As soon as the door closed behind her, the drawing room fell into shadow. Two squares of yellow light streamed in through the glass panes in the upper part of the door, landing on the green tile floor. In spite of the gloom, one could see, on the bookshelves that lined the walls, long rows of slipcases made of purplish sandalwood into which formal-script characters had been carved, then painted green. On a plain wooden table in the middle of the room, there was a cloisonné chiming clock with a glass dome over it. The clock was broken; it hadn't worked in years. There were two hanging scrolls with paired verses; the crimson paper of the scrolls was embossed with gold "longevity" characters, over which the verses had been in­scribed in big, black strokes. In the dim light, each word seemed to float in emptiness, far from the paper's surface. Liusu felt like one of those words, drifting and unconnected. The Bai household was a fairyland where a single day, creeping slowly by, was a thousand years in the outside world. But if you spent a thousand years here, all the days would be the same, each one as flat and dull as the last one.
She crossed her arms and clasped her neck with her hands. Seven, eight years-they'd gone by in the blink of an eye. Are you still young? Don't worry, in another few years you'll be old, and anyway youth isn't worth much here. They've got youth everywhere-children born one after another, with their bright new eyes, their tender new mouths, their quick new wits. Time grinds on, year after year, and the eyes grow dull, the minds grow dull, and then another round of children is born. The older ones are sucked into that obscure haze of crimson and gold, and the tiny flecks of glinting gold are the frightened eyes of their predecessors.
Liusu cried out, covered her eyes, and fled; her feet beat a rapid retreat up the stairs to her own room. She turned on the lamp, moved it to her dressing table, and studied her reflection in the mirror. Good enough: she wasn't too old yet. She had the kind of slender figure that doesn't show age-her waist eter­nally thin, her breasts girlishly budding. Her face had always been as white as porcelain, but now it had changed from por­celain to jade-semitranslucent jade with a tinge of pale green. Once, her cheeks had been plump; now they were drawn, so that her small face seemed smaller yet, and even more attrac­tive. Her face was fairly narrow, but her eyes were set well apart. They were clear, lively, and slightly coquettish.
Out on the balcony, Fourth Master had once again taken up his huqin. The tune rose and fell, and Liusu's head tilted to one side as her eyes and hands started moving through dance poses. As she performed in the mirror, the huqin no longer sounded like a huqin, but like strings and flutes playing a solemn court dance. She took a few paces to the right, then a few to the left. Her steps seemed to trace the lost rhythms of an ancient melody.
Suddenly, she smiled—a private, malevolent smile; the music came to a discordant halt. The huqin went on playing outside, but it was telling tales of fealty and filial piety, chastity and righteousness: distant tales that had nothing to do with her.
Fourth Master had retreated to the balcony because he knew he lacked standing in the family council downstairs. Once Mrs. Xu had left, the Bai family had to thoroughly assess every aspect of her proposal. Mrs. Xu planned to help Baolu make a match with a Mr. Fan, who had recently been working quite closely with Mr. Xu in the mining business. Mrs. Xu had always kept track of his family and their situation, and she believed him to be entirely reliable. Mr. Fan's father was a well-known overseas Chinese with properties scattered throughout Ceylon, Malaya, and other such places. Fan Liuyuan was now thirty-two years old, and both of his parents had passed away.
Everyone in the Bai family kept asking Mrs. Xu how such a perfect son-in-law could still be single, and she told them that when Fan Liuyuan returned from England, a whole passel of mothers had forcefully, insistently, pushed their daughters at him. They had schemed and squabbled, pulling every trick in the book and making a huge fuss over him. This had com­pletely spoiled Mr. Fan; from then on he took women to be so much mud under his feet. He'd always been a bit odd anyway, due to his unusual childhood-his parents weren't officially married. His father met his mother in London, when he was touring Europe. She was an overseas Chinese, a girl often seen at parties, and the marriage had been kept secret. Then Fan's first wife got wind of it. Fearing that the first wife would take revenge, the couple never dared to go back to China, and Fan Liuyuan grew up in England. After his father's death, Liuyuan sought legal recognition of his rights; even though the first wife had only daughters, two of them, there was still quite a bit of nastiness. He was all alone in England, and went through some hard times, but at last he got the right to inherit his father's estate. The Fan family was still very hostile toward him, so he lived in Shanghai most of the time, returning to the family home in Guangzhou only when absolutely necessary. The un­stable emotional environment of his early years had left its mark on him, and gradually he became a playboy—he gam­bled, he gourmandized, he visited prostitutes. The only pleas­ure he denied himself was married bliss.
"A man like this is probably very picky," said. Fourth Mistress. "I'm afraid he might look down on Seventh Sister because she's the daughter of a concubine. It would be a shame to lose so good a connection!"
"But he too is the child of a secondary wife," said Third Master.
"He's a very clever man, though," said Fourth. Mistress. "Can our Number Seven, who is such a dolt, ever hope to catch him? My eldest daughter, on the other hand, is very quick. Don't be fooled by looks she is still young but she is smart! She knows how to behave."
"But there's such a difference in their ages," said Third Mistress.
Fourth Mistress snorted. "You don't know! This kind of man likes them young. If my eldest won't do, there's always her younger sister."
Third Mistress laughed. "Your second daughter is twenty years younger than Mr. Fan!"
Fourth Mistress quietly tugged at her sister-in-law's arm, a serious look on her face. "Third Sister, don't be so foolish! You're protecting Number Seven, but what is she to the Bai family? Having another mother really makes a big difference. No one here should hope for any benefit after she gets married! What I'm saying is for the good of the family."
But Old Mrs. Bai's chief concern was her fear that relatives would say she'd wronged a motherless girl. She decided to pur­sue the plan that had been first proposed. Mrs. Xu would set up a meeting, and Baolu would be introduced to Fan Liuyuan.
Mrs. Xu, in a two-pronged attack, also scouted for Liusu. She found a Mr. Jiang, who worked in the customs office. His wife had recently died, leaving five children behind, and now he was very anxious to remarry. Mrs. Xu thought it best to take care of Baolu first, and then make a match for Liusu, because Fan Liuyuan would soon be leaving for Singapore. The Bai household looked at Liusu's remarriage as some kind of joke, but since they wanted to get her out of the house they ignored the whole business, letting Mrs. Xu manage it. For Baolu, how­ever, they fell all over themselves, bustling about with great fanfare, turning the house upside down. Two daughters in the same house, but one got lots of attention and the other got cold silence. The contrast was painfully obvious.
Old Mrs. Bai was not satisfied until she had dressed Baolu in every last stitch of the family's best finery. Third Mistress's daughter had received a length of silk as a birthday present from her godmother. Old Mrs. Bai forced Third Mistress to hand it over, and then she had it made into a cheongsam for Baolu. The old lady's private cache of fine goods consisted mostly of furs, and since furs couldn't be worn in the summertime, she had to pawn a sable jacket, then use the money to have several old pieces of jewelry reset. Of course Baolu was also given pearl earrings, jade bracelets, and emerald rings to wear. Everyone wanted to make sure she was fully adorned, a glittering beauty.