Hsin-mei said, “I like plays very much. Unfortunately, I haven’t read—uh—very many.”
Miss Fan asked him about Ts’ao Yü.3
“I consider him the—uh—the greatest playwright,” said Hsin-mei, taking a wild guess.
“Oh, I’m so glad, Mr. Chao,” said Miss Fan, clapping her hands in delight. “We share exactly the same opinion. Which of his plays do you think is best?”
Hsin-mei had never expected there would be an examination of this sort waiting for him after his final examinations in college were over with. The ability to answer questions ambiguously or equivocally that a dozen years of quizzes and examinations had trained in him was now completely rusted, and without thinking he replied, “Didn’t he write one called—uh—it was—”
The expression of shock on Miss Fan’s face prevented him from saying whether it was “Spring,” “Summer,” “Fall,” or “Winter.” Her shock was like a dentist’s probe, which kept her mouth open so wide that for a long moment her upper and lower jaws were unable to join together. How infuriating it would be if her husband turned out to be such a complete ignoramus! Fortunately, marriage was still a long way off; there was still time to teach him. After Hsin-mei had admitted his ignorance, she immediately put some art into her natural expression of shock and she gave him a complete two-minute course in “The History of Contemporary Chinese Drama,” adding that if Hsin-mei wished to read any plays, she had some on hand. Hsin-mei hurriedly thanked her.
She suddenly said with a laugh, “Oh, I can’t lend you any of my plays. If you want to read some, I’ll find some other way to get them for you.”
Hsin-mei asked why not. Miss Fan explained that many of the plays she had were presents from the authors. Hsin-mei assured her he would not damage or lose anything so valuable.
“Oh, it’s not that,” said Miss Fan guilelessly, “but playwrights are so silly. They write all kinds of nonsense on the books they give me. I couldn’t let you see them. Of course, it wouldn’t really matter if I did.”
It was then Hsin-mei’s duty to say he definitely had to see them.
Miss Liu did not say much, and Hung-chien, who had come solely for the purpose of food, made only a few stabs at polite conversation. It was rather Mrs. Wang who led the conversation, plying Miss Liu with questions. Wang-Ch’u-hou stepped inside for a moment, then came out and said to his wife, “I’ve made the rounds of inspection.”
Hung-chien asked him what he was inspecting.
Wang said with a laugh, “It’s actually a funny story. We employ two servants. The girl has been with us since we came—over half a year. I’ve changed maids several times, but none of them has worked out. The first one I hired asked for leave every day to spend the night at home. After dinner was over she’d disappear, and the dirty dishes would pile up. We can’t have this, I thought, so I hired another one who was very quiet. She stayed here for more than ten days without going back home once. My wife and I were quite pleased. Well, one day in the small hours of the morning someone all but knocked the gate down. It turned out this woman had a lover who always sneaked in here for a secret tryst, which is why she never went home. When her husband got wind of it, he came over to seize her, the adulteress, in the act. I was furious. We finally replaced her with the present one. She’s rather clever, so we taught her how to make a few simple dishes, which she does well enough, but sometimes it seems the amount she makes is too small. I thought maybe she was pocketing some of the food money for herself. Everyone’s always out for a little extra, and as they say, ‘Unless you’re deaf or obtuse, you’ll never do as head of the house,’ so I might as well just forget it. Having to keep replacing servants is a nuisance! My wife and I gave her a few words of admonishment, and let it go at that.
“Then once a friend of President Kao’s came from far away and brought thirty sparrows with him. The president asked me to cook them for him, and he came to dinner. You know, the president likes to come here for dinner. My wife said that sparrows are tasteless when they’re fried. According to her hometown method, the sparrow’s stomach is stuffed with ground pork and then fried in soy sauce. We didn’t have many people for dinner that evening, just President Kao, my wife and me, and Mr. Wang, chairman of the Math Department—he’s an interesting chap. Mr. Kao and Mr. Wang both agreed this was the best way to cook sparrows. After we’d eaten, Mr. Wang suddenly asked if there hadn’t been thirty sparrows altogether. We thought he hadn’t had enough, but he said, no, according to his calculations, we had eaten only twenty—Hsien, twenty-what?—twenty-five, so there should have been five left. I said surely he didn’t think I’d taken some on the sly, and President Kao said how ridiculous. My wife went into the kitchen to look into it, and sure enough she saw half a bowl of gravy and four—not five—sparrows! And do you know what the servant said? She said she had laid them aside to put in my noodles in the morning. We were angry and amused at the same time. No one would eat those four extra sparrows—”
“What a pity! Why didn’t you give them to me!” interjected Hsin-mei, like someone about to suffocate suddenly bursting out from a cloud of gas and taking in a breath of fresh air.
