just been over to our Senior’s and paid my respects,” replied Chia Chen, “and further invited the old gentleman to come home, and receive the congratulations of the whole family.
“‘I’m accustomed,’ our Senior explained, ‘to peace and quiet, and have no wish to go over to that worldly place of yours; for you people are certain to have published that it’s my birthday, and to entertain the design to ask me to go round to receive the bows of the whole lot of you. But won’t it be better if you were to give the “Record of Meritorious Acts,” which I annotated some time ago, to some one to copy out clean for me, and have it printed? Compared with asking me to come, and uselessly receive the obeisances of you all, this will be yea even a hundred times more profitable! In the event of the whole family wishing to pay me a visit on any of the two days, to-morrow or the day after to-morrow, if you were to stay at home and entertain them in proper style, that will be all that is wanted; nor will there be any need to send me anything! Even you needn’t come two days from this; and should you not feel contented at heart, well, you had better bow your head before me to-day before you go. But if you do come again the day after to-morrow, with a lot of people to disturb me, I shall certainly be angry with you.’ After what he said, I will not venture to go and see him two days hence; but you had better send for Lai Sheng, and bid him get ready a banquet to continue for a couple of days.”
Mrs. Yu, having asked Chia Jung to come round, told him to direct Lai Sheng to make the usual necessary preparations for a banquet to last for a couple of days, with due regard to a profuse and sumptuous style.
“You go by-and-by,” (she advised him), “in person to the Western Mansion and invite dowager lady Chia, mesdames Hsing and Wang, and your sister-in-law Secunda lady Lien to come over for a stroll. Your father has also heard of a good doctor, and having already sent some one to ask him round, I think that by to-morrow he’s sure to come; and you had better tell him, in a minute manner, the serious symptoms of her ailment during these few days.”
Chia Jung having signified his obedience to each of her recommendations, and taken his leave, was just in time to meet the youth coming back from Feng Tzu-ying’s house, whither he had gone a short while back to invite the doctor round.
“Your slave,” he consequently reported, “has just been with a card of master’s to Mr. Feng’s house and asked the doctor to come. ‘The gentleman here,’ replied the doctor, ‘has just told me about it; but to-day, I’ve had to call on people the whole day, and I’ve only this moment come home; and I feel now my strength (so worn out), that I couldn’t really stand any exertion. In fact were I even to get as far as the mansion, I shouldn’t be in a fit state to diagnose the pulses! I must therefore have a night’s rest, but, to-morrow for certain, I shall come to the mansion. My medical knowledge,’ he went on to observe, ‘is very shallow, and I don’t deserve the honour of such eminent recommendation; but as Mr. Feng has already thus spoken of me in your mansion, I can’t but present myself. It will be all right if in anticipation you deliver this message for me to your honourable master; but as for your worthy master’s card, I cannot really presume to keep it.’ It was again at his instance that I’ve brought it back; but, Sir, please mention this result for me (to master).”
Chia Jung turned back again, and entering the house delivered the message to Chia Chen and Mrs. Yu; whereupon he walked out, and, calling Lai Sheng before him, he transmitted to him the orders to prepare the banquet for a couple of days.
After Lai Sheng had listened to the directions, he went off, of course, to get ready the customary preparations; but upon these we shall not dilate, but confine ourselves to the next day.
At noon, a servant on duty at the gate announced that the Doctor Chang, who had been sent for, had come, and Chia Chen conducted him along the Court into the large reception Hall, where they sat down; and after they had partaken of tea, he broached the subject.
“Yesterday,” he explained, “the estimable Mr. Feng did me the honour to speak to me of your character and proficiency, venerable doctor, as well as of your thorough knowledge of medicine, and I, your mean brother, was filled with an immeasurable sense of admiration!”
“Your Junior,” remonstrated Dr. Chang, “is a coarse, despicable and mean scholar and my knowledge is shallow and vile! but as worthy Mr. Feng did me the honour yesterday of telling me that your family, sir, had condescended to look upon me, a low scholar, and to favour me too with an invitation, could I presume not to obey your commands? But as I cannot boast of the least particle of real learning, I feel overburdened with shame!”
“Why need you be so modest?” observed Chia Chen; “Doctor, do please walk in at once to see our son’s wife, for I look up, with full reliance, to your lofty intelligence to dispel my solicitude!”
Chia Jung forthwith walked in with him. When they reached the inner apartment, and he caught sight of Mrs. Ch’in, he turned round and asked Chia Jung, “This is your honourable spouse, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” assented Chia Jung; “but please, Doctor, take a seat, and let me tell you the symptoms of my humble wife’s ailment, before her pulse be felt. Will this do?”
“My mean idea is,” remarked the Doctor, “that it would, after all, be better that I should begin by feeling her pulse, before I ask you to inform me what the source of the ailment is. This is the first visit I pay to your honourable mansion; besides, I possess no knowledge of anything; but as our worthy Mr. Feng would insist upon my coming over to see you, I had in consequence no alternative but to come. After I have now made a diagnosis, you can judge whether what I say is right or not, before you explain to me the phases of the complaint during the last few days, and we can deliberate together upon some prescription; as to the suitableness or unsuitableness of which your honourable father will then have to decide, and what is necessary will have been done.”
“Doctor,” rejoined Chia Jung, “you are indeed eminently clear sighted; all I regret at present is that we have met so late! But please, Doctor, diagnose the state of the pulse, so as to find out whether there be hope of a cure or not; if a cure can be effected, it will be the means of allaying the solicitude of my father and mother.”
The married women attached to that menage forthwith presented a pillow; and as it was being put down for Mrs. Ch’in to rest her arm on, they raised the lower part of her sleeve so as to leave her wrist exposed. The Doctor thereupon put out his hand and pressed it on the pulse of the right hand. Regulating his breath (to the pulsation) so as to be able to count the beatings, he with due care and minuteness felt the action for a considerable time, when, substituting the left hand, he again went through the same operation.
“Let us go and sit outside,” he suggested, after he had concluded feeling her pulses. Chia Jung readily adjourned, in company with the Doctor, to the outer apartment, where they seated themselves on the stove-couch. A matron having served tea; “Please take a cup of tea, doctor,” Chia Jung observed. When tea was over, “Judging,” he inquired, “Doctor, from the present action of the pulses, is there any remedy or not?”
“The action of the pulse, under the forefinger, on the left hand of your honorable spouse,” proceeded the Doctor, “is deep and agitated; the left hand pulse, under the second finger, is deep and faint. The pulse, under the forefinger, of the right hand, is gentle and lacks vitality. The right hand pulse, under my second finger, is superficial, and has lost all energy. The deep and agitated beating of the forepulse of the left hand arises from the febrile state, due to the weak action of the heart. The deep and delicate condition of the second part of the pulse of the left wrist, emanates from the sluggishness of the liver, and the scarcity of the blood in that organ. The action of the forefinger pulse, of the right wrist, is faint and lacks strength, as the breathing of the lungs is too weak. The second finger pulse of the right wrist is superficial and devoid of vigour, as the spleen must be affected injuriously by the liver. The weak action of the heart, and its febrile state, should be the natural causes which conduce to the present irregularity in the catamenia, and insomnia at night; the poverty of blood in the liver, and the sluggish condition of that organ must necessarily produce pain in the ribs; while the overdue of the catamenia, the