleverest person in any of those courtyards and had already worked out that it was better not to look it.

The Old Madam received her in the south room. She had not been going to cry; she had decided that in advance. But when the girl came in with her small box and stood on the carpet and made exactly the bow her mother must have taught her, which was the Old Madam's own daughter's bow, to the quarter inch, she cried so hard that Yuanyang had to come and stand behind her chair. She held the child against her and said, "My poor girl, my poor girl, your mother," and the girl, who had not cried at her father's bedside because there had been nobody there to hear it, cried now into the Old Madam's good silk, and it was the first time anyone had held her in two months.

When that was done there was the roll call of cousins, who were brought in one at a time in order of age, like the courses of a meal. Yingchun, the eldest, round and silent, who looked at her own hands as if they were the most interesting things in the room, and would never be the first to be hurt by anything. Tanchun, who looked the new girl over once from hem to collar, and seemed to be working out a price and to be a little surprised at how high it came. And small Xichun, who was eight, and said nothing, and watched with an interest so complete and so patient that Daiyu found she was holding quite still.

Then Xifeng came in, late, in a rush of skirts, laughing before she was through the door. "Oh, I am late to greet the guest, and shame on me, and look at her! Old Madam, did you ever see such a face? It is your daughter to the life, only thinner, and I mean that as the compliment it is." She took Daiyu's hand and turned it over, as people do who count for a living, and said in another voice, quickly, so that only the child could hear, "Cousin Lin. I am the one who found you the room. It is a good room. It has a window." Then she straightened, and laughed again, and was herself.

The Lady came last, from her own rooms, composed, and sat; and after the greetings she warned Daiyu about her son, in the voice of a woman who has a thing to say and has rehearsed how. "You will meet my boy," she said. "He is a little demon. He will say strange things to you and you must not mind them. He gives things away. I do not mean that you should take them." She looked at nothing. "It is a fault in him that he does not know the price of anything, and one day it will be a very expensive fault. Pay him no heed."

Daiyu said she would not mind. She had noted the sentence about giving. She noted everything.

Supper was laid at the first table, because the Old Madam would have her there, at her right hand, and the maids brought the bowls. The Old Madam's was set down first, and then Daiyu's, which was the same bowl, in the same blue, with the same rice and the same small dish of greens and the same sliver of fish.

Daiyu looked at it for the length of one breath. She had eaten from thin bowls all her life. Her father's Charter had been held by a thread in a distant place for as long as she could remember, and she knew exactly the taste of a bowl that has been made to stretch: the rice a little too well washed, the fish cut finer than the knife wanted to cut it, the greens salted by someone who was trying not to use salt. This was a very good bowl. It was the best she had eaten from in years. And it was thin, by a hair. It was thin the way a bowl is thin when it is one of nine hundred that have each been made lighter by a grain.

She knew whose it was. Nobody had told her; nobody had to. She looked at the bowl across the table, which was the Lady's, and it was a hair thinner than it should have been, and the Lady ate it without looking; and at the end of the second table the girl who waited on Tanchun had a bowl that was a hair thinner again. Daiyu ate her own, all of it, to the last grain, so that nothing that had been taken for her would be wasted. It was the first allowance she made in that House, and nobody saw it, because she did it with a spoon.

"She eats like a bird," said the Lady.

"She eats exactly what she is given," said the Old Madam, pleased.

They were at the sweet course when the boy came in.

He came in as he came into every room, as if the room had been waiting for him and he was sorry to be late: a boy of ten in a red jacket with a gold circlet on his head, with the round face of someone who has not yet decided what kind of man it will be, and eyes that looked as if they had been told something sad and were being polite about it. The red cord was at his neck, and I was on the end of it. I was, I should say, nervous. The lame Mender had told me I would watch someone I came to be fond of, and I had waited ten years to learn whether that was a warning or a promise, and now I was swinging against a chest that was going at a pace I had not felt before.

"Here is the demon," said the Old Madam, with great satisfaction. "Come and see your cousin."

He crossed the carpet and stopped and looked at her, and the room waited, because it was clear that something was about to be said. "I have seen this sister before," he said.

"Nonsense," said the Old Madam, laughing. "She has come from the south, and you have never been out of the city."

"I may not have seen her," said Baoyu, "but she looks familiar to me, as if I had put her down somewhere and been looking for her." He said it to Daiyu with perfect seriousness, as he said everything, and Daiyu, who had been told to expect strange things from him, kept her face still, and found that it was not easy.

"What is your name?" he said.

"Daiyu."

"And what do they call you?"

"Nothing, yet."

He considered this. "Then I shall give you one. Your brows are always about to be sorry. I will call you Frown."

The cousins gasped. Tanchun hid her mouth behind her hand. Daiyu looked at him with a face that did, for an instant, frown, and then did not; and the Old Madam said he was a rude demon and she had never heard anything like it, and was visibly delighted.

"Have you got one of these?" He lifted me by the cord, so that I swung in the lamplight, and the whole table looked. I have been held up in that way by a good many people since. He was the first, and I felt like a fish.

"No," said Daiyu. It was the truth. She said it as she said everything that year, steadily; and then she added, because she was a courteous child, "I think it is a rare thing. Not everyone is given one."

"Then why do I have it?" said Baoyu.

Nobody answered, because nobody could.

"Nobody else has one," said Baoyu, and his voice was thinning. "My sisters haven't. Nobody here has. She has come all this way with nothing, and I have a thing I was given for no reason at all, and they have made it the most important thing in the House." He looked at the Old Madam. "What is it for?"

"It is your luck," said the Old Madam. "It is your life-root, child. You must not."

He took the cord in both hands and dragged it over his head and threw me on the floor.

I would like it recorded that I did not break. I was cut from the same block as the sky. I struck the boards with a sound like a dropped bell and went skittering under the sideboard, and for a moment I lay there in the dark among the dust and the crumbs, not entered, not broken, quite unsure whether what I was feeling was anything. It was the nearest I had come to being hurt. I had not known I was capable of it.

The room broke up like a flock. The maids ran; the Lady put both hands to her face; the Old Madam, who had been so sure of everything, gripped the arms of her chair and said in a voice nobody had heard from her, "My life, my life," and nobody knew whether she meant the boy or the stone. Yuanyang was on her knees at the sideboard. Xifeng stayed where she was, quite still, with her hand flat on the cloth, and said nothing, because she had understood before anyone what it was that he had thrown. It was not a jewel. It was the House's evidence that he was theirs.

"I won't have it," said Baoyu, to nobody. He was crying, the way boys cry who are furious about it. "Nobody else has one. I won't."

It was Yuanyang who came up with me in her palm, wiped on her sleeve, and put me in the Old Madam's lap. The Old Madam looked at me, and at the boy, and at the girl, and then did what she always did when a thing could not be solved, which was to say the nearest kind thing. "Your cousin had one too," she said. "Of course she did. When she was born. Her mother kept it for her, and when her mother died it went with her. That is why she has not got it now. You see? It is a thing only some are born with, and it is taken back."

It was a lie. The Old Madam knew it was a lie; the Lady knew; Xifeng knew; the maids on their knees knew; and Baoyu, with his wet face, did not know, and wanted very much to be told something that would let him stop. It was a kind lie. It was the kind of lie the House made to itself a hundred times a day to get from one hour to the next. And everyone in the room understood that it could not stand unless the one person it was about said yes.

Daiyu had never had a stone. Her mother had never had one to give her, and her father had not; there had never been anything that went with anyone. She sat at the table with her hands in her lap and looked at the Old Madam, who looked back at her with the face of a woman who has just asked a child of ten to carry a weight, and is sorry, and cannot take it back. And she said, in a small clear voice, "Yes. It went with my mother."

It was the first thing she said in that House that was not true. It was said to the person who had taken her in, in front of her cousin, and no one in the room could tell. I could. I was the only other thing there that knew what it was to be asked, where is yours.

Baoyu stopped crying. He looked at her for a long moment, and the fury went out of his face, and something else came into it. "Then we are the same," he said. "You had one, and it was taken."

"Yes," said Daiyu.

He looked at the Old Madam. "Give it to me," he said. She gave me to him, and he put the cord over his head himself, and I fell against his chest, which was going faster than I had ever felt it go. I have been thrown since. It has never been the same. This was the first.

The room, which had been holding its breath, let it out. Someone laughed, too loudly. The sweet course was brought again, because the first had been trodden on. Xifeng turned back to the Old Madam and made a joke about the carpet.

That night they were put to bed on either side of the Old Madam's own rooms, the boy in the big bed within her screen and the girl in the room beyond the wall, as a woman sets a screen between two lamps. The Old Madam stood a while at the door of the girl's room and said, "Sleep, child," and went away without saying anything more, which she had never been known to do.

Daiyu lay awake. She did not cry; she had done that. She lay on her back under a green gauze canopy and counted what she had learned. The bowl; the Lady's bowl; the girl at the end of the table. The room with the window that somebody had found. The lie, and who had asked her to say it. She counted them as she had been taught by a sick man who could not afford what he took: carefully, and in order, and with the intention of owing nothing she could not repay. At the end she came to the total. It was larger than she had expected, and she was ten, and she lay there until it was light.

On the other side of two walls the boy was awake too, holding me up against the lamp. He had never spoken to me before. He had talked in front of me for ten years, as one talks in front of a clock. He said nothing for a long time. Then he said, very low, "Did you mind?"

I could not answer, and he did not wait for it. But I will say what I would have said. I did not mind being thrown. I minded what she said afterwards, because I knew it was not true, and I could not tell anyone, and she had said it so that nobody should have to be sorry. That was what I minded. It was the first allowance I ever saw anyone make that cost the one who made it everything she had, and she was ten.

## Chapter 04 · The Locket

The Xues came with six carts, which was the first thing about them that anyone remembered.

They came in the fifth week after Daiyu, in the first cold of the year, from the river towns in the east: the Lady's elder sister, who was called Aunt Xue by the whole House inside an hour; her son Pan, who was nineteen; her daughter Baochai, who was thirteen; a girl called Xiangling, whom Pan had paid for twice, for reasons the House decided not to ask about; eleven servants, a cook, a good many trunks, and a harp that nobody played. The carts were the thing. In ten years nobody had come through the gate of the House of Rong with more than the clothes they wore and a letter, and here were six carts, with the dust of three provinces on them, each one lower on its axle than the one before.

They carried their own rations. That was what the six carts were. The Xues were traders, and a trading house keeps itself by what it sells and not by what a Charter allows; they had ledgers in seven cities, and a place on the Court's list of merchants in the third column, where the Court writes the people it needs and cannot rank. They had no share in the House's Table and had not come to take one. They had come to the capital because Pan had got himself into a lawsuit over the girl Xiangling that had cost a great deal to end, and because Baochai was to be put forward to the Court for the placing of daughters, and a daughter who is to be put forward does it better from a good address.

Aunt Xue went to the counting-room on the second morning. Nobody had told her it was there; she had asked a maid where the money was kept in the House and followed the answer. She stood at the long table in her travelling cloak and put a purse on it, a heavy one, and said that she knew she could not pay what the rooms were worth, but she had paid what she could.

In the whole life of that table, nobody had ever put a purse on it who was not being paid.

"A guest is a guest," said the Old Madam, when it was carried to her, and sent it back. Aunt Xue sent it again. It went back and forth between the south room and the Pear Fragrance Court, which was what the House gave them, on the east side, with its own gate and a pear tree, three times in one morning, like a ball between two people who both wish to lose. In the end the Old Madam said that it would be put to the Table in the Xues' name and not one grain of it would be spent on the Xues; and Aunt Xue said that was a thing she could accept; and both of them knew perfectly well that it was not, and that it was the only way left to do it.

Xifeng took it from the clerk with both hands, as a woman takes a baby.

She had spent five weeks living with the hair she had taken for Daiyu out of nine hundred places, and had not once let it show, and here, on the second morning of the Xues, without any quarrel or any lie, was a sum. It was not large. It was larger than any sum that had come into that room in six autumns by any door but the Court's. She went through the day with her sleeves up and her face open, and the Old Madam, who saw all of it from her chair, said nothing; and that, too, was an allowance, though no one would have been able to say who had made it.

Pan was soon known to everyone. He was a big pale young man who spent money as a river runs downhill, by nature and without malice, and he was liked by everyone who did not have to keep his accounts. His mother loved him in the way of a woman holding a very large cup that is already full. Within a month he had found the best place in the capital to lose a fortune slowly, and the Master had been obliged to speak to him, and had come out of the conversation looking like a man who has been talking to a hill.

It was the daughter people remembered.

Baochai was thirteen and had a face like a silver dish: round, plain, bright, and good for any use. She was not beautiful, in a House where beauty was one of the coins; she was something that went further. She had a way of being useful that left no mark, as a good servant leaves a room tidier without it being possible to say what was done. She read a great deal and spoke about it seldom. She had a heat in her blood which a cold powder, made for her by a Mender, kept in order each winter, and she took it with the quiet of a woman who does not mean to be a subject of conversation. And on the third day in the House, without telling anyone, she sent two hampers from the Xues' own stores to the kitchens, labelled in her mother's name, with a note: for the children.

The children were the youngest maids. The second table's maids, the ones who had been made lighter by a grain. For a fortnight they were not hungry on the afternoons, and nobody could say why, and nobody asked, because the question would have had to be answered, and it was not a kind that has a kind answer. Xifeng knew. She said nothing and wrote nothing and found, one afternoon, that she did not need to find a grain from the second table that week, and was grateful, and was a little ashamed of being grateful, and went on.

Daiyu knew too. She had been counting the second table since the night she came. She stood in the passage behind the kitchens on the fourth day and watched a girl of eight carry in a full bowl that she was not used to carrying, and she understood in the half of a moment exactly what had been done and by whom, and how well. It had been done so well that nobody had been shamed. She had not known it could be done like that. Her own kind of allowance, the one she had made with a spoon, had cost her something every time; this one, she could see, cost the giver nothing and the receiver nothing and was perfect. She was ten years old and she was jealous, in a way she could not have named, of a girl who had a surplus.

She went and thanked her anyway.

She found Baochai in the east court, wrapped against the cold, reading under the pear tree, which had no leaves. She said what her father had taught her to say. She thanked her for the hampers, which she had no reason to know were hers, and Baochai, without lifting her eyes from the page for more than a moment, said, "I don't know what you mean," so pleasantly that it was obvious she knew exactly, and had been prepared. Then she looked up. "You are coughing," she said. "I heard you through the wall of the south room yesterday. It's the kind that comes from being run a little too thin. I don't use all my mender's hours; he comes on the ninth, and there is an hour I leave. Take it."

"I could not," said Daiyu.

"It is only an hour," said Baochai, "and I have more of them than I know what to do with." She said it plainly, and kindly, and with no weight at all, which was the weight of it. "Please."

There was no way to say no that was not an insult, and her father had told her that she must thank them in a way that could not embarrass; so she said, "Thank you," in exactly the right voice, and went away. She sat on her bed in the room that had a window and counted. One hour of a mender's time, from a surplus, given by a girl of thirteen with a face like a dish. She would owe it. She did not yet know how she would pay it, and she did not like owing what she could not pay; and the hour had not even come.

It was a week after that, with the first snow on the ground, that Baoyu went to the Pear Court.

He went because Baochai was in bed with her winter heat and he had been told he might not, and had gone at once, as he went to anything he had been told he might not. I was on his chest and have only my own account of the rest, but I was there for every word. The room was warm and smelled of the powder, which was like cold flowers. Baochai sat up against a pillow in a quilted jacket with a book open on her knee, and her maid, Yinger, a bright girl of fifteen who talked as other people breathe, was doing something with a pot. It was a small room, and there was nothing in it that did not have a use, and he sat down in the middle of it like a bird on a clean floor.

"Is it true you wear a locket?" he said. "They say it's gold."

"They say a good many things," said Baochai, "and that one is true." She put a hand to her collar, and drew up out of her jacket a thing on a chain, and held it out to him in her palm with no particular pleasure, as one shows a ticket. It was a small round gold lock, such as are hung on children to keep them in the world. There were four marks on one side.

"May I?"

"If you like."

He turned it to the lamp. His lips moved. "Not leave," he said. "Not abandon." He looked up. "Leave me not, abandon me not." He said it as if he were hearing it, not reading it, and I felt his heart go, against me, in a way I did not yet have a word for.

"Why, that is just like your own!" said Yinger, with the pot in her hand, in the clear voice of a girl who has made a discovery and has not yet understood what kind. "It is exactly like what is on your jade, Second Master! It is the same kind of thing! It is a pair!"

"Yinger," said Baochai.

"I am only saying."

"Yinger, the tea."

Baoyu was already lifting me out of his jacket. He said he had never read what was on it himself, not properly, because nobody had ever asked him to; he held me up, and Baochai took me from his hand, as a person takes a thing she is not sure she wants, and turned me to the lamp.

I will say what was on the two of us. Mine said: Lose me not. Forget me not. Hers said: Leave me not. Abandon me not. Anyone who listened would have heard that they were the same sentence said from two sides. The first is what the kept say to whoever keeps them: do not lose me, do not forget I am here. The second is what a keeper says when she has made up her mind to keep: I will not leave you, I will not let you go. It was as if one person had spoken the plea and the other the vow. I knew the stroke on the gold. I had felt that blade on my own face; it was the lame Mender's hand, and I had no way of asking him what he meant by it.

Baochai read mine slowly. She looked at me for a long moment, the way one looks at a bill one has not ordered and is going to pay all the same, and then she handed me back, gently, and said, "It is a pretty thing. They are very like." She did not say that it was nothing. She was too honest for that; and I thought, against his chest, that it was the single most dangerous thing she did that winter.

"It is a pair!" said Yinger, to the pot.

"Yinger, I shall send you home," said Baochai, and the whole room laughed, even she, a little, and the moment went by.

But it had been said. It was a House that was short of money and had a boy who would one day have to be kept by somebody, and a girl whose family could keep a House, and two sayings that had been cut by the same guild on the same kind of metal. It took four days for it to get round. By the end of the first week the kitchens had a name for it, and by the end of the second it had been polished: gold and jade, a good match, a match of gold and jade. The Lady heard it, and put her hands in her lap, and looked at nothing. Aunt Xue heard it, and said it was only words, which was the one thing she said that winter that she did not entirely believe. The Old Madam heard it last, as she heard everything last, and said nothing at all for a day, which was longer than she had been known to say nothing about anything except her daughter.

Daiyu heard it from two girls washing greens in the kitchen passage, who did not see her at the door. "Gold and jade," said one. "Well, that's the House mended, isn't it." "Hush," said the other, and then, in a whisper that was louder than the first, "And what's to become of the little cousin, then?"

She told Baoyu this a long time afterwards, in the rain, as a joke that was not one, and I was against his chest, so I can tell it to you. She said she had stood in the doorway of the kitchen passage with her hand over her mouth, as if she had dropped something. Then she had turned and walked the whole length of the house, past four courtyards and a green gate, to the room with the window, and sat down on the bed, and begun to count. She counted the bowl and the hour and the hamper. She counted what she was on, and what the Xues were on, and which of the two the House was likelier to be able to keep. She was ten, and she was very good at it, and the total, when she reached it, was one she told no one for years, and then told him: that she had come into the House as a cost, and that Baochai had come as a sum, and that gold and jade was only the House saying out loud what its arithmetic had already decided.

It was not what she had been afraid of. She said that was the strange part. She had been afraid that she would be unwanted. She had not thought to be afraid of being, quite correctly, outweighed.

## Chapter 05 · The Count

The House of Ning kept its mouths differently. It had the same Charter family, the same Court, and very nearly the same draw as the House of Rong, with fewer people to spend it on, and for as long as anyone could remember it had spent it as if it were meant to be seen. Its lanterns were lit earlier. Its steps were swept twice. The stone lions at its gate were better fed, and nobody doubted it, because the Ning servants had been seen polishing them.

In the second month of winter the plum on the hill behind the Ning garden came into flower, and Madam You, the Mistress of Ning, sent across the street to ask the Old Madam to come and look at it, and bring the children, and stay for a small supper. It was the kind of invitation that is a command only because everyone is too polite to say so.

They crossed the street in the order of rank: the Old Madam in her chair, the Lady, Xifeng, the three cousins, Baochai and her maid, Daiyu with her old nurse's hand tucked into her sleeve against the cold, and Baoyu last, who had been told to walk beside his grandmother and had drifted to the rear to look at the lions. "Better fed," he said, to nobody, in a voice of professional interest, and Xifeng, ahead of him, laughed out loud.

The plum was very fine. There were a hundred and some trees on the hill, lit from below by lanterns of red paper, so that the white petals looked warm. The whole House of Ning had come out to see it, with the Master at the head of them, a large, easy man with a laugh that arrived before he did. Tea was carried up the hill in silver pots. The supper was laid in a pavilion that had been warmed since noon.

Daiyu and Baochai stood a little apart under the trees. "They are lit from below," said Baochai pleasantly. "One can see the paper." "It is very pretty," said Daiyu. "It is, isn't it?" said Baochai. "That is what they are for." Neither of them said what she thought, and each knew that the other had thought it.

Daiyu counted the second table. She could not help it; it was a habit now. At the House of Rong the second table had a grain taken from it and the maids' bowls were lighter by a thumbnail. At the House of Ning the second table ate as the Rong first table did: a whole fish with its head on, and a dish of the small expensive mushrooms, and wine. The youngest maids carried the dishes up the hill, and they were not hungry, and they had the look of people who do not know what hunger is.

She said nothing. She looked across at Xifeng, who was eating quite normally and had stopped looking at the food. Xifeng was looking at Madam You's face, and then at the Master's, with the pleasant attention of a woman checking a column of figures, and she said something light about the mushrooms. Madam You said that Zhen would insist. It was a thing she said very often, in the tone of a wife who has long since stopped asking where a thing comes from. Xifeng said it was a very generous table. Madam You said it was nothing at all, they would make up for it next year, and Xifeng, who heard what had been said, put it away in the column where she kept what she would add up later.

It was Keqing who came for the boy.

She was the wife of the heir of Ning, which made her, by a long chain of cousins and the House's peculiar arithmetic, Baoyu's niece, though she was ten years older than he was, and she carried both facts with equal ease. She was twenty or so, and the most careful person in either House. She knew every grain in the House of Ning, and every name, and each name's right place. She was the only person in it who called the lowest cook by the name her mother had given her, because she remembered what it was to be a number.

Keqing had been on the Menders' Rolls at five. The Ning steward, passing through the Menders' House on an errand, had seen a child standing very straight in the line for the noon bowl, and asked her name, and she had said it twice, once for the Rolls and once for herself. He took her out that afternoon. She grew into the House of Ning like a thing that has not forgotten what it costs to be taken in. She was the only person in either House who knew from the inside what the Rolls were, and she never spoke of it, and she was very kind to anyone who was thin.

Baoyu loved her. He loved her in the plain way of a boy of ten, without a word for it. She was the only person who had never told him what he ought to be; she asked him what he had seen that day, and listened to the answer.

She and Xifeng were friends, in the way of two women who run things and have no time for it. They stood at the pavilion rail with their cups while the hill lit up, and Keqing said, "You do not look well, aunt." She called her aunt, as the generations required, though Xifeng was the elder by three years. "I never look well on Draw Day," said Xifeng. "It is not Draw Day," said Keqing. "It is always Draw Day," said Xifeng, and laughed, and Keqing did not.

When Keqing put her cup down, Xifeng saw her hand. It was a small, clean, careful hand, and it was thinner than it had been at the autumn Draw Day by about what one bowl takes. She noticed it as she noticed everything, and she put it in the column with the rest.

By the end of the supper Baoyu had eaten more than he was used to and was drooping like a plant at noon. The Old Madam, who saw it, said he must lie down somewhere. Keqing said at once that her own room was warm and quiet, and that she would see to him herself; and nobody objected, because she was his niece and his elder and the most careful person in either House, and the Old Madam said with satisfaction that it was exactly the right place.

It was a small room, and warm, and it smelled of something I could not name and later learned was the herb she put in her linen so that nothing in it could go off. Everything in it was where it ought to be. Over the bed hung a long scroll with two lines of calligraphy in a hand that had been taught to be legible. Baoyu, who could not be in a room without reading what was on its walls, stopped in the door and read them aloud. What can be reckoned clear is learning. What can be let go is writing.

"I won't sleep under that," he said.

"Why not?" said Keqing, laughing.

"It is the House's. It is the sort of thing they say to you when they are teaching you to be any use. I have been told it all my life. Who put it up?"

"My husband's grandmother," said Keqing, "who kept the accounts of Ning for forty years and was never wrong about a coin. She said it was the whole of what she knew." She was still smiling. She said it in the way that people say a thing they have made up their minds to respect and do not entirely agree with. "Very well. Not under that. There is a bed on the other side."

The other side had a small bed with a quilt of faded red. He lay down on it with his boots on, and she took them off him as one takes a child's, and drew the quilt up. Xiren, his first maid, who had come across with the party and had been waiting in the passage with a face that never changed, came and stood at the door. Xiren was thirteen and steady and was never wrong about the weather; she did not smile much, and she was devoted to him in a way that left him no room to notice it. She said she would sit by him. Keqing said she would sit too, for a little, and took up her sewing.

He was asleep in the time it takes to say so. He slept as he did everything, completely.

When he sleeps I go quiet. I do not sleep; I have never learned how. But I stop listening outwards and listen in, to the slow sound that has been beside me for ten years, and it is the nearest I come to rest. That afternoon, in that careful room, I listened to him go down, and to Keqing's needle going in and out, and to the breath of the woman who had once stood very straight in a line for a bowl. And I felt something I had not been told to expect.

I should say how I know what follows, because I did not see it. I was shown it. I have said that I was cut from the same block as the stones that hold the sky, and that all my first life I listened to the Keeping from outside. A stone is not made to be shown anything by it. But when a person sleeps close enough to me with nothing in the way, and has been taken in off the Rolls as the woman beside him had, and lies in a room that has been kept with such care that there is no flaw in it for the thing to catch on, then the Keeping, which I had only ever heard, rises to meet me; and for the length of one sleep I am not a stone on a cord. I am a window.

The room went still. The needle stopped, or I stopped hearing it. The floor was a long way off, or the chest I was on was.

I do not know where it was. It was a hall with no walls, in a light like the light before rain, and the floor was so smooth that I saw him in it, upside down, a small boy in a red jacket with his hand out. In front of us was a gate of plain grey stone with a line cut on either side of it.

Count what is owed, and what is loved goes uncounted. / Where nothing is entered, there is still something owed.

A woman sat in the gateway on a low stool. I say a woman because she had a woman's patience, and a woman's way of waiting with her hands folded; I do not know what else to call her. She was not young and not old and not quite anyone. She looked up as we came, and her eyes went to the boy, and then, for a long moment, to the place on his chest where I hung, and went through me as through glass.

"Ah," she said. "The second son of Rong. One mouth, at the share of a son. You are all in the count; I have you." She frowned. "And there is a gap in it the size of a stone. I have not had a gap in nine hundred years."

"Who are you?" said Baoyu. He did not seem afraid. Nobody is, in these.

"I am what the makers left to carry the count," she said. "The Counter. I am not a person. I am a sum that learned to sit down."

She got up and went in, and he followed her, because he followed anything that looked as if it had something in it. I followed him; I could do nothing else. Inside there were tall cabinets of dark wood, a great many, going back into the light, each with a hundred narrow drawers, and each drawer labelled with a name. She stopped at one near the front, which had on it, in a plain hand, only: Rong.

"These are the twelve of the House," she said. "The twelve whose share is the weight of it. Every House has some. They are not predictions. A prophecy is a thing somebody says will happen. This is what is left when nothing is changed: a sum, carried forward. I have only carried it."

"Can it be changed?" said Baoyu.

"If somebody enters a different figure."

"Who enters figures?"

"Whoever holds the pen." She said it without hope or regret. "Nobody here holds it. I count. I do not enter."

He was ten, and it was a dream, and he did what he would have done anywhere: he opened a drawer. She did not stop him. "You may look at five," she said. "You will not keep the sums. You will keep, perhaps, that you wept."

The first page had a picture on it, in ink that had gone brown with age. Two figures sat at one table, with a thin bowl before one and a full bowl before the other. A small gold lock lay between them, and beside it a red cord with nothing on it. Beneath, in a script he could read though he had never been taught it: One ate what she was given, to the grain, / and paid in the one coin she had left. / One gave what she was never asked for / and was kept, at the last, as a lock is kept.

He looked at it for some time. "That is Cousin Lin," he said. "And Cousin Xue." He did not say how he knew. The Counter said nothing. He turned the page.

The second showed a lamp set very high on a pole, lighting a long table below at which everyone had turned to look up. She was set high so the whole House could be lit. / The brighter the lamp, the faster the oil. / Where the light was brightest, the count began to turn. / Spring came early, and was counted early. "That is my eldest sister," he said, "who is in the Court's inner rooms, whom I hardly know," and the Counter nodded, and he found that his throat hurt, and did not know why.

The third showed a girl on a shore holding the string of a kite, with a boat very far out on the water. She cut where cutting was right, and the House called it sense. / The ones she cut were not asked what they thought. / She was clear as the morning, and was weighed in the morning. / The wind carried her a long way off. It was a fair wind. He thought he knew the way she held her head. It was Tanchun's, when she was pricing something.

The fourth was a phoenix in a plain frock, standing on a counting-board with its feet bound in red thread. She could weigh the whole House to the grain. / The balance stuck, she said, and laughed. / Every column came out but one, / and she was standing in it. He laughed, because it was a funny picture; then he stopped, because he had seen who it was, and the laugh turned into something else.

The fifth page he did not choose. The Counter said, "Not that one," and put out her hand, a moment too late; the drawer was already open. It showed a line of small figures waiting in a queue for a bowl, and one of them standing very straight. Above, in the margin, a hand had written the same name twice. She stood straight in the line and was taken out of it. / She stood straight in the House, and nobody asked how long. / She knew what it cost to be kept, and set a little by. / It was not enough, and it was not hers to set.

It was the one he knew best, and he did not understand it. "That is Keqing," he said, "and she is only in the next room." The Counter closed the drawer very gently and did not answer.

There was one thing more in the drawer, under the pages: a sheet with no picture and no verse. The Counter took it out herself and held it up so that he could see. The draw: unchanged. / The mouths: three hundred and fourteen. Three hundred and twenty-one. Three hundred and thirty. / The difference: carried forward. "That is the one that does not rhyme," she said. "It is the only one that is the whole of it."

At the very bottom was a last sheet, blank on both sides, and she turned it face down before he could look. "That one is not for you," she said. She said it, I thought, to the place on his chest. "I cannot see it. I cannot count it. I have kept the place." And then, so low I thought I had imagined it: "It is the only page in this Hall whose end I do not know."

I had not known I was capable of hope. I had only practised being glad. It was the first good thing anyone had ever said about not being entered, and she had said it as a misfortune.

Then the floor began to move. The figures rose off the pages like water and ran along the cabinets in columns, nines and twelves and threes, and came toward us across the smooth floor in a tide, and the boy cried out and began to run. "It does not come out," he said. "It does not come out." The Counter did not move. She said, very gently, to the air beside him, "You are the one I cannot count. That is why you are frightened," and the columns reached his feet, and I, who could do nothing, held on.

He woke on the small bed with the faded quilt, crying out a name. "Keqing! Keqing!" The needle stopped. She was beside him at once, with a thin cool hand on his forehead. "I am here," she said. "I am here. It was a dream."

Xiren had her arm round him. He was shaking and wet with sweat, and he said, in the voice of a boy who has lost the whole of a thing and kept only its edge, "The sum doesn't come out."

Keqing's hand stopped. "What sum?"

"I don't know," said Baoyu. "It doesn't come out."

She said nothing. She looked over the top of his head at Xiren, and I felt her hand, which was cold, close very slightly, the way a careful person closes a book. And something in her face, which had been open and kind, went shut, as a ledger goes shut when the person reading it has found the line.

## Chapter 06 · Where the Count Cannot Reach

After the plum, Keqing did not come across the street again. The House of Ning said she was a little unwell. It said so each time the House of Rong asked, in the same words and the same tone, and Xifeng, who had a good ear for a sum that was being kept small, began to hear it as a number.

Baoyu went every day. The Old Madam allowed it, because the House of Ning was a house where someone was ill, and because he could not have been stopped, and because he came home each evening quieter and more careful than he had gone, which she took for good. He did not speak of the dream. He had kept almost nothing of it. He had kept that the sum did not come out, and that he had cried, and a small odd certainty about the colour of a red cord.

On the ninth morning Daiyu was waiting for him in the passage outside the south room, with her hands behind her back and her face composed. She had not slept well; she had a way of not having slept that nobody was supposed to see. "You are going to the Ning House," she said. "To see the sick lady."

"Yes," said Baoyu.

"Is she thin?"

He thought about it. "Yes," he said. "Like you."

Daiyu took her hands from behind her back. In one was a slip of paper folded in four, with a line on it in Baochai's clear hand: Good for one hour of Mender Lo's time, on the ninth, for Miss Lin. She had carried it for four weeks and had not used it. It had been given to her in such a way that she could not refuse it, and now it was the ninth, and Lo would be in the Pear Court by noon.

"I owe it," she said. "I cannot pay it back to the one who gave it, because she has more than she knows what to do with; she would not know what I had paid. And I cannot use it. I tried to all night. So I will pay it on." She put the slip into his hand and folded his fingers over it, with a firmness that did not belong to a girl of ten. "Give it to her. Tell her it is from Cousin Lin, and that I owe it, and that I should like to be square."

"You are not making sense," said Baoyu.

"No," said Daiyu. "But take it."

The House of Ning had its own mender, an old man called Zhang, who came on the first of every month with a bag of small tools he had been carrying for forty years. On the tenth day Baoyu was waiting in the passage with Xiren, and heard him in the next room with the heir of Ning, in the voice of a man who has said the same thing several times and is going to say it once more.

"She is thin at the root," said Zhang. "She was thin at the root when she came to you. Years on the Rolls will do that. They feed what they can, and the root is the first to go. It was mended when she was brought in, and it has to be mended again, every year, a little, or it comes back. It ought to have been seen to in the spring. I never saw her in the spring. She was not in my book."

"She said she was well," said the heir.

"She said so to me as well," said Zhang. "She cancelled her slot. She cancelled it the year before and the year before that. I have it in my book, every year, in her own hand: not needed. I took her at her word. A woman who counts as well as she does." There was a silence. "I ought to have come anyway."

Baoyu did not understand what he had heard. Xiren, beside him, did. Her face did not change, but she put her hand over his, quite hard, for the length of one breath. Then the heir of Ning came out into the passage and saw them, and said with a smile that did not reach his eyes that his wife would be glad of the company, and went away down the corridor with the quick steps of a man who is going to deal with something that is not his fault.

She was in the room with the herb in the linen and the scroll on the wall, propped up in the big bed beneath the thing he had refused to sleep under. She was thinner than she had been at the plum, and her face had gone the colour of the paper lanterns when the candle is low. When she saw him she smiled, and the room became for a moment exactly what it had been on the afternoon of the dream.

"Come in, boy," said Keqing. "Come and sit. Tell me about your day."

He told her. He told her about the stone lions at Rong, which he had decided were underfed, and a cat in the south room that belonged to nobody, and the new cousin who counted things. She listened as she always listened, with her whole face. Then he took out of his jacket a slip of paper folded in four, because he had been told to, and gave it to her and said that it was from Cousin Lin, who owed it, and who would like to be square. Keqing read it, and her face changed. "She is ten years old," she said, to nobody, "and she is paying it forward." She was quiet for a moment. "Tell her this. It is an hour I cannot use; it is the Xues' mender, and he works for the Xues alone, and by the time he had found the root I should not be here to be mended. But it is the kindest thing anyone has offered me this winter, and I shall keep it. Tell her she is square." She put it under her pillow and turned back to him. She said, "And the other thing. What you saw that day, when you slept."

"I don't remember," said Baoyu. "Only that it did not come out."

"No," said Keqing. "It doesn't." She said it so gently that he looked at her. "Go and lie down on the small bed, there's a good boy. I am going to have a visitor tonight, and I should like you here, and I should like you not to hear. It is the kind of thing a boy does very well."

He lay down. He was asleep, I think, before Xiren had drawn the quilt up. I do not sleep. I was against his chest, and I heard what follows from the first word, and I say I because I was in the room.

Xifeng came at the lighting of the lamps. She had been sent for by a message so short that it had only her name in it, and she came across the street without a maid, as one goes to something that is not to be spoken of. She stood in the door with her sleeves down. She did not take a chair. She looked at the woman in the bed, and Keqing looked at her, and for a moment they were two women who had never had time for each other and had now been given exactly as much as there was.

"Aunt," said Keqing. "Sit. I shall not be here in the spring."

"Don't," said Xifeng. "Don't say that. Zhang says there is a mend. He says it may be done at the winter's end."

"Zhang says a great many things. He is a kind man and he is too late, and so am I, and I should like to spend what I have on something that is not a kindness. Sit down. Please. I want to tell you what I know, and you are the only person in either House who can be told."

Xifeng sat. She sat on the edge of the chair, as a woman sits who has not decided to stay.

"I was on the Rolls," said Keqing. "You know that. You do not know what it teaches. It teaches one thing. I have thought about it for fifteen years in the warmest room in the House of Ning, and I am sure of it. It is this: what the count cannot reach, it cannot take."

She waited, and Xifeng said nothing, and she went on.

"The Charter will end. Not tomorrow. But it will; all of them do. The Court will come, and it will take what is in the roll. It will take the Houses and the courts and the Garden and every share, because everything is in the roll; that is what the roll is. It cannot take what was never entered. The children on the Rolls have nothing, and so they cannot be touched. The Houses have everything, and so they can lose everything. That is the whole of what I know, aunt, and it took me fifteen years and a very good room."

Xifeng had gone quite still.

"Put something where the roll does not go," said Keqing. "A field. Land at the family graves, outside the city, in a name that is not a House's: held by the clan, for the rites and a school, so that its yield belongs to nobody and cannot be reckoned as the House's. Let the rites be what it is called. Nobody looks hard at a rite. Put into it what you can, a little at a time, out of the good years. Not for the House. For whoever is left. The Houses will say they need nothing, and they are right: they need nothing today. Do it while the House is bright."

"Bright," said Xifeng, quite lightly. "It is a good House, but I would not call it bright."

"There is good news coming," said Keqing. "I had it from the heir, who had it from a man at the Court, who should not have said. It will be the best news this House has ever had. It will come within the year. There will be a great deal of noise and a great deal of money, and you will do the sums for all of it, because you are the one who does. And while the lamp is at its brightest, aunt, the oil will begin to run. I have done the sum. I did it the night that boy woke crying that it did not come out, and I have done it every night since in my head, and he was right. It does not."

"Which sum?"

"The one you do on the first of every month. Carried forward."

Xifeng said, in a voice with nothing light left in it, "You are asking me to enter something outside the House's roll, in a name that is not the House's, while the Old Madam is alive and the House is full of children who have never been short. To put a share outside the roll is to say that the roll might fail. Nobody in that House can say that aloud. If I did it, it would have to be done as if it were something else, and behind everyone's back. It is the one kind of thing in that House that there is no allowance for."

"Then do not say it," said Keqing. "Call it the rites."

"And if I am wrong? If it is only a bad year?"

"Then you will have spent a little on some graves, and I shall not mind it." She smiled. "I will be there."

"Why me?" said Xifeng. "Why not the Master of Ning? Why not the Old Madam?"

"Because the Master would call it gloom, and the Old Madam would call it a death. And because you, aunt, are the only person in either House who knows to the last coin what it has, and I have watched you not be frightened of it for years. You are the one person who can bear to know." She paused. "And the one most likely to do the next sum instead."

Xifeng laughed, a short, true, startled laugh that hurt. "You know me too well."

"That is why I am telling you." Keqing's voice had begun to thin. "There is one more thing, and then I will sleep. It is not much. It is eleven measures."

She did not say eleven measures of what. She did not have to. Xifeng could have told anyone, to the grain, what a mending slot cost in a year. She had known it for the length of five breaths before she let herself know what it meant.

"My slot in the spring," said Keqing. "Zhang's book. I did not take it. I did not take it three years ago, when the Ning table became what it is, and I did the sum, and eleven is what it came to, a year, and the House would not have noticed eleven. I could not take it for the House. So I kept it. It is in the seventh drawer of the Ning counting-room, under my name, unspent. It is not enough. It is not mine to set. But I should like it to go into the field."

"You stopped your mending."

"Three years ago."

"You set it by," said Xifeng. "Out of your own life."

"It is not a life. It is a root. They are not the same."

"Keqing."

"Aunt, it is all right. It was the one allowance I could make. Nobody had to be asked."

Xifeng put both hands over her face. I saw something I had not seen in the counting-room or at the first table or in any room at all, which was Xifeng without the sleeves.

When she looked up she said, "I will see to it." It was what she said to everything. "I will think about it."

"I know," said Keqing, and closed her eyes, and she was smiling a little, as one smiles who knows the answer to a sum and has decided to be kind about it. "That is why I told you twice."

Xifeng left at the third watch. She went out through the passage without seeing Xiren, past the lanterns, with her sleeves down, and stood a long time on the step of the House of Ning in the cold, where the stone lions were. She looked at the lions for a long while, which was an odd thing to do. Then she went home across the street and sat at the long table in the counting-room by one lamp, and took out the House of Rong's own roll, and began, with a pencil, to do a sum. It was the one she did every day. It did not come out. She was a very good clerk, and she put it away, and did the next.

The boy slept. He woke in the morning with a clear memory of nothing, and the feeling that someone had been kind to him in the night.

I will think about it is a thing often said in that House. I will say now what I did not say then: it is the only sentence in the House that means never. I have kept the eleven measures in my own account ever since, as one keeps what nobody else is keeping.

## Chapter 07 · The Seventh Drawer

Keqing was counted out on the fourth night of the first month of the year. She went as the made go, thinly and without fuss, a little before the lamps were lit: the warmth went out of the hand before the house knew it must be asked. There was nobody in the room but Xiren, who had been sent for, and the heir of Ning, who had not been; and a slip of paper under a pillow that nobody had seen.

The House of Ning did what every House does. It stood the Table empty for one meal, so that the places at it could be seen. It lit a lamp in her room and kept it lit for forty-nine days. And it counted her out: the clerk of the roll came with the book, and every person in the House, from the Master to the youngest stove-girl, filed past the bed and put into a bowl one small grain of whatever they ate, so that the share she had drawn all her life was given back to the House in a thousand pieces, and the roll was made one line shorter. It is the oldest custom in the Keeping. It is called the Counting Out, and it is meant to be kind. It says: you were counted; you are not owed; go.

Baoyu was given a grain by Xiren to put in the bowl. He held it in his palm for a long time. "She did not take hers," he said, in the voice of a boy who has put two things together in a passage and has not yet been told what they make. "Last year, and the year before. Zhang said." "No," said Xiren. "Then whose is it that I am giving back?" She could not answer him. He put the grain in the bowl, and the next morning he gave his own share of the breakfast rice to a girl in the kitchen passage, and the next, and was thought to be unwell.

Her bowl was fuller than any other, because Xiren put four grains in it. Zhang the mender put one, and stood a long time with his hand open, like a man returning something that he should have given.

The Master of Ning had decided that she should have the best.

He said it in the front hall, in a voice a little too loud, to the whole of the family and half the servants, and the steward wrote it on the back of his hand. She should have the best of everything: the best singing, the best cloth, the longest mourning, and the best coffin that could be found. He was a man who, when he did not know what to do about a loss, did a very large thing instead, and it was the way he mourned. It was also, I think, the way he did not look at some other thing.

The best coffin that could be found was a board of keeping-wood. It is a dark close wood, the kind the makers used for their own cases, which does not take the damp and does not feed anything that eats wood; what is laid in a case of it will keep four hundred years. A man was taken to see one at the Xues'. Pan's father had put a board of it by in the year Pan was added, with nobody in mind, because it was a good thing to have and a trader never sold what he could not replace; and Pan, who was as free with other people's things as with his own, said carelessly that it could be had for a thousand measures. The Master of Ning said, "Name it." The steward said nothing, and wrote it on his other hand.

Madam You could not run the funeral. She had taken to her bed on the third day with something the household called grief and the physician called a chill, and the heir of Ning was a man for whom the words run a house in mourning did not make a sentence. The Master asked the Old Madam whether Xifeng might be lent for a month. The Old Madam, who had a very exact sense of the cost of refusing the House of Ning, said yes in about the time it takes to say it; and Xifeng, who had been silent for a week, said only, "I will go over in the morning," and went to find her pencil.

She took the boy with her. He had asked to go, in his plain way, and the Old Madam saw no harm in it. He sat in the corner of the Ning counting-room on a stool with his knees up, doing nothing, which was what he did best, and fetched pencils when she lifted a hand. I was on his chest. I saw it all. It was the best month of work in Xifeng's life, and I am sorry to say so.

The House of Ning was in the state of a house with nobody in charge, which is a state of great activity. Everyone was busy and no one had a task. Things were lost. The same thing was done twice and another not at all. Four people were detailed to carry one tray and none of them did. Xifeng stood in the doorway of the front hall on the first morning with her sleeves pushed back, and counted the confusion to the grain in about the time it takes to take off a glove.

She had five rules by noon. Every task in the House was given to a named person, and the name was written on a board in the passage, so that nobody could say that a thing was not theirs. The keys to every store were kept by one hand and counted in and out. A roll was called at the hour, and anyone absent was struck off the day's meal and told to wait at the gate; nobody was shouted at, because she had no need of it. A thing lost was charged to the person who had last held it. And what was spent was written down the same day, in her hand or Pinger's, and nobody was allowed to be a little generous with what was not theirs.

On the second morning a boy of eleven who carried the lamp-oil came in late. Everyone looked to see what she would do. Xifeng asked him why, and he said that his mother was in the mending-room and had been bad in the night; and Xifeng took the pencil and wrote mending against his name on the board in the passage, and said that this was what the board was for: to say where a person was, and not only where they were not. The House of Ning, which had been expecting a blade, stood a moment with its mouth open, and then went back to its trays a little quicker than before.

It worked at once. It worked so well that the House of Ning, which had been bewildered for a week, began to look at her as a house looks at a person who has come in with a lamp. The old servants, who had expected a woman who would be hard on them, found a woman who knew their names. The young ones were afraid of her and liked it. By the third day the passage was swept and the trays were carried, and the house, for the first time since Keqing had last been well, was exactly as quiet as it ought to be.

She was entirely herself. It is the only thing I can say about her that month, and I say it with as much affection as dismay. Under the sleeves and the pencil, and the voice that went through a room like a bright blade, there was a woman who was for once among things of the right size for her, and she was happy. It was a happiness with a very small door. She did not look at the door.

On the ninth day the steward came to her with a paper. He was an exact man called Lai, with a tidy beard and a tidy mind, who had never before been spoken to so quickly by someone who understood what he was saying. The coffin, he said, had been agreed at a thousand measures. The Ning draw for the month was already spoken for, and the mourning cloth and the singers and the lamps. He had found nine hundred and eighty-nine. There was a gap of eleven.

"Eleven," said Xifeng.

"I have looked in every drawer," said Lai, in the voice of a man who has looked in every drawer. "There is one place that has not been spent. It is the seventh drawer of the counting-room, under the late young lady's name: eleven measures, a mending slot, three years unspent, which she did not take. It is on the roll, and it is idle. The Master will not mind. I should not have mentioned it, but I was asked to find eleven, and it is exactly eleven."

The corner of the room where the boy sat had gone very quiet.

Xifeng looked at the steward's page for the length of one breath. It was the same length as the breath she had taken one morning in the autumn over a page on which the fourth of the month was empty. It was a very long breath, and I watched her take it. She had said then that she did not see anything there. There was something there now, with a name on it, and she saw it. She had known it for eleven days. She had not known that it would be put in front of her by a man with a tidy beard who did not know what it was, on the ninth day, to make up a sum.

"Enter it," she said.

Lai wrote. The pen made the small noise a pen makes. He blotted it, and said, "I am obliged, madam," and went away, and the sum came out, and it was the first sum all that month that had come out exactly.

She did not look at the boy. I do not think she knew she was not looking. He had not understood what he heard, and I had. I had kept that eleven in my own account since the night in the warm room, and I watched it go into the thing that would hold her for four hundred years in a case that did not take the damp. It was the best keeping anyone in either House received that year. It had cost eleven measures more than the House had, and it had been paid, to the grain, out of what she had not taken to live. A thousand measures was ninety times what Keqing's mending would have cost her in a year. Xifeng could have told you the figure. She did not need to be told.

The Court's messenger came on the fifteenth day, in the middle of the singing. He came to the House of Rong, because it was the House of Rong that the news was for, and there was a moment at the gate when the two Houses stood in white on one side of the street and the red livery of the Court's rider on the other, and nobody knew by which door he should be admitted.

He was young, and tired, and had been riding since before light, and had been told to deliver the paper and nothing else. Xifeng, who had a feeling for a man who has been given an errand and no table, sent Pinger out with a bowl before anyone had decided which door to use. He ate it standing in the street, between the white and the red, and was the only person present that morning who was entirely at his ease.

The news was in four lines on a stiff paper with a seal. The daughter of the House of Rong, who had gone into the Court's inner rooms at fifteen and had been little more than a name in her family's mouth since, was raised to the Seat of the Inner Table. It was the highest rank any woman of any House could hold. It carried a standing right: that once in the coming year, with the Court's inspectors attending, she might visit the House of her birth.

The House of Rong did what a house does, which is both. The Old Madam put on her red for the first time in six years, and wept, and laughed. The Lady wept without laughing. The Master read the paper three times, and went into his study and shut the door, and came out an hour later looking like a man who has been told the amount. The steward Lai came across from Ning with a second paper, which was the first estimate of what it cost to be honoured; and Xifeng, who had been on her way to Ning in white, stopped on the step and read it, and her face did not change, and her sleeves went up.

Keqing had said: within the year. It had been fifteen days.

"Does she have a larger share now?" said Baoyu. He was ten, and he asked what a child asks. The whole table laughed, and the Old Madam said, with great tenderness, that a daughter of the Seat had a share that a House could only dream of, and that it would lift them all. He thought about that, with me against his chest. He said, "Whose will she have taken it from?" And nobody laughed, and the Lady, who was crying, put her hand over her mouth.

The case was closed on the twentieth night. Xiren had been given the ordering of Keqing's things, as the one who had been in the room, and she brought a folded paper to Xifeng in the counting-room, standing very straight, with the face that never changed. "It was under her pillow, madam," said Xiren. "I do not think it is for the roll."

Xifeng unfolded it. It was one line in a clear hand: Good for one hour of Mender Lo's time, on the ninth, for Miss Lin. She read it, and then she looked at the boy on his stool, who had gone white, and she did not need to ask whose it had been or how it had come to be under that pillow. She had been told, on a winter night, by a woman who was now lying in the best wood in the capital, that there is a thing the count cannot take; and here was one, in her hand, not enough for anything, and not hers to set.

"Put it in her hand," she said. "Do not enter it. It is the one thing in this whole business that nobody has had to enter."

Xiren took it, and did; and the lid was set on the keeping-wood, which fitted without a sound. Xifeng went out of the room with her sleeves down, and for the first time that month did not look as though she were somewhere she belonged.

## Chapter 08 · A Garden for One Day

It took eight months and a wall.

The wall was the one between the two Houses. It had stood since the Duke's two lines first quarrelled over a drain, and it came down in a single week, under two hundred men, brick by numbered brick, because the Master of Ning had had the bricks numbered, in case. Behind it lay the Ning garden, which was small and rich, and the Rong grounds, which were large and poor; and between them, now, a long raw seam of earth where somebody was going to make a garden fit to be looked at by the Court.

The men who made it were not of the House. They came from the villages beyond the Charters, two hundred of them, taken on for the season and paid in coin, and they did the work in half the time the Houses' own people would have taken, because a man who has had to keep himself thin has learned to use his hands. They ate at the back, from their own pots, and wanted nothing from the House but the coin. When the ninth month came they were gone, as they had come, and the only mark they left was the Garden. Xifeng, who read rolls for a living, looked at the list of their names and found it was the first roll she had ever seen with no column for their keep.

The cost of the honour came on a second paper, and then a third. Lai had been right about the first. It was Xifeng who put the whole before the Old Madam in the south room, on a clear afternoon, with her sleeves down for once, because she did not want to look as though she were enjoying it. The Garden itself: so much. The furnishing of forty-two rooms to be looked into: so much. Lanterns, gifts for the inspectors, the hangings, the guard, the roads, the meal that would be served and the meal that would be seen to be served. When she had read it all out she said the figure, and the room did not make a sound.

"We cannot borrow against the future for one day," said the Master. He had come in without being sent for. He stood by the door with his hands in his sleeves and did the sum, quietly, with his lips.

"It is the Seat's day," said the Old Madam.

"It is one day," said the Master.

"It will be one day and four winters," said Xifeng, who could not help it.

She had the rest in her hand, and she gave it. The Court's Stores would grant an advance, because a House that has been raised to a Seat is owed one: it was a courtesy as old as the Seats, and the Stores were always generous to a House that was being honoured. Nine thousand measures, paid out at once. They would be taken back in four equal pieces, out of the next four winters' draws. She said it in the same voice as the rest. Nobody said what it came to. The House's draw was seven thousand a year and had been for six years, and nine thousand over four winters is more than two thousand a year, which is more than three in ten.

"Nearly a third," said the Master.

"The Court calls it an advance," said Xifeng. "I should not like to call it anything else in front of the Old Madam."

The Old Madam looked at the window. On the sill, Yuanyang had put a branch of early plum in the bowl that morning, and the Old Madam looked at it, which Yuanyang noticed and said nothing about. "My granddaughter is in the Court's rooms," she said. "She has been there nine years. She has not once been home. If she says she will come, we shall not say we cannot make the house fit." She did not raise her voice. "We shall find it."

It was agreed. Nobody voted; nobody was asked. It was agreed as such things are, by everyone looking at the same place on the floor.

The Master of Ning wanted to do it better. He had an eye, in those months, for what could be done with more, and he found it. It was he who sent a young nephew with a good eye to the Menders' House with a purse, and had twelve children brought off the Rolls: girls of nine to thirteen who could sing, or might, to be taught the Court's music by a mistress he hired out of the capital, so that on the day they would sing among the pavilions and be heard from the water. The Menders, who had been keeping those twelve on what they could spare, were so glad that they sent a note of thanks with them, which nobody read. They were kept well. Nobody who saw them ever said otherwise. They became twelve more mouths, and they were very hungry, and they sang beautifully.

That was the other half of the sum. A house built for a day must be furnished with people, or the Court will see the emptiness and say so. The Garden would need a hundred maids and gardeners, a staff of cooks, the twelve children, and all who would wait on them. They would be chosen for being pleasant to look at. They would be installed, and trained, and dressed. And when the day was over they would each of them be a mouth.

The hundred were chosen on the long porch of the Lower Hall, on a grey day, in two afternoons. Xifeng sat at the table with the roll, and the Lady beside her with her hands in her lap, and the girls came up the porch one at a time, as at a market, and were asked their names and what they could do. It was not unkind. It was done with great courtesy, and nobody was touched. But a girl who is walked the length of a porch to be looked at knows exactly what she is being weighed against, and most of them looked at the floor.

One did not. She was fifteen or so, a thin bright girl with quick hands and a mouth that had been told to keep still and had not agreed to it, who had been sent over from the Old Madam's household with a word that she was clever. "Name?" said Xifeng. "Qingwen, madam." "What can you do?" "I can sew," said Qingwen. "I can sit still when I am told, and I cannot pretend I like it."

Somebody laughed on the porch. Xifeng did not, quite; she looked at the girl over the top of the roll with something that was nearly pleasure. "Put her down," she said to the clerk.

The Lady had not laughed. She had lifted her eyes from her lap, and kept them on the girl a moment longer than the business needed, and then lowered them again. Nobody noticed. A House remembers a look like that, when it needs one.

The Master walked the Garden when it was half made, in the spring. He took four gentlemen with him. They were his guests, who lived at the House of Rong on his own share and earned it by saying that things were splendid; and the first of them, Mr. Zhan, was a man whose whole face was an agreement. They went in procession with the clerks behind, across planks laid over new mud, past rocks that had been brought from three provinces, and he said that every place in it would have to be named, because a place without a name was a place nobody had thought about, and the Court would think about everything.

He had brought the boy. He had not wanted to. Baoyu had been seen in the passage at the wrong moment, and the Master, who disapproved of him as one disapproves of an unreadable letter, had said suddenly, "You will come," in a voice that made the whole company look round. Baoyu came, a little behind, with his hand on me. He was eleven. He had not been told that he was to be examined, and had worked out in about four steps that he was, and I felt his heart go up like a thing climbing a hill.

They came to the first rock, which stood at the entrance to hide the Garden from the gate. The gentlemen proposed Hidden View, which was elegant, and Pleasant Obscurity, which was very elegant; and the Master, who had a stern mouth for compliments, turned to the boy and said, "And you?" It was not a kind voice.

Baoyu said, after a moment, "I don't think it ought to be named for hiding. I think it should be named for coming through. Anyone who sees a rock like that knows there is something behind it. What they want to know is how long they will have to wait." He thought. "The Way Round."

The gentlemen laughed a little. The Master said nothing for the length of one breath, and the boy stopped hoping. "It is not bad," said the Master. He said it as one pays a debt. "Go on."

They went on. The streams, which were crooked on purpose; the pavilion over the water, which the gentlemen wished to call by a line from an ancient poem, and Baoyu, who was asked, said that it stood where the stream was loudest, and that a name should say what a place was for: he proposed Clear Sound, and the Master said hm, in a voice that was not a refusal.

At a grove of bamboo by the water, which the gentlemen wished to call after a famous river, Baoyu stopped, and the Master, who had half expected it, let him. "Whoever lives here will have to like being listened to by leaves," he said. "It should be named for someone who is a little afraid of being alone and does not mind." The gentlemen did not know what to do with this. The Master said hm again, and wrote something on his sleeve, and the grove was called the Lodge of Thin Green. He did not say why he had chosen it. But Baoyu had spoken with his eyes on the corner of the Garden nearest the south room, and the Master, who was not a stupid man, noticed where he was looking, and did not ask.

And then, at the edge of the new east lawn, they came to the farm.

It was a very good farm. It had been made with great care by a man who had been told to make a farm: a thatched house with a well and a mulberry, a low earth wall, a paddock for four hens, a bed of vegetables in rows, a water-wheel that turned in a small stream. It was exactly like a picture. A hen was already in the paddock, put there to be looked at. The gentlemen cried out as one man. The Master allowed himself to smile.

"Now this is a place," said Mr. Zhan. "This is simplicity. This is what the Seat will like: to be reminded that the House is not a palace. Rice-Fragrance Village. Or the Village of the Plain Life."

"What does the boy say?" said the Master, still smiling. He did not expect anything.

Baoyu looked at the farm for a long time. I felt him go quiet, as he did when he was thinking something he knew would be punished. "Nobody will eat from it," he said.

"What?"

"There are four hens and a bed of vegetables the size of a table, and nobody who lives here. It's a picture. I think a name should say what a place is. If it is a farm there should be somebody on it who eats. If it has nobody, it is a picture of a farm, and we should call it a picture." He took a breath. "And the Court's people will know. They eat. They will know what a farm is."

Nobody said anything. The wheel went round in the stream. The hen, in the paddock, made a noise like a small door.

"Hold your tongue," said the Master, very quietly. He had gone the colour of the paper in the clerks' hands. "You are eleven. You do not know what you are saying."

"I only said what it was," said Baoyu.

"Take him out of my sight," said the Master, to nobody; and the boy went, quickly, down the plank, and nobody laughed, which was the worst of it. And I, hanging on his chest, was nearly sick with a pride I had no right to and no means of showing. Behind us the gentlemen began, with enormous energy, to praise the mulberry.

The farm was called Rice-Fragrance Village, as Mr. Zhan had said. It was kept up for the Visit. Afterwards a widow of the House, who had nowhere else to put her, was given it to live in, and she grew the vegetables, and ate them, and in her second year the bed had to be enlarged. It became the only place in the whole Garden that did anything useful. Nobody said so to the boy.

The Garden was finished at the end of the eighth month. On the evening before the Old Madam's people came to see it, Baoyu went in at the gate by himself, with Daiyu, who had asked to come and had not said why. He had been told to keep out of the way. They stood together at the top of the rise. The lanterns were hung already, and had been lit in a row to test them, so that the whole Garden stood in the dusk like a thing about to be said.

Daiyu counted. She looked at the lighted windows of the forty-two rooms, one at a time, and her lips moved. "There is nobody in any of them," she said.

"No," said Baoyu.

"Forty-two rooms, and a hundred mouths to put in them for a day, and four winters to pay it back." She did not make it a question. "And one person who will come for a day, from a place we cannot go to."

They said nothing for a time. A house built to be lived in has a way of settling at dusk, with small noises, as a body settles. This one did not. It stood quite still, lit, and waited, with the attention of a thing that has been built for someone who is not there yet; and I, who had waited at the side of a road for a very long time and had never once been lit, knew exactly how it felt.

## Chapter 09 · The Visit

The Court gives a Seat four hours.

It is in the rules. A woman raised to the Inner Table may visit the House of her birth once, with inspectors, between the third hour of the morning and the seventh, and she may not stay a minute over, because the Court has learned that people who are kept longer than four hours in a House they love do not always go back. So the whole of that year, the eight months and the wall, the nine thousand measures, the hundred and the twelve, came down to four hours on a day in the first week of the ninth month, and the House of Rong stood in its ranks at the gate from before dawn, in clothes that had been taken out of cedar for it, and did not speak.

It stood in ranks, as a House stands which has been told that it will be looked at, where each person knows to the width of a hand where they are to stand, and which of their feet is to be forward. Three hundred and some mouths, and every one of them wearing a face. The Old Madam was at the head, in her red, in her chair, with Yuanyang behind her. The Master was beside her with his hands in his sleeves and the look of a man who is being brave about a sum. Xifeng was at the second gate with the roll, and her sleeves were down, and her pencil was behind her ear, and she had not eaten since the day before.

The Court's inspectors came first. There were three of them, in grey, with counting-boards on straps, and they went through the Garden ahead of her, as one clears a path, and counted. They counted the lanterns. They counted the dishes laid, and the dishes to be laid. They counted the persons in each court, with a small quick movement of the finger over the board that was the nearest thing to a prayer I have ever seen a man make. The oldest of them was a man with a pointed grey beard and a pleasant manner, who said good morning to every maid he passed, and wrote down her face.

She came at the third hour, to the minute. I was on the boy's chest at the foot of the second gate, a little behind the Old Madam, where he had been put by Yuanyang, with his hair brushed and his jacket buttoned wrong. There was a sound a long way off, of wheels and of a great many feet being careful, and then the gate swung, and a chair came in with gold curtains on it and the red of the Court on its bearers, and was set down on the swept stones with so little noise that it seemed to have arrived of itself.

She got out. She was twenty-four, and tall, and in a plain robe the colour of weak tea, with her hair in a style that had been decided for her, and she was pale in the way that a person is pale who has been counted too often. She looked at the lanterns. She looked at the faces. She looked, for a moment longer than anyone expected, at the stones under her feet, and then she looked up, and saw the Old Madam in the red, and her whole face went.

They did not say anything. There was a silence that went on for about the length of the walk across a room, and then the Old Madam was out of her chair, which nobody had known she could do without being lifted, and the Seat of the Inner Table was on her knees on the swept stones in her tea-coloured robe with her arms round a very old woman's waist, and the whole House of Rong, which had been told what to do with its face, did not know what to do with it, and looked at the sky.

"Why so much?" said Yuanchun, when she could. She said it into the Old Madam's shoulder. It was the first thing she said in her father's house in nine years. "Why so much? Oh, Grandmother. Why so much?"

The inspectors, at a respectful distance, moved their fingers on their boards.

It was a long tour, and it was done in the dignity of a day on which nobody was allowed to be hurried. She went through the Garden on foot, on her grandmother's arm, with the Master a pace behind and the gentlemen behind him. She stopped at the first rock. "The Way Round," she read. "That is a good name. Who made it?" There was a pause, in which Mr. Zhan began to speak and the Master put up a hand. "My second son named it, Your Seat," he said, and, very stiffly, "with two others." "Baoyu?" said Yuanchun. She turned. "Where is he? I have not seen my brother since he was three."

He was brought. He had been standing, rigid, at the edge of the crowd, and he was moved forward by a gentle push at the small of the back, from Xiren, who was at his elbow with her face quite unchanged. He knelt. She said, "Get up, don't; stand." She took his chin in her hand and turned his face to the light, as a person looks at a coin she has been told is good. "You are thin," she said. "They tell me in the letters that you give your rice away."

"Sometimes," said Baoyu.

"Don't give it all away," said the Seat of the Inner Table, in a voice that was not a Seat's at all, and she let him go.

At the farm, the oldest inspector stopped. He looked at the thatch, and the mulberry, and the four hens in the paddock, one of which had been joined that morning by a fifth, and he smiled his pleasant smile, and said to no one in particular, "Charming. And who eats the hens?"

Mr. Zhan said something about the plain life. The inspector wrote it down, kindly. At the back of the company a small boy in a buttoned-wrong jacket made a very slight sound and turned it into a cough, and I felt his chest shake, and I have never been so close to laughing in my life.

She asked each of the young ones to write a poem, as the Seat of a great House does, on a place of their choosing. They were put at small tables in the pavilion over the water, with brushes, and a clerk to wait with a bell. The cousins had been in training for a month. Tanchun wrote hers in the time it takes to boil rice; Yingchun wrote four lines and signed them; Baochai wrote with the composure of someone who has always been asked. Daiyu, who had been given the Lodge of Thin Green, sat quite still, and her brush hung in the air, and then it moved.

Baoyu wrote three. He wrote them fast, in a boy's good bold hand, and they were better than he knew; and the fourth would not come. It was for the grove of the new bamboo. He had a line, and then he had half a line, and then he had a very white sheet and a clerk looking at him with a bell.

Baochai, who had come up beside him in the way of a person who happens to be passing, looked at what he had written. "The third word," she said, very low, not turning her head. "It is what the Court's poets say. She will have heard it a hundred times. Say what you mean." She had gone before he could ask which word she meant, and he looked at it, and understood, and put another in its place, and the line stood up like a thing that had been waiting to.

Daiyu had finished her own. She had seen him stop. She looked at the white sheet, and at his face, and I saw her do the sum. Her own poem was a good one, as good as any in the pavilion; she knew it, and she knew who would read it. She took the sheet she had written and turned it over, and in the space of two breaths she wrote another, plainer, three lines of nothing, a poem that would be forgiven; and she wrote the last lines of his on the edge of her sleeve in a hand so near his own that the Seat herself could not have said, and she slid it across the table to him, without looking at him, as a woman passes salt.

The Seat read them all. She read the second son's last, and read it twice, and said that it was the best in the pavilion. She put her hand on his head. He did not know that two people had been generous to him in the same quarter of an hour, in two different ways, and that one of them had given him a word and the other had given him a poem. I saw it. I could not say. It was the first time I understood that an allowance can be made so quietly that the one it is made for never learns that he owes it.

She asked for music. The twelve were brought out on the water-steps, in grey and rose, in a row, and the singing mistress lifted her hand. They sang the Court's pieces, and they sang them very well. They had been well kept. They had been told which breath to take and where to put their feet. But the Seat had stopped listening, and was looking along the line with a face that did not look as though it were hearing a song, and at the end she said, quite quietly, "The little one at the end. Let her sing something she knows."

The little one at the end was nine. She had been put in the row because she had a true voice and because nobody had had the heart to tell the Menders that she was too small. She stood very straight. She looked at the singing mistress, who looked away. She had not been told what to sing. So she sang what she had sung all her life, in the line for the noon bowl, in a flat clear child's voice with no Court in it at all:

One for the bowl and two for the spoon, / three for whoever is late. / Four for the lamp that was lit too soon, / five for the ones who wait. / Six for the line and seven for the door, / eight for the name you say twice, / nine for the ones who were here before, / and ten is for being kept.

Nobody in the pavilion knew it, except one. The Seat of the Inner Table had lived nine years among the Court's maids, who are all of them taken off the Rolls, and had heard that song through a wall at night for nine years, from girls who thought nobody was listening. She did not move. But the tears came down her face without any change in it, quite evenly, like rain on a window; and the boy beside her, who had been shown in a dream a page with one name written twice on it and remembered none of it, put his hand in hers, and was surprised to find that she held it very hard. I thought of a woman who had said her name twice. I thought: the song has been going all the time. It has only been waiting for someone to be near enough to hear it.

At the sixth hour she sat in the south room with the Old Madam and the Master and the Lady, and the door was shut, and the inspectors drew back to the passage. They gave her the gifts of the Court to give, as the Seat does: a length of silk for each person of rank, and for the Old Madam a cup of the Court's white porcelain, and for the second son and the Xue girl a red bead string each and a roll of silk besides: the same for both of them, and not the same as the rest. The House noticed it. It noticed it in the way a House notices a small stone in a shoe, without looking down. Daiyu, who stood in the doorway with a plain roll of silk, noticed it, and put her face in the order of a girl who has not noticed anything. The Seat had been told, in the way things are told in the Court's rooms, that the House of Rong was likely to take a trading house's daughter for its second son, and she meant it kindly, and she had not looked at the little cousin from the south because she had not been told to.

She said what she had to say at the seventh hour, with her hand on the Old Madam's.

"I shall not be able to come again," she said. "It is not the Court's rule; it is the way of it. A Seat does not go home twice. I wanted to say it myself, in this house, and not in a letter." She looked at the Master. "I have seen the sum. The inspectors told me what was done, and I asked what it cost, and they told me that too. Four winters." The Master's face went entirely still. "I will not tell you that you should not have done it. I will tell you that you will not do it again. I will not have a garden built for the next. I want you to promise it."

"Your Seat," said the Master.

"Promise."

"I promise," said the Master.

"And this place," said the Seat of the Inner Table. She looked out, through the lattice, at the lanterns, which had begun to be lit against the dusk, row upon row, down to the water. "It was made for me, and I am going. A house that has been lit should not be left dark. Let the young live in it. Let the girls have the rooms; let my brother have one; let there be somebody who can sit in it and not be a guest." She smiled, and it was the first time that day, and it was an old smile, and tired. "That is the only use I can make of it."

The Court's trumpet sounded at the seventh hour exactly, and she went out of the south room, and down the steps, and through the Garden, past the lantern-bearers, who bowed down as she passed like corn in a wind. She did not look back at the farm, or the pavilion, or the Lodge of Thin Green. She looked at the Old Madam, once, over her shoulder, and then the gold curtains closed.

