a bench to carry him out of this on?

At this suggestion, the servants rushed hurry-scurry inside and actually
brought a bench; and, lifting Pao-yue, they placed him on it. Then
following dowager lady Chia, Madame Wang and the other inmates into the
inner part of the building, they carried him into his grandmother's
apartments. But Chia Cheng did not fail to notice that his old mother's
passion had not by this time yet abated, so without presuming to consult
his own convenience, he too came inside after them. Here he discovered
how heavily he had in reality castigated Pao-yue. Upon perceiving Madame
Wang also crying, with one breath, "My flesh;" and, with another, saying
with tears: "My son, if you had died sooner, instead of Chu Erh, and
left Chu Erh behind you, you would have saved your father these fits of
anger, and even I would not have had to fruitlessly worry and fret for
half of my existence! Were anything to happen now to make you forsake
me, upon whom will you have me depend?" And then after heaping
reproaches upon herself for a time, break out afresh in lamentations for
her, unavailing offspring, Chia Cheng was much cut up and felt conscious
that he should not with his own hand have struck his son so ruthlessly
as to bring him to this state, and he first and foremost directed his
attention to consoling dowager lady Chia.

"If your son isn't good," rejoined the old lady, repressing her tears,
"it is naturally for you to exercise control over him. But you shouldn't
beat him to such a pitch! Don't you yet bundle yourself away? What are
you dallying in here for? Is it likely, pray, that your heart is not yet
satisfied, and that you wish to feast your eyes by seeing him die before
you go?"

These taunts induced Chia Cheng to eventually withdraw out of the room.