Baoyu Is Beaten

In a great house of this kind a father's authority over his son was close to absolute. He could have a grown son held down and beaten half to death, and nobody in the household — not the servants, not the boy's own mother — had the standing to stop him. There was exactly one exception: a man owes obedience to his own parents for as long as they live, so the person the master of the house is afraid of is his mother.

Jia Zheng (Jiǎ Zhèng) is such a father, correct and cold and permanently disappointed. His son Baoyu (Bǎoyù) is charming and idle: he will not study for the examinations that would make the family's name, and he prefers the company of girls and actors. Baoyu has a younger half-brother, Jia Huan (Jiǎ Huán), the son of one of their father's concubines, who has been waiting years for a chance like this — and a grandmother, Jia Mu (Jiǎ Mǔ), who loves him more than anyone alive. Nobody in the house uses these names out loud: to the servants the father is lǎoye, the Master; his wife is tàitai; the grandmother is lǎo tàitai, the Old Mistress; and Baoyu, second young master of the family, is èr yé.

This morning a maid in his mother's rooms threw herself down a well, and Baoyu knows it was because of him. He is walking through the house with his head down, not watching where he is going.