The Crab-Flower Club

by Cao Xueqin

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Skybright, with a tinge of malice. ‘On the other hand maybe she’ll notice how conscientious I am and pay me two taels a month out of her allowance. You see’ – she paused to add this on her way out of the room – ‘I know what goes on in here. There’s no need for the play-acting.’

  She ran off with a mocking laugh.

  Ripple went, too, and fetched the onyx saucer from Tan-chun’s room, after which Aroma made ready the things that were to go to Xiang-yun, and called in old Mamma Song – one of the nannies attached to Green Delights – to give her instructions for their delivery.

  ‘Get yourself smartened up and change into your best things,’ she said. ‘I want you to go out presently and take some things for me to Miss Shi’s.’

  ‘You can give them to me now, Miss – and any message that you want me to deliver,’ said Mamma Song; ‘then I can go off straight away, as soon as I’ve got myself ready.’

  Aroma fetched two little boxes of lacquer and bamboo basketwork and taking the tops off them, put foxnuts and caltrops in one and a saucerful of chestnut fudge (made of chestnut purée steam-cooked with cassia-flavoured sugar) in the other.

  ‘These are all our own things or made from our own things freshly gathered in the Garden that Master Bao is sending Miss Shi a taste of,’ she said. ‘Tell her the onyx saucer the fudge is on is the one she was admiring last time she was here and she is to keep it. This silk bag has got the sewing in that she asked me to do for her. Tell her the needlework’s a bit on the rough side, but I’m sure she’ll understand. And say Master Bao sends his regards. And of course I present my compliments. I think that’s all.’

  ‘Isn’t there any message from Master Bao?’ said Mamma Song. ‘Perhaps you’d better ask him, Miss, just in case. We don’t want him saying afterwards that we’ve forgotten something.’

  ‘Didn’t he go round just now to Miss Tan’s place?’ Aroma asked Ripple.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ripple. ‘They’re all round there. They were having a discussion about setting up a poetry club, whatever that might be, and they were writing poems, some of them.’ She turned to Mamma Song. ‘I shouldn’t think he’d have anything to say. I should just push on, if I were you.’

  Mamma Song took up the boxes and went off to get herself ready.

  ‘When you are ready, go out by the back gate,’ said Aroma as she was leaving. ‘You’ll find some of the boys there and a cab waiting for you.’

  Mamma Song then left. The details of her expedition are unrecorded.

  Some time after this Bao-yu got back. The first thing he did on arrival was to go and look at the autumn crab-flowers. When he had finished admiring them, he went into the house and told Aroma all about the poetry club, after which Aroma told him how she had sent Mamma Song to Shi Xiang-yun’s with a present of things from the Garden. Bao-yu smote his palms together in vexation.

  ‘Oh, we forgot about her! I knew there was something we ought to have done and hadn’t, but I couldn’t think what it was. I’m glad you’ve reminded me. We must invite her over at once, of course. The poetry club will be nothing without her in it.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d be in such a hurry to, if I were you,’ said Aroma. ‘It’s only an amusement, this poetry thing, and Miss Shi doesn’t have the time for amusement that the rest of you do. It isn’t as if she were her own mistress, you know. Even if you tell her about this and she wants to come, it doesn’t follow that they’ll let her. Suppose they don’t. She’ll only fret about it; and then all you’ll have done will be to have made her feel miserable for nothing.’

  ‘That’s no problem,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I shall ask Her Old Ladyship to have her fetched.’

  Just then Mamma Song got back, mission completed, bearing Xiang-yun’s thanks to Aroma for the things.’

  ‘She asked me what Master Bao was doing,’ said the nannie, ‘so I told her that he and the young ladies were starting a poetry club or some such. She was very upset. “Oh!” she said, “are they writing poetry? I wish they’d have told me about it!” ’

  Bao-yu waited to hear no more. Dashing round to his grandmother’s, he insisted that she should send instantly to have Xiang-yun fetched.

  ‘It’s too late now,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘We’ll send for her first thing tomorrow.’