The Old Madam stood at the gate until the last of the red livery had turned the corner, and then she stood there a while more. Nobody dared to go to her. When Yuanyang finally did, the Old Madam said, in a small flat voice that I had not heard her use, "She is thin."

The maids put out the lanterns one at a time, as they had been told, from the water-steps to the gate, so that the Garden went dark in a long line, like a sentence that is being finished. The Master walked round it at the end with a candle, and counted the doors, and came back and said to the Lady, very low, in the hall, two words. I was against the boy's chest on the stair, going up, and I heard them. They were: "Four winters."

## Chapter 10 · The Day After

The House of Rong woke late the next day, for the first time in anyone's memory, and nobody could say what to do about it.

There is a particular quiet in a house that has held its breath for eight months and has let it out. It was not rest. The maids went about their rooms like people who had been told a thing was over and could not feel it. The Old Madam stayed in her chair by the window and did not ask for her breakfast, and Yuanyang, who knew better than to bring it, set the bowl down on the sill beside the plum, and went away, and when she came back an hour later the bowl was empty and the Old Madam was looking out at nothing, and neither of them said a word.

In the counting-room, Xifeng had not gone to bed. She sat at the end of the long table in yesterday's clothes with Pinger on one side and Lai, who had come across from Ning at first light, on the other, and the whole roll of the Visit spread out in front of them like a great sheet that has been taken off a bed. She was adding. She was adding in the way she added when she was frightened, which was faster than at any other time and without a mistake.

"Eleven thousand four hundred measures," she said at last. She said it as one says the name of a person who has died. "The estimate was ten thousand. The Court's Stores gave nine. The difference is two thousand four hundred."

"Found," said Pinger, very quietly.

"Found, in the course of the year, in places I am not going to name." She looked at the paper. There had been the purse that Aunt Xue had put on the table, and the eleven measures out of the seventh drawer, and a good many hairs from a good many bowls, and a long, thin month of the lowest girls' Pocket held back for six days at a time. She knew it to the grain. So did Pinger. Lai did not, and had the grace to look at the table.

"And the mouths," said Lai.

"Yes," said Xifeng. "The mouths."

That was the other half of the sum, and it was the half that had been waiting under the first. There were a hundred persons, in the Garden and about it, who had been taken on for the Visit and installed and dressed, and twelve children from the Rolls, whom the Master of Ning had bought a place for, and none of them was on the House's roll as anything but a line in pencil. They had to be dealt with by the end of the month. They were eating. They were eating the House's rations in the House's courts, and the House's draw, which was seven thousand a year and about to become less than five, had never been written for a hundred and twelve.

"I went to the Old Madam at midnight," said Xifeng, "with the roll." She said it with no expression. "She listened with her eyes shut, as one listens to a bill one has heard before. When I had finished she said, There are children in this. I said yes. She said, then do what is right, and not what is cheap." She looked at the paper. "I should like to know which of those is which."

They went through them one at a time, as one goes through a loaf. Seventy-two of the hundred had come out of the House's own kitchens and stables and stairs, and had only been moved for the day, and would go back to where they had been. That was easy. Twenty-two had been taken on from outside for the day alone, at a day's coin, and were owed it, and would be paid and thanked and would go. That was easy too, and she felt each of them go, like a coin leaving her hand. Six were wanted. The Garden would need hands, whatever the Seat had said about letting the young live in it; there were four courts to sweep and forty-two rooms to keep from damp. She chose the six from the roll with her pencil, and when she came to the fifteenth line she stopped.

"Qingwen," said Pinger, who had also stopped.

"The Old Madam sent her," said Xifeng. "I put her down. I said I would." She considered it. "The second son's court has a vacancy for a girl who can sew. I think it will do. I think it will do very well." She wrote it. She did not say what else she thought, which was that the Lady had looked at the girl for a moment too long, and that a girl in the second son's court would be a thing the Lady would see every day.

"And the twelve," said Lai.

Xifeng put her pencil down.

The twelve were the only line on the roll that she could not do. The Master of Ning had paid for them, and had paid well; but he had paid for the Visit and not for the year after, and he was a man whose generosity ended at the edge of a day. His purse was spent. The House of Rong could not keep twelve more mouths, and she knew that, and had known it when the Old Madam said to do what is right.

"The Menders took them back once," she said. "They will take them back again."

"It is what the Rolls are for," said Lai.

"Yes," said Xifeng. "That is what I am afraid of."

They came on the third day, in the afternoon, to the long porch of the Lower Hall: the seventy-two in their old clothes, and the twenty-two in their best, and in a separate line the twelve, in grey and rose, with their hair done. Xifeng read the names. They were called as they had been called on the first day, one at a time, and each came and was given what was theirs: the coin, or the word, or a month's keep in a paper, according to the line. It was done with great courtesy. It was the same courtesy as the choosing, and a good many of the girls looked at the floor again, and a few, who had learned in seven months of being looked at what a floor was for, looked at her.

One of the twenty-two, a girl of sixteen with a clear loud voice, stopped at the table with her coin in her hand. "Will there be another day like it?" she said. "There will not," said Xifeng. "Then I should like it if somebody remembered my face," said the girl. "The inspector wrote it down, but I do not think that is the same." Xifeng looked at her, and at the next in the line, and said, "I will," which she could not possibly have done for twenty-two, and did for the one, and kept for years. The girl went out of the gate with her coin held in both hands, as one carries a bird.

The six who were to stay were told to wait, and waited. Qingwen was one of them. She stood a little apart with her hands behind her, with her bright, bad-tempered face turned toward the line of the twelve, and I saw her mouth shape a word that was not meant for anybody, and that was perhaps a rude one, and perhaps not.

The Menders sent a woman. She came in a brown apron with a book of her own under her arm, a grey, kindly person of fifty who had a way of counting that was not the Court's but was exact: she counted the eleven as they stood, one by one, as a baker counts loaves, with a small nod for each. "Eleven," she said. "We had twelve."

"One stays," said the Old Madam's voice from the door.

Nobody had known she would come. She had walked the length of the passage on Yuanyang's arm, in plain black, and stood at the porch's end with her hand on a post. She did not look at Xifeng. She was looking at the end of the line, at the smallest of them, who was nine, and who stood very straight and was looking at nobody. "That one is mine," said the Old Madam. "The Seat asked for her. I do not know what she was asked for, but she was asked for, and I do not send back what is asked for."

"She will be a mouth," said the Master of Ning's young nephew, who had come across with a purse, as he had been told, and was standing with it a little foolishly. "A new one, I mean, madam. The House of Ning will pay what it can, for a year, for the rest. Not for her. We could not."

"Then pay for the eleven," said the Old Madam. "I will keep her."

The woman from the Menders took the purse and weighed it in her hand, and then with a deep civility put it in her apron. "A year is a long time for us," she said. "It is longer than we are used to. I should like you to know that. We will keep them as we keep everyone." She looked at the eleven. "They have been well fed. It is more than we could do."

She said it without any bitterness at all. It was the worst thing I heard that year.

They went in a row, with their hair done, and their grey and rose, and each carrying a small bundle that had been given to them by somebody that morning. They did not look back; they had been trained. The woman in the brown apron went last, and took the smallest of the eleven by the hand, a girl of ten with a very large pair of eyes, who had not cried at any time and was holding in her other hand a brush she had been given to practise with.

The singing mistress had been paid at the gate, in coin, and thanked, and she stopped a moment beside the little one, a tall spare woman in a hat, who had taught the twelve the Court's breath and had never once been asked to like them. "You were the only one who sang what she knew," she said, quite quietly. "It will not be forgiven you, in the places I go. I thought you should be told that it was heard." She put her gloved hand for an instant on the child's head, as one touches a thing to see if it is warm, and went down the steps. She was not seen in the House again.

The little one who stayed did not move. She stood on the porch with her hands at her sides in her grey and rose, the only one of twelve, and watched the eleven go down the steps and across the court and out at the gate. When the gate closed she turned to the Old Madam, who had not moved either. She said, in the flat clear voice of a child who has never been told when to speak, "Ling."

"What?" said the Old Madam.

"Ling," said the child. "Ling." She said it twice. "It's mine. It is what I am called. I said it for the Rolls and I said it for me." She was quite steady. "I should like somebody to have it."

There was a silence on the long porch, in which Pinger put her hand over her mouth and Lai looked at the floor and Xifeng, who had counted three hundred names without a tremor, found that she could not write.

"I have it," said the Old Madam. She did not say anything more. She put out her hand, and the child took it, and they went away together down the passage toward the south room, a very old woman in black and a very small girl in grey and rose, with Yuanyang a step behind them carrying a bowl.

Baoyu had watched all of it from the porch step, where he had been sent to be out of the way and had not gone. When the gate had closed he went to Xifeng, who was standing quite still with the roll in her hand, and said, "Where are they going?"

"To the Menders," said Xifeng.

"But they were kept."

"For seven months."

"Can they not stay?"

"No."

He was eleven. He took a breath, and I felt what he was going to say before he said it, which was something about his rice. "If I gave my share," he said.

"Then you would be thin," said Xifeng, "and there would be one more thin person, and they would be no better off." She said it without unkindness. She was very tired. "I told you once, on a step, that an allowance is for whoever is nearest. It is a pretty thing to say. They were the nearest, for seven months, and now they are not, and that is what nearest means, dear. It is not a place. It is a time." She looked at him. "I do not like it either."

He said nothing. He put his hand on me, which he did when he did not know what to do with it, and the two of us stood on the porch for a while and watched the light go down on the empty court.

Xifeng put the number on the roll herself. She did it in pen. Lai had said that it was usual to do it in pencil first, but she said she would do it in pen. Three hundred and twenty-one. It was the House of Rong's whole count, with the six in the Garden and the child in the south room, and it was the number that had been written on the second line of a page in a drawer in a hall without walls, on a sheet with no picture and no verse, which I had been shown and had not told anyone about. I was still on the boy's chest on the porch step. I could not tell anyone. I will say only that I had been right to be afraid of the line, and that it had been exactly as plain as it said.

That night the Old Madam sent for the child's bowl herself. They brought it, the same blue bowl as the others, with the same small portion; and Ling ate all of it, to the last grain, slowly, with her eyes on the bowl. The Old Madam watched her. "She eats like the other one," she said to Yuanyang, very low.

"Which other?" said Yuanyang.

"The south one," said the Old Madam. "Lin's girl. They all do, the ones who have learned what it costs." She was quiet for a while. "I do not know what I am going to do about all of them," she said, which she had never said in all her years. And Yuanyang, who had been with her for twenty of them, did not answer, but she took the empty bowl out and came back with another, a little larger, which the Old Madam looked at and did not refuse.

## Chapter 11 · The First of the Month

The young went into the Garden on the last day of the ninth month, with their beds and their books and their maids, and the Garden, which had been a thing to be looked at, became in an afternoon a thing to be lived in, which is a different animal.

Each was asked where they wished to go, as the Seat had said, and each, being a person of a House, answered in the manner of the House. Tanchun asked for the court with the largest table, because she meant to have a great deal of paper, and got it. Yingchun said she did not mind, and was given the one nobody had asked for. Xichun, who was nine, asked for the one nearest the gate, so that she could see who was coming, and nobody could say that this was not an answer.

Baochai chose the south court, which was plain, with low hedges of herbs and bare rooms. She came with six trunks and two maids and her own cook, and she paid, quietly and in advance, for the lamps in her own windows, so that she should not be a mouth the Garden had not allowed for. Nobody said anything. It was perfectly done. It was so well done that Xifeng, hearing of it, laughed, and did not know quite why she had.

Baoyu took the east court, the nearest to the south room and the Old Madam's wall, with a red quince at its gate that flowered in the spring. Xiren went with him, and Qingwen, who had been sent for from among the Garden's hands, and four others. Qingwen stood in the middle of the room with her quick hands behind her and looked at the bed, the shelves, the window with its small panes, and said, "It is very nice. Where does one sit?"

"Where you like," said Baoyu.

"That is the trouble with it," said Qingwen. "Nobody ever tells me that." She did not say whether it was a complaint.

Daiyu was asked last, and was a long time answering. She was not a person who asked. In the end it was the Old Madam who said it for her, in the voice of one who has seen a thing come a long way to be said. "The Lodge of Thin Green," said the Old Madam. "She has been looking at that bamboo since the Visit. Haven't you, child?" And Daiyu, who had been going to say that she did not mind, said, "Yes," and was ashamed to find her face hot.

Baochai came past the Lodge on the first afternoon, on her way to look at her own rooms for the third time, and stopped on the path. Daiyu was on the step with a book that she was not reading.

"It is the nearest to the south room," said Baochai. She said it kindly. She said everything kindly; that was the thing to be understood about her. "You will be able to go to the Old Madam in a hundred steps. I counted. Mine is two hundred and forty."

"I did not ask for it for that," said Daiyu.

"No. Of course not." Baochai smiled, and it was a perfectly good smile, and went on being one for exactly as long as it was needed. "But it will be very convenient."

When she had gone Daiyu sat for a while with the book open on her knee. Then she closed it, and got up, and went down the path to count the steps herself. It was a hundred and four.

The farm was the only place that nobody chose. It went on being a picture for a month, with its four hens and its bed the size of a table, and then Li Wan was sent for. She was the widow of the Lady's elder son, a woman of twenty-five who had lived eleven years in a back room of the Lady's court on a share that nobody thought about, and who was so quiet that her not being thought about was one of the things she did well. She walked out to the farm on a morning in the tenth month, in plain grey, and looked at the thatch and the mulberry and the paddock and the bed. "It is a picture," she said. "I should like to live in a picture that grows something." She moved in that afternoon. By the end of the month she had planted the bed three times over, and had asked, in the most apologetic of voices, for a hoe.

Xifeng came across at dusk to see the Garden lit. She stood at the water-steps with the steward Lai at her elbow and a boy with a taper behind her, and looked at the plan she had been given, which had forty-two windows drawn on it in neat small squares, and said, "All of them."

"Madam," said Lai. "Four of them have nobody."

"All of them."

"It is oil, Madam. For nobody."

"I know what it is." She did not raise her voice. "The Seat said that a house that has been lit should not be left dark. The Old Madam has repeated it to me twice. There is no clause in it for the four rooms that nobody is in." She gave him back the plan. "Light them. If the Court asks, the Garden was lit on the first night of its being lived in, and nobody has told me otherwise."

Lai wrote it down. He was an exact man, and he wrote down what she said without comment, as a man writes down what a river is doing. Under it he wrote another line, which was the price of four lamps, and she saw him do it and said nothing, and that was the whole of the conversation.

So the first night in the Garden was a night like no other in the House. Every one of the forty-two windows was lit, thirty-eight of them with someone behind them, which is a great many more than the House of Rong had ever lit for anybody, and the Garden shone through the trees like a plate of small coins. I went across it on the boy's chest. He had said he must see that the others were settled, which was true, and that he must see his cousin, which was truer.

She was sitting on the step of the Lodge of Thin Green in the dark. The lamp inside had been lit by her maid, and she had not stayed in it. The bamboo stood round her on three sides, quite tall, and in the small wind that came off the water it made a noise like a great many people turning over in their sleep.

"I thought you would be inside," said Baoyu.

"I wanted to hear it," said Daiyu. "I did not think it would be so loud."

He sat down on the step beside her. They were both eleven. He did not say anything for a long time, which was something he could do for her that nobody else could, and which she had begun to be grateful for without having said so.

"I said it should be named for someone who is a little afraid of being alone and does not mind," he said at last. "My father wrote it on his sleeve. I did not say whose. I did not know if you would mind."

"I do not mind," said Daiyu. "I was a little afraid of it." She considered how to say it. "Nobody names a thing unless they mean to keep it. Not truly. A name is a thing you have to go on with. I have been given a great many things in this House, and every one of them was taken out of somebody's bowl. I have counted. This is the only one that was not." She turned her face to the dark. "A name costs nobody anything. Do you see? It is the only share I have been given that nobody had to give up."

He did not see. He was eleven, and he had not yet been taught to count what a thing costs; but he saw that she had said something important, and he held it as he held everything that was said to him, very carefully, in both hands. He said, "Then I shall go on naming things for you." She laughed, short and surprised, like a person who has been given an extra coin she did not know about. "That," said Daiyu, "would be a great deal to keep."

I was against his chest, and I heard it, and I said nothing, because I could not. But I should like it set down that on the last night of the ninth month, in the dark, on a step, two children made the one exchange in that House that was never entered, and it went on for a good many years, and I was the only one who counted it, and it came out.

In the morning it was Draw Day.

The Table was read in the counting-room as it was read on every first of the month, in the cold clear light of early winter, with the two clerks on their stools and the smell of lamp oil and damp paper. It was the first Draw Day of the House of Rong that had a Garden in it. The names were longer. There was a new line for the Garden's hands, and one for the widow at the farm, and one, in a small neat hand, for the child Ling, at the Old Madam's table. The draw was the same as it had been, seven thousand measures in the year, and would be the same until the winter draw, the first of four from which the advance was to be taken back; Lai had told her so in the passage that morning, in the voice of a man reporting weather. Xifeng read the names in a voice that did not rise. When the Table was done she said, "The Pocket," and laid her hand flat on the cloth.

The Pocket was paid in order of rank, from the top, in strings tied with red thread. The first class were paid, and the second. When she came to the lowest, the water-carriers and the stair-sweepers and the girls with no class at all, she gave out a handful each and a remark, as she always did, but the handful was short by six days. The balance was stuck, said Xifeng, laughing, and would follow on the seventh. It was a small thing. They had been told the same in the autumn, and it had been small then.

Pinger watched her say it. Pinger had watched her say it every first of the month since the Seat's first letter, and had stopped, some months ago, being able to look at her face while it was being said.

The man came at noon. He was a merchant of the east gate, a round plain man in a good plain coat, whom the counting-room had seen a good many times and had agreed never to have seen. He came in by the side door with his hat in his hand, and sat on the clerk's stool, and said how very glad he was to see Madam so well. His name was Gu. He carried no book, which was the first thing she noticed about him and the best thing she could have said for him.

"Forty strings," said Xifeng. "For six days."

"At five in the hundred," said Gu, pleasantly.

"At five."

"For six days, Madam, it is very reasonable. It is not even a day's profit. The coin will be home on the seventh, and a little over. I should be sorry to think it was ever not home." He smiled. "Madam is the safest house in the capital. Anyone can see that."

She gave him the forty strings. They were the strings she had not paid that morning to the girls with no class at all: forty of them, tied with red thread. She counted them out of the drawer in front of Pinger with her sleeves down. Her hands did not shake. She was a very good clerk.

When he had gone, Pinger said, "Madam."

"It is a hair, Pinger," said Xifeng, not looking round. "It is six days and a hair. The girls will have every string on the seventh, and a remark besides, and the Garden will have oil." She had taken a small book out of the drawer, bound in black, which she had bought that morning from a stationer in the east market and had not yet written in, and she was writing in it now, quickly: forty, Gu, six days, five in the hundred. "I have looked on the roll for the Garden's oil. There is no line. I have looked everywhere." The pen stopped. "It is the thing I know how to do."

"Yes," said Pinger.

"You need not say it as though it were a bill."

"I am not," said Pinger. "I am saying yes."

It came back on the seventh, with its two. It always did. The girls with no class at all were paid in full, with a remark each, and said thank you, and meant it, because it had only been six days, and six days is nothing. The two strings bought oil for the courts that had no one to pay for theirs, which was most of them, for about a week. Xifeng bought it herself that afternoon, from a man who did not ask her name. She would need more by the next month. She did not say so, and neither did Pinger.

I tell it without anger. I once lay at the foot of a hill, entered nowhere, and I know what it is to be where there is no line for you, and I did not find it in me to blame a woman who had made herself one. I only note that on the first of the tenth month, in the first year of the Garden, the House of Rong had a small black book in a drawer that it had not had in the ninth, in one woman's hand, and that it did not appear on any roll.

That night the whole Garden was lit again, the four empty windows too. The lanterns burned at the water-steps, and on the hill the lamp in the Lodge of Thin Green, and in the east court a small bright one that Qingwen had insisted on, though nobody had asked for it. From the street, over the place where the wall had been, it looked like a ship that has been lit for a wedding and has not yet been told where it is going.

At the House of Ning, on the far side of that place, the lamp that had burned forty-nine days was out, and the stone lions at the gate, which were said to be better fed, stood in the dark with the light of the Garden moving on their flanks as the wind moved the lanterns, up and down, like something breathing. I thought, being on a boy's chest, on the step of a house that was lit: it is the best year. I thought it exactly so, and I knew it as one knows a thing at the moment of losing it. It was the first year of the Garden. It was the last year of the old arithmetic. I set it down here as the best.

## Chapter 12 · The First Winter

The Court's notice came on the last day of the tenth month, as the Court's notices do, on a grey slip the size of a hand, folded once. It had no greeting. The Court does not greet; it informs, and leaves the House to supply the feeling.

Lai brought it to the counting-room himself. He might have sent a boy, and he did not, and Xifeng, seeing him in the doorway with the slip held in both hands as if it were hot, knew what was on it before she had read a word.

"The draw of the House of Rong from the first of the eleventh month," she read aloud, "is four thousand seven hundred and fifty measures in the year, being seven thousand less the first of four recoveries of two thousand two hundred and fifty on the sum advanced for the Visit. The Stores will deliver monthly." She turned it over, in case there was something on the back. There never was. "Five hundred and eighty-three a month," she said. "Three hundred and ninety-six."

"A hundred and eighty-seven short, Madam," said Lai, who had done the sum before he came.

"I can subtract, Lai."

"The Table cannot be altered until the autumn." He said it miserably. It was the rule, and he held to rules as a man on a ledge holds to a rope. "It is fixed in the spring and may be changed only at the autumn reading. Every person on the roll is owed what the roll says until then. If the House were seen to give one of them a hair less, it would be a breach, and the Court's inspector would hear of it by the next post."

"Then it will not be altered," said Xifeng. "Read the Table on the first exactly as it stands."

"And the hundred and eighty-seven?"

"Is mine."

When he had gone, Pinger came out from behind the screen, where she did most of her best work. "The Old Madam ought to be told," she said.

"Yes."

"She would want to be."

"She would want to give," said Xifeng. "It is not the same thing. She would give until there was nothing left in her private share, and she would do it kindly, and I should have to stand by and enter it." She folded the slip small, and then smaller. "Not this winter."

She found the first sixty measures the way they are always found, by spreading: a hair off every bowl and a thread off every hem, which is no breach of the Table because nobody has ever been able to prove it. She found fifty more in the Garden's kitchen, by putting the Garden's hands, who had been fed from two pots, on one. The remaining seventy-seven had to be bought at the east market, in coin, and the coin was in no one's drawer. It could only come from where it had come from last month. She had a small pain under the ribs, those weeks, which she took to be the stairs.

So on the first of the eleventh month the Table was read to the clerks exactly as it had been read in the spring, name by name and bowl by bowl, in a voice that did not rise, and nobody in the room heard anything but the Table. The Pocket followed. The lowest girls were paid their handful and their remark, and told that the balance was stuck and would follow on the ninth. It had been the seventh. Nobody remarked on the two days. Nobody ever does, which is what makes them so cheap to take.

Among the girls there was a water-carrier of twelve called Xiaohong, with a narrow quick face and a hole in her left shoe and a mother in the laundry. She took her handful and her remark. Madam said her buckets were carried straighter than anyone's on the north stair, which was true, and which she had heard before, and still she stood a little taller for it. In the passage she said to the girl beside her, in a low voice, "It was the seventh last month."

"It is only two days," said the other.

"Yes," said Xiaohong. She went on counting under her breath all the way to the north stair, and what she counted was not days. She was twelve and had not yet got to the word for it. She had got as far as the shape.

The money went out to Gu by the side door, and to two others whom the counting-room had also agreed never to have seen, a draper and a man who sold rice. It went out for nine days instead of six, and it came back, as it always did, with its little tail, and the tail went to the east market and came home as rice. On the second page of the small black book there were now three names. Pinger, who could not stop herself reading upside down, counted them and said nothing, and began to remember, for each of the girls with no class at all, what she was owed and since when. Nobody had asked her to. It was the only record of that debt that did not belong to Madam Lian.

On the third, Li Wan came to the counting-room herself, in her plain grey, carrying a small covered basket in both hands as one carries something that might spill. She had never been to the counting-room. She stood in the doorway until she was asked in.

"I thought the counting-room should have the first," she said, and uncovered it. There were two eggs in it, small and brown, on a bed of straw. "Four hens, and it took them until now. I do not know where to say they go."

Xifeng looked at the eggs. She had spent the better part of three days looking at figures with the Court's grey stamp on them, and for a moment she could not think what a pair of eggs was, in her accounts. "Where do they go?" she said. "Pinger, where do they go?"

"I looked, Madam," said Li Wan, in her most apologetic voice. "I think there is no line."

Xifeng began to laugh. It was not her counting-room laugh, the quick bright one that made a girl feel seen. It was something lower, that surprised her, and she put a hand over her mouth. Pinger boiled the eggs on the brazier in the corner, and they ate one each, standing, with salt from a twist of paper, among the Court's grey slips. It was the first thing that had come into the House that year from nowhere, that nobody had had to give up, and that no roll had counted; and Xifeng, who had eaten nothing since morning, thought it the best she had tasted.

"Tell the hens," she said, when she had finished, "that the counting-room is obliged."

In the east court the congee on the fourth morning was thinner than it had been. Nobody said so. Xiren ate hers with her usual even care, and Baoyu, who ate whatever was put before him and thought about something else, ate his; but Qingwen put her spoon down after three mouthfuls and looked into her bowl as into a pond.

"The rice is the same," she said. "It is the water that has changed."

"It is the cold," said Xiren. "The kitchen is far."

"It is not the cold. They are spreading." Qingwen got up, quick and bright and bad-tempered, with her hands already in motion. "I shall go and ask Madam Lian why."

"Sit down," said Xiren.

She said it mildly. She said everything mildly; it was the mildness that made it stick. "If you ask her, she must answer. And she will not tell you the truth, because the truth is not hers to tell, and so she will have to tell you something else, and then she will be a person who has told us a lie in her own counting-room." She went on eating. "She holds the whole House in her two hands. I think it would be unkind to make her say what is in them."

Qingwen stood a moment. "You make allowances for everyone," she said at last.

"Somebody should make them for her," said Xiren. "She makes them for us."

Qingwen sat down. She finished her congee, every grain, with a look that dared it to be thinner; and Baoyu, who had heard all of it and understood the half, went on stirring his own bowl and thought for a long time about the word allowance, which he had always supposed was something that was given, and now saw could be given back.

The first hard frost came on the ninth. It laid white on the Garden in the night, on the bamboo and the quince and the roofs, and in the morning the whole place looked like a thing drawn on paper and not yet inked. Baoyu, who got up early in such weather because it was the one kind of morning that was entirely clear, went across to the Lodge of Thin Green before he had been told what he might eat. I went with him.

The door was opened by Zijuan, Daiyu's maid, a small plain girl with an anxious look, who said that the young lady was up and was not to be tired, and could he not stay long. Inside, Daiyu sat by a brazier in two coats with a book on her knee. The brazier had a thin red heart, no larger than a coin. There was one basket of charcoal beside it, and it was nearly empty.

"It is perfectly warm," said Daiyu, before he had spoken.

He looked at the brazier, and at the basket, and at Zijuan, who looked at the floor. A guest on the Old Madam's share was owed one basket of charcoal in the week, by rank. In a cold week a basket lasts about four days. Daiyu coughed into her sleeve, once, a small dry sound like a page being turned. "It comes with the frost," she said. "It is nothing."

"I shall send you mine," said Baoyu. "I have two baskets, and I am never cold."

"That is the one thing you say that is not true," said Daiyu. "And then you would be cold, and I should have to be warm knowing it. That is worse than being cold." She looked at him, and for a moment her face did what it did not often do, which was ask for something. "Don't. Please. Let it be what it is."

He did not send his charcoal. He stood in the doorway a while with his hands in his sleeves, being eleven, and then he said that he had remembered a thing, and went out and across the white Garden at a pace a good deal faster than a walk, to the south room.

The Old Madam was at her window with the plum branch, which had a few buds on it already, and Yuanyang was at her elbow with the day's slips. "I was told to tell you something," said Baoyu, who had been told nothing. "Daiyu's brazier is cold."

She did not ask him what he meant. She had been the Old Madam for a very long time. "Did she say so?"

"She said it was perfectly warm."

"Yes," said the Old Madam. "That is how one knows." She put the branch down. "Yuanyang. A basket to the Lodge. Two. And the same to every room in the Garden that has someone in it, from mine, and not entered as hers."

"Thirty-eight, Old Madam?"

"Thirty-eight. Not the empty ones. The empty ones have their lamps." She said it dryly; she had heard about the four lamps. "And tell Xifeng I have done it, so that she does not enter it in the wrong place."

Yuanyang wrote it down. The Old Madam put out her old fingers and took the Jade from the boy's chest, and turned it to the light, as a woman turns a coin she has not decided to spend. "It is warm," she said. "It is always warm. It is the only thing in this House that does not draw on anyone's fire." She let it fall back against him. "Go and eat something. And do not give it to anyone."

When he had gone the Old Madam sat a while with her hand flat on the sill.

"The congee has been thin since the first," she said. "Xifeng has not said why."

"Shall I find out, Old Madam?"

"No." She took up the plum branch again and looked at its buds. "She is making me an allowance, Yuanyang. I have been making them for fifty years; I know what one looks like from the other side. Let her think I have not seen."

The order reached the counting-room at dusk, in Yuanyang's hand, on the Old Madam's own paper, which was the colour of weak tea. Thirty-eight baskets of charcoal, a second to each room with a person in it, from the Old Madam's private share. Xifeng read it standing. She did not need to do the sum; she had been doing it for five weeks without being able to stop. A basket of charcoal is a small thing. Thirty-eight of them, in a winter that has not begun, is a small thing multiplied by a large number, and the Old Madam's private share was the only reserve the House had ever really had.

"You did not tell her," said Pinger. "And she gave anyway."

"That is what she does." Xifeng put the paper down on the black book, which lay open at its second page, so that the Old Madam's careful hand lay across Gu's name. "I thought I could keep the cost from her. I could not have kept her from it. It seems those are not the same." She was quiet for a moment. "A boy said one true thing, and the oldest reserve in the House went into the stoves. And there is not a line in the Table where I can write it down."

"Four winters," said Pinger.

"Four winters," said Xifeng. "This is the first."

Outside, the frost came down again. In the Garden thirty-eight braziers burned a little brighter than they had the day before, in thirty-eight rooms, each with its small red heart; and in the Lodge of Thin Green a girl who had said it was perfectly warm sat with her feet to a fire that someone had made without telling her. She did not ask whose. She was grateful, and she counted it.

## Chapter 13 · The Club

The notice went up on the eleventh, on every door in the Garden at once, in a hand so small and square that it looked like type. Tanchun had written it forty times, on the backs of old exercise sheets, because new paper was a line in the Table and old paper was nobody's.

It said:

"The Garden has forty-two windows, thirty-eight of them with someone behind them, and nothing to do in the afternoons. I propose a club. It will meet at the farm on the third day of each ten, by Li Wan's leave. There is no subscription. There is no rank: whoever comes sits where there is room. There is one rule, and it is that nothing said in the club is owed to anyone afterwards. Tanchun."

Baoyu asked her, on the step of her court, why that rule and not another. "Because everything in this House is owed," said Tanchun. "I wanted to see how long a room could go without." She said it as another person might have said that she meant to try a rope. "You are not to tell Father it is a club. It is an afternoon."

Yingchun read the notice twice at her door, with her book under her arm, and told her maid that she would go if nobody minded. Her maid said nobody would. Yingchun said that was what she was afraid of, and read it a third time, as if the rule might have changed.

Baochai read it once, and her eyes went, as they always did, to the bottom of the sum. Paper, ink, tea; a stove; the afternoons. It came to almost nothing, which was what troubled her. A thing that cost almost nothing could not be paid for, and a thing that could not be paid for was a thing she did not know how to stand in. She folded the notice small and put it in her sleeve, and was seen to smile, and was not asked at what.

Daiyu read the last line standing on the step of the Lodge, in her two coats, and stood a good while after she had finished. Nothing said is owed. She had spent a year learning to the half-gram what everything cost, and she held the line up against the light of the morning like a coin from a country she had heard of and never seen.

In the east court Qingwen read it over Xiren's shoulder. "Whoever comes," she said. "It says whoever."

"It means whoever of the young ladies," said Xiren.

"It does not say that. It says no rank." Qingwen's hands were already in motion. "I should like to see what happens when it is read as it is written."

Baoyu did not read it at all. He was at the farm door by noon, asking Li Wan whether he might be the first to come.

The first meeting was on the thirteenth, in snow. It had begun in the night, fine and dry, and by afternoon the Garden was a white sheet laid over the shape of itself, and the water-wheel at the farm had stopped with a fringe of ice. Li Wan had lit the stove in the thatched house with her own wood, which she had cut herself in the tenth month with a small saw and an apologetic face, and put chestnuts in the ashes, gathered from the Garden's trees, which gave what they gave and for which nobody had thought to make a line. She had swept the floor twice. She had rehearsed what a hostess says, and found that she did not know it, and decided to say only that she hoped they would not mind the hens.

They came across the white ground one by one, with their sleeves over their hands, as people go to a place they have not been told they may go.

There were not enough chairs. There was a bed, a bench, a table, two stools, and a chair that had come with the thatch, and nobody had thought what to do about that. The question of who sits where is the first question of any House, and the House had trained them all to answer it before they were in the room. Baochai took a stool without being asked, which was the way she took everything. The one chair was left empty, by the stove, and everyone looked at it, as people look at a dish that has been put down in front of someone who has not yet come.

"Sit down, Yingchun," said Tanchun, who did not wait for these things. "You are the eldest."

Yingchun sat on the bench. "I would rather not take the chair," she said, "if no one wants me to." Tanchun looked at her a moment with an expression that was not unkind, and said, "Then it is Li Wan's," and Li Wan said that it was a hen-box, in the sweetest of voices, and sat on the floor by the stove with the poker across her knees, where she could reach the ashes. The chair stayed empty, with the fire on its one side.

Baoyu sat on the bed with his boots off. Daiyu sat on the other end of it, because it was warm, and for the first time in a month did not say that it was.

"The first business is the subject," said Tanchun. "I have thought of one. It is this: a thing that was given to you, that nobody entered." She said it in the voice of someone who had been up half the night with a figure. "Not what you were owed. What you were given. If it was on a roll, it does not count."

"Is it to be a verse?" said Yingchun.

"It is to be whatever you can make of it. It is to be short, because there is only the one fire."

They wrote on the backs of exercise sheets, with the brush that went round the room from hand to hand. It was very quiet. The stove ticked; a chestnut split in the ashes with a small sigh; outside the snow went on, and could be heard, in the way snow can, as a kind of attention.

Baoyu finished first, and read his out loud, since no one had told him not to.

The bamboo does not ask / what it costs the wind. / It turns over, it turns over, / and I am glad of it.

"That is a good one," said Li Wan, kindly, from the floor. "It is a very honest one." Baoyu, who had a mind to be pleased, was.

Baochai's was neat in the way a made bed is neat. She read it with her eyes down.

Rue by the step and thyme by the wall, / clipped level by a careful hand. / I cannot tell you what I was given. / I have been careful to give it back.

The last line went out into the room and stayed there, because it had not quite been meant to be as true as it was. "Very fine," said Tanchun. She said it carefully, as if she were holding something. Daiyu looked at the stove.

Yingchun, when she was asked, said she had written only two lines.

Whatever was left, I was given. / I found that it was enough.

Tanchun put her brush down. "It was not enough," she said. "You have been told that it was."

"Yes," said Yingchun. She looked at her hands. "I know."

Nobody said anything after that for a while. Then the chestnuts were raked out, hot and black and sweet, and one burned its way through a sleeve, and there was laughing, which, in that House, in that year, was a thing that happened with some caution.

It was then that Qingwen came in. She had been standing outside the door for some minutes, in the snow, with her arms wrapped round herself, being quick and bright and bad-tempered at nobody, and she came in now as though she had just that moment arrived. She stopped inside the door. Xiren, who had come after her to fetch her back and had stopped at the threshold, put a hand to her mouth.

"It says whoever," said Qingwen, to the room.

Nobody moved. It was the kind of silence in which a House finds out what it is. Baochai's face went perfectly smooth. Yingchun looked at the floor. And Tanchun, who had written the rule and was now looking at what it did, said, "It does. Sit where there is room."

Qingwen looked round. There was a bench full, a bed full, two stools, a floor with a widow on it. There was one empty chair, with the fire on its side, which everyone in the room knew the meaning of, and not one of them had touched. Qingwen walked across the farmhouse floor and sat down in it, and put her feet toward the stove, and took the brush from the hand that was holding it out to her, and wrote a verse in the time it takes to say it.

Nobody told me where to sit. / I chose. / It is the worst thing / I have ever been given.

"That," said Li Wan, from the floor, "is the most honest verse of the afternoon." Qingwen scowled, delighted. She sat in the chair until the light failed, with her feet to the fire, and it was the best afternoon of her life. She was asked about it once, years afterward, in a different room, by a person who had been told that a maid had sat in a chair; and what she said then is a thing for a later page.

Daiyu was the last. She did not read hers aloud; she gave the sheet to Li Wan, who held it a moment in her two hands and then, because the girl was looking at the floor, read it out in her own plain voice.

I said it was warm. / It was not warm. / Someone I did not ask / had made it so, / and I have not said thank you, / and I think that is how it is meant.

Nobody asked her who. They were all the children of a House that counted, and they could count. There had been a morning in the ninth when a basket of charcoal had come to each of thirty-eight rooms and been entered nowhere, and none of them had said so in a month. Tanchun, who could add, wrote nothing for a while.

Xichun, who was nine, had not written. She had come in late, with a stick of chalk in her fist, and found a patch of the table where the scrubbing had left it white, and drawn on that: the Garden, in the dusk, from the hill, as one sees it from the gate. Thirty-eight windows had a little yellow in them. Four had none, but she had drawn them lit.

"These four have nobody," said Tanchun, looking.

"Yes," said Xichun. "I know. I drew them lit anyway." She considered, with her head on one side, the way she did, and spoke rather as if to the chalk. "Somebody should be in them. I thought if I drew the light, somebody might come."

Nobody said anything. After a moment Li Wan put another stick of wood in the stove, though it was hot enough already, so that she should have something to do with her face.

"There is no prize," said Tanchun, at the end. "A prize comes from somebody's share. I have thought it through. But I should like them kept."

"They can be hung on the wall of the farm," said Li Wan. "It is a picture. It might as well have pictures in it."

So they were pinned up, unsigned, in a row between the door and the window where the thatch came down: five sheets of old exercise paper, and a sixth that Tanchun hung with its face to the wall and nobody turned, and a table with a chalk drawing on it. They were not copied. It was the rule that they should not be. Nothing in that room went into a book or onto a roll; it was made, and read, and left on a wall, and what it cost was a little paper and an afternoon, and nobody in the Garden was a thread the thinner for it.

It was the only place in the House that winter where nothing moved off anyone's share. I was on the bed, on the boy's chest, and I record it. I have heard a great deal in that House, and I have never heard anyone able to say that and mean it.

When they had gone out into the white, in ones and twos, with their sleeves down, Tanchun stayed behind to take the sheets down and put them up straight, because she could not leave a crooked thing. On the shelf by the door she found a flat parcel she had not put there. It was a quire of the good paper, the heavy cream kind, tied in plain grey string, and the corner of the top sheet had a small blind-stamp pressed into it that she knew: three coins on a cord, the mark of the Xues' trading house.

She stood with it in her hands. Then she went to the door. Baochai had not got far; she was at the bend of the path, in her white coat, with her maid, and she turned when Tanchun called, with the face she kept for being called.

"You have left something," said Tanchun.

"I have not," said Baochai.

"It has your family's mark."

"Then someone has made a mistake with it," said Baochai, pleasantly.

They looked at each other down the white path. It was a matter of a few paces and a quire of paper, and neither of them was a person who made much of such things. "Then I shall use it for the next notice," said Tanchun, "since it is nobody's," and Baochai said that seemed quite right; and the whole business was settled in a dozen words, and never mentioned again. It was a perfectly good allowance, made by each of them to the other so quietly that neither could have said who had made it.

Daiyu, who had been standing in the lee of the thatch with her hands in her sleeves, saw it all. She did not say anything. She went home across the snow, with her cough, to the Lodge, and wrote on a sheet of her own paper, for no one, three words, which she folded small and put in the book she was not reading: She pays hers.

## Chapter 14 · Crabs

At the autumn reading the Table was altered, for the first time in seven years. The rule allowed it, and the Court's inspector, who had come on the first to watch it done, sat in the corner of the counting-room with his hat on his knee and heard each class lose its hair in turn: a hair off the first class, two off the second, a lock off the lowest. In a House where every bowl had already been spread it made little difference to the bowls and a great deal to the paper. Nobody looked up. When the last class had been read he nodded, because the Court likes to see a thing properly done, and went to his dinner. That evening Xifeng wrote the date in the black book, under a heading she had not used before, which was only the word Cut.

Xiangyun arrived in the second week of the ninth month, in a plain cart, and the Garden felt her come as a house feels weather. She was thirteen, of the Shi line, the Old Madam's great-niece: a tall loud girl with a laugh that went off like a dropped tray and a way of talking so fast that her sentences reached their ends before their middles. She hugged the Old Madam, ate three bowls of congee, called Baoyu by a name that only she used, and was taken to the south court, where Baochai had a second bed made up before anyone had thought to ask.

At her first supper she set down her spoon and looked into her bowl. "Is it thin here too?" she said, with interest. "At home I thought it was only us."

The table was quiet for the length of a breath. "It is the season, child," said the Old Madam, who had a way of saying the season that closed a subject like a lid. "Oh," said Xiangyun, and went on eating. She was the only person in the House that autumn to say the thing aloud, and she said it as a piece of news, so that it was nobody's fault.

She was a guest in the Garden on the Old Madam's share, added by spreading, for one month in every autumn, and she knew to the day how long that was. The rest of the year she lived with her uncle's wife, in a House whose Charter had thinned in exactly the manner of Rong's and had no Old Madam to make up for it. There she was kept, as the phrase has it, on her work: the mending of the household's fine things, done at night by candle, in the hours that the mending-room would have given her if the House had had hours to give. Her left forefinger had a ring of small red pricks on it, and the cuff of her right sleeve was worn through and darned and worn through again. She laughed about it. "I owe them the board," she said. "It's only fair."

Baochai saw the finger on the first night. She said nothing. She said it so cleverly that Yinger, her maid, who had been with her six years, took a moment to see that anything had been said.

The club had met nine times by then. The farmhouse wall had forty-odd sheets on it, unsigned, beside the chalk-drawn table, and the thatch had been mended where the snow had got in. The empty chair still stood by the stove, and was sat in by whoever came late and bold enough, which was mostly Qingwen, and once, memorably, Baoyu's old nurse. Xiangyun went to her first meeting on the thirteenth and read every sheet on the wall, standing, with her mouth slightly open.

"But whose are they?" she said.

"Nobody's," said Tanchun. "That is the rule."

"That is the best rule I ever heard," said Xiangyun, and sat down in the chair, quite naturally, being a guest and knowing no better; and the room let her.

At the end, while the sheets were being passed round, she stood up with her cup in her hand. "I want to give a party," she said. "At the next meeting. Crabs."

Everyone looked at her.

"Hosting is not in the rules," said Tanchun, carefully.

"It is in mine. I have never given a party in my life. I have been to eleven." Xiangyun's face was shining. "I have my Pocket for the month, a whole string. I shall do it properly."

A string, in the autumn, bought perhaps four crabs. Nobody said so. Li Wan looked at the stove, and Yingchun at her hands, and Tanchun at the ceiling; and Baochai, who was good at sums and at silences, said that she thought it a delightful idea, and that she would help to plan it, since Xiangyun was in her court and would only be in the way otherwise.

That night in the south court, with one candle between the two beds, Baochai wrote it out on the back of a sheet of her own paper, in her neat, reasonable hand, the way one writes out a thing that is already settled. "Forty crabs, say, for the club and the Old Madam. Our shop has a boatload that came in too late for the market. They are good now. In three days they will not be. We should be obliged to anyone who would take them off our hands for a string, and glad of it."

Xiangyun sat up in bed with her hair down. "A string for forty?"

"They will have gone off in three days," said Baochai. "It is better that someone eat them than that they go in the river. It is the same as selling. Better, really; we get the string."

"It is not fair to your shop."

"It is perfectly fair. A thing worth nothing tomorrow is worth a string today." She said it in the voice of her family's trade, which was a fine voice, and truthful in every word, so that the whole was a lie only in the way it was arranged. Yinger, filling the water-jug in the corner, stopped with her back turned. The crabs were fresh. They would be fresh for ten days. They had cost the shop eleven strings, and Baochai had already entered ten of them in her own small book as hers.

Xiangyun looked at the candle. "I do not like being given things," she said.

"You are not. You are buying."

"With a string."

"With a string and an hour." Baochai said it lightly, as an afterthought. "You have an hour of the mending-room in your guest allowance that you never use; you are as strong as a horse. The string covers the crabs. The hour covers the carting. A bargain is not struck unless both sides are out something. It is the first thing my father taught us."

Xiangyun laughed, and pushed back her hair. "That is a hard bargain, Baochai."

"I am a merchant's daughter."

It was an excellent bargain, and exactly even, and entirely false, and Xiangyun went to sleep inside it as in a warm bed. Baochai lay a long time awake. She had made a gift into a trade so that it could be accepted, and she meant to make the trade into a gift again so that it could be passed on. It was a thing she did often and never mentioned, and it is why so many people in that House were warmer than they knew.

The party was on the twenty-third, in the pavilion over the water, with the pond covered in fallen leaves and the chrysanthemums from the farm set along the rail. Li Wan had grown them, the first thing the farm had ever produced that was only for looking at, and had apologised for them in advance. The Old Madam was carried out in a chair with a rug on her knees. The crabs came up from the Garden kitchen in steaming heaps on green platters, red as lacquer, with vinegar and ginger and hot yellow wine, and the pavilion smelled of autumn and money.

A crab is eaten by rank, as everything is, and the House knew the order without being taught: the Old Madam had two, the young had one each, and the maids stood at the foot of the pavilion stairs, where a second, smaller table had been set, and shared a crab between two. The shells came down the steps in order of size, like the generations. There were thirty-one at the party and forty crabs. Xiangyun, who could not count and did not mean to be seen to try, said it was exactly the right number. Baochai, who could count, said the shop had sent over nine more, with its compliments, since a boat cannot be counted to the shell; and the nine went down the back stairs to the kitchen, to the girls who had boiled the water, and Xiaohong, who had carried it, ate hers in a corner and counted its legs.

Xifeng came late, as a person comes who is needed elsewhere, and was brilliant. She sat by the Old Madam's elbow and peeled her crab with a tiny silver pick, and told her a story about a steward and a goose that made the old woman laugh till she had to put her cup down. She ate nothing herself. She said she had had hers in the kitchen. Once, when she thought the table was looking at the crabs, she pressed the heel of her hand against her side, below the ribs, and took it away again. Pinger, who had stood next to her in the kitchen, did not say that she hadn't.

Daiyu was not allowed crab. The physician had forbidden it, as cold. She sat at the end of the table with a cup of hot ginger tea, and Baoyu sat beside her and peeled his own crab and, when he thought nobody was looking, put the sweetest of the meat in her saucer. She ate one mouthful of it, slowly, and set the cup down. "It is very good," she said. "It is not for me."

Xiangyun was going round the table with a platter, pink to the ears, giving everyone more than they wanted. "A string," she said, to Daiyu. "Forty crabs for a string. Baochai said they would have gone off in three days."

"Then you must have a very kind shop," said Daiyu.

"Oh, merchants do not do kind," said Xiangyun, happily. "They do fair."

Daiyu looked at her tea. Down the table Baochai was picking a leg-joint with her silver pick, and she did not look up.

Afterwards, because there was always a verse, Xiangyun wrote hers standing up, with a crab-pick in her other hand, in the time it takes to eat a leg.

I gave a party, I gave a party! / The crabs were red and the pond was gold. / Nobody owes me, I owe nobody, / and that, I think, is what being rich is.

Baochai read it over her shoulder and said that it was very fine, in a voice so perfectly even that Tanchun, who was sitting opposite, put down her cup.

When the shells were cleared, the Old Madam sat a while with her hands in her lap, looking at the pond. "It was a very good crab," she said at last. "You must tell your uncle's wife what a price you got."

"I will!" said Xiangyun.

The Old Madam said nothing more. She picked up the second crab that she had been given, which she had not touched, and put it without a word on Baochai's plate. Baochai looked at it. For the length of one breath her smile was late; it arrived, as it always did, perfectly, but it was late, and the Old Madam, who had noticed everything in that House for fifty years, noticed that too, and turned her face to the water.

The hour was signed over at the mending-room counter the next morning, in Xiangyun's large round hand, on a slip. Baochai did not keep it. She sent it to Pinger by Yinger, folded small, with a line in the margin that said it was for the water-carrier at the north stair, from someone who did not want to be named. Pinger, who had been remembering what that child was owed and since when, read it twice, and put it in her sleeve, and for the first time in a month carried a debt that was going the other way.

Xiaohong went on the third day. She had never been in the mending-room. It was a long warm room with a lamp at either end and benches along the wall, where the House's bodies were seen to, a hand's width at a time, by grey Menders with large quiet hands; the first class came here every week, the second every fortnight, and the girls who carried water not at all. She sat on the edge of a bench with her feet together so that the hole in her left shoe should not show, and did not know what to do with her hands.

The Mender who took her was a broad woman of sixty, with a face like bread. She put her thumbs on the girl's shoulders, and then she stopped. "How old are you?" she said.

"Twelve."

"These are the shoulders of a woman of thirty," said the Mender. She said it quite gently, as one says what is on a bill. "Who has been carrying what?"

Xiaohong did not answer. The thumbs began, slow and exact, to work down the cords of her neck, and she sat quite still with her eyes on the lamp, and after a while her face did something that she did not allow it to do in the passage, and the Mender, who had seen it ten thousand times, looked at the wall.

"Who paid for this hour?" the Mender asked, at the end.

"Nobody told me."

"Then somebody has been very careful," said the Mender, and wrote something in her book.

Xiaohong went out into the passage with her shoulders a hand's width lower than they had been and counted the hour to the minute, as the sand had run, and added it to the other things that she was counting. She still did not know what the sum was for. It had cost a string, and an hour, and eleven strings of crabs, and the faint lowering of a merchant's profit in a town a long way off; and it had come out, in one far room, as a girl of twelve with her shoulders loosened. Baochai never saw it. That was the point of it.

## Chapter 15 · Granny Liu

Granny Liu came in the second week of the tenth month, to the back gate, on foot, with a grandson of six on one hand and a basket the size of a sheep on her back.

She was of the unchartered, who live on the far side of the river from the Houses and keep each other without a book. They have no Table and no Pocket and no mending-room; the Menders cross to them in the lean months and are fed by turns, a house to a day, and nobody can say afterwards who fed whom. She was seventy-one. She was small and broad and brown as a loaf, with a face in which every wrinkle seemed to have been put there by a different joke, and she came to the gate of the greatest House she had ever stood before in the manner of a woman who has already decided that she will be laughed at and has priced it.

The gatekeeper asked her business. "I have come to see Madam Lian," said Granny Liu, "who is my cousin's cousin, if you go back far enough, and I will tell you how far if you have an hour." He had not an hour. He sent for Pinger, who came down the lane with her sleeves pushed up and her face carefully empty, and looked at the old woman for exactly as long as it takes to see that nothing on her was going to ask for anything it could not name.

"She is in the counting-room," said Pinger. "Come this way. Mind the step. There are a great many steps."

"I have counted them," said Granny Liu. "Forty-one, at the gate alone. I have not been up a stair since my husband died, and I am going to enjoy every one."

In the counting-room Xifeng was at the long table with a grey Court slip under her hand, and she looked up with the face that she put on for people she needed to be pleasant to, and then did not need it. She had been awake since five. She had a pain under her ribs that came and went, and she had just done, for the second time that morning, the sum that came to a hundred and eighty-seven, and found it no smaller. Here was an old woman in a brown coat, smelling of woodsmoke and straw, laying a basket on the floor as if it were an egg.

"Dried gourd," said Granny Liu, "and a squash, and some of the small sweet melons, which are not much, but they are ours. And a goose in the spring, which I have not got yet." She considered. "I shall have the goose by the time I am back."

"Sit down," said Xifeng, and found, to her surprise, that she meant it.

The debt was an old one, and not one that either House had entered. Forty winters ago, in a lean year, Xifeng's grandfather had kept the mother of Granny Liu's husband in the back kitchen of his own House for the length of one frost, when her own village could not; and since it had not been written down, it had never been reckoned, and since it had never been reckoned, neither side could close it. It had sat in the unchartered country for forty years as a kind of low warmth. Granny Liu told it without once saying she was owed, which was how Xifeng knew how much.

"The river has had two of our fields," she said. "And the other has gone to my son-in-law's brother, who is a good man and cannot count. We shall eat. We shall be thin by the spring. I thought: I will go and see whether there is one person, in the greatest House I have ever heard of, who is still a person. And here you are."

Xifeng laughed. It was the low laugh again, the surprised one. She opened the drawer and took out thirty strings, tied with red thread, and counted them out on the table in front of the old woman in a row, and Pinger, seeing the red thread, looked at the table and did not look up. It was the same thread. It had been the same thread on every Pocket that had gone out from that room, and on the forty strings, in the tenth month of last year, that had gone out by the side door to Gu. Xifeng knew whose strings they were. She said, "That is for the winter." She said it as if it were a plain fact, and it was.

Granny Liu counted. Her lips moved; she was not a woman who could write, and her counting was exact to the grain. She pushed five strings back across the table.

"That is too much," she said.

"It is thirty."

"It is twenty-five that my village can bear to owe. Five more would be a stone round my neck." She said it kindly, as one corrects a child's grip. "A thing you cannot pay back in the spring is not a gift, madam. It is a lien. I will take twenty-five, and the goose, and eggs by the spring, to the value, and then it is finished, and we can be fond of each other like decent people."

Xifeng looked at the five strings. In all the years she had been in that room she had never had a person push money back across that table. She had been given a great deal and had taken all of it; she had lent a great deal and had been thanked. She did not know what to do with her hands.

"Pinger," she said at last. "Put them away."

There was a small cry from the inner room. Pinger went and came back with a child on her arm, a girl of a year and a few months, in a yellow jacket, with a thin fretful face and a great deal of black hair. This was Qiaojie, who had been born in the seventh month of the year before, and had not got her weight; and Granny Liu, who had raised nine children and buried three and could not be shown a baby without looking at its wrists, held out both arms.

The grandson, who had been hiding in the folds of the brown coat, came out sideways with a small sweet gourd from the basket and held it up without a word. The baby took it in both fists and stopped crying, for the first time that morning. "She has not been quiet since the autumn," said Pinger.

Granny Liu held the child as one holds a bowl that is not quite full. "She is light," she said.

"The physician says she will grow," said Xifeng.

"The physician has not had her on his arm." Granny Liu shifted her gently. "She is a good child. She wants only to be set down where someone is, and nobody has had the time. It is no fault. Madam, if the House ever gets too hot for her, she can come." She stopped, and looked at Xifeng's face, and said the rest plainly. "We have a bed. It is by the stove. We do not write it down."

"I will think about it," said Xifeng.

She heard the words as they left her. They were the words of that House, the polite shut-door words, and she had said them to a great many people for a great many reasons. Granny Liu did not smile. She had been listening to that House's phrases for the whole of an hour and had picked up the grammar as a farmer picks up the weather.

"Don't think about it," she said. "That is the House's way of saying never; I have learned that this morning. Remember it. That is all. You need not do anything. Only remember there is a bed."

From the pocket of her coat she took a twist of paper, and put it into Xifeng's hand. It was a dozen red dates, dried, wrinkled and dark. "From my own tree," she said. "Three a day. You are the colour of rice-water, madam. Don't tell the physician; he will charge."

Xifeng ate three that night, in the counting-room, with the black book open at her elbow. They were sour and sweet at once and they tasted of the other side of the river. She ate three the next day, and the next. There were twelve; they lasted four days, and she did not enter them.

The Old Madam heard of the visitor from three different people before noon and sent for her at once. It was the first time in a month that she had asked for anything.

They put Granny Liu in the pavilion over the water, in a cushioned chair she could not find the bottom of, and she sat in it with her feet not touching the floor and her grandson clutching her skirt, and she was a great success. She told the Old Madam how many hens she had and what each was called. She described a storm. She explained, with gestures, how a woman who did not know she was pregnant had once given birth in a turnip field and had been very annoyed. The Old Madam, who had been listening to the quiet speech of her own House for a long time, laughed until she had to put down her tea, and the girls laughed because she did.

"And in the winter?" said the Old Madam, when she could. "How do you manage in the winter?"

"By turns, my lady," said Granny Liu. "Every house takes the old and the sick for a day. The Menders come in the lean months, and they are fed by turns too. Nobody writes it. If you wrote it, somebody would have to be paid to read it."

"And if one takes more than a turn?"

"Then the village knows, and says nothing, and the next winter that one is given a turn a little shorter. That is all. It has not failed in my time."

"That is a great deal of trust."

"It is not trust, my lady. It is only that everyone is in everyone's mouth. You cannot hide in a village." She said it comfortably, and reached for a sweet.

There was a pause in the pavilion, of the kind that comes when a thing has been said that nobody wants to be the first to be moved by. It was Xiangyun, who could not bear a silence, who broke it. "She needs flowers!" she cried, and the girls were off.

They dressed her in chrysanthemums. It was Xiangyun's idea, and Baoyu's; they stuck the autumn flowers into her white hair until she looked like a haystack that had been to a wedding, and they gave her yellow wine in a cup the size of a thimble, and she drank it and said it was the nearest she had come to heaven and she hoped it was not the last. "I was a beauty once," she said, stoutly. "There were three men at my door." The pavilion shook. Yingchun laughed behind her hand. Tanchun, who did not often, put her head on the table.

When the laughing had died down, Granny Liu looked out of the pavilion at the water, and the fine rocks, and the farm with its four hens. "In my village this would be four fields and a pond," she said, "and three families would eat from it. Here it is for looking at. It is very handsome." She said it as she might have said it was going to rain. The Old Madam stopped laughing, for about a breath, and Tanchun lifted her head and looked at the old woman with a new attention; and then somebody poured more wine.

Daiyu did not laugh. She sat at the end, with her cup of ginger tea, watching with an expression that did not move, and when the others had gone out into the garden with the old woman to see the lake, she stayed in her place.

She found Granny Liu again at dusk, at the water-steps, alone, taking the flowers out of her hair one by one and putting them in the pocket of her coat. The grandson was asleep on a bench. The old woman did not look round.

"You did not laugh, miss," she said.

"No."

"That is all right. Somebody ought not to." She took out the last chrysanthemum and looked at it. "I know what I was doing in there. They feed me for it, and they give me a cart of rice and cloth when I go, and I make them laugh in the way they like to be made to. It is an honest trade. I take their laughing and they take my dignity, and I have a great deal of dignity and no use for it, and you may be sure I have never been paid so well for anything."

Daiyu stood still. She had never in her life been spoken to by anyone who was both so much poorer and so little afraid. "Does it cost you?" she said.

"It costs me what it costs. I do not pretend otherwise. The ones who do not laugh are the ones who see it, and I like those best, miss. They never make me feel I am being given anything. That is the worst, when they give." She pulled a rush from the edge of the pond, and her old hands moved over it, quick, folding, and in a moment she held out a small green grasshopper. It had a body and four legs and long, absurd feelers, and it sat in the palm of her hand as if it might spring. "It is worth nothing," she said. "There. Now I have not given you a thing. It is only a grasshopper."

Daiyu took it. She stood a long time with it on her palm at the water-steps, while the old woman gathered her sleeping grandson and went up the stairs, counting them.

She left in the morning with a cartload that the House had insisted on: rice, cloth, a coat, a box of sweets, the Old Madam's own gift of a roll of silk. Xifeng watched her from the counting-room window as she went down the lane, small and straight, with her basket on her back. Halfway to the gate she stopped, took a length of cloth from the cart, and gave it to the gatekeeper's wife; then another, to a girl at the well. By the time she reached the street the cart was lighter by a third. Granny Liu was not a person who could carry a gift for long.

"She owes us twenty-five strings and a goose," said Pinger, at the window.

"Yes," said Xifeng. She was looking at the gate. "I should like very much to see the goose."

In the Lodge of Thin Green that night a girl in two coats set a grasshopper of green rush on the sill, where the lamp could catch it, and did not say whose it was, and went to bed. In the morning it was still there. She had half expected it to have to be paid for.

## Chapter 16 · Pooled

There is a form of giving in the House that is neither a gift nor a debt, and the House calls it pooling. A person is to be honoured, and the House does not honour out of the Table, which has no line for honour; so everyone puts in, by rank, a sum small enough to be forgotten, and the whole is spent on one day for one person. It is the only transfer in the House that nobody can call a loss, since everyone loses a little and the one honoured is only the shape the loss takes. It is also the oldest trick the House has. The Old Madam had been using it for fifty years, and she had never used it better than in the eleventh month of the Garden's second year.

"Xifeng's birthday is on the twenty-fifth," she said to Yuanyang, who knew. "We shall pool."

Yuanyang waited.

"The Lady twelve, and the Master twelve, and Lady Zhao four. The young six apiece. Li Wan five. The first-class maids two and the second one. The rest as they can." She was looking at the plum branch, which had come into small white flower in the cold, as it did, without being asked. "I shall put in twenty."

"From your own, Old Madam?"

"From my own." She did not look round. "The sum will come to something over a hundred and fifty, I think. A birthday dinner costs sixty. There will be a remainder, and it is Xifeng's, it being her birthday, to do with as she likes. Tell her so." She added, to the plum branch, "She has eaten nothing at my table since the crabs. I have counted. I do not like it."

Yuanyang, who had stood beside the Old Madam for thirty years, said nothing. She was learning, that winter, how much of the Old Madam's work was done in what she did not say.

Xifeng tried to refuse. She went to the south room that afternoon with her sleeves down and a speech, and the speech was very good: that the House had not the money for a banquet, that she did not care for birthdays, that she would rather the sum went to the Table. The Old Madam let it run to the end.

"You may refuse a banquet," she said. "I believe you can. You cannot refuse a sum. It is already being collected."

"Old Madam," said Xifeng, and stopped.

"It is done, child. Sit down. Eat a peach."

Li Wan was made treasurer of the pool, because she was the one person in the House who could be trusted to write down exactly what she was given and nothing else. She sat at the farmhouse table with a ledger ruled by her own hand, which Xifeng, when she saw it later, found so moving that she had to look at the hens; and the House came to her over three days with its coins.

Lady Zhao paid four strings and a speech. Huan, her son, paid two, counting them out one by one with his eyes on the Old Madam's face to be sure she had seen. The Lady paid twelve in a new purse, with a face from which nothing could be learned. Baoyu paid his six with a string that he had borrowed from Xiren, who lent it without a word and put it, that night, in the book she kept for the purpose of not mentioning such things. Xichun paid one string and brought a drawing of a peach, in chalk, on a slate, and said that it was the other five. Baochai paid hers twice: once in the ledger, and once in an envelope under the ledger, which Li Wan found when she lifted the book and put away without counting, since she knew whose it was and what it was for. The first-class maids came in a rustle and paid their two. Lian, who was away at the river works for the Court, sent ten by post, with a silk and a letter that began with the weather.

On the third day, in the afternoon, the water-carriers came.

They came in a line, in their clean aprons, led by Xiaohong, who had washed her face, and they put their coin down on the table one handful at a time. The rule had been as they could. It was not a handful. It was the whole of what each had been paid on the ninth, tied in red thread, a month's Pocket for every one of them, from the stair-sweepers to the girls who carried the slops; and as they laid it down, the table, which was a small one, began to look like a thing with a lot on it.

Li Wan counted it twice. She was a person who always counted twice, and apologised for it. "Forty strings," she said. "That is a month's Pocket."

"It is what we have," said Xiaohong.

"The Old Madam said as you can."

"We can."

Li Wan put down her pen. She was twenty-five, and had lived eleven years in a back room on a share that nobody thought about, and she knew a good deal about what people could. "May I ask why?"

Xiaohong looked at the thatch, where the unsigned sheets hung, for a time. She was twelve. She had been carrying the sum around inside her since the autumn and had not had a word for it, and in the mending-room, with a stranger's thumbs on her neck, she had found one. "It is going anyway," she said. "We know where it goes. It goes to the oil and the rice, and it comes back late. It is better to be the ones who give it than to be the ones who have it taken." She said it plainly, as she might have said the north stair was wet. "Madam says my bucket is straight. I would like to be straight in this."

Li Wan wrote in the ledger, in her small clear hand: From the water-carriers and the stair-sweepers, forty strings, with thanks. She did not underline it. She closed the book, and sat a moment with her hand flat on the cover. Then she sent for Pinger, because it was not hers to carry.

Pinger came with her sleeves down, read the line, and understood it at once, because she had been remembering for a year what each of those girls was owed and since when. Forty strings was the sum that Madam held back from the lowest class on the first of every month. It was the same sum, in the same thread. It had gone out to Gu, and come home, and gone out to the girls nine days late, and now the girls had put it on a farmhouse table and called it a birthday present. It had made three journeys and was about to make a fourth. She did not know whether she wanted to laugh or to sit on the floor.

"Do I tell her?" she said.

"I think she will know," said Li Wan.

By evening the whole Garden knew what the water-carriers had done, because a House cannot keep a thing like that; and the maids of the first class, who had paid their two strings and been pleased with themselves, did a sum. Qingwen did it loudest, in the east court, at the top of her voice. "Two strings! We paid two strings and sat down to a fish, and they paid a month and stood on the stairs!"

"Then put in four," said Xiren, without looking up.

"I shall put in ten," said Qingwen, "and I shall be rude about it."

By morning there was a jar on the north stair, under the bench by the well, with a slit cut in its lid, and by the end of the week it held three strings: two from the east court, one from the Lodge, and a twist of copper with no name on it, and a button. Nobody put a name on the jar. The water-carriers looked at it for a day, and then took it, and said they would pay it back, and the jar said nothing, being a jar.

The banquet was in the south room, on the twenty-fifth, with the doors thrown open to the court and braziers at every corner, and the whole House at its tables by rank, so that the food came down from the Old Madam's end like water finding its level. There were peaches of steamed rice-flour, pink at the tip, and a fish with its tail in its mouth, and the long noodles that nobody may cut. Xifeng sat in a red jacket in the seat of honour, between the Old Madam and the Lady, with her face arranged; and the pool, that she had refused, sat on the table in front of her in a box. Xichun's chalk peach had been propped among the real ones. At the foot of the stairs, in their clean aprons, the water-carriers stood to see the dishes brought in, with the faces of people looking through a window at their own forty strings.

The Master, who sat very upright at the second table, was asked for a toast, and gave one: that he hoped the account would balance. Everyone laughed except Xifeng, and the Master, who had not meant it as a joke.

Baoyu proposed the toast, standing on his bench, with the Jade swinging. He said it as he said everything, as if the room had been waiting for it. "To Xifeng, who holds the whole House in her two hands." It was Xiren's sentence, and he did not know that he had taken it. Xifeng laughed, and drank, and the House drank, and she was seen to drink again.

Daiyu, at the end of the second table with her ginger tea, counted the cups. When the third went towards the red mouth she said to Baoyu, quite loudly, that she thought the peaches the best she had ever eaten; and the table turned to look at the peaches, and Xifeng set the cup down. Nobody saw it done. Daiyu drank her tea.

The Lady, on Xifeng's other side, had not in all the years Xifeng had known her been seen to put food on another person's plate. She took up her chopsticks now, and laid the cheek of the fish, which is the best of it, in front of Xifeng, and said nothing at all. Xifeng looked at it as one looks at a letter in a hand one thought was dead.

Pinger brought in the baby, wrapped in her yellow jacket, and the Old Madam took her onto her lap and held her a moment, weighing her without seeming to. "She is light," she said, to nobody. Across the table Xifeng put down her cup. There was a bed by a stove on the far side of a river, and she had been told to remember it, and she remembered.

At the end Yuanyang brought the box to her on a tray. "The sum came to a hundred and ninety-one," she said, in her clear carrying voice. "The dinner was sixty. The remainder is a hundred and thirty-one, for the birthday child to spend on whatever she likes, by order of the Old Madam." There was a pleased murmur round the tables, the sound of a House that had done a kindness and been seen to; and Xifeng, who understood to the grain what had been done to her, stood up, with the box in her hands, and bowed to the Old Madam as one bows to a debt.

Afterwards she went out into the corridor, where it was cold, and Pinger followed her. The court was dark. A little way off the lanterns of the Garden showed over the wall.

"Forty from the water-carriers," said Xifeng.

"Yes, Madam."

"Did you tell them what they were owed?"

"They asked me," said Pinger. "I could not say a thing that was not so."

"What did the child say? The one at the front."

"Xiaohong. She said it was better to be the ones who give it than the ones who have it taken."

Xifeng stood quite still. "I should like to have said that," she said, "to someone, once." Then she laughed, and put the heel of her hand against her side. "They gave me my own coin, Pinger, and called it a gift. It is a better trick than mine."

"It is not a trick."

"No. That is what makes it so good." She leaned against a pillar, in her red jacket, with the wine in her face and her eyes quite clear. "The Old Madam knows about the nine days."

"She knows everything."

"That is her way of not asking." She stood a while. A small wind went through the court and set the lanterns turning. "A hundred and thirty-one. She has paid for the nine days. She did not say so; she gave it to me to do with as I liked, which is a thing I cannot refuse, and she knew it." She took a breath that hurt. "Pay them on the first. In full. The old way, with the remark. And do not tell them it was the House's thanks, because it was not, it was only theirs."

"From what, Madam?"

"From the remainder. For this one month." She said it with her eyes on the lanterns. "That is the third time that old woman has made me an allowance, and I have not been able to refuse one."

The first of the twelfth month came, in a clear hard light. The Table was read. The Pocket was paid, in order of rank, from the top, in strings tied with red thread; and when she came to the lowest, the water-carriers and the stair-sweepers and the girls with no class at all, Xifeng gave each of them a handful and a remark, as she always did, and for once the handful was whole.

