The Crab-Flower Club

by Cao Xueqin

  In You-shi’s main reception-room, whither the ladies repaired now from the hall, the floor had been entirely covered with a great red carpet and a huge gold cloisonné incense-burner with a loach-lipped rim and three massive legs shaped like the trunks of elephants stood in the middle.

  In the centre of the kang – also new-carpeted, but in scarlet – a dark-red back-rest had been placed with a design showing a couchant dragon coiled around the character for ‘longevity’. Large bolsters of the same colour and with the same design on them had been placed as arm-rests at right-angles to it; for extra warmth a black fox-fur had been draped around the top of it, and there was a white fox-fur rug between the bolsters, for sitting on. When Grandmother Jia had been installed on this furry throne, several old great-aunts were invited to sit on fur rugs that had been spread out on the kang to left and right of it. Lady Xing, Lady Wang and other ladies of their generation were installed on fur rugs on a smaller kang in an alcove-room to the side of the main kang and discreetly separated from it by an openwork wooden screen. On the floor below, in two facing rows, were a dozen carved lacquer chairs, on which Bao-qin and the other cousins were invited to sit. They had chair-backs and seat-covers of squirrel, and large copper foot-warmers in place of footstools.

  You-shi and her daughter-in-law Hu-shi now appeared with tea-trays in their hands, and while You-shi offered tea to Grandmother Jia, Hu-shi served the old aunties. After that You-shi passed into the alcove and served tea to Lady Xing and the other ladies on the smaller kang, and Hu-shi served the cousins sitting in chairs below. Xi-feng, Li Wan and a few other young married women of their generation, debarred from taking tea either with the elder ladies or with their young unmarried cousins, stood idly by, on the floor below the kang, ‘in attendance’. Lady Xing and her group, as soon as they had finished drinking their tea, rose and moved over to where Grandmother Jia was sitting on the kang so that they too might be ‘in attendance’.

  After exchanging a few words with the other old ladies while she sipped her tea, Grandmother Jia gave orders for her palanquin to be made ready. At once Xi-feng climbed up on to the kang and began helping her to her feet.

  ‘But we’ve already prepared dinner for you here,’ said You-shi. ‘You never stay with us for dinner on New Year’s Eve. Won’t you make an exception just this once? Surely my catering can’t be all that inferior to Feng’s?’

  Xi-feng continued to help Grandmother Jia from the kang.

  ‘Come on, Grannie, let’s be getting home! Pay no attention to her!’

  Grandmother Jia laughed.

  ‘You’re so busy with the sacrifices,’ she said. ‘You’re worked off your feet as it is; I’m sure you don’t want the bother of feeding me as well. Besides, in past years when I haven’t stayed, you have sent the food over to me. Why don’t you do that again this year? I don’t feel like eating very much now; but if you send it over, I shall be able to save it up for tomorrow, and then I shall be able to eat more of it than I could now.’

  This made everyone laugh.

  ‘See that you get someone thoroughly dependable to sit up and keep an eye on the candles tonight,’ Grandmother Jia said by way of parting admonition. ‘Where fire is concerned, one can’t afford to take chances.’

  You-shi, escorting her meanwhile from the room, assured her that she would do so.

  At the pavilion-gate You-shi and the other ladies hid themselves behind the gate-screen from the eyes of the waiting menservants while Grandmother Jia got into her palanquin. Pages of the Ning-guo mansion went ahead of the bearers and, as they approached the outer gate, directed them through the centre of its three gateways. Lady Xing and Lady Wang followed in their less imposing conveyances, accompanied by You-shi, who was also going over to the other mansion.

  Outside, while they were being borne in a westerly direction down the street, the ladies could see the achievements, insignia and musical instruments (bells, gongs, stone-chimes and drums hung in magnificently carved, painted and tasselled stands) of the Dukes of Ning-guo and Rong-guo, those of the Duke of Ning-guo along the eastern half of the street outside the south wall of the Ning-guo property, and those of his brother-duke outside the Rong-guo wall to its west.

