The Crab-Flower Club

by Cao Xueqin

  It was a volume of The Lyric Miscellany consisting largely of songs of sorrow and separation: ‘The Autumn Bride’, ‘The Grief of Parting’ and suchlike. Moved by what she read, she was inevitably drawn to give outlet to her feelings in composition and had soon completed a ‘song of separation’ of her own. As she had modelled it on Zhang Ruo-xu’s famous poem ‘Spring River: A Night of Flowers and Moonlight’, she decided to call it ‘Autumn Window: A Night of Wind and Rain’. This is how it went:

  Autumn Window: A Night of Wind and Rain

  The autumn flowers are dead, the leaves are sere;

  Lamp-light comes soon, the nights grow long again.

  Outside my window autumn’s signs appear

  More dismal in the wind and rustling rain.

  The rustling rain came in such swift downpour

  It startled me from autumn-dream-filled sleep.

  Now, in a muse, unable to sleep more,

  I watch the candle at my bedside weep.

  The candle weeps down to its socket low,

  And my heart weeps and desolation feels.

  Yet the same wind in other courts must blow;

  The sound of rain through other windows steals.

  The wind’s chill strikes through quilt and counterpane,

  The rain drums like a mad clock in my ears,

  All night, in whispering, monotone refrain,

  Companion to my own swift-coursing tears.

  The courtyard now with mist begins to fill,

  The bamboo’s drip persists without a pause.

  When will the wind cease and the rain be still,

  That with its weeping soaks my window’s gauze?

  Having read it over to herself out loud, she laid down the writing-brush and was about to go back to bed and settle down for the night when one of her maids announced the arrival of ‘Master Bao’. Almost simultaneously with this announcement, Bao-yu himself burst in wearing a rain-cape and an enormous rain-hat of woven bamboo. Dai-yu laughed at the spectacle he presented.

  ‘The Old Fisherman! Where have you just sprung from?’

  ‘How are you today?’ Bao-yu asked her anxiously. ‘Have you had your medicine? How much have you managed to eat today?’

  He was divesting himself of the rain-clothes while he asked these questions. When he had disposed of them, he picked up the lamp from the table and, shielding it with one hand to throw the light on her, scrutinized her face. He appeared to be satisfied with what he saw.

  ‘You’ve got a better colour today.’

  Now that he had taken off the rain-clothes, Dai-yu could see what he was wearing underneath. He had on a somewhat worn-looking tunic of red silk damask tied with a green sash at the waist, and trousers of sprigged green silk. The ends of his trousers were stuffed into socks extravagantly patterned with a design of flowers picked out in gold, and there were flowers and butterflies embroidered on his satin slippers.

  ‘The top part of you seems to have been pretty well protected against the rain,’ said Dai-yu, ‘but what about the bottom part? Still, you appear to have kept your feet dry.’

  ‘This is a complete outfit I’ve been wearing,’ said Bao-yu. ‘There is a pair of pear-wood pattens that go with it as well, but I left them outside on your verandah.’

  Dai-yu looked again at the cape and rain-hat. Both were exquisitely made – quite unlike those that are sold in the market.

  ‘What sort of straw is this cape made of?’ she asked him. ‘It’s so fine. I can see now why you didn’t look like a hedge-hog in it as people usually do in these things.’

  ‘The whole outfit was given to me by the Prince of Beijing,’ said Bao-yu. ‘It’s exactly like the one he wears himself at home when it rains. If you like it, I’ll get you one the same. There’s nothing so very special about it really. The hat’s rather fun. The centre part is detachable. If you want to wear it in winter when it’s snowing, you undo this little bamboo fastener and the whole top comes out, leaving you with just the brim. So when it snows, it can be worn by a woman just as well as by a man. I’ll get you a hat like this to wear in winter when it snows.’

  ‘I don’t want one, thank you,’ said Dai-yu laughing. ‘If I were to wear one of those, I should look like one of those old fisherwomen you see in plays and paintings.’

