Chapter One Wedded Bliss                         Part1 Part2
Chapter Two The Little Pleasure of Life   Part1 Part2
Chapter Three Sorrow                                Part1 Part2
Chapter Four The Joys of Travel              Part1 Part2

                     
                     
    When I was staying with my friend Mr. Hua at Hsishan with Yun, Mrs. Hua used to ask Yun to teach her two daughters reading. In that country house, the yard was wide open and the glare of the summer sun was very oppressive. Yun taught them a method of making movable screens of growing flowers. Every screen consisted of a single piece. She took two little pieces of wood about four or five inches long, and laid them parallel like a low stool, with the hollow top filled by four horizontal bars over a foot long. At the four corners, she made little round holes on which she stuck a trellis-work made of bamboo. The trellis was six or seven feet high and on its bottom was placed a pot of peas which would then grow up and entwine round the bamboo trellis. This could be easily moved by two persons.
    One can make several of these things and place them wherever one pleases, before windows or doors, and they will look like living plants, casting their green shade into the house, warding off the sun and yet allowing the wind to come through. They can be placed in any irregular formation, adjustable according to time and circumstances, and are, therefore, called "movable flower screens. " With this method, one can use any kind of fragrant weeds of the creeper family, instead of peas. It is an excellent arrangement for people staying in the country.
My friend Lu Panfang's name was Chang and his literary name Ch'unshan. He was very good at painting pine-trees and cypresses, plum blossoms and chrysanthemums, as well as writing the lishu style of calligraphy, besides specializing in carving seals. I stayed in his home called Hsiaoshuanglou for a year and a half. The house faced east and consisted of five beams, of which I occupied three. From it one could get a beautiful view of the distance in rain or shine. In the middle of the court, there was a tree, the osmanthus fragrans, which filled the air with a kind of delicate fragrance. There were corridors and living rooms, and the place was quite secluded. When I went there, I brought along a man-servant and an old woman, who also brought with them a young daughter.  The man-servant could make dresses and the old woman could spin; therefore Yun did embroidery, the old woman spun and the man-servant made dresses to provide for our daily expenses.
    I was by nature very fond of guests and whenever we had a little drinking party,  I insisted on having wine-games. Yun was very clever at preparing inexpensive dishes; ordinary  foodstuffs like melon, vegetables, fish and shrimps had a special flavour when prepared by her. My friends knew that I was poor, and often helped pay the expenses in order that we might get together and talk for the whole day. I was very keen on keeping the place spotlessly clean, and    was, besides, fond of free and easy ways with my friends.
    At this time, there were a group of friends, like Yang Pufan, also called Ch' anghsu, who specialized in portrait sketches; Yuan Shaoyu, also called P'ai, who specialized in painting landscape; and Wang Hsing-lan, also called Yen, good at painting flowers and birds. They all liked the Hsiaoshuanglou because of its seclusion, so they would bring their painting utensils to the place and I learnt painting from them. They would then either write "grass-script" or "chuan-script" or carve seals, from which we made some money which we turned over to Yun to defray expenses for teas and dinners. The whole day long, we were occupied in discussing poetry or painting only. There were, moreover, friends like the brothers Hsia Tan-an and Hsia Yishan, the brothers Miao Shanyin and Miao Chihpo, Chi-ang Yiunhsiang, Loh Chuhsiang, Chou Hsiaohsia,  Kuo Hsiaoyu, Hua Hsingfan, and Chang Hsienhan. These friends came and went as they pleased, like the swallows by the eaves. Yun would take off her hairpin and sell it for wine without a second's thought, for she would not let a beautiful day pass without company. To-day these friends are scattered to the four corners of the earth like clouds dispersed by a storm, and the woman I loved is dead, like broken jade and buried incense. How sad indeed to look back upon these things!
Among the friends at Hsiaoshuanglou, four things were tabooed: firstly, talking about people's official promotions; secondly, gossiping about law-suits and current affairs; thirdly, discussing the conventional eight-legged essays for the imperial examinations; and fourthly, playing cards and dice. Whoever broke any of these rules was penalized to provide five carries of wine. On the other hand, there were four things which we all approved: generosity, romantic charm, free and easy ways, and quietness. In the long summer days when we had nothing to do, we used to hold examinations among ourselves. At those parties, there would be eight persons, each bringing two hundred cash along. We began by drawing lots, and the one who got the first would be the official examiner, seated on top by himself, while the second one would be the official recorder, also seated in his place. The others would then be the candidates, each taking a slip of paper, properly stamped with a seal, from the official recorder. The examiner then gave out a line of seven words and one of five words, with which each of us was to make the best couplet.
    The time limit was the burning of a joss-stick and we were to tease our brains standing or walking about, but were not allowed to exchange words with each other. When a candidate had made the couplets, he placed them in a special box and then returned to his seat. After all the papers had been handed in, the official recorder then opened the box and copied them together in a book, which he submitted to the examiner, thus safeguarding against any partiality on the latter's part.
    Of these couplets submitted, three of the seven-word lines and there of the five-word lines were to be chosen as the best. The one who turned in the best of these six chosen couplets would then be the official examiner for the next round, and the second best would be the official recorder. One who had two couplets failing to be chosen would be fined twenty cash, one failing in one couplet fined ten cash, and failures handed in beyond the time limit would be fined twice the amount. The official examiner would get one hundred cash "incense money." Thus we could have ten examinations in a day and provide a thousand cash with which to buy wine and have a grand drinking party. Yun's paper alone was considered special and exempt from fine, and she was allowed the privilege of thinking out her lines on her seat.
