Outside the green gauze pavilion, in the little courtyard between the surrounding covered walkways, Lin Daiyu had been staying with the Rongguo Mansion for nearly a month. Now she was practicing with her little maid Xueyan. Each of them held a decorative sword with a blunt edge, and they were fooling around with them in the middle of the courtyard.
It had to be said: the two girls were barely ten, and their figures had only just begun to develop. Dressed in pretty skirts, sleeves fluttering, they looked quite the part as they handled their swords. When they moved in unison, they even seemed to have the bearing of lady heroes.
As the poem went:
Long ago, the beauty Gongsun danced with her sword, and her performance stirred the four quarters.
The crowds looked on like mountains, their faces paling; heaven and earth swayed for a long while.
At times, she was like Yi shooting down the nine suns; at others, like the assembled gods riding dragons through the sky.
She came like thunder, quelling its fury; she ended like a sea, still and shining...
Of course, Tibbers the bear didn't understand any of that old poetry. He was an uneducated bear with no culture. He'd only learned a little about reading and understanding things by occasionally glancing at books while hanging around with his troublesome little master.
Those lines about "Gongsun's sword dance" had just been recited two days ago by the pretty-boy Jia Baoyu, who'd come to watch. He'd been so excited to flatter Lin Daiyu that he'd recited the poem, and Tibbers had happened to remember it.
At the time, Tibbers had looked down on the ugly way the boy fawned over her. He'd bared his teeth and scared Baoyu off again! Perhaps he'd scared him particularly