The Crab-Flower Club

by Cao Xueqin

  She called Faithful to her and instructed her what to bring.

  ‘I want you to fetch that bonseki and the little screen and the little tripod of smoky agate. Those three things arranged on the table here will be enough. There’s also a set of white satin hangings hand-painted in black ink. I’d like you to get them too and put them up in place of these bed-curtains.’

  ‘Yes, madam,’ said Faithful. ‘But these things are all stored in the attic over the east wing and I’m not sure which chests they’re in, so it will take me quite a while to find them. Can’t I leave it until tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow is immaterial,’ said Grandmother Jia, ‘as long as it gets done.’

  After sitting for a while longer in Bao-chai’s room, they got up and again moved on to the covered area underneath the Painted Chamber. Élégante and the other little actresses came forward to make their curtseys and to inquire what pieces they should play.

  ‘Choose a few of the ones you are most familiar with,’ said Grandmother Jia, and the little actresses went off to the Lotus Pavilion. No further mention of them is made in this part of our narrative.

  Supervised by Xi-feng, the servants had by now completed the seating arrangements for the drinking-party. Two wooden couches covered with woven grass mats and embroidered cushions had been placed side by side at the head. Each had a pair of carved lacquer tables in front of it. On one of each pair there was an incense set – a miniature metal vase, a miniature cassolette and a miniature tripod, all for burning different kinds of incense in – on the other was a large lacquer box. These two couches with a pair of tables each were for Grandmother Jia and Aunt Xue.

  Of the places ranged below them only one, Lady Wang’s, had a couch and two tables; all the rest had one table and a chair. On the east side, nearest to Grandmother Jia, sat Grannie Liu with Lady Wang below her; on the west side Xiang-yun had been laid first, nearest to Aunt Xue, then Bao-chai, then Dai-yu, then Ying-chun, then Tan-chun, then Xi-chun, with Bao-yu in the very last place of all. A table and chairs had been laid for Li Wan and Xi-feng between the inner and outer mosquito screens which protected those inside the room from the insects of the lake.

  The little lacquer tables were of many different shapes – some four-lobed like a begonia leaf, some five-lobed like plum-flowers, some shaped like multi-petalled sunflowers, some like lotus leaves, some square, some round – and the lacquer boxes were designed to match the shapes of the tables. Everyone had his own nielloed silver ‘self-service’ wine kettle and a little polychrome cloisonné winecup.

  ‘Well now,’ said Grandmother Jia when they were all seated, ‘let’s have a cup or two to warm up on, and after that I think it would be more fun if we played a drinking game.’

  ‘I am sure you know lots of good ones,’ said Aunt Xue, ‘but what about the rest of us? I am afraid this is just a trick to make us all drunk. We might just as well drink the extra cups now, since we’re bound to lose anyway, and forget about the game!’

  ‘Come, Mrs Xue, you’re being excessively modest all of a sudden!’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘But perhaps you think I’m too old for this sort of thing?’

  ‘No, no, no. And I’m not being modest, either,’ said Aunt Xue, laughing. ‘I am afraid of not being able to give the answers and making a fool of myself.’

  ‘Even if we can’t give the answers,’ said Lady Wang, ‘it only means drinking a few more cups of wine. And if we get drunk, we can go to bed. No one is going to laugh at us, I hope!’

  Aunt Xue smiled and nodded.

  ‘Very well, I shall do as I am told then. But I think Lady Jia ought to drink a cup first, as proposer of the game.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Grandmother Jia, and drained off a cup forthwith.

  Xi-feng stepped forward into their midst to make a proposal:

  ‘If you are going to play a drinking game, may I suggest that you have Faithful as your M.C.?’

  The others, knowing that when Grandmother Jia played drinking games it was generally Faithful who helped her out, agreed readily to this proposal, whereupon Xi-feng went to fetch Faithful and drew her into their midst.

  ‘If Faithful is going to be our M.C.,’ said Lady Wang, ‘we can’t possibly have her standing up all the time.’ She turned to one of the little maids behind her: ‘Put a chair for her over there, will you, where Mrs Zhu and Mrs Lian are sitting.’