Mrs. Wang said with a laugh, “Who told you not to come over then? In the end they were given to President Kao to go with his noodles.”
“In that case, that servant of yours is an honest fool,” said Hung-chien. “She acts without considering carefully, but she has a good heart.”
Wang stroked his mustache and roared with laughter.
“‘An honest fool?’” said Mrs. Wang. “She’s neither honest nor a fool! We were taken in by her from the very start. In the most recent case she served some chicken broth, which was as thin as plain drinking water. I said to Mr. Wang, ‘This isn’t broth from boiling a chicken. It’s more like a chicken has had a dip in it.’ He heard it wrong and thought I’d said, ‘A chicken has had its feet in it,’ so he said as a joke, ‘You think you’re so quick and clever, yet you drank the foot-wash water.’”
They all laughed, and Mr. Wang delightedly savored his own witticism. “I called her in and questioned her about it, but she kept on denying it. Later by means of threats and cajolery, I finally got to the bottom of it. The old maidservant has a son. Every time we have company, she calls him over and picks out the best pieces for him, which she hides in the rice. I asked the girl why she hadn’t told me earlier, and whether she wasn’t in on the stolen food. She refused to say. It finally came out that the old maidservant wanted her as daughter-in-law and had promised her her son in marriage. Now, don’t you think that’s a clever one? So every time we have company, we make an inspection of the whole house first. I don’t think we can keep those two much longer. I’m going to replace them as soon as I get a chance.”
The guests all spoke at once. Hsin-mei and Hung-chien said, “Servants are a real problem.”
Miss Fan said, “It scares me to death. Luckily with just myself, I don’t need a servant.”
Miss Liu said, “The maid at our house is always up to tricks, too.”
Mrs. Wang said laughingly to Miss Fan, “You won’t be by yourself for long—Miss Liu, your brother and sister-in-law are much beholden to you.”
The servant brought in the food, and everyone rushed to grab a seat. The host said that with a round table there were no distinctions of rank in seating but they mustn’t get too mixed up. He then urged everyone to eat a little more since there were so few dishes. The guests, of course, said the food was too plentiful and that with so few of them, they could not possibly eat so much.
Mr. Wang said, “Oh, I forgot to get Miss Fan’s roommate Miss Sun to come. She’s never been here before.”
Miss Fan shot a sidelong glance at Hsin-mei who was sitting next to her. At the mention of Miss Sun’s name, Hung-chien’s heart began pounding and his face burned. How funny, he thought, what does Miss Sun have to do with me?
Mrs. Wang remarked, “At first when Mr. Chao came with that young woman, we all guessed she was Mr. Chao
’s sweetheart. It wasn’t until later that we realized there was nothing to it.”
Hsin-mei laughed and said to Hung-chien, “See how frightful rumors can be!”
Miss Fan said, “Miss Sun has a sweetheart now, and that’s no rumor. As her roommate I know all about it.”
Hsin-mei asked who it was. Fully expecting her to say it was him, Hung-chien forced himself to remain composed.
Miss Fan said, “I can’t divulge her secret.”
Alarmed, Hung-chien began eating for all he was worth, trying to keep his facial muscles from settling into their true expression.
Throwing a glance at Hung-chien, Hsin-mei said with a grin, “I may know who it is without your telling me.”
His mouth full of food, Hung-chien nearly blurted out, “Don’t talk nonsense.”
Misinterpreting Hsin-mei’s grin, Miss Fan relaxed and said, “You know about it too? You certainly are quick to get the news! Lu Tzu-hsiao’s been after her since the winter vacation, writing to her everyday and just getting on with her wonderfully. You were in Kweilin then, so how could you have known about it?”