  Bao-yu had to be content with that, and went back to his room much downcast. He was round at Grandmother Jia’s first thing next morning again, pestering; but it was not until the early afternoon that Xiang-yun eventually arrived and his equanimity was restored.

  As soon as they were all together, Bao-yu began to tell Xiang-yun how the club had come to be founded and what they had done at its first meeting. He was about to show her the poems that they had written, but Li Wan prevented him.

  ‘Don’t let her see them yet,’ she said. ‘Just tell her the rhymes. As she missed our first meeting, her penalty shall be to make up another poem now, using the same rhymes that we did. If it’s all right, we shall invite her to join the club straight away. If not, she must first entertain us all at our next meeting as a further penalty.’

  ‘I like that!’ said Xiang-yun, laughing. ‘You should be the ones to pay a penalty, for having forgotten to invite me. Well, show me the rhymes, then. I’m not much good at this sort of thing, but I don’t mind making a fool of myself. As long as you’ll let me join your club, I don’t mind what I have to do – sweep the floor and light the incense for you, if you like!’

  Delighted to see her so enthusiastic, and still reproaching themselves for having forgotten about her at their inaugural meeting, the rest of them made haste to give her the rhyme-words so that she could begin.

  Xiang-yun was much too excited for careful composition. Having, even while they were all talking, concocted a number of verses in her head, she took up a brush and proceeded to write them down, without a single pause for correction, on the first piece of paper that came to hand.

  ‘There you are!’ she said, handing it to the others. ‘I’ve written two poems using the rhymes you gave me. I don’t know whether they’re any good or not, but at least I have done what I was told!’

  ‘We thought our four had just about scraped the barrel,’ they told her. ‘We couldn’t have written one more poem on the subject, let alone two! Whatever can you have found to say in them? I bet they just repeat what we said in ours.’

  But when they looked at the poems, this is what they read.

  1

  Of late a goddess came down to my door

  And planted seeds of white jade in a pot,

  From which a wondrous white Frost Maiden grew,

  Who, loving cold, all other things loves not.

  Last night a cloud passed by, whose autumn shower

  Her cold, unweeping eyes with tears did spot;

  Since when, the poet here takes up his stay,

  To praise her loveliness by night and day.

  2

  Where flower-fringed steps approach the ivied door,

  At the wall’s foot or in a graceful pot –

  What flowers do more sad autumn-thoughts inspire

  Than these, whose pureness others rival not?

  Wax tears their petals seem, by wind congealed,

  Or filtered moonlight, flecked with many a spot.

  Weep they because the shadows stole away

  Their goddess-queen, who now makes dark night day?

  The reading of these poems was punctuated at the end of each line with expressions of admiration and surprise, and when they had got to the end, all of them agreed that these two poems had made the exercise a worth-while one and fully justified their naming the new society ‘The Crab-flower Club’.

  ‘You must let me provide the refreshments tomorrow as my penalty,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I hope you will all consent to be my guests.’

  ‘Splendid!’ they said; and proceeded to show her the poems they had written the day before, and to discuss them with her.

  That evening Bao-chai, who had in
vited Xiang-yun to spend the night with her at Allspice Court, sat with her guest under the lamplight while the latter discussed themes for the morrow’s meeting and plans for the projected entertainment. As it became increasingly apparent that her ideas on the subject were quite impracticable, Bao-chai presently interrupted the flow.

  ‘The club has only just been founded and this will be its first entertainment,’ she said. ‘Although it’s all only a game, you are setting a precedent, so you need to think about it rather carefully. If the entertainment is to be equally enjoyable for everyone, you don’t want it to be too much of a burden on you; but on the other hand you don’t want the others to feel that they are being given short commons. Now, you are not your own mistress, and the few strings of cash they give you a month at home are not even enough for your own needs. And if your Aunt got to hear that you were spending money on a frivolous thing like this, she would have still more to grumble about than usual. In any case, even if you spent all you’d got, it still wouldn’t be enough to provide an entertainment for several people. So what are you going to do? You obviously can’t send home for money. Are you going to ask them here for some?’