  When the chair had been brought, Faithful, offering polite resistance, allowed herself to be propelled towards it, and having first apologized for the liberty of doing so, sat down. At once she established her authority by drinking a bumper-cup.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘The rules of drinking are as strict as the rules of war. Now that you’ve made me your M.C., any of you who doesn’t do exactly as I say, no matter who it is, has to pay a forfeit.’

  ‘Agreed, agreed,’ said the others. ‘Hurry up and tell us what the game is’.

  Before she could do so, Grannie Liu, waving her hand in protest, got up and began to go.

  ‘’Tisn’t right to make sport of folks like this. I’m going home!’

  ‘No, no, we can’t have that!’ said the others, laughing.

  ‘Back to the chair with her!’ Faithful shouted to the younger maids. They complied gleefully, seizing the old woman on either side and marching her back to her seat.

  ‘Let me off this game!’ she pleaded, as they forced her into it; but Faithful was adamant.

  ‘Another word from you,’ she said, ‘and you’ll be made to drink a whole kettleful as a punishment.’

  Grannie Liu’s protests then ceased.

  ‘What I’m going to do,’ said Faithful, ‘is to call threesomes with the dominoes, starting from Her Old Ladyship, going round in an anti-clockwise direction, and ending up with Mrs Liu. First I shall make a separate call for each of the three dominoes and after that I shall make a call for the whole threesome, so you’ll get four calls each. Every time I call, you’ve got to answer with something that rhymes and that has some connection with the call. It can be something from a poem or song or ballad, or it can be a proverb or some well-known expression – anything you like as long as there is a connection and it rhymes.’

  ‘Good!’ said the others approvingly. ‘That’s a good game. Let’s have a call then.’

  ‘Right,’ said Faithful. ‘Here comes the first one.’ She laid down a double six. ‘On my left the bright blue sky.’1

  ‘The Lord looks down from heaven on high,’ said Grandmother Jia.

  ‘Bravo!’ said the others.

  The second domino was a five-six.

  ‘Five and six together meet,’ said Faithful.

  ‘By Six Bay Bridge the flowers smell sweet.’

  ‘Leaves six and ace upon the right.’

  ‘The red sun in the sky so bright,’ said Grandmother Jia.

  ‘Altogether that makes: “A shock-headed devil with hair like tow”,’ said Faithful.

  ‘The devil shouts, “Zhong Kui, let me go!”,’ said Grandmother Jia.

  Amidst laughter, and applause for the successful completion of her turn, she picked up and drained her winecup.

  ‘Here comes the next one,’ said Faithful, laying down a double five. ‘On my left all the fives I find.’

  ‘Plum-blossoms dancing in the wind,’ said Aunt Xue.

  ‘On my right all the fives again,’ said Faithful.

  ‘Plum-blossoms in the tenth month’s rain,’ said Aunt Xue.

  ‘Between them, two and five make seven.’

  ‘On Seventh Night the lovers meet in heaven.’

  ‘Together that gives: “The Second Prince plays in the Five Holy Hills”.’

  ‘The immortals dwell far off from mortal ills.’

  Again there was applause, and Aunt Xue drank her wine.

  ‘Next threesome coming up,’ said Faithful. ‘All the aces, one and one.’

  ‘Two lamps for earth, the moon and sun,’ said Xiang-yun.

  ‘On my right onc
e more aces all.’

  ‘And flowers to earth in silence fall,’ said Xiang-yun.

  ‘Between them, ace again with four.’

  ‘Apricot trees make the sun’s red-petalled floor,’ said Xiang-yun.

  ‘Together that makes nine ripe cherries.’

  ‘Winged thieves have stripped the Emperor’s trees of berries,’ said Xiang-yun, and drank her wine.

  ‘A pair on the left then, three and three,’ said Faithful.

  ‘Swallows in pairs round the old roof-tree,’ said Bao-chai.

  ‘A pair of threes upon the right,’ said Faithful.

  ‘Green duckweed-trails on the water bright.’

  ‘A three and six between them lie.’

  ‘Three peaks upon the rim of sky,’ said Bao-chai.

