The Evil That Entered Jia Baoyu's Heart

Diving into a very confusing passage

The Evil That Entered Jia Baoyu's Heart

There’s this really baffling part in the passage we translated yesterday:

寶玉只顧如此一想，不料早把些邪魔招入膏肓了。

As Baoyu thought this to himself, he failed to notice how quickly this longing had invited corrupting demons into his heart. Those demons infected him with a sickness without a cure.

It’s not entirely sure what this “sickness” is.

The context tells us a little bit. Baoyu is thinking about the phrases “古今之情” (passion, or emotion, through the ages) and “風月之債” (the karmic debt of love). In fact, Baoyu doesn’t just want to understand what those phrases mean. He wants to “領略” those concepts, or “personally experience” them.

Now, if you rely on the common English translations, all of this will seem even more mystifying and confusing. Here’s what David Hawkes does with this passage in The Story of the Stone:

For Hawkes, it seems that the “sickness” is “the demon Lust,” which waits to enter his heart until this moment in time.

The Yangs, meanwhile, keep things especially vague:

I think they’re both wrong.