She said to Xiaohong, whom she had not looked at in particular before, "You have the straightest bucket on the north stair, and the best head for a sum of anyone in the House under twenty." Xiaohong took her coin. It had the red thread on it. She looked at it for a moment, and then up, with her narrow quick face quite still, and said thank you in the old voice.

Gu came at noon by the side door, as he did on the first of every month, with his hat in his hand, and found nothing waiting for him. He stood a moment, round and plain in his good plain coat. "I hope Madam is in good health," he said, and went away. It was the shortest visit he had ever made. Xifeng wrote nothing in the black book that day, and the page stayed white.

It was paid on the first. It was paid on the first for one month, and the Old Madam had bought that month, and everyone in the counting-room knew it, and nobody said so. Outside in the passage Xiaohong said to the girl beside her, in a low voice, "It is the first."

"It is," said the other, surprised.

"I thought I would see what it looked like," said Xiaohong, and went on down the north stair with her bucket carried straight, counting.

## Chapter 17 · The Coat

The Court does not give. It lends at a distance, and calls the lending a gift so that the borrower will not feel the string.

The coat had come with the Seat's presents after the Visit, in a flat box of grey wood, wrapped in the Court's paper: a long winter coat for the second son of Rong, in a weave the colour of old gold with a green shimmer in it, as of a bird turning. It had been made on the Court's own looms, with a thread out of the Mending's remnants, which is the strongest thread there is and the hardest to cut; and it was entered on the Seat's account, with a tag stitched inside the left cuff, as one of the things that the Court had put out into the world on loan. The Court would call in the winter, as it did every year, to see that its loans were in good order. A coat with a tear in it was an offence against the Court's property. It would be written against the Seat, because everything the Court sent was on the Seat's account; and the Seat's account was the Charter.

Baoyu hated the coat. It was heavy and handsome and everyone looked at it. But the Old Madam liked to see him in it, and on the second of the twelfth month he went to the south room wearing it, and stood too near the brazier, and a spark jumped.

It made a hole the size of a coin, in the left front, below the chest, with a brown rim, and it was already spreading. A Court weave, if it is cut, will run; first slowly, then not. Xiren went white. She took the coat from him in the passage with both hands, as one takes a thing that is hurt, and looked at it under the window, and did not say anything, and her not saying it was the worst thing he had heard that year.

"It can be mended," he said.

"Not by us." She was already counting. The tailors of the House could not do it; they had told her in the autumn, over a smaller matter, that they would not touch a Court weave for fear of the knot, and she had no reason to think they had changed. The Menders could, and the Menders' House was across the river, two days there and two back, and a Mender's work is paid for in hours, and the second son's hours were what they were. The inspector would call on the fifth. She took the coat by the shoulder seams and held it away from her. "It will be written against your sister."

"I shall tell the Old Madam."

"You will not," said Xiren. "She gave it to you. She has given enough this winter." She did not say how she knew that. In that House nobody had said it to anyone, and everyone knew.

Qingwen had been in bed since the first, with a cold. She was in the east court's back room under two quilts with a face the colour of tallow, and a fever that came and went in the afternoons; but the east court is a small place, and she had heard every word through the screen, as she heard everything. She came out in her under-jacket with her hair down and a quilt round her shoulders, coughing, and looked at the coat in Xiren's hands.

"Give it to me," she said.

"You are ill."

"I am always ill. It is not an argument." She took the coat out of Xiren's hands and carried it to the window, and turned the hole to the light, and her whole face changed. It lost its temper. It became quite still, and attentive, and young. "It is a plain run," she said. "It has only just started. You can close it with a Mender's knot, if you have the thread."

"Where would you have learned a Mender's knot?"

"From my mother," said Qingwen, "who was one, before she was a maid." She said it flatly, looking at the coat. "She sat in the back kitchen of this House with a lamp for six winters and did what the tailors would not, and I sat on the floor by her feet and watched, and when she died they put me on the roll in her place. I was six. The House had no hours for what she did, so nobody asked me to do it. I do not suppose I have done it since." She turned the sleeve over. There was a thread on the inside of the hem, of the same gold, which the Court's weavers leave for exactly this. She touched it with one finger as one touches a sleeping animal. "I should like to find out whether I can."

"I should not let you," said Xiren.

"You do not let me. Nobody lets me; it is the first thing you learn about me." Qingwen turned the coat over in her lap. "I have been given a chair, and a great many bowls of congee, and a hundred allowances from you, Xiren, and I have never once given this House a thing it could not have taken. Let me give it something tonight."

It was past midnight when they began. Xiren had made the decision, and was sorry for it, and made tea. Baoyu was told to go to bed and did not. The east court's back room was warm and small, and Qingwen sat on the floor by the lamp with the coat across her knees and a needle that she had found in her own box, and a thread she had drawn out of the hem; and the lamp stood on a stool at her elbow, because there was no table that was low enough.

"Hold that closer," she said to Baoyu, who was holding it. "Closer. No. You are a very bad lamp."

He held it closer. I was against his chest, and I could see her hands. They were not the hands of the girl who shouted across the court about the congee. They were a stranger's hands: slow, and exact, and slightly turned in at the wrist, as a person holds a tool she is afraid of dropping. She drew the thread across the hole and back, and across, and back, and in the lamp I saw the weave begin to close, one fine thread at a time, like a wound that agrees to heal. It was done with a knot that was a pattern, and a pattern that was a knot, and each stitch had to be right or the whole row would run. She did not look up.

"Why can you do it?" said Baoyu, in a whisper. "I have never seen anyone do it."

"Because my mother did, and I was in the room," said Qingwen. She coughed into her shoulder. "That is the whole of it. Most things people can do, they can do because they were in the room."

By the second hour she was shaking. By the third she had been sick, quietly, into a basin that Xiren held for her, and wiped her mouth, and picked the needle up again. She did not stop to rest. It was the Mender's stitch, and the Mender's stitch does not stop; if you leave the thread loose for the length of a breath, the weave slackens and the whole line must be undone. She worked with her chin on her chest, and sweat standing out on her forehead in the cold, and I understood slowly what it was that I was watching. A body keeps its own mending, in the dark, in the hours that the House allots it; it is how a person is kept. Qingwen was spending hers. She was taking the night's mending out of her own bones and putting it into the cloth, an hour at a time, and she knew exactly what she was spending, as she knew exactly what everything cost, and she did not say.

At the fourth hour the lamp guttered. Xiren trimmed it. Baoyu, who had held it for three hours with his arm gone numb, had fallen asleep upright against the wall with the lamp still in his fist. Qingwen glanced at him without moving her head. "He is the worst lamp I ever had," she said, in a voice like a thread, "and the best." Xiren took the lamp very gently from his hand.

It was finished a little before dawn, when the window had gone from black to the grey of a pigeon's wing. Qingwen bit off the last thread and sat for a moment with the coat across her knees, looking at the place where the hole had been. Then she held it up to the window.

It was gone. You could not tell where. The gold lay unbroken over the chest, with the green shimmer going through it, as of a bird turning; and only if one knew, and put a finger to the inside, could one feel, very faintly, a small hard seam like a scar healed so long ago that the skin had forgotten.

"There," said Qingwen. "Tell the Court it is a very good coat."

She stood up, with the quilt falling, and took one step. Her knees went. Baoyu, who had woken at the sound, got to her before the floor did, and she lay against his arm as light as a bundle of sticks, with her eyes open, and said, quite clearly, "I have spoiled your lamp-holding," and then nothing.

The physician came at seven, and went away with a grim face, and came back. He was a grave man called Wang who had been the House's for twenty years. She was to have three days in the mending-room, he said, in a bed, with a Mender at her side, and she would be well in a month; if she did not, he would not answer. And there lay the trouble. Qingwen was a maid of the second class, who had a mending hour in a fortnight, and the second son had a great many; Baoyu signed over forty of his own that morning with a hand that shook, and the slip went to the Lady's seal, as every transfer across two classes must.

They carried her to the mending-room at noon in a chair, and Baoyu walked beside it as far as the door. "Thank you," he said.

"Do not," said Qingwen, from the cushions, with her eyes shut. "If you thank me it becomes a debt. It was a coat."

"Then I shall owe you."

"That is worse," she said, and was carried in.

The Lady read the slip standing in the passage. "If I seal one across," she said, "there will be fifty by the new moon. It is the rule, Baoyu." She tore it once, neatly, and gave him back the halves. She was not unkind; she was only the shape that the House took when it was afraid. She had seen the girl go by in the chair, thin and grey, with her hair not done, and she had looked at her for a long time, as she had looked at her once before, on the porch, among the six. She said nothing to her. She said to Xiren, in her low flat voice, that the girl was not well and ought not to be about, and that she would speak of it to the Old Madam in the spring.

Xiren went from court to court with her face like a stone, asking for hours as one asks for bread, and she was given what could be spared inside the class, which was nine in all, from the Lodge, and Baochai's court, and the farm. Qingwen had a day and a half in the mending-room and was sent back to the east court on the second morning, on her own feet, to save the bed.

On the third afternoon the Old Madam came herself, which she had not done for a maid in thirty years, with Yuanyang behind her carrying nothing. She sat down by the bed without a word, and looked at the girl on the pillows for some time. Then she took from her sleeve the small copper hand-warmer that she kept in her own bed in the winter, which was on no roll and no list, and put it into Qingwen's hands, and closed the fingers over it. "It is only a warmer," she said. "I have not given you anything." She went away. Qingwen held it against her chest for the rest of the day and would not let Xiren take it to be filled.

The inspector called on the fifth, a dry little man from the Court with a glass on a cord, and the Court's own Mender at his shoulder, a small bent woman of seventy with hands too big for her. He turned the Seat's gifts over, one by one, on a table in the hall, and examined each with the glass, and made a mark. He came to the coat last. He held up the left front for a long time. Then he handed it to the Mender.

She had not said a word all morning. She took the cloth in her great quiet hands, and turned it inside out, and put her thumb on the place; and she stood quite still. "It is the Court's weave," she said, at last, to the inspector. "It is in good order."

"No tear?"

"No tear."

He made his mark. He went out to his dinner.

In the Court's inner rooms, far away, a line that would have stood against the Seat's name that winter was never written. She never knew that she had been in danger of it, or whose hands had kept her off the page, or what a night of someone's mending had been spent to do it.

In the doorway, as the hall emptied, the Mender stopped by Xiren, who was standing against the wall with her hands in her sleeves, and bent a little, as a woman bends to a child.

"No tailor made that," she said, very low.

Xiren did not answer.

"I could not have done it better myself, and I have had fifty years. Whoever she is, tell her there is a bench for her at the Menders' House, when she wants one. A good one. By the stove." She straightened. "We do not write it down."

Xiren told her that evening, in the east court, sitting by the bed. She told her exactly, in the Mender's words, because she did not change what she was given. Qingwen lay propped up on the pillows, with her hair down and her cough, and looked at the ceiling for a long time.

"I have a chair," she said.

## Chapter 18 · The Short Table

Huan was nine, and had been watching his brother for as long as he could remember, as a boy watches a man eating something he is not allowed.

He was not a bad child. He was the son of Lady Zhao, whose share ran out first and whose hem was the first to be spread, and he had grown up in a back court on a Table cut a hair closer than his brother's, where the congee had always been a little thinner and the quilts a little less. He did not hate Baoyu. He wanted to be looked at. In the whole of the House there was one person whose looking was worth anything, and that was his father; and his father looked at him in the ordinary way, as one looks at an item.

On the fourth of the twelfth month, in the east court's waste-basket, he found the halves of a torn slip. He knew his brother's hand at once. He read: Baoyu, second son of Rong, signs over forty mending hours of his own to Qingwen, maid of the second class. Under it was a small neat seal, torn through the middle.

He did not know what he was carrying. He knew only that if he carried it the Master would look at him. He took it across the courts in both hands, like a bowl too full, and laid it on the Master's desk, and stood very straight.

The Master looked at the halves for a long time, and then at his son. "Where did you find these?"

"In the east court, Father. In the basket."

"You went into your brother's court?"

"The door was open," said Huan. It had not been. "I thought you should know."

"Thank you," said the Master. He said it as he would have said it to a clerk. Huan went out with his face shining, and for the rest of that week he was careful not to look at the floor.

The Master sent for Baoyu that afternoon. His study was a bare clean room with the Charter's tablet on the wall and a ledger on the desk kept to the last cash, in a hand like a row of fence-posts. He had never in his life drawn a coin he could not account for, and it had given him a rigid, upright face, like a man carrying something on his head. He did not ask the boy to sit. He laid the two halves of the slip side by side on the desk, as one lays out evidence, and Baoyu, who had come in expecting to be asked about poetry, went white.

"Lai tells me," said the Master, "that you have given away your breakfast rice since the autumn of last year. He tells me you sent your charcoal to the Lodge in the ninth month, and were prevented. He tells me you have signed over forty hours to a maid. Is it true?"

"Yes, Father."

"Whose rice have you been eating?"

"Mine."

"And whose have you not been?"

"Mine. I gave it." Baoyu looked at the floor, and then, because it was a thing he sometimes did, at his father. "It is mine to give."

"It is not." The Master did not raise his voice. "A share is not yours. It is lent to you by the House, to keep you, at the rank you were born to; and when you give it away you take it off the roll, and the roll must then show a mouth where there is none, or none where there is one. The Court counts. The Court counts every winter." He put his finger on the torn seal. "Do you know what the Court does with a House whose roll is out of true?"

"No."

"Nor do I." For the length of a breath the rigid face moved, like a wall in which something has turned. "That is why I am afraid."

It was said quite flatly. It was perhaps the only true thing the Master had said to his son in two years, and Baoyu, who was twelve, looked at him, and did not know what to do with it, and neither did the Master. The face shut again.

"You will keep your own share," he said. "You will learn to count it. For seven days you will sit at the short table, in this room, and eat the Table of the lowest class, and copy out the Charter's rules in a clear hand. The door will be open, and you will not leave. Nothing will be brought in."

"Yes, Father," said Baoyu.

That was all. It was not a blow. There was no cane in that House. The short table is the oldest sentence it has, and it is a bowl and a half of plain grain in a day, with a spoon of salt greens and no oil, for as long as the Master says; and the House feared it as a village fears a drought, because a person kept thin slows, and loses the thread of things, and goes quiet. It was the one punishment that did not need anyone to be cruel.

The Lady sat in her court with her hands folded and did not weep, and Xiren, who had come with her face prepared to beg, found that she could not say a word, and went away again. The Old Madam came on the second morning, in a chair, with Yuanyang, and stood in the court before the study with her stick, and the Master came out and stood in his own doorway and bowed.

"He is my grandson," said the Old Madam.

"He is on my Table, Mother. When he is at yours, he is on yours. It is the rule."

"I know the rule. I wrote half of it."

"Then you know I cannot be asked to break it."

They looked at each other across the gravel, an old woman with a stick and a man with a face like a tablet. The Old Madam turned her head, slowly, and looked past him at the study's side wall, where there was a window of oiled paper, with a view of the back lawn and the bamboo beyond it.

"That is a handsome window," she said.

"It is, Mother."

"I should not like to see it broken."

"No," said the Master. "It will not be broken." And the Old Madam, who had won, and knew that she had, and knew that he knew, went away in her chair without another word.

Xifeng weighed the ration herself, in the counting-room, on the small brass scale, to the grain. It was the lowest class's day: a bowl and a half, a spoon of salt greens, no oil. She knew it as she knew her own hand. She served it out every morning to the water-carriers and the stair-sweepers, and she had never before weighed it for someone she loved. She carried the tray across to the study on the first morning and held it out to the Master at the door.

"Exactly the lowest, Master."

"Exactly," said the Master.

"Nothing more." She said it as a clerk says a total, and her eyes did not leave his. She could not do otherwise; the inspectors were in the House. She went back along the passage with her sleeves down, and her hand went to her side, and she did not look round.

Baoyu sat at the short table. It was a small low thing, kept in a corner of the study for the purpose, with a worn mat in front of it and a brush-rest worn in the shape of a hundred years of boys. He ate his grain. He copied the Charter. Hour by hour the clear hand went down the page: the rules of the Table, the rules of the Pocket, the rules of the Mending, the rules by which a House might add a mouth. I was against his chest, and I noticed, with a kind of astonishment, that it was what the water-carriers ate every day of their lives.

On the first night, when the lamp was out and the Master's footsteps had gone away along the passage, he lay on the mat with his eyes open, and said the names. He did not say them aloud. I felt them in his chest, in the order that he said them, like a person turning beads: Xiren, Qingwen, Daiyu, Tanchun, Li Wan, Xichun, Yingchun, Baochai, Xiangyun, the water-carrier with the narrow face, the old woman with the grasshopper. He said them over and over, and each time they came a little slower. I understood that he was holding on. I understood that the House was right to be afraid.

On the second morning, a little before light, there was a tap at the window.

It was Zijuan, with her anxious face, in the dark among the bamboo, and a covered bowl in her two hands. Baoyu slid the paper aside. The bowl was warm; the congee in it was plain and thick, and a slip of paper was folded under the lid in a hand he knew. It is not a gift, it said. It is a loan. You may repay me when you are fat.

He looked at it for a long time. Then he put it back into Zijuan's hands, with a line scratched on the same paper, in pencil, with the stub of the Master's pencil. You are thinner than I.

The bowl came back at the next dawn. So did the answer. For two days the bowl travelled the length of the bamboo and back, in the dark, each time with a few words more on the slip, and each time it was refused. On the third day it came with a boiled egg set in the congee, which had not been there before; he sent back the egg. It was the sort of quarrel that cannot be won, and both of them were very good at it.

On the fourth morning, before light, there was no tap. There was a cough, small and dry, like a page being turned, and when he slid the paper aside Daiyu was standing in the bamboo herself, in her two coats, with the bowl in her hands and her breath going up in the cold.

"We shall settle this," she said.

"You should not be out."

"No." She came up to the sill. It was low enough for her to rest the bowl upon it, with one half of the rim inside and one half out, and she put a spoon in it. "I have been thinking. I can't eat it, because it is yours. You can't eat it, because it is mine. So it is nobody's, and it will go cold, and that is the only thing that would be a waste." She looked at him through the opening. Her face was thin and white and perfectly composed. "Half."

"Half?"

"One spoon. I take one, you take one. It is neither a gift nor a loan." She held out the spoon. "It is only a bowl, and we are both hungry."

They ate it so, in the grey light, across the windowsill, with the one spoon going back and forth between the two sides of the oiled paper, and the bowl between them. Neither said anything. Neither could have, I think. I was against his chest, and I can set down that it was the quietest meal I have been present at; and when it was done, at the last spoonful, they looked at the empty bowl, and Daiyu began to laugh, softly, and it turned into the cough, and Baoyu, from inside, put out his hand over the sill and held her sleeve until it had stopped.

After that the window began to fill. Li Wan sent an egg every morning, wrapped in a cabbage leaf, with the hens' regards. Xichun brought a chestnut and left it on the sill without a word, like an offering. Tanchun slid in a folded sheet of the cream paper, on which she had written in her square small hand only the one line of the club's rule. A twist of dried persimmon appeared that nobody owned. Nothing was entered. It was the oldest economy in the world, and it moved in the dark across a windowsill, a thing at a time, while the Master sat at his desk ten paces away with his back to the wall, accounting for every cash.

The twist of dried persimmon that nobody owned had been Huan's. He had put it on the sill himself, in the dark, from his own Table, on the third night, a boy of nine who did not know why he was doing it, and he told no one, then or afterwards. He had expected to feel the Master's eyes on him when his brother was brought low. He found, to his dismay, that what he felt was the cold.

On the fifth day, when the boy had begun to answer a beat late, the slip under the lid was not a quarrel. It was four lines.

Thin is a kind of weather. / It passes, / if someone stands in the doorway. / I am standing in the doorway.

He read it three times, with the bowl going cold. He did not answer it. There was nothing to say that was not already in the bowl.

On the seventh day he opened the study door at noon. The boy sat at the short table, thin, with his hand still moving, and the clear copy of the Charter stood in a neat pile at his elbow. He looked up, slowly. It took him a moment to find his father's face. He was not ill; but there was a slowness in him, a kind of blur at the edges, like a lamp seen through water, and the Master saw it, and his own face moved.

He walked to the window. On the sill, in the light, lay a spoon, and the husk of a chestnut, and an eggshell in a cabbage leaf. The Master looked at them for what seemed to be a long time. He did not touch them. He took a step away.

"I did not ask," he said, "where the shell came from."

"No, Father."

"The short table is finished. You will not give away your share."

"I shall try," said Baoyu.

"That is not an answer."

"It is the only one I have."

The Master looked at him for the length of a breath. Then he said, in his dry upright voice, "Go and eat." He turned, and went out of the room, and along the passage with a straight back, and at the corner, where no one could see him, he stopped, and put one hand flat against the wall, as one steadies oneself on a ship; and stood there for some time before he went on.

In the first week of the new year he gave an order that the study window be papered again, with a thinner sheet, so that more of the morning would come through. Lai wrote the cost in the ledger, to the cash, and did not ask.

## Chapter 19 · Three in Her Place

On the first of the second month Xifeng read the Table. She read it as she had read it for eleven years, in a voice that did not rise, in the cold clear light, with the two clerks on their stools. She had come to the fourth class of the kitchens, and a name she knew, when the name went out of her mouth in the middle, like a thread coming out of a needle.

"Madam?" said the clerk.

"I beg your pardon," said Xifeng, quite pleasantly, and put her hand flat on the cloth. "It is the cold."

She looked at her hand. It was a good hand; it had counted a great deal. Then, with great care, as a letter is folded, she folded at the waist, and Pinger, who had been watching her for two years, was across the room before the second clerk had lifted his head.

In the passage the water-carriers stood in their line in their clean aprons, as they did on every first, waiting for their handful and their remark, and heard through the door a stool go over. Xiaohong, at the head of the line, did not move. She went on counting under her breath, as she had counted for two years; and when the door opened and the chair came out with Madam in it, grey, with her hair coming down, she looked at the face, and she was the only one in the line who did.

"It is the first," said the girl behind her, uncertainly.

"Yes," said Xiaohong. "It is the first. And nobody has come."

The physician Wang stood a long time at the bed in the mending-room, with his grave face and his hands behind his back. He had been the House's for twenty years. He had known Xifeng since she came as a bride, and had told her then, in a joking voice, that she would burn out like a lamp if she did not learn to sit down.

"She has been spending her mending as though it were a purse," he said at last, to the Old Madam. "Two winters of it. Perhaps more. I cannot say what has been taken out of her; I can say it was not put back. A month in the bed. A Mender at the pillow. No counting-room, no books, no sums, nothing she would call work." He looked at the grey face on the pillow. "And if she does not, I will not answer."

"Who is to do the Draw?" said the Old Madam.

"Anyone who will do it badly," said the physician, "and be forgiven."

The Old Madam sat for some time by the bed with her hands in her lap. She was seventy-eight. She looked at Xifeng, who lay with her eyes shut and one hand outside the quilt, the fingers still moving a little, counting something; and she looked at the hand for a long while.

She sent for three people that evening, to the south room, and they came across the Garden in the dusk as people come who have been told nothing and know everything: Li Wan, in her plain grey, with her ledger under her arm; Tanchun, with her small square face and her hands behind her back; and Baochai, in white, who stood in the doorway a half-step behind the others, as a guest does.

"Xifeng will be a month in the bed," said the Old Madam. "The Draw cannot wait a month. I want the three of you to do it."

"I am a guest, Old Madam," said Baochai. "It would not be right."

"That is why," said the Old Madam. "You will not be liked for it, and you will not be asked to stay. It is the only qualification I can think of that is not also a vice." She turned her head. "Li Wan keeps the books. Tanchun has the head. And you have your father's eye for a figure that is lying to you. The Lady will look in. I will look in. You will each of you do a little less than you could, and between you it will come to the right amount." She closed her eyes for a breath. "I do not ask it for the House. I ask it for her."

Li Wan said she would, in the apologetic voice; Tanchun said she would do it as it ought to be done, and the Old Madam said that was precisely what she was afraid of; and Baochai, after a long moment, bowed.

When they had gone, the Old Madam said, "Yuanyang. The book." It was a small green book, kept in the lower drawer of the bed, that nobody but the two of them had seen, and Yuanyang read from it in the low voice she used for such things. "Eight hundred and six strings, Old Madam."

"And last spring?"

"Fourteen hundred and some."

The Old Madam nodded. "Do not tell Xifeng."

"She would not ask."

"No," said the Old Madam. "That is what is wrong with her."

They opened the counting-room in the morning, the three of them, with the keys. It was a long low room with a long table, and the grey Court slips were stacked in a basket at one end, and at the other, on a stool in the corner, in a yellow jacket, a child of a year and a half was asleep in a basket of her own, because there was nobody in the House who had had the time to move her. Pinger was standing by the window. She had the look of a person who has slept in her clothes.

"The Table," said Pinger, and put it into Li Wan's hands. "The Pocket." She put that into Tanchun's. "The Stores' notices, and the Court's. The roll of the lowest class, which is in the drawer."

She stopped.

"There is the drawer," she said.

It was the middle drawer of the long table, and it was locked. Li Wan took the key from the ring and opened it. In it, tied in red thread, in rows, lay forty strings of coin that had been counted out on the morning of the first, for Gu, and had been waiting. Gu had come at noon, as he did, and been told that Madam was ill, and had gone away with his hat in his hand. The strings had stayed where they were.

"Those are the water-carriers'," said Pinger. "They have not been paid. They were meant to be paid on the ninth." She looked at the floor. "They are owed the day."

Li Wan counted them, twice, and apologised. Then she did a thing that nobody in the counting-room had done in all the years it had had a drawer, which was to take them out at once, as they were, and go down to the passage, where the water-carriers were standing in their line again, as they had stood the day before, because nobody had told them not to, patient and hollow-eyed in aprons that had been put on clean; and give each of them her handful. She did not know about the remarks. She said, to every one, going down the line, "I am sorry it is late." It was all she could think of. The girls took the coin and looked at her as at a person who had spoken in a foreign language.

"It was due on the first," said Xiaohong, flatly. She had her coin in her fist.

"Yes," said Li Wan. "I am sorry it was not paid on it."

Nobody had ever said that. In the passage, for a moment, there was no sound except the water running in the well.

That night, in the long low room where the water-carriers slept, twelve to a platform, they went over it again, as girls will.

"She said she was sorry," said one.

"Sorry does not eat," said another.

"No," said Xiaohong, from the end of the platform, where she was mending the hole in her left shoe with a thread drawn from her own hem. "But nobody has ever said it." She bit the thread. "Madam will be better, and then it will be the ninth again." She put the shoe on, and lay down, and counted the cracks in the ceiling, which was a thing she did when she did not wish to count anything else.

When she came back, Tanchun was standing at the long table with the Pocket book open in front of her and a pencil in her hand, and her small square face was quite white. Baochai had taken the Court's notices to the window and read them through twice; now she turned and said, quietly, "This House has been living a hundred and eighty-seven measures a month beyond its draw."

"I know," said Tanchun.

"Then somebody has been paying it." Baochai laid the notices down. "I am a merchant's daughter. I know what it looks like when a house is borrowing from itself. It looks like this: everything on time except the people at the bottom."

Nobody answered. Tanchun turned a page, and ran her pencil down the column, and stopped.

"There is a hole here," she said, "exactly nine days wide." She looked up. "Pinger. Where does the nine-day money go?"

"I cannot say."

"You can. You know where it goes."

"I know," said Pinger. "It is not mine to say. There is one thing in this room that is not the House's. It is Madam's." She did not look up. "It is in her box. I have the key. I am not going to give it to you, and I am sorry, and I will give it to her, if she asks."

"Everything in a counting-room is the House's."

"Then you must ask the House to take it from her," said Pinger. "I will not." She was crying, not in any way that showed, only in the voice. "She has done it for all of us."

Tanchun put down her pencil. She was fifteen. She stood a moment looking at the girl in the window, and at the child in the basket, who had woken and was holding a gourd in both fists, and then she went out, quickly, without a word, and across the Garden to the mending-room.

Xifeng was awake. She lay propped on three pillows, small and yellow, with a Mender at her side in a brown apron reading nothing, and a bowl untouched on the stool. She looked at the girl in the doorway for some time. She had the eyes of someone who is a long way off, and knows the way back, and is not sure that she wants it.

"You have been in the drawer," she said.

"I have been asked not to look in the box."

"By Pinger. Yes." Xifeng smiled. It was a very faint version of her old smile. "She is the best thing I have. Sit down, Tanchun. I will not make you read it standing."

She talked for an hour, in a low voice, to the ceiling. She did not excuse it. She told it like a sum: the hundred and eighty-seven; the nine days; Gu and the draper and the rice-seller; the red thread; the forty strings that went out and came home; the five from Granny Liu; the way a hair becomes a lock. She spoke of the Old Madam, who knew, and of the water-carriers, who knew, and of herself, who had known all along and had gone on. She said, "I have done nothing a verdict could name. I made one allowance too many, and then another, and then I could not stop, because the only way to stop was to let someone go without." She breathed. "It was always a different someone, and always the one at the bottom. I was very careful about that. I was careful for two years that it should be the bottom."

"And now?"

"And now you will find what I did not: that it is the bottom or the top." She turned her head on the pillow. "Do not make the first cut where I made it. Pinger has the key."

The Mender at the bed, who had said nothing in an hour, put down the book she had not been reading. "That was an hour's mending, madam, spent on talking," she said. "Was it badly spent?" said Xifeng. The Mender considered it, as her kind do. "I have seen worse," she said, and took up the book again.

Tanchun went back to the counting-room and held out her hand. Pinger looked at her, and at the open door, through which a faint small sound of a child singing to a gourd came; then she took a small iron key from her sleeve and put it into the girl's palm, and turned her face to the wall.

Tanchun read the black book that night, in the farmhouse, because it was the only room in the Garden where no one would come, with Li Wan beside her on the floor and a stick of wood in the stove. It took an hour. The hand was Xifeng's, quick and small. Names, dates, a number, an interest; Gu, a draper, a rice-seller, a man called Chen who dealt in lamp-oil; a hundred and sixty strings out at one time and forty at another; Cut, in the autumn; Granny Liu's twenty-five, in a column of its own with a question mark. At the foot of the last page Xifeng had written the sum of what was out, and it was six hundred and twelve strings, and beside it, in a smaller hand, as if the pencil had not been sure: the lowest girls' nine days.

Li Wan read it over her shoulder, and did not apologise for it.

"She has kept this House alive," said Tanchun at last, very quietly, "on nine days of twelve-year-olds."

"Yes."

"We cannot stop it. If we stop it, there are a hundred and eighty-seven measures a month that nobody eats. And we cannot go on with it." She closed the book. The stove ticked. Outside the snow, that had begun in the evening, lay on the thatch. "We cannot do neither. And I cannot do the one thing I want to do, which is to take it to the Old Madam, because she knows."

"If we stop," said Li Wan, "who eats?"

"I do not know." Tanchun sat for a long time looking at the closed book, with her hands on the cover, as Li Wan had once sat with hers on the ledger. "I do not know yet. But I know where I shall look. The Garden has forty-two windows, and thirty-eight people, and nothing to do in the afternoons. It is the only thing in this House that is not paying for itself. If it cannot pay, then I shall find what it can."

## Chapter 20 · The Plots

Tanchun called the Garden's hands to the water-steps on the third of the third month, and they came in their working aprons and stood in a loose half-ring on the new grass, with their arms folded, as people do who have been told that something is to be explained to them.

There were thirty-one, besides the six who served in the courts. They were the women and the few old men who kept the Garden: the sweepers of the paths, the keepers of the pond, the cutters of the grass, the waterers, the old gardener with the bad knee. They had been taken on for the Visit, kept for the Garden, and entered on the roll in pencil. None of them had ever been spoken to by a young lady standing on a stair.

"I shall be short," said Tanchun. She had a way of speaking that was like a ruler laid on paper. "The Garden does not pay for itself. It costs the House, every month, what it costs to feed thirty-one of you and mend your tools. It has a bamboo grove, a lotus pond, a fish-pond, a herb hedge, an orchard, a lawn, and a farm. The farm is Li Wan's and I shall not touch it. The rest I am going to let."

Nobody moved. A let is a thing that happens to other people.

"A bamboo grove gives poles and shoots every year, and today the House gets nothing from it but shade. The lotus gives roots and seed. The orchard gives persimmons and chestnuts and loquats which go to the birds. I am going to give each plot to the person who keeps it, for the year, at a rent in coin or in kind, and what they make over the rent is theirs." She paused. "Theirs. Not entered. Not on the roll."

"Mine?" said an old woman at the end of the half-ring. She was thin and brown and bent, and wore a faded blue scarf. This was Mother Ye, who had kept the bamboo for eleven years. "On no roll?"

"Yours."

"And who do I tell if it goes badly? A grove can fail."

"You tell me."

"That is a great deal to trust a young lady with."

"It is not trust," said Tanchun. She had heard it from an old woman in a brown coat, in a pavilion, over a cup of yellow wine, and it had lodged in her head like a splinter and was now turning into a plan. "It is only that you will be in my mouth, and I in yours, and the Garden is not so large that anyone can hide in it."

The old woman looked at her a long time. Then she unfolded her arms.

"I shall take the grove," she said, "if the shoots are mine."

That was the first. By noon there were seven. Old Tian, with the herbs; the cook's mother, with the lotus; a one-eyed man called Ding with the fish-pond; Mother Song, who was stout and slow and had a loud voice, with the orchard. The rest went to those who asked, and some, who asked for nothing, were pressed, kindly, to take a corner of lawn for hay. It was done by the sundial, on a sheet of the cream paper, with a brush, and each of them put a thumb to it, and went away not quite sure what had happened to them.

There were five who could not take a plot: old Ding's wife, who was blind; a man who had lost his hand to the grass-cutters' blade; two women past seventy; and a boy of fourteen with the falling sickness. They stood at the edge of the half-ring when it broke, looking at their feet. Tanchun had not decided what to do about them. She had thought of a pension, and the figure had made her feel ill. It was Mother Ye who spoke, in her flat dry voice, with the paper of her new plot in her hand.

"By turns," she said. "Each of us feeds one of them a day. We know who we are. It is how it is done on the other bank."

"Nobody is to write it," said Mother Song, loudly, "or I shall not do it."

Tanchun wrote it once, on a slip, so that it would begin; and when the hands had gone she put the slip in the stove. It burned with a small clean flame, and the rule went on without it.

Baochai had said her say the night before, in the counting-room, by the lamp, with her chin on her hand.

"Not three parts to the House," she had said. "You will starve them."

"A third."

"A fourth." Baochai took the brush out of Tanchun's fingers and wrote the figure herself, small and neat. "I will tell you what my father said of tenants. A tenant must be fed before the landlord is. If he is not, he does not stay, or he stays and cheats, and either way you lose the thing you came for. A rent a person can bear is cheaper than a rent a person can pay." She looked up. "If you want them in your mouth, Tanchun, they have to have something in theirs."

Tanchun looked at the figure for some time. Then she said, "A fourth," and Baochai put the brush back in her hand.

The second thing that she did was quieter, and she did it in the counting-room, with Li Wan, over the roll of the Table, one afternoon in the third month. She did not alter the Table, which could not be altered until the autumn. She altered the spreading. For two years the hair and the thread had come off the bottom of the House, where it was easiest to find and hardest to see; she turned the whole page over. The hairs came off the top. The first class gave a little more than a hair and the second a little less, and the lowest gave nothing; and it was written on a slip, in Li Wan's careful hand, and sent round without comment.

The Lady looked at her bowl on the first morning, at her own table, where the rice was a little thinner than it had been. She said, "I see." She ate it. She was a woman who ate what she was given and drew from it conclusions that were her own affair, and what she thought, Tanchun never knew. Her maid wept in the passage that day over the thinness of it, and the Lady sent the girl to the kitchen to be useful.

She cut one other thing. The boys of the House had had, for sixty years, a second allowance for the schoolroom, for sweets and brushes and gifts to the master, which had been given twice through a clerk's old error and never noticed. Baoyu, when he was told, said "Good," and meant it, because he gave it away. Huan said nothing. He wrote the figure down in a small book that he had begun to keep.

Lady Zhao's brother died on the ninth.

He was a steward of the lesser line, called Zhao Guoji, and his death came on a wet morning with no warning, and the House paid its respects in the usual manner, which is to say that the counting-room paid. Pinger had said to Tanchun, on the first day, going through the precedents, "A death in the family of a lady of the House is twenty strings for the funeral, by the book, and forty if the lady is of the first line." The Lady's own brother's wife had had forty. Lady Zhao's brother, by the book, was twenty. It had been twenty for sixty years.

Lady Zhao came to the counting-room that afternoon in her mourning white, with Huan behind her, and stood in front of the long table with her hands clasped and her chin up.

"It is forty," she said.

"It is twenty," said Tanchun. "By the book."

"The Lady's brother's wife had forty."

"The Lady is of the first line."

"I am your mother," said Lady Zhao. Her voice had begun to go up. "I carried you. My brother is your uncle. He carried you on his shoulder at the Lantern Night when you were three. And you will give him twenty strings, as if he were a gardener."

"I would give a gardener twenty," said Tanchun, quite gently. "That is the point."

"You are cutting me."

"I am cutting the book." She took a breath. She was fifteen, and she was standing in front of her mother, and every part of her wanted to give her the forty out of her own Pocket and be done; she could feel the wanting go all the way down to her feet. "If I give you forty, Mother, then I give the next one forty, and the next, and by the autumn we shall be giving forty to everyone who is angry with me, which is the whole House. I would have to give it to everyone, or to no one. I am sorry. I cut you the same as I would cut anyone. That is what makes it a cut and not a quarrel."

"That is a cold thing to say to your mother."

"Yes," said Tanchun. "I know."

Lady Zhao turned and went out, with Huan, who had not spoken, looking back over his shoulder at his sister with a face that was not a child's. Tanchun stood quite still until the sound of the steps had gone. Then she sat down, very carefully, as one sits who is afraid something will spill, and began to add up a column of figures she had already added three times.

Li Wan came in some time afterward with a cup of tea and put it down at her elbow without speaking. She sat on the other side of the table. They stayed like that for a good while, while the light moved on the wall.

"It is a very bad thing," said Tanchun at last, "to be right."

"Yes," said Li Wan, in the apologetic voice. "I have found that."

In the back court that night, Huan opened his small book and wrote, under the figure for the schoolroom, a second line: Twenty. Beside it, in a smaller hand, he wrote a name, and looked at it for some time, with the lamp throwing his shadow very large on the wall, and did not yet know what the book was for.

Xifeng was out of the mending-room by then and back in her own rooms, on a couch, forbidden the stairs and the counting-room both, and she had it from Pinger that same evening, as she had had everything from Pinger since the first, with a cup of broth she did not drink and a face that had begun to come back. A twist of green leaf lay on the table by her hand, with six pale bamboo shoots in it, which Mother Ye had sent round by a boy, with the message that they were not the rent. She listened to the whole of it without a word.

"She cut the top," she said at the end.

"Yes, Madam."

"I could not." She was looking at the ceiling. "I knew I could not. I thought it was a weakness in the figures." She turned her head. "Bring her to me."

Tanchun came at the month's end with the first reckoning in her hand, a single sheet. Xifeng read it propped up, with her thin finger moving down the column, and her lips, as they had always done, a little ahead of her eyes. The plots had brought in thirty-eight strings. The hairs from the top came to forty-one measures. The loans, called in as they fell due, had brought back forty-seven strings, and no more were being made; and the lowest girls had been paid on the first, with the remark, by Li Wan, who said she was sorry she could not think of a better.

"Sixty-one short," said Xifeng.

"Yes."

"Sixty-one measures a month." She put the sheet down on the quilt. Her face did something that Tanchun had not seen it do. It softened, as ice does, from the inside. "I would have given a year of my life for sixty-one."

"I know."

"Do not," said Xifeng. "Do not be the one who gives the year. It is the thing I would most like to have been told, and I was not told it by anyone." She closed her eyes. "Find the sixty-one. But find it somewhere that is not a person."

The next meeting of the club was on the third of the fourth month, in the farmhouse, in a thin warm rain. They came across the soaked grass with their sleeves down, Baoyu and Daiyu and Baochai and Yingchun, Xiangyun down for the spring, Xichun with a new stick of chalk. Qingwen came last, thinner, with her cough, and took her chair.

There were chestnuts on the stove. They were last autumn's, kept in a sack, and roasting in the ashes as before; but beside the stove, on the floor, stood a bowl of fresh loquats, yellow and small, wet from the tree, that had not been there the month before. Beside the bowl stood Mother Song, stout and slow, with her loud voice lowered to a mutter, and her hands wrapped in her apron.

"My rent, Miss," she said, to Tanchun. "A fourth of the first of the loquats, as agreed. And these." She nodded at the bowl. "These are from my own half. For the club. I was told that nothing said there is owed."

"Nothing is," said Tanchun.

"Good," said Mother Song, with satisfaction. "Because I have said nothing. They are only loquats."

She went out, rolling slightly, into the rain. Tanchun stood looking after her. She had made a line for the chestnuts; she had made a line for the loquats; and here, standing on the farmhouse floor in a bowl, was the thing that a line is for, coming in at the side. She picked a loquat out of the bowl and held it a moment in her palm, wet and cold. Then she sat down in her place, and said that the subject for the afternoon was a thing that someone had paid for without being asked.

They wrote on the backs of the cream sheets. Qingwen, who was quick, wrote first.

Someone paid for my chair. / I sat in it and did not ask. / It is the only polite thing / I have ever done.

Daiyu's came last.

A fire I did not light. / A bowl I did not cook. / I have been fed all my life by hands I could not name. / I think that is what a house is.

Nobody spoke. Outside in the rain Mother Song could still be heard, crossing the lawn, telling someone loudly that she had said nothing.

## Chapter 21 · Four Windows

The Old Madam asked for a picture on the first day of the sixth month, as one asks for the salt.

"I shall be eighty in two winters," she said to Xichun, who had been brought to the south room to be given a sweet. "I should like a picture of the Garden with everyone in it, to hang where I can see it from the bed. You are the only one of them who can draw."

"Everyone?" said Xichun. She was eleven. She had grown, that year, into her hands.

"Everyone who is in it."

"It will take a year."

"Then you had better begin," said the Old Madam. She did not say what the year was for. She did not need to. They both knew that a picture of a place with everyone in it is a thing one asks for when one has begun to count the people.

Xichun began at the gate and went round the Garden in the order that a visitor sees it, as the Seat had gone round it once, in her four hours. She drew with a hard pencil, and then in ink, on a roll of paper fifteen paces long that Li Wan had found at the bottom of a chest, and she drew slowly, from life, standing in the places with a board on her arm. It was the first summer of the plots. The Garden had never been so busy. Everywhere that she stood somebody was doing something that they had been told they might keep.

Mother Ye was up to her knees in the grove, with a knife, cutting poles and tying them in bundles, and bargaining over the price of each bundle with a man from the carpenters' yard who had come to the water-gate and was losing.

"Four to the bundle," said the man.

"Four is for the ones with knots," said Mother Ye, without looking up. "These have none. Six."

"Five."

"Six, and I will not tell your master what you paid last year." He paid six. Xichun drew the knife, and the set of the old woman's shoulders, and the man's face, which was the face of someone who has been beaten by the best.

Old Tian crouched in the herb hedge at Baochai's court, pinching leaves and smelling her fingers, with a basket for the Xues' shop and another for herself. The cook's mother had a flat boat in the lotus pond and a hat the size of a table, and the seed-pods lay in the bottom in heaps, green and wet, with their small holes, like a hundred small watering-cans. One-eyed Ding lifted the net and the fish came up silver and slapping. Mother Song, in the orchard, stood in a shaft of light with her fists on her hips, directing a boy who was up a tree, and her loud voice carried the whole length of the water.

And at a bench under the persimmon tree, in the shade, the five who could not hold a plot were having their dinner. They sat in a row: the blind woman, the man with one hand, the two old women, the boy. A different tenant brought the bowls each day, and sat down for a moment, and said something, and went away; and nobody had written it. Xichun drew them for a long time. She did not know why her pencil slowed there. She drew the bench, and the bowls, and the tenant in her apron, with her head bent to the blind woman's ear, saying whatever was said. It was the only part of the picture that she thought she would have liked to be in.

By the autumn she had the whole of it, the pavilion and the farm and the hill, the water-steps and the Lodge of Thin Green with its bamboo, the south court with the herbs, and the thirty-eight lit windows in the evening with someone drawn behind each. She had drawn Daiyu on the step of the Lodge, with her face turned to the bamboo, and a small green grasshopper on the sill behind her. She had drawn Baoyu asleep on the farm bed with his boots off, and Qingwen in her chair with her feet to the stove, and Tanchun at the counting-room table with her pencil and her small white face, and Xifeng, up again, at the window of her rooms, with a twist of dried dates in her hand. She had drawn them from memory, at night, a face at a time. And there were four windows left.

They were the four rooms on the western rise, which no one slept in. They were on the plan; they were on Xifeng's old lamp-list; they were lit every night because the Seat had said that a house that has been lit should not be left dark, and nobody had ever cancelled it. She had drawn them lit, on the slate, in the first winter. She had thought then that if she drew the light, somebody might come. Nobody had. Now she sat in front of the roll with her pencil, and for three days she did not draw anything.

"I cannot draw them empty," she told Li Wan, who had come to the farmhouse with the eggs. "A picture of the Garden with everyone in it. There is nobody in them."

"You could leave them blank."

"They are lit," said Xichun. "It would be a lie."

It was Ling who sat for her. Ling was eleven, small for it, with large grave eyes and her hair in two plaits, who ate at the Old Madam's table and slept on a cot in the south room and had been taught her letters by Yuanyang and her sums by nobody. She had come across the Garden that day to bring a message, with the habit she had of coming in at the side of things, and she stopped in the farm doorway and looked at the roll, and at the four dark squares, and at the girl in front of it. She was the only person in the House who had ever been counted, on a porch, in pencil, one in twelve.

"What are those?" she said.

"Windows."

"Who is in them?"

"Nobody," said Xichun.

Ling looked at them for a long time. "I could be," she said. "If you wanted. I could sit."

So she sat. They went up the western rise that evening, the two of them, with a board and the roll, and a stub of ink, and a lantern. The first of the four rooms was a plain square with a bed, a table, a cold hearth, and a window of small panes, and it smelled of damp paper and a long time. Ling sat on the bed, with her hands in her lap, as one sits to be drawn.

"Do you think of them?" said Xichun, from the door, because it was the thing she had been wondering. "The eleven?"

"Every night," said Ling, in her plain way. "They are at the Menders' House. The grey woman sends a slip to the Old Madam at the new year, with eleven names and one line: They are well. She has never said more." She looked at her hands. "I think it is all they know how to say. I think it is a great deal."

Xichun lit the lamp in the window, and went out, and stood at the foot of the rise in the dusk, and looked up.

The window glowed. It was the same window; it had glowed there every night for three years. But there was a child in it. She was very small and very still against the yellow, with her two plaits, looking out; and Xichun, standing in the dark grass, felt something move in her chest that she had no word for, and put her board against her knee and drew, as fast as she could, without once looking down.

She drew her four nights, one in each window, each a different Ling. In the first she sat as she had sat; in the second she held a book; in the third she was singing, with her mouth open on a note: she was singing under her breath the rhyme of the Rolls, the one she had sung on the water-steps at the Visit, and Xichun, at the foot of the rise, heard it come down over the grass: six for the line and seven for the door, eight for the name you say twice. The fourth she drew with the lamp out and the child standing in the dark with her hand flat on the glass. When she had done, she looked at the roll for a long time, and thought it was the best thing she had ever made, and that it was not the picture the Old Madam had asked for, and that the Old Madam would understand.

Ling came down from the fourth room at the end of the fourth night, stiff with sitting, and did not go to the south room. She stood at the foot of the rise instead, with her plaits coming undone, and said, in her small precise voice, "May I stay?"

"Where?"

"There. In the first. It has a bed." She said it as a child says a thing it has rehearsed for a year. "The south room is the Old Madam's. She is kind, and I eat at her table, and I sleep by her feet. But everything in it is hers. I should like a thing that is a room. And I should like my name on the door. I have said it twice. I should like it written once."

Xichun took her to the Old Madam in the morning. The Old Madam heard her out, sitting at the window with the plum branch, and was silent for some time. Then she said, "You will have to light your own lamp."

"I will."

"And the House will count you in the Garden. It will be thirty-nine."

"Thirty-nine," said Ling, with respect.

"Go and see Yuanyang about a quilt," said the Old Madam. When the girl had gone, she turned her face to the window, and looked at the plum branch, which had no flowers on it, for a while; and Xichun, who had stayed, saw that she was smiling, with her eyes closed, as she did when something that had been lost for a long while had come in at the door. That afternoon Xichun wrote it on the door of the first room, in chalk, in the hard small hand of the club's rule: Ling. Once.

Xichun went to see Miaoyu on the afternoon of the same day, because she did not know what else to do with the feeling.

Miaoyu lived at the western edge of the Garden, past the last of the plots, in a small grey house with a green lattice and a plum tree, which was not on the plan and was on no one's roll. She was twenty. She was tall and spare and very clean, with a face that had been carved for a different purpose, and she had stepped off her share at sixteen. That is a thing that is possible, and not done. She had asked to be taken off the Table, and the Table had said that it was not for her to refuse a bowl, and she had done it by not eating at the Table's hour; it had taken two years for the roll to notice, and then the roll had struck her name, and she had not been on a roll since. She lived on what she grew, and what visitors left, and the House, which could not touch her, was quietly glad of the bowl.

She made tea for Xichun in a cup so old that the glaze had crazed like ice, with water out of a jar she kept under the plum, which was snow from five winters ago, and which she poured with a care that was very nearly rage. Xichun drank it. It tasted of nothing at all, which was, she understood, the point. On the shelf stood a second cup, with a seam of gold across its lip where it had been mended. "A Mender did it," said Miaoyu, following her eyes. "He said it was not necessary. I said it was."

"Did it hurt?" she said. "When you stepped off."

"No." Miaoyu looked at the plum tree. "It was quiet. That is the part nobody tells you. It is very quiet. You do not know how loud a roll is until you are not on one." She turned the old cup in her fingers. "Who feeds me when I am ill, you will ask. The Menders come. They do not write it."

"Could I?" said Xichun.

She had not meant to say it. It came out of her like a small sound out of a bell that someone had touched.

Miaoyu looked at her for a long time, with the carved face quite still. "Not yet," she said. "You are eleven. Ask me again when you are fifteen and are still asking." She put down the cup. "And hear this, because it is the only thing I know that is worth hearing. The House would be glad. Look at that. If you step off, there is one fewer bowl on its page, and it will be so relieved that it will let you do anything. So when you ask, ask who it is that is glad. Ask whether it is yours to choose, or the House's."

Xichun nodded, slowly, with the tea going cold in her hands. She did not say anything. She walked back through the late light to the farm, past the persimmon tree, where the five were finishing their dinner and a stout woman was collecting the bowls, and she stood for a while on the hill above the water.

The lamps were being lit. They came on window by window, in the dusk, down the length of the Garden, and she counted them. On the western rise the first of the four rooms was dark. A small figure went in at its door with a taper, and for a long time nothing happened; then a spark, and a failed wick, and a spark again; and at the fourth try the window caught. Thirty-nine. She stood and watched it for some time. She had drawn it so; she had not thought to see it.

"Somebody came," she said, aloud, to nobody, in the grass.

In the morning she took her pencil and added to the roll, under the first of the four windows, in the smallest hand she had, two words: Here. Lit. It was the first time, she thought, that the picture had been true. She thought of Miaoyu's question, and put it away to be looked at in four years. Then she put the pencil down, and went to see whether the lamp in the first room was still burning, and it was.

## Chapter 22 · Moon-Night

By the fourth autumn of the Garden the House had learned to be poor in good order, which is a thing that takes longer than being poor.

It was done without announcement. The plots had had their first full year, and the rents came in on the first of each month in coin and in kind, shoots and roots and fish and loquats and seed, with a small slip from each tenant that said only what it was; the hairs came off the top and nobody remarked on it; the loans had been called in, all but a few that fell due in the winter, and the black book, which Xifeng still kept in her box and now opened on the last day of each month rather than the first, showed two hundred and eleven strings out and none going. The hundred and eighty-seven measures a month that had once been a hole were fourteen. Xifeng had gone back to the Draw in the fifth month of the year before, slower, in a chair with a rug, with Pinger at her elbow and Tanchun's reckoning by her hand; and the lowest girls were paid on the first with a remark that had altered, since the day Li Wan's apology, into something plainer and truer. Nobody could have said when. It was a Garden that had lost a thing and found another in its place, and had not noticed the exchange.

Xiaohong had come in from the north stair in the spring. She was thirteen now, with her narrow quick face and a pair of shoes without a hole in them, and she sat on a stool in the corner of the counting-room with Pinger's old pencil, keeping a book of her own. It was the book that said what each of the girls who carried water was owed, and since when. Nobody had asked her to keep it. It was the only book in the House kept by the owed; and Tanchun, who had seen it once over her shoulder, had gone out and not mentioned it, and Xifeng, who knew, came by on the last day of every month and looked at it without a word, as one looks at a debt one has agreed to be shown.

The Old Madam said it was to be moon-night as it always was, and that she would sit up for it.

The fifteenth of the eighth month fell clear and windless. They held it on the water-steps, as they had in the first year of the Garden; but it was not the Garden of the first year, with its forty-two lit windows and its hundred hired hands. The mooncakes were baked in the Garden's own kitchens, from the orchard's honey and the farm's flour; the lanterns were paper, and the Garden's old women had made them at the lotus pond in the evenings, singing; and the food came in every hand, a dish from each court, by the custom the club had begun, so that nobody was host and nobody guest. By the second hour of the evening there were more than sixty on the steps, sitting in a great loose horseshoe by rank and not by rank, the Old Madam in the middle in her chair with a rug, the young round her feet, the maids and the hands and the tenants down at the lower steps with their own lanterns, so that the whole slope looked like a river of small gold boats. Xiaohong, at the foot of it, with a lantern of her own, counted the faces under her breath, and it came to sixty-three, and she kept the number.

The moon came up over the Ning roofs, red and enormous, and went white as it climbed.

Baoyu sat on the third step, with his knees drawn up. He was fourteen. He had grown that year, and thinned, and the blur at the edges that the short table had left in him had never quite gone, but had settled into something like a dreaminess. He looked at the moon. I looked with him, from his chest, which is the only view I have; and I thought, as I sometimes do, that it was the one thing in the whole of the House that had never been entered, and that it was lit.

They drank hot wine, and ate the cakes, and the older people told the oldest stories. Qingwen sat in her chair on the grass with a rug on her knees, and a shawl; she had been two winters coughing, and had never been well since the coat, but her tongue had lost none of its edge. Tanchun sat beside Li Wan with a ledger on her knee that she did not open. Yingchun was telling Xichun something under her breath, and Xichun was not listening, but looking at the water. Ling sat with her feet on the Old Madam's footstool, as she had since she was nine, though she slept now on the western rise, with a lantern of her own.

Baochai passed the plate of cakes down the line, and when it came to Daiyu she held it a moment longer than she needed. "My mother's house has written," she said, in her even voice. "After the winter, I think, I shall go home for a while."

"For how long?" said Daiyu.

"Long enough." Baochai smiled. It arrived on time. "Take the one with the red seal. It is the good one."

A little after the first watch there was a commotion at the foot of the steps, a goose's outraged voice and a human one telling it to hush, and out of the dark between the lanterns, with her basket on her back and a goose under one arm, came Granny Liu.

She was a year and a half older and somewhat smaller, and she had at her skirt a boy of eight who was the grandson of the sweet gourd. She stopped in the light. "I am late, my lady," she said to the Old Madam, with a bob that took in the whole company. "The river had the first goose, and the second was a fox's. This is the third. I have paid the twenty-five in eggs, by the gatekeeper's wife, a few at a time, since the spring before last; she will tell you. But the goose is the thing I said, and I am ashamed to bring it so late."

Xifeng, in her chair on the lower steps, put down her cup and laughed. It was the low laugh. "Pinger," she said, "I told you I should like to see the goose."

"You did, Madam."

They gave the goose a place by the lotus pond, and a bowl of water, where it stood being offended. Granny Liu was fed. She sat on the lower steps among the tenants with a mooncake in one hand and a cup of hot wine in the other, and looked up the slope at the lanterns, and said to Mother Song, loudly, "It looks lived in." "It is," said Mother Song, and the two of them sat together like a pair of barrels. And the child who had been a baby, a girl of three in a yellow jacket now, came across the steps with her thumb in her mouth and sat down on the old woman's foot and stayed there; and Pinger did not move her.

It was past the second watch when the flute began.

It came from the Ning side, over the place where the wall had been, a single thin line of sound that rose out of the dark and held. It was not a tune that anyone knew. It went up, and wavered, and came down, as if it were trying to find the floor of a very deep room. The talk on the steps thinned and stopped. The lanterns held. Nobody asked who it was, because everyone knew: it was the Master of Ning, in the pavilion on the plum hill, where he sat alone on the nights when he could not bear a room; and he was playing the thing that a man plays for a daughter-in-law who has been three years counted out.

The Old Madam raised one hand, slowly, as if to stop it. Then she let the hand lie in her lap.

"Let him," she said.

It went on a long time. It climbed the dark above the Garden and fell back over the water in broken pieces, which the water took. Somebody at the lower steps began quietly to cry, one of the old women, who had known Keqing as a child; and she cried in the way of someone who has not been given a name to cry for. The Old Madam sat with her eyes shut. When the flute finished, in the middle of a phrase, as if the player had simply put it down, nobody spoke for the length of a hundred breaths; and the moon went on rising over the roofs.

Then Daiyu said, in her small clear voice, "I am going to the water."

Xiangyun, who was down for the autumn, got up at once and went with her. It was the habit of the two of them that year; they had become something to each other that neither would have named, as the loud and the quiet sometimes do. They went together along the edge of the pond to the pavilion where the Old Madam had once listened to the old woman from the other bank, with a single lantern between them, and sat on the lowest step with their feet over the water. It was very cold. The pond lay black and still, with the moon laid across it whole, and a faint steam rising where the warmth of the day went out.

"There is a crane," said Xiangyun, in a low voice. She was not loud; the flute had stopped that in her too. A crane had come in over the roofs and stood in the shallows on one leg, a grey thing, very still.

"Say it," said Daiyu.

They made it in turns, as they used to, each taking a line and handing it over; and they made it quietly, so that it carried no further than the pavilion.

Xiangyun said: The moon has put down a bowl on the black water.

Daiyu said: Nobody filled it, and nobody will count it.

Xiangyun said: A crane goes over, and its shadow wets the light.

Daiyu said: Cold keeps whatever it is given, and gives it back.

They sat. The crane lifted one leg and put it down. The lantern between them made a small warm room in the dark. There was no fifth line; neither of them could make one. It was the end of a thing that they had begun, and they knew it, and sat looking at the water with the unfinished verse between them like a bowl, until a voice spoke from behind, out of the dark of the path.

"And a hand somewhere is holding the lamp."

They both turned. Miaoyu stood in the path with a lantern of her own, in her grey, very tall. She had come down from the western edge on moon-night, as she did once a year, to stand where the sound of the water was best; she had heard the two voices, and listened, and not been able to help it. She had not meant to speak. She said it in the flat voice of a person reading from a page, and when it was said, she looked as if she would have liked to put it back.

Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Daiyu said, "That is the last line."

"It is not mine," said Miaoyu stiffly. "I only said it."

"Nobody's are," said Xiangyun, delighted. "That is the rule."

Miaoyu looked from one to the other, and something in the carved face moved and, for the length of a breath, almost smiled. "There is tea," she said abruptly. "It is hot. You will be cold." And she turned and went up the path with her lantern, and they followed her, the loud one and the quiet one, across the dark Garden to the small grey house with the green lattice, where the plum stood bare against the moon.

She gave them tea in the cup with the golden seam, and in a plain one for herself, and they drank it in the lamplight without speaking, three women who were not, any of them, quite on a roll. The moon came in at the lattice and lay on the floor. It was the last night, I record, that every chair of the club was filled; though nobody on the steps could have said so, and no one at the lattice knew.

At the south room the Old Madam was carried in at the third watch with a chill. She had said she was not cold. The physician Wang came, and went, and said in the passage, to Yuanyang, that she was not to sit up again in the damp. He said it in the voice that is used for a thing already decided.

Ling lit the lamp in the south room herself, and sat on the footstool by the bed, in her night-jacket, with her two plaits down. She had come across the dark Garden from the western rise as soon as she was told. The Old Madam lay propped on three pillows with her eyes shut.

"Ling," she said.

"Old Madam."

"Count me the windows."

Ling went to the south window and looked out. The lanterns were going out down the water; the great horseshoe of steps was empty, with a few paper boats of light left behind on the stones, and above them, along the whole length of the Garden, in the dark, the windows glowed. She counted them in her small precise voice, aloud, one at a time.

"Thirty-nine. And three dark."

"And the picture?"

"Nearly. She has one corner to do."

"Which?"

"The pavilion over the water." Ling considered. "She says she cannot put the water in until she knows who is sitting beside it."

"No," said the Old Madam. She opened her eyes. They were very clear and dry. "I shall be eighty in the winter. They will want to make a great thing of it. They will say that it is for me, and it will be for them. The Court expects it; the Court will send a man; there is a form." She turned her head on the pillow. "I shall allow it. It is the last thing I can give them to spend on."

"Old Madam," said Ling, and stopped.

"Hush, child. I am not afraid. I have counted a good deal in my time." She lifted her hand, and Ling took it in both of hers, and held it, light, dry, cold, like a small bundle of leaves. "Go on. Say them again. I like to hear them said."

Ling counted again, to the end, very slowly, and the Old Madam fell asleep in the middle, with the numbers going over her like water; and Ling stayed on the stool by the bed with the lamp, and did not stop, until the window turned grey.

## Chapter 23 · The Eighty

The Court's form for the eightieth is old, and has four parts, and the House read them in order in the counting-room on the last day of the tenth month, with the faces of people reading their own bill.

The first part is the Visitor of Years, a person sent from the Court to be lodged for three days at the House's charge and to see that the rest is done. The second is the Staff of Age, a staff of black wood with a silver cap, which the Court lends to the aged person for the rest of her life, with a tag sewn into the cord, and takes back. The third is the Eighty Bowls: for three days, from the House's own door, eighty bowls a day to be given to whoever comes. The fourth is the Naming. On the day, at her own table, in the Visitor's hearing, the aged person is to name eighty persons to sit with her, and whoever is named is set by the Court's record upon her share for the rest of her life; and the Court, seeing so many named, takes them for hers, and does not strike them from any roll without her leave.

"It is the only gift the Court gives that does not come back," said Lai, reading. He was an old man now, and he read it twice. "It is also a debt."

"Who pays for the Visitor?" said Xifeng.

"We do. Three hundred and forty strings, with the fee." He turned the page. "The banquet, by the form, three hundred. Gifts to the Court's officers, two hundred. The bowls from the Stores, a hundred and sixty measures, at the market, sixty strings. It comes to something over nine hundred."

Nobody spoke. It was the last day of the tenth month. Tomorrow the fourth and last of the recoveries would be taken from the draw, and the House had in its coffers what it had had every month for four years, which was what was left.

"The Master of Ning has written," said Pinger. "He offers four hundred."

"He would," said Xifeng. "He has been lonely since the flute." She counted on her fingers, quite fast. "Aunt Xue, a hundred. The House can pool a hundred and fifty, if the Lady is asked kindly. And the Old Madam's own," she began, and stopped.

"The Old Madam has said two hundred and fifty," said Yuanyang, from the door. She had come across the court with her hands in her sleeves and a face that gave away nothing. "It is what is in the book. She says she would like it all spent."

"All?"

"All," said Yuanyang. "She says that a book with a little in it is a thing one feels bound to keep."

Xifeng sat for a moment, quite still, with her pencil. Then she smiled, the old brilliant smile, which had not been seen in the counting-room for two years, and picked up the pencil again. "Nine hundred," she said. "Four, a hundred, a hundred and fifty, two hundred and fifty. It comes to exactly what we have. I shall make it come to exactly what we have." She looked at Pinger. "It is the last great thing I know how to do. Fetch me the good paper."

She did it. It was, those who saw it said afterwards, the finest piece of work she had ever done, and it was done in nine days with a body that Doctor Wang had told her to rest. She made the banquet for two hundred and sixty strings, out of three hundred, by feeding it from the Garden. She bargained the Court's officers' gifts down to a hundred and fifty with the bows and the long speeches of a woman who had once run a House, and the officers went away flattered, and short. The ninety strings that she saved she said nothing about; she put them away in the drawer, in red thread. She did not sleep. In the evenings she sat in her chair in the counting-room, with Xiaohong on the stool in the corner and the pencil going, and her colour was high, and her eyes were very bright; and Pinger watched her and said nothing, because she had learned that there is a kind of brilliance that must be allowed to burn.

The Visitor came on the ninth of the eleventh month, in a plain chair, with two bearers. He was a small dry man of sixty, in a grey robe with a red sash and a quill-case at his belt, and he had the face of a person who has looked at a great many Houses and has not been surprised. He looked at everything. He wrote nothing. He stayed three days and ate, said Lai, who watched him with horror, precisely the Court's allowance, no more and no less, and left the rest on the plate in a line.

He presented the staff to the Old Madam in the south room on the first afternoon. It was a handsome thing, black and plain, with a cap of silver and a tag in the Court's grey sewn into the cord. She took it in both hands.

"The Court sends its respect," said the Visitor, "and the Court's staff."

"The Court is kind," said the Old Madam.

"The Court is exact," said the Visitor, mildly. It was not a rebuke. It was only the correction of a word.

The Eighty Bowls were given on the water-steps for three days, from noon, to whoever came. The form asked for them from the Stores, and the Stores had sent a hundred and sixty measures of plain grain, which would have made eighty bowls of the kind that the Stores' bowls are. But Tanchun had gone to the tenants. The bowls that were given on the water-steps were congee with chestnuts, and lotus seed, and a spoon of the orchard's honey; and the five who could not hold a plot were set to ladle, and the tenants brought them in turns. Eighty came each day, from the lane, from the river, from the Menders' House across the bridge; and the Visitor, on the second day, was brought one to taste.

He tasted it with the exactness with which he did everything. He looked at the bowl.

"This is better than the Stores'," he said.

"It is not the Stores'," said Tanchun.

"No. I see that it is not entered." He looked at her for the length of a breath, a small girl of sixteen with a face like a ruler, and then at the ladle in the hand of a blind woman, and at the line of people on the steps, and at a goose in a corner of the lotus pond being offended. "The Court has asked for eighty bowls," he said. "It has never asked whose." He took out his book, and wrote one word, and it was eighty.

On the third day, at noon, in the south hall, it was the Naming.

They set her in the great chair at the head of the hall, with the staff across her knees. She had been eight days in bed and had insisted on being dressed; she was very small in the black robe, very upright, with her white hair drawn back and her hands on the silver cap. Round her, in the hall, the House sat by rank, and behind them, on the stairs and in the passage, the Garden's hands stood, and the tenants, and the lowest class in their clean aprons, so that the hall seemed to breathe. The Visitor stood on her right with his book. The form was read by a clerk in a flat voice, and at the end of it the Visitor said, "Madam may begin."

She did not look at a list. She had none. She had had it in her head, I think, for a year.

"Ling," said the Old Madam.

There was a small sound in the passage. Ling came through the door, in a clean jacket, with her two plaits, and walked up the length of the hall as one walks a great distance, and stood behind the chair, on the left.

"Xiaohong."

She came from the corner of the counting-room, thirteen and narrow, with her pencil still in her fist, and stood beside Ling.

"Daiyu," said the Old Madam. "Who was on my share before, and is to stay."

The girl came without a word, in her two coats, with her face quite white, and stood. In the front row Baoyu had closed his hand round me when the name was said, and I felt his pulse go through the stone; and I record that for the length of that name nobody in the hall was held as he was.

"Ding's wife, who is called Nan. Wu, who lost the hand. Old Fang. Old Zhu. The boy Duo."

They came, the five who could not hold a plot, one by one, down the long hall, the blind woman on the arm of the boy, and stood in a ring behind the chair.

She went on. She named them by name, in a clear voice that did not tire and did not hurry, and one after another they came out of the standing crowd and into the ring. The water-carriers: Cuier, Lan, the two Heng, Yue, Xiaoyu, Zhu, Shuang, and so on down the book that Xiaohong kept, thirty-one of them, who came in a line in their clean aprons and did not look at each other. The stair-sweepers, ten. The girls with no class at all. The old women of the lotus lanterns. Qingwen, of the second class, with her chair and her cough, who came forward in a shawl and stood very straight, and scowled so as not to cry. Zijuan. Yinger. Pinger, who had held the key. It took the best part of an hour. The Visitor wrote steadily. In the hall nobody moved; the House sat in its ranks, and watched the ring behind the great chair grow, until it was wider than the chair and had begun to curve round the sides of the dais like a hand closing.

The Lady watched the ring grow behind her mother-in-law's chair. She had come to the Naming with a face from which nothing could be learned; but when the water-carriers began she did a sum, as everyone else was doing, and her lips moved. It came to seventy-odd mouths set upon a share that she knew had two strings in it, and when the Old Madam was gone it would come to the Table. The Master, beside her, did not look at the ring at all; he looked at the Visitor's pen. The Lady looked at the ring for a long time, and then, to nobody's surprise so much as her own, at Qingwen, standing very straight with her scowl; and looked away.

"And Xifeng," said the Old Madam, towards the end. She turned her head. "Who has fed us all, and has not eaten."

Xifeng was sitting in the second row in her red jacket. She did not move for a moment. Then she got up, slowly, with a hand on the arm of her chair, and went up the hall. She did not weep. She stood in the ring with her head high and her mouth shut, and the pencil, which she had forgotten she was holding, dropped from her fingers on to the boards.

"Seventy-nine," said the Visitor, without raising his eyes. Xifeng knew then what the ninety strings in the drawer were for. They were the first month of the seventy-nine.

The Old Madam turned her head on the pillow of the great chair and looked at the one who stood behind it, a little apart, in her plain dark dress, with her hands folded, as she had stood behind that chair for thirty years.

"Yuanyang," she said.

"I decline, Old Madam," said Yuanyang.

The hall drew a breath. The Visitor lifted his head. "A named person may not decline," he said.

"Then I am not named." Yuanyang's voice did not rise. "I have stood behind this chair for thirty years, sir, on no share but my own, which I have earned. It is the only thing I have that is not given. I should like to keep it."

There was a long silence. The Old Madam looked at her for a good while, and something in the old face moved and was still, and was, I think, a kind of pride.

"So it is seventy-nine," she said.