  ‘Together that gives: “The lone boat tied with an iron chain”,’ said Faithful.

  ‘The waves on every hand and the heart’s pain,’ said Bao-chai, and drank what remained in her winecup.

  ‘Sky on the left, the good fresh air,’ said Faithful, putting down a double six.

  ‘Bright air and brilliant morn feed my despair,’ said Dai-yu.

  Bao-chai, recognizing the quotation, turned and stared; but Dai-yu was too intent on keeping her end up to have noticed.

  ‘A four and a six, the Painted Screen,’ said Faithful.

  ‘No Reddie at the window seen,’ said Dai-yu, desperately dredging up a line this time from The Western Chamber to meet the emergency.

  ‘A two and a six, four twos make eight.’

  ‘In twos walk backwards from the Hall of State,’ said Dai-yu, on safer ground with a line from Du Fu.

  ‘Together makes: “A basket for the flowers you pick”,’ said Faithful.

  ‘A basket of peonies slung from his stick,’ Dai-yu concluded, and took a sip of her wine.

  ‘Four and five, the Flowery Nine,’ said Faithful.

  ‘The flowering peach-tree drenched with rain,’ said Ying-chun.

  ‘Forfeit! Forfeit!’ said the others, laughing. ‘It doesn’t rhyme; and besides, the words don’t fit.’

  Ying-chun laughed and sipped her wine. As a matter of fact her failure was intentional. Eager for more laughs, Xi-feng and Faithful had secretly intimated to the four remaining cousins that they should give the wrong answers on purpose, in order to come the more quickly to Grannie Liu. Accordingly Tan-chun, Xi-chun and Bao-yu, all deliberately fell down on their first calls as well, leaving only Lady Wang to dispose of, which Faithful accomplished by the simple expedient of supplying the answers for her herself. It was now Grannie Liu’s turn.

  ‘We often play a game like this ourselves back home when we get together of an evening,’ said Grannie Liu, ‘only the way we do it, it doesn’t sound so pretty as this. Howsomever. I don’t mind having a try.’

  ‘It’s easy, really,’ said the others. ‘Don’t worry about what it sounds like. Just say what comes naturally.’

  Faithful began to lay.

  ‘A pair of fours on the left, the Man.’

  Grannie Liu was a good long while puzzling over this. Finally she said.

  ‘Is it a farmer?’

  The others roared with laughter.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Grandmother Jia reassuringly. ‘That answer will do very well.’

  ‘You young people shouldn’t laugh at me,’ said Grannie Liu to the others. ‘I’m a countrywoman born and I can’t help my country talk.’

  ‘Green three, red four, contrasting colours,’ called Faithful.

  ‘The fire burns up the caterpillars,’ said Grannie Liu.

  ‘Why, so it might,’ said the others. ‘Stick to your “country talk”, Grannie, you’re doing fine!’

  ‘Red four on the right and the ace is red,’ said Faithful.

  ‘A turnip and a garlic-head.’

  More laughter.

  ‘ “The Flower” those three together show,’ said Faithful.

  ‘This flower will to a pumpkin grow,’ said the flower-bedecked ancient, gesturing with her hands to demonstrate the size of the imagined pumpkin.

  The following chapter will show how the party progressed.

  Chapter 41

  Jia Bao-yu tastes some superior tea at Green Bower Hermitage

  And Grannie Liu samples the sleeping accommodation at Green Delights

  ‘THIS flower will to a pumpkin grow.’

  As Grannie Liu of the flower-studded hair said this, gesturing with her hands to suggest the size of the full-grown pumpkin, a shout of laughter rose from all those present.

  She drank the ‘pass’ cup.

  ‘To be truthful,’ she said, aiming for another laugh, ‘I’m but a clumsy body at the best of times, and having drunk so much, I’m scared of breaking this pretty cup you’ve given me. You should have given me a wooden one; then if I dropped it, it wouldn’t matter.’

  The others laughed; but Xi-feng pretended to take her seriously:

  ‘If you really want a wooden cup to drink out of, I can find you one. But I’d better warn you. The wooden ones aren’t like these porcelain ones; they come in sets of different sizes, and if we get them out for you, you’ll have to drink out of every one in the set.’