  As in the other mansion, the centre-gates throughout Rong-guo House were all thrown open so that a way was clear from the outer gate right through to the Hall of Exalted Felicity inside. But this time, instead of going through to the pavilion-gate and getting out there, they turned left after the outer reception hall and were carried to the main reception hall in Grandmother Jia’s part of the mansion. The others assembled round the old lady as they got out of their sedans and followed her into the hall. Here, too, everything had been transformed: brilliantly embroidered screens and cushions specially brought out for the occasion and an incense-burner set down in the middle of the room from which emanated delicious odours of pine and cedar and Hundred Blend aromatic.

  As soon as Grandmother Jia was seated, a venerable nannie came up to her to report that ‘the old ladies had arrived to make their kotow’ and she hurriedly got up again and advanced to welcome two or three elderly female relations who had just come into the hall. A good deal of polite tussling ensued, accompanied on both sides by laughter and protestations, as Grandmother Jia took the hands of each old lady in turn and, while the old ladies pretended that they were struggling to kneel, made a great show of struggling to prevent them – for although Grandmother Jia was their senior, they were in the same generation as her and too elderly to be allowed to kotow in earnest. They sat down for a while after that and took a cup of tea; then Grandmother Jia saw them out, but no farther than the inner ornamental gate.

  When she had returned and was once more enthroned on the principal seat in the hall, Jia Jing and Jia She came forward with all the menfolk in the family in rows behind them to make their kotow.

  ‘You all do so much for me during the year,’ Grandmother Jia protested. ‘Can’t we forget about the kotow?’

  But nobody heeded her. Rank upon rank of them, the males in one large group and the females in another, knelt down together and bowed their foreheads to the ground. After that folding chairs were brought and put down in a row to left and right of Grandmother Jia’s seat and the next most senior members of the family sat down and received their kotows, and so on by order of seniority downwards, until all but the most junior members of the family had been kotowed to; but now even their turn arrived and they too were allowed to sit down as the domestics of both households, men-servants and women-servants, pages and maids, came in by order of their various ranks and duties and made their kotows to their employers.

  After that the New Year’s Eve wish-penny was distributed to servants and children – gold or silver medallions in little embroidered purses – and the New Year’s love-feast was laid, tables on the east side of the hall for men and boys, tables on the west side for girls and women. There was herb-flavoured New Year’s Eve wine and love-feast soup, there were lucky-cakes and wish-puddings; and when all had eaten and drunk, Grandmother Jia rose and went into an inner room to change out of her court dress, which she had all this time been wearing. This was a signal for the others present to disperse.

  As darkness came on, offerings of cakes and burning joss-sticks were made in front of all the Buddha-shrines and in all the little niches of the Kitchen God, who is welcomed back this night from his annual trip aloft. In the main courtyard, outside Lady Wang’s apartment, an ‘altar to heaven and earth’ was set up – a long table on which offerings of sticky fried honey-sticks and fresh apples and steamed wheat-flour cakes and other goodies had been built up, layer upon layer, into a little pagoda of offerings in front of a large colour-print representing the whole host of heaven (or as much of it as the artist had been able to fit in). Great horn lanterns hung at either side of the main entrance to Prospect Garden to illuminate the gateway, and innumerable standard lamps lit up its alley-ways and courtyards and walks. As for the inhabitants of the mansion, all o
f them, both masters and servants, seemed, in their dazzling holiday array, like walking flower-gardens of brilliant embroidery and brocade. And all night long a confused hubbub of talking and shouting and laughter arose, punctuated by the continual, unceasing pops and bangs of exploding firecrackers.

  At four o’clock in the morning, as the drums of the fifth watch were sounding, Grandmother Jia and the other ladies once more got into their court dresses and were borne in procession to the Palace, this time to felicitate Yuan-chun on the advent of the New Year. Liveried footmen walked ahead of them carrying the full paraphernalia to which Grandmother Jia’s rank entitled her. Once more Yuan-chun feasted them; once more, on their return from the Palace, they made offerings to the ancestors in their shrine in the Ning-guo mansion; and once more, on returning to her own apartment in Rong-guo House, Grandmother Jia received the prostrations of the assembled family. As soon as that was over, she changed out of her court clothes and declared that she was going to rest, refusing to see any of the friends and relations who now began arriving in great numbers to offer their New Year felicitations, and spending her time either quietly conversing with Aunt Xue and Mrs Li or, as an occasional diversion, playing games of cards or Racing Go with Bao-yu and the girls.

