The Warning Voice

by Cao Xueqin

  ‘Come and look, everyone!’ – They were interrupted by a giggling young maid – ‘Miss Yun must have been feeling drunk and gone out for some air. She’s lying on the granite bench behind the rockery, fast asleep.’

  ‘Let’s be quiet and not waken her,’ the others said amidst laughter, and followed her outside to have a look.

  They found Xiang-yun where the maid had said, on a large stone bench in a hidden corner of the rockery, dead to the world. She was covered all over from head to foot with crimson petals from the peony bushes which grew round about; the fan which had slipped from her hand and lay on the ground beside her was half buried in petals; and heaped-up peony petals wrapped in a white silk handkerchief made an improvised pillow for her head. Over and around this petalled monstrosity a convocation of bees and butterflies was hovering distractedly. It was a sight that the cousins found both touching and comical. They made haste to rouse her and lifted her up into a half-sitting position on the bench. But Xiang-yun was still playing drinking games in her sleep and proceeded to recite the words of an imaginary forfeit, though her eyes were tightly closed.

  ‘One. “The spring water being sweet, the wine is good.” Two. “Pour me its liquid amber in a jade cup.” Three. We’ll drink till we see “The moon above the plum-tree bough”. Four. Then, as we’re “Rolling Home”. Five. It will be “A good time to meet a friend.”’

  They shook her, laughing.

  ‘Wake up! Wake up! Come and have something to eat. Lying on the damp stone like this you’ll make yourself ill.’

  Xiang-yun…

  uplifted slowly then those orbs serene

  and saw the faces of the cousins bending over her. Then she looked downwards and saw her own body and the place where she had been lying. She could remember escaping from the noise to rest for a few moments somewhere where it was cool and quiet. Evidently the wine from all those sconces she had been made to drink must have got the better of her and caused her to drop off. Ashamed to have been discovered in such a predicament, she struggled hastily to her feet and accompanied the others back to the summerhouse, where she rinsed her mouth out with water and drank two very strong cups of tea. Tan-chun made one of the girls fetch a piece of ‘hangover rock’ for her to suck. By the time she had sucked the rock for a bit and taken a few mouthfuls of hot, sour soup, she was feeling almost herself again.

  A selection was now made of the various comestibles on the tables and sent over to Xi-feng, who reciprocated by sending them some delicacies of her own. Bao-yu and the girls then took some sustenance themselves, after which they broke up into little groups, standing or sitting where they pleased and amusing themselves as the fancy took them. Some went outside to admire the peonies or to lean on the balustrade at the edge of the lake and look at the fish swimming in the water below. Tan-chun and Bao-qin stayed indoors to play Go. Bao-chai and Xiang-yun stayed indoors to watch them. Dai-yu and Bao-yu went outside and, having found themselves a little flowering arbour that they could stand and talk in, appeared to be completely engrossed in their conversation.

  While everyone was thus engaged, Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife and her party appeared once more, bringing with them a tearful, woebegone woman, who, as they reached the steps that led up to the summer-house, threw herself down on her knees, not daring to go further, and began knocking her head upon the ground. Meanwhile Tan-chun continued to stare concentratedly at the Go-board, one outstretched hand feeling for the spare pieces in the box while she contemplated her next move. One of her pieces had been threatened, and though she could see how to get the two ‘eyes’ easily enough, she could not, however hard she tried, think of a way of doing so which did not break the development she had planned. It was some minutes before she looked up and, in turning to ask for some tea, caught sight of Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife, who had all this time been standing there beside her, and asked her what she had come for.

  Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife pointed to the kneeling woman.

  ‘This is the mother of Miss Xi-chun’s maid, Landscape. She works in the Garden. She’s been using some very bad language. I heard her just now and asked her what she meant by it, but what she said to me, miss – well, I wouldn’t like to soil your ears by repeating it. I think she ought to be dismissed.’

  ‘Why didn’t you see Mrs Zhu about this?’ said Tan-chun.

  ‘I did, miss. I ran into her just now on her way to the jobs room to join Mrs Xue. She said I was to tell you.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you tell Mrs Lian?’

  ‘No need,’ said Patience. ‘I can tell her about it when I get back.’

  Tan-chun nodded.

  ‘All right, dismiss her then. We’ll tell Lady Wang about it when she comes back and get her to confirm it.’

  She turned once more to her game. Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife and her party moved off, taking the offender with them.

  All of this scene was clearly observed by Bao-yu and Dai-yu from their flowering covert, though they were too far away to hear what was said.

  ‘What a curiously detached person your sister is!’ said Dai-yu. ‘She has been actually invited to take charge of things, yet she still won’t go a step beyond what is absolutely necessary. Most people in her position would have been throwing their weight about long ago.’

  ‘Ah, you don’t know what’s been going on while you were away,’ said Bao-yu. ‘While you were ill in bed, she did in fact do a great deal of managing. For example, she divided this Garden into sections and put each section under someone’s supervision. Nowadays you can’t even pick a flower in it without permission. And she cut down on a lot of things too – mostly things that Feng or I had asked for, as an awful example to the others. Oh no, Tan has got very strong views on domestic economy. I certainly wouldn’t call her “detached”.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ said Dai-yu. ‘We are all much too extravagant. Although the management of the household is not my business, I have frequently, just out of curiosity, made a few calculations, and I can see that our expenditure is vastly in excess of our income. If we go on in this way without economizing, the time will surely come when our credit is exhausted.’