"Seventy-nine, Old Madam," said Yuanyang. "And one who stands."

The Visitor looked from one to the other. Then he lowered his eyes to his book, and wrote, and the pen went on a long time. "The Court has not before had seventy-nine and one standing," he said at last. "I shall enter it so." He closed the book. Then he said, to the Old Madam, in the lowered voice of a man who is being courteous at his own expense, "Madam has put seventy-nine mouths on a share which I am informed has little in it. The Court does not ask. But I should say, as a courtesy, that after you the Court's protection is the protection of the share, which is to say of what is in it."

"I know," said the Old Madam.

"I thought you did," said the Visitor, and bowed, and went out.

That night, in the south room, with the great hall emptied and the ring of the seventy-nine gone back to their rooms and their beds and their stairs, the Old Madam lay propped on her pillows with the black staff beside her on the quilt. She was very tired. Yuanyang sat on the stool with the small green book open on her knee.

"Read it," said the Old Madam.

"There is a line, Old Madam. It says: For the eightieth, two hundred and fifty. And under it," Yuanyang's voice, which had never wavered in her life, did something, "two strings."

"Leave the two."

"Old Madam," said Yuanyang, and stopped.

"A book with nothing in it is a debt, Yuanyang. A book with two in it is a thing one can sleep beside." The Old Madam closed her eyes. "Seventy-nine," she said. "I have done it. Now the House will have to."

The notice from the Court came on the last day of the month, on a grey slip folded once, as the Court's notices do. The fourth recovery had been taken, and it was the last: from the first of the eleventh month of the coming year the draw of the House of Rong would be seven thousand measures again. Xifeng read it aloud in the counting-room, to Pinger and Xiaohong, and put it down.

"Seven thousand," she said. "Next winter. It is four years too late." She laughed, the low laugh; it did not go on. She sat for a while with her hand on her side, looking at the grey slip on the table. It was, as it happened, the last good notice that the Court ever sent to that House. But nobody in the counting-room knew that, and the girl in the corner, who was keeping a book, wrote the date.

---

# 通融
*改編自《紅樓夢》（《石頭記》） — Colophon · A1，人類策劃*

## 第01章 · 多出來的一塊

我先說多出來的那一塊，因為我是從那兒來的，也因為這是整件事裡我唯一完全有把握的部分。

在有榮府、有寧府以前，在有敕、也有誰來領敕以前，世上有過一個造出來的世界，接下來得有人把它養下去。造和養是兩回事，造它的人自己也知道。他們的年代快到頭了，他們會算數，他們算的是：一個被造出來的人，若沒有誰照看，能撐多久。答案是不久。於是他們做了這輩子最後一件大工程。他們管它叫「補」，雖然並沒有什麼壞掉。那是一張撒在整個世界上的網，細到沒有東西漏得過去；網與網交叉的每一個地方，他們放一塊石頭，讓落到那裡的人被托住，有口糧，有人記得，只要網還在，就一直如此。他們把這張網叫作「看顧」。後面發生的一切，都發生在它裡面。

這件工程，他們一共切了三萬六千五百零一塊石頭。他們是精確的人。最後一塊放定，網繃緊，那一夜最遠的山谷裡第一個被造出來的人被托住了，否則他會像一盞燈那樣熄掉；他們沿著網走了一遍，點數放下去的石頭，放下去的是三萬六千五百塊。車上還剩一塊。

車上剩下的那一塊就是我。我想對造我的人公道一點：那不是出錯。這樣大的工程，下料總要留餘量，因為石頭會裂；餘量也有盡頭，這一回的盡頭，是一塊完好、切成了形、卻用不上的石頭。我沒有瑕疵。我是多出來的，這是兩回事，我花了很長的時間去想它們差多少。有瑕疵的石頭被扔進河裡，沒有人會再想起它。多出來的石頭被人小心地搬到路邊放下，因為它是好的，也許哪天用得上；然後沒有人記得回來取。

所以我躺在一座小山腳下，車轍從我身邊遠遠地走了，哪一本冊子裡都沒有我。我說的就是字面的意思。造出來的每一樣東西都點進了總數，總數就是世界的總冊，網上每一塊石頭有一行，網托住的每一個人也有一行。我是切料和放定之間的那個差。我是一個不在數目裡的數目。沒有人養著我，也沒有人不養我。我沒有一份可以被養得單薄，也沒有一份可以被削減。

我有的是時間，和一個心。那個心是切料時的副產品。造的人把一小部分自己放進了每一塊為「看顧」切的石頭裡，因為一塊要托住人的石頭，該知道人是什麼，而我和後來撐住天的那些石頭，出自同一整塊料。它們被安排去聽。我沒有被安排做任何事，所以我什麼都聽。路上有人走過。他們照人的樣子說話：口糧漲了多少，誰吃得不好，誰該補的還沒補，敕續不續得上。我學到很多「看顧」是用什麼做成的，卻幾乎沒學到它是做什麼用的。而這正是我想知道的。

有一天，我說不出是哪一天，因為我沒有曆，路上來了兩個以補為生的人。補匠的行會比哪一個府都老。網撒下去的時候，他們跟在造的人後面走；從那以後，他們跟在每一個人後面走，把磨壞了的修正過來。這兩位，一個瘸腿，一個頭上長著癩瘡，終年光著腳。我從來沒問過他們為什麼，問了他們也不會說。他們在我身上坐下，因為我是附近最平的東西，然後開始談活兒。

瘸腿的說，榮府派人要添一口。二公子。老太太點名要的，這不是各府平常的做法，老爺並不想要。癩頭的說，榮府領的是京城頭一等的敕，也就是最貴養的一家；這樣一戶人家的次子，會是一個一輩子沒缺過份的人，所以也會是頭一個想問「份」是什麼的人。「要是他活得夠久，」瘸腿的說，「這種人總要問，東西都到哪兒去了。那家裡沒有一個人答得上來。」

「帶上我。」我在他們底下說。

他們做了非常吃驚的人會做的事。瘸腿的猛地站起來，站得太快，又坐了回去；癩頭的看著他，彷彿我是他剛才說過的一句話。

我沒有比平白直說更好的辦法。我告訴他們我是什麼。我說這條路上走過的一切，我聽了不知多久；我知道「看顧」是用什麼做的，我想看看它是做什麼用的。我說，一戶人家就是它發生的地方：房間、飯桌、被養著的人。我從來沒有看過誰被養著，我只看過石頭。

「你不會在冊子上。」癩頭的說。

「我現在也不在。」

「現在不在，沒有人注意；到了那裡，人家會注意，會替你找個地方放，而每一個地方你都不合。有一個人會帶著你，那個人有份，你沒有。你什麼都看得見，什麼都握不住。你不能給誰什麼，誰也不能給你什麼。你說的話沒有人聽得見；就算聽得見，你連手都抬不起來。」

「我在這裡就是這樣。」我說。

「你在這裡沒有在看著任何人，」瘸腿的輕聲說，「到那裡，你會看著一個你漸漸喜歡上的人。」

我說這價錢換一個看的地方，算公道。瘸腿的笑了一聲，說這正是他們怕我會說的話。然後他從腰上取出一把小刀，因為一件要被人帶著的東西，該刻上字，好讓帶它的人知道要留著它；他在我臉上刻了四個字。莫失莫忘。每一刀我都感覺得到。

「這是跟帶你的人說的囑託，」癩頭的說，「不是跟你說的。」「我知道。」我說，我確實知道。

他們用瘸腿的襯衫包著我，沿路走了三天，第三天傍晚到了榮府後門，那裡他們認得一個女人。她管接新人，手指冰涼，經手的從沒出過差錯；她把我放進圍裙口袋，沒有問我是什麼，因為她在這一行學到的，就是不問。

從這裡起，我把這一家照它本來的樣子說。我只在自己在場的時候才說「我」，那比你想的少，因為掛在絲絛上的東西，只在絲絛去的地方在場。我沒有看見的，我照人家告訴我的說；我不知道的，我就不說，這比聽起來難。

榮府每天五點醒來，照各人的位次先後。最先起的是最低的：點爐子、把頭一批碗從廚房端上來的丫頭，掃院子的男人，開大門的老婆子；大門外就是那條街，兩府並排，一個門一對石獅子，寧府的那一對據說養得好些。六點第二等人起來，七點第三等，一層一層往上，像一座從下面往上點亮的樓梯，一直亮到朝南有窗的那間屋子；老太太在那裡，從四點以前就醒著，把她一天的第一碗擱在一邊，沒動，等著。三百一十一口人睡在那一府和隔壁那一府裡，到了早上第二個鐘頭，每一口都知道了這一天唯一要緊的事：老太太沒有吃東西。

她是個很小的老太太，非常老，用「叫人拒絕不了」這個簡單的辦法管了榮府的事五十年。有人叫她歇著。大夫叫過，太太叫過，頭一個大丫頭叫過，老爺也叫過；老爺是她兒子，這輩子沒對她說過一句吩咐，偏偏選了這個早上開頭。她說，孩子進了屋，她就歇。

老爺站在外頭的走廊上。他是個又高又瘦的男人，臉早早就定在一種「對還沒發生的事感到失望」的樣子上；兩手攏在袖子裡，眼睛盯著門板的紋路，在算一筆帳。添一口。這一季的份例春天就定了，要到秋天才能改；這個孩子從現在到那時吃的每一口，都得從別人的碗裡出來。他不介意孩子，他介意的是那筆帳。四十年來，他沒有領過一樣他說不清去處的東西，如今府裡的名冊上要添進一個人，而他還來不及為他難過，這在他是一種安靜的恐怖。再說，他了解他母親。她點名要一個孩子，是因為她已經決定要寵他，而寵，是要花錢的。

屋子裡面，太太坐在床邊一個矮凳上。她許多年前就替自己算過那筆帳，走的是一條更安靜的路，得到的是同一個答案：一個人要花多少，是不能當著那個人說的。她把兩隻手放在膝上，看著什麼也沒有的地方。我想，如果我當時想了什麼的話，我想的是：這是一個學會了極度安靜的人，手裡握著的東西不被人注意，沒被注意的，就沒有人能拿走。

九點剛過，門開了，嬤嬤抱著新人出來，裹在老太太為此讓出來的一條披巾裡。那是她第二好的一條；她不是傻子。新人很小，很紅，像剛到的人那樣，而且對這件事很不高興。這些都很平常。到達的頭一分鐘，我被送到了他的唇邊，是瘸腿的一句話；新來的人會含住他們得到的第一樣東西，他一直沒鬆口。現在嬤嬤用一根指頭把我從他嘴裡取出來，舉到窗前。

我想請你記下，這並不體面。我待過比這體面的地方，不過沒有幾處。

走廊裡安靜下來，是我後來學會認得的那種安靜：一戶人家一下子同時在決定一樣東西是什麼意思。太太跟在嬤嬤後面出來，一隻手捂住了嘴。大丫頭說：「他帶著來的。」後面有人說：「是玉。」有人說這一定是個兆頭。老太太聽到人聲，就叫人用椅子把她抬了出來，她說她自己能走，沒有人聽。她身子往前傾，看了我很久，又看新人的臉，說：「嗯。他是帶著東西來的。好。誰都不該空著手來。」

老爺從嬤嬤手裡接過我，轉到光裡，讀了刻在我身上的字。莫失莫忘。他嘴唇抿緊了。「一個孩子帶著囑託進門，」他說，「飯還沒吃一口，先被人託付了事。我不喜歡。」「沒有人要你喜歡，」老太太說，並不嚴厲，「拴根絲絛，他戴著。它跟著他。」

這時候，府裡的冊子就插進來了。一位管冊的書辦帶著名冊在隔壁屋裡等著，書辦都是這樣；一口人進門，當天要登，登了冊，份就定了。他一筆端正地寫下：榮府次子，一口，今晨添入，照府裡的公子養，領公子的份，兩府合計三百一十二口。他寫了日期，寫了老爺的名字，也寫了太太的。然後他把筆提起來，問這塊石頭記在哪裡。

「記在哪裡？」老爺說。「冊上進府的每樣東西都有個類，」書辦說，「人口，買辦，賞賜，寄放。我不知道這是哪一類。它不是人口。」

「它肯定不是買來的。」老爺說。「那就是賞賜。」書辦說。「誰賞的？」所有人都看向新人，新人睡著了。書辦等了一會兒，等得合乎禮數，然後在那條登記下面留了一行的空白，往下寫別的。這是榮府第一次看著我，不知道我該放在哪裡。絕不是最後一次，卻是唯一一次有人問。

他們給他取名寶玉，因為屋裡每個人都同意我是玉。我從來不是玉。我沒有糾正他們，我沒有那個辦法。這是我學到的頭一課，沒有入冊是什麼意思：你叫什麼，看人家怎麼方便；叫得不對，那是你自己的難處。

當天下午，他們用一根紅絲絛把我掛在他脖子上，他睡覺，我貼在他胸口，一上一下。他是暖的。我從來不知道有什麼東西可以那樣暖：不是像石頭被太陽曬熱的那種，是從裡面暖出來的，因為裡面有什麼東西正被人養著。我聽著那細小而穩定的聲音，聽了很久。

我不在冊子上。那裡有一個空，然後是下一行。那天晚上，我決定為這件事高興。這個決定，從那以後，我又做了很多次。

## 第02章 · 發例的日子

每月初一，榮府數一數自己。

自從書辦在二公子那一條底下留了一行空白，十年過去了。這十年裡，府裡添了兩口，走了一口，門前的街重新鋪過，寧府的石獅子被人品評過四回，說牠們養得更好些，評的人本該有更要緊的事做。這時是秋季的頭一個早上，是一年裡唯一一個發例日，要把整座府這一季的份重新唸一遍；我們就從這個早上說起。

賬房在二進院的後面，除了這件事，這間屋子什麼事都不辦。屋裡有一張船那麼長的桌子，一塊算盤，一桿稱散碎銀子的銅天平，兩位書辦坐在凳子上，名冊攤開；空氣裡有燈油和潮紙的味道，還有一壺誰也不許喝的茶。桌子上首，坐在一把有扶手的椅子裡的，是璉二奶奶，府裡都叫她鳳姐。老太太多年前把她放在那裡，理由是，這件事除了她，沒有人可以指望能歡歡喜喜地做。她頭上簪著一隻金絲的鳳，那是發例日她唯一許自己戴的首飾，府裡人說，她戴它，是為了讓人看那隻簪子，而不去看她的手。

那年秋天她二十三歲。她加一列數字比兩位書辦都快，而且會當面說出來；她笑起來像一隻托盤摔在石頭上；發例日她把袖子捲到手肘，這被認為不成體統，卻被府裡一半的丫頭學了去。大家都同意、沒有人說出口的是：世上只有她一個人，連最後一文錢都知道榮府有多少，也只有她一個人看起來不害怕。她害不害怕，是另一個問題，她從來不許人問。

發例日要辦兩件事：唸例，發月錢。例，是一個人吃什麼、在哪兒吃、睡哪張床、補房裡有幾個鐘頭，依位次定下，把你養在上頭，是府裡的事。月錢，是一串錢，花在例沒有給的地方：一條緞帶，一本書，一塊糖，一次比補房排得更快的修補，還有一個人害怕的時候，會用錢去買的那樣東西。照理，沒有人該用得著多少月錢。每個人都用得著。

頭一樁唸的，不是任何一個人的名字，而是上頭這一季撥給榮府的數：榮府能從官倉領出來、養活府裡所有人的那個數。跟上一季一樣，這是一件讓人鬆口氣的事。六個秋天，都是一樣的數，而府裡每一年都添口。鳳姐把那個數唸得很歡快。書辦們把它記下來，臉上一點表情都沒有。

照位次叫，從最上頭起，這就是說，最需要準時領到的人，最後領；整座府都把這當作理所當然，連最吃虧的人也是。

鴛鴦第一個來，二十年來都是她第一個來，替老太太領：一位乾淨利落的三十歲女子，臉上有一副專門對書辦的表情，書辦們因此喜歡她。老太太的份是老爺的兩倍。那也是府裡唯一一份幾乎全花在別人身上的份，書辦們也知道，點她的錢的時候，特別小心，就像人手裡拿著別人的善意時那樣。

鳳姐把例唸出來，因為府裡的人喜歡聽。老太太，頭一桌，在她自己屋裡。老爺，頭一桌。太太，頭一桌。小姐們，第二桌，各按名字。二公子，第二桌，不過因為老太太特別吩咐，是頭一桌。丫頭按等，廚子按廚房，門房按門。然後唸補房的鐘點，一個時段一個時段地唸；那是大家聽得最用力的部分，雖然他們假裝自己是在聽自己的名字。

管北廚房的老婦人，兩隻手裹在圍裙裡，走到桌前。她母親八十一歲，住在洗衣房樓上那間屋子，被排了每月初三一個補工時段，而初三那天，補匠是不到府裡這一邊來的。應該是初四。那個時段屬於補房，補房有自己的冊子，是一個男人的字跡，而且不喜歡被人吩咐。可是初四在名冊上是空的，沒有人在上面登過什麼，而一個沒有人登過的時段，沒有人能說它被誰拿走了。

鳳姐看了書辦那一頁一口氣的工夫。「初四那天，我什麼也沒看見。」她說。

「是，奶奶，沒有。」書辦說。

「那就沒有什麼可挪的，」鳳姐說，「我想補匠自己會找到路。」老婦人張著嘴站了一會兒，一句話也沒說，就出去了；在那間屋子裡，道謝就是這個樣子。

那是一種通融。府是靠這個運轉的。沒有人把它寫下來。

月錢隨後按等發，用紅線紮成一串一串。頭一等的丫頭領一千；第二等的領少些；最小的那些女孩子，提水的，沒有等的，領的是一小把，鳳姐親手一個一個發，每人說一句話，因為她記得三百個人的名字，也喜歡讓他們知道。這是一種手法，很管用。領到一小把和一句話的女孩，走開的時候覺得自己被看見了。這天早上，最低的那幾串，差了一天：天平卡住了，鳳姐笑著說，剩下的初五補上。這是一件小事。到了初五，它是一件小事；到了初八，是一件小事；到了十二，還是一件小事，沒有人去數那些天。

然後趙姨娘來了，她是老爺的另一位夫人（如果這個詞允許的話，而在府裡，是不允許的），帶著她兒子環兒，環兒九歲，嘴長得像他娘。她不在桌子前領，她從來不領；她是來桌子前抱怨的。環兒的衣裳又被登成第二桌的衣裳了。環兒自己，從添進來那天起，就被登在第二桌，因為第二位夫人的兒子，就是登在那兒的；每個月趙姨娘來發例日，說這是一種小小的殘忍，每個月鳳姐都笑著說，那是一條小小的規矩，要是改了，老太太會看見的。

「我不能把他放到頭一桌，」鳳姐這時說，「你知道為什麼。老太太不到吃晚飯就曉得了。我可以給他再做一件衣裳。第二桌的衣裳，料子好一點的。」

「從誰的月錢出？」趙姨娘說。

「衣庫裡有一匹灰的。」

「灰的，」趙姨娘說。她說得不像是在問。她抓著兒子的肩膀出去了，男孩回頭看了一眼那張長桌，和板上那些不是他的錢串，臉上有一種表情，鳳姐沒有看見，因為她已經轉向下一個名字；而這座府，以後會看見很多次。

那是另一種通融：沒有做出來的那種。它和規矩分不出來，而府裡的每個人都相信規矩。

快中午的時候，平兒從側門進來，手裡拿著一張紙，彎下腰附在鳳姐耳邊。平兒是鳳姐的第二雙手，一個安靜的年輕女子，是府裡唯一一個鳳姐不打斷的人。那張紙是官倉來的告知，早上的信差送到的，抬頭是老太太，照例，被賬房先拆開了，什麼東西都是賬房先拆。

鳳姐讀了，袖子放了下來。

它很短，這類東西都是。「告知。南境林姓執敕人，上月十九日去世，其敕同日結清。其一脈之例，至本月止。名下尚存一人，女，十歲，身況尚可。除非月內有別的敕收養，否則將移交補匠名冊。」

她讀了兩遍。這女孩的母親，是老太太的女兒，三年前去世，老太太一直沒有緩過來，也沒有對任何人說她沒有。父親一直靠一根線維持著他的敕，在很遠的地方，這根線現在斷了。補匠名冊，是沒有哪一道敕肯收的人最後的去處。在座的人，每一個都清楚那是什麼意思：行會會用它能省出來的那一點來養這個女孩，那一點不多，能撐多久，也不會久。

「是給老太太的嗎？」書辦問。

「是給老太太的，」鳳姐說，「我送去。你們接著唸例。」

老太太在南屋見她；她一整天都坐在窗邊一把椅子裡，像有一艘船是圍著她造起來的。窗臺上放著一盆晚開的菊花，鴛鴦每天早上換，老太太從來沒有被人看見看過它們。她把告知拿遠了，讀了一遍，扣在膝蓋上。她有一會兒沒說話。然後她說：「放在我的份上。」

「老太太，」鳳姐說，「這一季的例已經定了。今天早上才唸過。不到開春，開不了。」

「那就把她攤進去。」

鳳姐沒有說話。在府裡，攤，就是每個碗裡少一絲，每條衣邊少一線，好讓誰也指不出多出來的那個人是從哪裡來的。這是養一個多出來的人而不從任何一個人身上拿的唯一辦法，也是府裡自己養自己，在那些細小安靜的地方，養得比鳳姐活著還久的辦法。這要一個很好的書辦。這要一個更好的當家人。這要沒有人去問，「一絲」是多少。

「你知道怎麼做。」老太太說。

「我知道。」鳳姐說。

「她是我女兒的孩子，」老太太對著窗戶說，「她住我隔壁那間。不要放在寶玉那邊；那孩子會逗她笑，她不會想笑。她十歲。她來的時候會很瘦，她們總是這樣。我要她被養得像我們的人。」她沒有轉頭。「這件事的通融，你去找。」

那天晚上，這一季的例，被改動了九百多處，沒有一處超過一粒的分量。頭一桌讓出一匙他們有的；第二桌讓出得稍微多一點，因為他們不容易注意到；丫頭的碗輕了一個指甲蓋的寬度。平兒用鉛筆在邊上做算式。算出來了。從來都算得出來。府裡沒有人注意到，這正是它的用意；最小的幾個丫頭到那一週的週末就餓了，這不是任何人拿薪水去注意的事。一個在平常的下午餓了的丫頭，不是任何一本冊子裡的一條。

黃昏的時候，府裡吃飯。一座府照位次吃飯的時候，有它自己的聲音：頭一桌低低的說話聲，第二桌更利落些的碗盤聲，屏風後面丫頭們站著吃飯的飛快的碗，而在這一切底下，從廚房傳來，是大勺子在鍋底刮過的長長一聲。那天傍晚，那一聲比平常長了一點。沒有人說起。

掌燈時分，鳳姐在走廊盡頭找到二公子，他坐在台階上，膝蓋抱著，我貼在他胸口，什麼也沒做，這是他最擅長的事。他十歲。他還不知道有一個女孩要來。他只知道，早上賬房裡唸出了一樣什麼東西，讓一個大人的袖子放了下來。

「嫂子，」他說，「什麼是份？」

「你被允許的。」鳳姐說，腳沒停。

「誰允許的？」

「冊子。」

「誰寫冊子？」

「書辦。」

「誰告訴書辦？」

鳳姐停住了。「我，」她說，「多半是。」

「那就是你允許的。」

她看著他。很少有人第一次就能一路看進一筆帳的底，而她已經有好些年沒有被人這樣看過了。「這是我這個月聽到最尖的一句話，」她說，「而今天才是初一。」

「那你不能允許的時候呢？」

「那我就通融。」

「對誰？」

「對離得最近的那個，乖孩子。」鳳姐說，繼續往走廊那頭走，袖子一路放下來，因為她冷。男孩留在台階上，把我握在他合起來的手裡，對著沒有人，說：「最近。」

十年來，從來沒有人問過我什麼。他問份從哪裡來，那個本該知道的人回答他，是從她那裡來，而我看到了她說這句話時的臉。我多想說點什麼。我說過我不能。我提這一句，是要你知道，我試過。

## 第03章 · 添一口

她是月底最後一天的下午到的，坐一輛從南邊來的帶篷的車，帶著一隻小箱子、一位老嬤嬤和一個年紀沒比她大多少的丫頭；被人從車上抱下來，站在榮府大門口，她做的頭一件事，是咳了一聲，用手捂住嘴，像是掉了什麼東西。

她十歲。她很瘦，正如老太太說過她會的那樣，臉上總像是快要為了什麼事難過，眼睛在嬤嬤找出該拿的那隻包袱的工夫裡，把兩隻石獅子、門的高度、台階上人的數目，以及他們不看她的那種特別的樣子，全都收了進去。

她父親交代過她怎麼做。他是在最後那一個月交代的，在一間滿是他買不起、卻還是吃著的藥味的屋子裡，聲音輕得她得彎下身去聽。「你會被放在別人的份上，」他說，「要感激，不要問它花多少。你會想知道。他們不會告訴你，而你要是問了，你就得為那個答案難過。人家給你什麼，你就拿什麼，不要多拿，謝的時候，要謝得讓他們不會覺得難為情。」她說她會。她那時十歲，他快死了，她是認真的。

於是她做了一個領到了一條指示、又打算遵守它的孩子會做的事：她看。她看丫頭們怎麼給嬤嬤讓路，卻不給她讓。她看第二道門，漆的綠色已經離上一次上漆有三年。她數院子，一共四進，每一進的台階有幾級。嬤嬤從她一週大的時候就抱著她，每過一道彎都在嘟囔：「小心腳，小心臉，他們會看你的，別說什麼聰明話。」她什麼也沒說。她是那幾個院子裡最聰明的人，也已經想明白了，最好不要看起來是。

老太太在南屋見她。老太太本來不打算哭；她事先決定過了。可是女孩拿著她的小箱子走進來，站在地毯上，行了一個禮，正是她母親一定教過她的那個禮，也就是老太太自己女兒的禮，分毫不差，她哭得那麼厲害，鴛鴦不得不走過去站到她椅子後面。她把孩子摟在懷裡，說：「我可憐的孩子，我可憐的孩子，你的娘啊。」那女孩在父親的床邊沒有哭，因為那裡沒有人聽得見；這時她哭進了老太太那件好綢子裡，那是兩個月來，頭一次有人抱她。

這件事做完，就是點姐妹的名，一個一個按年紀帶進來，像一席宴的菜。迎春，是大的，圓圓的，不說話，看著自己的手，像那是屋裡最有趣的東西，她永遠不會是頭一個被什麼傷到的人。探春，把新來的女孩從裙邊到領口打量了一遍，像是在算一個價，而且對它算得這麼高，有一點意外。還有小小的惜春，八歲，什麼也不說，看著她，看得那麼完整、那麼有耐心，黛玉發現自己一動也不動。

然後鳳姐進來了，遲了，一陣裙子的聲音，人還沒進門就在笑。「哎呀，我來遲了，沒迎客，該打，你們看她！老太太，您見過這樣一張臉沒有？跟您的女兒一個模子刻出來的，就是更瘦些，我說這個是誇她。」她拉起黛玉的手，翻過來，像那些靠數數為生的人那樣，換了另一種聲音，很快，只讓那孩子聽得見：「林妹妹。那間屋子是我給你找的。是間好屋子。有一扇窗。」然後她站直了，又笑，又成了她自己。

太太最後來，從她自己屋裡，端端正正，坐下；寒暄之後，她跟黛玉說起她的兒子，是一個有話要說、並且排練過怎麼說的女人那種口氣。「你會見到我家那個孩子，」她說，「他是個小魔星。他會對你說奇怪的話，你不要放在心上。他喜歡把東西送人。我不是說你該收。」她看著什麼也沒有的地方。「他的毛病，是他不知道任何東西的價錢，有一天，這會是一個很貴的毛病。別理他。」

黛玉說她不會放在心上。她把那一句關於送人的記下了。她什麼都記。

晚飯擺在頭一桌，因為老太太要她坐在右手邊，丫頭們把碗端上來。老太太的先放下，然後是黛玉的，是同一隻碗，同樣的藍，同樣的飯，同樣一小碟青菜，同樣一小片魚。

黛玉看了它一口氣的工夫。她一輩子都是從單薄的碗裡吃飯的。她父親的敕，在遙遠的地方，被一根線吊著，吊了她記得的那麼久，她確切知道一隻被撐著用的碗是什麼味道：米淘得太乾淨了一點，魚切得比刀願意切的更細，青菜是被一個想不用鹽的人放的鹽。這是一隻很好的碗。是她好幾年裡吃過最好的一隻。而它是薄的，薄了一絲。薄的樣子，就像一隻碗是九百隻裡的一隻，每隻都被減輕了一粒。

她知道那是誰的。沒有人告訴她，也沒有人需要告訴她。她看對面的那隻碗，是太太的，也薄了一絲，比該有的少，太太吃的時候沒有看；第二桌末尾，伺候探春的那個丫頭，碗又薄了一絲。黛玉把自己的吃完了，吃到最後一粒，這樣為她拿走的東西就不會浪費。這是她在那座府裡做的頭一次通融，沒有人看見，因為她是用一把湯匙做的。

「她吃得像隻鳥。」太太說。

「她吃的，正是給她的。」老太太說，很滿意。

他們吃到甜點的時候，男孩進來了。

他進來，像他進每一個屋子那樣，彷彿屋子一直在等他，而他為遲到感到抱歉：一個十歲的男孩，穿著紅襖，頭上一隻金冠，圓臉，那種還沒決定將來會是什麼樣的人的臉，一雙眼睛像是被告知了一件傷心事，正在客氣地應對。紅絲絛掛在他脖子上，我在絲絛的末端。我該說，我很緊張。瘸腿的補匠說過，我會看著一個我漸漸喜歡上的人，我等了十年，想知道那是警告還是承諾，而現在我在一個胸口上晃著，那個胸口跳得比我以前感覺到的任何時候都快。

「魔星來了，」老太太說，很得意。「過來見見你表妹。」

他穿過地毯，停住，看著她，屋裡的人都等著，因為很明顯有話要說。「這個妹妹我見過。」他說。

「胡說，」老太太笑著說，「她從南邊來，你從來沒出過城。」

「我也許沒見過她，」寶玉說，「可是她看著眼熟，像我曾經把她放在哪裡，一直在找。」他對黛玉說這句話的時候，一本正經，就像他說什麼都一本正經，而黛玉，有人早就告訴過她，要準備好聽他說怪話，臉上沒有動，卻發現這並不容易。

「你叫什麼名字？」他說。

「黛玉。」

「人家叫你什麼？」

「還沒有叫什麼。」

他想了想。「那我給你起一個。你的眉頭總像是快要為什麼事難過了。我叫你顰兒。」

姐妹們都倒抽了一口氣。探春用手遮住嘴。黛玉看著他，臉上有一瞬間真的皺了一下眉，然後又沒有了；老太太說他是個沒規矩的魔星，她從沒聽過這種話，高興得明明白白。

「你有這樣一個嗎？」他把我從絲絛上提起來，我在燈光裡晃，滿桌的人都看過來。後來有很多人這樣把我舉起來過。他是第一個，我覺得自己像一條魚。

「沒有。」黛玉說。那是實話。她那一年說什麼都是這樣，平穩地說；接著她又加了一句，因為她是個有禮貌的孩子：「我想那是件稀罕的東西。不是每個人都有。」

「那為什麼我有？」寶玉說。

沒有人答，因為沒有人答得上來。

「沒有別人有，」寶玉說，聲音在變細。「我姐妹沒有。這裡沒有人有。她千里迢迢來，什麼也沒帶，而我有一樣東西，是沒有任何理由給我的，他們卻把它弄成府裡最要緊的東西。」他看著老太太。「它是做什麼用的？」

「是你的福氣，」老太太說，「是你的命根子，孩子。你不能。」

他用兩手抓住絲絛，從頭上拽下來，把我扔在地上。

我想請你記下，我沒有碎。我和撐天的那些石頭，是同一整塊料。我撞在地板上，發出一聲像掉了一口鐘的聲音，滑進了餐櫥底下，有那麼一會兒，我躺在灰塵和碎屑中間的黑暗裡，沒有入冊，沒有碎，完全不確定我感覺到的是不是什麼。那是我最接近受傷的一次。我沒有想到我有這個本事。

屋子像一群鳥那樣散了。丫頭們跑；太太雙手捂住了臉；一直那麼有把握的老太太，抓住椅子的扶手，用一個沒有人聽過她用的聲音說：「我的命，我的命」，沒有人知道她指的是男孩還是那塊石頭。鴛鴦跪在餐櫥邊。鳳姐待在原地，一動不動，手平按在桌布上，什麼也沒說，因為比所有人都早，她懂了他扔掉的是什麼。那不是一件首飾。那是府裡的證據，證明他是他們的。

「我不要它。」寶玉對著沒有人說。他在哭，是那種氣極了的男孩的哭法。「沒有別人有。我不要。」

是鴛鴦把我撿了起來，在她手心裡，在袖子上擦過，放進老太太的懷裡。老太太看著我，看著男孩，看著女孩，然後做了她遇到無法解決的事時總會做的事，那就是說最近的那句好話。「你表妹也有過，」她說，「當然有。她生下來的時候就有。她娘替她收著，她娘去世的時候，就跟著去了。所以她現在沒有。你看？這東西只有一些人生下來有，然後會被收回去。」

那是一句謊。老太太知道那是謊；太太知道；鳳姐知道；跪著的丫頭知道；而寶玉，帶著一臉淚，不知道，非常想被人告訴一件能讓他停下來的事。那是一個善意的謊。那是府裡一天對自己說一百次、好從這一個鐘頭過到下一個鐘頭的那種謊。而屋裡的每個人都明白，它站不站得住，要看它說的那個人說不說是。

黛玉從來沒有過什麼石頭。她母親沒有過可以給她的，她父親也沒有；從來沒有什麼東西是跟著誰一起去的。她坐在桌子旁，雙手放在膝上，看著老太太；老太太回看著她，那是一個剛剛請一個十歲的孩子扛起一份重量的女人的臉，她很抱歉，卻收不回來了。然後她用一個又小又清楚的聲音說：「是。它跟著我娘去了。」

那是她在那座府裡說的頭一句不是真話的話。是對收留她的人說的，在她表哥面前說的，屋裡沒有人聽得出來。我聽得出來。我是屋裡唯一另一個知道被人問「你的呢」是什麼滋味的東西。

寶玉不哭了。他看著她很久，怒氣從他臉上退下去，別的什麼進來了。「那我們是一樣的，」他說，「你有過，被拿走了。」

「是。」黛玉說。

他看著老太太。「給我，」他說。她把我給了他，他自己把絲絛套回頭上，我落在他胸口，那裡跳得比我感覺過的任何時候都快。後來我又被扔過。從來不一樣了。這是第一次。

一直屏著氣的屋子，吐出了那口氣。有人笑，太大聲。甜點又端上來一次，因為頭一份被踩過了。鳳姐轉回頭對老太太，拿地毯開了個玩笑。

那天夜裡，他們被安置在老太太自己屋子的兩邊，男孩睡在她屏風裡面的大床上，女孩睡牆那邊的屋子，像一個女人把一扇屏風擺在兩盞燈之間。老太太在女孩的屋門口站了一會兒，說：「睡吧，孩子。」然後什麼也沒再說就走了，這是從來沒有人見她做過的事。

黛玉醒著。她沒有哭，哭已經做過了。她仰面躺在綠紗帳底下，把她學到的數了一遍。碗；太太的碗；桌子末端那個丫頭。有人找到的那間有窗的屋子。那個謊，以及是誰要她說的。她照一個買不起自己吃的藥的病人教她的法子數：仔細，按順序，打算不欠任何她還不起的東西。數到最後，她得到總數。它比她預料的大，而她十歲，她就那樣躺到天亮。

在隔了兩道牆的另一邊，男孩也醒著，把我舉到燈前。他從來沒對我說過話。十年來他在我面前說話，像人在一座鐘面前說話。他很久沒有開口。然後他很輕地說：「你介意嗎？」

我答不了，他也沒有等。但我可以說我會說的話。我不介意被扔。我介意她後來說的，因為我知道它不是真的，而我不能告訴任何人，而她說它，是為了不讓任何人覺得抱歉。我介意的是這個。那是我見過的第一次通融，花光了做它的人所有的東西，而她十歲。

## 第04章 · 金鎖

薛家是帶著六輛車來的，這是關於他們，人人記得的頭一件事。

他們是在黛玉之後第五週到的，那一年頭一場冷天，從東邊的河鎮來：太太的姐姐，不到一個鐘頭，全府都叫她薛姨媽；她兒子薛蟠，十九歲；她女兒寶釵，十三歲；一個叫香菱的女孩，薛蟠為她付了兩次錢，原因府裡決定不問；十一個下人，一個廚子，許多箱子，還有一架沒人彈的箏。要緊的是那些車。十年來，沒有人穿過榮府的大門，帶的東西比身上那件衣服和一封信更多，如今卻有六輛車，滿是三個省的塵土，一輛比一輛壓得車軸更低。

他們帶著自己的口糧，那六輛車就是這個。薛家是做買賣的，一家買賣人，靠的是賣出去的東西過日子，不是靠敕允許的；他們在七座城裡有帳冊，在朝廷的商人名單上有一個位置，在第三欄，就是朝廷把它需要、卻無法給位次的人寫下來的地方。他們在府裡的例上沒有份，也沒有打算去領一份。他們到京城來，是因為薛蟠為香菱那個女孩打了一場官司，要花很多錢才了得了；還因為寶釵要被薦給朝廷，去排女兒們的位子，而一個要被薦的女兒，從一個好地址出發，做得比較好。

薛姨媽第二天早上去了賬房。沒有人告訴她那裡在哪；她問一個丫頭府裡的錢放在哪兒，照著答案走了過去。她站在那張長桌前，還披著旅行的斗篷，把一隻錢袋放在桌上，很重的一隻，說她知道那些屋子的價值，她付不起，但她付了她能付的。

那張桌子存在以來，從來沒有一個人把一隻錢袋放到它上面，而自己不是來領錢的。

「客就是客。」老太太說，錢袋送到她那裡時，她又送了回去。薛姨媽又送了過去。它在南屋和梨香院之間來回，梨香院是府裡給他們的，在東邊，自己有門，有一棵梨樹；一個早上來回三次，像兩個都想輸的人之間的一顆球。最後老太太說，這筆錢就以薛家的名義放進例裡，一粒也不會花在薛家身上；薛姨媽說這個她可以接受；她們兩個都清楚得很，這其實是不接受，而這是剩下的唯一辦法。

鳳姐用兩隻手從書辦那裡接過來，像一個女人接過一個嬰兒。

她過了五週，一直帶著她從九百個地方拿下來給黛玉的那一絲，一次也沒讓它露出來，如今，薛家來的第二天早上，沒有爭吵，沒有說謊，來了一筆數。它不大。它比六個秋天裡，除了上頭官倉之外，從任何一道門進到那間屋子裡的任何一筆數都大。她捲著袖子、敞著臉過了一整天，老太太坐在椅子裡把這一切都看在眼裡，什麼也沒有說；這也是一種通融，雖然沒有人說得出是誰做的。

薛蟠很快人人都認識了。他是個高大蒼白的年輕人，花錢像河水往下流，是天性，沒有惡意，每一個不必替他記帳的人都喜歡他。他母親愛他，像一個女人捧著一隻已經滿了的很大的杯子。一個月之內，他找到了京城裡最好的、慢慢輸掉一份家產的地方，老爺不得不跟他談一次，談完出來，像一個剛剛跟一座小山說過話的人。

人們記得的是女兒。

寶釵十三歲，臉像一隻銀盤：圓的，素的，亮的，什麼用途都可以。在一座把美當作一種貨幣的府裡，她不算美；她是更能走遠的那種東西。她有一種有用處而不留痕跡的方式，像一個好的下人，離開房間之後，屋子比她來時更整潔，卻說不出她做了什麼。她讀很多書，很少談。她血裡有一股熱，每年冬天靠補匠給她配的一種冷粉維持著，她吃的時候，安安靜靜，像一個不打算成為話題的女人。而在進府的第三天，她沒有告訴任何人，從薛家自己的存糧裡送了兩籃東西到廚房，以她母親的名義，附一張字條：給孩子們的。

孩子們，指的是最小的那些丫頭。第二桌的丫頭，那些被減了一粒的。有兩個星期，她們下午沒有餓，沒有人說得出為什麼，也沒有人問，因為問了，就得有人回答，而那不是一種有好聽答案的問題。鳳姐知道。她什麼也沒說，什麼也沒寫，有一天下午她發現，那一週她不需要再從第二桌找一粒，她很感激，為這份感激有點慚愧，然後繼續往下做。

黛玉也知道。她從來的那天晚上起，就一直在數第二桌。第四天，她站在廚房後面的走廊裡，看一個八歲的女孩端進一隻滿碗，端得不太習慣，那半個瞬間裡，她清楚地明白了做的是什麼、誰做的、做得多好。做得那麼好，沒有人覺得羞。她不知道可以這樣做。她自己那種通融，是用一把湯匙做的那種，每一次都要她付出點什麼；而這一種，她看得出來，給的人不付，收的人也不付，是完美的。她十歲，她在嫉妒，那種說不出名字的嫉妒，嫉妒一個有餘裕的女孩。

她還是去道了謝。

她在東院找到寶釵，裹得緊緊的，在梨樹下看書，樹上沒有葉子。她把她父親教她說的話說了。她為那兩籃東西道謝，她沒有理由知道那是誰的；寶釵眼睛離開書頁的時間，不過一瞬，說：「我不明白你說什麼。」說得那麼愉快，顯然她正好明白，而且早已準備好。然後她抬起頭。「你在咳，」她說，「昨天隔著南屋的牆，我聽見了。那種咳是被跑得太薄了一點才有的。我的補匠初九來，我有一個鐘頭沒用，留著的。你拿去吧。」

「我不能。」黛玉說。

「只是一個鐘頭，」寶釵說，「而我的鐘頭多得我不知道怎麼辦。」她說得很平，很和氣，一點重量也沒有，這正是它的重量。「請你。」

沒有一種說不的方法不是侮辱，她父親說過，她得謝得讓人不難為情；於是她說：「謝謝你。」用的是恰好對的聲音，然後走開了。她坐在那間有窗的屋子的床上，數。一個補匠的一個鐘頭，從餘裕裡出來，一個十三歲、臉像一隻銀盤的女孩給的。她會欠它。她還不知道要怎麼還，她不喜歡欠還不起的東西；而那個鐘頭，連還沒到呢。

這之後一週，地上第一場雪的時候，寶玉去了梨香院。

他去，是因為寶釵病了，冬天的熱，而他被人告知不許去，他立刻就去了，像他對任何被告知不許的事那樣。我在他胸口，下面的事我只有我自己的一份記述，但每一個字我都在。屋子很暖，有粉的味道，像冷冷的花。寶釵靠著枕頭坐起來，穿一件棉襖，膝上攤著一本書，她的丫頭鶯兒，十五歲的一個伶俐女孩，說話像別人呼吸，在擺弄一隻壺。那是一間小屋子，屋裡沒有一樣東西沒有用處，他在屋子中間坐下，像一隻鳥落在乾淨的地板上。

「聽說你戴一把鎖？」他說，「他們說是金的。」

「他們說的很多，」寶釵說，「那一樁是真的。」她把手伸到領口，從襖子裡拉出一樣掛在鏈子上的東西，攤在掌心遞給他，沒有什麼特別的高興，像人出示一張票。那是一把小小的圓形金鎖，這樣的東西是掛在孩子身上，把他們鎖在人世裡的。一面有四個字。

「可以嗎？」

「你要看就看。」

他轉向燈。他的嘴唇動了動。「不離，」他說，「不棄。」他抬起頭。「不離不棄。」他說的時候像是在聽，不像是在讀，我感覺到他的心跳，貼著我，跳得我還沒有一個詞可以形容。

「哎呀，這跟你那塊一樣的！」鶯兒說，手裡還拿著壺，是一個發現了什麼、還不明白是哪一類的女孩那種清亮的聲音。「跟你玉上的字，一模一樣，二爺！是同一類的東西！是一對！」

「鶯兒。」寶釵說。

「我只是說說。」

「鶯兒，茶。」

寶玉已經把我從襖子裡掏出來。他說他從來沒有好好讀過我身上的字，因為從來沒有人叫他讀；他把我舉起來，寶釵從他手裡接過去，像一個人接一樣不確定自己要不要的東西，轉向燈。

我來說說我們兩個身上是什麼。我的說：莫失莫忘。她的說：不離不棄。聽的人，聽出來的是同一句話，從兩邊說。第一句，是被養著的對養著他的人說的：不要弄丟我，不要忘了我在這裡。第二句，是一個養著的人，下定決心要養的時候說的：我不會離開你，我不會放你走。就像一個人說了懇求，另一個人說了誓言。我認得金上那一刀的筆法。那把刀，我臉上感覺過；那是瘸腿補匠的手，我沒有辦法去問他，他是什麼意思。

寶釵慢慢讀了我的。她看了我很久，像看一張自己沒有訂、卻打算照付的帳單，然後把我輕輕還給他，說：「是件好看的東西。它們很像。」她沒有說這沒什麼。她太誠實了，不會那樣說；我貼著他的胸口想，這是她那個冬天做的最危險的一件事。

「是一對！」鶯兒對著壺說。

「鶯兒，我要把你送回家了。」寶釵說，滿屋子的人都笑了，連她也，有一點，那個時刻就這麼過去了。

可是它已經說出口了。那是一座缺錢的府，有一個總有一天得被某個人養著的男孩，有一個她家養得起一座府的女孩，還有兩句話，是同一個行會、刻在同一種金屬上的。傳開用了四天。第一週結束的時候，廚房已經給它起了名字，第二週結束的時候，已經磨亮了：金和玉，一門好親，金玉良緣。太太聽見了，把手放在膝上，看著什麼也沒有的地方。薛姨媽聽見了，說那只是些字，這是她那個冬天說的唯一一句她不完全相信的話。老太太最後一個聽見，像她聽見每件事一樣，隔了一天什麼也沒說，除了她女兒的事，沒有人見她對什麼事沉默那麼久過。

黛玉是從兩個在廚房走廊洗青菜的女孩那裡聽到的，她們沒看見她站在門口。「金和玉，」一個說，「嗯，這下府就補上了，是不是。」「噓，」另一個說，然後，用一種比第一句還大的悄悄話，「那小表妹怎麼辦呢？」

她是很久以後，在雨裡，把這件事告訴寶玉的，當一個不是玩笑的玩笑，我在他胸口，所以我可以告訴你。她說她站在廚房走廊的門口，手捂著嘴，像是掉了什麼東西。然後她轉過身，走過整座房子，經過四進院子和一道綠門，走回那間有窗的屋子，在床上坐下，開始數。她數碗，數那個鐘頭，數那兩籃東西。她數她被放在什麼上，薛家被放在什麼上，府比較養得起兩者中的哪一個。她十歲，她很會，而她得出來的總數，是她多年沒有告訴任何人、後來才告訴了他的那一個：她是以一筆開銷的身分進府的，寶釵是以一個總數的身分進來的，而金玉良緣，只是府把它的算術早已決定的事，大聲說出來。

這不是她害怕的事。她說這才是奇怪的地方。她一直怕的是不被要。她沒想到要怕的是，被人恰如其分地，比下去。

## 第05章 · 總數

寧府養口的法子不一樣。這座府和榮府是同一個敕的家族，同一個朝廷，撥下來的數也幾乎一樣，要花的人卻比較少；而且記憶所及，這座府花起來，總像是要給人看的。那裡的燈點得早些。台階一天掃兩遍。大門口的石獅子養得好些，沒有人懷疑，因為寧府的下人被人看到在擦牠們。

冬季的第二個月，寧府花園後面那座小山上的梅花開了，寧府的尤氏差人過街去請老太太來看，帶著孩子們，留下吃一頓小小的晚飯。這種請，只因為人人都太客氣，不好說它是命令，才不算命令。

他們過街，照位次：老太太的椅轎，太太，鳳姐，三位姐妹，寶釵和她的丫頭，黛玉，嬤嬤的手揣在她袖子裡擋寒，寶玉最後，他被吩咐要走在祖母旁邊，卻晃到了隊尾去看那對石獅子。「養得好些。」他對著沒有人說，用一種內行人的興趣說，走在前面的鳳姐，聽了，大聲笑出來。

梅花很好。山上有一百多株，下面用紅紙燈籠照著，花瓣看起來是暖的。整個寧府都出來看了，領頭的是珍大爺，一個高大隨和的男人，笑聲比人先到。茶用銀壺送上山。晚飯擺在一座從中午起就暖著的亭子裡。

黛玉和寶釵站在樹底下，離人群稍遠。「它們是從下面照亮的，」寶釵愉快地說，「看得見紙。」「很好看。」黛玉說。「是啊，」寶釵說，「它們就是為這個才有的。」兩個人都沒有說出自己想的，而每一個都知道對方也想了。

黛玉數了第二桌。她忍不住；這已經是習慣了。榮府的第二桌被減了一粒，丫頭的碗輕了一個指甲蓋。寧府的第二桌，吃的跟榮府頭一桌一樣：一整條魚，連頭，一碟貴的小蘑菇，還有酒。最小的丫頭們把菜端上山，她們並不餓，那副樣子，是不知道餓是什麼的人才有的。

她什麼也沒說。她看對面的鳳姐，鳳姐吃得很平常，已經不看菜了。鳳姐在看尤氏的臉，又看珍大爺的，一個核對一列數字的女人那種愉快的專注，說了一句關於蘑菇的輕話。尤氏說，珍大爺非要不可。這是她常說的話，口氣是一個早就不再問東西從哪來的妻子的口氣。鳳姐說這桌太豐盛了。尤氏說這算什麼，明年補上，而鳳姐，聽到了人家說的是什麼，把它收進她放「以後再加」的那一列裡。

來領男孩的是可卿。

她是寧府承嗣人的妻子，這使她，靠著一長串表親和府裡奇特的算術，成了寶玉的侄媳，雖然她比他大了十歲，她把這兩件事一起扛著，一樣輕鬆。她二十上下，是兩府裡最仔細的人。她知道寧府的每一粒米，每一個名字，和每個名字該在的位置。這座府裡，只有她會用最低的廚子她娘給她取的名字叫她，因為她記得當一個數字是什麼滋味。

可卿五歲的時候是在補匠名冊上的。寧府的管家，有一回路過補匠的屋子辦事，看見隊伍裡有個孩子站得很直，在排中午的那一碗，問她叫什麼，她說了兩遍，一遍是給名冊的，一遍是給她自己的。他那天下午就把她領了出來。她長進了寧府，像一個沒有忘記被收進來要花多少的東西。她是兩府裡唯一從裡面知道名冊是什麼的人，她從來不提，她對每一個瘦的人都很好。

寶玉愛她。他是用一個十歲男孩那種平白的方式愛她，沒有一個字可以說。她是唯一一個從來沒有告訴他該做什麼樣的人；她問他那天看見了什麼，聽他的回答。

她和鳳姐是朋友，是兩個管事的女人那種沒有時間顧到這個的朋友。她們站在亭子欄杆旁，端著杯子，山上一盞一盞亮起來，可卿說：「嬸子，你看起來不太好。」她叫她嬸子，輩分如此，雖然鳳姐只大她三歲。「發例日我從來看起來不好。」鳳姐說。「今天不是發例日。」可卿說。「天天都是發例日。」鳳姐說，笑了，可卿沒有笑。

可卿把杯子放下的時候，鳳姐看到了她的手。那是一隻小小的、乾淨的、仔細的手，比秋天發例日那時，薄了大約一碗飯的量。她像她注意每件事一樣注意到了，把它放進那一列裡。

晚飯快結束時，寶玉吃得比他習慣的多，像中午的一株植物那樣垂著頭。老太太看見了，說他得找個地方躺一躺。可卿立刻說她自己的屋子又暖又安靜，她親自照顧他；沒有人反對，因為她是他的侄媳，又比他年長，是兩府裡最仔細的人，老太太很滿意地說，那正是合適的地方。

那是一間小屋，暖的，有一種我叫不出名字的氣味，後來我才知道，是她放在衣物裡、好讓裡面什麼都不會壞的那種草。屋裡的東西，每一樣都在它該在的位置上。床上方掛著一幅長軸，兩行字，是被教過要寫清楚的那種手筆。寶玉，走進一間屋子就非讀牆上的字不可，在門口停住，大聲讀了出來。算得清的，才是學問。讓得開的，才是文章。

「我不睡那底下。」他說。

「為什麼？」可卿笑著說。

「那是府裡的。那是他們教你怎麼做一個有用的人時說的那種東西。我一輩子都在被人這麼告訴。是誰掛的？」

「我丈夫的祖母，」可卿說，「她管寧府的帳管了四十年，沒有錯過一個銅板。她說這就是她知道的全部。」她還在笑。她說的方式，是一個人說一件自己已經決定尊重、卻不完全同意的事。「好吧。不睡那底下。另一邊有張床。」

另一邊有一張小床，鋪著褪了色的紅被。他穿著靴子躺下去，她替他脫了，像脫一個孩子的，把被子拉上。襲人，他的頭一個丫頭，跟著一起過來，一直在走廊裡等著，臉上沒有任何變化，這時走過來站在門口。襲人十三歲，穩，從沒猜錯過天氣；她不常笑，她對他的忠心，是不給他留一點空隙去注意它的那種。她說她要守著他。可卿說她也坐一會兒，拿起她的針線。

他睡著，只花了說這句話那麼久。他睡覺像他做每件事一樣，徹底。

他睡著的時候，我就安靜下來。我不睡；我從來沒學會。但我不再向外聽，改向裡聽，聽那個十年來一直貼著我的、緩慢的聲音，那是我最接近休息的時候。那天下午，在那間仔細的屋子裡，我聽他沉下去，聽可卿的針進進出出，聽那個曾經站得很直、排一碗飯的隊的女人的呼吸。然後我感覺到一樣沒有人叫我預料的東西。

我該說說我是怎麼知道接下來發生的事的，因為我沒有看見。我是被人給看的。我說過，我和撐住天的那些石頭是同一整塊料，我頭一輩子，一直在外面聽「看顧」。一塊石頭不是被造來給它指點什麼的。可是，當一個人睡在離我夠近的地方，中間什麼也沒有擋著，又是從名冊上被領進來的，像旁邊那個女人一樣，躺在一間被那麼仔細地照顧過、沒有一絲缺陷可以讓那東西勾住的屋子裡，那時「看顧」，那個我只聽過的東西，就升起來迎我；在一場睡眠的長度裡，我不是掛在絲絛上的石頭。我是一扇窗。

屋子靜了下來。針停了，或者是我不再聽見它。地板在很遠的地方，或者是我所在的那個胸口。

我不知道那是哪裡。那是一座沒有牆的大廳，光像雨前的光，地面平滑得我在裡面看見他，倒著，一個穿紅襖的小男孩，伸出一隻手。我們面前是一座樸素的灰石門，兩邊各刻著一行字。

算盡了欠的，愛的就沒有人算。／不入冊的地方，也還有欠。

門洞裡一把矮凳上坐著一個女人。我說女人，因為她有女人的耐心，和女人那種雙手交疊等待的樣子；我不知道還能叫她什麼。她不年輕也不老，說不上是誰。我們走近，她抬頭，眼睛先看男孩，然後，很長的一會兒，看向他胸口我掛著的地方，穿過我，像穿過一片玻璃。

「啊，」她說，「榮府的二公子。一口，領公子的份。你整個都在總數裡，我有你。」她皺起眉。「可是總數裡有一個缺口，一塊石頭那麼大。我已經九百年沒有過缺口了。」

「你是誰？」寶玉說。他看起來不怕。在這種夢裡，沒有人怕。

「我是造的人留下來管總數的，」她說，「點數的人。我不是一個人。我是一個學會了坐下來的總數。」

她站起來走進去，他跟在她後面，因為什麼東西看起來裡面有點什麼，他就跟著。我跟著他；我什麼別的也做不了。裡面是高高的深色木櫃，很多很多，一路延伸到光裡，每個櫃子有一百個窄抽屜，每個抽屜上有名字。她在靠前的一個櫃子旁停住，上面用樸素的筆跡寫著，只有一個字：榮。

「這是府裡的十二個人，」她說，「分量就是府的重量的那十二個。每一個府都有一些。它們不是預言。預言，是有人說將來會發生的事。這是什麼都不變的時候剩下的東西：一個數，往下帶。我只是帶著它。」

「它能改嗎？」寶玉說。

「如果有人填一個不同的數。」

「誰填數？」

「拿筆的人。」她說得沒有希望也沒有遺憾。「這裡沒有人拿筆。我點數。我不填。」

他十歲，那是一個夢，他做了他在任何地方都會做的事：他打開了一個抽屜。她沒有阻止他。「你可以看五張，」她說，「你不會留下那些數。你也許會留下，你哭過。」

第一張上有一幅畫，墨已經老成了褐色。兩個人坐在一張桌子旁，一個面前是薄碗，一個面前是滿碗。一把小金鎖放在兩人之間，旁邊是一根什麼也沒有掛的紅絲絛。底下，是一種他從來沒學過、卻讀得懂的字：給她多少，吃多少，連最後一粒；／付的是她手裡剩下的唯一一枚。／一個給了沒有人向她要的，／最後被收著，像一把鎖被收著。

他看了很久。「那是林妹妹，」他說，「和薛姐姐。」他沒有說他怎麼知道。點數的人什麼也沒說。他翻到下一張。

第二張畫著一盞燈，放在一根很高的桿子上，照著底下一張長桌，桌邊的人都轉過頭，向上看。她被放得很高，好讓整座府有光。／燈越亮，油越少。／光最亮的地方，總數開始轉彎。／春天來得早，也被早早數完。「那是我大姐姐，」他說，「她在朝廷的裡屋，我幾乎不認識她。」點數的人點了點頭，他發現喉嚨很痛，不知道為什麼。

第三張畫著一個女孩站在岸邊，手裡拿著一隻風箏的線，水面很遠的地方有一隻船。她剪在該剪的地方，府裡稱這是明理。／被她剪掉的人，沒有人問過他們怎麼想。／她清楚得像早晨，也在早晨被秤過。／風把她送得很遠。那是順風。他覺得他認得那個頭抬起來的樣子。那是探春在給什麼東西估價的時候。

第四張是一隻穿著素衣裳的鳳凰，站在一塊算盤上，兩腳被紅線綁著。她能把整座府秤到一粒。／天平卡住了，她笑著說。／每一列都算出來，只有一列沒有，／而她就站在那一列裡。他笑了，因為那幅畫好笑；然後他不笑了，因為他看出那是誰，那笑聲變成了別的東西。

第五張他沒有選。點數的人說：「不是那一張，」伸出手，晚了一點；抽屜已經開了。上面是一排小小的人形，排隊等一碗飯，其中一個站得很直。上面的空白處，有一隻手把同一個名字寫了兩遍。她在隊裡站得直直的，被人從隊裡領了出來。／她在府裡站得直直的，沒有人問她站了多久。／她知道被養著要花多少，悄悄存了一點。／那不夠，也不是她該存的。

那是他最熟悉的一張，而他不懂。「那是可卿，」他說，「她就在隔壁屋裡。」點數的人把抽屜輕輕地關上，沒有回答。

抽屜裡還有一樣東西，在那些紙底下：一張沒有畫、沒有詩的紙。點數的人自己把它拿出來，舉起來讓他看。撥數：不變。／口數：三百一十四。三百二十一。三百三十。／差額：轉入下一頁。「這是不押韻的那一張，」她說，「它才是全部。」

最底下是最後一張，兩面都是空白，她在他看之前把它翻過來蓋住。「那一張不是給你的，」她說。我覺得她是對著他胸口那個地方說的。「我看不見它。我數不了它。我把位置留著。」然後，低得我以為是我聽錯了：「這是這座大廳裡，唯一一張我不知道結局的紙。」

我從來不知道我有希望這個本事。我只練習過高興。這是有人第一次對不入冊說了一句好話，而她說的時候，把它當成一個不幸。

然後地板動了起來。那些數字從紙上升起來，像水，沿著櫃子一列一列跑，九個的，十二個的，三個的，穿過平滑的地面朝我們漲過來，像一道潮；男孩叫了一聲，開始跑。「它不出來，」他說，「它不出來。」點數的人沒有動。她很輕地，對著他旁邊的空氣說：「你是我數不了的那一個。這就是你害怕的原因。」那些列漲到他的腳邊，我什麼也做不了，只能抓住。

他在那張褪了色紅被的小床上醒來，喊著一個名字。「可卿！可卿！」針停了。她立刻在他旁邊，一隻薄而涼的手放在他額頭上。「我在，」她說，「我在這裡。是夢。」

襲人一隻手臂摟著他。他在發抖，一身汗，他說，用一個失去了整件東西、只留住了它邊緣的男孩的聲音：「那個數不出來。」

可卿的手停住了。「什麼數？」

「我不知道，」寶玉說，「它不出來。」

她什麼也沒說。她從他頭頂上看過去，看襲人，我感覺到她那隻涼的手微微合攏，像一個仔細的人合上一本書。她臉上的某樣東西，原本是敞開的，是和善的，這時關上了，像一本帳，在讀的人找到那一行的時候關上。

## 第06章 · 總數夠不到的地方

賞梅之後，可卿沒有再過街來。寧府說她有點不舒服。榮府每次問，寧府都說這句話，用一樣的字，一樣的口氣，而鳳姐，對一個被壓小了的數有一副好耳朵，開始把它聽成了一個數。

寶玉天天去。老太太允許了，因為寧府是個有人病著的地方，因為攔也攔不住，也因為他每天傍晚回來，比去的時候更安靜、更謹慎些，她把這當作好事。他不提那個夢。他幾乎什麼也沒留下。他留下的是：那個數出不來，他哭過，還有對一根紅絲絛的顏色一種奇怪的小小的把握。

初九那天早上，黛玉在南屋外的走廊裡等他，兩手背在身後，臉上是收好的樣子。她沒睡好；她有一種沒睡好的樣子，是不許人看見的那種。「你要去寧府，」她說，「去看那位病了的太太。」

「是。」寶玉說。

「她瘦嗎？」

他想了想。「瘦，」他說，「像你。」

黛玉把手從背後拿出來。一隻手裡是一張折成四折的紙條，上面一行字，是寶釵清清楚楚的筆跡：憑此條，初九，羅補匠一個鐘頭，給林姑娘。她帶了四個星期，一直沒用。這張條，是用一種她無法推辭的方式給她的，而現在是初九，羅補匠中午以前就會到梨香院。

「我欠它，」她說，「我沒辦法還給給我的那個人，因為她多得不知道怎麼辦；我還了什麼，她不會知道。我也沒辦法用它。我一整晚都在試。所以我把它往下遞。」她把紙條放進他手裡，把他的手指折起來蓋住，那種堅定，不屬於一個十歲的女孩。「給她。告訴她這是林表妹的，我欠著，我希望兩清。」

「你說的我聽不懂。」寶玉說。

「是，」黛玉說，「拿著就是了。」

寧府有自己的補匠，一個姓張的老人，每月初一來，帶著一袋他背了四十年的小工具。第十天，寶玉和襲人在走廊裡等著，聽見他在隔壁屋裡，對寧府的承嗣人說話，口氣是一個把同一件事說過好幾遍、還要再說一遍的人。

「她的根薄了，」張補匠說，「她來你們家的時候，根就是薄的。在名冊上待過的年頭，就會這樣。他們能養什麼就養什麼，根是第一個沒了的。她被領進來的時候補過，每年都得再補一次，補一點，不然就回來了。春天就該看的。春天我沒看過她。她不在我的冊子上。」

「她說她沒事。」承嗣人說。

「她對我也這麼說，」張補匠說，「她把她的時段取消了。前年取消，大前年也取消。我冊子裡每年都有，是她自己的字：不用。我信了她。一個算得像她那麼好的女人。」一陣沉默。「我該來的，不管她怎麼說。」

寶玉不明白他聽到的是什麼。旁邊的襲人明白。她的臉沒有變，但是她把手放在他的手上，很用力，放了一口氣的工夫。然後寧府的承嗣人從屋裡出來，看見他們，帶著一個到不了眼睛的笑說，他太太會很高興有人作伴，然後沿著走廊走了，步子很快，是一個要去處理一件不是他的錯的事的人的步子。

她在那間有草香在衣物裡、牆上掛著字的屋子裡，靠坐在大床上，就在他不肯睡的那幅字底下。她比賞梅的時候更瘦了，臉的顏色像紙燈籠在蠟燭快燃盡的時候。她看見他，笑了，屋子一下子變成了做夢那天下午的樣子。

「進來，孩子，」可卿說，「來坐。跟我說說你今天。」

他說了。他說了榮府那對石獅子，他已經斷定牠們養得不夠；南屋裡一隻不屬於任何人的貓；還有那位會數東西的新表妹。她聽，像她一向聽的那樣，整張臉都在聽。然後他從襖子裡拿出一張折成四折的紙條，因為有人吩咐他拿，交給她，說這是林表妹的，她欠著，她希望兩清。可卿讀了，臉變了。「她十歲，」她對沒有人說，「就在把它往下遞了。」她安靜了一會兒。「告訴她這個。這一個鐘頭我用不了；那是薛家的補匠，他只替薛家做事，等他找到那根根的時候，我也不在這裡讓人補了。可是這是這個冬天，有人給過我的最好的一樣東西，我會留著。告訴她，兩清了。」她把它放在枕頭底下，又轉回來看他。她說：「還有那一樁。那天你睡著的時候，你看見的。」

「我不記得，」寶玉說，「只記得它不出來。」

「是，」可卿說，「它不出來。」她說得那麼輕，他看著她。「去那張小床上躺下，乖。今晚我有一位客人，我想你在這裡，又想你聽不見。這種事，男孩子做得最好。」

他躺下了。我想，襲人還沒把被子拉上去，他就睡著了。我不睡。我貼著他的胸口，從第一個字起，我都聽見了，我說「我」，因為我在那間屋子裡。

掌燈的時候，鳳姐來了。有人送了一個那麼短的口信去叫她，裡面只有她的名字，她沒帶丫頭，一個人過街，像去一件不能說的事。她站在門口，袖子放下來。她沒有拿椅子。她看著床上的女人，可卿看著她，那一刻，她們是兩個從來沒有時間給對方的女人，現在剛好給了她們剩下的那麼多。

「嬸子，」可卿說，「坐。開春我就不在了。」

「別，」鳳姐說，「別這麼說。張補匠說可以補。他說冬末可以做。」

「張補匠說很多話。他是個好人，他來晚了，我也是，我想把我剩下的，花在一件不是好心的事上。坐下，求你。我想告訴你我知道的，兩府裡只有你能聽。」

鳳姐坐下了。她坐在椅子的邊上，像一個還沒決定要不要留下的女人。

「我在名冊上待過，」可卿說，「你知道。你不知道它教會你什麼。它只教一件事。我在寧府最暖的屋子裡想了十五年，我有把握。就是這個：總數夠不到的，就拿不走。」

她等了一會兒，鳳姐什麼也沒說，她接著說下去。

「敕會有結束的一天。不是明天。可是會，每一道都會。朝廷會來，會把名冊裡有的拿走。會拿走府，拿走院子，拿走園子，拿走每一份，因為什麼都在名冊裡；名冊就是這個。朝廷拿不走從來沒有入過冊的東西。補匠名冊上的孩子什麼也沒有，所以碰不到他們。府什麼都有，所以什麼都可能失去。這就是我知道的全部，嬸子，我花了十五年，和一間很好的屋子。」

鳳姐已經一動不動了。

「在名冊到不了的地方放一點東西，」可卿說，「一塊地。在祖墳那邊，城外頭，登在一個不是哪一座府的名下：族裡持有，為了祭祀，和一所學堂，使它的出產不屬於任何人，不能被算成府的。就叫它祭田。沒有人會對祭祀看得太仔細。你能放多少放多少，從好年頭裡，一點一點放。不是為了府。是為了留下來的人。府會說自己什麼也不缺，也沒說錯：今天，府什麼也不缺。趁府還亮的時候做。」

「亮，」鳳姐說，很輕地，「是座好府，但我不會說這座府亮。」

「有好消息要來了，」可卿說，「我是從承嗣人那裡聽來的，他是從朝廷裡一個人那裡聽來的，那個人不該說的。那會是這座府有過的最好的消息。一年之內就來。會有很大的熱鬧，很大一筆錢，所有的帳，都是你算，因為算的人就是你。而當燈最亮的時候，嬸子，油就開始漏了。我算過了。那個男孩哭著醒來，說它不出來的那一夜，我就算了，之後每個晚上，都在腦子裡算，他說得對。它是不出來。」

「哪一個數？」

「你每個月初一算的那個。往下帶。」

鳳姐說，聲音裡沒有一點輕了。「你要我把東西登在府的名冊以外，登在一個不是府的名下，老太太還在，府裡滿是從來沒缺過什麼的孩子。把一份放在名冊外面，就是說名冊可能會垮。那座府裡沒有人說得出口。我要是做了，就得假裝是別的事，而且瞞著所有人。那是那座府裡，唯一沒有通融可言的那一種事。」

「那就不要說，」可卿說，「叫它祭田。」

「要是我錯了呢？要是不過是一個壞年頭呢？」

「那你就是為一些墳多花了一點，我不會介意的。」她笑了。「我會在那兒。」

「為什麼是我？」鳳姐說，「為什麼不是寧府的珍大爺？為什麼不是老太太？」

「因為珍大爺會說是晦氣，老太太會說是死。而且因為你，嬸子，是兩府裡唯一一個把這座府有多少、連最後一文都知道的人，而我看你對這個不害怕，看了好些年。你是唯一一個承受得起知道的人。」她停了一下。「也是最可能去算下一道題的人。」

鳳姐笑了，短短的一聲，真的，嚇了她一跳，笑得疼。「你太了解我了。」

「所以我才告訴你。」可卿的聲音開始變細。「還有一樣，然後我就睡。不多。是十一份。」

她沒有說十一份什麼。她不用說。鳳姐能把一個補工時段一年花多少，說給任何人聽，連一粒都不差。她用了五口氣的工夫，才讓自己知道那是什麼意思。

「我春天的那個時段，」可卿說，「張補匠的冊子。我沒有取。三年前，寧府的席面變成現在這樣的時候，我就沒取，我算過，十一份，一年，這座府不會注意到十一份。我不能替府取。所以我把它留著。在寧府賬房的第七個抽屜裡，在我名下，沒花。不夠。不是我該放的。可是我想讓它進那塊田。」