  Immediately after saying this she realized that she had virtually been offering herself as a fishwife to Bao-yu’s old fisherman and wished the remark unsaid. She blushed with embarrassment and leaned forwards, racked with coughing, over the table. But Bao-yu appeared not to have noticed. What drew his attention was the poem he had just spotted which lay on the table beside her. He picked it up and read it. A murmur of praise which escaped involuntarily from his lips at once brought Dai-yu to her feet. She snatched the paper from him and burned it over the lamp. But Bao-yu only laughed.

  ‘Too late! I’ve already memorized it.’

  ‘I want to go to bed now,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Please go now. Come again tomorrow.’

  Hearing her speak of bed, Bao-yu felt inside his tunic and pulled out a gold watch about the size of a walnut which he proceeded to inspect. The hand was pointing exactly midway between the sign of the Dog and the sign of the Pig: nine o’clock at night.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, stuffing the watch hurriedly back into his tunic. ‘Time for bed. I’ve tired you long enough.’

  He put on his cape and his rain-hat and went out, but was back again almost immediately.

  ‘Is there anything you fancy to eat? Let me know if there is, and I’ll tell Grandmother first thing tomorrow. It will be safer to tell me than trying to explain what you want to the old women.’

  Dai-yu smiled.

  ‘I’ll think about it during the night and let you know first thing tomorrow. Listen: it’s raining harder. You’d better go quickly. Have you got anyone with you?’

  ‘Yes,’ one of the old women standing outside on the verandah called in to her. ‘We’re waiting with our umbrellas up and we’ve got the lantern ready.’

  ‘Lantern?’ said Dai-yu. ‘In this weather?’

  ‘The rain makes no difference,’ said Bao-yu. ‘It’s a horn lantern. They’re not affected by rain.’

  Dai-yu reached out and took down a lamp with a balloon-shaped glass shade from the top of her bookcase. She ordered one of the maids to light a little candle in it and offered it to Bao-yu.

  ‘Take this. It’s brighter than a horn one, and it’s specially made for going out in the rain with.’

  ‘I’ve got one like that myself,’ said Bao-yu, ‘but I didn’t bring it because I was afraid they might trip over and break it.’

  ‘Which is worse,’ said Dai-yu, ‘a broken lamp or a broken leg? You’re not used to wearing pattens, so it’s important to see where you’re going. The others can carry the horn lantern in front of you, and you can carry this glass lamp, which is handier and brighter and specially made for going out in the rain with, yourself. There. You can send it back to me tomorrow. And if you should break it – well, it won’t be the end of the world. What has made you of all people so parsimonious about things all of a sudden? You’re as bad as the Persian with his pearl!’

  Thus persuaded, Bao-yu took the lamp from her and set off, two old nannies with umbrellas and a horn lantern in front of him and two little maids with umbrellas bringing up the rear. He made one of the little maids hold the glass lamp Dai-yu had given him and leaned on her shoulder until they were back home.

  The departure of Bao-yu and his party was immediately followed by the arrival of two old women from Allspice Court, also carrying lanterns and umbrellas, with a large packet of bird’s nest and another packet containing little frosty star-shapes of dazzling white imported sugar.

  ‘You’ll find these a bit better than the stuff you can buy in the shops,’ they told Dai-yu. ‘Our young lady says this is to be getting on with and when you’ve finished it she’ll send you some more.’

  ‘That’s very kind,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Won’t you sit outsid
e with the girls and let them give you some tea?’

  ‘We won’t, miss, thank you all the same,’ they said. ‘We’ve got other things to do.’

  ‘Ah yes, you’re busy,’ said Dai-yu, smiling. ‘I should have remembered. Now that it’s getting colder and the nights are longer, I expect you will have started your card-school again. Nothing like a little gambling to pass the long night hours!’

  The women laughed good-humouredly.