  ‘Even if it does,’ said Bao-yu gaily, ‘I don’t suppose you and I will have to go short.’

  Dai-yu turned away from him somewhat impatiently and began walking towards the summerhouse, intending to seek Bao-chai’s company inside. Bao-yu would have gone too, but just at that moment Aroma came up carrying a little varnished wooden ‘tea for two’ tray, in each of whose rounds nestled a cup of freshly made tea.

  ‘Well, where’s she gone?’ said Aroma. ‘I brought this out specially, because I could see the two of you standing here all this time without anything to drink; but now she’s not here.’

  ‘That’s her, over there,’ said Bao-yu, removing one of the cups for himself. ‘You can take it to her inside.’

  Aroma did so, but by the time she had reached her, Dai-yu was already standing talking to Bao-chai.

  ‘Here you are,’ said Aroma, ‘whichever of you is the thirstier had better take this while I go and fetch another.’

  ‘I’m not thirsty,’ said Bao-chai. ‘I only want enough to wash out my mouth with.’

  She lifted the cup to her lips, drank a mouthful of tea from it, and handed the remainder to Dai-yu.

  ‘Let me get you another cup,’ said Aroma.

  ‘Oh, you know me,’ said Dai-yu smilingly. ‘I can’t drink much tea because of my illness. The doctor says it’s bad for me. This half cup will be quite enough for me. Thank you very much, though. It’s very kind of you.’

  Having drained the cup, she put it back on the tray, whereupon Aroma went off to collect the other cup from Bao-yu.

  ‘Where’s Parfumée?’ Bao-yu asked her when she got back to him. ‘I haven’t seen her for a long time.’

  Aroma looked around.

  ‘She was here a moment ago. I saw her playing match-my-flower with some of the others. Now she seems to have disappeared.’

  Bao-yu hur
ried back to his room to look for her. He found her asleep on the bed with her face turned inwards to the wall.

  ‘Come on, you mustn’t sleep!’ he said. ‘Come out and get some exercise. We’ll be eating soon. You want to get an appetite for your food.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I sleep?’ said Parfumée. ‘There’s nothing else for me to do. I got so bored when you all went off drinking and left me on my own.’

  Bao-yu laughed.

  ‘We’ll be having a party of our own here in the evening,’ he said, pulling her to her feet. ‘I’ll ask Aroma to let you sit at table with the rest of us, shall I?’

  ‘Not on my own,’ said Parfumée. ‘I shouldn’t enjoy it unless Nénuphar and Étamine could be with me as well. Besides, I don’t like noodles. I didn’t have a proper lunch today because I couldn’t eat the noodles. I got so hungry that just now I asked Liu to do a bowl of soup and some rice for me to eat here now; so I shan’t want anything again tonight. I could just drink, I suppose; but if you want me to, you’ll have to let me drink as much as I like and not let the others fuss over me. When I was still at home I used to drink two or three catties of rice wine at a sitting, but once I started learning beastly opera, they wouldn’t let me drink any more in case it spoiled my voice. During this last year or two I haven’t had so much as a smell of it. Tonight I should like to celebrate the end of all that.’

  ‘So you shall,’ said Bao-yu.

  At that point a woman arrived from Cook Liu with a food-box containing Parfumeés order. Swallow relieved her of it and brought it inside. It contained a bowl of shrimp-balls in chicken-skin soup, a bowl of duck steamed in wine, a plate of red salted goose-slices, another plate on which were four cream-cheese rolls stuffed with pine-kernels, and a large bowl of delicious, steaming-hot, fragrant green rice. Swallow put these all on the table in front of Parfumée and fetched her a spoon, chopsticks and some bowls, one of which she filled for her with the fragrant rice.

  ‘Ugh!’ said Parfumée. ‘How can I eat this horrible greasy stuff?’

  She spooned some of the soup onto her rice and picked up a couple of goose-slices with her chopsticks to put on top of it. The rest she left untouched. Bao-yu sniffed the rejected dishes. They smelt delicious – much nicer than the things be generally had to eat. He helped himself to one of the pinekernel rolls and told Swallow to fill him another bowl with some rice and pour on some of the soup. The combination – soup, rice, and pine-roll – was quite delectable. Parfumée and Swallow both laughed as they watched him eat.

  When he and Parfumée had both finished, Swallow would have sent the remainder back to the kitchen, but Bao-yu told her that she should eat it herself.

  ‘If it’s not enough, we’ll ask them to bring you some more.’

  ‘No, no, this will be plenty,’ said Swallow. ‘It’s not long since Musk brought me some cakes and things from the party. If I eat this now, I shall have had quite enough.’

  She proceeded to tuck in there and then, standing where she was beside the table. Soon all had been demolished except for two pine-kernel rolls.

