血書浮江 The Blood-Letter on the River
小姐醒來，句句記得，將子抱定，無計可施。忽然劉洪回來，一見此子，便要淹殺。小姐道：「今日天色已晚，容待明日拋去江中。」幸喜次早劉洪忽有緊急公事遠出。小姐暗思：「此子若待賊人回來，性命休矣。不如及早拋棄江中，聽其生死。倘或皇天見憐，有人救得，收養此子，他日還得相逢。」但恐難以識認，即咬破手指，寫下血書一紙，將父母姓名、跟腳緣由，備細開載；又將此子左腳上一個小指，用口咬下，以為記驗。取貼身汗衫一件，包裹此子，乘空抱出衙門。幸喜官衙離江不遠。小姐到了江邊，大哭一場。正欲拋棄，忽見江岸岸側飄起一片木板，小姐即朝天拜禱，將此子安在板上，用帶縛住，血書繫在胸前，推放江中，聽其所之。小姐含淚回衙不題。小姐醒来，句句记得，将子抱定，无计可施。忽然刘洪回来，一见此子，便要淹杀。小姐道：「今日天色已晚，容待明日抛去江中。」幸喜次早刘洪忽有紧急公事远出。小姐暗思：「此子若待贼人回来，性命休矣。不如及早抛弃江中，听其生死。倘或皇天见怜，有人救得，收养此子，他日还得相逢。」但恐难以识认，即咬破手指，写下血书一纸，将父母姓名、跟脚缘由，备细开载；又将此子左脚上一个小指，用口咬下，以为记验。取贴身汗衫一件，包裹此子，乘空抱出衙门。幸喜官衙离江不远。小姐到了江边，大哭一场。正欲抛弃，忽见江岸岸侧飘起一片木板，小姐即朝天拜祷，将此子安在板上，用带缚住，血书系在胸前，推放江中，听其所之。小姐含泪回衙不题。
逐句解 Line by line
The lady woke, remembering every word, and clasping the child to her could find no plan.
句句記得, she remembers it sentence by sentence, with 記得 taking 得 as the unstressed de. Then 無計可施: no plan she can put into action. She has divine instructions and no means of following them. 子 is zǐ.
Suddenly Liu Hong returned, and at the sight of the child meant to drown it.
淹殺, to drown. He reaches for it on sight, with no word of deliberation in between. 此子 keeps 子 as zǐ.
The lady said, 'It is late in the day now; let us wait and cast it into the river tomorrow.'
She does not argue. She agrees, and adds a scheduling note: it is late, so tomorrow. Buying one day is the only move on the board, and she makes it without a flicker.
By good fortune, early next morning Liu Hong was suddenly called away on urgent official business.
幸喜, by happy chance. This is the second time official business has pulled Liu Hong out of the yamen at precisely the useful moment, and it will not be the last.
The lady thought to herself, 'If this child waits for the villain's return, its life is forfeit.'
休矣 is the classical full stop for a thing that is over: his life is done for. 此子, with 子 as zǐ.
'Better to cast it into the river early and leave it to live or die.'
聽其生死, let it live or die as it will. 聽 here is not hearing but allowing — the same sense it carries in the formula that closes every chapter, where the audience is asked to let the next installment do the explaining.
'Should Heaven take pity, and someone save and raise this child, one day we might meet again.'
Two separate 得 in one sentence, both dé: 救得, manage to save, and 還得相逢, may yet get to meet. 還 here is hái, still or yet, not the huán of giving back; 相逢 takes the mutual 相, xiāng. She is not hoping he survives. She is planning for it.
But fearing the child could not later be known for hers, she bit her finger and wrote a letter in blood,
難以識認, hard to identify, takes 難 as nán, difficult — not the nàn of calamity we had a few passages back. Then she bites her finger open and writes. The problem she has just solved is a documentation problem.
setting down in full the parents' names and the whole history of his origins;
跟腳緣由 is where a thing comes from and how it came about: heel and root, cause and reason. 開載, to set out on the record, takes 載 as zǎi, to record, rather than the zài that means to carry. The vocabulary is a clerk's. She is filing a birth certificate in blood.
and she bit off the little toe of the child's left foot, as a token of proof.
記驗 is a mark made for verification, and 以為 takes 為 as wéi. She bites the little toe off her newborn son's left foot. It is the most shocking sentence in the chapter, and it arrives in the same flat administrative register as the letter — because it is the same act performed twice. Paper can be lost. A foot cannot.
She took an inner garment from her own body, wrapped the child in it, and seizing the chance carried him out of the yamen.
汗衫, the sweat-shirt, is the garment worn next to the skin. It is hers, and that is exactly why it still works as evidence eighteen years later. 乘空, seizing an opening, takes 乘 as chéng; 子 is zǐ.
By good fortune the yamen was not far from the river.
官衙, the government office. Fortunate that it stands close to the water — a sentence that only reads as fortunate once you have accepted what she is about to do.
Reaching the riverside, the lady wept long and bitterly.
大哭一場, to weep one whole bout of weeping, with 場 as cháng, the reading it takes when it counts an episode of something rather than naming a place. Four characters for the only moment in this passage where she is allowed to be a person rather than a plan.
Just as she was about to cast him away, she saw a plank of wood float up at the river's edge,
飄起, floats up. The plank arrives at the precise instant it is needed, which is the novel letting you know that Heaven has been listening. Notice the order of events: she prays only after it appears.
and bowing in prayer toward Heaven, she laid the child on the plank and bound him fast with a sash,
朝天拜禱, bowing in prayer towards Heaven, with 朝 as cháo in its sense of facing — the same character that gives us the imperial court, where everybody faces one way. She lashes him down with her sash so he cannot roll off. 子 is zǐ.
fastened the blood-letter at his breast, and pushed him out into the river, to go where it would.
繫, xì, to tie or bind, in its literary reading. 聽其所之, let him go where he goes: the second time in this passage she hands an outcome over to fate, and the one that costs her.
Swallowing her tears, the lady returned to the yamen — of which no more here.
含淚, holding the tears in rather than shedding them. She has to walk back into that building with a composed face. 不題, and we say no more of it, is the storyteller looking away.
This is the hardest scene in the chapter, and the one the whole 江流, River-Float, legend is built around. She cannot keep the baby and she cannot let Liu Hong drown him, so she puts him on the water herself. What makes the scene extraordinary is everything she does first.
She bites her finger open and writes a letter in her own blood setting down his parents' names and the full history of how he came to be on a plank. Then she bites the little toe off his left foot. Both acts arrive in the same flat, practical register, and both belong to one plan: a document that can be read, and a mark on the body that cannot be forged or mislaid. Eighteen years later both work exactly as designed.
The old motif underneath this — the baby set adrift, found by strangers, grown to avenge his parents — usually leaves the infant entirely passive and the mother a victim of the current. Here the mother is the author. Every element of the recognition scenes still to come is laid down in this passage, in ink she made herself and in her son's flesh.