The Crab-Flower Club

by Cao Xueqin

  The others thanked him for his kindness.

  Talking as they went, they presently passed through the gate of the Garden and accompanied Grandmother Jia back to her apartment. After dinner, while they were still sitting there in conversation, Aunt Xue arrived.

  ‘What a heavy fall of snow!’ she said. ‘I haven’t been able to come over and see you all day long. You ought to go out and have a look at it, Lady Jia, if you are feeling low. It would do you good.’

  ‘Who said I was feeling low?’ said Grandmother Jia with some amusement. ‘I’ve only just got back from visiting the children. I’ve been having a fine old time!’

  ‘Oh?’ said Aunt Xue. ‘Yesterday evening I was intending to ask if my sister and I could have the use of the Garden today so that we might arrange a little snow-viewing party for you, but you’d already gone to bed, and Bao-chai said that you were feeling out of sorts, so I thought I’d better not bother you. If I’d known differently, I’d have come round this morning and invited you.’

  ‘We’re only just into the eleventh month,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘There’ll be plenty more snow yet and plenty more opportunities for taking advantage of your kind offer.’

  ‘I do hope so,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘It’s something I should very much like to do for you.’

  ‘Isn’t there a danger you might forget, Aunt?’ said Xi-feng. ‘Why not weigh out fifty taels now and leave them with me? Then next time it snows, I can get it all ready for you. That would save you the trouble of arranging it yourself and also avoid the danger of your forgetting.’

  ‘In that case you and I might just as well split the money between us,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Next time it snows, all I have to do is say that I’m feeling out of sorts, and you won’t have to do anything at all. That way Mrs Xue will have even less trouble, while you and I will each of us have twenty-five taels clear profit.’

  Xi-feng clapped her hands delightedly.

  ‘What a wonderful idea! Why didn’t I think of it myself?’

  The others laughed.

  ‘Shameless hussy!’ said Grandmother Jia, laughing with the rest. ‘You’re like the monkey on the pole: give you an inch and you take an ell. What you ought to have said is: “No, Aunt, you are our guest. Since you honour us by staying in our house, it is we who should be inviting you. We can’t allow you to go spending money on us.” That’s what you ough to have said; not asked your poor aunt for fifty taels. Whoever heard of such a thing!’

  ‘She’s a canny old lady, this Grandma of ours,’ Xi-feng explained to Aunt Xue. ‘She watches you first to see if you’ll weaken or not. If you’d weakened and coughed up the fifty taels, she’d have been quite willing to go halves with me and pocket twenty-five of them herself; but having gauged that you probably won’t, she adopts a holier-than-thou attitude and makes an example of me, even though she was the one who suggested it. All right, all right. I’ll pay for the whole party myself, and when Grandma arrives, I’ll have fifty taels out of my own savings wrapped up all ready to give her as a present. That shall be my punishment for having opened my big mouth and occupied myself with other people’s affairs.’

  Bao-yu and the girls were by this time rolling about on the kang.

  Presently, when the conversation got round to what a beautiful picture Bao-qin had made standing in the snow with the spray of plum-blossom behind her, Grandmother Jia began inquiring about her parentage and the exact day and hour of her birth. Aunt Xue guessed that she was considering her as a possible match for Bao-yu. She would have been glad enough to go along with this had not Bao-qin already been promised to the Meis; however, since Grandmother Jia had not asked her outright, she could do no more than hint at a prior attachment.

  ‘She’s been very unlucky, poor child. The year before last her father died quite suddenly. She used to go with him everywhere on his travels, so she has seen a great deal of the world for one so young. Her father was a great one for combining business with pleasure. He always took the family with him when he went away on business. They would spend perhaps a whole year in one province, seeing all the sights; then the next six months they might spend travelling around in another. At one time and another they must have covered well over half the provinces of the Empire in that way. While he was on one of his trips to the capital, he promised her to Academician Mei’s boy, but unfortunately it was in the year after that that he died, so nothing could be done about it. And now her poor mother has gone down with a consumption …’

  Xi-feng interrupted, sighing and stamping her foot in an exaggerated display of disappointment.