  But Lady Wang and Xi-feng, on both this and each of the seven or eight days which followed, were kept busy entertaining the guests whom the family had invited to drink their New Year wine. In both the reception hall and the courtyard outside it there were plays to watch and tables at which the unending stream of visitors could sit for a while and eat and drink while they watched them.

  And no sooner was that lot of entertaining over than another lot had to be prepared for as the First Moon waxed greater and the Lantern Festival drew near. Again the Ning and Rong mansions were gay with lanterns and decorations. On the eleventh of the month Jia She entertained Grandmother Jia and the rest of the family and on the twelfth it was Cousin Zhen’s turn to play host, while for several days running Lady Wang and Wang Xi-feng were most of the time out visiting one or other of the innumerable families from whom they had received invitations.

  On the evening of the fifteenth Grandmother Jia had tables laid for a feast in her big ‘new’ reception hall – the scene of Xi-feng’s fateful birthday-feast. A stage was set up for a troupe of child-actors which she had specially hired for this occasion, and both the stage and hall were hung all over with lanterns of every imaginable shape and colour. When her preparations were completed, she summoned all her children and grandchildren, nephews and nieces, great-nephews and great-nieces to a family feast.

  As a matter of fact it is not strictly true that all of them were invited. Jia Jing was, for religious reasons, a total abstainer from meat and strong drink, so he was not invited. Obligations to the dead rather than to the living had brought him back for the holiday, and on the seventeenth, two days after this, as soon as the last of the ancestral sacrifices was over, he returned to his Taoist monastery outside the city and the briefly interrupted pursuit of immortality. Meanwhile, when not actually engaged in discharging ceremonial duties, he spent all the time on his own in a quiet, out-of-the-way corner of the mansion, in a state of incommunicado with the other members of the family.

  And Jia She, although he was invited, excused himself as soon as he had received a party-gift from his mother. She knew that he felt uncomfortable in her presence and did not attempt to detain him. Back in his own quarters, surrounded by cronies and dependants, he could drink and admire the lanterns while beautiful young women played and sang for his delectation:

  Ears with pipes and songs beguiled,

  Eyes by silk skirts hypnotized.

  – A different scene altogether from the one he had just left. But let us return to the latter – to the reception hall in Grandmother Jia’s rear courtyard, where a covered stage had been erected to accommodate the players.

  Inside the hall some dozen or more tables had been laid facing outwards towards the stage. They were arranged in a fan shape, with the two central tables in the place of honour at the back and the rest of them raying out forwards to left and right of them. At the side of each table a smaller, ornamental table had been placed on which were arranged

  1. a little three-piece incense set (a vase, a cassolette and a tripod, all made on a miniature scale out of metal) in which Hundred Blend aromatic – a gift from the Palace – was burning;

  2. a porcelain dish, eight inches long, four or five inches wide and two or three inches deep, containing a miniature landscape made out of stones and mosses;

  3. a small japanned tea-tray on which was one of Grand mother Jia’s best china teacups and a little individual mille fiori teapot in which choicest tea was brewing;

  4. a little table-screen of red silk gauze, embroidered with flowers and appropriate lines of ‘grass character’ verse, framed in a delicately carved pierced-work sandalwood frame;*

  5. a vase (each one a collector’s piece and each different from the rest) containing the ‘three friends of winter’ or ‘riches in a jade hall’ or some other flower arrangement, mostly of fresh flowers that had been specially forced for the occasion.