Hung-chien’s emotions were like a whirlpool. He hadn’t been dragged in himself, and so he could relax, but when he heard that Miss Sun was close to someone else, it stung him painfully. I’m not in love with Miss Sun, so why should I object to her being on close terms with Lu Tzu-hsiao? Miss Sun is cute in her own way, but her charm is unnatural and contrived and she isn’t a true beauty. Of course, she does have a likeable disposition. It’s all Hsin-mei’s fault, because his joking put ideas in my head. She can never see anything in someone like Lu Tzu-hsiao. But Miss Fan said they are writing each other every day, and Miss Fan wouldn’t lie for no reason. Suddenly his spirits fell.
Mr. and Mrs. Wang and Miss Liu all listened with astonishment. Hsin-mei adopted the attitude of a great statesman who, upon receiving a piece of intelligence, acts as though he has known about it all along. Assuming a grave expression, he replied, “I have my reports. Lu Tzu-hsiao once asked Mr. Fang to introduce him to Miss Sun. I don’t approve of Lu; he is too old.”
“You mind your own business,” interrupted Mrs. Wang. “You’re not her real ‘uncle,’ after all. And even if you were, so what? If I’d known this were the case, we’d have invited the two of them today, too. But Tzu-hsiao is a little impish. I am not very fond of him.”
Mr. Wang shook his head, saying, “That won’t do. With the history people, the less contact the better. Tzu-hsiao is the star professor in the History Department, so of course he’s no little imp. He’s worse than a little imp; he’s small-minded, ha, ha! He likes to gossip. Han Hsüeh-yü is a very suspicious person. If you invite one of his subordinates for dinner without inviting him, he’ll suspect you of colluding with someone in a conspiracy. The school is already rife with the ‘Canton Clique,’ the ‘Stalwarts Clique,’ and the ‘Returned Students from Japan Clique.’ Mr. Chao and Mr. Fang, aren’t you two afraid people will say you’re in the ‘Wang Clique’ if you eat dinner at my place? People are already saying Miss Liu’s brother is in the ‘Wang Clique.’”
Hsin-mei said, “I’m aware several small groups of faculty members often get together for dinner, but Hung-chien and I’ve never joined any of them, however much they may be criticizing us.”
Mr. Wang said, “You two are in the ‘Dragon Follower Clique’ of President Kao—comprised of Mr. Kao’s relatives or students and old friends. Mr. Fang, of course, was not originally acquainted with Mr. Kao, but because of his indirect connection through Mr. Chao, he’s considered to be on the fringe of the ‘Dragon Follower Clique,’ or the dragon’s tail, ha, ha—I know that’s all hearsay; otherwise, I would never have dared ask the two of you over.”
Miss Fan, without the slightest interest in the school cliques, merely felt it incumbent upon her to attack Miss Sun. “All this business about factions in the school is so silly. Miss Sun is a very nice person, but she’s so messy. She has her things all over the room—Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Chao, I forgot she is your ‘niece,’” and with that she laughed in great embarrassment.
Hsin-mei said, “Oh, that doesn’t matter. But, Hung-chien, we didn’t think she was so bad when we traveled with her, did we?”
Surprised and angered because someone had said he was on the fringe of the “Dragon Follower Clique,” Hung-chien was like the crab described by William James. Classified as a crustacean by biologists, it wanted to wave its claws about in protest and say, “I’m just me. A true gentleman comes and goes of his own accord without belonging in any category.” To Hsin-mei’s question he replied with an offhand “Yes.”
Mrs. Wang said, “I’ve heard Mr. Fang is a great conversationalist. Why are you so quiet today?”
Fang Hung-chien replied hastily that the food was so good he’d even swallowed his tongue along with it.
Halfway through the meal, the subject of the lack of recreation came up again. Mrs. Wang said that she had a mahjong set, but living as they did so close to the school—
Without letting her finish, Wang interposed, “My wife’s nerves are very weak and playing mahjong is so noisy that we never play—” just then there was a knock at the door—“Who could that be?”
“Well, Mrs. Wang, why didn’t you invite me to your party? Mr. Wang, I made my way over here just by following the aroma of food,” said Kao Sung-nien, as he walked in.