  ‘Oh, what a shame! I was just going to offer my services as a match-maker, but it seems that she’s already betrothed.’

  ‘Who did you have in mind?’ Grandmother Jia asked her.

  ‘Never you mind!’ said Xi-feng. ‘I’m sure they would have made a very good pair; but since she’s already got someone else, there doesn’t seem any point in discussing it.’

  Grandmother Jia knew very well whom Xi-feng had in mind, but hearing that Bao-qin was already spoken for, she dropped the subject and made no further mention of it.

  The company talked for a while longer before breaking up; but of the rest of that day and the night which followed our narrative supplies no account.

  Next day the snow had cleared. After lunch Grandmother Jia told Xi-chun that, cold or no cold, she must get on with the painting as quickly as possible.

  ‘If you really can’t get it finished by the end of the year,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t matter. But what you must do is get Bao-qin with the maid and the branch of plum-blossom into it. I want you to do that straight away; and they are to be painted exactly as they looked when we saw them on that bank yesterday’

  Xi-chun said that she would, though miserably aware that she would find doing so extremely difficult. Later, when the others went round to her place to see how she was getting on, she was pondering gloomily over this latest problem. Li Wan somewhat heartlessly proposed that they should leave her to her own thoughts and carry on their conversation without her.

  ‘When we got back from Grandmother’s last night,’ she said, ‘Qi and Wen and I were unable to get to sleep, so we lay in bed making up riddles. I made up two using quotations from the Four Books and the other two each made up one.’

  ‘Ah yes, that’s what we all ought to be doing,’ said the others. ‘Tell us your four first and we’ll try to guess the answers.’

  ‘Guan-yin lacks a biography,’ said Li Wan. ‘The answer is a phrase from the Four Books.’

  ‘Resting in the highest good,’

  Xiang-yun promptly suggested.

  ‘What’s that got to do with “biography”?’ said Bao-chai.

  ‘Try again,’ said Li Wan.

  ‘I know,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Isn’t it

  … though good, yet having no memorial?’

  ‘Ah yes, that must be it,’ said the others.

  ‘What is the green plant that grows in the water?’ said Li Wan.

  ‘That just has to be

  ‘It is a fast-growing rush,’

  said Xiang-yun. ‘I don’t see how that could be wrong.’

  ‘Good for you!’ said Li Wan. ‘Now here is Wen’s riddle:

  Beside the rocks the water runs cold.

  It’s the name of an historical person.’

  ‘That must be “Shan Tao”,’ said Tan-chun. ‘His surname means “mountain” – that’s the “rocks” – and “Tao” means “billows”.’

  ‘Right,’ said Li Wan. ‘Now Qi’s riddle is just a single word:

  Firefly

  The answer is a single word, too.’

  They all puzzled for a long time over this without being able to think of any answer. It was Bao-qin who finally came up with the solution.

  ‘Yes, I see. It’s rather involved. The answer is “flower” isn’t it? – I mean the flower that grows.’

  Li Qi acknowledged smilingly that this was correct.

  ‘What h
as “flower” got to do with “firefly”?’ the others asked her.

  Bao-qin explained:

  ‘In the Record of Rites it says

  Corrupt grass by transmutation breedeth fireflies.

  Now the character for “flower” is written with “grass” at the top and “change” – or, if you like, “transmutation” – underneath. So “corrupt grass by transmutation” – which, according to the Rites, produces fireflies – makes the character for “flower”.’

  The others laughingly acknowledged that the riddle was an ingenious one.

  ‘All four of these riddles are very good,’ said Bao-chai, ‘but I don’t think they are quite the sort of thing that Lady Jia had in mind. I think we ought to make up some about fairly easy, everyday objects, so that those of us who aren’t quite so learned can enjoy them as well.’