  Xiang-yun, brought back to the realities of her situation, was very much dashed. While she hesitated, Bao-chai went on.

  ‘Actually I’ve thought of a way out of this. An assistant in one of our pawnshops comes from a place where they have very good crabs. Now nearly everyone here from Lady Jia and Aunt Wang downwards is fond of crabs and only the other day Aunt Wang was saying that we ought to have a crab and cassia-viewing party for Lady Jia. It’s only because she has been otherwise occupied that she hasn’t done anything about it. Why not issue a general invitation, making no mention of the poetry club – we can write all the poems we want to after the rest of them have gone – and I shall ask my brother to let us have a few baskets of the biggest, fattest-looking crabs and tell him to get us a few jars of good wine and side-dishes for four or five tables from the shop? That should save a lot of trouble for you and make more of an occasion of it for everybody else.’

  Xiang-yun felt deeply grateful to Bao-chai and praised her warmly for her thoughtfulness. Bao-chai smiled deprecatingly.

  ‘Now you mustn’t go imagining things and feel that you are being treated like a poor relation! It’s only because I am so fond of you that I have ventured to make this proposal. If you promise you won’t take it amiss, I can get them to arrange it for us straight away.’

  ‘My dearest girl!’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Of course I shan’t take it amiss! How can you suggest such a thing? If you do so again, I shall begin to think that you aren’t really fond of me at all! I may be a silly goose, but there are some things I understand! Do you think that if I didn’t look on you as my own true sister I should ever have told you last time I was here about all those tiresome things I have to put up with at home?’

  Reassured, Bao-chai called in an old woman to take a message outside to her brother.

  ‘Tell Mr Pan to get us a few baskets of crabs like the ones we had the other day. It’s for after lunch tomorrow. We’re having a cassia-viewing party in the Garden for Their Ladyships. Tell him please not to forget, because I’ve already invited all the guests.’

  The old woman went off to deliver her message. In due course she reported back again – but these are details omitted from our story.

  Bao-chai resumed her conversation with Xiang-yun.

  ‘About the theme for tomorrow’s poems,’ she said. ‘We don’t want anything too outlandish. If you look at the works of the great poets, you find that they didn’t go in for the weird and wonderful titles and “daring” rhymes that people nowadays are so fond of. Outlandish themes and daring rhymes do not produce good poetry. They merely show up the poverty of the writer’s ideas. Certainly one wants to avoid clichés; but one can easily go too far in the pursuit of novelty. The important thing is to have fresh ideas. If one has fresh ideas, one does not need to worry about clichés: the words take care of themselves. But what am I saying all this for? Spinning and sewing is the proper occupation for girls like us. Any time we have left over from that should be spent in reading a few pages of some improving book – not on this sort of thing!’

  ‘Yes’, said Xiang-yun, without much conviction; but presently smiled as a new idea occurred to her.

  ‘I’ve just thought of something. Yesterday’s theme was “White Crab-blossom”. The flower I’d like to write about is the chrysanthemum. Couldn’t we have “Chrysanthemums” as our theme for tomorrow?’

  ‘It is certainly a very seasonable one,’ said Bao-chai. ‘The trouble is that so many people have written about it before.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Xiang-yun, ‘I suppose it is rather a hackneyed one.’

  Bao-chai thought for a bit.

  ‘Unless of course you somehow involved the poet in the theme,’ she said. ‘You could do that by making up verb-object or concrete-abstract titles in which “chrysanthemums” was the concrete noun or the object of the verb as the case might be. Then your poem would be both a celebration of chrysanthemums and at the same time a description of some action or situation. Such a treatment of the subject has been tried in the past, but it is a much less hackneyed one. The combining of narrative and lyrical elements in a single treatment makes for freshness and greater freedom.’

  ‘It sounds a splendid idea,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘But what sort of verbs or abstract nouns had you in mind? Can you give me an example?’

  Bao-chai thought for a bit.

  ‘What about “The Dream of the Chrysanthemums”?’