  ‘I won’t deceive you, miss,’ said one of them, evidently the chief organizer. ‘I’ve got a really nice little school going this year. There are always a few of us on night-duty, you see, and we don’t like to risk falling asleep and missing our watch, so we find our little card-school the best answer. It keeps us awake and, as you say, miss, it helps to pass the time. Tonight it’s my turn to be banker. The Garden gate has been closed now, so it’s time we got started.’

  Dai-yu laughed.

  ‘Well, all I can say is that it’s very nice of you to have taken time off when you could have been winning money, to go out in the rain and bring me these things.’ She turned to one of her maids: ‘Give them a few hundred cash so that they can buy some wine to warm themselves up with after the rain.’

  The women thanked her delightedly, and having kotowed, hurried outside to collect the money, after which they put up their umbrellas again and departed.

  Nightingale first put away the bird’s nest and sugar and then, having moved the lamp over to the bedside and let down the blinds, helped Dai-yu into bed.

  As she lay there alone, Dai-yu’s thoughts turned to Bao-chai, at first with gratitude, because of her kindness, but afterwards a trifle enviously, because Bao-chai had a mother and brother and she had none. Then she began thinking about Bao-yu and herself: how they had been such good friends to start with, but how later on suspicion and misunderstanding had grown up between them. Then she listened to the insistent rustle of the rain on the bamboos and plantains outside her window. The coldness penetrated the curtains of her bed. Almost without noticing it she had begun to cry. It was nearly three in the morning before she was properly asleep.

  We leave her now, to continue our story in the following chapter.

  Chapter 46

  An awkward person is given an awkward mission

  And a faithful maid vows faithfulness unto death

  IT was not, we observed in the last chapter, until nearly three o’clock in the morning that Dai-yu finally dropped off to sleep. We leave her at this point in our narrative and return to Xi-feng, who, it will be remembered, had been summoned on business of an unspecified nature by Lady Xing.

  When the others had left, Xi-feng hurriedly changed into her going-out apparel, got into her carriage, and drove round to the establishment next door.

  The air of mystery surrounding this summons persisted after her arrival. Lady Xing dismissed the others who had been present and addressed her daughter-in-law conspiratorially.

  ‘The reason I have sent for you is that Sir She has entrusted me with a matter of some delicacy which I hardly know how to go about and I thought I had better discuss it first with you. He has taken a fancy to Lady Jia’s maid Faithful and wants her for his concubine; and he has given me the job of asking Lady Jia for her. As I see it, there is nothing very unusual in such a request, but I am rather afraid that Lady Jia may refuse and wondered if you had any bright ideas on how one ought to go about this business.’

  Xi-feng put on what she hoped was a disarming smile.

  ‘I don’t think it’s worth trying. I think it would be merely asking for trouble. Without Faithful, Grandma would be completely lost; she’d never consent to give her up. In any case, she’s often remarked, in private conversation about Father, that she can’t understand why at his age he continues to surround himself with young girls – “wasting their young lives” she calls it. She says it’s not good for his health, and that he ought to save up his energies for his job and not fritter them away on “drinking all day with his fancy women”. You wouldn’t derive much pleasure from hearing this sort of thing said to your face, Mother, and I am very sure that Father wouldn’t. Yet if you insist on approaching Grandma about this, I’m afraid that that’s what will happen. It will be like poking a straw up a tiger’s nostril. I hope you won’t be offended, but I’m afraid I daren’t approach her about this. I should only be demonstrating my own powerlessness to help and making a lot of unpleasantness for myself into the bargain. Father is inclined to be a bit ga-ga at times nowadays. It’s up to you to talk him out of it, Mother. This sort of thing is all very well in a younger man, but in someone of Father’s years, with children and grandchildren of his own, it is really too shaming!’

  Lady Xing sniffed.

  ‘Lots of men in well-to-do families like ours have troops of concubines. Why should it be so shameful only in our case? Anyway, I don’t know what makes you think he’d listen to me, even if I did try to talk him out of it. And even if Lady Jia is so attached to Faithful, she may not find it all that easy to refuse when the person asking is an eldest son with a grey beard who has held a position in the Government. Incidentally, I only asked you over here for your opinion. I don’t see why you should have to start reading me a lecture. There was never any question of asking you to approach Lady Jia for me: I shall naturally undertake that task myself. And as for complaining that I haven’t tried talking Father out of this – obviously you have no conception of what his temper can be like. I did try to dissuade him, but he started hollering at me almost before the words were out of my mouth.’