  Xiang-yun thought for a bit.

  ‘I’ve got one,’ she said presently. ‘It’s in the form of a “Ruby Lips” stanza:

  ‘Far away

  From the high fell

  Where I used to dwell

  Amidst men I play.

  But for what gain?

  My labour’s vain;

  My tale is hard to tell.’

  No one was able to make out what this could be. After puzzling for a long time, they produced a number of different guesses. Someone thought it was ‘a monk’; someone else thought it was ‘a Taoist’; a third person suggested that it might be ‘a marionette player’.

  ‘You’re all wrong,’ said Bao-yu, who had been grinning silently to himself while the others guessed. ‘I’ve thought of the answer. It’s “a performing monkey”.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Xiang-yun.

  ‘We can understand the first part all right,’ said the others; ‘but what about the last line? What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Have you ever seen a performing monkey that hadn’t had its tail docked?’ said Xiang-yun.

  Groans and laughter.

  ‘Trust Yun’s to have a frightful pun in it – as if the riddle wasn’t hard enough already!’

  ‘Mrs Xue was telling us yesterday that you’ve travelled a lot and been to all sorts of interesting places,’ Li Wan said to Bao-qin. ‘With so much material you ought to be just the person for making up riddles – especially as you’re so good at verse-making as well. Why don’t you make up a few, and the rest of us will try to guess them?’

  Bao-qin said nothing, but smiled and nodded, and at once went off into a corner to think.

  Bao-chai had now composed a riddle, too, and recited it for them to try and guess while Bao-qin was doing her thinking.

  ‘Tier upon compact tier of fragrant wood:

  No craftsman’s hand could carve one half so well.

  A gale blows all about the temple’s eaves,

  Yet, though it shakes, no sound comes from my bell.’1

  While the others were still trying to guess the answer to this, Bao-yu recited one that he had just completed himself:

  ’Twixt heaven and earth amidst the clouds so high

  Bamboo gives warning to the passer-by.

  Eyes strain some feathered traveller to descry

  Who’ll bear my answer back into the sky.’

  Dai-yu also had one ready, and proceeded to recite it to them:

  ‘See my little prancing steed!

  Of silken rein he has no need.

  Round the city wall he goes,

  Wreaking havoc on his foes.

  At his master’s touch he moves

  With thunder of advancing hooves.

  In isles by tortoises supported

  His deeds are honourably reported.’

  Tan-chun, too had composed a riddle, but as she was on the point of reciting it, Bao-qin came back from her corner to announce that she had finished.

  ‘I’ve been visiting places of historical interest ever since I was little,’ she said, ‘so I really have seen quite a lot. What I’ve done now is to choose ten of them, mostly associated with some famous person or other, and make up a poem about each one. The verses themselves may sound rather like doggerel, but the point about them is that, as well as commemorating these famous places and people, each of them contains hidden references to some common object which you have to guess.’

  ‘Ah, that sounds very ingenious!’ they said. But why not write them down, so that we can take our time thinking about them?’

  What happened next will be related in the following chapter.

  Chapter 51

  A clever cousin composes some ingenious riddles

  And an unskilful physician prescribes a barbarous remedy

  WHEN Bao-qin explained that the riddles she had composed were in the form of quatrains, each containing a clue to some well-known object, about famous places she had visited in the course of her travels, the cousins were greatly impressed, and waited with eagerness for her to copy them out. This is what they read when she had finished doing so1:

  Red Cliff

  The river at Red Cliff was choked with the dead,

  And the ships without crew carried naught but their names.

  A clamour and shouting, a wind took the blaze,

  And a host of brave souls rode aloft in the flames.

  Hanoi

  His column of brass bade the nations obey:

  The noise of him spread through barbarian parts.

  Brave Ma Yuan to conquest and empire was born:

  He needed no Iron Flute to teach him those arts.

