Six Records of a Floating Life (Chapter three: Ups and downs 02)

    Fouting passed on the word to me, and I secretly wrote to Yun, asking her to look round for a girl. She did, and found one of the Yao clan. As Yun was not quite sure whether my father would rake her or not, she did not tell mother about it.

    When the girl was leaving, she merely referred to her as a girl in the neighbourhood who was going for a pleasure trip. After learning, however, that my father had instructed me to bring the girl to his quarters for good, she listened to some one's advice and invented the story that this was the girl my father had had in mind for a long time. "

    But you said she was going for a pleasure trip! Now why does he marry her?" remarked my mother. And so Yun incurred my mother's displeasure, too.

    I was working at Chengchow (cheng, Kiangsu) in the spring of 1792. My father happened to be ill at Yangchow, and when I went there to see him, I fell ill, too. At that time, my younger brother Ch'it'ang was also there, attending on my father. In her letter to me, Yun mentioned that Ch'it'ang had borrowed some money from a woman neighbour for which she was the guarantor, and that now the creditor was pressing for repayment.

    I asked Ch'it'ang about it, and he was rather displeased, thinking that Yun was meddling with his affairs. So I merely wrote a postscript at the end of a letter with the words: "Both father and son are sick and we have no money to pay the loan. Wait till younger brother comes home, and let him take care of it himself. "

    Soon both my father and I got well and I left for Chenchow again. Yun's reply came when I was away and was opened by my father.

    The letter spoke of Ch'it'ang's loan from the neighbouring woman, and besides contained the words, "Your mother thinks that old man's illness is all due to that Yao girl. When he is improving, you should secretly suggest to Yao to say that she is homesick, and I'll ask her parents to come to Yangchow to take her home. In this way we could wash our hands of the matter. "

    When my father saw this, he was furious. He asked Ch'it'ang about the loan and Ch'it'ang declared he knew nothing about it. So my father wrote a note to me, "Your wife borrowed a loan behind your back and spread scandals about your brother. Moreover, she called her mother-in-law 'your mother' and called her father-in-law 'old man.' This is the height of impudence.

    I have already sent a letter home by a special messenger, ordering her dismissal from home. If you have any conscience at all, you should realize your own fault!" I received this letter like a bolt from the blue, and immediately wrote a letter of apology to him, hired a horse and hurried home, afraid that Yun might commit suicide.

    I was explaining the whole matter at home, when the family servant arrived with my father's letter, which detailed her various points of misconduct in a most drastic tone. Yun wept and said, "Of course I was wrong to write like that, but father-in-law ought to forgive a woman's ignorance."

    After a few days, we received another letter from father: "I won't be too harsh on you. You bring Yun along and stay away from home, and do not let me see your face again. "