  Xi-feng knew that her mother-in-law was a weak and silly woman, always willing, for the sake of a quiet life, to fall in with her husband’s wishes. Apart from pleasing her husband, her principal aim in life was to see how much she could squeeze out of the domestic economy and divert into her personal savings. Decisions both great and small she left to him; but all household monies passed through her hands, and she saw to it that they suffered a considerable diminution in the process. The reason she gave for this pillage was Jia She’s extravagance. ‘I have to economize,’ she would say, ‘to make up for what Sir She wastes.’ Among the children and servants of the household there was not one whom she trusted or whose advice she would listen to. From the tone of what she had just heard, Xi-feng knew that her mother-in-law’s obstinate streak had been aroused and that it would now be quite useless to reason with her. She therefore smiled even more disarmingly and promptly changed her tack.

  ‘Of course. You are right, Mother. I haven’t had enough experience to be able to judge these matters. But now I come to think of it, it’s only natural that a mother should give what she treasures to her own son. Who else would Grandma give her favourite maid – or any other precious thing – to if not to Father? One shouldn’t believe everything that people say about other people behind their backs. No, I can see that now. I have been too credulous. One has only to think how you and Father are with Lian. Many a time when Lian has done something he shouldn’t have done, you and Father have spoken as if you could hardly wait to lay your hands on him, but when he eventually turned up, you have forgiven everything and ended up by giving him some treasured possession. I’ve no doubt that in this case it will turn out in exactly the same sort of way with Grandma and Father. As a matter of fact, Grandma is in rather a good mood today, so if you are going to ask her, it would probably be best to do so straight away. Let me go over first to keep her sweet for you. I’ll find some excuse for leaving and taking the others with me when you arrive. That will give you a good opportunity for raising this matter. If she says yes, that will, of course, be splendid. But even if she doesn’t, no great harm will have been done, because no one else will know about it.’

  Hearing what she wanted to hear, Lady Xing’s good humour returned and she proceeded to tell Xi-feng what she had already decided to do.

  ‘Actually my idea is not to mention this to Lady Jia at first. I think I shall begin by having a quiet word with Faithful herself.
Though she may be bashful, as long as she doesn’t say anything against it when I’ve explained it all to her, I shall know that as far as she is concerned it is all right. If I talk to Lady Jia then, though she may be unwilling to part with her, she won’t be able to get over the fact that Faithful herself is willing to leave. “There’s no holding someone who has a mind to go,” as they say. I think there should be no difficulty.’

  ‘Trust you for sound planning, Mother!’ said Xi-feng. ‘That way sounds fool-proof. After all, every one of these girls is ambitious – they all want to improve their position and get on in the world – and it’s unthinkable that she should throw away this chance of becoming almost a mistress in order to remain a maid and end up marrying one of the grooms.’

  ‘Exactly!’ said Lady Xing. ‘That’s exactly what I thought. Any of these senior maids would give her ears for a chance like this. Anyway, you go over now – only don’t breathe a word of this to anyone else! – and I’ll follow later on, when I’ve had my dinner.’

  Xi-feng reflected.

  ‘Faithful’s no fool,’ she thought. ‘Whatever Mother says, it’s far from certain that she’ll accept. Suppose I do go first and Mother follows later. If Faithful says yes, all well and good; but if she doesn’t, Mother has such a suspicious nature that she’s sure to think it’s because I’ve blabbed and been encouraging the girl to play hard to get. It will be humiliating for her to discover that my prediction was right, and that will make her angry; and then she’ll take it out on me – which won’t be very amusing. It would be better if we went over together; then, whether Faithful accepts or not, no suspicion can possibly fall on me.’