  Mt Zhong-shan

  Though ambition had never been part of your nature

  And the call from retirement was none of your choosing,

  You danced in the end at another’s commandment,

  So you can’t be surprised if we find it amusing.

  Huai-yin

  The brave must beware of the vicious dog’s bite:

  The gift of a throne on your fate set the seal.

  Let us learn from your story the humble to prize,

  And due gratitude show for the gift of a meal.

  Guang-ling

  Your crows and cicadas no more you shall hear

  By the old Sui embankment back home in the South;

  But the scandalous story of those wanton times

  Wags in many an idle, unsavoury mouth.

  Peach Leaf Ford

  In the waters a scene of decay is reflected;

  Long since from its bough did the last peach-leaf fall.

  Your old Southern mansion has tumbled in ruins,

  And only your likeness looks down from the wall.

  Green Mound

  The Amur’s black flood for pure grief is arrested;

  The frozen string twangs with a heartbroken sound;

  And, deploring the harsh rule that ordered this exile,

  A few crooked trees bow in shame to the ground.

  Ma-wei

  The sad, ravaged face seemed to shine in its sweat;

  Then soon that sweet softness all vanished away.

  Yet something remained, for the well-known perfume

  In the clothing she wore lingers on to this day.

  The Monastery at Pu-dong

  Young Reddie was ever a light, empty creature,

  Always to-ing and fro-ing in all kinds of weather.

  Though her Mistress in ire hung her up from the ceiling,

  Those two had already been walking together.

  The Plum-tree Shrine

  ‘’Twill be by the willow and not by the plum.’

  But who is it there will her likeness discover?

  Let not her full moon make you think that Spring’s coming,

  For the cold parts her now till next year from her lover.

  After reading these poems, the cousins all praised the remarkable ingenuity with which they had been constructed. Only Bao-chai was critical.

  ‘The first eight of these poems have historically verifiable subjects, but what about the last two? I’m afraid I don’t quite understand wha
t they are about. I think you ought to make up another two to replace them with.’

  ‘Don’t be so stuffy, Chai!’ said Dai-yu. ‘Talk about “gluing the bridges of the zither”! It’s true that the subjects of those last two poems can’t be found in the history books, but how can you say that you don’t know what they are? Even if, as well-bred young ladies, we may not read the books in which they are to be found, we’ve all watched plenty of plays. Every three-year-old child is familiar with these stories. It’s sheer hypocrisy to pretend that you’ve never heard of them.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ said Tan-chun.

  ‘In any case,’ said Li Wan, ‘she has actually been to the places associated with the stories, even if the stories themselves are unhistorical. Stories pick up all kinds of circumstantial detail in the course of centuries of re-telling. Sooner or later some know-all invariably equips them with a location in order to fool more people into believing them. I remember on my journey here when I first came up to the capital we visited three or four different sites all claiming to be the burial-place of Guan Yu. Now no one doubts that Guan Yu actually existed or that he actually did the heroic things he is supposed to have done; but he can’t have been buried in more than one grave. Obviously the tradition that he was buried in those places was invented by people living long after Guan Yu’s death who loved and admired Guan Yu and all that he had stood for and wanted to claim him for themselves. And if you look in the Geographical Gazetteer, you’ll find that it isn’t only Guan Yu who has graves in several different places: practically all the famous men who ever lived appear to have been buried in more than one place. And when it comes to sites which are famous because of people who never even existed, they are still more numerous. It may well be that the people those last two poems are about didn’t exist; but though the stories about them are unhistorical, they are certainly well-known. You can hear them told by story-tellers; you can see them acted on the stage; you can even find references to them on the divination-sticks that people tell their fortunes with in temples. There can’t be a man, woman or child who isn’t familiar with them. And even if one knows them from the books, it can hardly be said that to have read a few lyrics from The Western Chamber or The Soul’s Return is tantamount to reading pornography. No, I see no harm in these two poems. I think she should leave them as they are.’