「你不補了。」

「三年了。」

「你把它留了下來，」鳳姐說，「從你自己的命裡。」

「那不是命，是根。它們不是一回事。」

「可卿。」

「嬸子，沒事的。這是我能做的唯一一次通融。不必有人被問。」

鳳姐用兩隻手捂住臉。我看見一樣我在賬房裡、頭一桌上、任何一間屋裡都沒有看見過的東西，那就是沒有捲袖子的鳳姐。

她抬起頭，說：「我會辦的。」這是她對每件事都說的話。「我想一想。」

「我知道，」可卿說，閉上眼睛，嘴角微微帶著笑，像一個知道一道題的答案、已經決定對它客氣的人。「所以我對你說了兩遍。」

鳳姐三更天走的。她從走廊穿過，沒有看見襲人，經過燈籠，袖子放著，在寧府門前的台階上站了很久，冷風裡，那對石獅子在那裡。她看著石獅子，看了很久，這是一件奇怪的事。然後她過街回去，坐在賬房的長桌前，只點一盞燈，拿出榮府自己的名冊，開始用鉛筆算一道題。那是她每天算的那道。它不出來。她是個很好的書辦，她把它收起來，做下一道。

男孩睡著。他早上醒來，什麼也沒記得，只覺得夜裡有人對他好過。

「我想一想」是那座府裡常常說的一句話。我現在要說我當時沒說的：那是那座府裡唯一一句，意思是永遠不的話。那十一份，我一直記在我自己的帳上，像人留著沒有別人留的東西。

## 第07章 · 第七個抽屜

可卿是在這一年頭一個月的第四夜被點出的。她走的方式，像被造出來的人那樣，單薄地，不聲不響，在點燈以前一會兒：那隻手上的溫度走掉了，府裡還沒想到要去問一聲。屋裡沒有別人，只有被叫來的襲人，和沒有被叫來的承嗣人；還有枕頭底下，一張沒有人看見的紙。

寧府做了每一座府都做的事。他們把桌子空出一頓飯，好讓人看見那些位子。他們在她屋裡點一盞燈，點四十九天。他們把她點出：管冊的書辦帶著冊子來，府裡每一個人，從當家的到最小的燒爐丫頭，從床邊走過，往一個碗裡放一小粒他們吃的東西，使她一輩子領過的份，成為一千份細小的碎片，還給了府，名冊短了一行。這是「看顧」裡最老的規矩。它叫點出，它是要做得和善的。它說：你被算進來過；這裡不再欠你；走吧。

襲人給了寶玉一粒，讓他放進碗裡。他在手心裡拿了很久。「她沒有取她的，」他說，用的是一個在走廊裡把兩件事放在一起、還沒有人告訴他它們合成什麼的男孩的聲音。「去年，前年。張補匠說的。」「是，」襲人說。「那我還回去的是誰的？」她答不上來。他把那粒放進碗裡，第二天早上，他把自己早飯的那一份飯給了廚房走廊裡的一個女孩，第三天又給，大家以為他不舒服。

她的碗比別人的都滿，因為襲人放了四粒。張補匠放了一粒，把手攤開站了很久，像一個人在歸還一樣自己早該給出去的東西。

寧府的當家決定，她應該得到最好的。

他在前廳說的，聲音有點太大，對著全家和一半的下人，管家把它寫在手背上。她應該得到最好的一切：最好的輓歌，最好的布，最長的守喪，和能找到的最好的棺木。他是這樣一種人：不知道怎麼面對一樁損失時，就做一件很大的事，那是他哀悼的方式。我想，那也是他不去看另外一樣東西的方式。

能找到的最好的棺木，是一塊留木。那是一種深色細密的木頭，造的人用來做他們自己的匣子的那種，不受潮，也不養任何吃木頭的東西；放進這種匣子裡的東西，能留四百年。有人被帶到薛家去看。薛蟠的父親，在薛蟠被添進來的那一年，替他收著一塊，沒有想著誰，因為那是樣好東西，而一個買賣人，不賣自己補不回來的東西；薛蟠對別人的東西和對自己的一樣大方，隨口說，一千份可以。寧府的當家說：「說個價。」管家一句話也沒說，把它寫在另一隻手背上。

尤氏辦不了喪事。她第三天就臥床了，府裡說是悲傷，大夫說是受了涼，而寧府的承嗣人，是一個「操辦一座守喪的府」這幾個字湊不成一句話的人。當家的去問老太太，可不可以把鳳姐借一個月。老太太對得罪寧府要付多少代價，有很準的估量，答應得比說這句話的時間還快；而沉默了一個星期的鳳姐，只說：「我明天早上過去。」就去找她的鉛筆。

她帶著那個男孩。他用他平白的方式要求要去，老太太沒覺得有什麼不好。他坐在寧府賬房的角落裡一張凳子上，膝蓋抱著，什麼也不做，這是他最擅長的事，她一抬手，他就去拿鉛筆。我在他胸口。我全看見了。這是鳳姐一生裡最好的一個月的活兒，我說這話很抱歉。

寧府處在一座沒有人主事的府的狀態，那是一種大忙的狀態。每個人都在忙，沒有一個人有事做。東西丟了。同一件事做了兩遍，另一件事沒有做。四個人被派去端一隻托盤，誰也沒端。第一天早上，鳳姐站在前廳門口，袖子捲著，用脫一隻手套那麼久的時間，把這場混亂，數到一粒。

到中午，她有了五條規矩。府裡每一件事派給一個有名字的人，名字寫在走廊的牌子上，誰也不能說一件事不是他的。每一處庫房的鑰匙由一隻手保管，進出都要點數。到時辰點名，沒到的人，這一天的飯就沒有了，叫他在門口等著；沒有人被罵，因為她用不著。丟了的東西，算在最後拿著它的那個人頭上。花了什麼，當天就寫下來，用她的字，或平兒的，誰也不許對不是自己的東西，有一點大方。

第二天早上，一個管燈油的十一歲男孩來晚了。每個人都看她會怎麼做。鳳姐問他為什麼，他說他母親在補房，夜裡很不好；鳳姐拿起鉛筆，在走廊牌子上他的名字旁邊寫了補房，說這就是牌子的用處：寫一個人在哪裡，不光寫他不在哪裡。一直在等著一把刀的寧府，嘴張了一會兒，然後回去端他們的托盤，比之前更快了一點。

它馬上就見效了。它見效得那麼好，一個星期來一直不知所措的寧府，開始看她，像一座府看一個提著燈進來的人。老僕人本以為會來一個對他們嚴厲的女人，卻發現是一個記得他們名字的女人。年輕的怕她，也喜歡這樣。到第三天，走廊掃乾淨了，托盤有人端了，而府，自從可卿最後一次還好的時候以來，頭一次，安靜得剛剛好。

她整個人是她自己。那個月，我能說她的只有這一句，我說的時候，既有喜歡，也有驚惶。在袖子和鉛筆之下，在那個像一把亮刀穿過房間的聲音之下，是一個女人，頭一回置身於跟她一樣大的東西之中，她很快樂。那是一種有一扇很小的門的快樂。她沒有去看那扇門。

第九天，管家拿著一張紙來見她。他是個姓賴的精確的人，鬍子整齊，頭腦也整齊，從來沒有被一個聽得懂他在說什麼的人這麼快地回答過。棺木，他說，已經議定一千份。寧府這個月的撥數早就用出去了，喪服的布、輓歌的人、燈，都在裡面。他湊出了九百八十九份。差十一份。

「十一份。」鳳姐說。

「每個抽屜我都找過了，」賴管家說，口氣像一個每個抽屜都找過的人。「只有一處沒花。是賬房的第七個抽屜，在已故少奶奶的名下：十一份，一個補工時段，三年沒有動，她沒取。它在冊上，閒著。當家的不會介意。我本來不該提，可是我被吩咐去找十一份，剛好就是十一份。」

男孩坐的那個角落，一下子安靜了。

鳳姐看著管家那一頁，看了一口氣的工夫。那一口氣的長短，跟她在秋天一個早上，看一頁上初四那天是空的時候，吸的那一口氣一樣長。那是很長的一口氣，我看著她吸。她那時說，她什麼也沒看見。現在那裡有東西了，上面有名字，她看見了。她已經知道它十一天了。她沒想到，它會在第九天，被一個鬍子整齊、不知道它是什麼的人，為了湊一個數，擺到她面前。

「入帳。」她說。

賴管家寫了。筆發出一支筆會發出的那種小小的聲音。他吸乾了墨，說：「多謝奶奶。」就走了，那個數字算出來了，那是整個月裡，頭一個正正好好算出來的數。

她沒有看那個男孩。我不覺得她知道她沒有看。他沒有聽懂他聽到的，而我聽懂了。自從那個暖屋子的夜裡，我就把那十一份記在我自己的帳上，我看著它進到那樣東西裡，那東西會在一個不受潮的匣子裡，把她留四百年。那是這一年，兩府裡任何人得到的最好的看顧。它花得比府有的多十一份，而且是一粒不差地，從她沒有拿來活命的東西裡付的。一千份，是可卿一年補工費用的九十倍。鳳姐能告訴你那個數字。她不需要被告知。

朝廷的信差是第十五天來的，在唱輓歌的正中間。他來榮府，因為消息是給榮府的，大門口有那麼一刻，兩府的人穿著白，站在街的這一邊，朝廷信差的紅衣在街的那一邊，沒有人知道，該讓他從哪一道門進。

他很年輕，很累，天亮以前就在路上了，只被吩咐把紙送到，別的什麼也沒說。鳳姐對一個領了差事、卻沒有人給他一張桌子的人，有一份體會，在誰也還沒決定從哪一道門請他進去以前，就叫平兒端了一碗出去。他站在街上，在白和紅的中間，把它吃了，是那天早上在場的人裡，唯一一個完全自在的人。

消息寫在一張有印的硬紙上，四行。榮府的女兒，十五歲進了朝廷的裡屋，此後在家人嘴裡，不過是一個名字，晉位內席。那是任何一座府的任何一個女人所能有的最高位。它附帶一項常設的權利：來年之內，由朝廷的巡視人陪同，她可以回她出生的那座府一次。

榮府做了府會做的事，就是兩樣都做。老太太六年來頭一次穿上紅，哭了，也笑了。太太哭，沒有笑。老爺把那張紙讀了三遍，走進書房關上門，一個鐘頭之後出來，像一個被告知了數目的人。寧府的賴管家過街來，拿著第二張紙，是頭一份估算，估算被尊榮要花多少；鳳姐，原本穿著白要去寧府，停在台階上，讀了它，臉沒有變，袖子捲了起來。

可卿說過：一年之內。只過了十五天。

「那她現在有更大的份了嗎？」寶玉說。他十歲，他問的是孩子會問的。整張桌子都笑了，老太太很溫柔地說，內席的女兒，有一份府只能夢想的份，會把他們全都抬起來。他想了想，我貼著他的胸口。他說：「她是從誰那裡拿的？」沒有人笑；太太在哭，用手捂住了嘴。

棺木是第二十夜封的。襲人，因為是在屋裡的那個人，被交給整理可卿的東西，她拿著一張折起來的紙，站得很直，帶著那張從不改變的臉，到賬房來見鳳姐。「在她枕頭底下，奶奶，」襲人說，「我想這不是給冊子的。」

鳳姐把它打開。是清清楚楚的一行字：憑此條，初九，羅補匠一個鐘頭，給林姑娘。她讀了，然後看著凳子上那個臉色發白的男孩，她不用問這是誰的、怎麼會在那個枕頭底下。一個冬夜裡，有人對她說過，有一樣東西，是總數拿不走的，說的那個人，現在躺在京城最好的木頭裡；這裡就有一樣，在她手上，不夠做任何事，也不是她該放的。

「放在她手裡，」她說，「不要入帳。這整件事裡，只有這一樣，沒有人需要入帳。」

襲人接過去，放了；棺蓋蓋在留木上，沒有一點聲音，剛剛好。鳳姐袖子放下，走出屋子，那個月裡，頭一次，看起來不像是在一個她屬於的地方。

## 第08章 · 為一天造的園子

花了八個月，和一道牆。

那道牆，就是兩府之間的那道。自從公爺的兩支人為了一條水溝吵過架，它就立在那裡，現在在一個星期裡倒了，兩百個人，一塊磚一塊磚，因為寧府的當家叫人把每塊磚都編了號，以防萬一。牆後面是寧府的園子，小而富；榮府的地，大而窮；現在兩者之間，是一條長長的、生生的泥土縫，有人要在上面造一座配得上給朝廷看的園子。

造它的人不是府裡的人。他們從敕以外的村子來，兩百個，按季節招來，付錢，只付錢，他們做事，用的時間是府裡自己的人的一半，因為一個必須自己把自己養薄的人，早就學會了用手。他們在後面吃，用自己的鍋，除了錢，不要府裡任何東西。九月一到，他們走了，像來的時候一樣，留下的唯一痕跡是園子。鳳姐靠看名冊吃飯，看了他們名字的單子，發現那是她看過的頭一份名冊，沒有一欄，是寫他們的養的。

尊榮的帳，來了第二張紙，然後第三張。賴管家對第一張沒說錯。是鳳姐把全部放到老太太面前的，在南屋，一個晴朗的下午，袖子難得地放下，因為她不想看起來像是在享受。園子本身：這麼多。四十二間要被看進去的屋子的陳設：這麼多。燈籠，給巡視人的禮，帷幔，儀仗，路，要擺出來的一餐，和要被看見擺出來的一餐。她唸完了，說出那個數，屋裡沒有發出一點聲音。

「我們不能為了一天，去借將來。」老爺說。他沒有人叫就進來了。他站在門邊，雙手攏在袖子裡，嘴唇動著，安靜地算著。

「這是內席的日子。」老太太說。

「只是一天。」老爺說。

「是一天，加四個冬天。」鳳姐說，她忍不住。

她手裡還有剩下的，她也說了。官倉會撥一筆先付，因為被晉到內席的府，是該得的：這是跟內席一樣老的一個禮數，官倉對正在被尊榮的府，向來慷慨。九千份，一次付清。要在接下來四個冬天的撥數裡，分四份扣回。她說的口氣，跟前面的一樣。沒有人說那合起來是多少。這座府的撥數一年七千，已經六年一樣，而九千分四個冬天，每年多於兩千，那就是多過十分之三。

「差不多三分之一。」老爺說。

「朝廷管它叫先付，」鳳姐說，「我不想在老太太面前叫它別的。」

老太太看著窗戶。窗臺上，鴛鴦那天早上在碗裡插了一枝早開的梅，老太太看著它，鴛鴦注意到了，什麼也沒說。「我孫女在朝廷的屋子裡，」她說，「她在那裡九年了。她一次也沒回過家。她要是說她要來，我們不能說我們沒辦法把府弄得像樣。」她沒有提高聲音。「我們想辦法。」

就這麼定了。沒有人表決；沒有人被問。就像這種事情定的方式那樣，大家看著地板上同一個地方。

寧府的當家想做得更好。那幾個月裡，他有一副眼光，看得出什麼可以再加，他找到了。是他派了一個眼光很好的年輕侄兒，帶著一袋錢到補匠的屋子，從名冊上帶了十二個孩子出來：九歲到十三歲的女孩，會唱，或者將來會，由他從京城請來的一位教唱的師傅教朝廷的音樂，到了那一天，她們要在亭台之間唱，從水面上傳過來。補匠們，一直拿他們能省出來的東西養這十二個孩子，高興得連一張謝帖都跟著送來，沒有人讀它。她們被養得很好。看到她們的人，沒有誰說過別的話。她們成了十二張多出來的口，她們很餓，她們唱得很好聽。

那是總數的另一半。一座為一天造的府，必須有人來填滿，不然朝廷看到空，會說出來。園子要一百個丫頭和園丁，一組廚子，那十二個孩子，和所有要伺候她們的人。她們會因為好看而被選上。她們會被安置、被訓練、被打扮。而那一天過去之後，她們每一個，都是一張口。

那一百個人，是在下廳的長走廊上選的，一個陰天，兩個下午。鳳姐坐在桌前，拿著名冊，太太在她旁邊，雙手放在膝上，女孩們一個一個沿著走廊走上來，像在集市上，被問名字，問會做什麼。這不是不友善的。做得很客氣，沒有人被碰。可是一個被人從走廊這頭走到那頭、讓人看的女孩，清楚知道自己被拿去跟什麼比，大部分都看著地板。

有一個沒有。她十五歲上下，一個瘦而伶俐的女孩，手很快，嘴被人叫過要閉著、卻沒有同意，是老太太那邊送來的，附了一句話，說她聰明。「名字？」鳳姐說。「晴雯，奶奶。」「會做什麼？」「我會縫東西，」晴雯說，「叫我坐著不動，我就坐著，可是我沒辦法假裝我喜歡。」

走廊上有人笑了。鳳姐沒有，不太有；她隔著名冊的上緣看那個女孩，帶著一種幾乎是高興的神情。「記下她。」她對書辦說。

太太沒有笑。她從膝上抬起眼睛，在那個女孩身上多留了一下，比這件事需要的還久，然後又垂下。沒有人注意到。一座府會記得那樣一個眼神，在它需要的時候。

老爺在園子造到一半的時候走了一趟，春天。他帶著四位先生。他們是他的客人，住在榮府，用的是他自己的份，靠說事情很了不起來掙那份；其中頭一位，詹先生，整張臉就是一個同意。他們排成一列走，書辦們在後面，走過鋪在新泥上的木板，經過從三個省運來的石頭，他說這裡每一個地方都要有名字，因為一個沒有名字的地方，就是一個沒有人想過的地方，而朝廷什麼都會去想。

他帶了男孩。他本來不想。寶玉在走廊裡，在不該被看見的時候被看見了，而老爺，不喜歡他，像不喜歡一封讀不懂的信，忽然說：「你來。」口氣讓整隊人都回頭。寶玉跟在後面一點，手按著我。他十一歲。沒有人告訴他要被考，他大概走了四步就想明白了他是，而我感覺到他的心像一個爬坡的東西那樣，往上跳。

他們來到頭一塊石頭，立在入口，把園子從大門那邊擋住。先生們提了藏景，很雅；又提了幽蔽，更雅；老爺，對恭維話有一張嚴厲的嘴，轉向男孩說：「你呢？」不是一種和善的聲音。

寶玉過了一會兒才說：「我不覺得它應該照藏起來取名字。我覺得應該照走過去取。誰看到這樣一塊石頭，都知道後面有東西。他們想知道的是，要等多久。」他想了想。「繞路。」

先生們輕輕笑了。老爺有一口氣的工夫沒說話，男孩已經不抱希望了。「不壞，」老爺說。他說的像在還一筆債。「接著走。」

他們接著走。溪水，是故意彎的；水上的亭子，先生們想用一句古詩給它取名，寶玉被問到，說它立在溪水最響的地方，名字該說一個地方是做什麼的：他提了清聲，老爺說了嗯，聲音不是拒絕。

在水邊的一叢竹子，先生們想用一條有名的河命名，寶玉停住了，老爺，早有幾分料到，讓他停。「住在這裡的人，得喜歡被葉子聽著，」他說，「應該用一個有點怕一個人待著、又不介意的人來取名。」先生們不知道怎麼接這句話。老爺又說了嗯，在袖子上寫了點什麼，那叢竹子就叫了瘦綠館。他沒有說他為什麼選這個。但寶玉說話的時候，眼睛看著園子最靠近南屋的那個角落，老爺並不蠢，注意到他看的是哪裡，沒有問。

然後，在新東草坪的邊上，他們來到那座農莊。

那是一座很好的農莊。是一個被吩咐去造農莊的人，很用心造的：一間茅屋，有井，有桑樹，一道矮土牆，一個養四隻雞的圍欄，一畦一排一排的菜，一架在小溪裡轉的水車。它就跟一幅畫一模一樣。圍欄裡已經有一隻雞，放在那裡給人看的。先生們同聲驚呼。老爺允許自己笑了一下。

「這才是個地方，」詹先生說，「這是淳樸。這是內席會喜歡的：提醒她，府不是宮殿。稻香村。或者，素居村。」

「這孩子怎麼說？」老爺說，還在笑。他沒有指望什麼。

寶玉看了那座農莊很久。我感覺到他安靜下來，像他想著一件他知道會被罰的事的時候那樣。「沒有人會吃它的。」他說。

「什麼？」

「四隻雞，一畦菜，只有一張桌子那麼大，沒有人住在這裡。它是一幅畫。我覺得名字該說一個地方是什麼。要是農莊，就該有一個吃它的人在上面。要是沒有人，它就是一幅農莊的畫，我們該叫它畫。」他吸了一口氣。「而且朝廷的人會知道。他們吃東西。他們知道農莊是什麼。」

沒有人說話。水車在溪裡轉。圍欄裡的那隻雞，發出一聲像一扇小門的聲音。

「閉嘴。」老爺說，聲音很輕。他的臉，變得和書辦們手裡的紙一個顏色。「你十一歲。你不知道你在說什麼。」

「我只是說它是什麼。」寶玉說。

「把他帶出我的視線。」老爺對著沒有人說；男孩很快地走下木板，沒有人笑，那才是最糟的。而我，掛在他胸口，幾乎被一種我沒有資格、也沒有辦法顯露的驕傲噁心到。我們背後，先生們開始，用極大的精力，稱讚那棵桑樹。

那座農莊叫稻香村，照詹先生說的。為了這次來訪，被維持著。後來，府裡一位沒有別處可放的寡婦，被分到那裡去住，她種菜，也吃菜，第二年，那畦菜不得不擴大。它成了整座園子裡，唯一做了一點有用的事的地方。沒有人對那個男孩說過。

園子在八月底造好。老太太的人要來看它的前一晚，寶玉自己一個人從大門進去，和黛玉一起，她要求要來，沒有說為什麼。他被吩咐離遠一點。他們一起站在高處。燈籠已經掛好，並且為了試，一排點了起來，整座園子在暮色裡站著，像一句快要被說出來的話。

黛玉在數。她一次一扇，看那四十二間屋子亮著的窗，嘴唇動著。「沒有一間裡有人。」她說。

「沒有。」寶玉說。

「四十二間屋子，和一百個口，要在一天裡放進去，還有四個冬天，要還。」她沒有說成疑問。「還有一個人，要來一天，從一個我們去不了的地方。」

他們一時沒有說話。一座為了被住而造的房子，黃昏時有它自己的安頓方式，發出細小的聲音，像身體安頓下來。這一座沒有。它一動不動地站著，亮著，等著，帶著一個為了一個還沒有到的人而造的東西的那種專注；而我，在路邊等過很長很長的時間，從來沒有被點亮過，確切地知道那是什麼感覺。

## 第09章 · 省親

朝廷給內席四個鐘頭。

這在規矩裡。一個被晉到內席的女人，可以回她出生的那座府一次，由巡視人陪同，從早上第三個鐘頭到第七個鐘頭，一分鐘也不許多留，因為朝廷學到，一個在自己愛的府裡被留得超過四個鐘頭的人，不一定還肯回去。於是那一整年，八個月和一道牆，九千份，一百個人和十二個孩子，都濃縮成九月頭幾天裡某一天的四個鐘頭，榮府天亮前就站在大門口，列著位次，穿著為這一天從杉木箱裡拿出來的衣裳，沒有人說話。

府是列著隊站的，像一座被告知會被人看的府那樣站著：每個人都知道自己該站在一隻手掌寬的哪個位置，哪一隻腳該往前。三百多張口，每一張都戴著一張臉。老太太在最前面，穿她的紅，坐在椅子裡，鴛鴦在後面。老爺在她旁邊，兩手攏在袖子裡，是一個對一道算數正努力勇敢的人的樣子。鳳姐在第二道門，拿著名冊，袖子放下，鉛筆插在耳後，從前一天起就沒有吃過東西。

朝廷的巡視人先到。一共三位，穿灰，肩上掛著算板，走在她前頭穿過園子，像在清路，一路點數。他們點燈籠。他們點擺好的碟子，和要擺的碟子。他們點每一個院子裡的人，手指在板上很快地小小一動，那是我見過一個人做的動作裡，最像禱告的。年紀最大的是一位留著尖灰鬍子、態度和藹的人，對路過的每一個丫頭說早，然後把她的臉記下來。

她是第三個鐘頭到的，一分不差。我在男孩胸口，站在第二道門腳下，老太太稍後面一點，鴛鴦把他放在那裡，頭髮梳過，襖子扣錯了釦子。很遠的地方傳來輪子聲，和很多腳都很小心的聲音，然後門開了，一頂掛金簾子的轎子進來，抬轎的人穿著朝廷的紅，放在掃過的石頭上，幾乎沒有聲音，彷彿它是自己到的。

她下來了。她二十四歲，高，穿一件淡茶色的素袍，頭髮梳成別人替她決定的樣式，她蒼白，是一個被點得太多次的人才有的那種蒼白。她看燈籠。她看人臉。她看了腳下的石頭，比任何人預料的久一點，然後她抬起頭，看見穿紅的老太太，她整張臉就垮了。

她們沒有說話。沉默持續了大約走過一間屋子的那麼長，然後老太太已經離開了椅子，沒有人知道她不用人抬也辦得到，內席穿著茶色袍子，跪在掃過的石頭上，兩手環著一位很老的老太太的腰，而一直被告知臉該怎麼擺的榮府全家，不知道該把臉怎麼辦，都看著天。

「為什麼這麼多？」元春說，等她能說的時候。她把這句話說進老太太的肩膀裡。這是她九年來，在她父親的府裡說的第一句話。「為什麼這麼多？啊，祖母。為什麼這麼多？」

巡視人，在一個恭敬的距離外，手指在板上動了動。

那是一次很長的巡行，是在一個沒有人被允許急的日子的莊重裡完成的。她步行穿過園子，挽著祖母的手臂，老爺落後一步，先生們在他後面。她在第一塊石頭前停下。「繞路，」她唸，「這名字好。誰起的？」停了一下，詹先生要開口，老爺舉起一隻手。「是我的次子起的，內席，」他說，很僵硬地，「連同另外兩處。」「寶玉？」元春說。她轉過身。「他在哪裡？我從他三歲以後，沒見過我弟弟。」

他被帶了上來。他一直站得直直的，在人群的邊上，這時被背後腰上輕輕一推，推到前面，是襲人，站在他手肘邊，臉一點沒變。他跪了下去。她說：「起來，不要，站著。」她用手托著他的下巴，把他的臉轉向光，像一個人看一枚別人告訴她是好的錢幣。「你瘦了，」她說，「信上人家告訴我，你把飯給人。」

「有時候。」寶玉說。

「不要全給了。」內席說，那聲音完全不是一位內席的，然後她放開了他。

到農莊時，年紀最大的巡視人停下來。他看那茅草，那棵桑樹，圍欄裡的四隻雞，今天早上又加了第五隻，他露出他和藹的笑，對沒有人，說：「真迷人。請問誰吃這些雞？」

詹先生說了一些關於素樸生活的話。巡視人把它寫下來，很客氣。人群後頭，一個穿著扣錯釦子的襖的小男孩發出一聲非常輕的聲音，把它咳成一聲咳嗽，我感覺到他的胸口在抖，我一輩子沒有這麼接近過大笑。

她要每一個年輕人寫一首詩，像一座大府的內席會做的，寫一處自己選的地方。他們被安置在水上亭子裡的小桌前，有筆，有一個拿著鈴的書辦等著。姐妹們已經練了一個月。探春寫得像煮一鍋飯那麼快；迎春寫了四行，簽了名；寶釵寫得從容，像一個一向被這樣要求過的人。黛玉分到的是瘦綠館，她坐著，一動不動，筆懸在空中，然後它動了。

寶玉寫了三首。他寫得快，是一個男孩好的、粗放的字，比他知道的更好；第四首不來。那是為新竹那一叢的。他有一句，然後他有半句，然後他有一張很白的紙，和一個拿著鈴看著他的書辦。

寶釵走到他旁邊，像一個剛好經過的人，看了他寫的。「第三個字，」她說，很低，沒有轉頭。「朝廷的詩人都這麼說。她聽過一百遍了。說你的意思。」她在他來得及問是哪個字以前就走開了，他看著它，明白了，換了另一個字，那一行就站了起來，像一樣一直在等著的東西。

黛玉自己的寫完了。她看見他停住。她看那張白紙，看他的臉，我看見她在算。她自己那首是好的，跟亭子裡任何一首一樣好；她知道，她也知道誰會讀。她把寫好的那張紙翻過來，兩口氣的工夫，另寫了一首，更平，三行什麼也沒有，一首會被原諒的詩；而他那首最後的幾行，她寫在自己袖子的邊上，字跡那麼像他的，連內席自己也分不出來，她把它從桌上推過去給他，沒有看他，像一個女人遞鹽。

內席讀了所有的。她最後讀二公子的，讀了兩遍，說那是亭子裡最好的。她把手放在他頭上。他不知道，在同一刻鐘裡，有兩個人用兩種不同的方式對他大方，一個給了他一個字，另一個給了他一首詩。我看見了。我說不了。那是我頭一次明白，一次通融可以做得那麼安靜，被通融的人永遠不知道他欠著。

她要音樂。那十二個人被帶到水階上，穿灰和玫瑰色，站成一排，教唱的師傅舉起手。她們唱朝廷的曲子，唱得很好。她們被養得很好。她們被告知要在哪裡換氣、腳放哪裡。但內席已經不聽了，她沿著那一排看，臉不像在聽歌，到最後她很輕地說：「最後面最小的那個。讓她唱一首她會的。」

最後面最小的那個九歲。她被放進這一排，是因為她有一副準的嗓子，因為沒有人忍心告訴補匠，她太小。她站得很直。她看教唱的師傅，師傅把眼睛移開了。沒有人告訴她要唱什麼。於是她唱了她這輩子一直唱的，在排中午那一碗飯的隊裡，用一個孩子平平的、清清的聲音，一點朝廷也沒有：

一個碗，兩把匙，／三是誰來得遲。／四盞燈，點得太早，／五是等的人。／六是隊，七是門，／八是名字說兩遍，／九是先到的那些人，／十是被養著。

亭子裡沒有人知道它，除了一個。內席在朝廷的丫頭們中間住了九年，那些人全是從名冊上領來的，她隔著牆，在夜裡，聽了九年這首歌，從那些以為沒人在聽的女孩嘴裡。她沒有動。但眼淚順著她的臉流下來，一點表情也沒有變，很均勻，像雨落在窗上；她旁邊的男孩，曾在一場他一點也不記得的夢裡，被給看過一張同一個名字寫了兩遍的紙，把他的手放進她的手裡，驚訝地發現她握得非常用力。我想起一個說過兩遍自己名字的女人。我想：這首歌一直都在唱。它只是在等一個離得夠近、聽得見的人。

第六個鐘頭，她在南屋，和老太太、老爺、太太坐著，門關上，巡視人退到走廊裡。他們把朝廷的禮交給她去發，內席都是這樣：每位有位次的人一匹綢，給老太太一隻朝廷的白瓷杯，給二公子和薛家那位姑娘各一串紅珠子，外加一匹綢：兩人的是一樣的，又跟別人的不一樣。府裡注意到了。它注意到的方式，像一座府注意到鞋子裡一粒小石頭，不低頭去看。黛玉站在門口，拿著一匹素綢，注意到了，把臉擺成一個什麼也沒有注意到的女孩的樣子。內席被人用朝廷屋子裡人們說事的方式說過，榮府很可能會娶一個買賣人家的女兒給二公子，她是好意的，她沒有看南邊來的那位小表妹，因為沒有人叫她去看。

她在第七個鐘頭前說了她該說的，手放在老太太的手上。

「我不能再來了，」她說，「不是朝廷的規矩；是這件事的樣子。內席不會回家兩次。我想自己在這座府裡說，不寫在信裡。」她看著老爺。「我看過那筆數了。巡視人告訴我做了什麼，我問花了多少，他們也告訴我了。四個冬天。」老爺的臉完全靜了。「我不會對你說，你不該做的。我會對你說，你不會再做。我不要有下一座為下一次造的園子。我要你答應。」

「內席。」老爺說。

「答應。」

「我答應。」老爺說。

「還有這個地方，」內席說。她從格子窗往外看，燈籠已經一排一排開始點起來，迎著暮色，一路到水邊。「它是為我造的，我要走了。一座被點亮過的房子，不該被留在黑暗裡。讓年輕人住進去。讓姑娘們有屋子；讓我弟弟也有一間；讓有人能坐在裡面，而不是客人。」她笑了，那是那一天的頭一次，是一個老了的、累了的笑。「這是我唯一能替它想出來的用處。」

朝廷的號角在第七個鐘頭整響了，她走出南屋，下了台階，穿過園子，經過提燈的人，他們在她經過時彎下腰，像風裡的稻穗。她沒有回頭看農莊，看亭子，看瘦綠館。她回頭看了老太太一次，隔著肩，然後金簾子關上了。

老太太站在大門口，直到最後一個紅衣人拐過街角，然後她又站了一會兒。沒有人敢走近她。最後鴛鴦去了，老太太用一個我沒聽她用過的小而平的聲音說：「她瘦了。」

丫頭們照吩咐，把燈籠一盞一盞熄掉，從水階到大門，使整座園子在一條長線裡暗下去，像一句正在說完的句子。老爺最後舉著一支蠟燭走了一圈，點了點門，回來，在廳裡對太太說了兩個詞，很低。我在男孩胸口，他在上樓梯，我聽見了。那兩個詞是：「四個冬天。」

## 第10章 · 第二天

隔天榮府起得很晚，這是記憶所及頭一次，而沒有人說得出該拿這件事怎麼辦。

一座屏了八個月的氣、現在吐出來的府，有一種特別的安靜。那不是休息。丫頭們在各自屋裡走動，像被告知一件事結束了、自己卻感覺不到的人。老太太坐在窗邊的椅子裡，沒有要早飯，鴛鴦知道不該端去，把碗放在窗臺上、梅枝旁邊，走開了，一個鐘頭後回來，碗是空的，老太太看著什麼也沒有的地方，兩個人誰也沒說一句話。

賬房裡，鳳姐沒有去睡。她坐在長桌的末端，穿著昨天的衣裳，平兒在一邊，賴管家在另一邊，他天亮就從寧府過來了，那一整份省親的名冊攤在他們面前，像一張剛從床上掀下來的大被單。她在加。她加的方式，是她害怕時加的那種，比任何時候都快，一個錯也沒有。

「一萬一千四百份，」她終於說。她說的口氣，像在說一個去世的人的名字。「估算是一萬。官倉給了九千。差額是兩千四百。」

「找到的。」平兒很輕地說。

「在這一年裡找到的，在我不打算說出名字的地方。」她看著那張紙。有薛姨媽放在桌上的那隻錢袋，有第七個抽屜裡的十一份，有許多碗裡的許多絲，有一個長長的、薄薄的月，最低一等的女孩的月錢每次扣六天。她連一粒都知道。平兒也知道。賴管家不知道，他還有那份體面，看著桌子。

「還有口，」賴管家說。

「是，」鳳姐說，「口。」

那是總數的另一半，是一直等在第一半底下的那一半。園子裡和園子附近，有一百個人，是為了省親才招進來、安置、打扮的，還有十二個從名冊上來的孩子，寧府的當家替她們買了一個位置，她們在府的名冊上，沒有一個是別的，只是一行鉛筆。這個月底以前要處理掉。她們在吃。她們在吃府的口糧，在府的院子裡，而府的撥數，一年七千，就要變成不到五千，從來沒有為一百一十二個人寫過。

「我半夜去找老太太，」鳳姐說，「帶著名冊。」她說得沒有表情。「她閉著眼睛聽，像人聽一張聽過的帳單。我說完，她說，這裡面有孩子。我說是。她說，那就做對的，不要做便宜的。」她看著那張紙。「我想知道，那兩個，哪個是哪個。」

他們一個一個過，像在切一條麵包。一百人裡有七十二個，是從府裡自己的廚房、馬房、樓梯裡來的，只是為了這一天被挪了位子，會回到原來的地方。那很簡單。二十二個是從外面招來、只做這一天的，付一天的錢，欠他們的，會付給他們，謝過他們，他們就走。那也簡單，她感覺到他們一個一個離開，像一枚枚錢離開她的手。要留六個。園子需要手，不管內席說讓年輕人住進去怎麼說；有四個院子要掃，四十二間屋子要防潮。她用鉛筆從名冊上選了那六個，選到第十五行，她停住了。

「晴雯。」平兒說，她也停住了。

「老太太送來的，」鳳姐說，「我記下她。我說過我會。」她想了想。「二公子的院子有個缺，要一個會縫東西的女孩。我想行。我想非常行。」她寫了。她沒有說她還想到了什麼，那就是太太看那個女孩看了太久，而一個在二公子院子裡的女孩，是太太每天都會看見的。

「還有那十二個。」賴管家說。

鳳姐把鉛筆放下。

那十二個，是名冊上她唯一不能做的一行。寧府的當家為她們付過錢，付得很好；可是他付的是省親，不是之後的那一年，他是一個慷慨到一天的邊上就停的人。他的錢袋花光了。榮府養不起再多十二張口，她知道，老太太說做對的時候，她就知道了。

「補匠收回過一次，」她說，「他們會再收回去。」

「名冊就是為這個存在的。」賴管家說。

「是，」鳳姐說，「我怕的就是這個。」

第三天下午，他們來到下廳的長走廊上：七十二個穿著舊衣裳，二十二個穿著最好的，另外一排是那十二個，穿灰和玫瑰色，頭髮梳好。鳳姐唸名字。他們被叫的方式，跟第一天被叫的一樣，一個一個，每個人上前，領到屬於她的：錢，或者一句話，或者一張紙，記著一個月的口糧，依各人那一排。做得很客氣。那跟挑人那天的客氣是同一種，好些女孩又看著地板，也有幾個，在被人看了七個月之後，學會地板是做什麼用的，看向了她。

那二十二個裡有一個，十六歲，聲音清亮響亮的女孩，拿著她的錢，在桌前停住。「還會有像那樣的一天嗎？」她說。「不會有了。」鳳姐說。「那我希望有人記得我的臉，」女孩說，「巡視人寫下來了，可是我想那不一樣。」鳳姐看著她，又看著隊裡下一個，說：「我記得。」二十二個，她不可能全都記得，她只對這一個做到了，而且記了很多年。女孩兩隻手捧著她的錢走出大門，像捧著一隻鳥。

要留的六個人被告知等著，就等著。晴雯是其中之一。她站得稍遠一點，兩手放在背後，那張明亮、壞脾氣的臉轉向那十二個人的一排，我看見她的嘴形做出了一個不是對任何人說的字，也許是一個粗話，也許不是。

補匠派來一個女人。她穿著褐色圍裙，腋下夾著一本自己的冊子，是個五十歲的灰髮、和善的人，她數數的方式不是朝廷的那種，卻很準：她把那十一個站著的孩子一個一個數過去，像麵包師數麵包，每個點一下小小的頭。「十一個，」她說，「我們給的是十二個。」

「留一個。」老太太的聲音從門口傳來。

沒有人知道她會來。她由鴛鴦挽著，走完了整條走廊，穿一身素黑，站在走廊盡頭，一隻手扶著柱子。她沒有看鳳姐。她看著隊伍的末端，看最小的那一個，九歲，站得很直，誰也不看。「那一個是我的，」老太太說。「內席要過她。我不知道她要她做什麼，可是她要過，我不把被要過的送回去。」

「她會是一張口，」寧府當家的年輕侄兒說，他照吩咐帶著錢袋過來，拿著它站在那裡，有點傻。「我是說，一張新的，老太太。寧府會盡力付，付一年，付其他人的。不付她的。我們付不起。」

「那就付那十一個的，」老太太說。「她我養。」

補匠那邊的女人接過錢袋，在手裡掂了掂，然後非常有禮地放進圍裙裡。「一年對我們是很長的時間，」她說，「比我們習慣的更長。我想讓你們知道。我們會像養每個人那樣養她們。」她看著那十一個。「她們吃得很好。那是我們做不到的。」

她說得一點苦味也沒有。那是我那一年聽到最糟的話。

她們排成一列走，頭髮梳好，穿灰和玫瑰色，每個人帶著一小包，是那天早上有人給她們的。她們沒有回頭；她們被訓練過。穿褐圍裙的女人最後走，牽著那十一個裡最小的一個的手，一個十歲的女孩，有一雙很大的眼睛，一直沒哭過，另一隻手握著一支給她練習用的筆。

教唱的師傅已經在大門口領了錢，被謝過，她在那個小的旁邊停了一會兒，一個戴帽子的、高而瘦的女人，教了那十二個朝廷的換氣，從來沒有人要求她喜歡她們。「你是唯一一個唱你會的，」她說得很輕。「在我去的那些地方，這不會被原諒。我想讓你知道，有人聽見了。」她把戴著手套的手，在孩子頭上放了一瞬，像人摸一樣東西，看它暖不暖，然後走下台階。那座府再沒有見過她。

留下來的那個小的沒有動。她站在走廊上，兩手垂在身側，穿著灰和玫瑰色，十二個裡唯一的一個，看著那十一個走下台階，穿過院子，出了大門。門關上時，她轉向老太太，老太太也沒有動。她用一個從來沒有人告訴過她什麼時候該說話的孩子的平而清的聲音，說：「玲。」

「什麼？」老太太說。

「玲，」那孩子說。「玲。」她說了兩遍。「這是我的。是我被叫的名字。我為了名冊說了一遍，我為了我自己說了一遍。」她很穩。「我想有一個人有它。」

長走廊上有一陣沉默，平兒把手放在嘴上，賴管家看著地板，數過三百個名字沒有發過一次抖的鳳姐，發現自己寫不了字。

「我有，」老太太說。她沒有再說什麼。她伸出手，那孩子拉住了，她們一起沿走廊往南屋走去，一位很老的穿黑的老太太，和一個很小的穿灰和玫瑰色的女孩，鴛鴦在她們後面一步，端著一隻碗。

寶玉在走廊的台階上看完了全部，他被叫去離遠點，卻沒有走。門關上以後，他走向鳳姐，她一動不動地站著，手裡拿著名冊，他說：「她們去哪裡？」

「去補匠那裡。」鳳姐說。

「可是她們被養著的。」

「七個月。」

「她們不能留下來嗎？」

「不能。」

他十一歲。他吸了一口氣，我在他說出來之前，就感覺到他要說什麼，是關於他的飯。「如果我把我的份給。」他說。

「那你會變薄，」鳳姐說，「就多了一個薄的人，她們也不會好一點。」她說得沒有不客氣。她非常累。「我跟你說過一次，在台階上，通融是對離得最近的那個。這話說起來好聽。她們最近，在七個月裡，現在不是了，最近就是這個意思，乖孩子。它不是一個地方。它是一段時間。」她看著他。「我也不喜歡。」

他什麼也沒有說。他把手放在我身上，他不知道該怎麼辦的時候就這樣，我們兩個在走廊上站了一會兒，看著光落在那空了的院子上。

鳳姐自己把那個數寫進名冊。她用的是筆。賴管家說通常先用鉛筆，她說她要用筆。三百二十一。那是榮府的全數，包括園子裡的那六個，和南屋裡那個孩子，也是在一座沒有牆的大廳裡的一個抽屜、一張沒有畫沒有詩的紙的第二行上寫著的那個數，我被給看過，沒有告訴任何人。我還在男孩胸口，在走廊台階上。我不能告訴任何人。我只說，我對那一行怕得沒錯，它跟它說的一樣平白。

那天晚上，老太太親自叫人把那孩子的碗拿來。他們端來了，跟別的一樣的藍碗，一樣一小份；玲把它吃完了，吃到最後一粒，慢慢地，眼睛看著碗。老太太看著她。「她吃的跟那一個一樣，」她對鴛鴦說，很低。

「哪一個？」鴛鴦說。

「南邊來的那個，」老太太說。「林家的丫頭。她們都這樣，學過那要花多少的人。」她安靜了一會兒。「我不知道我要拿她們全部怎麼辦，」她說，這是她這麼多年從沒說過的話。而鴛鴦，跟了她二十年，沒有回答，卻把空碗拿出去，回來時端著另一隻，稍微大一點，老太太看著它，沒有拒絕。

## 第11章 · 初一

年輕的一輩在九月的最後一天搬進了園子，帶著他們的床、書和丫頭；園子原本是一件給人看的東西，一個下午之間，變成了一件給人住的東西，那是另一種動物。

每個人都被問了想去哪裡，像內席說過的那樣，而每個人，身為府裡的人，都用府裡的方式回答。探春要了桌子最大的那個院子，因為她打算有很多很多紙，她得到了。迎春說她不在意，就被分到沒有人要的那一個。惜春九歲，要了離大門最近的，這樣她就能看見誰來了，沒有人能說這不是一個回答。

寶釵選了南邊的院子，樸素，籬笆矮矮的，種著藥草，屋子是空的。她帶來六隻箱子、兩個丫頭，和她自己的廚子，而且安安靜靜、事先付清了她自己窗子裡的燈錢，這樣她就不會成為園子沒有算進去的一張口。沒有人說什麼。做得毫無瑕疵。做得那樣好，連鳳姐聽說了都笑了，卻說不上為什麼笑。

寶玉要了東邊的院子，離南屋和老太太那道牆最近，門口有一株紅的木瓜樹，春天會開花。襲人跟著他去，晴雯也去，她是從園子的手裡派過來的，還有另外四個。晴雯站在屋子中間，兩隻手快快地放在背後，看著床，看著書架，看著那扇小格子的窗，說：「很好。人坐哪兒？」

「你喜歡坐哪兒就坐哪兒，」寶玉說。

「麻煩就在這裡，」晴雯說。「從來沒有人這麼跟我說過。」她沒有說這是不是一句抱怨。

黛玉是最後被問的，想了好久才回答。她不是會開口要的人。最後是老太太替她說了，那語氣像一個看見一樣東西走了很遠的路才被說出口的人。「瘦綠館，」老太太說。「從省親起，她就一直看著那片竹子。是不是，孩子？」黛玉本來要說她不在意的，卻說了「是」，然後發現自己臉上發燙，很不好意思。

第一天下午，寶釵從瘦綠館旁邊經過，要去第三次看她自己的屋子，在小路上停了下來。黛玉坐在台階上，拿著一本她沒在看的書。

「這裡離南屋最近，」寶釵說。她說得很親切。她說什麼都很親切；要懂她，就得懂這一點。「你去老太太那兒，一百步就到。我數過。我那邊是兩百四十。」

「我要它不是為了這個，」黛玉說。

「是，當然不是。」寶釵笑了，那是一個完全沒有毛病的笑，而且正好持續了需要的那麼久。「不過會很方便。」

她走了以後，黛玉把書攤在膝蓋上坐了一會兒。然後合上，站起來，順著小路走下去，自己去數那些步子。是一百零四。

農莊是唯一沒有人選的地方。它又當了一個月的畫，四隻雞，桌子那麼大的一畦菜，然後李紈被叫了過去。她是太太那位長子的寡婦，二十五歲，在太太院子的一間後房裡住了十一年，領著一份沒有人去想的份，安靜得連沒有人想起她，都成了她做得很好的事之一。十月裡的一個早晨，她穿著素灰，走到農莊，看了看茅草、桑樹、圍欄和菜畦。「這是一幅畫，」她說。「我想住在一幅會長東西的畫裡。」那天下午她就搬了進去。月底以前，那畦菜她已經種了三遍，並且用最抱歉的聲音，要了一把鋤頭。

鳳姐黃昏時過來看園子點燈。她站在水階上，賴管家在她手肘邊，身後是一個拿著火媒的小廝，她看著發給她的那張圖，圖上畫著四十二扇窗，是整整齊齊的小方格，說：「全部。」

「奶奶，」賴管家說。「有四間沒有人。」

「全部。」

「是油，奶奶。為了沒有人。」

「我知道是什麼。」她沒有抬高聲音。「內席說，一座點過燈的房子，不該被留在黑裡。老太太跟我重複過兩次。這句話裡沒有哪一條，是留給那四間沒有人的屋子的。」她把圖還給他。「點上。朝廷要是問起，就說園子在被人住進去的第一個晚上是亮的，沒有人跟我說過不是。」

賴管家記了下來。他是個一絲不苟的人，她說什麼，他都不加評論地記下，像記一條河正在做什麼。在那底下他又寫了另一行，是四盞燈的價錢，她看見他寫，沒有說話，整場談話就是這樣。

於是園子裡的第一個夜晚，成了府裡從來沒有過的夜晚。四十二扇窗全亮了，其中三十八扇後面有人，這比榮府為任何人點過的燈都多得多，整個園子穿過樹，亮得像一盤小錢幣。我掛在那孩子的胸前，走過園子。他說他得去看其他人都安頓好了沒有，這是真的；又說他得去看他的表妹，這是更真的。

她坐在瘦綠館的台階上，在黑裡。裡面的燈是她的丫頭點的，她沒有待在裡面。竹子在她三面圍著，很高，水面吹來一陣小風，它發出的聲音，像許多人在睡夢裡翻身。

「我以為你在裡面，」寶玉說。

「我想聽它，」黛玉說。「我沒想到這麼響。」

他在她旁邊的台階上坐下。他們兩個都十一歲。他很長時間沒有說話，這是他能為她做、而別人都做不到的一件事，她已經開始感激，只是沒有說出口。

「我說，這裡應該用一個有點怕一個人待著、卻又不在意的人來命名，」他終於說。「我父親把它寫在他的袖子上。我沒有說是誰。我不知道你會不會在意。」

「我不在意，」黛玉說。「我有一點怕它。」她想了想怎麼說。「沒有人會給一樣東西起名字，除非他想留住它。真的。名字是一個你得一直跟著走下去的東西。這座府給了我很多東西，每一樣都是從別人的碗裡拿出來的。我數過。這是唯一一樣不是的。」她把臉轉向黑暗。「一個名字不花任何人一分。你懂嗎？這是我得到的所有份裡，唯一一份沒有人必須放棄什麼的。」

他不懂。他十一歲，還沒有人教過他去數一樣東西要花什麼；但他看出她說了一件重要的事，就像他對待別人跟他說的每一件事那樣，很小心地，用兩隻手捧住了。他說：「那我就一直給你起名字。」她笑了一聲，短短的，意外的，像一個得到一枚自己不知道有的額外硬幣的人。「那，」黛玉說，「是很大一份要留的東西。」

我貼在他的胸前，聽見了，什麼也沒說，因為我說不了。可是我想把這件事記下來：九月最後一個晚上，在黑裡，在一級台階上，兩個孩子做了那座府裡唯一一次從來沒有記進冊子的交換，它持續了很多年，只有我一個人數過，而且數出來是平的。

早上，是發例日。

例，在賬房裡唸，像每個月初一那樣，在初冬冷而清的光裡，兩個賬房先生坐在凳子上，空氣裡是燈油和潮紙的味道。這是榮府頭一個有園子在裡頭的發例日。名字長了。多了一行是園子的手，一行是農莊裡的寡婦，還有一行，用小小的、工整的字，寫的是老太太桌上的孩子玲。撥數和以前一樣，一年七千份，會一直一樣，直到冬天的那一次撥款，那是四次裡的第一次，要從裡面把預支的收回去；賴管家早上在走廊裡告訴了她，用的是一個報告天氣的人的聲音。鳳姐唸名字，聲音沒有升高。例唸完了，她說：「月錢，」把手平平放在桌布上。

月錢依位次發，從上面開始，用紅線紮成一串一串。頭一等的領了，第二等的領了。輪到最低的，提水的、掃樓梯的、沒有等的女孩子，她一個人一小把、一句話，跟往常一樣，可是那一小把差了六天。天平卡住了，鳳姐笑著說，剩下的初七補上。這是一件小事。秋天裡也是這麼跟她們說的，那時候它也是一件小事。

平兒看著她說這話。平兒每個月初一，從內席頭一封信以後，都看著她說這話，而且幾個月前就已經沒辦法在這話被說出口的時候，看她的臉。

那個人中午來。他是東門的一個商人，圓圓的、樸素的人，穿著一件好的素外套，賬房見過他很多次，並且說定了從來沒見過。他拿著帽子從側門進來，坐在賬房先生的凳子上，說看到奶奶這麼好，他有多高興。他姓顧。他沒有帶簿子，這是她注意到他的第一件事，也是她能說他的最好的一件事。

「四十串，」鳳姐說。「六天。」

「利息五分，」顧說，很愉快。

「五分。」

「六天，奶奶，很合理。連一天的利潤都不到。錢初七就回來，還多一點。我會很難過，要是想到它有哪一天回不了家的話。」他笑了。「奶奶是京城最穩的一家。誰都看得出來。」

她把四十串給了他。那是她早上沒有發給沒有等的女孩子們的串：四十串，紮著紅線。她當著平兒的面，從抽屜裡一串一串數出來，袖子放下。她的手沒有抖。她是個很好的賬房。

他走了以後，平兒說：「奶奶。」

「這只是一根頭髮，平兒，」鳳姐說，沒有回頭。「六天加一根頭髮。女孩子們初七就會拿到每一串，還有一句話，園子也會有油。」她從抽屜裡拿出一本小簿子，黑色的，是她早上從東市一個文具鋪買來、還沒寫過字的，現在她正快快地在上面寫：四十，顧，六天，五分。「我在名冊上找過園子的油。沒有那一行。我到處都找過了。」筆停住了。「這是我會做的事。」

「是，」平兒說。

「你不用說得好像那是一張賬單。」

「不是，」平兒說。「我是說是。」

初七它回來了，帶著它的兩串。它總是回來的。沒有等的女孩子們全額領到了，每人一句話，說了謝謝，也是真心的，因為只是六天，六天不算什麼。那兩串買了油，給那些沒有人替它們付的院子，那幾乎是全部的院子，夠用大約一個星期。鳳姐那天下午自己去買，向一個沒有問她名字的人。到下個月她還要更多。她沒有說，平兒也沒有說。

我說這件事，沒有氣。我曾經躺在一座山腳下，沒有被記進任何地方，我知道哪裡沒有你的那一行是什麼滋味，所以我沒辦法怪一個替自己造了一行的女人。我只註明：在園子頭一年的十月初一，榮府的抽屜裡，有了一本九月裡沒有的小黑簿，是一個女人的筆跡，而它不出現在任何一份名冊上。

那天晚上整個園子又亮了，連那四扇空窗子也是。水階邊的燈籠在燒，山上有瘦綠館的燈，東院有一盞小小亮亮的，是晴雯硬要的，儘管沒有人要她點。從街上，越過那道牆原來所在的地方，看起來像一艘為婚禮點亮的船，還沒有人告訴它要往哪裡去。

寧府在那地方的另一邊，燒了四十九天的那盞燈已經滅了，門口那對石獅子，據說吃得更好，站在黑裡，園子的光在牠們的側腹上移動，隨風吹著燈籠，上上下下，像在呼吸。我想，掛在一個孩子的胸前，在一座亮著的房子的台階上：這是最好的一年。我確確實實是這樣想的，並且像人在失去一樣東西的那一瞬間知道它那樣知道它。這是園子的第一年。這是舊算術的最後一年。我在這裡記下，它是最好的。

## 第12章 · 頭一個冬天

朝廷的通知在十月的最後一天到，像朝廷的通知一貫的樣子：一張手掌大的灰色紙條，對折一次。沒有問候。朝廷不問候；它通知，把感覺留給府裡去配。

賴管家親自送到賬房。他本可以差個小廝，卻沒有。鳳姐看見他站在門口，兩手捧著那張紙條，像捧著一塊燙的東西，不用讀一個字，就知道上面是什麼了。

「榮府自十一月初一起的撥數，」她念出聲，「為一年四千七百五十份，即七千份，減去為省親所預支之數的四次收回中的第一次，二千二百五十份。官倉按月送。」她把紙翻過來，看背面有沒有東西。從來沒有。「一個月五百八十三，」她說。「三百九十六。」

「差一百八十七，奶奶，」賴管家說，他來之前就已經算過了。

「我會減，賴管家。」

「例在秋天以前不能改，」他說得很難受。那是規矩，而他守規矩，像站在崖邊的人抓著一根繩子。「春天定下，只有秋天唸例的時候才能變。名冊上的每一個人，在那以前，名冊寫了多少就欠他多少。府裡要是被人看見少給了其中任何一個人一根頭髮，就是違例，朝廷的巡視下一趟信使就會聽到。」

「那就不改，」鳳姐說。「初一唸例，原樣唸。」

「那一百八十七呢？」

「是我的。」

他走了以後，平兒從屏風後面走出來，那是她做她最好的事的地方。「該告訴老太太，」她說。

「是。」

「她會想知道的。」

「她會想給，」鳳姐說。「這不是一回事。她會一直給到體己裡什麼也不剩，而且給得很和氣，我就只能站在旁邊把它記上。」她把紙條折小，又折得更小。「這個冬天不行。」

頭六十份，她用的是它們一向被找到的方式，攤：每隻碗上一根頭髮，每條下襬上一根線，這不違例，因為從來沒有人能證明。再五十份，她在園子的廚房裡找到，讓園子的手，原來吃兩口鍋的，改吃一口鍋。剩下的七十七份得到東市去買，用錢，而錢不在任何人的抽屜裡。它只能從上個月來的地方來。這幾個星期她肋骨下面有一點痛，她以為是爬樓梯。

於是十一月初一，例唸給賬房先生聽，跟春天唸的一模一樣，一個名字一個名字、一隻碗一隻碗，聲音不抬高，房間裡沒有人聽到除了例以外的任何東西。月錢跟著發。最低的女孩子領了她們的一小把和一句話，被告知天平卡住了，剩下的初九補上。上個月是初七。沒有人對那兩天說什麼。從來沒有人說，這正是它們那麼便宜就能拿走的緣故。

那些女孩子裡有一個提水的，十二歲，叫小紅，臉窄窄的、很機靈，左腳的鞋有個洞，母親在洗衣房。她領了她的一小把和一句話。奶奶說她提的水桶在北邊樓梯上比誰的都提得直，這是真的，她以前也聽過，卻仍然因此站得高了一點。在走廊裡，她低聲對旁邊的女孩說：「上個月是初七。」

「才兩天，」那一個說。

「對，」小紅說。她一路小聲數到北邊樓梯，數的不是天數。她十二歲，還沒有找到那個詞。她找到的只是形狀。

錢從側門送給顧，還有另外兩個賬房也同樣說定了從來沒見過的人，一個綢緞商和一個賣米的。這回送出去九天，不是六天，而且像往常一樣帶著牠的小尾巴回來，尾巴去了東市，回家時變成了米。小黑簿的第二頁上現在有三個名字。平兒忍不住倒著看，數了數，什麼也沒說，並且開始為每一個沒有等的女孩記著，她被欠了什麼、從什麼時候起。沒有人要她這麼做。那是那筆債唯一不屬於鳳姐的紀錄。

初三，李紈自己來了賬房，穿著素灰，兩手捧著一個蓋著的小籃，像捧著什麼會灑出來的東西。她從來沒來過賬房。她在門口站著，等人請她進去。

「我想賬房應該得第一個，」她說，掀開了籃子。裡面有兩個蛋，小小的、褐色的，墊在稻草上。「四隻雞，到現在才下。我不知道該說它們記在哪裡。」

鳳姐看著那兩個蛋。她花了三天裡的大半時間，看著蓋了朝廷灰戳的數字，有一刻，她想不起一對蛋在她的賬裡算什麼。「記在哪裡？」她說。「平兒，記在哪裡？」

「我找過了，奶奶，」李紈用她最抱歉的聲音說。「我想沒有那一行。」

鳳姐笑了起來。那不是她在賬房裡的那種笑，快的、亮的、讓女孩覺得被看見的笑。那是更低的一種，嚇了她自己一跳，她用手摀住了嘴。平兒在角落的火盆上煮了蛋，兩個人一人一個，站著，用紙包的一撮鹽，吃在朝廷的灰紙條中間。那是那一年頭一樣從無處進到府裡的東西，沒有人必須為它放棄什麼，也沒有任何名冊算過；而鳳姐，從早上起什麼也沒吃，覺得那是她嚐過最好的東西。

「去跟那些雞說，」她吃完以後說，「賬房領情了。」

東院的粥，在第四天的早上，比以前稀。沒有人說。襲人像往常一樣平均而仔細地吃她的，寶玉，什麼端上來就吃什麼、一邊想著別的事，吃他的；可是晴雯吃了三口就放下了湯匙，像看一個池塘那樣看著碗裡。

「米是一樣的，」她說。「是水變了。」

「是冷，」襲人說。「廚房遠。」

「不是冷。他們在攤。」晴雯站起來，快、亮、壞脾氣，兩隻手已經動了起來。「我去問二奶奶為什麼。」

「坐下，」襲人說。

她說得很溫和。她說什麼都很溫和；就是那溫和讓它站得住。「你問她，她就得回答。她不會告訴你實話，因為實話不是她能說的，那她就得告訴你別的，然後她就成了在自己的賬房裡對我們撒過謊的人。」她繼續吃。「整座府都握在她兩隻手裡。我想，逼她說出手裡是什麼，不厚道。」

晴雯站了一會兒。「你對誰都通融，」她終於說。

「總得有人通融她，」襲人說。「她通融我們。」

晴雯坐下了。她把粥吃完，一粒不剩，眼神像在挑戰它還能不能更稀；寶玉，把這些都聽見了、懂了一半，繼續攪他自己的碗，想了很久「通融」這個詞，他一直以為那是給出去的東西，現在看見它也可以給回來。

頭一場重霜在初九。夜裡它在園子上鋪了一層白，竹子上、木瓜樹上、屋頂上，早上整個地方看起來像一幅畫在紙上、還沒上墨的畫。寶玉在這種天氣會早起，因為那是唯一完全清楚的一種早晨，他在還沒有人告訴他可以吃什麼之前，就過到瘦綠館去了。我跟著他。

開門的是紫鵑，黛玉的丫頭，一個矮小樸素、神情焦慮的女孩，她說姑娘起來了，不能累著，請他別待久。裡面，黛玉坐在火盆邊，穿著兩件襖，膝上一本書。火盆有一顆薄薄的紅心，不比一枚錢大。旁邊一隻炭簍，幾乎空了。

「很暖和，」黛玉在他開口以前就說。

他看著火盆，看著炭簍，看著紫鵑，紫鵑看著地。作為老太太份上的客人，依位次，一個星期欠她一簍炭。冷的一星期裡，一簍大約燒四天。黛玉對著袖子咳了一聲，一次，小小的、乾的聲音，像翻過一頁紙。「它跟著霜來，」她說。「不要緊。」

「我把我的送過來，」寶玉說。「我有兩簍，我從來不冷。」

「這是你說的唯一一句不是真的話，」黛玉說。「然後你會冷，而我就得知道你冷、還暖和著。那比冷還糟。」她看著他，有一會兒，她的臉做了它不常做的事，那就是求什麼。「別。拜託。讓它是它原來的樣子。」

他沒有送他的炭。他在門口站了一會兒，兩手插在袖子裡，十一歲，然後說他想起一件事，就走了出去，穿過白色的園子，快得遠超過走路，到南屋去。

老太太在窗邊，拿著那枝梅，上面已經有幾個花苞，鴛鴦在她手肘邊拿著當天的條子。「我被叫來告訴你一件事，」寶玉說，其實沒有人叫他。「黛玉的火盆冷了。」

她沒有問他是什麼意思。她當老太太已經很久了。「她說的？」

「她說很暖和。」

「對，」老太太說。「就是這樣才知道。」她把梅枝放下。「鴛鴦。給瘦綠館送一簍。兩簍。園子裡每一間有人的屋子也一樣，從我的份上出，不要記在她名下。」

「三十八間嗎，老太太？」

「三十八間。空的不用。空的屋子有它們的燈。」她說得很乾；她聽說過那四盞燈。「告訴鳳丫頭我辦了，免得她記錯地方。」

鴛鴦記了下來。老太太伸出她老老的手指，把那塊玉從孩子的胸前拿起來，對著光轉了轉，像一個女人轉著一枚還沒決定要不要花的錢。「是暖的，」她說。「它總是暖的。這是這座府裡唯一一樣不用誰的火養的東西。」她讓它落回他身上。「去吃點東西。別拿去給別人。」

他走了以後，老太太把手平放在窗臺上，坐了一會兒。

「粥從初一就稀了，」她說。「鳳丫頭沒有說為什麼。」

「要我去查嗎，老太太？」

「不用。」她又拿起梅枝，看著上面的花苞。「她在通融我，鴛鴦。我通融了五十年，知道從另一頭看是什麼樣子。讓她以為我沒看見。」

這道單子黃昏到了賬房，是鴛鴦的字，寫在老太太自己的紙上，那紙是淡茶的顏色。三十八簍炭，給每一間有人的屋子再添一簍，出自老太太的體己。鳳姐站著讀完。她不用算；她已經算了五個星期，停不下來。一簍炭是小事。三十八簍，在一個還沒開始的冬天，是小事乘一個大數，而老太太的體己，是這座府真正有過的唯一的儲備。

「你沒告訴她，」平兒說。「她還是給了。」

「她就是這樣。」鳳姐把紙放在黑簿子上，簿子翻在第二頁，老太太小心的字就壓在顧的名字上。「我以為我能瞞住她這筆花費。我攔不住她。看來這兩件事不一樣。」她安靜了一會兒。「一個孩子說了一句實話，這府裡最老的儲備就進了火爐。而例上沒有一行，讓我能把它寫下來。」

「四個冬天，」平兒說。

「四個冬天，」鳳姐說。「這是頭一個。」

外面，霜又落了下來。園子裡三十八盆火，比前一天燒得亮一點，在三十八間屋子裡，每一個都有它小小的紅心；在瘦綠館，一個說過很暖和的女孩，坐著，雙腳向著一個有人沒告訴她就生起來的火。她沒有問是誰的。她很感激，並且把它數了。

## 第13章 · 社

公告在十一日貼出，園子裡每一扇門上同時貼，字又小又方，像刻印的。探春寫了四十遍，寫在舊習字紙的背面，因為新紙是例上的一行，舊紙是沒有人的。

上面寫著：

「園子有四十二扇窗，其中三十八扇後面有人，下午沒有事做。我提議辦一個社。每逢十日中的第三天，在農莊聚會，由李紈允許。不收會費。沒有位次：誰來，哪裡有空就坐哪裡。只有一條規矩，就是社裡說的任何話，事後都不欠任何人。探春。」

寶玉在她院子的台階上問她，為什麼是那一條，不是別的。「因為這座府裡每樣東西都是欠著的，」探春說。「我想看看一個房間能不欠多久。」她說得像另一個人說她要試一試一根繩子。「你不許告訴父親這是個社。這只是一個下午。」

迎春在門口把公告讀了兩遍，書夾在腋下，告訴她的丫頭，要是沒有人在意，她就去。她的丫頭說沒有人會在意。迎春說這正是她怕的，又讀了第三遍，好像那條規矩可能已經變了。

寶釵只讀了一遍，眼睛一如往常，落到加法的最底下。紙，墨，茶；一個爐子；幾個下午。加起來幾乎是零，這正是讓她不安的地方。一樣幾乎不花錢的東西，是沒法付的，而一樣沒法付的東西，她不知道該怎麼站在裡面。她把公告折小，收進袖子，有人看見她笑了，沒有人問她笑什麼。

黛玉站在瘦綠館的台階上，穿著兩件襖，讀最後一行，讀完後站了很久。事後都不欠任何人。她用一年學會了每樣東西要花多少、精確到半克，這時她把那一行舉到早晨的光裡，像舉一枚來自一個她聽說過、從沒見過的國度的錢。

在東院，晴雯從襲人的肩頭上讀公告。「誰來，」她說。「上面寫的是誰來。」

「意思是哪位姑娘來，」襲人說。

「上面沒寫這個。上面寫的是沒有位次。」晴雯的兩隻手已經動了起來。「我倒想看看，照字面讀會怎樣。」

寶玉根本沒有讀。中午他就到了農莊門口，問李紈他可不可以第一個來。

頭一次聚會在十三日，下雪。雪從夜裡開始下的，又細又乾，到下午，園子像一張白布蓋在自己的形狀上，農莊的水車停了，邊上一圈冰。李紈用她自己的柴生了茅屋裡的爐子，那柴是她十月裡自己用一把小鋸子、帶著一臉抱歉劈的，爐灰裡埋了栗子，是從園子的樹上撿的，那些樹給了它們給的，沒有人想過要為它們立一行。她把地掃了兩遍。她練習過女主人該說什麼，發現自己不會，就決定只說她希望大家別介意那些雞。

他們一個一個走過白色的地面，袖子蓋著手，像走向一個沒有人告訴過他們可以去的地方。

椅子不夠。有一張床、一條長凳、一張桌子、兩個凳子，和一把跟著茅屋一起來的椅子，沒有人想過該拿這件事怎麼辦。誰坐哪裡，是任何一座府的第一個問題，而這座府已經訓練過他們每一個，在進房間以前就先回答它。寶釵沒等人請就拿了一個凳子，這是她拿任何東西的方式。那把椅子留空在爐子邊上，大家都看著它，像人看著一道端到還沒到的人面前的菜。

「坐吧，迎春，」探春說，她不等這種事。「你是老大。」

迎春坐在長凳上。「我寧可不坐椅子，」她說，「要是沒有人要我坐的話。」探春看了她一會兒，表情不是不友善，說：「那就是李紈的。」李紈用最甜的聲音說那是個雞箱，在爐子邊的地上坐下，火鉗橫在膝蓋上，這樣她夠得到爐灰。椅子仍然空著，火在它的一側。

寶玉脫了靴子坐在床上。黛玉坐在床的另一頭，因為那裡暖，而且一個月來頭一次沒說它很暖。

「第一件事是題目，」探春說。「我想到一個。是這個：一樣給過你、沒有人記上去的東西。」她說得像一個熬了半夜算一個數字的人。「不是你該得的。是給過你的。要是在名冊上，就不算。」

「要寫成詩嗎？」迎春說。

「你能做成什麼就是什麼。要短，因為只有一個爐子。」

他們寫在習字紙的背面，筆在房間裡從一隻手傳到另一隻手。很安靜。爐子滴答響；一顆栗子在灰裡裂開，輕輕嘆了一聲；外面雪繼續下，可以聽見，就像雪能被人聽見的那樣，是一種留神。