Everyone stood to attention, rising from his seat to greet Kao, except for Mrs. Wang, who, leaning indolently against the back of her chair in a position halfway between sitting and standing, asked, “Have you had dinner? Come and have something.” At the same time she instructed the servant to bring a chair and set another place with a bowl and chopsticks. Hsin-mei quickly offered him his place as the seat of honor, so he was no longer sitting next to Miss Fan.
President Kao went through the motions of saying no, then sat down serenely, and was just picking up the chopsticks when he glanced around the table and cried, “Why, I can’t sit here! Your seats are specially arranged. How stupid of me! How could I break you apart? Hsin-mei, you sit here.”
Hsin-mei refused. Kao then offered his seat to Miss Fan, but she could only giggle, her body glued to the chair like a piece of sticky candy. In resignation, the president said, “All right, then! In all great events under heaven, what is long together must come apart, and what is long apart must come together,” and laughed heartily. He then told Miss Fan how pretty she looked and took a swallow of wine. With that his smoothly shaven yellow face shone like a pair of freshly polished leather shoes.
Because of the business over his becoming an associate professor, Hung-chien had always regarded Kao Sung-nien with a certain rancor and so had as little to do with him as possible. He had never expected Kao to be so congenial. As a student of biology, Kao knew that “the survival of the fittest” was ordained by nature. He was quite confident of his own ability to adapt to the environment and to know what to say to whom on which occasion. Like the head instructor of the 200,000 imperial troops referred to in ancient novels as “an expert in all eighteen of the military arts,” Kao Sung-nien, as president, was “fluent” in the disciplines of all three colleges and all ten departments of the school. “Fluent,” that is, in the sense of flowing smoothly, as in “the free flow of trains” or “a smooth intestinal flow.” A few “brief remarks” would go in through the ears and flow directly out of the mouth without stopping for a moment in the brain. One day the Political Science Association held its inaugural meeting and had asked him to give a speech. He could speak volubly on international relations, comparing Fascism with Communism, but maintaining that, in the final analysis, China’s present political system was the best. The next day the Literary Study Group was having a social gathering. In his hortatory speech, besides saying poetry and songs were “the soul of the people,” and literature was a “tool for psychological reconstruction,” he encouraged the audience to become India’s Tagore, England’s Shakespeare, France’s—uh—France’s Rousseau
(also pronounced ‘loso’),4 Germany’s Goethe, and America’s—American writers were too numerous. The day after at the Physics Club’s meeting to welcome new members, having no atomic bomb to talk about yet, he could only call out a few times to the theory of relativity, making Einstein, all the way on the other side of the ocean, run a fever in his right ear and even sneeze. Besides this, he could even say “Shit” once or twice during a chat with the military instructor. Surprised and delighted, the instructor looked at him with new respect and considered him one of his own. Today Kao was having an informal meal with a few close friends with women present besides, so of course he adapted differently by cracking jokes and poking fun.
Mrs. Wang said, “We were just now taking you to task for choosing such a wretched place to set up a school. Everyone is bored to death.”
“Well, if you die of boredom, I won’t pay with my life! If it were someone else’s, I could probably manage. Mrs. Wang’s life is too precious. I couldn’t pay with that, could I, Mr. Wang?”
With the boss in such high good humor, they all tried to do their duty by laughing respectfully once, twice, or whatever.
“It’d be all right if there were a radio to listen to,” said Chao Hsin-mei.
Miss Fan said she too enjoyed listening to the radio.
Wang Ch’u-hou said, “A remote place has its advantages. With no other way to amuse themselves, people can visit one another and become close friends. Friends are made, and from being friends perhaps they’ll go a step further and—Mr. Chao, Mr. Fang, you two young ladies, eh?”
The president called out “Hooray!” in the tone of one singing a school song, giving a party cheer, or yelling a slogan, and toasted everyone.
Hung-chien said, “Just now Mrs. Wang was talking about playing mahjong for recreation.”
“Who plays mahjong?” interrupted the president.
“Didn’t Mr. Wong borrow our set to play everyday?” asked Mrs. Wang, ignoring Kao Sung-nien’s warning look.
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