    One day Yang Pufan made a sketch of Yun and myself working at a garden with wonderful likeness. On that night, the moon was very bright and was casting a wonderfully picturesque shadow of an orchid flower on the white wall. Inspired by some hard drinking, Hsing-lan said to me, "Pufan can paint your portrait sketch, but I can paint the shadows of flowers. "
    "Will the sketch of flowers be as good as that of a man?" I asked.
    Then Hsing-tan took a piece of paper and placed it against the wall, on which he traced the shadow of the orchid flower with dark and light inkings. When we looked at it in the day-time, there was a kind of haziness about the lines of leaves and flowers, suggestive of the moonlight, although it could not be called a real painting. Yun liked it very much and all my friends wrote their inscriptions on it.
    There are two places in Soochow called the South Garden and the North Garden. We would go there when the rape flowers were in bloom, but there was no wine shop nearby where we could have a drink. If we brought eatables along in a basket, there was little fun drinking cold wine in the company of the flowers. Some proposed that we should look for some place to get a drink in the neighbourhood, and others suggested that we should look at the flowers first and then come back for a drink, but this was never quite the ideal thing, which should be to drink warm wine in the presence of flowers. While no one could make any satisfactory suggestion, Yun smiled and said, "Tomorrow you people provide the money and I'll carry a stove to the place myself. ""Very well," they all said. When my friends had left, I asked Yun how she was going to do it. "I am not going to carry it myself," she said. "I have seen "wonton sellers in the streets who carry along a stove and a pan and everything we need. We could just ask one of these fellows to go along with us. I'll prepare the dishes first, and when we arrive, all we need is just to heat them up, and we will have everything ready including tea and wine."
    "Well, but what about the kettle for boiling tea?"
    "We could carry along an earthen pot," she said, "remove the wonton seller's pan and suspend the pot over the fire by a spike. This will then serve us as a kettle for boiling tea, won't it?"
     I clapped my hands in applause. There was a wonton seller by the name of Pao, whom we asked to go along with us the following afternoon, offering to pay him a hundred cash. to which Pao readily consented. The following day my friends, who were going to see the flowers, arrived. I told them about the arrangements, and they were all amazed at Yun's ingenious idea. We started off after lunch, bringing along with us some straw mats and cushions. When we had arrived at the South Garden, we chose a place under the shade of willow trees, and sat together in a circle on the ground. First we boiled some tea, and after drinking it, we warmed up the wine and heated up the dishes. The sun was beautiful and the breeze was gentle, while the yellow rape flowers in the field looked like a stretch of gold, with gaily dressed young men and women passing by the rice fields and bees and butterflies flitting to and fro--a sight which could make one drunk without any liquor. Very soon the wine and dishes were ready and we sat together on the ground drinking and eating. The wonton seller was quite a likeable person and we asked him to join us. People who saw us thus enjoying ourselves thought it quite a novel idea. Then the cups, bowls and dishes lay about in great disorder on the ground, while we were already slightly drunk, some sitting and some lying down, and some singing or yelling. When the sun was going down, [ wanted to eat congee, and the wonton seller bought some rice and cooked it for us. We then came back with a full belly.
    "Did you enjoy it today?" asked Yun.
    "We would not have enjoyed it so much, had it not been for Madame!" all of us exclaimed. Then merrily we parted.
    A poor scholar should try to be economical in the matter of food, clothing, house and furniture, but at the same time be clean and artistic. In order to be economical, one should "manage according to the needs of the occasion," as the saying goes. I was very fond of having nice little suppers with a little liquor, but did not care for many dishes. Yun used to make a tray with a plum-blossom design. It consisted of six deep dishes of white porcelain, two inches in diameter, one in the centre and the other five grouped round it, painted grey and looking like a plum flower. Both its bottom and its top were bevelled and there was a handle on the top resembling the stem of a plum flower, so that, when placed on the table, it looked like a regular plum blossom dropped on the table, and on opening, the different vegetables were found to be contained in the petals of the flower. A case like this with six different dishes would be quite enough to serve a dinner for two or three close friends. If second helping was needed, more could be added besides this, we made another round tray with a low border for holding chopsticks, cups and the wine pot. These were easily moved about and one could have the dinner served at any place one wished. This is an example of economy in the matter of food.
    Yun also made me my collars, socks and my little cap. When my clothes were torn, she would cut out one piece to mend another, making it always look very neat and tidy. I used to choose quiet colours for my clothes, for the reason that dirty spots would not show easily, and one could wear them both at home and abroad. This is an instance of economy in the matter of dress. When I first took up my residence at the Hsiaoshuanglou, I found the rooms too dark, but after papering the walls with white paper, they were quite bright again. During the summer months, the ground floor was quite open, because the windows had all been taken down, and we felt that the place lacked privacy. "There is an old bamboo screen," suggested Yun, "why don't we use it and let it serve in place of a railing?"
    "But how?" I asked.
    "Take a few pieces of bamboo of black colour," she replied, "and make them into a square, leaving room for people to pass out and in. Cut off half of the bamboo screen and fasten it on the horizontal bamboo, about the height of a table, letting the screen come down to the ground. Then-put four vertical pieces of short bamboo in the centre, fasten these in place by means of a string, and then find some old strips of black cloth and wrap them up together with the horizontal bar with needle and thread. It would give a little privacy and would look quite well, besides being inexpensive. "This is an instance of "managing according to the needs of the occasion. "This goes to prove the truth of the ancient saying that "slips of bamboo and chips of wood all have their uses."
    When the lotus flowers bloom in summer, they close at night and open in the morning. Yun used to put some tea leaves in a little silk bag and place it in the centre of the flower at night. We would take it out the next morning, and make tea with spring water, which would then have a very delicate flavour.