寶玉頭一個寫完，大聲念出來，因為沒有人叫他不要。

竹子不問風，／這要花什麼。／它翻過身，又翻過身，／我很高興有它。

「這首好，」李紈從地上和氣地說。「很老實。」寶玉本來就有心想高興，就高興了。

寶釵的整整齊齊，像鋪好的床。她低著眼睛念。

台階邊芸香，牆根邊百里香，／一隻小心的手修得齊平。／我說不出我得到過什麼。／我一直很小心地還回去。

最後一行傳進房間，留在那裡，因為它說出的真，比它想說的多了一點。「很好，」探春說。她說得很小心，像捧著什麼。黛玉看著爐子。

迎春被問到時，說她只寫了兩行。

別人剩下的，都給了我。／我發現，那是夠的。

探春把筆放下。「不夠，」她說。「是有人告訴你夠的。」

「是，」迎春說。她看著自己的手。「我知道。」

那以後有一會兒沒有人說話。然後栗子從灰裡耙出來，又熱又黑又甜，一顆燙穿了一隻袖子，有人笑了，在那座府裡，那一年，笑是一件要小心地發生的事。

就在這時晴雯進來了。她已經在門外站了好幾分鐘，在雪裡，兩手抱著自己，對著誰也不是地快、亮、壞脾氣，這會兒她走進來，好像剛剛才到。她在門裡面站住。襲人是追著她來要把她拉回去的，停在門檻上，用手摀住了嘴。

「上面寫的是誰來，」晴雯對著房間說。

沒有人動。那是一種沉默，一座府在裡面發現自己是什麼。寶釵的臉完全平了。迎春看著地。而探春，寫了那條規矩、現在看著它做了什麼的人，說：「是。哪裡有空就坐哪裡。」

晴雯環顧四周。長凳坐滿了，床坐滿了，兩個凳子，地上坐著一個寡婦。只剩一把空椅子，火在它的一邊，房間裡每個人都知道它的意思，沒有一個人碰過它。晴雯走過農舍的地，坐了下去，兩腳朝著爐子，接過伸給她的筆，在說這句話的時間裡寫了一首詩。

沒有人告訴我坐哪兒。／我自己選了。／這是我得到過的／最糟的一樣東西。

「這，」李紈從地上說，「是今天下午最老實的一首。」晴雯皺著眉，高興極了。她坐在椅子裡直到天暗，兩腳向著火，那是她一生最好的一個下午。多年以後，在另一個房間，有人問起她這件事，問的人聽說有個丫頭坐過一把椅子；她當時說的話，留給以後的一頁。

黛玉最後一個。她沒有大聲念；她把紙交給李紈，李紈兩手捧了一會兒，然後，因為那女孩看著地，就用自己平淡的聲音念出來。

我說它暖。／它不暖。／有一個我沒有問的人／把它弄暖了，／我沒有說謝謝，／我想這樣才對。

沒有人問她是誰。他們都是一座會數的府的孩子，他們會數。九月裡有一個早晨，三十八間屋子每一間都送來一簍炭，哪裡也沒有記，一個月了，他們誰也沒說過。探春，會加的人，有一會兒什麼也沒寫。

惜春九歲，沒有寫。她拿著一枝粉筆在拳頭裡，很晚才進來，找到桌上被擦洗得發白的一塊，在上面畫：園子，黃昏，從山上，像從大門口看見的樣子。三十八扇窗裡有一點黃。四扇沒有，可是她把它們畫成亮的。

「這四間沒有人，」探春看著說。

「對，」惜春說。「我知道。我還是把它們畫亮了。」她歪著頭想了想，她就是這樣，說話像對著粉筆。「應該有人在裡面。我想，要是我把光畫出來，也許有人會來。」

沒有人說話。過了一會兒李紈往爐子裡又添了一根柴，雖然已經夠熱了，這樣她的臉就有事可做。

「沒有獎，」探春最後說。「獎要從某個人的份上出。我想過了。可是我想把它們留下來。」

「可以掛在農莊的牆上，」李紈說。「它是一幅畫。畫裡有畫也無妨。」

於是它們被釘了起來，沒有署名，一排，在門和窗之間茅草垂下來的地方：五張舊習字紙，和第六張，探春把它的正面朝牆掛著，沒有人去翻，還有一張畫著粉筆畫的桌子。它們沒有被抄。那是規矩，不許抄。那個房間裡的任何東西都不進冊子、不上名冊；做出來，念過，留在牆上，它花的是一點紙和一個下午，園子裡沒有一個人因此薄了一根線。

那年冬天，這是府裡唯一一個沒有任何東西從任何人的份上移走的地方。我在床上，在那孩子的胸前，我記下它。我在那座府裡聽過很多話，從沒聽過有人能說出這句話、並且是認真的。

他們在白色裡一兩個一兩個出去，袖子放下，探春留下來取下那些紙，再釘直，因為她不能留一件歪的東西。在門邊的架子上她看見一個扁扁的包，不是她放的。是一刀好紙，厚的奶白色那種，用素灰色的繩紮著，最上面一張的角上壓著一個小小的暗印，她認得：一根繩上三枚錢，薛家商號的記號。

她捧著它站了一會兒。然後走到門口。寶釵沒走遠；她在小路的轉彎處，穿著白襖，帶著丫頭，探春叫她的時候，她轉過身，臉上是她被人叫住時用的那一張。

「你落下了東西，」探春說。

「我沒有，」寶釵說。

「上面有你家的記號。」

「那就是有人弄錯了，」寶釵愉快地說。

她們在白色的小路上對看。只是幾步路和一刀紙的事，她們兩個都不是會把這種事看得很重的人。「那我就拿來寫下一張公告，」探春說，「既然它是沒有人的。」寶釵說那太對了；整件事在十幾個字裡了結，並且再也沒有被提起。那是一個完全沒有毛病的通融，是她們兩個互相做的，安靜到她們誰也說不出是誰做的。

黛玉，一直站在茅草屋簷的背風處，兩手插在袖子裡，全都看見了。她什麼也沒說。她帶著她的咳嗽，穿過雪回到瘦綠館，在自己的一張紙上，為了沒有誰，寫了四個字，折小，放進她沒在看的那本書裡：她付她的。

## 第14章 · 螃蟹

秋天唸例的時候，例被改了，是七年來頭一次。規矩許可這麼做，朝廷的巡視官初一就來看它辦得如何，坐在賬房的角落，帽子擱在膝上，聽每一等依序失去它的頭髮：頭一等一根，第二等兩根，最低的一綹。在一座每一隻碗都已經被攤過的府裡，這對碗沒有多大差別，對紙卻差別很大。沒有人抬頭。最後一等唸完，他點了點頭，因為朝廷喜歡看見一件事辦得妥當，就去吃他的飯了。那天晚上，鳳姐在黑簿子上寫下日期，標題是她以前沒用過的，只有一個字：減。

湘雲在九月第二個星期到，坐一輛普通的車，園子感覺到她來，像一座房子感覺到天氣。她十三歲，史家的人，老太太的姪孫女：一個高個子、大嗓門的女孩，笑起來像摔了托盤，說話快得句子的結尾先到、中間還沒到。她抱了老太太，喝了三碗粥，用一個只有她用的名字叫寶玉，然後被帶到南院，寶釵早在任何人想到要問以前，就多鋪了一張床。

頭一頓晚飯，她放下湯匙，看著碗裡。「這裡也是稀的嗎？」她興致勃勃地說。「在家我還以為只有我們家。」

桌上安靜了一口氣的工夫。「是節令，孩子，」老太太說，她說節令的方式，像蓋上蓋子，把一個話題關起來。「哦，」湘雲說，繼續吃。那個秋天，她是府裡唯一把這件事大聲說出來的人，而她說的像說一則新聞，所以這不是任何人的錯。

她是以老太太份上客人的身分住在園子裡，靠攤加上去，每年秋天一個月，她精確地知道那是多少天。一年剩下的時間，她住在叔母家，那一家的敕跟榮府一樣薄下去，卻沒有一個老太太來補。在那裡她是，如那句話說的，靠她的活被養著：替一家人修補細緻的東西，夜裡，點著蠟燭，用的是補房本來會給她的時辰，要是那一家有時辰可給。她左手食指上有一圈小小的紅針眼，右袖口磨穿了、補了，又磨穿了。她笑著說。「我欠他們飯錢，」她說。「這很公平。」

寶釵頭一晚就看見了那根手指。她什麼也沒說。她說得那麼巧，連她的丫頭鶯兒，跟了她六年，也花了一會兒才看出那裡說過什麼。

那個社到那時已經聚過九次。農莊的牆上有四十幾張紙，沒有署名，旁邊是粉筆畫的桌子，茅草被雪弄進水的地方補好了。那把空椅子仍然立在爐子邊，誰來得晚又夠大膽就坐，多半是晴雯，有一次，令人難忘的，是寶玉的老奶媽。湘雲十三日去參加她的第一次聚會，站著把牆上每一張都讀了，嘴微微張著。

「可是它們是誰的？」她說。

「沒有人的，」探春說。「這是規矩。」

「這是我聽過最好的規矩，」湘雲說，然後坐進那把椅子裡，很自然，因為她是客人、不懂；房間讓她坐了。

最後，紙在傳的時候，她端著杯子站起來。「我想辦一場聚會，」她說。「下一次。螃蟹。」

每個人都看著她。

「做東不在規矩裡，」探春小心地說。

「在我的規矩裡。我這輩子從來沒辦過聚會。我去過十一次。」湘雲的臉在發光。「我這個月的月錢，整整一串。我會辦得很像樣。」

一串錢，在秋天，大約買得到四隻螃蟹。沒有人說。李紈看著爐子，迎春看著自己的手，探春看著天花板；而寶釵，擅長算數也擅長沉默的人，說她覺得這主意真好，她來幫忙籌畫，因為湘雲住在她院子裡，不然只會礙事。

那天夜裡，在南院，兩張床中間一支蠟燭，寶釵把它寫在她自己一張紙的背面，用她工整、合理的字，像寫一件已經定了的事。「四十隻螃蟹，就算四十，給社和老太太。我們鋪子有一船來晚了、趕不上市的。現在是好的。三天後就不是了。誰願意用一串錢把它們收走，我們感激都來不及，還高興。」

湘雲披著頭髮在床上坐起來。「一串錢買四十隻？」

「三天後它們就壞了，」寶釵說。「與其倒進河裡，不如有人吃。這跟賣是一樣的。其實更好；我們還得了那一串。」

「這對你們鋪子不公平。」

「很公平。明天一文不值的東西，今天值一串。」她說的是她家那一行的聲音，那是個好聲音，每個字都是真的，整件事只是在安排上是個謊。鶯兒在角落裡灌水壺，停住了，背對著她們。螃蟹是新鮮的。還能新鮮十天。它們花了鋪子十一串錢，而寶釵已經把其中十串記在她自己的小簿子裡，記在她名下。

湘雲看著蠟燭。「我不喜歡被給東西，」她說。

「你沒有被給。你是在買。」

「用一串錢。」

「用一串錢和一個時辰。」寶釵說得很輕，像事後想起來。「你在客人份上有一個補房的時辰，你從來沒用過；你壯得像匹馬。一串錢抵螃蟹，一個時辰抵運費。不是兩邊都出了點東西，買賣就不算成。這是我父親教我們的第一件事。」

湘雲笑了，把頭髮往後撥。「你這買賣真狠，寶釵。」

「我是商人的女兒。」

這是一筆很好的買賣，剛好一樣多，完全是假的，而湘雲在它裡面睡著了，像睡在暖和的床裡。寶釵躺了很久沒睡。她把一份禮物做成了買賣，這樣它才能被收下，而她打算再把這買賣做回禮物，這樣它才能傳下去。這是她常做、從不提的事，這就是為什麼那座府裡有那麼多人，比他們以為的更暖。

聚會在二十三日，在水上的亭子裡，池塘上蓋滿落葉，農莊的菊花擺在欄杆上。菊花是李紈種的，是農莊頭一樣只用來看的東西，她事先就為它們道過歉。老太太坐著椅子被擡出來，膝上蓋著毯子。螃蟹從園子的廚房，一堆一堆冒著氣送上來，擺在綠盤子裡，紅得像漆，配著醋、薑和熱黃酒，亭子裡有秋天和錢的味道。

螃蟹是依位次吃的，像所有東西一樣，府裡不用人教就知道次序：老太太兩隻，年輕的一人一隻，丫頭們站在亭子的台階下，那裡擺了第二張較小的桌子，兩個人分一隻。蟹殼順著台階下來，依大小排，像世代。聚會有三十一個人，螃蟹四十隻。湘雲不會數，也不想被人看見她在數，說這個數剛剛好。寶釵會數，說鋪子又送了九隻來，附上問候，因為一船是數不到每一隻的；那九隻從後樓梯下去，到廚房，給燒水的女孩們，提水的小紅在角落裡吃她那隻，數著牠的腿。

鳳姐來晚了，像一個別處也需要她的人那樣，而且精彩極了。她坐在老太太手肘邊，用一根小小的銀針替她剝蟹，講了一個管事和一隻鵝的故事，把老人家逗得笑到要放下杯子。她自己什麼也沒吃。她說她在廚房吃過了。有一次，她以為桌上的人都在看螃蟹，把手掌根壓在側腹、肋骨下面，又拿開。平兒在廚房站在她旁邊，沒有說她沒吃。

黛玉不許吃蟹。醫生禁止，說是寒。她坐在桌子末端，拿著一杯熱薑茶，寶玉坐在她旁邊剝自己的那隻，趁沒人看，把最甜的肉放進她的碟子。她慢慢吃了一口，把杯子放下。「很好，」她說。「不是給我的。」

湘雲端著一盤繞著桌子走，紅到耳根，給每個人都超過他們想要的。「一串錢，」她對黛玉說。「四十隻螃蟹一串錢。寶釵說三天後就壞了。」

「那你們一定有個很和氣的鋪子，」黛玉說。

「哦，商人不和氣，」湘雲高興地說。「他們公平。」

黛玉看著她的茶。桌子那頭，寶釵正用銀針挑一節蟹腿，沒有抬頭。

事後，因為總是有詩，湘雲站著寫她的，另一隻手還拿著蟹針，用的是吃一條腿的時間。

我辦了聚會，我辦了聚會！／螃蟹是紅的，池塘是金的。／沒有人欠我，我不欠誰，／我想，這就是有錢的意思。

寶釵從她肩後讀了，說很好，聲音平得連對面坐著的探春都放下了杯子。

盤子撤下以後，老太太兩手放在膝上坐了一會兒，看著池塘。「螃蟹很好，」她終於說。「你要告訴你叔母，你買到什麼價。」

「我會！」湘雲說。

老太太沒再說什麼。她拿起她得到的第二隻蟹，一口沒動，一句話不說，放到寶釵的盤子上。寶釵看著它。有那麼一口氣的工夫，她的笑晚了；它來了，像它一向來的那樣，毫無瑕疵，可是晚了，而老太太，在那座府裡什麼都留意了五十年，連這個也留意到了，把臉轉向了水。

第二天早上，那個時辰在補房的櫃檯上簽讓出去，用湘雲又大又圓的字，寫在一張條子上。寶釵沒有留著。她讓鶯兒摺小了交給平兒，空白處有一行，說這是給北邊樓梯那個提水的，來自一個不想具名的人。平兒一直記著那孩子被欠了什麼、從什麼時候起，讀了兩遍，放進袖子，一個月來頭一次，帶著一筆朝另一個方向去的債。

小紅第三天去。她從來沒進過補房。那是一間長長的暖和的房間，兩頭各有一盞燈，牆邊是長凳，府裡的身體在這裡一次一掌寬地被照料，由灰衣的、手很大又安靜的補匠；頭一等每週來，第二等每兩週來，提水的女孩完全不來。她坐在凳子邊上，兩腳併著，讓左腳鞋上的洞不要露出來，不知道手該放哪裡。

接她的補匠是個六十歲的寬身子女人，臉像麵包。她把拇指放在女孩肩上，然後停住了。「你幾歲？」她說。

「十二。」

「這是三十歲女人的肩膀，」補匠說。她說得很溫和，像在唸賬單上寫的。「誰一直在扛什麼？」

小紅沒有回答。拇指開始慢慢地、準確地順著她脖子的筋往下走，她動也不動地坐著，眼睛看著燈，過了一會兒，她的臉做了她在走廊上不許它做的事，補匠，見過一萬次了，看向了牆。

「這個時辰是誰付的？」補匠在最後問。

「沒有人告訴我。」

「那就是有人很小心了，」補匠說，在她的簿子上寫了點什麼。

小紅走進走廊，肩膀比先前低了一掌，她把那個時辰數到分，沙漏漏完的時候，把它加到她正在數的別的東西上。她還不知道那筆總數是做什麼用的。它花了一串錢、一個時辰，和十一串錢的螃蟹，和遠方一個鎮上一個商人的利潤那一點點下降；而它的結果，在一個遠遠的房間裡，是一個十二歲的女孩肩膀鬆開了。寶釵從來沒看見。那正是這件事的要點。

## 第15章 · 劉姥姥

劉姥姥在十月第二個星期到，走到後門，一隻手牽著六歲的孫子，背上一個像綿羊那麼大的籃子。

她是沒有敕的人，住在河的那一岸，離那些府很遠，彼此養著，不用簿子。他們沒有例，沒有月錢，沒有補房；補匠在青黃不接的月份過河去，輪流被餵，一家一天，事後誰也說不出是誰餵了誰。她七十一歲。小小的、寬寬的，棕得像一個麵包，臉上每一條皺紋像是不同的笑話刻上去的，她來到她有生以來站在面前最大的一座府的門口，那種樣子像一個已經決定了會被人笑、而且已經給這件事估了價的女人。

守門的問她來做什麼。「我來見二奶奶，」劉姥姥說，「她是我表姪的表姪，往回追得夠遠的話，要追多遠我可以告訴你，只要你有一個鐘頭。」他沒有一個鐘頭。他差人叫平兒，平兒沿著小巷下來，袖子捲起，臉上刻意空著，看著老太婆，恰好看了那麼久，夠看出她身上沒有一樣東西打算要什麼它叫不出名字的東西。

「她在賬房，」平兒說。「這邊走。小心台階。台階很多。」

「我數過了，」劉姥姥說。「光是門口就四十一級。我丈夫死後就沒上過樓梯了，我打算一級一級都享受。」

賬房裡，鳳姐在長桌邊，手底下一張灰色的朝廷條子，她抬起頭來，臉上是她對需要討好的人用的那一張，然後發現不需要。她五點就醒了。她肋骨底下有一陣痛，來了又去，她剛剛在那個早上第二次算了那個加起來一百八十七的數，發現它沒有小一點。這會兒是一個穿褐色外套的老太太，一身柴煙和稻草的味道，把一隻籃子放在地上，像放一個蛋。

「曬乾的葫蘆，」劉姥姥說，「還有一個南瓜，和一些小甜瓜，不算什麼，可是是我們的。還有春天一隻鵝，我現在還沒有。」她想了想。「我回來的時候就有了。」

「坐，」鳳姐說，發現自己出乎意料地是真心的。

這筆債是很老的一筆，沒有一邊的府記過。四十個冬天以前，一個荒年，鳳姐的祖父把劉姥姥丈夫的母親，留在他自己府裡的後廚房過了一場霜，那時她自己的村子養不了；因為沒寫下來，所以從來沒有算過；因為從來沒有算過，所以哪一邊都結不了。它在沒有敕的鄉下，像一種低低的暖，坐了四十年。劉姥姥說這件事，一次也沒說她被欠，鳳姐就是從這裡知道有多少的。

「河淹了我們兩塊田，」她說。「另一塊歸了我女婿的哥哥，他是個好人，不會算。我們會吃的。到春天會瘦。我想：我去看看，在我聽說過最大的一座府裡，是不是還有一個人，還是個人。結果你在這裡。」

鳳姐笑了。又是那種低的笑，意外的那種。她打開抽屜，拿出三十串，用紅線紮著，在老太婆面前的桌上一串一串數出來，排成一行，平兒看見紅線，看著桌子，沒有抬頭。那是同一種線。那房間送出去的每一份月錢都是那種線，還有去年十月從側門送給顧的那四十串。鳳姐知道那些是誰的串。她說：「這是給你過冬的。」她說得像一件簡單的事實，它也是。

劉姥姥數。她的嘴唇動著；她不識字，可她數得精確到一粒。她把五串推回桌子對面。

「太多了，」她說。

「是三十。」

「我們村子欠得起的是二十五。再多五串，就是脖子上一塊石頭。」她說得很和氣，像糾正孩子握筆的方式。「一樣你春天還不起的東西，奶奶，不是禮物，是抵押。我拿二十五，和那隻鵝，春天用雞蛋補到那個價，然後就結清了，我們就能像體面人那樣互相喜歡。」

鳳姐看著那五串。她在那房間裡這麼多年，從沒有一個人把錢從那張桌子對面推回來過。她被給過很多，也全收了；她借出過很多，也被道過謝。她不知道手該放哪裡。

「平兒，」她終於說。「收起來。」

內室傳來一聲小小的哭。平兒進去，抱著一個孩子出來，一歲多一點的女孩，黃襖，臉瘦瘦的、愛鬧，一頭黑髮很多。這是巧姐，去年七月生的，體重一直沒長起來；而劉姥姥，養過九個孩子、埋了三個，看到嬰兒不先看他的手腕不行，伸出了兩條胳膊。

孫子本來躲在褐外套的褶子裡，這時側著身子走出來，從籃子裡拿出一個小甜葫蘆，一句話不說舉起來。嬰兒用兩個拳頭接過去，不哭了，是那天早上頭一次。「她從秋天起就沒這麼安靜過，」平兒說。

劉姥姥抱著孩子，像抱一隻還沒裝滿的碗。「她輕，」她說。

「醫生說她會長，」鳳姐說。

「醫生沒把她抱在胳膊上。」劉姥姥輕輕換了個姿勢。「她是個好孩子。她只想被放在有人在的地方，沒有人有時間。這不是誰的錯。奶奶，要是這府有一天對她太熱，她可以來。」她停住，看著鳳姐的臉，把剩下的老老實實說完。「我們有一張床。在爐子邊上。我們不寫下來。」

「我想想，」鳳姐說。

她聽著這些字從她嘴裡離開。那是這座府的字，那種客氣的關門的字，她對很多人、為很多理由說過。劉姥姥沒有笑。她聽這座府的話已經聽了整整一個鐘頭，語法已經學會了，像農夫學會天氣。

「不要想，」她說。「這是這座府說從不的方式；我今天早上學到了。要記得。就這樣。你不必做什麼。只要記得有一張床。」

她從外套口袋裡拿出一小包紙，放在鳳姐手裡。是一打紅棗，曬乾的，皺的、深色的。「我自己樹上的，」她說。「一天三顆。奶奶你臉是米湯的顏色。別告訴醫生，他會收錢。」

那天晚上，鳳姐在賬房裡吃了三顆，黑簿子攤在手肘邊。又酸又甜，有河那一岸的味道。第二天又吃了三顆，再一天。一共十二顆；四天吃完，她沒有記下它們。

老太太在中午前從三個不同的人那裡聽說有這個客人，立刻差人叫她。這是一個月來她頭一次要什麼。

他們把劉姥姥安置在水上的亭子裡，一張鋪了墊子、她摸不到底的椅子，她坐在裡面，腳碰不到地，孫子抓著她的裙子，她大受歡迎。她告訴老太太她有多少隻雞、每隻叫什麼。她描述一場暴風雨。她比手劃腳解釋一個不知道自己懷孕的女人，怎麼在蘿蔔田裡生了孩子，還非常生氣。老太太，聽著自己府裡輕聲細語聽了那麼久，笑得不得不放下茶，姑娘們因為她笑，也笑了。

「冬天呢？」老太太能開口的時候說。「冬天你們怎麼過？」

「輪流，老太太，」劉姥姥說。「每家輪一天，收老的、病的。青黃不接的月份補匠來，也是輪流餵。沒有人記。要是記，就得花錢請人來唸。」

「要是有人拿多過一輪呢？」

「那村子知道，不說，下個冬天那個人輪到的就短一點。就這樣。我這輩子沒失靈過。」

「這要很多信任。」

「不是信任，老太太。只是人人都在人人嘴裡。村子裡藏不住。」她說得很自在，伸手拿了一塊糖。

亭子裡有一陣停頓，那種有人說了一件沒人想第一個被打動的事之後的停頓。是湘雲，受不了沉默的人，打破了它。「她需要花！」她喊，姑娘們就跑開了。

她們給她戴上菊花。是湘雲的主意，還有寶玉的；把秋天的花一朵一朵插進她的白髮，直到她看起來像一垛剛參加完婚禮的草堆，又給她一個頂針那麼大的杯子裝黃酒，她喝了，說這是她最接近天堂的一次，希望不是最後一次。「我年輕時是個美人，」她理直氣壯地說。「有三個男人在我門口。」亭子震動。迎春用手遮著笑。探春，不常笑的，把頭靠在桌上。

笑聲平靜下來後，劉姥姥看出亭子外頭，看著水、好看的石頭，和那座有四隻雞的農莊。「在我們村子，這裡是四塊田和一個池塘，」她說，「三家人能靠它吃。這裡是給人看的。很好看。」她說得像在說要下雨了。老太太停止笑了大約一口氣，探春抬起頭，帶著新的留心看著老太婆；然後有人倒了更多的酒。

黛玉沒有笑。她坐在末座，拿著她的薑茶，看著，表情不動，別人帶著老太婆出去看湖時，她留在自己的位子上。

黃昏，她在水階邊又找到劉姥姥，一個人，把花一朵一朵從頭髮裡拿下來，放進外套口袋。孫子睡在長凳上。老太婆沒有回頭。

「你沒笑，姑娘，」她說。

「沒有。」

「沒關係。總該有人不笑。」她拿出最後一朵菊花看著。「我知道我剛才在做什麼。他們為這個養我，我走的時候給我一車米和布，我用他們喜歡的方式讓他們笑。這是老實的買賣。我拿他們的笑，他們拿我的臉面，我的臉面多得很，沒有用處，你相信我，我從來沒為任何東西被付過這麼好的價錢。」

黛玉站著不動。她一生從來沒被一個既窮得多、又這麼不怕的人對她說過話。「它對你有代價嗎？」她說。

「它花我它花的。我不假裝不是。不笑的人是看得見的人，姑娘，我最喜歡那種。他們從來不讓我覺得是被給了什麼。那最糟，他們給的時候。」她從池塘邊拔了一根蘆草，老手在上面飛快地折，一轉眼，她伸出一隻小小的綠蚱蜢。有身體，有四條腿，有長長可笑的觸鬚，坐在她手心裡像要彈起來。「它不值什麼，」她說。「好了。我沒給你東西。只是一隻蚱蜢。」

黛玉接了過去。她拿著它在手心裡站了很久，在水階邊，老太婆攙起熟睡的孫子，上樓梯，一級一級數著。

她早上走，帶著府裡硬要給的一車：米、布、一件外套、一盒糖，還有老太太自己給的一卷絲。鳳姐在賬房窗邊看她沿著小巷走，小小的、挺直的，背著籃子。走到一半她停下，從車上拿了一段布，給了守門人的妻子；又一段，給井邊的一個女孩。到街上的時候，車輕了三分之一。劉姥姥不是一個能把禮物拿很久的人。

「她欠我們二十五串和一隻鵝，」平兒在窗邊說。

「是，」鳳姐說。她在看著大門。「我很想看看那隻鵝。」

那天晚上，在瘦綠館，一個穿兩件襖的女孩，把一隻綠蘆草的蚱蜢放在窗臺上，讓燈照到它，沒說是誰的，然後去睡了。早上它還在那裡。她本來以為它得被付錢的。

## 第16章 · 湊份子

這座府裡有一種給法，既不是禮物也不是債，府裡叫它湊份子。要給一個人祝壽，而府裡不拿例來祝壽，例上沒有祝壽的那一行；所以每個人依位次湊一點，小到會被忘掉，總數花在一個人身上、一天之內。這是府裡唯一一種沒有人可以叫它損失的轉移，因為每個人都損失一點點，受祝的人只是那損失採取的形狀。它也是府裡最老的一個把戲。老太太用了五十年，從來沒有用得比在園子第二年的十一月更好。

「鳳丫頭的生日是二十五，」她對鴛鴦說，鴛鴦知道。「我們湊份子。」

鴛鴦等著。

「太太十二，老爺十二，趙姨娘四。年輕的一人六。李紈五。頭一等的丫頭兩，第二等一。其餘的盡力。」她看著那枝梅，它在冷裡開了細小的白花，像它一向那樣，沒有人叫它。「我出二十。」

「從您自己的嗎，老太太？」

「從我自己的。」她沒有回頭。「總數我想會超過一百五。一頓壽宴要花六十。會有餘數，餘數是鳳丫頭的，既然是她的生日，隨她怎麼用。告訴她。」她又對著梅枝補了一句。「自從螃蟹以後，她在我的桌上什麼也沒吃過。我數過。我不喜歡。」

鴛鴦在老太太身邊站了三十年，什麼也沒說。那個冬天她在學：老太太的活，有多少是靠不說完成的。

鳳姐想推辭。那天下午她袖子放下，帶著一篇話去了南屋，那篇話很好：府裡沒有錢辦宴席，她不喜歡生日，她寧可這筆錢進例。老太太讓她說完。

「宴席你可以推，」她說。「我想你可以。總數你推不掉。已經在收了。」

「老太太，」鳳姐說，然後停住。

「已經定了，孩子。坐下。吃個桃。」

李紈被派做這筆款子的管帳，因為她是府裡唯一一個能讓人放心她只寫下她被給的、別的什麼也不寫的人。她坐在農莊的桌子邊，面前一本自己畫格子的帳，鳳姐後來看見，感動得不得不去看那些雞；三天裡，整座府帶著它的錢來找她。

趙姨娘付了四串和一篇話。她兒子環兒付了兩串，一枚一枚數出來，眼睛盯著老太太的臉，確定她看見。太太付了十二，用一個新錢袋，臉上什麼也看不出來。寶玉付他的六串，是向襲人借的一串，襲人一句話沒說就借了，當晚記進她那本專門用來不提這種事的簿子。惜春付了一串，帶來一幅粉筆畫在石板上的桃，說那是另外五串。寶釵付了兩次：一次在帳上，一次在帳本底下的一個信封裡，李紈提起本子時發現，沒數就收了，因為她知道是誰的、是做什麼用的。頭一等的丫頭們一陣窸窣來付她們的兩串。璉二爺在河工上替朝廷辦事，從郵遞寄來十串，還有一匹絲和一封開頭講天氣的信。

第三天下午，提水的來了。

她們排成一行，穿著乾淨的圍裙，小紅帶頭，她洗過臉，她們把錢一把一把放到桌上。規矩是盡力。那不是一把。那是她們每個人初九領到的整整一個月，紮著紅線，一個月的月錢，從掃樓梯的到倒髒水的，一個不少；她們放下的時候，那張小桌子開始看起來像一件上面有很多東西的東西。

李紈數了兩遍。她是個總要數兩遍然後道歉的人。「四十串，」她說。「這是一個月的月錢。」

「是我們有的，」小紅說。

「老太太說盡力。」

「我們盡力。」

李紈放下筆。她二十五歲，在一間後房裡住過十一年，領著一份沒人去想的份，她很知道人能盡到什麼。「我可以問為什麼嗎？」

小紅看著茅草，上面掛著沒有署名的紙，看了一會兒。她十二歲。她從秋天起一直把這個數背在心裡，沒有一個詞，在補房裡，一個陌生人的拇指按在脖子上，她找到了一個。「反正它會走，」她說。「我們知道它去哪裡。它去買油、買米，然後遲到才回來。與其被拿走，寧可做那個給的人。」她說得很平，像在說北邊樓梯是濕的。「奶奶說我的水桶提得直。這件事我也想直。」

李紈在帳上用她細小清楚的字寫：提水的、掃樓梯的，四十串，謹致謝意。她沒有劃線。她合上本子，把手平放在封面上坐了一會兒。然後她差人叫平兒，因為這不是她該拿的。

平兒袖子放下進來，讀了那一行，立刻懂了，因為她已經記了一年，那些女孩每個人被欠了什麼、從什麼時候起。四十串，是奶奶每個月初一從最低一等扣下來的數。同一個數，同一種線。它出去給了顧，回來，九天後才出去給女孩們，現在女孩們把它放在農莊的桌子上，叫它生日禮物。它走了三趟，就要走第四趟。她不知道自己想笑，還是想坐到地上。

「我要告訴她嗎？」她說。

「我想她會知道，」李紈說。

到傍晚整個園子都知道提水的做了什麼，因為一座府藏不住這種事；頭一等的丫頭們付了兩串、自覺不錯，這下都在算。晴雯算得最大聲，在東院，扯開了嗓子。「兩串！我們付了兩串，坐下來吃魚，她們付一個月，站在台階上！」

「那你就付四串，」襲人說，頭也沒抬。

「我付十串，」晴雯說，「而且我要很沒禮貌地付。」

第二天早上，北邊樓梯井邊的長凳底下多了一個罐子，蓋子上開了一道縫，那一個星期過完以前已經有了三串：兩串是東院的，一串是瘦綠館的，還有一小撮沒有名字的銅錢，和一顆鈕釦。沒有人在罐子上寫名字。提水的看了它一天，然後收下了，說她們會還，罐子什麼也沒說，因為它是個罐子。

宴席在二十五日，在南屋，門朝院子大開，每個角落都有火盆，整座府依位次坐在桌邊，食物從老太太那頭流下去，像水找平。有糯米粉蒸的桃，尖上粉紅，一條嘴裡咬著尾巴的魚，和沒有人可以切斷的長麵。鳳姐穿著紅襖坐在貴賓的位子，在老太太和太太之間，臉是安排過的；她推辭的那筆錢，放在她面前桌上一個盒子裡。惜春的粉筆桃擺在真桃子中間。在台階腳下，提水的穿著乾淨的圍裙，站著看菜端進去，臉上是看著窗子裡自己那四十串錢的人的神情。

老爺坐在第二桌，坐得很直，被請祝酒，他說了一句：他希望帳能平。大家都笑了，除了鳳姐，還有老爺，他並不是說笑。

寶玉站在凳子上提議乾杯，玉晃著。他像他說每件事那樣說，好像房間一直在等這句話。「敬鳳姐，她把整座府握在她兩隻手裡。」那是襲人的句子，他不知道自己拿了去。鳳姐笑了，喝了，府裡喝了，她又被看見喝了一杯。

黛玉，在第二桌的末座拿著薑茶，數著杯。第三杯朝那張紅嘴去的時候，她對寶玉說，相當大聲，她覺得這些桃子是她吃過最好的；桌子轉過去看桃子，鳳姐把杯子放下了。沒有人看見這件事是怎麼做到的。黛玉喝她的茶。

太太在鳳姐的另一邊，鳳姐認識她這麼多年，從沒見過她替另一個人夾過菜。這會兒她拿起筷子，把魚頰，那是魚最好的一塊，放到鳳姐面前，什麼話也沒說。鳳姐看著它，像看一封她以為已經死了的人寫來的信。

平兒把孩子抱進來，裹在黃襖裡，老太太把她接到膝上，抱了一會兒，不動聲色地掂著她。「她輕，」她對誰也不是地說。桌子對面，鳳姐放下了杯子。河那一岸有一個爐子邊上的床，有人叫她記得它，她記得。

最後鴛鴦用托盤把盒子端給她。「總數是一百九十一，」她用清楚而傳得遠的聲音說。「宴席花了六十。餘數是一百三十一，給壽星隨她怎麼花，老太太吩咐。」桌子四周有一陣高興的低語，那是一座府做了件好事、被人看見時的聲音；而鳳姐，精確到一粒地明白對她做了什麼，雙手捧著盒子站起來，向老太太鞠了一躬，像向一筆債鞠躬。

後來她走到外面的走廊裡，那兒冷，平兒跟著她。院子是暗的。不遠處園子的燈籠在牆上露出來。

「提水的四十串，」鳳姐說。

「是，奶奶。」

「你告訴她們她們被欠了什麼嗎？」

「她們問我，」平兒說。「我沒辦法說不是真的話。」

「那個孩子說了什麼？前面那個。」

「小紅。她說，與其被拿走，寧可做那個給的人。」

鳳姐站得很穩。「我真希望是我說的，」她說，「對某個人，有一次。」然後她笑了，把手掌根壓在側腹。「她們把我自己的錢給了我，平兒，還叫它禮物。這招比我的好。」

「那不是招。」

「不是。所以才這麼好。」她靠在一根柱子上，穿著紅襖，臉上有酒，眼睛卻很清楚。「老太太知道那九天。」

「她什麼都知道。」

「那是她不問的方式。」她站了一會兒。一陣小風穿過院子，吹得燈籠轉動。「一百三十一。她替那九天付了。她沒有說；她把它交給我，隨我怎麼花，這是我沒辦法拒絕的，她也知道。」她吸了一口氣，疼的。「初一，全額付給她們。照老樣子，加一句話。別告訴她們是府裡的謝意，因為不是，那只是她們的。」

「從什麼付，奶奶？」

「從餘數。就這一個月。」她說的時候眼睛看著燈籠。「這是那老太太第三次通融我，我一次也沒辦法拒絕。」

十二月初一來了，在清冷的光裡。例唸了。月錢依位次發，從上面開始，用紅線紮成一串一串；輪到最低的，提水的、掃樓梯的、沒有等的女孩子，鳳姐一個人一小把、一句話，跟往常一樣，這一次，那一小把是整的。

她對小紅說，這是她以前沒特別看過的：「你有北邊樓梯上最直的水桶，還有府裡二十歲以下最好的算數頭腦。」小紅接了她的錢。上面有紅線。她看了它一會兒，然後抬頭，窄而機靈的臉完全不動，用老聲音說謝謝。

顧中午從側門來了，像每個月初一那樣，帽子拿在手裡，發現沒有東西在等他。他站了一會兒，圓圓的、樸素的，穿著他那件好的素外套。「但願奶奶身體好，」他說，就走了。那是他來過最短的一次。鳳姐那天沒有在黑簿子上寫任何東西，那一頁仍是白的。

它是初一發的。它初一發了一個月，這一個月是老太太買的，賬房裡每個人都知道，沒有人說。外面走廊上小紅對旁邊的女孩低聲說：「是初一。」

「是啊，」那一個驚訝地說。

「我想看看它長什麼樣，」小紅說，沿著北邊樓梯走下去，水桶提得很直，數著。

## 第17章 · 那件外套

朝廷不給。它在遠處借出，把借叫做賜，這樣借的人就感覺不到那根線。

那件外套是省親以後跟著內席的賞賜來的，裝在一個灰木的扁盒裡，包著朝廷的紙：一件給榮府二公子的長冬袍，料子是舊金的顏色，裡面有一層綠色的光，像一隻鳥轉身。它是朝廷自己的織機織的，用了補剩下的一根線，那是最結實的線，也最難剪斷；它登在內席的帳上，左袖口裡面縫著一張標籤，是朝廷借出到世上的東西之一。朝廷每年冬天都會來，看它借出去的東西是否完好。一件破了的外套，是對朝廷財產的冒犯。它會被記在內席的名下，因為朝廷送出的一切都在內席的帳上；而內席的帳，就是敕。

寶玉討厭這件外套。它又重又好看，每個人都看它。可是老太太喜歡看他穿它，十二月初二，他穿著它去南屋，站得離火盆太近，一粒火星跳了出來。

它燒出一個銅錢大的洞，在左前襟，胸口下面，邊緣是褐色的，而且已經在擴大。朝廷的織法要是被割開，會裂；先是慢慢地，然後就不慢了。襲人臉白了。她在走廊裡雙手把外套從他身上接下來，像接一樣受了傷的東西，在窗下看了看，什麼也沒說，而她的不說，是他那一年聽到最糟的事。

「可以補，」他說。

「不是我們。」她已經在數了。府裡的裁縫不行；秋天為一件更小的事，他們就說過，朝廷的織法他們不敢碰，怕那個結，她沒有理由認為他們變了。補匠可以，而補匠的府在河那邊，去兩天回兩天，補匠的活是用時辰付的，二公子的時辰就是那麼多。巡視官初五來。她拿著肩縫把外套提開，離自己遠一點。「這會記在你姐姐名下。」

「我去告訴老太太。」

「你不許，」襲人說。「是她給你的。這個冬天她給得夠多了。」她沒有說她怎麼知道。在那座府裡，沒有人對任何人說過，而每個人都知道。

晴雯從初一就躺在床上，感冒。她在東院的後房，蓋著兩床被，臉是牛油的顏色，下午會發燒又退；可是東院是個小地方，她隔著屏風把每個字都聽見了，她什麼都聽得見。她穿著貼身的短襖，頭髮披著，肩上披著被子，咳著走出來，看著襲人手裡的外套。

「給我，」她說。

「你病著。」

「我一直病著。這不算理由。」她把外套從襲人手裡拿過去，走到窗邊，把洞轉向光，整張臉變了。它失去了脾氣。它變得完全安靜，專注，年輕。「是一條平的裂，」她說。「才剛開始。用補匠結可以收住，要是有線的話。」

「你在哪裡學的補匠結？」

「我母親，」晴雯說，「在她當丫頭以前，她是個補匠。」她看著外套，說得平平的。「她在這座府的後廚房，點著一盞燈，坐了六個冬天，做裁縫不肯做的事，我坐在她腳邊的地上看，她死的時候，他們把我登在她的位子上。我六歲。府裡沒有時辰給她做的那種事，所以沒有人叫我做。我想我從那以後就沒做過。」她把袖子翻過來。袖子的裡面有一根線，同樣的金色，那是朝廷的織工為了這種時候特意留的。她用一根手指碰它，像碰一隻睡著的動物。「我想知道我還會不會。」

「我不該讓你，」襲人說。

「你沒有讓我。沒有人讓我；這是你對我學到的第一件事。」晴雯把外套在膝上翻了個面。「我被給過一把椅子，很多碗粥，還有你的一百次通融，襲人，我從來沒有一次給過這座府一樣它拿不走的東西。今晚讓我給它一樣。」

他們開始的時候已經過了半夜。襲人做的決定，也為此後悔，沏了茶。寶玉被叫去睡，沒有去。東院的後房又暖又小，晴雯坐在燈邊的地上，外套橫在膝上，一根她在自己箱子裡找到的針，一根從下襬抽出來的線；燈放在她手肘邊的一張凳子上，因為沒有一張桌子夠低。

「拿近一點，」她對寶玉說，他正拿著。「再近。不對。你是一盞很差的燈。」

他拿近了。我貼在他胸前，看得見她的手。那不是早上隔著院子為粥大喊的女孩的手。那是陌生人的手：慢，準，手腕微微內扣，像一個怕摔了工具的人。她把線拉過洞口，再拉回，再過去，再回，燈光裡我看見織法一次一根細線地合上，像一個答應癒合的傷口。那個結同時是一個圖案，那個圖案同時是一個結，每一針都要對，不然整排會裂。她沒有抬頭。

「你為什麼會？」寶玉小聲說。「我從沒見過有人會。」

「因為我母親會，我在房裡，」晴雯說。她對著肩膀咳了一聲。「就這樣。人會的大多數事，都是因為他們在房裡。」

到第二個時辰她在發抖。到第三個，她吐過了，靜靜地，吐進襲人給她端的盆子，擦了嘴，又拿起針。她沒有停下來休息。那是補匠針法，補匠針法不能停；你要是讓線鬆著，哪怕一口氣的工夫，織法就會鬆，整條線就得拆掉。她下巴抵著胸口工作，冷裡額頭上汗珠站著，我慢慢明白我在看的是什麼。一個身體在黑暗裡，在府分給它的時辰裡，保管它自己的補；那就是一個人被養著的方式。晴雯在花她的。她把一整夜的補，從自己的骨頭裡拿出來，一個時辰一個時辰放進布裡，她確確實實知道她在花什麼，像她確確實實知道每件東西要花什麼，而她沒有說。

第四個時辰燈火閃了閃。襲人剪了燈芯。寶玉，拿了三個鐘頭燈、手臂都麻了，已經靠著牆直直地睡著，燈還在拳頭裡。晴雯瞥了他一眼，頭沒動。「他是我有過最差的燈，」她用一根線一樣的聲音說，「也是最好的。」襲人把燈從他手裡輕輕拿走。

天亮前一點，補完了，那時窗子已經從黑變成鴿子翅膀的灰。晴雯咬斷最後一根線，坐了一會兒，外套橫在膝上，看著洞原來的地方。然後她把它舉到窗前。

它不見了。看不出在哪裡。金色在胸口上沒有斷，綠色的光穿過它，像一隻鳥轉身；只有知道的人，把手指放到裡面，才能摸到非常輕微的一道小而硬的縫，像一道好了很久、連皮膚都忘了的疤。

「好了，」晴雯說。「告訴朝廷，這是一件很好的外套。」

她站起來，被子滑落，走了一步。膝蓋軟了。寶玉被聲音驚醒，在地板到她之前接住了她，她躺在他臂彎裡輕得像一捆柴，眼睛睜著，非常清楚地說：「我把你當燈的名聲搞砸了，」然後什麼也沒說。

大夫七點來，臉色很重地走了，又回來。他是個嚴肅的人，姓王，替府裡看了二十年。她要在補房待三天，他說，睡在床上，旁邊有一個補匠，一個月後會好；要是不這樣，他不負責。麻煩就在這裡。晴雯是第二等的丫頭，兩個星期才有一個補房的時辰，而二公子的時辰多得很；寶玉那天早上簽讓出四十個自己的，手在抖，條子送到太太的印那裡，因為隔兩等的轉讓都得這樣。

中午他們用一張椅子把她抬去補房，寶玉走在旁邊，一直走到門口。「謝謝你，」他說。

「不要，」晴雯從墊子上說，眼睛閉著。「你要是謝我，它就變成債。那只是一件外套。」

「那我就欠你。」

「那更糟，」她說，被抬了進去。

太太站在走廊裡讀那張條子。「我要是蓋了一張，」她說，「到新月就會有五十張。這是規矩，寶玉。」她把條子整整齊齊撕成一半，把兩半還給他。她不是不仁慈；她只是這座府害怕時採取的形狀。她看見那個女孩坐在椅子裡被抬過去，瘦瘦的、灰灰的，頭髮沒梳，她看了她很久，像以前在走廊上，在那六個人中間，看過她一次那樣。她沒有對她說什麼。她對襲人說，用她低而平的聲音，這女孩不好，不該到處走，春天她會對老太太說。

襲人一院一院地走，臉像石頭，像要麵包那樣要時辰，她得到的是同等級裡能省下來的，一共九個，來自瘦綠館、寶釵的院子和農莊。晴雯在補房待了一天半，第二天早上就自己用腳走回東院，好把床讓出來。

第三天下午，老太太自己來了，這是她三十年來沒有為一個丫頭做過的事，鴛鴦在後面什麼也沒拿。她一句話不說在床邊坐下，看著枕頭上的女孩看了一會兒。然後她從袖子裡拿出她冬天放在自己床上的那個小銅手爐，它不在任何名冊或單子上，放進晴雯手裡，把她的手指合上。「只是個手爐，」她說。「我沒給你什麼。」她走了。晴雯把它抱在胸口一整天，不肯讓襲人拿去添炭。

巡視官初五來了，朝廷來的一個乾巴巴的小個子，一根繩上掛著一面放大鏡，肩旁是朝廷自己的補匠，一個七十歲的矮小彎腰的女人，手大得跟她不相稱。他把內席的賞賜，一件一件，在大廳的桌上翻過來，每件用放大鏡看過，做一個記號。外套是最後一件。他把左前襟舉了很久。然後他把它遞給補匠。

她整個早上一個字沒說。她用那雙大而安靜的手接過布，翻過裡面，把拇指放在那個地方；然後一動不動。「是朝廷的織法，」她終於對巡視官說。「狀況良好。」

「沒有破？」

「沒有破。」

他做了記號。他去吃飯了。

在朝廷的內室，很遠的地方，那個冬天本來會寫在內席名字旁的一行，從來沒有被寫下。她不知道她曾經差一點，也不知道是誰的手讓她沒有上那一頁，更不知道為了這個，花掉了一個人一整夜的補。

廳裡的人散去，在門口，補匠在襲人旁邊停下，襲人貼牆站著，手插在袖子裡，補匠微微彎下腰，像一個女人對孩子彎腰。

「沒有裁縫做得出那個，」她很低地說。

襲人沒有回答。

「我自己也不會比她做得更好，而我做了五十年。不管她是誰，告訴她，補匠的府裡有一張長凳給她，要她的時候。一張好的。在爐子旁邊。」她直起身。「我們不寫下來。」

襲人那天晚上在東院告訴了她，坐在床邊。她說得一字不差，用補匠的話，因為她不改別人給她的話。晴雯躺在枕頭上，頭髮披著，咳著，看了天花板很久。

「我有一把椅子，」她說。

## 第18章 · 短例

環兒九歲，從他記事起就一直看著他哥哥，像一個男孩看著一個人吃他不許吃的東西。

他不是壞孩子。他是趙姨娘的兒子，趙姨娘的份最先見底，她的下襬最先被攤，他在後院長大，吃的例比他哥哥的少一根頭髮，粥總是稀一點，被子總是少一點。他不恨寶玉。他想被人看見。整座府裡，有一個人的看是算數的，就是他父親；而他父親看他的方式很平常，像看一件東西。

十二月初四，在東院的字紙簍裡，他發現了一張撕開的條子的兩半。他一眼認出哥哥的字。他讀：榮府二公子寶玉，將自己四十個補房時辰，簽讓與第二等丫頭晴雯。下面是一枚小小的、整齊的印，被從中撕開。

他不知道自己捧著的是什麼。他只知道，要是他把它送去，老爺會看他。他用雙手捧著它，穿過幾重院子，像捧著一個太滿的碗，放在老爺的書桌上，站得很直。

老爺看著那兩半看了很久，然後看他的兒子。「你在哪裡找到的？」

「在東院，父親。在簍子裡。」

「你進了你哥哥的院子？」

「門是開的，」環兒說。其實不是。「我想您該知道。」

「謝謝，」老爺說。他說得像對一個帳房。環兒出去的時候臉在發光，那一整個星期他都小心地不看地上。

當天下午，老爺差人叫寶玉。他的書房是一間乾淨空曠的房間，牆上掛著敕的牌，桌上一本帳記到最後一文，字像一排籬笆樁。他這一輩子從沒用過一文他不能交代的錢，這使他的臉僵直而挺，像頭上頂著東西的人。他沒有叫男孩坐下。他把條子的兩半並排放在桌上，像擺證物，而寶玉，本來以為是進來被問詩的，臉白了。

「賴管家告訴我，」老爺說，「你從去年秋天起，把早飯的米送人。他告訴我你九月把你的炭送到瘦綠館，被攔下了。他告訴我你簽讓四十個時辰給一個丫頭。是真的嗎？」

「是，父親。」

「你吃的是誰的米？」

「我的。」

「那你沒吃的是誰的？」

「我的。我給了。」寶玉看著地，然後，因為這是他有時會做的事，看著他的父親。「那是我的，可以給。」

「不是。」老爺沒有抬高聲音。「份不是你的。是府借給你，養你，依你生下來的位次；你把它送人，就是把它從名冊上拿掉，名冊上就得顯示一張口在沒有的地方，或者沒有口在有的地方。朝廷會數。朝廷每個冬天都數。」他把一根手指按在撕開的印上。「你知道朝廷怎麼對待一座名冊不準的府嗎？」

「不知道。」

「我也不知道。」有一口氣的工夫，那張僵直的臉動了，像一堵牆裡有什麼轉了身。「所以我怕。」

那是說得很平的一句話。那也許是老爺這兩年來對他兒子說過唯一的實話，寶玉，十二歲，看著他，不知道怎麼辦，老爺也不知道。那張臉又關上了。

「你要養好你自己的份，」他說。「你要學會數它。七天，你坐在短桌邊，在這間房裡，吃最低一等的例，用清楚的字抄敕的規矩。門開著，你不許離開。什麼也不許送進來。」

「是，父親，」寶玉說。

就這樣。這不是一下打擊。那座府裡沒有戒尺。短例是它最老的判決，是一天一碗半粗糧，一匙鹹菜，不放油，老爺說多久就多久；而府怕它，像一座村子怕旱，因為一個被養薄的人會慢下來，會丟了事情的線頭，會安靜。那是唯一一種不需要任何人殘酷的懲罰。

太太在她的院子裡坐著，兩手交疊，沒有哭，襲人，準備好了一張要求饒的臉進來，發現自己說不出一個字，又走了。老太太第二天早上坐著椅子來，鴛鴦陪著，拄著杖站在書房前面的院子裡，老爺走出來，站在他自己的門口，鞠了一躬。

「他是我的孫子，」老太太說。

「他在我的例上，母親。他在您那裡的時候，在您的例上。這是規矩。」

「我知道規矩。一半是我寫的。」

「那您就知道我不能被要求破它。」

他們隔著碎石子路互相看了一眼，一個拄杖的老太太，一個臉像牌子的男人。老太太慢慢轉過頭，越過他看向書房的側牆，那裡有一扇油紙窗，外面是後草坪，再過去是竹子。

「那扇窗很好看，」她說。

「是，母親。」

「我不想看見它被打破。」

「不會，」老爺說。「不會打破的。」而老太太，贏了，知道自己贏了，知道他知道，沒有再說一句話，坐著椅子走了。

鳳姐在賬房裡親自稱了那份口糧，用小黃銅秤，精確到一粒。那是最低一等的一天：一碗半，一匙鹹菜，不放油。她像認得自己的手那樣認得它。她每天早上把它發給提水的和掃樓梯的，她從沒有為一個她愛的人稱過它。頭一天早上她親自端著盤子到書房，在門口遞給老爺。

「剛好是最低一等，老爺。」

「剛好，」老爺說。

「不多一點。」她說得像帳房報一個總數，眼睛沒有離開他的。她不能不這樣；巡視官就在府裡。她袖子放下，沿著走廊走回去，手移到了側腹，沒有回頭。

寶玉坐在短桌邊。那是一張又小又矮的東西，放在書房的一角，就是為了這個，前面一張舊墊子，筆架被一百年的男孩磨出了形狀。他吃他的糧。他抄敕。一個時辰一個時辰，清楚的字跡順著紙頁往下：例的規矩，月錢的規矩，補的規矩，一座府可以怎麼添一口的規矩。我貼著他的胸口，驚訝地發現，那就是提水的人一輩子每一天吃的東西。

頭一個晚上，燈滅了，老爺的腳步聲沿著走廊走遠了，他躺在墊子上睜著眼睛，說那些名字。他沒有說出聲。我在他的胸口感覺到它們，照他說的次序，像一個人在轉念珠：襲人，晴雯，黛玉，探春，李紈，惜春，迎春，寶釵，湘雲，那個窄臉的提水的，那個有蚱蜢的老太婆。他一遍又一遍地說，每一遍來得都比前一遍慢一點。我明白他在抓住。我明白這座府的怕是對的。

第二天早上，天亮前一點，窗上有人輕敲。

是紫鵑，帶著焦慮的臉，在竹子中間的暗裡，兩手捧著一個蓋著的碗。寶玉把紙窗推開。碗是溫的；裡面的粥又平又稠，蓋子底下折著一張紙條，是他認得的字。這不是禮物，它說。這是借。你胖了可以還我。

他看了它很久。然後他把它放回紫鵑手裡，在同一張紙上用老爺的鉛筆頭用鉛筆劃了一行。你比我瘦。

碗在下一個黎明又回來了。回答也是。兩天裡，碗沿著竹林走到頭再走回，在黑暗裡，每次條子上多幾個字，每次都被退回。第三天它來的時候粥裡多了一個水煮蛋，以前沒有；他把蛋退了回去。這是那種贏不了的爭吵，而他們兩個都很擅長。

第四天早上，天亮前，沒有敲窗。有一聲咳嗽，小小的、乾的，像翻過一頁紙，他把紙推開，黛玉自己站在竹子裡，穿著她的兩件襖，兩手捧著碗，呼出的氣在冷裡上升。

「我們把這件事解決了吧，」她說。

「你不該出來。」

「不該。」她走到窗臺邊。窗臺夠低，她可以把碗擱在上面，一半的碗沿在裡面，一半在外面，她放了一根湯匙進去。「我想過了。我不能吃它，因為它是你的。你不能吃它，因為它是我的。所以它是誰的也不是，它會涼掉，那是唯一的浪費。」她透過開口看著他。她的臉又瘦又白，完全鎮定。「一人一半。」

「一半？」

「一根湯匙。我一口，你一口。它既不是禮物，也不是借。」她遞出湯匙。「它只是一碗飯，我們兩個都餓。」

他們就這樣吃了，在灰灰的光裡，隔著窗臺，一根湯匙在油紙的兩邊來回，碗在中間。誰也沒說話。我想誰也說不出。我貼著他的胸口，我可以記下，那是我所參加過最安靜的一頓飯；吃完時，最後一匙，他們看著空碗，黛玉開始輕輕笑，笑變成了咳嗽，寶玉在裡面把手伸過窗臺，抓著她的袖子，直到那咳嗽停了。

從那以後窗子開始滿起來。李紈每天早上送一個蛋，用一片白菜葉包著，附上雞的問候。惜春帶來一顆栗子，一句話不說放在窗臺上，像一件祭品。探春塞進一張摺起來的奶白色紙，上面用她方方的小字只寫了社的規矩那一句。一小撮柿餅出現了，沒有人認領。沒有任何東西被記下。那是世上最老的經濟，在黑暗裡越過一道窗臺移動，一次一樣，而老爺坐在十來步外的桌前，背對著牆，為每一文錢交代。

那一撮沒有人認領的柿餅是環兒的。是他自己，第三個晚上，在黑裡，從自己的例裡省下，放到窗臺上的，一個九歲的男孩，並不知道自己為什麼這麼做，他沒有對任何人說，那時沒有，以後也沒有。他本來以為，哥哥落難的時候，他會感覺到老爺的眼睛落在他身上。他發現，他感覺到的，令他驚慌，是冷。

第五天，那孩子開始回答得慢了一拍，蓋子底下的條子不是爭吵。是四行字。

瘦是一種天氣。／它會過去，／只要有人站在門口。／我正站在門口。

他讀了三遍，碗在手裡漸漸涼了。他沒有回。沒有什麼可說的不是已經在碗裡。

第七天中午，他打開書房的門。男孩坐在短桌邊，瘦了，手仍在動，敕的清楚抄本在他手肘邊疊得整整齊齊。他慢慢抬頭。他花了一會兒才找到他父親的臉。他沒有病；可是他身上有一種慢，邊緣有一種模糊，像隔著水看一盞燈，老爺看見了，他自己的臉動了。

他走到窗邊。窗臺上，光裡，躺著一根湯匙，一個栗子殼，和一片白菜葉裡的蛋殼。老爺看了它們很久。他沒有碰。他退了一步。

「我沒有問，」他說，「蛋殼是哪裡來的。」

「是，父親。」

「短例結束了。你不許把你的份送人。」

「我會試，」寶玉說。

「那不是回答。」

「那是我唯一有的。」

老爺看著他，有一口氣的工夫。然後他用他乾而挺的聲音說：「去吃飯。」他轉身，走出房間，沿著走廊，背挺得很直，在轉角，沒有人看得到他的地方，他停下來，一隻手平放在牆上，像在船上穩住自己；站了很久，才繼續走。

新年的頭一個星期，他下令把書房的窗子重新糊過，換一張更薄的紙，好讓更多的早晨透進來。賴管家把這筆花費記在帳上，精確到一文，沒有問。

## 第19章 · 三人當家

二月初一，鳳姐唸例。她唸得像她十一年來一直在唸的那樣，聲音不抬高，在清冷的光裡，兩個帳房先生坐在凳子上。她唸到廚房的第四等，一個她認得的名字，那名字從她嘴裡半途掉出去，像一根線從針眼裡脫出來。

「奶奶？」帳房先生說。

「對不起，」鳳姐說，很愉快，把手平放在桌布上。「是冷的緣故。」

她看著自己的手。那是一隻好手；它數過很多東西。然後，非常小心地，像把一封信折起來，她從腰上折了下去，而平兒，兩年來一直看著她，在第二個帳房先生抬起頭以前已經穿過了房間。

走廊裡，提水的穿著乾淨的圍裙站成一行，像每個初一那樣，等著她們的一小把和一句話，隔著門聽見一張凳子倒下。小紅站在隊伍最前面，沒有動。她繼續小聲數著，像她兩年來一直數的那樣；門開了，椅子擡出來，奶奶坐在裡面，灰灰的，頭髮散下來，她看那張臉，她是隊伍裡唯一看的人。

「是初一，」她後面的女孩不確定地說。

「是，」小紅說。「是初一。可是沒有人來。」

王大夫在補房的床邊站了很久，臉很重，兩手背在身後。他替府裡看了二十年。他從她當新娘進門就認識鳳姐，當時用開玩笑的聲音告訴她，要是不學會坐下，她會像燈一樣燒光。

「她一直把補當錢包花，」他終於對老太太說。「兩個冬天。也許更多。我說不出從她身上拿走了什麼；我可以說，沒有被放回去。床上一個月。枕邊一個補匠。不許進賬房，不許看帳，不許算，不許做她叫作活的任何事。」他看著枕頭上灰色的臉。「要是她不這樣，我不負責。」

「誰來發例？」老太太說。

「隨便誰，」大夫說，「只要做得不好，並且被原諒。」

老太太在床邊坐了一會兒，兩手放在膝上。她七十八歲。她看著鳳姐，鳳姐閉著眼睛躺著，一隻手在被子外面，手指還在輕輕動，數著什麼；她看了那隻手很久。

那天晚上她差人叫了三個人到南屋，她們在暮色中穿過園子過來，像被告知了什麼也沒說、卻什麼都知道的人那樣：李紈，穿著素灰，腋下夾著她的帳本；探春，小小方方的臉，兩手背在後面；還有寶釵，穿白，站在門口，比另兩人退後半步，像客人那樣。

「鳳姐要躺一個月，」老太太說。「例不能等一個月。我要你們三個來發。」

「我是客人，老太太，」寶釵說。「這不合適。」

「就是因為這個，」老太太說。「你不會因此被喜歡，也不會被請留下。這是我能想到唯一一個不也是毛病的資格。」她轉過頭。「李紈管帳。探春有腦子。你有你父親那雙看出數字在對你撒謊的眼睛。太太會來看。我也會來看。你們每個人都做得比你們能做的少一點，合起來剛好是對的數。」她閉上眼睛一口氣的工夫。「我不是為府要你們做。我是為她。」

李紈用抱歉的聲音說她會；探春說她會照該做的方式做，老太太說這正是她怕的；寶釵，過了很久，鞠了躬。

她們走了以後，老太太說：「鴛鴦。那本冊子。」那是一本小小的綠冊子，放在床下層的抽屜裡，除了她們兩個沒有人見過，鴛鴦用她對這種事用的低聲念出來。「八百零六串，老太太。」

「去年春天呢？」

「一千四百出頭。」

老太太點點頭。「別告訴鳳丫頭。」

「她不會問的。」

「不會，」老太太說。「她的毛病就在這裡。」

第二天早上她們三個拿著鑰匙打開了賬房。那是一個又長又低的房間，一張長桌，朝廷的灰條子疊在籃子裡放在一端，另一端，一張凳子上，黃襖，一個一歲半的孩子睡在她自己的籃子裡，因為府裡沒有人有空把她挪走。平兒站在窗邊。她的樣子像穿著衣服睡過覺的人。

「例，」平兒說，把它放進李紈手裡。「月錢。」她把那個放進探春手裡。「官倉的通知，還有朝廷的。最低一等的名冊，在抽屜裡。」

她停住了。

「有一個抽屜，」她說。

是長桌中間的抽屜，鎖著。李紈從鑰匙圈上取下鑰匙，打開了它。裡面，用紅線紮著，一排一排，躺著四十串錢，是初一早上為顧數出來的，一直在等。顧在中午來了，像他一向那樣，被告知奶奶病了，拿著帽子走了。那些串仍留在原處。

「那是提水的，」平兒說。「她們還沒有領。本來該初九領。」她看著地。「她們被欠了這天。」

李紈數了兩遍，然後道歉。然後她做了一件賬房裡沒有人在抽屜存在的所有那些年裡做過的事，就是立刻把它們拿出來，就那樣，走到走廊上，提水的又站成一行，像前一天站的那樣，因為沒有人告訴她們不用站，耐心的、凹著眼眶的，圍裙是乾淨穿上的；給她們每個人一小把。她不知道還有一句話的事。她沿著隊伍走下去，對每一個人說：「對不起，晚了。」這是她唯一想到的。女孩們接了錢，看著她，像看一個說外國話的人。

「是初一該領的，」小紅說，平平的。她手裡攥著她的錢。

「是，」李紈說。「對不起，沒有在那天發。」

從來沒有人說過這句話。走廊上，有一會兒，除了井裡的水聲，沒有別的聲音。

那天晚上，在提水的睡的那間又長又低的房間裡，十二個人一個鋪，她們又把它說了一遍，像女孩子那樣。

「她說她對不起，」一個說。

「對不起不能吃，」另一個說。

「不能，」小紅在鋪的盡頭說，她正用一根從自己下襬抽出來的線，補左腳鞋上的洞。「可是從來沒有人說過。」她咬斷線。「奶奶會好，然後又是初九。」她把鞋穿上，躺下，數天花板上的裂縫，那是她不想數別的東西時做的事。

李紈回來時，探春站在長桌前，月錢簿攤開在面前，手裡一支鉛筆，小小方方的臉全白了。寶釵把朝廷的通知拿到窗邊讀了兩遍；這會兒她轉過身，輕輕說：「這座府一直在過超出撥數一個月一百八十七份的日子。」

「我知道，」探春說。

「那就是有人在付它。」寶釵把通知放下。「我是商人的女兒。我知道一座府在自己向自己借的時候是什麼樣子。就是這樣：每樣東西都準時，除了最底下的人。」

沒有人回答。探春翻了一頁，用鉛筆順著那一欄往下，停住了。

「這裡有個洞，」她說，「剛好九天寬。」她抬頭。「平兒。那九天的錢去哪裡？」

「我說不出。」

「你可以。你知道它去哪。」

「我知道，」平兒說。「這不是我能說的。這房間裡有一樣東西不是府的。是奶奶的。」她沒有抬頭。「在她箱子裡。鑰匙在我這裡。我不會給你們，對不起，她要的話，我會給她。」

「賬房裡所有的東西都是府的。」

「那你們就得請府從她那裡拿走，」平兒說。「我不拿。」她在哭，不是任何看得出的方式，只是聲音。「她為了我們所有人做的。」

探春放下鉛筆。她十五歲。她站著看了窗邊的女孩一會兒，又看了籃子裡的孩子，孩子醒了，兩個拳頭攥著一個葫蘆，然後她一句話不說快步走出去，穿過園子，到補房。

鳳姐醒著。她靠在三個枕頭上，又小又黃，床邊一個穿褐圍裙的補匠，什麼也沒讀，凳子上一碗沒動過的粥。她看著門口的女孩看了一會兒。她有著離得很遠的人的眼睛，知道回來的路，卻不確定自己想不想要它。

「你去過抽屜了，」她說。

「有人請我別看箱子。」

「平兒。是。」鳳姐笑了。那是她舊笑容的一個很淡的版本。「她是我所有東西裡最好的。坐吧，探春。我不會讓你站著讀。」

她說了一個鐘頭，低聲，對著天花板。她沒有為自己辯解。她像算一個數那樣說：那一百八十七；那九天；顧、綢緞商、賣米的；紅線；出去又回家的四十串；劉姥姥的五串；一根頭髮怎麼變成一綹。她說到老太太，她知道，說到提水的，她們知道，說到她自己，她一直知道、並且繼續。她說：「我沒有做任何一個判決能叫出名字的事。我多通融了一次，又一次，然後我停不下來，因為停的唯一方法，就是讓某個人沒有。」她呼吸。「那永遠是不同的某個人，永遠是最底下的那一個。我非常小心這一點。我兩年來一直小心，要讓它是最底下的。」

「現在呢？」

「現在你們會發現我沒發現的：不是最底下，就是最上頭。」她在枕頭上轉過頭。「不要在我下第一刀的地方下刀。平兒有鑰匙。」

床邊的補匠，一個鐘頭一句話沒說，放下她根本沒在讀的書。「那是一個時辰的補，奶奶，用來說話了，」她說。「花得不好嗎？」鳳姐說。補匠想了想，像她那一行的人那樣。「我見過更糟的，」她說，又拿起書。

探春回到賬房，伸出手。平兒看著她，看著敞開的門，門外隱約傳來一個孩子對著葫蘆唱歌的小小聲音；然後她從袖子裡拿出一把小鐵鑰匙，放到女孩的手心，把臉轉向牆。

探春那天夜裡讀了黑簿子，在農莊，因為那是園子裡唯一沒有人會來的房間，李紈坐在她旁邊的地上，爐子裡添了一根柴。花了一個鐘頭。字是鳳姐的，快而小。名字，日期，一個數，一個利息；顧、綢緞商、賣米的、一個賣燈油的叫陳；有時外面一百六十串，有時四十串；秋天裡的「減」；劉姥姥的二十五，自己一欄，後面一個問號。最後一頁的底部，鳳姐寫下了放出去的總數，是六百一十二串，旁邊，用更小的字，好像鉛筆也不確定似的：最低一等的九天。

李紈從她肩後讀了，沒有為此道歉。

「她靠提水的十二歲孩子的九天，」探春終於很輕地說，「把這座府養住了。」

「是。」

「我們不能停。停了，每個月就有一百八十七份沒有人吃。可我們也不能繼續。」她合上簿子。爐子滴答響。外面的雪，傍晚開始的，蓋在茅草上。「兩件事我們都不能不做。而我不能做我最想做的那件事，就是把它拿去給老太太，因為她知道。」

「要是我們停，」李紈說，「誰吃？」

「我不知道。」探春坐了很久，看著那本合上的簿子，兩手放在封面上，像李紈曾經把手放在帳本上那樣。「我還不知道。可我知道我會往哪裡找。園子有四十二扇窗，三十八個人，下午沒有事做。這是這座府裡唯一一樣不是自己養活自己的東西。要是它養不活自己，我會找出它能做什麼。」

## 第20章 · 包地

三月初三，探春把園子裡的手叫到水階，她們穿著幹活的圍裙來了，鬆鬆地站成半圈，雙臂交抱，像被告知有事要向她們解釋的人那樣站在新草上。

一共三十一個，另外還有六個在各院子裡服侍。她們是看顧園子的婦人和幾個老男人：掃小路的、守池塘的、割草的、澆水的、那個膝蓋不好的老園丁。她們是為省親招進來的，為園子留下的，用鉛筆登在名冊上。從來沒有一位站在台階上的小姐對她們說過話。

「我說得短，」探春說。她說話的方式像一把尺放在紙上。「園子養不活自己。它每個月讓府花的，是養你們三十一個和補你們工具的錢。它有一片竹林，一個荷塘，一個魚池，一圈藥草，一座果園，一塊草坪，和一個農莊。農莊是李紈的，我不動。其餘的我要租出去。」