  ‘Yes, that’s a good one,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I’ve thought of one too. Couldn’t we have “The Shadow of the Chrysanthemums”?’

  ‘Ye-e-es,’ said Bao-chai, doubtfully. ‘The trouble is, it’s been used before. Still, if we had a lot of titles we could probably slip it in. I’ve thought of another.’

  ‘Well, come on then!’ said Xiang-yun.

  ‘What about “Questioning the Chrysanthemums”?’

  Xiang-yun slapped the table appreciatively.

  ‘That’s a lovely one!’ Presently she added: ‘I’ve thought of another. What do you think of “Seeking the Chrysanthemums”?’

  ‘That should be interesting,’ said Bao-chai. ‘Let’s start making a list. We’ll write down up to ten titles and then see what we think of them.’

  The two of them busied themselves for some minutes grinding ink and softening a brush. Xiang-yun then proceeded to write down the titles at Bao-chai’s dictation. Soon they had ten. Xiang-yun read them over.

  ‘Ten doesn’t make a set,’ she said. ‘We need two more to make a round dozen, then we shall have just the right number for a little album.’

  Bao-chai supplied two more without too much difficulty.

  ‘If we’re thinking in terms of a sequence of poems,’ she said, ‘we may as well, while we’re about it, arrange these titles in some sort of order.’

  ‘That’s it!’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Then they will be all ready for making our “Chrysanthemum Album” with afterwards.’

  ‘ “Remembering the Chrysanthemums” should come first,’ said Bao-chai.

  ‘Now, let’s see. When you remember them, you realize you haven’t got any, so you go and look for some. So “Seeking the Chrysanthemums” will be the second title.

  ‘Well, having found some, you will want to plant them; so “Planting the Chrysanthemums” will be the third title.

  ‘After you’ve planted them and the flowers have come out, you’ll want to stand and look at them; so the fourth title will be “Admiring the Chrysanthemums”.

  ‘You won’t be able to have enough of them by just standing and admiring them, so you’ll naturally want to pick some and arrange them in a vase so that you can enjoy them indoors. That means “Arranging the Chrysanthemums” for Number Five.

  ‘But however much you enjoy them, you will feel that they somehow lack their full lustre without words to grace them, and so you will want to celeb
rate them in verse. That means “Celebrating the Chrysanthemums” will be the sixth title.

  ‘Well now, let’s suppose you’ve just finished writing some verses about them. You’ve got the ink ready-made and the brush is still in your hand and you feel like paying the chrysanthemums a further tribute. What should you do but paint them? That’s Number Seven: “Painting the Chrysanthemums”.

  ‘Now in spite of these silent tributes, you still don’t know the secret of the chrysanthemums’ mysterious charm and you can’t resist asking them. Which brings us to Number Eight: “Questioning the Chrysanthemums”.

  ‘And if the chrysanthemums could really reply, it would be so delightful that you would want to have them near you all the time – and how better than by “Wearing the Chrysanthemums”? That’s Number Nine.

  ‘That brings us to the end of the verb-object titles which involve the poet himself as the understood subject of the action. But there remain other kinds of treatment, in which we consider the flowers by themselves without postulating the presence of the poet. So we have “The Shadow of the Chrysanthemums” and “The Dream of the Chrysanthemums” as Numbers Ten and Eleven.

  ‘And of course “The Death of the Chrysanthemums” at the end of the album to round off on a suitable note of melancholy.

  ‘There you are! All three months of autumn condensed into a single sequence of a dozen poems!’

  Xiang-yun recopied the twelve titles in the order that Bao-chai had indicated, then, after running her eye rapidly over them, she asked Bao-chai what rhyme-scheme they should set.

  ‘I have always disliked set rhymes,’ said Bao-chai. ‘If you have a good poem in the making, why shackle it with the constraints of an arbitrary rhyme-scheme? Let us leave set rhymes to vulgar pedants; all we need do is give out the titles and let the others choose their own rhyme-schemes for themselves. After all, the object of the exercise is to give people enjoyment – the enjoyment gained by producing an occasional felicitous line. We aren’t out to make things difficult for them.’