  Grannie Liu calculated.

  ‘I was only joking,’ she thought. ‘I didn’t think they’d really have any. When I’ve dined with the gentry back home, I’ve seen many a gold and silver cup in their houses, but never a wooden one. I expect these will be wooden bowls that the children use. It’s a trick to make me drink a lot. Well, never mind. This stuff’s not much more than sugared water anyway. It can do me no harm if I drink a bit extra.’

  Having so reflected, she made reply:

  ‘Very well. Let’s see them first though.’

  ‘Go to the inner room of the front apartment,’ Xi-feng told Felicity, ‘and fetch me that set of ten winecups on the bookcase – the ones carved out of bamboo root.’

  But before Felicity could go on her errand, Faithful made a counter-proposal:

  ‘I know that set of yours: they’re not very big cups, and in any case, you promised her wooden ones and yours are only made of bamboo. Much better give her ten boxwood ones and make her drink out of them.’

  ‘All right,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Better still.’ So Faithful sent someone to fetch them.

  The sight of these cups when they arrived both alarmed and delighted Grannie Liu. What alarmed her was their size. The largest was as big as a small hand-basin and even the smallest one was twice as big as the cup she held in her hand. What delighted her was the consummate artistry of the carving. On each of the ten cups, in smaller and smaller replicas, was the same landscape with little trees and human figures in it and even some lines of minute ‘grass character’ writing and a tiny carved representation of an artist’s seal.

  ‘I’ll take the smallest one,’ she said hurriedly.

  ‘Oh no!’ said Xi-feng, smiling. These cups have never been used before, because up to now we’ve never found any-one with a big enough capacity to drink from them. Now that you’ve asked for them and we’ve been to the trouble of getting them out for you, we must insist on your drinking from every one of them.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ said Grannie Liu in a panic. ‘Please, Mrs Lian, don’t make me!’

  Grandmother Jia, Aunt Xue and Lady Wang all realized that a person of Grannie Liu’s advanced years could not possibly be expected to imbibe so huge a quantity of liquor without the direst consequences, and laughingly pleaded for her.

  ‘Come now, a joke is a joke. You mustn’t make her drink too much. Let her just drink from the largest one.’

  ‘Holy name!’ said Grannie Liu. ‘Can’t I just drink from the smallest one, like I said? I can take the largest one home with me and drink it up by degrees.’

  The others laughed. Faithful, obliged to relent, ordered one of the larger, but not the largest cup to be filled, and Grannie Liu, holding it in both her hands, began to drink.

  ‘Drink it slowly, now,
’ Grandmother Jia and Aunt Xue counselled her. ‘Don’t make yourself choke.’

  Aunt Xue told Xi-feng to offer the old woman something to eat with her bowlful.

  ‘What would you like, Grannie?’ said Xi-feng. ‘Just name it and I’ll feed you some.’

  ‘I don’t know the names of any of these dishes,’ said Grannie Liu. ‘Anything you like. They all taste good to me.’

  ‘Give her some of the dried aubergine,’ said Grandmother Jia.

  Xi-feng collected some between her chopsticks and held it up to Grannie Liu’s mouth.

  ‘There. I expect at home you eat aubergines every day. Try some of ours and see what you think of it.’

  ‘You’re having me on,’ said Grannie Liu, when she had eaten the proffered mouthful. ‘No aubergine ever had a flavour like that. If it did, we’d give up growing other crops and grow nothing but aubergines!’

  ‘It really is aubergine,’ the others laughingly assured her. ‘This time we’re not having you on.’

  ‘Really?’ said Grannie Liu in some surprise. ‘Well, I couldn’t have had my mind on it properly while I was eating it. Give me a bit more, Mrs Lian, and this time I’ll chew it more carefully.’

  Xi-feng took up some more from the dish in her chopsticks and popped it into Grannie Liu’s mouth. After prolonged, reflective mastication Grannie Liu agreed that there was indeed a slight hint of aubergine in the flavour.