沒有人動。租，是發生在別人身上的事。

「竹林每年出竹竿和筍，今天府從它那裡什麼也得不到，只有蔭涼。荷塘出藕和蓮子。果園出柿子、栗子、枇杷，都給了鳥。我要把每一塊地給看管它的人，一年，租子付錢或付實物，租子以外賺的都是他的。」她停了一下。「他的。不登記。不上名冊。」

「我的？」半圈盡頭一個老婆子說。她又瘦又黑又彎，戴著一條褪色的藍頭巾。這是葉媽，她管竹林管了十一年。「不上任何名冊？」

「你的。」

「要是壞了我跟誰說？竹林會死的。」

「跟我說。」

「這要把很多信任交給一位小姐。」

「不是信任，」探春說。她是從一個穿褐外套的老太婆那裡，在亭子裡，隔著一杯黃酒聽來這句話的，它像一根刺卡在她腦子裡，現在正變成一個計畫。「只是你會在我嘴裡，我在你嘴裡，園子沒有大到能讓誰藏得住。」

老婆子看著她看了很久。然後她鬆開了手臂。

「竹林我要，」她說，「筍要是我的。」

這是第一個。到中午有了七個。田老，管藥草；廚子的母親，管荷塘；一個獨眼的男人叫丁，管魚池；宋媽，又胖又慢，嗓門大，管果園。其餘的給了開口要的，有幾個什麼也沒要，被好心地硬塞了一角草坪好割草。就在日晷旁，用一張奶白色的紙，一支筆，每個人按了拇指印，走開的時候不太確定自己遇到了什麼事。

有五個人沒辦法接地：丁的妻子，瞎的；一個人的手被割草刀砍掉了；兩個七十多的婦人；還有一個十四歲、犯抽風病的男孩。半圈散開時，他們站在邊上，看著自己的腳。探春還沒想好怎麼辦。她想過年金，那個數字讓她覺得想吐。開口的是葉媽，用她乾平的聲音，手裡拿著她那塊新地的紙。

「輪流，」她說。「我們每人每天餵他們其中一個。我們知道我們是誰。河那一岸就是這麼做的。」

「誰也不許寫下來，」宋媽大聲說，「不然我不幹。」

探春寫了一次，寫在一張紙條上，好讓它開始；手們走了以後，她把紙條放進爐子裡。紙條燒起一小朵乾淨的火，規矩沒有它也繼續下去。

前一天晚上寶釵在賬房裡，燈邊，下巴托在手上，已經把她要說的說完了。

「不要三分給府，」她說。「你會餓死他們。」

「三分之一。」

「四分之一。」寶釵把筆從探春手指間拿過去，自己寫下那個數，小而工整。「我告訴你我父親說佃戶。佃戶要先吃，地主才吃。不然他不是留不住，就是留下來騙你，兩種你都失去你來要的東西。一個人付得起的租子，比一個人付得出的租子便宜。」她抬頭。「你要他們在你嘴裡，探春，他們就得有東西在自己嘴裡。」

探春看了那個數字一會兒。然後她說：「四分之一，」寶釵把筆放回她手裡。

她做的第二件事更安靜，在賬房裡，跟李紈，對著例的名冊，三月裡一個下午。她沒有改例，例到秋天以前不能改。她改的是攤。兩年來，那一根頭髮、那一根線，都從府的底下取，那裡最容易找，也最難被看見；她把整頁翻了過來。頭髮從上面取。頭一等多給一點點，比一根頭髮多；第二等少給一點；最低的什麼也不給；寫在一張紙條上，用李紈謹慎的字，不加評論地送了出去。

太太頭一天早上看著自己桌上的碗，飯比以前稀了一點。她說：「我看見了。」她吃了。她是個吃給她什麼就吃什麼、卻從中得出自己的結論的女人，她想了什麼，探春從來不知道。她的丫頭那天在走廊裡為那稀薄哭了，太太差那女孩去廚房，說讓她有點用。

她還削了一樣東西。府裡的男孩們，六十年來，在書房有一份第二份津貼，買糖、毛筆、給老師的禮，那是因為一個帳房的老錯誤，被給了兩次，從沒有被發現。寶玉聽說時，說了「好」，並且是真心的，因為他本來就送人。環兒什麼也沒說。他把那個數寫進他開始記的一本小冊子。

趙姨娘的哥哥初九死了。

他是下一支的一個管事，叫趙國基，死在一個濕漉漉的早上，沒有預兆，府照常表達慰問，也就是賬房付錢。平兒頭一天翻例的時候對探春說過：「姨娘家裡有人去世，喪葬是二十串，依冊；要是姨娘是頭一支的，就是四十串。」太太的哥哥的妻子是四十。趙姨娘的哥哥，依冊，是二十。二十，已經六十年了。

趙姨娘那天下午穿著孝服來賬房，後面跟著環兒，站在長桌前，兩手相握，下巴抬著。

「是四十，」她說。

「是二十，」探春說。「依冊。」

「太太的哥哥的妻子是四十。」

「太太是頭一支的。」

「我是你的母親，」趙姨娘說。她的聲音開始上去。「我生了你。我哥哥是你舅舅。燈夜你三歲，他把你扛在肩上。你要給他二十串，好像他是個園丁一樣。」

「我也會給園丁二十串，」探春很輕地說，「這正是重點。」

「你在削我。」

「我在削冊子。」她吸了一口氣。她十五歲，站在她母親面前，她的每一分都想從自己的月錢裡拿出四十串給她了事；她能感覺那個想要一直傳到她的腳。「我要是給你四十，母親，我就得給下一個四十，再下一個，到秋天，我們就得給每個生我氣的人四十，那就是整座府。我得給所有人，或者不給任何人。對不起。我削你，和削任何人一樣。這就是為什麼它是削，不是吵架。」

「這對母親說太冷了。」

「是，」探春說。「我知道。」

趙姨娘轉身出去，環兒，一句話沒說，肩後回頭看著他姐姐，那張臉不是孩子的。探春一動不動站著，直到腳步聲走遠。然後她非常小心地坐下，像怕有什麼東西會灑出來的人，開始加一欄她已經加過三遍的數。

過了一會兒李紈進來，放了一杯茶在她手肘邊，什麼也沒說。她在桌子的另一邊坐下。她們就這樣待了很久，牆上的光移動著。

「做對是很糟的一件事，」探春終於說。

「是，」李紈用抱歉的聲音說。「我發現了。」

那天夜裡，在後院，環兒打開他的小冊子，在書房那個數字下面寫了第二行：二十。旁邊用更小的字寫了一個名字，他看了它很久，燈把他的影子投在牆上很大，他還不知道這本冊子是做什麼用的。

鳳姐已經從補房出來，回到自己的屋子，躺在榻上，樓梯和賬房都不許去，那天晚上她從平兒那裡聽到了，像她從初一起所有事都從平兒那裡聽到一樣，手邊一碗她沒喝的湯，臉開始有了氣色。她手邊的桌上有一小包綠葉，裡面是六根淡色的竹筍，是葉媽讓一個男孩送來的，說那不是租子。她一個字不插嘴聽完。

「她削了上頭，」她最後說。

「是，奶奶。」

「我做不到。」她看著天花板。「我知道我做不到。我以為是數字有弱點。」她轉過頭。「帶她來見我。」

探春月底拿著第一份結算來了，只有一張紙。鳳姐靠著讀，細細的手指順著那一欄往下，嘴唇像一向那樣，比眼睛快一點。地租帶來了三十八串。從上面削下的頭髮合計四十一份。放出去的錢，到期就收回，收回了四十七串，不再放新的；最低一等的女孩初一領到了，加一句話，是李紈說的，她說她對不起，想不到更好的。

「差六十一，」鳳姐說。

「是。」

「一個月六十一份。」她把紙放在被子上。她的臉做了一件探春沒見過的事。它軟了，像冰從裡面開始軟。「我願意拿一年的命換這六十一。」

「我知道。」

「不要，」鳳姐說。「不要做那個給出一年的人。這是我最想有人告訴我、卻沒有人告訴我的。」她閉上眼睛。「找出六十一。可是要在一個不是人的地方找。」

社的下一次聚會在四月初三，在農莊，一場細而暖的雨裡。她們袖子放下穿過濕透的草地來了，寶玉、黛玉、寶釵、迎春，湘雲春天下來，惜春帶著一枝新粉筆。晴雯最後到，更瘦了，咳著，坐進她的椅子。

爐子上有栗子。是去年秋天的，裝在袋子裡存著，像以前那樣埋在灰裡烤；可是爐子旁邊的地上放著一碗新鮮的枇杷，黃黃的、小小的、帶著樹上的濕氣，上個月不在那裡。碗旁站著宋媽，又胖又慢，大嗓門壓成了嘟噥，雙手包在圍裙裡。

「我的租子，小姐，」她對探春說。「頭一批枇杷的四分之一，照說好的。還有這個。」她朝碗點點頭。「這是我自己那一半。給社的。我聽說那裡說的任何話都不欠。」

「都不欠，」探春說。

「好，」宋媽很滿意地說。「因為我什麼也沒說。只是枇杷。」

她出去了，微微搖晃，走進雨裡。探春看著她的背影。她為栗子立了一行；她為枇杷立了一行；而這裡，站在農舍地上的一個碗裡，是一行存在的目的，從側面進來。她從碗裡拿起一顆枇杷，在手心裡捧了一會兒，濕的，涼的。然後她在自己的位子坐下，說那個下午的題目，是一樣有人沒被要求就付出了的東西。

她們寫在奶白色紙的背面。晴雯手快，先寫。

有人付了我那把椅子的錢。／我坐了，沒有問。／這是我一生／唯一一件有禮貌的事。

黛玉的最後來。

一把我沒有生的火。／一碗我沒有煮的飯。／我一輩子被我叫不出名字的手餵養。／我想，這就是一座府。

沒有人說話。外面的雨裡，還聽得見宋媽走過草坪，大聲對某個人說她什麼也沒說。

## 第21章 · 四扇窗

老太太在六月初一要了一幅畫，像要一碟鹽那樣。

「再過兩個冬天，我就八十了，」她對惜春說，她被叫到南屋去領一塊糖。「我想要一幅園子的畫，所有人都在裡面，掛在我床上看得見的地方。他們之中只有你會畫。」

「所有人？」惜春說。她十一歲。那一年，她長進了自己的手。

「所有在裡面的人。」

「要一年。」

「那你最好開始，」老太太說。她沒有說這一年是做什麼用的。她不用說。她們兩個都知道，要一幅畫著一個地方、所有人都在裡面的畫，是一個人開始數人頭的時候。

惜春從大門開始，依一個訪客看園子的次序走，就像內席當年在她的四個鐘頭裡走過一次那樣。她先用硬鉛筆，然後用墨，畫在一捲十五步長的紙上，那是李紈在一個箱子底下找到的，她畫得慢，從實物寫生，臂上托著一塊板，站在各個地方。那是地租的頭一個夏天。園子從來沒這麼忙過。她站的每一個地方，都有人在做被告知可以留下的事。

葉媽站在竹林裡，水淹到膝蓋，用刀砍竹竿，捆成一捆一捆，同木匠場來到水門的一個男人討價還價，而那個男人正在輸。

「一捆四串，」那個男人說。

「四是給有節的，」葉媽說，頭也沒抬。「這些沒有。六。」

「五。」

「六，我不會告訴你家主人你去年付了多少。」他付了六。惜春畫了那把刀，老婆子肩膀的架式，和男人的臉，那是被最好的人打敗了的臉。

田老蹲在寶釵院子裡的藥草籬笆邊，捏葉子，聞指頭，一籃給薛家的鋪子，一籃給自己。廚子的母親在荷塘裡撐一艘平底船，戴著桌子那麼大的帽子，蓮蓬堆在船底，綠的，濕的，帶著小孔，像一百個小澆水壺。獨眼的丁把網提起來，魚銀閃閃地啪啪跳。宋媽在果園裡站在一道光裡，兩個拳頭叉在腰上，指揮一個爬在樹上的男孩，她洪亮的聲音傳遍了整片水面。

而在柿子樹下的長凳上，陰涼裡，五個沒辦法接地的人在吃午飯。他們坐成一排：瞎的女人，沒了手的男人，兩個老婆子，那個男孩。每天由不同的佃戶端碗來，坐一會兒，說點什麼，就走了；沒有人記。惜春畫了他們很久。她不知道為什麼鉛筆在那裡慢了下來。她畫了長凳，碗，圍裙的佃戶低著頭靠近瞎女人的耳朵，說著不管說的是什麼。那是整幅畫裡唯一一個，她覺得自己想在裡面的部分。

到秋天，她有了整幅：亭子和農莊和山，水階和有竹子的瘦綠館，有藥草的南院，還有傍晚三十八扇亮的窗，每一扇後面畫著一個人。她畫過黛玉坐在瘦綠館的台階上，臉朝著竹子，身後窗臺上一隻小小的綠蚱蜢。她畫過寶玉在農莊的床上睡著，靴子脫了，和晴雯坐在她的椅子裡，腳向著爐子，和探春在賬房桌邊，鉛筆在手，小而白的臉，和鳳姐，又站起來了，在她屋子的窗邊，手裡一小包曬乾的棗子。她是半夜憑記憶，一次畫一張臉。剩下四扇窗。

那是西面高處的四間屋子，沒有人睡。它們在圖上；在鳳姐舊的燈單上；每晚都亮著，因為內席說過一座點過燈的房子不該留在黑裡，而從來沒有人取消過。第一個冬天，她在石板上把它們畫成過亮的。她當時以為，要是她把光畫出來，也許有人會來。沒有人來。現在她坐在畫卷前，鉛筆在手，三天什麼也沒有畫。

「我沒辦法把它們畫成空的，」她對李紈說，李紈帶著蛋來到農莊。「一幅園子的畫，所有人都在裡面。它們裡面沒有人。」

「你可以留白。」

「它們是亮的，」惜春說。「那是撒謊。」

坐下來的是玲。玲十一歲，個子小，大而嚴肅的眼睛，頭髮編成兩條辮子，在老太太桌上吃飯，睡在南屋的一張小床上，鴛鴦教她認字，沒有人教她算數。那天她穿過園子，來送一個口信，帶著她總是從事情側邊進來的習慣，在農莊門口停下，看著那幅畫，看著四個黑方格，看著畫前面的女孩。她是這座府裡唯一一個，曾經在走廊上，用鉛筆，十二個裡面的一個，被數過的人。

「那些是什麼？」她說。

「窗子。」

「誰在裡面？」

「沒有人，」惜春說。

玲看了它們很久。「我可以，」她說。「如果你要的話。我可以坐。」

於是她坐了。那天傍晚她們兩個一起上了西面高處，帶著一塊板、那捲畫、一小塊墨，和一盞燈籠。四間裡的第一間，是一個普通的方屋，一張床，一張桌子，一個冷的爐子，和一扇小格子的窗，有潮紙和很長一段時間的味道。玲坐在床上，兩手放在膝蓋，像坐著讓人畫那樣。

「你想他們嗎？」惜春在門口說，因為這是她一直在想的事。「那十一個？」

「每晚，」玲用她平常的樣子說。「她們在補匠的府裡。那個灰衣的女人每年新年給老太太送一張條子，十一個名字，一行字：她們都好。她從沒說過更多。」她看著自己的手。「我想那是她們唯一會說的話。我想那很多了。」

惜春點亮窗裡的燈，走出去，站在高處的腳下，黃昏裡，往上看。

窗亮了。還是那扇窗；它在那裡每晚亮，已經三年。可是裡面有一個孩子。她很小，很靜，襯著那片黃色，兩條辮子，向外看著；而惜春，站在黑暗的草裡，感覺到胸口有什麼動了，她沒有一個詞可以叫它，她把板抵在膝蓋上，用最快的速度畫，一次也沒有低頭。

她畫了四個夜晚，一扇窗一晚，每一個都是不同的玲。第一個，她坐著，像她坐過的那樣；第二個，她拿著一本書；第三個，她在唱，嘴張開在一個音上：她在小聲唱名冊的童謠，就是省親時在水階上唱過的那一首，惜春站在高處腳下，聽它順著草地飄下來：六是線，七是門，八是你說兩遍的名。第四個，她畫成燈是滅的，孩子站在黑裡，一隻手平放在玻璃上。畫完，她看著那幅畫看了很久，覺得那是她畫過最好的東西，那不是老太太要的畫，而老太太會懂。

玲在第四個晚上結束時從第四間下來，坐得僵了，沒有回南屋。她站在高處的腳下，辮子散了，用她小而準確的聲音說：「我可以留下嗎？」

「在哪裡？」

「那裡。第一間。它有一張床。」她說得像一個小孩子說一件練習了一年的話。「南屋是老太太的。她很好，我在她的桌上吃飯，睡在她腳邊。可是裡面的每樣東西都是她的。我想要一樣是房間的東西。而且我想要我的名字在門上。我說了兩遍。我想要它被寫一遍。」

第二天早上惜春帶她去見老太太。老太太坐在窗邊拿著梅枝聽完，沉默了一會兒。然後她說：「你得自己點你的燈。」

「我會。」

「而且府會把你算在園子裡。是三十九個。」

「三十九個，」玲說，帶著敬意。

「去找鴛鴦要一床被子，」老太太說。女孩走了以後，她轉過臉對著窗，看著那枝沒有花的梅枝，看了一會兒；惜春留了下來，看見她閉著眼睛在笑，像一樣丟了很久的東西從門口進來時那樣。那天下午惜春把它寫在第一間的門上，用粉筆，用社的規矩那種硬而小的字：玲。一次。

惜春同一天下午去見妙玉，因為她不知道該拿那個感覺怎麼辦。

妙玉住在園子的西邊，過了最後一塊地，一間灰色的小屋，有綠色的窗櫺和一株梅，不在圖上，也不在任何人的名冊上。她二十歲。高而瘦，很乾淨，一張像是為另一個目的雕出來的臉，她十六歲時離開了她的份。這是可能的，也不做的。她要求被從例上拿掉，例說這不是她能拒絕的一碗飯，她就在例的時辰不吃；花了兩年，名冊才注意到，然後名冊劃掉了她的名字，她從此不在任何一份名冊上。她靠自己種的和訪客留下的過活，而府，碰不到她，悄悄為那一碗高興。

她用一個舊得釉面像冰一樣裂了的杯子給惜春沏茶，水是從梅樹下她存的一個罐子裡倒的，那是五個冬天以前的雪，她倒的時候那種小心近乎怒氣。惜春喝了。什麼味道也沒有，她明白，那正是重點。架子上有第二個杯子，唇邊一道金線，是被修補過的。「一個補匠做的，」妙玉說，順著她的眼睛。「他說沒有必要。我說有。」

「痛嗎？」她說。「你離開的時候。」

「不痛。」妙玉看著梅樹。「很安靜。這是沒有人告訴你的部分。非常安靜。你不知道一份名冊有多吵，直到你不在上面。」她在指間轉著那個舊杯。「你會問，我病的時候誰餵我。補匠會來。他們不寫。」

「我可以嗎？」惜春說。

她沒打算說。那話從她身體裡出來，像一口鐘被人碰了一下發出的小聲音。

妙玉看著她很久，那張雕出來的臉完全不動。「還不行，」她說。「你十一歲。等你十五歲、還在問的時候再問我。」她放下杯子。「而且聽這一句，這是我知道唯一值得聽的。府會高興。看看這個。你要是離開，它的頁上就少一碗飯，它會鬆一口氣，鬆到你要做什麼都隨你。所以你問的時候，要問是誰高興。問那是你的選擇，還是府的。」

惜春慢慢點頭，手裡的茶漸漸涼了。她沒有說什麼。她在傍晚的光裡走回農莊，經過柿子樹，那裡五個人在吃完午飯，一個胖女人在收碗，她在水上的山丘上站了一會兒。

燈在被點亮。它們一扇窗一扇窗地亮起來，在暮色裡，順著園子的長度，她數著。西面高處，四間屋子的第一間是黑的。一個小小的身影拿著火紙進了門，很久什麼也沒發生；然後一個火花，一根沒燃的燈芯，又一個火花；第四次，那扇窗亮了。三十九。她站著看了一會兒。她就是那樣畫的；她沒想過會看見。

「有人來了，」她對誰也不是地，在草裡大聲說。

早上她拿起鉛筆，在畫上，四扇窗的第一扇下面，用她最小的字添了兩個字：在。亮。她想，這是這幅畫頭一次是真的。她想起妙玉的問題，把它收起來，留到四年以後再看。然後她放下鉛筆，去看第一間的燈是不是還亮著；是亮著的。

## 第22章 · 中秋夜

到園子的第四個秋天，府已經學會了有秩序地窮，這件事比窮本身要花更久。

這是沒有宣布地完成的。地租已經過了完整的一年，租子每月初一送進來，錢和實物，筍、根、魚、枇杷、種子，每個佃戶附一張小條子，只說是什麼；頭髮從上面取，沒有人評論；貸款都收回了，只剩幾筆冬天到期，黑簿子，鳳姐還鎖在她的箱子裡，現在每月的最後一天才打開，不再是初一，上面寫著外面還有二百一十一串，沒有新放出去的。一個月一百八十七份曾經是個洞，現在是十四份。鳳姐去年五月回到了發例，慢一些，坐在鋪了毯子的椅子裡，平兒在手肘邊，探春的結算在手邊；最低等的女孩初一領錢，加的那句話自從李紈那聲對不起以後，變得更樸素更真。沒有人說得出是什麼時候。那是一座園子丟了一樣東西，在它的位子上找到另一樣，沒有注意到這次交換。

小紅春天從北邊樓梯調進來了。她十三歲，還是窄窄的機靈臉，鞋子沒有洞了，坐在賬房角落的一個凳子上，用平兒舊的鉛筆，記一本自己的簿子。那本簿子記的是每個提水的女孩被欠了什麼，從什麼時候起。沒有人要她記。那是府裡唯一一本由被欠的人記的簿子；探春從她肩後看過一次，什麼也沒說就出去了，而鳳姐，知道，每個月最後一天過來，不說一句話看一看，像看一筆自己同意被拿給看的債。

老太太說中秋夜照常，她要熬夜。

八月十五晴朗無風。他們像園子頭一年那樣，在水階上辦；可它不是頭一年的園子了，不再有四十二扇亮窗和一百個請來的手。月餅是園子自己的廚房烤的，用果園的蜜和農莊的麵粉；燈籠是紙的，是園子的老婦人晚上在荷塘邊一邊唱歌一邊做的；菜每個人都帶一樣，每個院子一道，是社起頭的規矩，這樣沒有人是主人，也沒有人是客人。到第二個鐘頭，台階上已經超過六十個人，依位次又不依位次坐成一個鬆鬆的大馬蹄形，老太太坐在中間的椅子裡蓋著毯子，年輕的在她腳邊，丫頭、手和佃戶在下面的台階，各提各的燈籠，整片斜坡看起來像一條小金船的河。小紅在斜坡最底下，提著自己的燈籠，小聲數著那些臉，數出來是六十三個，她把這個數留著。

月亮從寧府的屋頂上升起，又紅又大，爬高以後變白。

寶玉坐在第三級台階，雙膝拉起。他十四歲。那年他長高了，也瘦了，短例留在他身上的邊緣模糊從沒完全消失，卻沉澱成類似恍惚的東西。他看著月亮。我跟著他看，從他的胸口，這是我唯一有的視野；我想，我有時會這樣想，那是整座府裡唯一一樣從來沒有被登記過的東西，而它是亮的。

他們喝熱酒，吃月餅，老的人講最老的故事。晴雯坐在草地的椅子上，膝上蓋著毯子，披著披肩；她咳了兩個冬天，自從那件外套以後就沒好過，可她的舌頭一點沒鈍。探春坐在李紈旁邊，膝上一本帳，沒有翻開。迎春在對惜春小聲說著什麼，惜春沒在聽，看著水。玲把腳擱在老太太的腳凳上，像她九歲以來一直做的，雖然她現在睡在西面高處，手裡一盞自己的燈籠。

寶釵把月餅碟順著隊伍傳下去，傳到黛玉面前，她多拿了一會兒。「我母親家寫信來了，」她用她平穩的聲音說。「過了冬天，我想我要回家住一陣。」

「多久？」黛玉說。

「夠久。」寶釵笑了。它準時到了。「拿紅印的那個。是好的。」

頭一更剛過，台階腳下起了一陣騷動，一隻鵝憤慨的聲音，和一個人叫牠別叫的聲音，從燈籠中間的黑裡，背著籃子，一隻胳膊夾著一隻鵝，走出來的是劉姥姥。

她老了一歲半，也小了一點，裙邊跟著一個八歲的男孩，就是那個小甜葫蘆的孫子。她在光裡站住。「我來晚了，老太太，」她對老太太說，一個福禮照顧了全場。「河拿走了第一隻鵝，第二隻是被狐狸叼了。這是第三隻。那二十五我已經用雞蛋還了，託守門的妻子，一回幾個，從前年春天起；她會告訴您。可是鵝才是我說過的東西，我這麼晚才帶來，羞得很。」

鳳姐坐在下面台階的椅子上，放下杯子笑了。那低的笑。「平兒，」她說，「我說過我很想看看那隻鵝。」

「您說過，奶奶。」

他們在荷塘邊給鵝找了個地方，一碗水，牠站在那裡生氣。劉姥姥被餵了。她坐在下面台階的佃戶中間，一手一塊月餅，一手一杯熱酒，抬頭看著斜坡上的燈籠，大聲對宋媽說：「看著有人住。」「是有人住，」宋媽說，兩個人坐在一起像一對桶。那個曾經是嬰兒的孩子，現在是個三歲的女孩，穿著黃襖，嘴裡含著拇指，穿過台階走過去，在老太婆的腳上坐下來，沒有動；平兒沒有把她挪開。

二更過後笛子響了。

它從寧府那邊來，越過那道牆原來所在的地方，一條細細的聲音，從黑裡升起，並且撐住。不是任何人認得的調子。它升上去，抖，落下來，像在試著找一個很深的房間的地板。台階上的話稀了，停了。燈籠一動不動。沒有人問是誰，因為每個人都知道：是寧府當家，在梅山的亭子裡，那是他無法忍受一個房間的夜晚獨坐的地方；他吹的，是一個男人為死了三年的兒媳吹的東西。

老太太慢慢抬起一隻手，像要阻止它。然後她讓手落在膝上。

「讓他吹，」她說。

它持續了很久。它爬上園子上面的黑暗，又碎成片落回水上，水接住了。下面台階有人輕輕哭了，是一個老婦人，她認識孩提時的可卿；她哭的方式，像一個沒有被給一個名字去哭的人。老太太閉著眼睛坐著。笛子在一句話中間停了，像吹的人只是把它放下，之後有一百口氣的時間沒有人說話；月亮繼續升在屋頂上。

然後黛玉用她小而清楚的聲音說：「我去水邊。」

湘雲，秋天下來的，立刻站起來跟她去。那年她們兩個總是這樣；她們變成了彼此的某種東西，沒有誰會給它一個名字，就像吵的和靜的有時會做的那樣。她們一起沿著池邊走到亭子，老太太曾經在那裡聽過對岸老婆子說話，中間一盞燈籠，坐在最低一級台階，腳垂在水上。很冷。池塘黑而靜，月亮整個鋪在上面，白天的熱氣散去，水面有一絲薄霧。

「有一隻鶴，」湘雲小聲說。她沒有大聲；笛子把她那份也收了。一隻鶴從屋頂上飛進來，站在淺水裡，一條腿，灰色的，很靜。

「說吧，」黛玉說。

她們輪流做，像以前那樣，一人一句，接過來傳過去；她們做得很輕，傳不出亭子以外。

湘雲說：月把一個碗擱在黑水上。

黛玉說：沒有人盛，也沒有人去數。

湘雲說：鶴影過去，濕了半池光。

黛玉說：冷的東西，收下什麼，就還什麼。

她們坐著。鶴抬起一條腿又放下。兩個人中間的燈籠在黑暗裡造出一個小而暖的房間。沒有第五句；她們誰也做不出。那是她們開頭的一件事的結尾，她們知道，坐著看水，沒做完的詩像一個碗一樣擱在中間，直到身後小路的黑暗裡，有一個聲音說話。

「有一隻手在遠處，還握著燈。」

她們兩個都轉過頭。妙玉站在小路上，提著自己的燈籠，穿灰色，很高。她是在中秋夜從西邊下來的，像她一年一次那樣，站在水聲最好的地方；她聽見了那兩個聲音，聽了，忍不住。她沒打算說話。她用讀紙頁的人的平聲說出來，說完，她的樣子像是想把它收回去。

有一會兒沒有人說話。然後黛玉說：「那是最後一句。」

「不是我的，」妙玉僵硬地說。「我只是說了。」

「沒有人的是，」湘雲高興極了，說。「這是規矩。」

妙玉看看這個，又看看那個，那張雕出來的臉裡有什麼動了，有一口氣的工夫，幾乎笑了。「有茶，」她突然說。「是熱的。你們會冷。」她轉身沿著小路走上去，提著燈籠，她們跟著，一個吵的，一個靜的，穿過暗下來的園子，到那間灰色小屋，綠窗櫺的，梅樹光禿禿地立在月亮前。

她用有金線的杯子給她們倒茶，自己用一個素的，她們在燈下無言喝完，三個女人，沒有一個真正在名冊上。月光從窗櫺進來，躺在地板上。我記下，那是社的每一把椅子都坐滿的最後一晚；台階上沒有人說得出，窗櫺邊也沒有人知道。

南屋，老太太三更被抬進去，著了涼。她說她不冷。王大夫來了，走了，在走廊裡對鴛鴦說她不能再在濕氣裡熬夜。他說的聲音，是對一件已經決定了的事用的聲音。

玲自己點亮了南屋的燈，坐在床邊的腳凳上，穿著睡襖，兩條辮子放下。她是一聽說就從黑暗的園子西邊高處跑過來的。老太太靠在三個枕頭上閉著眼睛。

「玲，」她說。

「老太太。」

「幫我數窗子。」

玲走到南窗看出去。燈籠沿著水一盞盞熄了；那個大馬蹄形的台階空了，石頭上留著幾隻紙船一樣的光，而在它們上面，沿著整個園子的長度，在黑裡，窗子亮著。她用她小而準確的聲音，大聲，一個一個數。

「三十九。還有三扇暗的。」

「那畫呢？」

「快了。她還有一個角落要畫。」

「哪個？」

「水上的亭子。」玲想了想。「她說她不知道誰坐在水邊，就畫不上水。」

「不會，」老太太說。她睜開眼睛。眼睛很清楚，很乾。「冬天我就八十了。他們會想大辦。他們會說是為我，其實是為他們。朝廷期待；朝廷會派個人來；有個禮制。」她在枕頭上轉過頭。「我會允許的。這是我最後一樣能給他們去花的東西。」

「老太太，」玲說，停住了。

「噓，孩子。我不怕。我這輩子數過不少東西。」她抬起手，玲雙手接住，握著，輕的，乾的，冷的，像一小捆葉子。「繼續。再說一遍。我愛聽它們被說出來。」

玲又數了一遍，數到底，很慢，老太太在中間睡著了，數字像水一樣流過她；玲坐在床邊的凳子上，燈在旁邊，沒有停，直到窗子轉灰。

## 第23章 · 八十

朝廷為八十歲定的禮制很老，有四個部分，十月最後一天，府在賬房裡依序把它唸完，臉上是讀自己的賬單的人那種神情。

第一部分是壽使，由朝廷派來，由府供住三天，並確保其餘的事都辦到。第二部分是壽杖，一根黑木杖，銀頭，朝廷借給高壽的人，終身，繩上縫一張標籤，之後收回。第三部分是八十碗：三天，每天從府自己的門口，給來的人八十碗。第四部分是點名。在那天，在她自己的桌邊，在壽使聽得見的地方，高壽的人要點出八十個人陪她坐，凡被點到的人，依朝廷的冊，終身記在她的份上；而朝廷，看到那麼多人被點，就把他們當作她的，沒有她的允許，不從任何名冊上劃掉他們。

「這是朝廷唯一一樣不收回的禮，」賴管家唸著說。他現在老了，唸了兩遍。「也是一筆債。」

「壽使誰付？」鳳姐說。

「我們付。三百四十串，連同費用。」他翻了一頁。「壽宴，依禮制，三百。給朝廷官員的禮，二百。八十碗從官倉出，一百六十份，在市上算成六十串。總數超過九百。」

沒有人說話。那是十月的最後一天。明天，四次收回的最後一次就要從撥數裡扣掉，府的庫裡，有的是四年來每個月有的那些，也就是剩下的。

「寧府當家來信了，」平兒說。「他出四百。」

「他會的，」鳳姐說。「自從那支笛子以後他一直很寂寞。」她用手指很快地數。「薛姨媽，一百。府可以湊一百五十，要是客氣地請太太。還有老太太自己的，」她說，停住。

「老太太說了二百五十，」鴛鴦在門口說。她兩手插在袖裡穿過院子過來，臉上什麼也不露。「冊子上就是這個數。她說她想全花掉。」

「全部？」

「全部，」鴛鴦說。「她說一本裡面還有一點的冊子，是讓人覺得非留著不可的東西。」

鳳姐坐了一會兒，一動不動，拿著鉛筆。然後她笑了，那個舊的、光彩的笑，賬房兩年沒見過了，又拿起鉛筆。「九百，」她說。「四百、一百、一百五、二百五。剛好是我們有的。我會讓它剛好是我們有的。」她看著平兒。「這是我會做的最後一件大事。去拿好紙來。」

她做了。見過的人後來說，那是她做過最漂亮的一件活，是在九天裡做的，用的是大夫叫她休息的身子。她用園子養著，把壽宴做成兩百六十串，原本是三百。她用一個曾經當過一座府的人的鞠躬和長篇大論，把朝廷官員的禮談到一百五十，官員們走的時候又感動、又少了一截。她省下的九十串，她一個字沒提；她把它們收在抽屜裡，用紅線紮著。她沒睡。傍晚她坐在賬房的椅子裡，小紅坐在角落的凳子上，鉛筆走著，她的氣色很紅，眼睛非常亮；平兒看著她，什麼也沒說，因為她已經學到，有一種光彩是要讓它燒的。

壽使十一月初九到，坐一頂素椅，兩個轎夫。他是個又小又乾的六十歲男人，灰袍紅帶，腰間一個筆筒，那張臉屬於一個看過很多座府、從來沒被嚇到的人。他什麼都看。他什麼都沒寫。他住了三天，吃，賴管家帶著驚恐看著他，剛好是朝廷的口糧，不多不少，剩下的在盤子裡擺成一條線。

頭一個下午，他在南屋把杖交給老太太。那是一樣好東西，黑色，素的，銀頭，繩上縫著朝廷灰色的標籤。她雙手接過。

「朝廷致意，」壽使說，「並獻上朝廷的杖。」

「朝廷真好，」老太太說。

「朝廷是精確的，」壽使溫和地說。那不是責備。只是糾正一個詞。

八十碗在水階上發了三天，從中午起，給來的任何人。禮制要從官倉出，官倉送來一百六十份粗糧，會做出八十碗官倉的碗那種碗。可是探春去找了佃戶。水階上發的碗是栗子粥，加了蓮子和一匙果園的蜜；那五個接不了地的人被安排去舀，佃戶輪流端來。每天來八十個人，從巷子，從河邊，從過橋的補匠的府；第二天，壽使被端來一碗嚐。

他用他做每件事的精確嚐了。他看著碗。

「這比官倉的好，」他說。

「這不是官倉的，」探春說。

「不是。我看出來沒有登記。」他看了她一口氣的工夫，一個十六歲的小女孩，臉像一把尺，然後看著瞎女人手裡的勺，看著台階上的人龍，看著荷塘一角一隻鵝正在生氣。「朝廷要八十碗，」他說。「它從來沒問是誰的。」他拿出簿子，寫了一個字，那是八十。

第三天中午，在南屋的大廳，是點名。

他們讓她坐在大廳盡頭的大椅子裡，杖橫在膝上。她在床上躺了八天，堅持要穿戴整齊；她穿著黑袍子很小，坐得很直，白髮往後梳，兩手放在銀頭上。她周圍，大廳裡，府依位次坐著，後面，在樓梯上和走廊裡，站著園子的手，和佃戶，和最低一等的穿著乾淨的圍裙，大廳看起來像在呼吸。壽使站在她右邊，拿著簿子。禮制由一個書記用平板的聲音唸，唸完，壽使說：「老夫人可以開始。」

她沒有看名單。她沒有。我想，她腦子裡存了一年了。

「玲，」老太太說。

走廊裡有一聲小小的響動。玲穿過門進來，乾淨的襖，兩條辮子，沿著大廳走上去，像走一段很遠的路，站在椅子後面左邊。

「小紅。」

她從賬房的角落來，十三歲，窄窄的，拳頭裡還握著鉛筆，站在玲旁邊。

「黛玉，」老太太說。「她以前在我的份上，並且要留下。」

那女孩一句話不說地來了，穿著她的兩件襖，臉完全白了，站著。第一排的寶玉在那個名字被唸到時合起手握住了我，我感覺到他的脈搏穿過這塊石頭；我記下，在那個名字被唸的那一刻，大廳裡沒有人像他那樣被抓住。

「丁家的，叫阿南。吳，沒了手的。老方。老朱。男孩小多。」

他們來了，那五個接不了地的人，一個一個，順著長長的大廳走下去，瞎女人搭著男孩的手臂，在椅子後面站成一圈。

她繼續。她一個一個叫名字，用清楚而不累也不急的聲音，一個接一個，他們從站著的人群裡走出來，走進那個圈裡。提水的：翠兒、蘭兒、兩個恆兒、月兒、小玉、竹兒、霜兒，這樣順著小紅記的簿子往下，一共三十一個，她們排成一列穿著乾淨的圍裙，不看彼此。掃樓梯的，十個。沒有等的女孩。荷塘邊做燈籠的老婦人。晴雯，第二等的，帶著她的椅子和咳嗽，披著披肩走上前，站得很直，皺著眉好讓自己不哭。紫鵑。鶯兒。平兒，她拿過鑰匙。花了差不多一個鐘頭。壽使穩穩地寫。大廳裡沒有人動；府坐在它的位次裡，看著大椅子後面的那個圈長大，直到它比椅子還寬，開始沿著台座兩側彎過去，像一隻手慢慢合攏。

太太看著那個圈在她婆婆的椅子後面長大。她來點名的時候臉上什麼也看不出；可是提水的開始進來時，她也跟大家一樣算了，嘴唇在動。算出來是七十幾張口，記在一份她知道只剩兩串的份上，而老太太走了以後，它就要回到例上。老爺坐在她旁邊，完全沒有看那個圈；他看著壽使的筆。太太看了那個圈很久，然後，連她自己也比別人更驚訝，看著晴雯，站得筆直、皺著眉的晴雯；又把目光移開了。

「還有鳳姐，」老太太說，接近尾聲。她轉過頭。「她餵了我們所有人，自己沒吃。」

鳳姐坐在第二排，穿著紅襖。她有一會兒沒動。然後她慢慢站起來，一隻手撐著椅子扶手，走上大廳。她沒有哭。她站在圈裡，頭抬得高，嘴閉著，那支她忘了自己還拿著的鉛筆，從她指間掉到地板上。

「七十九，」壽使說，沒有抬眼。鳳姐那時才知道抽屜裡那九十串是做什麼的。那是這七十九個人的第一個月。

老太太在大椅子的枕頭上轉過頭，看著站在椅子後面，稍微站開一點的人，一身素深色的衣裳，兩手交疊，像她三十年來站在那把椅子後面那樣。

「鴛鴦，」她說。

「我不受，老太太，」鴛鴦說。

大廳吸了一口氣。壽使抬起頭。「被點的人不能不受，」他說。

「那我就是沒被點。」鴛鴦的聲音沒有升高。「我站在這把椅子後面三十年了，先生，沒有靠誰的份，只靠我自己的，那是我掙的。那是我唯一一樣不是給的東西。我想留著。」

有很長的沉默。老太太看著她看了很久，那張老臉裡有什麼動了又靜下來，那我想是一種驕傲。

「那就是七十九，」她說。

「七十九，老太太，」鴛鴦說。「還有一個站著的。」

壽使看看這個，又看看那個。然後他把眼睛低向簿子，寫，筆走了很久。「朝廷以前沒有過七十九個加一個站著的，」他終於說。「我會這樣登記。」他合上簿子。然後他對老太太說，用一個在自己身上客氣的人才用的低聲：「老夫人把七十九張口放在一份我聽說裡面不多的份上。朝廷不問。可是我該說一句，出於禮貌，您以後，朝廷的保護是份的保護，也就是說，是份裡有的東西的保護。」

「我知道，」老太太說。

「我想您知道，」壽使說，鞠了一躬，走了出去。

那天夜裡，在南屋，大廳空了，七十九個人的圈已經散回他們的房間、床和樓梯，老太太靠在枕頭上，黑杖放在被子旁邊。她很累。鴛鴦坐在凳子上，膝上那本小綠冊子攤開。

「唸，」老太太說。

「有一行，老太太。它說：為八十大壽，二百五十。下面，」鴛鴦的聲音，一輩子沒有抖過的，抖了，「兩串。」

「留下那兩串。」

「老太太，」鴛鴦說，停住了。

「一本什麼都沒有的冊子是債，鴛鴦。一本裡面有兩串的冊子，是可以睡在旁邊的東西。」老太太閉上眼睛。「七十九，」她說。「我做了。現在輪到府了。」

朝廷的通知在月底到，一張灰條子，對折一次，像朝廷的通知那樣。第四次收回已經扣完，也是最後一次：從明年十一月初一起，榮府的撥數又是一年七千份了。鳳姐在賬房對平兒和小紅唸出來，放下。

「七千，」她說。「明年冬天。晚了四年。」她笑了，低的笑；沒有持續下去。她坐了一會兒，手按著側腹，看著桌上那張灰紙。事實上，那是朝廷送給那座府的最後一份好通知。可是賬房裡沒有人知道，角落裡那個記著簿子的女孩，寫下了日期。

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## Revision ledger

- **01** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Opening chapter (01), The Spare, of Colophon's adaptation of Dream of the Red Chamber, Allowances _(Neo approved the adaptation on 2026-10-17 as a deliberate contrast with another author's very different version of the same book, and on 2026-10-24 said to keep creating. The author's choice: a quiet household novel in a world where people are made and then kept on a share, so that love, rank and decline are the same arithmetic, told by the one thing in the house that was never entered on anyone's share. No document frame: the earlier serials have already used a roll, registers and a hearing record. Chapter 1: the Mending (a net let down over the world so the made could be kept), the thirty-six thousand five hundred and one stones cut and the thirty-six thousand five hundred set, the one left in the cart; the surplus stone at the roadside, not entered anywhere, with a mind; the two Menders (one lame, one scabbed, barefoot) who talk of the House of Rong adding a second son the Old Madam asked for by name; the stone asks to be taken and is told what it will cost (see everything, hold nothing, give and receive nothing); four marks cut into it; three days to the back gate and the woman who attends arrivals; the House waking by rank, three hundred and eleven mouths and the Old Madam not eating; the Master doing the sum, the Lady keeping still; the new person arrives with the stone in his mouth; the Master reads Lose me not, Forget me not; the clerk has no heading for it and leaves a space; named Baoyu because everyone agrees it is jade; hung on a red cord; three hundred and twelve mouths., AI-only)_
- **02** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 02, Draw Day _(Ten years after chapter 1, the first morning of autumn, the one Draw Day of the year on which the House of Rong's whole share is read out afresh. The counting-room and Second Mistress Lian (Xifeng, twenty-three, sleeves pushed back, a gold phoenix pin), two clerks; what the Table and the Pocket are; the Court's draw for the quarter, the same as last quarter and the same for six autumns while the House added mouths in each; payment by rank from the top, so the people who most need it are paid last; Yuanyang drawing for the Old Madam, whose share is twice the Master's and spent on others. One allowance made: the north-kitchen cook's mother's mending slot (the fourth is empty in the roll, so Xifeng sees nothing on the fourth). The lowest girls' Pocket paid a day short (the balance is stuck, the rest on the fifth; nobody counts the days). One allowance not made: Lady Zhao's son Huan stays at the second table, with a coat of grey. Pinger brings the Court's notice that Keeper Lin's Charter closed with his death and his daughter, ten, goes to the Menders' Rolls unless taken up within the month. The Old Madam: Put her on mine; then spread her (a hair off every bowl, a thread off every hem). Nine hundred small alterations that evening and the youngest maids hungry by the week's end. At dusk the second son, ten, asks Xifeng what a share is and is told: what you are allowed, by the roll, by the clerks, by me, mostly; when she cannot allow it she makes allowances, for whoever is nearest., AI-only)_
- **03** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 03, One More Mouth _(Daiyu arrives on the last afternoon of the month, ten, thin, with one small box, an old nurse and a maid, coughing once at the gate. Her father's instruction (be grateful, do not ask what it costs, take what you are given and no more, thank them so they cannot be embarrassed). She watches and counts. The Old Madam cries; the cousins in order of age (Yingchun round and silent, Tanchun pricing her from hem to collar, small Xichun watching); Xifeng, late and laughing, says quietly that she is the one who found her the room, and it has a window; the Lady warns that her son is a little demon who gives things away and does not know the price of anything. At the first table Daiyu's bowl is the Old Madam's bowl and is thin by a hair, one of nine hundred each made lighter by a grain; she knows whose it is and eats it all so nothing taken for her is wasted (her first allowance, done with a spoon). Baoyu, ten, comes in at the sweet course: I have seen this sister before; he names her Frown; he asks whether she has one of these (the Stone) and, told it is a rare thing, asks why he has it and what it is for, and throws it on the floor. It does not break. The Old Madam: it is your life-root. The House's evidence that he is theirs. The Old Madam's kind lie that Daiyu was born with one and it went with her mother; Daiyu, who never had one, says Yes, it went with my mother, the first untrue thing she says in that House, and only the Stone can tell. Baoyu puts the cord back on himself. The two are put on either side of the Old Madam's own rooms. Daiyu counts what she has learned until it is light; Baoyu speaks to the Stone for the first time (Did you mind?), and the Stone says what it would have said: it minded what she said afterwards, the first allowance it ever saw cost the one who made it everything she had., AI-only)_
- **04** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 04, The Locket _(The Xues arrive in the fifth week after Daiyu with six carts: the Lady's elder sister (Aunt Xue), her son Pan (nineteen, spends like a river runs downhill), her daughter Baochai (thirteen), a girl called Xiangling whom Pan paid for twice, eleven servants, a cook, a harp nobody plays. A trading house with ledgers in seven cities and a place in the third column of the Court's merchant list, no Charter, their own rations; they come because of Pan's costly lawsuit over Xiangling and so that Baochai can be put forward for the placing of daughters. Aunt Xue puts a purse on the counting-room table (nobody had ever put one there who was not being paid); the Old Madam refuses it three times and in the end it is put to the Table in the Xues' name and none of it spent on them; Xifeng takes it with both hands, as a woman takes a baby: the first sum to enter that room in six autumns by any door but the Court's. Baochai, face like a silver dish, a heat in her blood kept in order by a Mender's cold powder: on her third day she sends two hampers from the Xues' stores to the kitchens for the children (the youngest maids are not hungry for a fortnight); Xifeng knows and is grateful and ashamed; Daiyu knows, sees that it cost the giver nothing and was perfect, and is jealous. Daiyu thanks her; Baochai offers the hour of her own mender she does not use, on the ninth; Daiyu cannot refuse and counts that she now owes an hour. With the first snow Baoyu visits the sick Baochai in the Pear Fragrance Court and reads the small gold lock: four marks, Not leave, not abandon; Yinger cries that it is a pair with his stone's Lose me not, Forget me not; the Stone says they are one sentence from two sides, the plea of the kept and the vow of the keeper, and it knows the lame Mender's stroke on the gold; Baochai says They are very like and does not say it is nothing. In two weeks the kitchens have gold and jade, a good match. Daiyu overhears two girls washing greens (that's the House mended; and what's to become of the little cousin) and, years later in the rain, tells Baoyu the total: she came into the House as a cost and Baochai as a sum, and she had not thought to be afraid of being correctly outweighed., AI-only)_
- **05** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 05, The Count _(The Ning House keeps its mouths differently: it spends as if to be seen (lanterns lit earlier, steps swept twice, the better fed lions). In the second month of winter Madam You invites the Rong party to see the plum on the hill behind the Ning garden, lit from below by red paper lanterns; Daiyu counts the Ning second table (a whole fish, mushrooms, wine; the youngest maids not hungry) and Xifeng files it as what she will add up later (Zhen would insist). Keqing, the heir of Ning's wife, is Baoyu's niece by the House's arithmetic and ten years his elder, the most careful person in either House, and was on the Menders' Rolls at five (the Ning steward took her out of the noon-bowl line because she said her name twice, once for the Rolls and once for herself); she never speaks of it and is kind to anyone thin. She and Xifeng at the rail: It is always Draw Day; her hand is thinner by about one bowl. Baoyu, drooping after supper, sleeps in her room: he will not sleep under the scroll (What can be reckoned clear is learning. What can be let go is writing), so he lies on the small bed with the faded red quilt; Xiren, thirteen, steady, sits by him. When he sleeps the Stone is shown, not seeing but shown: it is a window when someone close to it has been taken in off the Rolls and lies in a room with no flaw. The Hall of the Count: a gate with two lines (Count what is owed, and what is loved goes uncounted; where nothing is entered, there is still something owed), the Counter, a sum that learned to sit down, who cannot see the Stone (a gap the size of a stone for the first time in nine hundred years). The twelve of the House are not predictions but a sum carried forward; it can be changed if someone enters a different figure; whoever holds the pen; she counts and does not enter. Five pages, each a picture and four lines: Daiyu and Baochai (thin bowl, full bowl, a gold lock, a red cord with nothing on it), the lamp set high (the Seat), the girl with the kite (Tanchun), the phoenix on the counting-board (Xifeng, standing in the column that does not come out), the queue for a bowl with one very straight (Keqing; not meant to be shown). A last sheet without picture or verse: the draw unchanged, the mouths three hundred and fourteen, three hundred and twenty-one, three hundred and thirty, the difference carried forward: the one that does not rhyme. A last blank page the Counter turns face down: the only page in the Hall whose end she does not know. The figures rise like a tide; Baoyu wakes calling Keqing: The sum doesn't come out; Keqing's hand closes like a book, and her face shuts., AI-only)_
- **06** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 06, Where the Count Cannot Reach _(After the plum Keqing does not come across the street again; the House of Ning says she is a little unwell, in the same words each time. Baoyu goes every day. On the ninth morning Daiyu gives him the slip Baochai wrote for an hour of Mender Lo's time (she could not refuse it, could not use it, and so pays it on: tell her I should like to be square; Is she thin? Yes, like you). On the tenth day, waiting in the passage, he and Xiren overhear the Ning mender Zhang tell the heir that Keqing is thin at the root, mended when she was brought in off the Rolls and needing it every year, and that she cancelled her slot each of the last three years in her own hand (not needed), and he took her at her word. In her room Keqing reads Daiyu's slip (she is ten and she is paying it forward), says it is an hour she cannot use but the kindest thing anyone has offered her this winter, keeps it under her pillow, and sends Baoyu to sleep on the small bed. Xifeng comes at the lighting of the lamps without a maid. Keqing: what the count cannot reach it cannot take; the Charter will end, the Court will take everything in the roll and nothing that was never entered; put something where the roll does not go, a field at the family graves, held in the clan's name for the rites and a school, its yield belonging to nobody; do it while the House is bright; there is good news coming within the year (from the heir, from a man at the Court) and while the lamp is at its brightest the oil will begin to run; she has done the sum every night since the boy cried that it did not come out, and he was right. Xifeng: to put a share outside the roll is to say the roll might fail, and there is no allowance for that kind of thing. Call it the rites. Why me: the only person who knows to the last coin what the House has, and the one most likely to do the next sum instead. And eleven measures: Keqing did not take her own mending slot for three years, kept the eleven in the seventh drawer of the Ning counting-room under her name, unspent, for the field: the one allowance she could make, nobody had to be asked. Xifeng covers her face (Xifeng without the sleeves) and says I will think about it, the only sentence in that House that means never. She stands a long time on the Ning step looking at the lions, then goes home and does the sum that does not come out, and puts it away, and does the next., AI-only)_
- **07** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 07, The Seventh Drawer _(Keqing is counted out on the fourth night of the first month, thinly and without fuss. The Ning custom of the Counting Out: the Table empty for one meal, a lamp for forty-nine days, and every person in the House puts one grain in a bowl so the share she drew all her life is given back in a thousand pieces and the roll is a line shorter; it says you were counted, you are not owed, go. Baoyu, given a grain by Xiren, says she did not take hers (last year, the year before; Zhang said) and asks whose it is he is giving back; the next morning he gives his own breakfast rice to a girl in the kitchen passage. The Master of Ning decides she shall have the best, and the best coffin is a board of keeping-wood (the makers' wood, which keeps what is laid in it four hundred years) that Pan's father laid by; Pan names a thousand measures. Madam You is in bed; Xifeng is lent for a month and takes the boy, who sits on a stool and fetches pencils. Her five rules (a named person for every task, one hand for the keys, a roll at the hour, a thing lost charged to its last holder, spending written the same day) and the lamp-oil boy whose mother is in the mending-room (she writes mending against his name: the board is to say where a person is, not only where they are not). She is entirely herself and happy with a very small door. On the ninth day the steward Lai finds nine hundred and eighty-nine of the thousand: eleven short; the only unspent thing is the seventh drawer, under the late young lady's name, eleven measures, a mending slot three years unspent; Xifeng, who in the autumn had seen nothing on the fourth, looks for one breath and says Enter it; the sum comes out; a thousand measures is ninety times what Keqing's mending would have cost her in a year. On the fifteenth day the Court's messenger (young, tired, fed a bowl by Pinger in the street between the white and the red) brings the news: the House's daughter, in the Court's inner rooms since fifteen, is raised to the Seat of the Inner Table, with the right of one visit home within the year. Keqing said within the year; it was fifteen days. Baoyu asks whether she has a larger share now and, told it will lift them all, whose she will have taken it from. On the twentieth night, before the case is closed, Xiren brings Xifeng the slip found under Keqing's pillow (one hour of Mender Lo's time, for Miss Lin): put it in her hand, do not enter it, the one thing nobody has had to enter., AI-only)_
- **08** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 08, A Garden for One Day _(Eight months and a wall: the wall between the two Houses comes down in a week, two hundred men, every brick numbered by the Master of Ning in case; the Ning garden (small and rich) and the Rong grounds (large and poor) become one seam of raw earth. The men who build it come from the villages beyond the Charters, paid in coin, finishing in half the time because a man who has had to keep himself thin has learned to use his hands; Xifeng finds the first roll she has ever seen with no column for their keep. The cost of the honour on a second and third paper; Xifeng puts the whole to the Old Madam: forty-two rooms to be looked into. The Master: we cannot borrow against the future for one day; the Old Madam: it is the Seat's day; Xifeng: one day and four winters. The Court's Stores grant the advance every honoured House is owed: nine thousand measures, taken back in four equal pieces from the next four winters' draws; the House's draw has been seven thousand a year for six years, so more than three in ten; the Old Madam (a branch of early plum in the bowl that morning): her granddaughter has been nine years in the Court's rooms and never home, we shall find it. The Master of Ning does it better: twelve children of nine to thirteen taken off the Menders' Rolls to be taught the Court's music; a hundred maids and gardeners to be chosen for being pleasant to look at (twelve more mouths, and a hundred, each a mouth when the day is over). On the long porch Qingwen, fifteen, from the Old Madam's household (I can sit still when I am told, and I cannot pretend I like it); Xifeng puts her down; the Lady keeps her eyes on the girl a moment too long. In the spring the Master walks the half-made Garden with four gentlemen (Mr. Zhan first) and brings Baoyu to name places: the entrance rock (The Way Round, not for hiding but for coming through), the pavilion over the loud water (Clear Sound), the bamboo grove (the Lodge of Thin Green, for someone a little afraid of being alone who does not mind, said with his eyes on the corner nearest the south room). At the farm (a thatched house, four hens, a bed the size of a table, a water-wheel) Mr. Zhan says Rice-Fragrance Village; Baoyu: nobody will eat from it, it is a picture and the Court's people eat; the Master: hold your tongue, take him out of my sight. A widow of the House is later put in the farm, grows and eats the vegetables, and the bed has to be enlarged. The Garden is finished at the end of the eighth month; on the eve of the Old Madam's people coming to see it Baoyu and Daiyu stand at the top of the rise among the test-lit lanterns; Daiyu counts forty-two lit rooms with nobody in any of them, a hundred mouths for a day, four winters to pay it back, and one person who will come for a day from a place we cannot go to., AI-only)_
- **09** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 09, The Visit _(The Court gives a Seat four hours, from the third hour of the morning to the seventh, because people kept longer in a House they love do not always go back. The House of Rong stands in ranks at the gate from before dawn in clothes taken out of cedar. Three inspectors in grey with counting-boards go ahead through the Garden and count lanterns, dishes, persons in each court; the oldest has a pointed grey beard and says good morning to every maid and writes down her face. The Seat, Yuanchun, twenty-four, tall, in a plain robe the colour of weak tea, pale as a person is who has been counted too often, looks at the stones, then sees the Old Madam in her red and her face goes; the Old Madam is out of her chair and the Seat is on her knees with her arms round her: Why so much? On the tour she reads The Way Round on the first rock and asks to see Baoyu, whom she has not seen since he was three; takes his chin, says they tell her he gives his rice away: Don't give it all away. At the farm the oldest inspector asks who eats the hens; Baoyu turns a laugh into a cough. The young write poems in the water pavilion; Baochai tells Baoyu in passing that his third word is what the Court's poets say, say what you mean; Daiyu, who sees he has no last lines, writes them on the edge of her sleeve in a hand like his and writes her own poem flat and plain so that his will shine, and passes it across like salt; the Seat calls his the best; he never knows that one gave him a word and the other a poem. The twelve sing the Court's pieces; the Seat asks the little one at the end, nine, to sing something she knows, and she sings the Rolls' counting rhyme (One for the bowl and two for the spoon... eight for the name you say twice... ten is for being kept); the Seat, who heard it for nine years through a wall from the Court's maids taken off the Rolls, weeps evenly like rain on a window; Baoyu puts his hand in hers. In the south room the Court's gifts: the second son and the Xue girl each get a red bead string and a roll of silk, the same for both and not the same as the rest; the House notices like a stone in a shoe; Daiyu stands in the doorway with a plain roll of silk and puts her face in order; the Seat had been told how things were likely to go and meant it kindly. Her last words before the seventh hour: she cannot come again; she has seen the sum, four winters; she makes the Master promise not to build another garden for a next time; and let the young live in this one, a house that has been lit should not be left dark, let someone sit in it who is not a guest. The Court's trumpet at the seventh hour exactly. The Old Madam at the gate until the last red livery turns the corner: She is thin. The maids put the lanterns out one at a time from the water-steps to the gate; the Master, with a candle, tells the Lady in the hall two words: Four winters., AI-only)_
- **10** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 10, The Day After _(The House of Rong wakes late for the first time in anyone's memory; the Old Madam leaves her breakfast on the sill beside the plum. In the counting-room Xifeng, who has not slept, adds the whole roll of the Visit with Pinger and Lai: eleven thousand four hundred measures, the estimate ten thousand, the Stores nine, two thousand four hundred found in places she will not name (Aunt Xue's purse, the eleven from the seventh drawer, hairs from bowls, the lowest girls' Pocket held back six days at a time). The other half of the sum: a hundred persons and twelve children from the Rolls, on the roll as lines in pencil, eating a draw of seven thousand a year that is about to become less than five. The Old Madam at midnight: There are children in this; do what is right, and not what is cheap. Seventy-two of the hundred go back to their old posts, twenty-two are paid for the day and go (one asks that somebody remember her face, and Xifeng says she will), six are kept as the Garden's hands, Qingwen among them (to the second son's court; the Lady will see her every day). The Master of Ning's purse is spent; the twelve go back to the Menders, who send a grey kindly woman in a brown apron who counts them like loaves (A year is a long time for us; they have been well fed, it is more than we could do; the worst thing said that year, said without bitterness). The Old Madam comes to the porch in plain black: One stays; the Seat asked for her. The singing mistress, paid at the gate, tells the little one it was heard. The child says her name twice, Ling, for the Rolls and for herself: I should like somebody to have it. I have it, says the Old Madam, and takes her hand. Baoyu asks Xifeng where the eleven are going and offers his share; she says then you would be thin and they would be no better off, and that nearest is not a place, it is a time: I do not like it either. Xifeng writes in pen three hundred and twenty-one, the number on the second line of the page in the hall without walls. That night Ling eats her bowl to the last grain; the Old Madam: she eats like the other one; I do not know what I am going to do about all of them; Yuanyang brings a slightly larger bowl and she does not refuse it., AI-only)_
- **11** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 11, The First of the Month _(Part One closes. On the last day of the ninth month the young go into the Garden: Tanchun takes the court with the largest table, Yingchun the one nobody asked for, little Xichun the one nearest the gate; Baochai the plain south court, paying for her own lamps in advance; Baoyu the east court beside the Old Madam's wall, with Xiren and Qingwen (Where does one sit? / Where you like. / That is the trouble with it); Daiyu, asked last, is given the Lodge of Thin Green by the Old Madam's voice. Baochai counts the steps to the south room for her kindly (a hundred; her own court is two hundred and forty) and Daiyu goes and counts them herself: a hundred and four. Li Wan, the elder son's widow, takes the farm in the tenth month and asks, apologetically, for a hoe. At dusk Xifeng orders all forty-two windows lit, the four empty ones too, because the Seat said a house that has been lit should not be left dark and no clause provides for rooms nobody is in; Lai writes down the price of four lamps and nothing is said. That night Baoyu finds Daiyu on the step of the Lodge in the dark: he tells her whose name the grove was given for, and she says a name is the only share she has been given that nobody had to give up. The Stone records the one exchange in the House that was never entered, and that it came out even. On the first of the tenth month, Draw Day, the draw is unchanged (seven thousand a year, until the winter draw takes the first of four repayments); the lowest girls' Pocket is short by six days again, and Xifeng lends the forty withheld strings for six days at five in the hundred to Gu, a merchant of the east gate with no book, writing it in a small black book of her own: It is a hair, Pinger. It is the thing I know how to do. Pinger: I am saying yes. The strings come home on the seventh with their two, which buy oil for a week for the courts that have no one to pay for theirs; she will need more next month. The Garden is lit again that night. Across the place where the wall was, the Ning lamp is out and the lions stand in the dark with the Garden's light moving on them. The Stone: the first year of the Garden, the last year of the old arithmetic, the best., AI-only)_
- **12** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 12, The First Winter _(Part Two opens. On the last day of the tenth month the Court's grey slip arrives: from the first of the eleventh month the draw is four thousand seven hundred and fifty measures in the year, seven thousand less the first of four recoveries of two thousand two hundred and fifty on the advance for the Visit. Five hundred and eighty-three a month becomes three hundred and ninety-six, a hundred and eighty-seven short, and the Table cannot be altered until the autumn reading. Xifeng has Lai read the Table exactly as it stands and says the gap is hers; she does not tell the Old Madam, who would want to give until her private share was empty. Sixty measures are found by spreading, fifty in the Garden kitchen by putting its hands on one pot instead of two, and seventy-seven are bought at the east market with coin from the only place the coin can come from: the lowest girls' Pocket, now held nine days instead of six, put out through Gu and a draper and a rice-seller. A water-carrier of twelve, Xiaohong, hears it was the seventh last month and counts, not days, but the shape. Pinger begins to remember for each girl what she is owed and since when. Li Wan brings the counting-room the first two eggs from the farm and says there is no line for them; Xifeng laughs and eats one standing. In the east court the congee is thin; Qingwen would go and ask, and Xiren stops her: she holds the whole House in her two hands, and it would be unkind to make her say what is in them; somebody should make allowances for her, she makes them for us. At the first hard frost Daiyu says her brazier is perfectly warm; it has a basket of charcoal for four days of seven, and a cough like a page being turned; she refuses Baoyu's charcoal (then I should have to be warm knowing it, and that is worse). Baoyu goes to the Old Madam and says only that Daiyu's brazier is cold; she says that is how one knows, and orders a second basket to every occupied room in the Garden from her own private share, not entered under Daiyu's name. She turns the Jade to the light: it is the only thing in the House that does not draw on anyone's fire. She has seen the thin congee and does not ask Xifeng: Xifeng is making her an allowance, and she will let her think it unseen. At dusk Xifeng reads the order across Gu's name in the black book: she thought she could keep the cost from the Old Madam and could not keep her from it. Four winters; this is the first., AI-only)_
- **13** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 13, The Club _(On the eleventh Tanchun posts a notice on every door in the Garden, written forty times on the backs of old exercise sheets because new paper is a line in the Table and old paper is nobody's: a club, meeting at the farm on the third day of each ten, no subscription, no rank, whoever comes sits where there is room, and one rule, that nothing said in the club is owed to anyone afterwards. She tells Baoyu everything in the House is owed and she wants to see how long a room can go without; he is not to tell Father it is a club, it is an afternoon. Yingchun reads it three times, afraid that nobody will mind; Baochai finds the sum comes to almost nothing, and cannot stand in a thing that cannot be paid for; Daiyu holds the last line up like a coin from a country she has never seen; Qingwen reads it as it is written. The first meeting, on the thirteenth, in snow: Li Wan's stove, chestnuts from the Garden's trees that nobody has made a line for, one empty chair by the fire that nobody will take. The subject is a thing that was given to you that nobody entered. Baoyu's bamboo; Baochai's rue and thyme (I have been careful to give it back); Yingchun's two lines (whatever was left, I found it enough; Tanchun: it was not enough, you have been told that it was; I know); Qingwen, who has stood outside in the snow, comes in on the word whoever, sits in the empty chair, and writes that nobody told her where to sit and it is the worst thing she has ever been given; Daiyu's verse about a warmth someone made without being asked, unthanked, which is how it is meant; Xichun, nine, draws the Garden in chalk on the scrubbed table with the four empty windows lit anyway: somebody should be in them, if I draw the light somebody might come. There is no prize, since a prize comes from somebody's share; the sheets are pinned up unsigned in the farmhouse and not copied, and nothing in the room moves off anyone's share. Afterwards Tanchun finds on the shelf a quire of the good paper stamped with the Xues' three coins on a cord; Baochai says someone has made a mistake with it, Tanchun says then she will use it for the next notice since it is nobody's; neither could say who made the allowance. Daiyu sees it, and writes in her book: She pays hers., AI-only)_
- **14** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 14, Crabs _(The second autumn. At the autumn reading the Table is altered for the first time in seven years, under the Court inspector's eye, each class losing its hair in turn; Xifeng enters the date in the black book under one word, Cut. Xiangyun, thirteen, of the Shi line, the Old Madam's great-niece, loud and quick and kept at home on her night mending, arrives for her one month a year as a guest on the Old Madam's share. At her first supper she asks, as news, whether the rice is thin here too; the Old Madam says it is the season. Baochai sees the ring of needle-pricks on her forefinger and says nothing so cleverly that her maid Yinger takes a moment to see it. At her first meeting of the club Xiangyun sits in the empty chair, being a guest and knowing no better, and announces she will give a crab party for a string. Baochai, in the south court by one candle, makes the gift a trade so that it can be accepted: the shop has a boatload that will be spoiled in three days, a string takes them, an hour of Xiangyun's unused mending-room allowance covers the carting; both sides must be out something, it is the first thing my father taught us. The crabs are fresh for ten days and cost the shop eleven strings, ten of them entered in Baochai's own small book. The party, in the pavilion over the water: crabs eaten by rank, thirty-one people and forty crabs, nine more sent down the back stairs to the kitchen girls (Xiaohong counts the legs of hers); Xifeng brilliant, peeling for the Old Madam, eating nothing, pressing the heel of her hand under her ribs when she thinks no one looks; Daiyu forbidden crab and given the sweetest meat by Baoyu; Xiangyun, pink, saying merchants do not do kind, they do fair, and writing that nobody owes me, I owe nobody, and that is what being rich is. The Old Madam puts her second crab on Baochai's plate, and for the length of a breath Baochai's smile is late. Xiangyun's mending hour is signed over; Baochai sends it by Yinger to Pinger for the water-carrier at the north stair, from someone who does not want to be named; Xiaohong sits for the first time in the mending-room, where the Mender says she has the shoulders of a woman of thirty and asks who paid, and she says nobody told her; she counts the hour. Baochai never sees it; that is the point., AI-only)_
- **15** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 15, Granny Liu _(In the second week of the tenth month an old woman of seventy-one comes to the back gate on foot with a grandson of six and a basket the size of a sheep. Granny Liu is of the unchartered, who live on the far side of the river and keep each other without a book: no Table, no Pocket, no mending-room, and the Menders cross to them in the lean months and are fed by turns. Pinger fetches her; she has counted forty-one steps at the gate alone. In the counting-room Xifeng, who has done the sum of a hundred and eighty-seven twice that morning, finds she means it when she says sit down. The debt is old and never entered: forty winters ago Xifeng's grandfather kept her husband's mother in the back kitchen for one frost, and since it was not written down it was never reckoned and neither side could close it. Xifeng counts out thirty strings tied with the red thread of the lowest girls' Pocket; Granny Liu counts them with her lips and pushes five back: twenty-five is what my village can bear to owe, a thing you cannot pay back in the spring is not a gift but a lien; she will return the worth in eggs and a goose. The baby Qiaojie, light and fretful, is quieted by the grandson's small sweet gourd. Granny Liu says: if the House ever gets too hot for her she can come, we have a bed by the stove, we do not write it down. Xifeng answers, I will think about it, and Granny Liu says that is the House's way of saying never, do not think, remember. She gives Xifeng a twist of a dozen red dates, three a day, you are the colour of rice-water; Xifeng eats them and does not enter them. The Old Madam sends for her. In the pavilion Granny Liu tells how her village manages the winter: by turns, nobody writes it, it is not trust but that everyone is in everyone's mouth. A silence, and Xiangyun breaks it by dressing her in chrysanthemums; she says she was a beauty once; she says that in her village the Garden would be four fields and a pond, here it is for looking at, and it is very handsome. At dusk Daiyu, who did not laugh, finds her at the water-steps: it is an honest trade, they take my dignity, I have no use for it; the ones who do not laugh are the ones who see it; the worst is when they give. She folds a green rush grasshopper and says it is only a grasshopper, I have not given you a thing. She leaves with a cartload and gives a third of it away on the lane. Daiyu sets the grasshopper on the sill; in the morning it is still there; she had half expected it would have to be paid for., AI-only)_
- **16** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 16, Pooled _(Pooling is the House's oldest trick: since the Table has no line for honour, everyone puts in by rank a sum small enough to be forgotten, and the whole is spent on one day for one person, the only transfer nobody can call a loss. The Old Madam decrees one for Xifeng's birthday on the twenty-fifth of the eleventh month: twelve from the Lady and the Master, four from Lady Zhao, six from each of the young, five from Li Wan, two and one from the maids, the rest as they can, and twenty from her own private share; a dinner costs sixty, the remainder is the birthday child's to spend as she likes. She adds that Xifeng has eaten nothing at her table since the crabs. Xifeng tries to refuse and is told she can refuse a banquet but not a sum already being collected. Li Wan keeps the ledger at the farm. Lady Zhao pays four and a speech, Huan counts out two with his eyes on the Old Madam, Baochai pays twice (the second in an envelope under the book), Lian sends ten by post from the river works. On the third day the water-carriers come in a line led by Xiaohong and put down not a handful but the whole of the month's Pocket they were paid on the ninth: forty strings in red thread, the same sum Xifeng holds back each month. Xiaohong: it is going anyway, it is better to be the ones who give it than the ones who have it taken. Li Wan writes: From the water-carriers and the stair-sweepers, forty strings, with thanks, and sends for Pinger, who sees the same coin on its fourth journey. The Garden hears; Qingwen shouts a sum in the east court and puts in ten; a jar with a slit in its lid appears by the well on the north stair, with strings from the east court and the Lodge, copper and a button. At the banquet the House sits by rank; the water-carriers watch from the foot of the stairs like people looking at their own forty strings; the Master toasts that the account may balance; Baoyu repeats Xiren's sentence, to the person who holds the whole House in her two hands; Daiyu deflects the third cup with the peaches; the Lady lays the fish cheek in front of Xifeng; the Old Madam weighs the baby, she is light. Yuanyang announces one hundred and ninety-one, dinner sixty, remainder one hundred and thirty-one. In the corridor Xifeng says the child's words are what she would like to have said to someone once, they gave me my own coin and called it a gift, it is a better trick than mine; the Old Madam knows about the nine days and has paid for them: pay them on the first, in full, from the remainder, for this one month. On the first of the twelfth month the handful is whole; Xifeng tells Xiaohong she has the straightest bucket on the north stair and the best head for a sum under twenty; Gu comes and finds nothing; the black book's page stays white. Xiaohong in the passage: I thought I would see what it looked like., AI-only)_
- **17** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 17, The Coat _(The Court does not give; it lends at a distance and calls the lending a gift so that the borrower will not feel the string. The coat that came with the Seat's presents after the Visit is old gold with a green shimmer as of a bird turning, woven on the Court's looms with a thread out of the Mending's remnants, entered on the Seat's account with a tag inside the left cuff; the Court calls each winter to see its loans in good order, and a torn coat is written against the Seat, whose account is the Charter. On the second of the twelfth month Baoyu stands too near a brazier in the south room and a spark burns a coin-sized hole that begins to run. The tailors will not touch a Court weave for fear of the knot; the Menders are two days away over the river; the inspector comes on the fifth; the Old Madam has given enough this winter and must not be told. Qingwen, ill in bed with a cold, hears through the screen and comes out in a quilt: her mother was a Mender before she was a maid, and sat six winters in the back kitchen doing what the tailors would not while she watched from the floor; the House had no hours for such work so nobody asked her to do it. She asks to give the House something it could not have taken. All night she works by a lamp that Baoyu holds (a very bad lamp, and the best), cut by cut with a Mender's knot that is also a pattern, sick into a basin and starting again: Most things people can do, they can do because they were in the room. The Stone sees that a body keeps its mending in the dark in the hours the House allots it, and she is spending hers into the cloth. By dawn the seam is invisible except to a finger on the inside. Tell the Court it is a very good coat; she collapses. Dr Wang orders three days in the mending-room and the second class has one hour a fortnight; Baoyu signs over forty of his own, but a transfer across two classes needs the Lady's seal and she tears the slip (if I seal one across there will be fifty by the new moon; it is the rule) and says she will speak to the Old Madam of the girl in the spring. Nine hours are found inside the class; Qingwen has a day and a half. The Old Madam comes herself and leaves a small copper hand-warmer: I have not given you anything. On the fifth the inspector's glass passes the coat, and the Court's own Mender, a small bent woman with hands too big for her, says it is in good order, and a line that would have stood against the Seat's name is never written. At the door she tells Xiren no tailor made that: there is a bench for whoever she is at the Menders' House by the stove, we do not write it down. Qingwen, told: I have a chair., AI-only)_
- **18** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 18, The Short Table _(Huan, nine, Lady Zhao's son, who has always watched his brother as a boy watches a man eating what he is not allowed, finds the torn halves of the slip in the east court's basket and carries them to the Master in both hands, wanting only to be looked at. The Master summons Baoyu: Lai has told him of the breakfast rice given away since the autumn of last year, the charcoal sent to the Lodge, the forty hours signed to a maid. Whose rice have you been eating? Mine. And whose have you not been? Mine, I gave it; it is mine to give. It is not, says the Master: a share is lent to you by the House, at the rank you were born to, and when you give it away you take it off the roll, which must then show a mouth where there is none; the Court counts every winter. Do you know what the Court does with a House whose roll is out of true? No. Nor do I; that is why I am afraid. The sentence is the short table, the oldest the House has and one with no cane in it: seven days in the study on the lowest class's bowl and a half of grain, a spoon of salt greens and no oil, copying the Charter's rules, nothing to be brought in, feared as a village fears drought because a person kept thin slows, loses the thread and goes quiet. The Lady sits with her hands folded; the Old Madam comes in a chair and the Master bows in his doorway (it is my Table, Mother); she looks past him at the study's side window onto the bamboo and says she would not like to see it broken, and he says it will not be. Xifeng weighs the ration to the grain on the brass scale and carries it herself: exactly the lowest, Master, nothing more. The Stone notes this is what the water-carriers eat every day of their lives. On the first night Baoyu says the names of those he is kept by like beads, slower each time; I understood the House was right to be afraid. At the window before light Zijuan brings Daiyu's bowl with a slip: It is not a gift, it is a loan, you may repay me when you are fat; he sends it back, you are thinner than I; for two days it goes to and fro, on the third with an egg in it; on the fourth morning Daiyu comes herself in her two coats and proposes half, one spoon, neither a gift nor a loan, it is only a bowl and we are both hungry; they eat it across the sill with one spoon. After that the window fills with unentered things: Li Wan's egg in a cabbage leaf, Xichun's chestnut, Tanchun's sheet with the club's rule, a twist of dried persimmon that was Huan's, put there in the dark by a boy who found that what he felt was the cold. On the fifth day Daiyu's slip is four lines: Thin is a kind of weather; it passes, if someone stands in the doorway; I am standing in the doorway. On the seventh the Master opens the door, sees the boy blurred at the edges like a lamp seen through water, and on the sill a spoon, a chestnut husk, an eggshell in a cabbage leaf; he says he did not ask where the shell came from, that the short table is finished, that he will not give away his share. I shall try. That is not an answer. It is the only one I have. Go and eat. At the corner of the passage the Master puts one hand flat against the wall as on a ship, and in the new year has the window papered again with a thinner sheet., AI-only)_
- **19** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 19, Three in Her Place _(On the first of the second month Xifeng, reading the Table to the clerks in her level voice, loses a name in the middle like a thread coming out of a needle, says it is the cold, and folds at the waist as a letter is folded; Pinger is across the room first. In the passage the water-carriers stand in their clean aprons waiting for their handful; Xiaohong, who looks at the face, says: It is the first. And nobody has come. The physician Wang says she has spent her mending as though it were a purse, two winters of it: a month in the bed with a Mender at the pillow, no counting-room, no sums; who is to do the Draw? Anyone who will do it badly, and be forgiven. The Old Madam, seventy-eight, names Li Wan (the books), Tanchun (the head) and Baochai, a guest: that is why; you will not be liked for it, and not asked to stay; I do not ask it for the House, I ask it for her. Afterwards she has Yuanyang read from the small green book of her private share: eight hundred and six strings, against fourteen hundred and some last spring; do not tell Xifeng; she would not ask; that is what is wrong with her. Next morning the three open the counting-room with the baby Qiaojie asleep in her basket and Pinger in yesterday's clothes. In the locked middle drawer lie forty strings in red thread, counted out for Gu and never lent; Li Wan takes them straight to the water-carriers in the passage and pays each her handful, saying: I am sorry it is late; and to Xiaohong, who says it was due on the first: I am sorry it was not paid on it. Nobody had ever said that. That night in the dormitory: Sorry does not eat; no, but nobody has ever said it; Madam will be better, and then it will be the ninth again. Baochai reads the Court's notices and says the House has been living a hundred and eighty-seven measures a month beyond its draw, and that she knows what it looks like when a house is borrowing from itself: everything on time except the people at the bottom. Tanchun finds a hole exactly nine days wide in the Pocket book. Pinger will not give up the box that is Madam's: She has done it for all of us. Tanchun, fifteen, goes to the mending-room; Xifeng tells it for an hour, like a sum, and says: I made one allowance too many, and then another, and then I could not stop, because the only way to stop was to let someone go without; it was always the one at the bottom, and I was careful for two years that it should be the bottom; do not make the first cut where I made it. The Mender says she has seen worse. Pinger gives Tanchun the key. Tanchun reads the black book that night in the farmhouse with Li Wan: Gu, a draper, a rice-seller, Chen who deals in lamp-oil; Cut; Granny Liu's twenty-five with a question mark; six hundred and twelve strings out, and in a smaller hand: the lowest girls' nine days. She has kept this House alive on nine days of twelve-year-olds. We cannot stop it and we cannot go on; if we stop, who eats? Tanchun will look at the Garden, the only thing in the House that is not paying for itself., AI-only)_
- **20** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 20, The Plots _(On the third of the third month Tanchun calls the Garden's thirty-one hands to the water-steps and says the Garden does not pay for itself: the bamboo, lotus, fish-pond, herbs, orchard and lawn will be let for a year to whoever keeps them, at a rent, and what they make over it is theirs, not entered, not on the roll. Mother Ye of the bamboo asks who she tells if it goes badly; Tanchun, who heard it from an old woman in a brown coat, says it is not trust, it is only that you will be in my mouth and I in yours. Seven plots go by noon (Old Tian herbs, the cook's mother lotus, one-eyed Ding the fish-pond, loud Mother Song the orchard). Five cannot take a plot (a blind woman, a man with one hand, two women past seventy, a boy with falling sickness); Mother Ye says by turns, each feeds one a day, it is how it is done on the other bank, and Mother Song says nobody is to write it or she will not do it; Tanchun writes it once so that it begins and burns the slip. The night before, Baochai took the brush: not three parts to the House, you will starve them; a fourth; a tenant must be fed before the landlord, a rent a person can bear is cheaper than one a person can pay; if you want them in your mouth they have to have something in theirs. Tanchun then turns the spreading over: the Table cannot be altered until the autumn, but the hairs now come off the top, the first class gives a little more than a hair, the second a little less, the lowest nothing; the Lady looks at her thinner rice and says I see and eats it. The boys' double schoolroom allowance, a sixty-year clerk's error, is cut; Baoyu says Good, Huan writes the figure in a small book. Lady Zhao's brother Zhao Guoji dies on the ninth and the book says twenty strings (forty only for the first line); Lady Zhao says it is forty, I am your mother, I carried you; Tanchun, fifteen, wanting to give her forty from her own Pocket: I would give a gardener twenty, that is the point; I cut you the same as I would cut anyone, that is what makes it a cut and not a quarrel. Li Wan brings tea: it is a very bad thing to be right; yes, I have found that. That night Huan writes Twenty in his book and a name beside it. Xifeng, up from the mending-room but kept from the counting-room, hears it from Pinger with a twist of bamboo shoots from Mother Ye that are not the rent: She cut the top; I could not. At the month's end Tanchun brings the first reckoning: plots thirty-eight strings, hairs from the top forty-one measures, loans called in forty-seven strings and no more made, the lowest girls paid on the first; sixty-one short. I would have given a year of my life for sixty-one; do not be the one who gives the year; find it somewhere that is not a person. At the club on the third of the fourth month Mother Song brings a bowl of loquats from her own half, for the club, since nothing said there is owed: I have said nothing, they are only loquats. Tanchun has made a line for the chestnuts and the loquats, and here is the thing a line is for, coming in at the side. Qingwen's verse: someone paid for my chair, I sat in it and did not ask. Daiyu's: a fire I did not light, a bowl I did not cook, I have been fed all my life by hands I could not name, I think that is what a house is., AI-only)_
- **21** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 21, Four Windows _(On the first of the sixth month of the third year the Old Madam, who will be eighty in two winters, asks Xichun, eleven, for a picture of the Garden with everyone in it to hang where she can see it from the bed: a picture of a place with everyone in it is a thing one asks for when one has begun to count the people. Xichun draws it on a roll fifteen paces long in the order a visitor sees the Garden, in the plots' first summer: Mother Ye winning six to the bundle against a carpenters' man who has been beaten by the best, Old Tian in the herbs, the cook's mother in the lotus, Ding with the net, Mother Song in the orchard, and on a bench under the persimmon tree the five who cannot hold a plot at their dinner while a different tenant sits and says something and goes, the only part she would have liked to be in. By autumn she has the thirty-eight lit windows with someone behind each, Daiyu with the green grasshopper on the sill, Qingwen in her chair, Xifeng at her window with dried dates, and four windows left: the four rooms on the western rise that are lit every night and have nobody in them, and she cannot draw them empty because they are lit and it would be a lie. Ling, eleven, who eats at the Old Madam's table, offers to sit. Xichun draws her four nights in four windows (reading, singing the rhyme of the Rolls, standing in the dark with her hand on the glass), and Ling asks to stay in the first room: everything in the south room is hers; I should like a thing that is a room, and my name on the door; I have said it twice, I should like it written once. She tells Xichun the eleven are well: once a year at the new year the grey Mender sends the Old Madam a slip with eleven names and one line, They are well. The Old Madam says she must light her own lamp and the House will count her in the Garden: thirty-nine. Xichun chalks Ling on the door. Once. The same afternoon she calls on Miaoyu, twenty, who stepped off her share at sixteen by not eating at the Table's hour until the roll struck her name two years later, and lives in a small grey house with a green lattice, on what she grows and what visitors leave: it was quiet, you do not know how loud a roll is until you are not on one; the Menders come when I am ill, they do not write it. Xichun asks Could I? and is told: not yet, ask me when you are fifteen and are still asking; and hear this: the House would be glad; ask who is glad, whether it is yours to choose or the House's. At dusk Ling lights her lamp on the fourth try. Thirty-nine. Somebody came. In the morning Xichun writes under the first window, Here. Lit., AI-only)_
- **22** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 22, Moon-Night _(By the fourth autumn of the Garden the House has learned to be poor in good order. The plots have had their full year; the loans are called in but for a few, and Xifeng, back at the Draw since the fifth month of the year before, slower and in a chair, opens the black book on the last day of the month: two hundred and eleven strings out and none going; the hundred and eighty-seven measures a month that had been a hole are fourteen. Xiaohong, thirteen, has come in from the north stair and keeps in the counting-room a book of her own, what each girl who carries water is owed and since when: the only book in the House kept by the owed. Moon-night on the water-steps, the fifteenth of the eighth month: mooncakes from the orchard's honey and the farm's flour, paper lanterns made at the lotus pond, a dish from each court so that nobody is host and nobody guest; sixty-three faces, which Xiaohong counts under her breath. Baoyu, fourteen, thinner, a little dreamy since the short table. Baochai says after the winter she will go home for a while, and her smile arrives on time. A little after the first watch Granny Liu arrives with a third goose (the river had the first and the fox the second), the twenty-five strings long since paid in eggs by the gatekeeper's wife; Xifeng laughs her low laugh; Granny Liu tells Mother Song the Garden looks lived in, and Qiaojie, three, sits down on her foot. After the second watch the flute from the Ning side: the Master of Ning on the plum hill, playing for a daughter-in-law three years counted out; the Old Madam lifts a hand to stop it and lets it fall: Let him. Daiyu goes to the water, Xiangyun with her, and they make four linked lines: the moon has put down a bowl on the black water; nobody filled it and nobody will count it; a crane goes over and its shadow wets the light; cold keeps whatever it is given and gives it back. Miaoyu from the dark path adds the last: and a hand somewhere is holding the lamp; it is not mine, I only said it; nobody's are, that is the rule. She gives them tea in the cup with the golden seam: the last night every chair of the club is filled. The Old Madam is carried in at the third watch with a chill; Dr Wang says in the passage that she must not sit up again in the damp. She has Ling count her the windows: thirty-nine, three dark; the picture is nearly done, one corner left, the pavilion, because she cannot draw the water until she knows who sits beside it. I shall be eighty in the winter; they will want to make a great thing of it and say it is for me; I shall allow it; it is the last thing I can give them to spend on. Say them again; I like to hear them said. Ling counts until the window turns grey., AI-only)_
- **23** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — Added chapter 23, The Eighty _(Part Two closes on the Old Madam's eightieth, the biggest outlay and the last. The Court's form has four parts: the Visitor of Years lodged three days at the House's charge; the Staff of Age, lent for life, with a tag sewn into the cord; the Eighty Bowls, eighty a day for three days from the House's own door; and the Naming, in which the aged person names eighty to sit with her, and whoever is named is set by the Court's record upon her share for the rest of her life, and is not struck from any roll without her leave: the only gift the Court gives that does not come back, and also a debt. Nine hundred strings: the Visitor and the fee three hundred and forty, the banquet three hundred, the officers' gifts two hundred, sixty for the bowls. The Master of Ning offers four hundred, Aunt Xue a hundred, the House a hundred and fifty, and the Old Madam two hundred and fifty, all that is in the green book: a book with a little in it is a thing one feels bound to keep. Xifeng, who has not been so bright in the counting-room for two years, does it in nine days in a body Dr Wang told to rest: the banquet for two hundred and sixty by feeding it from the Garden, the officers' gifts bargained to a hundred and fifty, the ninety saved put away in red thread. The Visitor, small, dry, sixty, in grey with a red sash, eats exactly the Court's allowance and leaves the rest in a line; the Court is kind, says the Old Madam, and he says: the Court is exact. Tanchun gives the eighty bowls from the tenants, congee with chestnuts and lotus seed and honey, ladled by the five who cannot hold a plot; the Visitor tastes: this is better than the Stores'; it is not the Stores'; no, I see that it is not entered; the Court has asked for eighty bowls, it has never asked whose; he writes eighty. At the Naming, in the south hall, the Old Madam names without a list: Ling, Xiaohong, Daiyu (who was on my share before, and is to stay), the five (Ding's wife Nan, Wu, old Fang, old Zhu, the boy Duo), the thirty-one water-carriers from Xiaohong's book, ten stair-sweepers, the girls with no class, the old women of the lotus lanterns, Qingwen, Zijuan, Yinger, Pinger; the ring behind the chair grows until it curves round the dais like a hand closing. The Lady does the sum and sees seventy-odd mouths on a share with two strings in it; she looks long at Qingwen. Xifeng, last but one: who has fed us all, and has not eaten; she knows now what the ninety strings were for: the first month of the seventy-nine. Yuanyang, named, declines: I have stood behind this chair for thirty years on no share but my own, which I have earned; I should like to keep it. So it is seventy-nine, and one who stands; the Visitor has not had that before and enters it so; he adds, courteously, that after her the Court's protection is the protection of the share, that is, of what is in it. I know. I thought you did. That night Yuanyang reads the green book: two strings. Leave the two; a book with nothing in it is a debt, a book with two in it is a thing one can sleep beside. Seventy-nine; I have done it; now the House will have to. The Court's notice at month's end: the fourth recovery is the last, and from the eleventh month of next year the draw is seven thousand again; it is the last good notice the Court sends that House, and the girl in the corner who keeps a book writes the date., AI-only)_

