话说平儿陪着凤姐吃了饭，伏侍盥漱毕，方往探春处来，只见院中寂静，只有丫鬟婆子一个个都站在窗外听候。
Having kept Xi-feng company while she ate her lunch and waited on her while she rinsed her mouth out and washed, Patience made her way back to the lobs room'.
The courtyard outside it was quiet now, deserted except for the silent row of maids and womenservants waiting outside the windows until their mistresses inside the room should require them.
平儿进入厅中，他姐妹姑嫂三人正商议些家务，说的便是年内赖大家请吃酒，他家中花园中事故。
The latter were already in the midst of a discussion.
They were talking about Lai Da's garden, which they had visited in Grandmother Jia's company some months previously on the occasion of the party which had had such unfortunate consequences for Xue Pan.
平儿进入厅中，见他姊妹三人正议论些家务，说的便是年内赖大家来请吃酒，他家花园中的事。
As she walked in, the three cousins were discussing family affairs and had just brought up the subject of Lai Da's garden, where they had feasted shortly before New Year.
我想咱们一月已有了二两月银，丫头们又另有月钱，可不是又同刚才学里的八两一样重重叠叠？
It looks to me as if this is another case of duplication, like the eight taels paid to the school every year which we were dealing with earlier.
这事虽小，钱有限，看起来也不妥当，你奶奶怎么就没想到这个呢？”
I know it's not a very important matter, and the sum involved is not very great, but it's obvious at a glance that this is a bad arrangement, and I can't understand why your mistress hasn't noticed it.”
平儿笑道：“这有个原故。
‘There is a reason,' said Patience.
姑娘们所用的这些东西，自然该有分例，每月每处买办买了，令女人们交送我们收管，不过预备姑娘们使用就罢了，没有个我们天天各人拿着钱，找人买这些去的。
‘Obviously you young ladies need a regular fixed supply of these things, and as there wouldn't be much sense in our constantly running out with a few coppers to make individual purchases, the cosmetic allowances for the various departments are drawn by our buyers and used to make bulk purchases with.
所以外头买办总领了去，按月使女人按房交给我们。
The stewardesses collect monthly supplies from the buyers and distribute them to the different apartments, and we maids in the different apartments look after them for use by you as and when you need them.
至于姑娘们每月的这二两，原不是为买这些的，为的是一时当家的奶奶太太，或不在家，或不得闲，姑娘们偶然要个钱使，省得找人去，这不过是恐怕姑娘们受委屈意思。
The two-tael monthly allowance you get is quite separate from the cosmetics money.
It isn't meant to be spent on cosmetics; it's simply to keep you in money, so that if the need should ever arise to spend on something, you shouldn't have the inconvenience of finding yourselves short and perhaps running round for some only to find that Her Ladyship or whoever is in charge at the time is out or too busy to see you.
如今我冷眼看着，各屋里我们的姐妹都是现拿钱买这些东西的，竟有了一半子。
I have to admit though that about half of us do in fact seem to go outside these arrangements and buy cosmetics with our spending money;
我就疑惑不是买办脱了空，就是买的不是正经货。”
but whether it's because the official buyers simply pocket the money and don't deliver the goods, or because the stuff they supply us with is so inferior, I simply don't know.”
探春、李纨都笑道：“你也留心看出来了。
Tan-chun and Li Wan exchanged knowing smiles.‘You've noticed, too, then,' said Tan-chun.
脱空是没有的，只是迟些日子，催急了，不知那里弄些来，不过是个名儿。
‘I don't think they actually embezzle the money, but sometimes the supply is very much delayed.
If you try to hurry them they produce something so awful that it is quite unusable, and in the end you are forced to buy your own.
其实使不得，依然还得现买，就用二两银子，另叫别人的奶妈子的弟兄儿子买来方才使得。
There's only one way of doing that, too.
You have to give a couple of taels to a nannie and ask her to get one of her sons or nephews to buy it for you.
要使官中的人去，依然是那一样的，不知他们是什么法子？”
It's no good trying to do it through the regular staff.
If you do, you only get the same awful, unusable stuff as before, I don't know why.”
平儿便笑道：“买办买的是那东西，别人买了好的来，买办的也不依他，又说他使坏心，要夺他的买办。
‘It's because if they bought you stuff of better quality, they'd be in trouble with the regular buyers,' said Patience. ‘The regular buyers would complain that they were trying to do them out of a job.
所以他们宁可得罪了里头，不肯得罪了外头办事的。
They'd rather offend you than risk offending the buyers.
要是姑娘们使了奶妈子们，他们也就不敢说闲话了。”
Of course, if you get the stuff through your nannies, there's nothing the buyers can do about it'
探春道：“因此我心里不自在，饶费了两起钱，东西又白丢一半。
‘Well, I am very uneasy about the whole arrangement,' said Tan-chun. ‘Here we are paying the same money twice over and half the stuff that is paid for has to be wasted.
不如竟把买办的这一项每月蠲了为是。
It would be much better if this monthly payment to the buyers were abolished altogether.
所以他们也只得如此，宁可得罪了里头，不肯得罪了外头办事的人。
“That's why they have to do this.
They'd rather offend you ladies than the stewards.
第二件，年里往赖大家去，你也去的：你看他那小园子比咱们这个如何？”
Another thing is this.
Last year when we went to Lai Da's place, you went too.
What did you think of that little garden of theirs?
How do you think it compares with ours?”
探春道：“我因和他们家的女孩儿说闲话儿，他说这园子除他们带的花儿，吃的笋菜鱼虾，一年还有人包了去，年终足有二百两银子剩。
‘I got talking to one of the daughters while we were there,' said Tan-chun. ‘That garden of theirs is let out annually on contract.
She told me that quite apart from supplying them through the year with flowers for their hair and with all the bamboo-shoots, vegetables and fish that they eat, it brings them in an annual income of two hundred taels of silver.
从那日我才知道，一个破荷叶，一根枯草根子，都是值钱的。”
Ever since that day I have realized that even a broken lotus-leaf or a withered grass-root is worth something.”