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Heaped charnel-bones none can identify
Were golden girls and boys in days gone by.

By this time the entire household had heard the news. All seemed bewildered by it and all were in one way or another deeply distressed. Those older than Qin-shi thought of how dutiful she had always been; those in her own generation thought of her warmth and friendliness; her juniors remembered how kindly and lovingly she had treated them; even the servants, irrespective of sex and age, remembering her compassion for the poor and humble and her gentle concern for the old and the very young, all wept and lamented as loud and bitterly as the rest.

News was suddenly brought that Qin-shi's little maid Gem, on hearing that her mistress was dead, had taken her own life by dashing her head against a pillar. Such rare devotion excited the wondering admiration of the entire clan.

Now that Qin Zhong was indisputably dead, Bao-yu wept long and bitterly, and it was some time before Li Gui and the rest could calm him. Even after their return he continued tearful and distressed. Grandmother Jia contributed thirty or forty taels towards Qin Zhong's funeral expenses and made additional provision for offerings to the dead. Bao-yu condoled and sacrificed, and on the seventh day followed his friend's coffin to the grave. He continued in daily grief for Qin Zhong for a very long time afterwards. But grief cannot mend our losses, and a day did at last arrive when he had ceased to mourn.

Who would have thought on earth such scenes to find
As here refresh the heart and ease the mind?

The cunning waste their pains;
The wise men vex their brains;
But the simpleton, who seeks no gains,
With belly full, he wanders free
As drifting boat upon the sea.

Mislay me not, forget me not,
And hale old age shall be your lot.

How can I, full of sickness and of woe,
Withstand that face which kingdoms could o'erthrow?

Tears filled each flower and grief their hearts perturbed,
And silly birds were from their nests disturbed.

By the third day the patients were so weakened that they lay on their beds motionless and their breathing was scarcely perceptible. The whole family had by now abandoned hope and were already making preparations for their laying-out. Grandmother Jia, Lady Wang, Jia Lian, Patience and Aroma had cried themselves into a state bordering on prostration. Only Aunt Zhao was cheerful – though she did her best to look miserable.

Next day was the twenty-sixth of the fourth month, the day on which, this year, the festival of Grain in Ear was due to fall. To be precise, the festival's official commencement was on the twenty-sixth day of the fourth month at two o'clock in the afternoon. It has been the custom from time immemorial to make offerings to the flower fairies on this day. For Grain in Ear marks the beginning of summer; it is about this time that the blossom begins to fall; and tradition has it that the flower-spirits, their work now completed, go away on this day and do not return until the following year. The offerings are therefore thought of as a sort of farewell party for the flowers.
This charming custom of 'speeding the fairies' is a special favourite with the fair sex, and in Prospect Garden all the girls were up betimes on this day making little coaches and palanquins out of willow-twigs and flowers and little banners and pennants from scraps of brocade and any other pretty material they could find, which they fastened with threads of coloured silk to the tops of flowering trees and shrubs. Soon every plant and tree was decorated and the whole garden had become a shimmering sea of nodding blossoms and fluttering coloured streamers. Moving about in the midst of it all, the girls in their brilliant summer dresses, beside which the most vivid hues of plant and plumage became faint with envy, added the final touch of brightness to a scene of indescribable gaiety and colour.

The blossoms fade and falling fill the air,
Of fragrance and bright hues bereft and bare.

Let others laugh flower-burial to see:
Another year who will be burying me?

Gentle Reader,
What, you may ask, was the origin of this book?
Though the answer to this question may at first seem to border on the absurd, reflection will show that there is a good deal more in it than meets the eye.

Pages full of idle words
Penned with hot and bitter tears:
All men call the author fool;
None his secret message hears.

I have no sweet dew here that I can repay him with. The only way in which I could perhaps repay him would be with the tears shed during the whole of a mortal lifetime if he and I were ever to be reborn as humans in the world below.

In such commotion does the world's theatre rage:
As each one leaves, another takes the stage.

As petals drop and spring begins to fail,
The bloom of youth, too, sickens and turns pale.
One day, when spring has gone and youth has fled,
The Maiden and the flowers will both be dead.

Still weeping tears of blood about our separation:
Little red love-beans of my desolation.
Still blooming flowers I see outside my window growing.
Still awake in the dark I hear the wind a-blowing.
Still oh still I can't forget those old hopes and fears.

Since the inevitable consequence of getting together was parting, and since parting made people feel lonely and feeling lonely made them unhappy, ergo it was better for them not to get together in the first place.

We all have to die, as you said yourself just now. The problem is how to die well. Those whiskered idiots who take quite literally the old saw that "a scholar dies protesting and a soldier dies fighting" and get themselves killed off on the assumption that those are the only two ways in which a man of spirit can die gloriously, would do better to die in their beds.

Wax tears their petals seem, by wind congealed,
Or filtered moonlight, flecked with many a spot.

None more than you the villain world disdains;
None understands your proud heart as I do.
The precious hours of autumn I'll not waste,
But bide with you and savour their full taste.

If you agree to this name, madam, she's sure to live to a ripe old age.

As long as there is a sufficiency behind you, you press greedily forward.
It is only when there is no road in front of you that you think of turning back.

Girls are made of water and boys are made of mud. When I am with girls I feel fresh and clean, but when I am with boys I feel stupid and nasty.

Eyes like a painted phoenix,
eyebrows like willow-leaves,
a slender form,
seductive grace;
the ever-smiling summer face
of hidden thunders showed no trace;
the ever-bubbling laughter started
almost before the lips were parted.

May the jewel of learning shine in this house more effulgently than the sun and moon.
May the insignia of honour glitter in these halls more brilliantly than the starry sky.

A harum-scarum, to all duty blind,
A doltish mule, to study disinclined.

Ne'er leave me, ne'er abandon me:
And years of health shall be your fee.