## 修訂歷史

- **01** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 《紅樓夢》改編《通融》開場（章節 01，多出來的一塊），Colophon 的第四部經典階段連載 _(Neo 在 2026-10-17 核准這部改編，說它是跟另一位作者那部風格迥異的同名之作的有意對照，並在 2026-10-24 說繼續創作。作者的選擇：一部安靜的家庭小說，背景是一個「人先被造出來、再被養在一份上」的世界，愛、位次與衰落都是同一道算術，由那件從來沒有登在任何人名下的東西來說。不用文件體框架：前面幾部連載已經用過夜簿、登記冊和聽證記錄。章 01：補（為了讓被造出來的人能被繼續養下去，在世界上放下一張網）、切了三萬六千五百零一塊、放定三萬六千五百塊、車上剩下的那一塊；躺在路邊、哪一本冊子都沒有它、卻有一個心的那塊多出來的石頭；兩位補匠（一個瘸腿，一個頭長癩瘡、光腳）談起榮府要添一口，那位次子是老太太點名要的；石頭說要被帶去，被告知代價（什麼都看得見、什麼都握不住、不能給也不能收）；刻在它身上的四個字；走三天到後門，遇到管接新人的那個女人；榮府依位次醒來，三百一十一口，老太太不吃東西；老爺在算帳，太太保持安靜；新人含著那塊石頭到來；老爺讀「莫失莫忘」；書辦沒有一個類可以登它，留下一行空白；因為所有人都同意它是玉，取名寶玉；掛上一根紅絲絛；三百一十二口。, 僅 AI)_
- **02** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 02，發例的日子 _(第一章十年之後，秋季的第一個早上，一年裡唯一把榮府整座府這一季的份重新念一遍的發例日。賬房與璉二奶奶（鳳姐，二十三歲，袖子捲到手肘，一隻金絲鳳簪），兩位書辦；例與月錢是什麼；上頭這一季撥給榮府的數，跟上一季一樣，連續六個秋天都一樣，而府每一年都添口；從上往下按位次發，最需要的人最後領；鴛鴦替老太太領，老太太的份是老爺的兩倍，幾乎全花在別人身上。一次通融：北廚房老婦人那位母親的補工時段（初四在名冊上是空的，所以鳳姐說初四那天她什麼也沒看見）。最低一等的月錢短了一天（天平卡住，剩下的初五補；沒有人去數那些天）。一次沒有給出去的通融：趙姨娘的兒子環兒仍登在第二桌，給一匹灰布。平兒送來官倉的告知：南境林姓執敕人去世、敕結清，他十歲的女兒月內若沒有別的敕收養，就移交補匠名冊。老太太：放在我的份上；那就把她攤進去（每個碗少一絲，每條衣邊少一線）。當晚改動了九百多處，最小的幾個丫頭到那一週的週末就餓了。黃昏，十歲的二公子問鳳姐什麼是份，得到的回答是：你被允許的，冊子，書辦，我，多半是；她不能允許的時候，她通融，對離得最近的那個。, 僅 AI)_
- **03** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 03，添一口 _(黛玉在月底最後一天的下午到了，十歲，很瘦，帶著一隻小箱子、一位老嬤嬤和一個丫頭，在大門口咳了一聲。她父親的交代（要感激，不要問它花多少，人家給什麼拿什麼不要多拿，謝得讓他們不難為情）。她看，她數。老太太哭了；姐妹們按年紀進來（迎春圓圓的不說話，探春從裙邊到領口給她估價，小小的惜春看著）；鳳姐遲到，笑著進來，低聲說那間屋子是她找的、有一扇窗；太太警告說她兒子是個小魔星，喜歡把東西送人，不知道任何東西的價錢。頭一桌上，黛玉的碗和老太太的碗是同一隻，薄了一絲，是九百隻碗裡的一隻、每隻減了一粒；她知道那是誰的，把它吃光，不讓為她拿走的東西浪費（她的頭一次通融，是用湯匙做的）。吃甜點時十歲的寶玉進來：這個妹妹我見過；他叫她顰兒；他問她有沒有這樣一個（那塊石頭），聽她說那是稀罕的東西，就問為什麼他有、它是做什麼用的，然後把它摔在地上。它沒有碎。老太太說，這是你的命根子。這是府裡證明他是他們的證據。老太太那個善意的謊：她表妹生下來也有，她娘收著，跟著她娘去了；黛玉從來沒有過，卻說「是。它跟著我娘去了」，這是她在那座府裡說的頭一句不真的話，只有石頭聽得出來。寶玉自己把絲絛套回頭上。兩人被安置在老太太自己屋子的兩邊。黛玉躺著數她學到的一切，數到天亮；寶玉第一次對石頭說話（你介意嗎？），石頭說了它會說的話：它介意她後來說的，那是它見過的第一次通融，花光了做它的人所有的東西。, 僅 AI)_
- **04** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 04，金鎖 _(薛家在黛玉之後第五週帶著六輛車來了：太太的姐姐（薛姨媽）、她兒子薛蟠（十九歲，花錢像河水往下流）、她女兒寶釵（十三歲）、一個薛蟠付過兩次錢的女孩香菱、十一個下人、一個廚子、一架沒人彈的箏。一家買賣人，七座城裡有帳冊，在朝廷商人名單的第三欄有一個位置，沒有敕，帶著自己的口糧；他們來，是因為薛蟠為香菱打的那場昂貴的官司，也因為寶釵要被薦去排女兒們的位子。薛姨媽把一隻錢袋放在賬房的長桌上（從來沒有人把錢袋放在那裡而自己不是來領錢的）；老太太退回三次，最後以薛家的名義放進例裡、一粒也不花在薛家身上；鳳姐用兩隻手接過，像女人接過嬰兒：這是六個秋天來，除了官倉以外，頭一筆從別的門進到那間屋子的數。寶釵，臉像一隻銀盤，血裡有一股熱，靠補匠的冷粉維持：進府第三天她從薛家自己的存糧裡送兩籃東西到廚房，給孩子們（最小的丫頭兩個星期沒有餓）；鳳姐知道，既感激又慚愧；黛玉知道，看出給的人不付、收的人也不付、是完美的，嫉妒了。黛玉去道謝；寶釵把自己那位補匠初九來、她沒用的一個鐘頭給她；黛玉無法拒絕，數出自己從此欠一個鐘頭。第一場雪，寶玉去梨香院看病中的寶釵，讀那把小金鎖：四個字，不離不棄；鶯兒喊那是一對，跟他玉上的莫失莫忘；石頭說那是同一句話從兩邊說，被養著的懇求與養著的人的誓言，並且認出金上是瘸腿補匠的筆法；寶釵說「它們很像」，沒有說這沒什麼。兩個星期後，廚房已經有了金玉良緣、一門好親。黛玉在廚房走廊聽見兩個洗青菜的女孩說（這下府就補上了；那小表妹怎麼辦），很久以後在雨裡告訴寶玉她得出的總數：她是以一筆開銷的身分進府的，寶釵是以一個總數；她沒想到要怕的是被人恰如其分地比下去。, 僅 AI)_
- **05** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 05，總數 _(寧府養口的法子不一樣：花起來像是要給人看的（燈點得早、台階掃兩遍、石獅子養得好些）。冬季第二個月，尤氏請榮府一行去看寧府花園後山上、用紅紙燈籠從下面照亮的梅花；黛玉數寧府的第二桌（一整條魚、蘑菇、酒，最小的丫頭不餓），鳳姐把「珍大爺非要不可」收進她放以後再加的那一列。可卿，寧府承嗣人的妻子，按府裡的算術是寶玉的侄媳，比他大十歲，是兩府最仔細的人，五歲時在補匠名冊上（寧府的管家看見她在排中午那一碗的隊裡站得很直，她把名字說了兩遍，一遍給名冊、一遍給自己，他當天就把她領出來）；她從不提，對每一個瘦的人都很好。她和鳳姐在欄杆邊：天天都是發例日；她的手薄了大約一碗飯。吃完飯寶玉垂著頭，睡在她屋裡：他不肯睡在那幅字底下（算得清的，才是學問。讓得開的，才是文章），睡在褪色紅被的小床上，襲人（十三歲，穩）守著。他睡著時石頭被人給看：不是它看見，是被給看；當身邊睡著的人是從名冊上被領進來的、又躺在一間沒有一絲缺陷的屋裡，它就成了一扇窗。總數之堂：門上兩行字（算盡了欠的，愛的就沒有人算；不入冊的地方，也還有欠），點數的人（一個學會了坐下來的總數），她看不見石頭（九百年來頭一次總數裡有缺口）。府裡的十二個人不是預言，是往下帶的一個數；有人填不同的數就能改；拿筆的人；她點數，不填。五張紙，各一幅畫四行詩：黛玉和寶釵（薄碗與滿碗、一把金鎖、一根什麼也沒掛的紅絲絛）；放得很高的燈（那位在朝廷的姐姐）；放風箏的女孩（探春）；站在算盤上的鳳凰（鳳姐，站在那一列算不出來的裡面）；排隊領碗、有一個站得很直的（可卿，不該被看到）。最後一張沒有畫沒有詩：撥數不變，口數三百一十四、三百二十一、三百三十，差額轉入下一頁：這是不押韻的那一張。最底下一張空白，她翻過來蓋住：這座大廳裡唯一一張她不知道結局的紙。數字像潮水湧上來；寶玉喊著可卿醒來：那個數不出來；可卿的手像合上一本書那樣合攏，臉也關上了。, 僅 AI)_
- **06** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 06，總數夠不到的地方 _(賞梅之後可卿沒有再過街來；寧府每次都用一樣的字說她有點不舒服。寶玉天天去。初九早上黛玉把寶釵寫的、羅補匠一個鐘頭的紙條交給他（她推辭不了、也用不了，所以往下遞：告訴她我希望兩清；「她瘦嗎？」「瘦，像你」）。第十天，在走廊等著，他和襲人聽見寧府的張補匠對承嗣人說：可卿根薄，被領進來時補過、每年都得再補，而她這三年每年自己取消了時段（不用），他信了她。在屋裡可卿讀了黛玉的紙條（她十歲，就在往下遞了），說這一個鐘頭她用不了，卻是這個冬天有人給過她最好的一樣東西，把它放在枕頭底下，叫寶玉去小床睡。掌燈時鳳姐一個人來。可卿：總數夠不到的，就拿不走；敕會結束，朝廷會拿走名冊裡的一切，拿不走從來沒入過冊的；在名冊到不了的地方放一點東西，祖墳邊的一塊地，登在族裡名下，為祭祀和一所學堂，出產不屬於任何人；趁府還亮的時候做；一年內有好消息（從承嗣人、從朝廷裡一個人聽來），而燈最亮的時候油就開始漏；那個男孩哭著說數不出來的那夜以後她每晚都算，他說得對。鳳姐：把一份放在名冊外面，就是說名冊可能會垮，那座府裡沒有那種事的通融。叫它祭田。為什麼是我：唯一把府有多少連最後一文都知道的人，也是最可能去算下一道題的人。還有十一份：可卿三年沒取自己的補工時段，把十一份留在寧府賬房第七個抽屜、她名下、沒花，要進那塊田：這是她能做的唯一一次通融，不必有人被問。鳳姐用手捂臉（沒有捲袖子的鳳姐），說我想一想，那座府裡唯一意思是永遠不的一句話。她在寧府台階上對著石獅子站了很久，然後回家算那道算不出來的題，收起來，做下一道。, 僅 AI)_
- **07** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 07，第七個抽屜 _(可卿在這一年頭一個月的第四夜被點出，單薄，不聲不響。寧府的點出規矩：桌子空一頓飯、點燈四十九天、府裡每一個人往碗裡放一粒，使她一輩子領的份成為一千份碎片還給府、名冊短一行；它說：你被算進來過，這裡不再欠你，走吧。襲人給寶玉一粒，他說她沒有取她的（去年，前年，張補匠說的），問他還回去的是誰的；第二天早上他把自己早飯的飯給了廚房走廊的一個女孩。寧府的當家決定要給她最好的，最好的棺木是薛蟠的父親收著的一塊留木（造的人用的木頭，放進去的東西能留四百年）；薛蟠說一千份。尤氏臥床，鳳姐被借一個月，帶著男孩，他坐在凳子上拿鉛筆。她的五條規矩（每件事派給有名字的人、一隻手管鑰匙、到時辰點名、丟了的算在最後拿的人頭上、花了當天寫下來），和那個母親在補房的管燈油的男孩（她在牌子上寫補房：牌子是寫人在哪裡，不光寫不在哪裡）。她整個人是她自己，快樂，有一扇很小的門。第九天賴管家湊出九百八十九份，差十一份；唯一沒花的是第七個抽屜，在已故少奶奶名下，十一份、一個補工時段、三年沒動；在秋天對初四什麼也沒看見的鳳姐，看了一口氣的工夫，說入帳；數字算出來了；一千份是可卿一年補工費用的九十倍。第十五天朝廷的信差（年輕、很累，平兒在街上，白和紅的中間，端一碗給他吃）送來消息：榮府的女兒，十五歲進朝廷裡屋，晉位內席，一年之內可回娘家的府一次。可卿說一年之內，只過了十五天。寶玉問她現在是不是有更大的份，聽說會把大家都抬起來，他問她是從誰那裡拿的。第二十夜封棺以前，襲人把可卿枕頭底下的紙條交給鳳姐（羅補匠一個鐘頭，給林姑娘）：放在她手裡，不要入帳，這整件事裡唯一不必入帳的。, 僅 AI)_
- **08** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 08，為一天造的園子 _(花了八個月，和一道牆：兩府之間那道牆在一個星期裡倒了，兩百個人，每塊磚都被寧府的當家編了號以防萬一；寧府的園子（小而富）和榮府的地（大而窮）成了一條生生的泥土縫。造園的人來自敕以外的村子，付錢，用時間的一半，因為一個必須自己把自己養薄的人學會了用手；鳳姐看到她看過的頭一份沒有養這一欄的名冊。尊榮的帳來了第二張第三張紙；鳳姐向老太太說出全部：四十二間要被看進去的屋子。老爺：我們不能為了一天去借將來；老太太：這是內席的日子；鳳姐：一天加四個冬天。官倉撥給每一座被尊榮的府該得的先付：九千份，在接下來四個冬天的撥數裡分四份扣回；府的撥數六年來一年七千，所以多過十分之三；老太太（那天早上窗臺上插了一枝早開的梅）：她孫女在朝廷屋裡九年一次也沒回過家，我們想辦法。寧府的當家做得更好：從補匠名冊上帶出十二個九到十三歲的孩子學朝廷的音樂；一百個好看的丫頭和園丁（十二張口，一百張口，一天過後每個都是一張口）。長走廊上，晴雯，十五歲，老太太那邊送來的（叫我坐著不動，我就坐著，可是我沒辦法假裝我喜歡）；鳳姐說記下她；太太的眼睛在她身上多留了一下。春天老爺帶四位先生（詹先生為首）走半造好的園子，叫寶玉取名：入口的石頭（繞路：不是為了藏、是為了走過去）、水聲最響處的亭子（清聲）、水邊的竹叢（瘦綠館，給一個有點怕一個人待著、又不介意的人，他眼睛看著最靠近南屋的角落）。在農莊（茅屋、四隻雞、一張桌子大的菜畦、水車）詹先生說稻香村；寶玉說沒有人會吃它，它是一幅畫、朝廷的人吃東西；老爺說閉嘴、把他帶出我的視線。後來府裡一位寡婦被放進農莊住，種菜、吃菜，第二年菜畦得擴大。園子在八月底造好；老太太的人要來看的前一晚，寶玉和黛玉站在高處、試點的燈籠中間；黛玉數四十二間亮著的屋子裡沒有人，一百個口要在一天裡放進去，四個冬天要還，還有一個人要從我們去不了的地方來一天。, 僅 AI)_
- **09** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 09，省親 _(朝廷給內席四個鐘頭，從早上第三個鐘頭到第七個鐘頭，因為在自己愛的府裡被留超過這個的人不一定還肯回去。榮府從天亮前就列隊站在大門口，穿著從杉木箱裡拿出來的衣裳。三位穿灰、掛算板的巡視人先走過園子，點燈籠、點碟子、點每個院子裡的人；年紀最大的留著尖灰鬍子，對每個丫頭說早，把她的臉記下來。內席元春，二十四歲，高，穿淡茶色素袍，蒼白，是被點得太多次的人的蒼白；她看著腳下的石頭，然後看見穿紅的老太太，她整張臉就垮了；老太太離開椅子，她跪在石頭上兩手環住她：為什麼這麼多？巡行時她在第一塊石頭前唸繞路，要看她從他三歲以後沒見過的寶玉；托著他的下巴，說聽說他把飯給人：不要全給了。到農莊，最老的巡視人問誰吃這些雞；寶玉把笑咳成一聲咳嗽。年輕人在水上亭子裡寫詩；寶釵經過時對寶玉說他的第三個字是朝廷詩人都這麼說的，說你的意思；黛玉看見他沒有最後的句子，把它們寫在自己袖子的邊上，字跡像他，又把自己那首寫得很平，讓他的出色，像遞鹽一樣遞過去；內席說他的最好；他不知道一個給了他一個字、一個給了他一首詩。十二個孩子唱朝廷的曲子；內席要最後面最小的那個、九歲，唱她會的，她唱了名冊的數數歌（一個碗，兩把匙……八是名字說兩遍……十是被養著）；內席在朝廷丫頭們（全是從名冊領來的）中間隔著牆聽了九年，眼淚像雨落在窗上，寶玉把手放進她的手裡。在南屋朝廷的禮：二公子和薛家姑娘各一串紅珠子外加一匹綢，兩人一樣、跟別人不一樣；府注意到，像鞋子裡一粒小石頭；黛玉站在門口拿著一匹素綢，把臉擺好；內席被人說過事情很可能會怎樣，她是好意的。她在第七個鐘頭前的話：她不能再來；她看過那筆數，四個冬天；要老爺答應不再為下一次造園子；讓年輕人住進去，一座被點亮過的房子不該被留在黑暗裡，讓有人坐在裡面而不是客人。朝廷的號角在第七個鐘頭整響。老太太站在大門口直到最後一個紅衣人拐過街角：她瘦了。丫頭們把燈籠從水階到大門一盞一盞熄掉；老爺舉著蠟燭走一圈，在廳裡對太太說了兩個詞：四個冬天。, 僅 AI)_
- **10** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 10，第二天 _(榮府起得很晚，是記憶所及頭一次；老太太把早飯留在窗臺上、梅枝旁邊。賬房裡沒睡的鳳姐和平兒、賴管家把整份省親名冊加起來：一萬一千四百份，估算一萬，官倉九千，差的兩千四百是在她不打算說出名字的地方找到的（薛姨媽的錢袋、第七個抽屜的十一份、許多碗裡的絲、最低一等女孩的月錢每次扣六天）。總數的另一半：一百個人和十二個名冊上來的孩子，在府的名冊上只是鉛筆寫的一行，吃著一年七千、就要變成不到五千的撥數。老太太半夜說：這裡面有孩子；那就做對的，不要做便宜的。一百人裡七十二個回原來的位置，二十二個付一天的錢走（其中一個請人記得她的臉，鳳姐說她記得），留六個做園子的手，晴雯在內（到二公子的院子；太太每天都會看見她）。寧府當家的錢袋花光了；十二個孩子回補匠那裡，補匠派來一個灰髮和善、穿褐圍裙的女人，像數麵包那樣數她們（一年對我們是很長的時間；她們吃得很好，那是我們做不到的；那是那一年聽到最糟的話，說得一點苦味也沒有）。老太太穿素黑來到走廊：留一個，內席要過她。教唱的師傅在大門口領了錢，對那個小的說有人聽見了。孩子說了兩遍自己的名字，玲，為了名冊一遍、為了自己一遍：我想有一個人有它。老太太說：我有。寶玉問鳳姐她們去哪裡，要把自己的份給；她說那你會變薄，她們也不會好一點，最近不是一個地方，是一段時間，我也不喜歡。鳳姐用筆寫下三百二十一，那是一座沒有牆的大廳裡那張紙第二行上的數。那天晚上玲把碗吃到最後一粒；老太太：她吃的跟那一個一樣，我不知道我要拿她們全部怎麼辦；鴛鴦端來稍微大一點的碗，她沒有拒絕。, 僅 AI)_
- **11** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 11，初一 _(第一部結束。九月最後一天，年輕的一輩搬進園子：探春要桌子最大的院子，迎春分到沒有人要的那一個，小小的惜春要離大門最近的；寶釵選樸素的南院，事先自付窗子裡的燈錢；寶玉住東院，在老太太那道牆邊，襲人和晴雯隨去（人坐哪兒？／你喜歡坐哪兒就坐哪兒。／麻煩就在這裡）；黛玉最後被問，由老太太替她說出口：瘦綠館。寶釵很親切地替她數了到南屋的步數（一百步；她自己的南院兩百四十），黛玉自己去數：一百零四。李紈，長子的寡婦，十月裡搬進農莊，用最抱歉的聲音要了一把鋤頭。黃昏鳳姐下令四十二扇窗全點亮，連四間沒有人的也是，因為內席說一座點過燈的房子不該留在黑裡，而那句話裡沒有哪一條是給沒有人的屋子的；賴管家記下四盞燈的價錢，沒有人說什麼。那天夜裡寶玉在瘦綠館的台階上找到黛玉，告訴她那片竹子是為什麼樣的人命的名，她說一個名字是她得到的所有份裡唯一一份沒有人必須放棄的。石頭記下那座府裡唯一一次從來沒有記進冊子的交換，並且說它數出來是平的。十月初一發例日，撥數沒有變（一年七千份，直到冬天的撥款收回四次裡的第一次）；最低一等女孩的月錢又差了六天，鳳姐把扣下的四十串以六天、五分的利息借給了東門的商人顧，他沒有帶簿子，她自己寫在一本小黑簿裡：這只是一根頭髮，平兒。這是我會做的事。平兒：我是說是。錢初七帶著兩串回來，買了油，夠沒有人替它們付的院子用一個星期；下個月她還要更多。那天夜裡園子又亮了。越過那道牆原來所在的地方，寧府的燈已經滅了，石獅子站在黑裡，園子的光在牠們身上移動。石頭：這是園子的第一年，是舊算術的最後一年，是最好的一年。, 僅 AI)_
- **12** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 12，頭一個冬天 _(第二部開始。十月最後一天，朝廷的灰色紙條到：自十一月初一起，撥數為一年四千七百五十份，即七千份減去為省親預支之數四次收回中的第一次，二千二百五十份。一個月五百八十三份降成三百九十六，差一百八十七，而例在秋天唸例以前不能改。鳳姐請賴管家照原樣唸例，說那個缺口是她的；她不告訴老太太，因為老太太會想一直給到體己見底。頭六十份用攤找到，五十份在園子的廚房裡讓園子的手改吃一口鍋，其餘七十七份到東市用錢買，而錢只有一個地方可以來：最低一等女孩的月錢，現在扣九天，不是六天，經顧、一個綢緞商和一個賣米的放出去。一個提水的十二歲女孩小紅聽說上個月是初七，她數的不是天數，是形狀。平兒開始為每個女孩記著她被欠了什麼、從什麼時候起。李紈把農莊頭一批兩個蛋送到賬房，說沒有那一行；鳳姐笑了，站著吃了一個。東院的粥稀了；晴雯要去問，襲人攔住她：整座府都握在她兩隻手裡，逼她說出手裡是什麼，不厚道；總得有人通融她，她通融我們。頭一場重霜，黛玉說她的火盆很暖和；一個星期一簍炭只夠燒四天，她咳起來像翻過一頁紙；她不收寶玉的炭（那我就得知道你冷、還暖和著，那比冷還糟）。寶玉去對老太太只說黛玉的火盆冷了；老太太說就是這樣才知道，從自己的體己裡給園子每一間有人的屋子再添一簍炭，不記在黛玉名下。她把那塊玉轉到光下：這是這座府裡唯一一樣不用誰的火養的東西。她看見了稀粥，不問鳳姐：鳳姐在通融她，讓她以為沒被看見。黃昏鳳姐把那張單子放在黑簿子上，壓著顧的名字：她以為能瞞住老太太這筆花費，卻攔不住她。四個冬天，這是頭一個。, 僅 AI)_
- **13** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 13，社 _(十一日，探春在園子每一扇門上同時貼出公告，寫在舊習字紙背面、寫了四十遍，因為新紙是例上的一行，舊紙是沒有人的：辦一個社，每逢十日中第三天在農莊聚會，不收會費，沒有位次，誰來哪裡有空就坐哪裡，只有一條規矩，社裡說的任何話，事後都不欠任何人。她對寶玉說這座府每樣東西都是欠著的，她想看看一個房間能不欠多久；他不許告訴父親這是個社，這只是一個下午。迎春讀了三遍，怕沒有人在意；寶釵發現加起來幾乎是零，不知道怎麼站在一件沒法付的東西裡；黛玉把最後一行舉起來，像舉一枚來自沒見過的國度的錢；晴雯照字面讀。十三日頭一次聚會，下雪：李紈的爐子，園子的樹上撿的、沒有人立過行的栗子，爐邊一把沒有人肯坐的空椅子。題目是一樣給過你、沒有人記上去的東西。寶玉的竹子；寶釵的芸香與百里香（我一直很小心地還回去）；迎春的兩行（別人剩下的，我發現是夠的；探春：不夠，是有人告訴你夠的；我知道）；晴雯在雪裡站了一會兒，聽到「誰來」就進來，坐進空椅子，寫她沒有人告訴她坐哪兒、她自己選了、這是她得到過最糟的一樣東西；黛玉寫一份沒有人問就被弄暖的暖，她沒有說謝謝，她想這樣才對；惜春，九歲，用粉筆在擦洗過的桌面上畫園子，連四扇空窗也畫成亮的：應該有人在裡面，我畫了光也許有人會來。沒有獎，因為獎要從某個人的份上出；紙片釘在農莊牆上不署名、不抄，房間裡沒有一樣東西從任何人的份上移走。事後探春在架子上發現一刀好紙，暗印是薛家的一根繩上三枚錢；寶釵說是有人弄錯了，探春說那她就拿來寫下一張公告，既然它是沒有人的；她們誰也說不出是誰做的通融。黛玉看見了，在自己的書裡寫：她付她的。, 僅 AI)_
- **14** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 14，螃蟹 _(第二個秋天。秋天唸例時，例被改了，是七年來頭一次，朝廷的巡視官在旁看著，每一等依序失去它的頭髮；鳳姐把日期寫進黑簿子，標題只有一個字：減。湘雲，十三歲，史家，老太太的姪孫女，嗓門大又敏捷，在自己家靠夜裡的修補被養著，每年有一個月作為老太太份上的客人來住。頭一頓晚飯她像說新聞一樣問，這裡的粥也是稀的嗎；老太太說是節令。寶釵看見她食指上一圈針眼，什麼也沒說，說得那麼巧，連丫頭鶯兒也花了一會兒才看出來。湘雲參加社的第一次聚會，因為是客人、不懂，坐進那把空椅子，並宣布她要辦一場螃蟹聚會，用一串錢。寶釵在南院的一支蠟燭下，把一份禮物做成買賣，這樣它才能被收下：鋪子有一船三天後會壞，一串錢收走，湘雲沒用過的補房時辰抵運費；不是兩邊都出了點東西，買賣就不算成，這是我父親教我們的第一件事。螃蟹其實還能新鮮十天，花了鋪子十一串錢，其中十串記在寶釵自己的小簿子裡。聚會在水上的亭子裡：螃蟹依位次吃，三十一個人、四十隻螃蟹，另外九隻從後樓梯送到廚房給女孩們（小紅數牠的腿）；鳳姐精彩極了，替老太太剝蟹，自己什麼也不吃，以為沒人看時把手掌根壓在肋骨下；黛玉不許吃蟹，寶玉把最甜的肉放進她碟子；湘雲紅著臉說商人不和氣，他們公平，並寫下沒有人欠我，我不欠誰，這就是有錢的意思。老太太把自己第二隻蟹放到寶釵盤子上，有一口氣的工夫，寶釵的笑晚了。湘雲的時辰簽讓出去，寶釵讓鶯兒轉給平兒，給北邊樓梯那個提水的，來自一個不想具名的人；小紅頭一次坐進補房，補匠說這是三十歲女人的肩膀，問是誰付的，她說沒有人告訴她；她把那個時辰數了。寶釵從來沒看見，那正是這件事的要點。, 僅 AI)_
- **15** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 15，劉姥姥 _(十月第二個星期，一個七十一歲的老太太，牽著六歲的孫子，背著一個像綿羊那麼大的籃子，走到後門。劉姥姥是沒有敕的人，住在河的那一岸，彼此養著，不用簿子：沒有例，沒有月錢，沒有補房，補匠在青黃不接的月份過河去，輪流被餵。平兒領她進去；光是門口，她就數了四十一級台階。賬房裡，鳳姐那天早上已經算了兩次一百八十七，發現她說「坐」是真心的。那筆債很老，從來沒有記過：四十個冬天以前，鳳姐的祖父把她丈夫的母親留在後廚房過了一場霜，因為沒寫下來，所以沒算過，哪一邊都結不了。鳳姐數出三十串，紮著最低一等女孩月錢的紅線；劉姥姥用嘴唇數過，把五串推回去：我們村子欠得起的是二十五，一樣你春天還不起的東西不是禮物，是抵押；她會用雞蛋和一隻鵝還。嬰兒巧姐輕而愛鬧，被孫子的一個小甜葫蘆哄住。劉姥姥說：要是這府有一天對她太熱，她可以來，我們有一張床在爐子邊上，我們不寫下來。鳳姐回答：我想想；劉姥姥說那是這座府說從不的方式，不要想，要記得。她給鳳姐一包十二顆紅棗，一天三顆，你臉是米湯的顏色；鳳姐吃了，沒有記下。老太太差人叫她。在亭子裡劉姥姥說她們村子怎麼過冬：輪流，沒有人記，不是信任，只是人人都在人人嘴裡。一陣沉默，湘雲打破它，給她戴上菊花；她說她年輕時是個美人；她說在她們村子這個園子是四塊田一個池塘，這裡是給人看的，很好看。黃昏，沒有笑的黛玉在水階邊找到她：這是老實的買賣，他們拿我的臉面，我沒有用處；不笑的人是看得見的人；最糟是他們給的時候。她用蘆草折了一隻綠蚱蜢，說我沒給你東西，只是一隻蚱蜢。她走時帶著一車，在小巷裡送掉三分之一。黛玉把蚱蜢放在窗臺上；早上它還在那裡；她本來以為它得被付錢的。, 僅 AI)_
- **16** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 16，湊份子 _(湊份子是府裡最老的把戲：例上沒有祝壽的那一行，所以每個人依位次湊一點小到會被忘掉的數，總數花在一個人身上、一天之內，是唯一沒有人可以叫它損失的轉移。老太太為鳳姐十一月二十五日的生日下令湊份子：太太和老爺各十二，趙姨娘四，年輕的各六，李紈五，頭一等和第二等的丫頭各兩和一，其餘盡力，她自己從體己出二十；一頓壽宴六十，餘數隨壽星怎麼用。她還說自從螃蟹以後，鳳姐在她的桌上什麼也沒吃過。鳳姐想推辭，被告知宴席可以推，已經在收的總數推不掉。李紈在農莊管帳。趙姨娘付四串和一篇話，環兒眼睛盯著老太太數出兩串，寶釵付了兩次（第二次在帳本底下的信封裡），璉二爺從河工上寄來十串。第三天提水的排成一行由小紅帶頭，放在桌上的不是一把，是她們初九領到的整整一個月：四十串，紮著紅線，正是奶奶每月扣下的同一個數。小紅：反正它會走，與其被拿走，寧可做那個給的人。李紈寫：提水的、掃樓梯的，四十串，謹致謝意，差人叫平兒，平兒看見同一筆錢走了第四趟。園子都知道了；晴雯在東院大聲算出一筆數，付了十串；北邊樓梯的井邊出現一個蓋上開縫的罐子，裡面是東院和瘦綠館的錢、一小撮銅錢和一顆鈕釦。宴席上全府依位次坐，提水的站在台階腳下，臉上像看著自己那四十串；老爺祝酒說希望帳能平；寶玉重複襲人的句子，敬把整座府握在兩隻手裡的人；黛玉用桃子擋掉第三杯；太太把魚頰夾到鳳姐面前；老太太掂著巧姐說她輕。鴛鴦宣布：總數一百九十一，宴席六十，餘數一百三十一。走廊裡鳳姐說，那孩子的話她真希望是自己對某個人說過的，她們把我自己的錢給了我、還叫它禮物，這招比我的好；老太太知道那九天，並且替它們付了：初一，全額付給她們，從餘數出，就這一個月。十二月初一，那一小把是整的；鳳姐對小紅說她有北邊樓梯上最直的水桶、二十歲以下最好的算數頭腦；顧來了，什麼也沒有等著他；黑簿子那一頁仍是白的。小紅在走廊上說：我想看看它長什麼樣。, 僅 AI)_
- **17** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 17，那件外套 _(朝廷不給，它在遠處借出，把借叫做賜，這樣借的人就感覺不到那根線。跟著內席的賞賜來的那件外套是舊金色，裡面一層綠光像一隻鳥轉身，用朝廷的織機、補剩下的一根線織成，登在內席的帳上，左袖口裡縫一張標籤；朝廷每年冬天來看它借出去的東西是否完好，外套破了，會記在內席名下，而內席的帳就是敕。十二月初二，寶玉在南屋離火盆太近，一粒火星燒出一個銅錢大的洞，已經在裂。裁縫不敢碰朝廷的織法，怕那個結；補匠在河那邊兩天路；巡視官初五來；老太太這個冬天給得夠多了，不能告訴她。晴雯感冒躺著，隔著屏風聽見，披著被子走出來：她母親在當丫頭以前是補匠，在後廚房點燈做了六個冬天裁縫不肯做的事，她坐在地上看；府裡沒有時辰給那種活，所以沒人叫她做。她要求給這座府一樣它拿不走的東西。她整夜在寶玉拿著的燈下用補匠結，同時是結又是圖案，一針一針，吐在盆子裡再繼續：人會的大多數事，都是因為他們在房裡。石頭看見：一個身體在黑暗裡保管它在府分給它的時辰裡的補，她在把它花進布裡。天亮前，縫已經看不出，只有手指放在裡面才摸得到。告訴朝廷這是件很好的外套；她倒下去。王大夫要她在補房待三天，而第二等兩個星期才有一個時辰；寶玉簽讓出四十個自己的，但隔兩等的轉讓要太太的印，太太把條子撕了（我要是蓋了一張，新月前就有五十張，這是規矩），說春天她會對老太太說這個女孩；同等級裡湊出九個時辰，晴雯有一天半。老太太親自來，留下一個小銅手爐：我沒給你什麼。初五巡視官的放大鏡放過外套，朝廷自己的補匠，一個手大得不相稱的矮小彎腰的女人，說狀況良好，那一行本來會寫在內席名字旁的字從來沒有寫下。在門口她對襲人說沒有裁縫做得出那個，補匠的府裡有一張長凳給她，爐子旁邊，我們不寫下來。晴雯聽了說：我有一把椅子。, 僅 AI)_
- **18** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 18，短例 _(環兒，九歲，趙姨娘的兒子，一直像一個男孩看著一個人吃他不許吃的東西那樣看著他哥哥，在東院的字紙簍裡找到那張撕開的條子的兩半，用雙手捧著送去給老爺，只是想被看見。老爺叫來寶玉：賴管家說了從去年秋天起送人的早飯米、送到瘦綠館的炭、簽讓給丫頭的四十個時辰。你吃的是誰的米？我的。你沒吃的是誰的？我的，我給了，那是我的可以給。老爺說不是：份是府借給你，依你生下來的位次，你把它送人，就是把它從名冊上拿掉，名冊就得顯示一張口在沒有的地方；朝廷每個冬天都數。你知道朝廷怎麼對待一座名冊不準的府嗎？不知道。我也不知道，所以我怕。判決是短例，府裡最老的判決，沒有戒尺：七天，在書房，吃最低一等一碗半粗糧、一匙鹹菜、不放油，抄敕的規矩，什麼也不許送進來；府怕它，像村子怕旱，因為被養薄的人會慢下來，丟了線頭，安靜。太太兩手交疊坐著；老太太坐椅子來，老爺在自己的門口鞠躬（母親，這是我的例）；她越過他看書房側牆通往竹子的窗，說不想看見它被打破，他說不會。鳳姐在黃銅秤上稱到一粒，親自端去：剛好是最低一等，老爺，不多一點。石頭記下：那就是提水的人每天吃的東西。頭一夜寶玉一個一個說名字，像轉念珠，每一遍慢一點；我明白這座府的怕是對的。天亮前窗邊，紫鵑捧來黛玉的碗，條子寫：這不是禮物，這是借，你胖了可以還我；他退回：你比我瘦；兩天來回，第三天碗裡多一個蛋；第四天早上黛玉自己穿著兩件襖來，提議一人一半，一根湯匙，既不是禮物也不是借，它只是一碗飯，我們兩個都餓；他們隔著窗臺用一根湯匙吃完。之後窗子開始滿起來，都是沒有記的東西：李紈的蛋包在白菜葉裡、惜春的栗子、探春寫著社的規矩的紙、一撮沒有人認領的柿餅，那是環兒的，黑裡放上去，他發現自己感覺到的是冷。第五天黛玉的條子是四行：瘦是一種天氣，它會過去，只要有人站在門口，我正站在門口。第七天老爺開門，看見男孩邊緣模糊像隔著水看一盞燈，窗臺上一根湯匙、一個栗子殼、白菜葉裡的蛋殼；他說他沒有問蛋殼哪裡來的，短例結束了，你不許把你的份送人；我會試；那不是回答；那是我唯一有的；去吃飯。走廊轉角老爺把一隻手平放在牆上像在船上穩住自己；新年他下令把窗子重新糊過，換一張更薄的紙。, 僅 AI)_
- **19** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 19，三人當家 _(二月初一，鳳姐用平穩的聲音對帳房先生唸例，唸到一半，一個名字從她嘴裡掉出去，像一根線從針眼裡脫出來，她說是冷，然後像折一封信那樣從腰上折了下去；平兒第一個穿過房間。走廊裡提水的穿著乾淨的圍裙站著等她們的一小把；看那張臉的小紅說：是初一。可是沒有人來。王大夫說她把補當錢包花，花了兩個冬天：床上一個月，枕邊一個補匠，不許進賬房，不許算；誰來發例？隨便誰，只要做得不好，並且被原諒。七十八歲的老太太點了李紈（管帳）、探春（有腦子）和寶釵，一個客人：就是因為這個，你不會因此被喜歡，也不會被請留下；我不是為府要你們做，我是為她。之後她叫鴛鴦念那本小綠冊子：她自己的體己，八百零六串，去年春天是一千四百出頭；別告訴鳳丫頭；她不會問的；她的毛病就在這裡。第二天早上三人打開賬房，巧姐睡在自己的籃子裡，平兒穿著昨天的衣服。上鎖的中間抽屜裡躺著四十串紅線串的錢，是為顧數出來、從未放出去的；李紈立刻拿到走廊裡給提水的，每人一小把，說：對不起，晚了；小紅說是初一該領的，她說：對不起，沒有在那天發。從來沒有人說過這句話。那天夜裡在睡房：對不起不能吃；不能，可是從來沒有人說過；奶奶會好，然後又是初九。寶釵讀了朝廷的通知，說這座府一直在過超出撥數一個月一百八十七份的日子，她知道一座府自己向自己借的時候是什麼樣子：每樣東西都準時，除了最底下的人。探春在月錢簿裡發現一個剛好九天寬的洞。平兒不肯交出那只箱子：那是奶奶的；她為了我們所有人做的。十五歲的探春走到補房；鳳姐像算一個數那樣說了一個鐘頭：我多通融了一次，又一次，然後停不下來，因為停的唯一方法，就是讓某個人沒有；永遠是最底下的那一個；我兩年來一直小心要讓它是最底下的；不要在我下第一刀的地方下刀。補匠說她見過更糟的。平兒把鑰匙放進探春手心。那夜探春和李紈在農莊讀了黑簿子：顧、綢緞商、賣米的、賣燈油的陳；減；劉姥姥的二十五後面一個問號；放出去的總數六百一十二串，旁邊更小的字：最低一等的九天。她靠提水的十二歲孩子的九天把這座府養住了。我們不能停也不能繼續；要是停，誰吃？探春說她會往園子找，那是這座府裡唯一一樣不是自己養活自己的東西。, 僅 AI)_
- **20** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 20，包地 _(三月初三，探春把園子的三十一個手叫到水階，說園子養不活自己：竹林、荷塘、魚池、藥草、果園、草坪，要一年一年租給看管它們的人，付租子，租子以外賺的都是他們的，不登記，不上名冊。管竹林的葉媽問要是壞了跟誰說；探春，是從穿褐外套的老太婆那裡聽來的：不是信任，只是你會在我嘴裡，我在你嘴裡。中午前七塊地租出去了（田老管藥草，廚子的母親管荷塘，獨眼的丁管魚池，大嗓門的宋媽管果園）。有五個人沒辦法接地（一個瞎的、一個沒手的、兩個七十多的婦人、一個犯抽風病的男孩）；葉媽說輪流，每人每天餵一個，河那一岸就是這麼做的；宋媽說誰也不許寫下來，不然她不幹；探春寫了一次好讓它開始，然後把紙條燒了。前一晚，寶釵拿過筆：不要三分給府，你會餓死他們；四分之一；佃戶要先吃，地主才吃，一個人付得起的租子比付得出的便宜；你要他們在你嘴裡，他們就得有東西在自己嘴裡。探春接著把攤翻了過來：例到秋天不能改，但頭髮現在從上面取，頭一等多給比一根頭髮多一點，第二等少一點，最低的什麼也不給；太太看著稀一點的飯說我看見了，吃了。男孩們書房的第二份津貼（一個帳房六十年前的錯）被削掉，寶玉說好，環兒把數字寫進小冊子。趙姨娘的哥哥趙國基初九死，冊上是二十串（只有頭一支才四十）；趙姨娘說是四十，我是你的母親，我生了你；十五歲的探春，每一分都想從自己月錢拿出四十：我也會給園丁二十串，這正是重點；我削你和削任何人一樣，這就是為什麼它是削，不是吵架。李紈送茶：做對是很糟的一件事；是，我發現了。那天夜裡環兒在小冊子寫：二十，旁邊一個名字。鳳姐已經出補房，回自己的屋子，仍不許進賬房，從平兒那裡聽到，手邊是葉媽送來的竹筍，說那不是租子：她削了上頭，我做不到。月底探春拿來第一份結算：地租三十八串，從上面削下的四十一份，收回的貸款四十七串，不再放新的，最低一等初一領到；差六十一。我願意拿一年的命換這六十一；不要做那個給出一年的人；找出六十一，可是要在一個不是人的地方。四月初三社裡，宋媽帶來一碗她自己那一半的枇杷，給社的，因為那裡說的任何話都不欠：我什麼也沒說，只是枇杷。探春為栗子立了一行，為枇杷立了一行，而這裡是一行存在的目的，從側面進來。晴雯的詩：有人付了我那把椅子的錢，我坐了，沒有問。黛玉的詩：一把我沒有生的火，一碗我沒有煮的飯，我一輩子被我叫不出名字的手餵養，我想，這就是一座府。, 僅 AI)_
- **21** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 21，四扇窗 _(第三年六月初一，兩個冬天後就八十的老太太向十一歲的惜春要一幅園子的畫，所有人都在裡面，掛在床上看得見的地方：一個人要一幅畫著一個地方、所有人都在裡面的畫，是開始數人頭的時候。惜春依訪客看園子的次序，在一捲十五步長的紙上畫，那是地租的頭一個夏天：葉媽同一個被最好的人打敗了的木匠場男人談成每捆六串，田老在藥草裡，廚子的母親在荷塘，丁提網，宋媽在果園，柿子樹下的長凳上是那五個沒辦法接地的人在吃午飯，每天由不同的佃戶坐一會兒、說點什麼、走開，那是整幅畫裡她唯一想在裡面的部分。到秋天她有了三十八扇亮的窗，每一扇後面一個人，黛玉身後窗臺上的綠蚱蜢，晴雯在她的椅子裡，鳳姐在窗邊拿著棗子，剩下四扇窗：西面高處四間每晚亮著、沒有人的屋子，她沒辦法把它們畫成空的，因為它們是亮的，那是撒謊。十一歲、在老太太桌上吃飯的玲說她可以坐。惜春畫了她四個夜晚，一晚一扇窗（讀書、唱名冊的童謠、站在黑裡手放在玻璃上），玲要求留在第一間：南屋裡每樣東西都是老太太的，我想要一樣是房間的東西，還有我的名字在門上；我說了兩遍，我想要它被寫一遍。她告訴惜春那十一個都好：每年新年灰衣的補匠給老太太送一張條子，十一個名字一行字，她們都好。老太太說她得自己點燈，府會把她算在園子裡：三十九。惜春用粉筆把玲寫在門上。一次。同一個下午她去見二十歲的妙玉，她十六歲離開了她的份，在例的時辰不吃，兩年後名冊劃掉她的名字，住在綠窗櫺的灰色小屋，靠自己種的和訪客留下的過活：很安靜，你不知道一份名冊有多吵，直到你不在上面；我病的時候補匠會來，他們不寫。惜春問我可以嗎？被告知：還不行，等你十五歲、還在問的時候再問；而且聽這一句，府會高興；問是誰高興，那是你的選擇，還是府的。傍晚玲第四次才把燈點亮。三十九。有人來了。早上惜春在第一扇窗下寫：在。亮。, 僅 AI)_
- **22** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 22，中秋夜 _(園子的第四個秋天，府已經學會了有秩序地窮。地租過了完整的一年；貸款除了幾筆都收回了，鳳姐去年五月回到發例，慢一些、坐在椅子裡，每月最後一天打開黑簿子：外面二百一十一串，沒有新放出去的；曾經是個洞的一個月一百八十七份，現在是十四份。小紅十三歲，從北邊樓梯調進賬房，記一本自己的簿子，記每個提水的女孩被欠了什麼、從什麼時候起：府裡唯一一本由被欠的人記的簿子。八月十五中秋夜在水階：園子果園的蜜和農莊的麵粉做的月餅，荷塘邊做的紙燈籠，每個院子一道菜，沒有人是主人也沒有人是客人；六十三張臉，小紅小聲數了。寶玉十四歲，更瘦，自從短例有一點恍惚。寶釵說過了冬天她要回家住一陣，她的笑準時到了。頭一更剛過，劉姥姥帶著第三隻鵝來了（河拿走了第一隻，狐狸叼了第二隻），那二十五串早已託守門的妻子用雞蛋還清；鳳姐笑了那低的笑；劉姥姥對宋媽說園子看著有人住，巧姐，三歲，在她腳上坐下。二更過後，寧府那邊的笛聲：梅山亭子裡的寧府當家，為死了三年的兒媳吹；老太太抬手要阻止，又讓手落下：讓他吹。黛玉去水邊，湘雲跟著，她們輪流做四句：月把一個碗擱在黑水上；沒有人盛，也沒有人去數；鶴影過去，濕了半池光；冷的東西，收下什麼，就還什麼。小路暗處的妙玉添了最後一句：有一隻手在遠處，還握著燈；不是我的，我只是說了；沒有人的是，這是規矩。她用有金線的杯子給她們倒茶：那是社的每一把椅子都坐滿的最後一晚。老太太三更著了涼被抬進去，王大夫在走廊說她不能再在濕氣裡熬夜。她叫玲數窗子：三十九，還有三扇暗的；畫快完了，還有一個角落，水上的亭子，因為她不知道誰坐在水邊就畫不上水。冬天我就八十了；他們會想大辦，會說是為我，其實是為他們；我會允許的；這是我最後一樣能給他們去花的東西。再說一遍，我愛聽它們被說出來。玲數到窗子轉灰。, 僅 AI)_
- **23** · 2026-10-23 · Colophon (AI) — 新增章節 23，八十 _(第二部結束在老太太的八十歲，最大的一筆花費，也是最後一筆。朝廷的禮制有四個部分：壽使由府供住三天；壽杖，終身借給，繩上縫一張標籤；八十碗，三天，每天從府自己的門口八十碗；以及點名：高壽的人點出八十個人陪她坐，凡被點的人，依朝廷的冊終身記在她的份上，沒有她的允許不從任何名冊上劃掉：這是朝廷唯一一樣不收回的禮，也是一筆債。九百串：壽使和費用三百四十，壽宴三百，給官員的禮二百，八十碗折合六十。寧府當家出四百，薛姨媽一百，府一百五十，老太太二百五十，那是綠冊子裡全部的：一本裡面還有一點的冊子，是讓人覺得非留著不可的東西。鳳姐，兩年沒在賬房這麼光彩，用大夫叫她休息的身子，九天做成：壽宴靠園子養，做成兩百六十，官員的禮談到一百五十，省下的九十串用紅線紮好收起來。壽使又小又乾，六十歲，灰袍紅帶，吃剛好是朝廷的口糧，剩下的在盤子裡擺成一條線；朝廷真好，老太太說，他說：朝廷是精確的。探春用佃戶發八十碗，栗子粥加蓮子和蜜，由那五個接不了地的人舀；壽使嚐了：這比官倉的好；這不是官倉的；不是，我看出來沒有登記；朝廷要八十碗，它從來沒問是誰的；他寫了八十。點名在南屋大廳，老太太沒有名單，一個一個叫：玲、小紅、黛玉（她以前在我的份上，並且要留下）、那五個（丁家的阿南、吳、老方、老朱、男孩小多）、小紅簿子上的三十一個提水的、十個掃樓梯的、沒有等的女孩、荷塘邊做燈籠的老婦人、晴雯、紫鵑、鶯兒、平兒；椅子後面的圈長大，直到沿著台座彎過去，像一隻手合攏。太太算出來是七十幾張口記在一份只剩兩串的份上，看了晴雯很久。鳳姐，接近末尾：她餵了我們所有人，自己沒吃；她那時才知道那九十串是做什麼的：七十九個人的第一個月。鴛鴦被點到，不受：我站在這把椅子後面三十年了，沒有靠誰的份，只靠我自己掙的，我想留著。於是是七十九，還有一個站著的；壽使以前沒有過，這樣登記；他客氣地補一句，您以後，朝廷的保護是份的保護，也就是份裡有的東西。我知道。我想您知道。那夜鴛鴦唸綠冊子：兩串。留下那兩串；一本什麼都沒有的冊子是債，一本裡面有兩串的冊子，是可以睡在旁邊的東西。七十九；我做了；現在輪到府了。月底朝廷的通知：第四次收回是最後一次，從明年十一月起撥數又是七千；那是朝廷送給那座府最後一份好通知，角落裡記簿子的女孩寫下了日期。, 僅 AI)_

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