Chapter 50

芦雪亭争联即景诗

暖香坞雅制春灯谜

Baochai writes down everyone’s name, and the order is drawn at random. Xifeng volunteers to start off, and leaves. Li Wan transcribes everyone’s lines, which Baochai takes over. The order is soon lost, turning into a contest between Xiangyun, Daiyu and Baoqin, before turning silly and they collapse into giggles. Li Wan completes the poem, and they go through and discuss it in detail. Baoyu is again considered to have finished last in quality. He makes excuses, but is fined: he must fetch a branch of Adamantina’s red plum. It is cold, so they make him down a cup of wine before leaving. While he is gone, they choose red plum flowers for the topic of their next poems, and decide to let Xing Xiuyan, Li Wen 李纹 and Baoqin write a verse each, and allocate Baoyu a topic for him alone. They read the first three poems with pleasure and ask after Baoyu’s; they are critical.

Grandmother Jia arrives, makes herself comfortable and tells them to carry on enjoying themselves. She suggests that they make up lantern riddles, and then that they go to see Xichun. They arrive and Grandmother Jia tackles Xichun about the painting – she wants it by the end of the year. Xifeng arrives – she has tracked Lady Jia down (Lady Jia appears to be avoiding a couple of nuns), and whisks her off. They leave, and spot Baoqin and Baoyu in the snow; Baoqin looks particularly pretty, and he has got a branch of plum blossom for each of them from Adamantina, and has been delivering them. They head back to Grandmother Jia’s where Aunt Xue arrives. She had wanted to arrange a snow party for Grandmother Jia, an idea Xifeng and Jia discuss, making the cousins laugh. Grandmother Jia asks Aunt Xue after Baoqin’s biographical details – Xue assumes she is considering her for a match for Baoyu – she explains that she had previously been promised to another before her father died.

The next day the snow has cleared; Grandmother Jia reminds Xichun that she wants the painting done and Baoqin to feature. This makes Xichun gloomy. Later, the others arrive: Li Wan and her cousins had stayed up all night composing riddles, so they try them out and come up with some more. They all make suggestions, but Baoqin has written ten ingenious historical riddles in quatrain form.