  The two tables in the place of honour at the back were occupied by Aunt Xue and Mrs Li. To their left, at the head of the row of tables radiating outwards towards the east side of the hall, there was a large, low wooden settle with a carved pierced-work back of interlacing dragons, which had been put there for Grandmother Jia to lie on. It was furnished with a back-rest and bolsters and was large enough to have a fur rug spread out on it and still leave room at one end for a small, exquisitely gilded table of foreign make on which had been placed a teapot, a teacup, a spittoon, a napkin and, among various other small objects, an eyeglass-case. Grandmother Jia rested with her feet up on the settle and, after talking for a while with the company, took out the eyeglasses from their case and looked through them at the stage.

  ‘I do hope you will forgive me for lying down like this in your presence,’ she apologized to Aunt Xue and Mrs Li. ‘It’s very rude of me, I know, but I’m getting so rheumaticky in my old age.’

  She made Amber get up on to the settle beside her and massage her legs by gently pounding them with a ‘maiden’s fist’ – a sort of short-handled mallet with a padded leather head.

  No feaster’s table with cover and drapes had been put in front of the settle, only the little ornamental table with the table-screen and the incense set and vase of flowers. The very elegant, somewhat larger table of normal height which would have been hers if she had been sitting up with the rest had been placed somewhat to the left of the settle and laid with winecups, soup-spoons and chopsticks for four. It was occupied by Bao-qin, Xiang-yun, Dai-yu and Bao-yu. Although she could not sit with them, Grandmother Jia kept up a pretence that they were eating together: each dish as it arrived would be submitted to her inspection, and if she fancied it, would be placed on the little table at her elbow; then, when she had tasted it, it would be removed and set down in front of the four young people for them to finish.

  After Grandmother Jia and her four grandchildren, the next along on the east side was Lady Xing; after her came Lady Wang, then You-shi, then Li Wan, then Xi-feng, and lastly Jia Rong’s wife, Hu-shi. Along the west side Bao-chai came first, next to her mother, then Li Wen, then Li Qi, then Xiu-yan, then Ying-chun, then Tan-chun and then Xi-chun.

  Red-tasselled glass lanterns hung in rows from the beams overhead to left and right of the diners. In front of them, on each of their tables, was an ingenious light consisting of a flower-shaped candle attached to the base of a reflector in the form of a vertical lotus leaf. These lotus leaves, though made of metal, were so skilfully engraved and enamelled that they looked almost real. They were attached to their metal stands by means of a swivel, so that the beams of the candle could be concentrated in any direction desired. When all the reflectors were simultaneously directed towards the stage, the diners’ view of the players was wonderfully improved.

  The
wooden partitions with their window-lattices and doors which normally separated the hall from the verandah had been removed and great palace lanterns of glass, whose elaborately carved wooden frames were hung with strings of crimson tassels, were suspended at intervals in the space thus created. More rows of lanterns – lanterns of every kind of material and design – horn lanterns, glass lanterns, gauze lanterns, lanterns of Yunnan glitter-glass, embroidered ones, painted ones, lanterns with cut-outs of paper or silk in them, hung in lines under the verandah eaves, both inside and outside the architraves, and from the eaves of the loggias on either side of the courtyard.

  The tables on the verandah were all occupied by males: Cousin Zhen, Jia Lian, Jia Huan, Jia Cong, Jia Rong, Jia Qin, Jia Yun, Jia Ling and Jia Chang.

  Although Grandmother Jia had sent invitations by word of mouth to every clansman and clanswoman residing in the city, some of them were too elderly to stand up to the noise and excitement of a party, some were unable to come because they had no one to look after the house for them while they were away, some had intended to come but were prevented from doing so by illness, some stayed away from envy of their richer clansmen or because they were ashamed of their own poverty, others because they could not stand Xi-feng, and yet others because they were so unused to company and incapacitated by shyness that they dared not come – in short, although the clan was a numerous one, for one reason or another, of all those invited the only female guest who turned up was Lou-shi, mother of Bao-yu’s former classmate, the intrepid little Jia Jun, who came bringing Jia Jun with her, and the only male ones were those who had found employment with the family under Xi-feng’s auspices and were therefore obliged to put in an appearance: Jia Qin, Jia Yun, Jia Chang and Jia Ling. Yet even with the absence of so many who had been invited from outside, for a family party the company was a large one.