  ‘I’ll save these for my Ma,’ she said. ‘Oh, and if you’re drinking this evening, will you let me have a drop too?’

  ‘Are you another drinker then?’ said Bao-yu. ‘Good! We’ll have a real celebration tonight. Aroma and Skybright are both fond of drinking, but they won’t take much as a rule because they feel it isn’t quite proper. Tonight my birthday shall be the excuse for everyone to let themselves go! By the way, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for some time but keep forgetting. Would you make yourself responsible for Parfumée in future? Just keep an eye on her and see that she doesn’t get up to mischief. Aroma would like to if she could, but she has her hands full already.’

  ‘I can look after Parfumée, don’t worry about that,’ said Swallow. ‘What I want to know is, what are you going to do about Fivey?’

  ‘You can tell Mrs Liu that Fivey definitely will be coming to work here. After I’ve had a word with the others, she can move in as soon as she likes.’

  ‘Now you’re talking!’ said Swallow. She called the two little maids in to wait on him while he washed his hands and pour out tea for him while she herself got the dirty things together and handed them to the woman outside. After that she washed her own hands and went off to tell Cook Liu the good news. But that is no part of our story.

  Bao-yu left to rejoin the others as soon as he was ready, and Parfumée, holding a silk handkerchief in one hand and a fan in the other, trailed along behind him. As he came out of the courtyard gate he saw Aroma and Skybright walking hand in hand towards him and asked them what they had come for.

  ‘You!’ they said. ‘Dinner’s been laid now and the others are waiting for you to begin.’

  Bao-yu explained that he had just eaten.

  Aroma laughed:

  ‘You’re like a cat: always eating except when you ought to be. You’d better come and sit with them all the same, for appearance’s sake.’

  Skybright poked Parfumée playfully on the forehead with her finger.

  ‘You’re getting to be quite a little man-eater, aren’t you? Going back to have some food, indeed! You’d arranged to meet him there, more like. Why didn’t you tell anyone else that you were going?’

  Aroma laughed.

  ‘Oh nonsense, Skybright! Of course she didn’t arrange to meet him. It was a pure accident, their being there at the same time together.’

  ‘All right,’ said Skybright, ‘but what does he need us for then? Why don’t we all go away and leave Parfumée to look after him on her own?’

  ‘He may not need the rest of us,’ said Aroma, ‘but he certainly couldn’t do without you.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Skybright. ‘I’m the one person he could do without. I’m lazy, I’m clumsy, I’m bad-tempered – in short, I’m just no good for the job.’

  ‘If he burns another hole in his peacock gold snow-cape, who’s going to mend it for him if you aren’t there?’ said Aroma mischievously. ‘Yes, my girl: all the excuses I used to hear from you in the past when I tried to get you to do something for me. You were no good at sewing, oh no! You didn’t even know how to hold a needle! And it isn’t as if it was my own sewing I’ve asked you about: it’s only ever been his things that I’ve asked you to help me with. No, you wouldn’t touch them. Yet I only have to be out of the house for a few days and there you are, sitting up all night sewing for him, even though you are half dead with the flu! What can the explanation of that be, I wonder? No, come on: I want to hear your answer.’

  But Skybright only ‘pshaw’-ed and went on smiling.

  They had been walking back to the summerhouse throughout these exchanges and were now re-entering it. Aunt Xue had come back again for the meal, so they reseated themselves in order of seniority with Aunt Xue at the head. Bao-yu poured a little tea onto some rice and merely pretended to share the meal with them. When they had finished eating, they sat talking over their tea or playing games.

  Outside, meanwhile, Periwinkle, Caltrop, Parfumée,Éitam-ine, Nénuphar and Cardamome, having been all over the Garden collecting flowers, sat down, with their laps full of them, in a little semicircle of lawn enclosed by high banks of flowering shrubbery and began playing ‘match-my-flower’.

  ‘I’ve got some Guanyin willow,’ said one.

  ‘I’ve got some Lohan pine,’ said another.

  ‘I’ve got gentleman’s bamboo.’

  ‘I’ve got lady’s plantain.’

  ‘I’ve got green starwort.’

  ‘I’ve got red moon-flower.’

  ‘I’ve got a peony from The Peony Pavilion’

  ‘I’ve got a lute-flower from The Story of the Lute.’

  ‘I’ve got “brothers and sisters”,’ said Cardamome.

  ‘I’ve got “husbands and wives”,’ said Caltrop.

  ‘There’s no such flower,’ said Cardamome.

  ‘Yes there is,’ said Caltrop. ‘There are two main ki
nds of orchid, the spring orchid, which has only one flower on each stem, and the summer orchid, which has several; but there’s more than one kind of summer orchid. There’s the kind that you’ve got, which has the flowers growing one above the other on the stem: that’s called “brothers and sisters” and there’s another kind like mine here, which has two flowers growing side by side at the top: that’s called a “husband and wife” orchid.’

  Cardamome rose to her feet. Unable to counter with botanical arguments, she resorted to jeering instead.

  ‘And I suppose it’s a “father and son” orchid if one flower’s bigger than the other and an “enemies” orchid if they’re growing back to back! It’s because your own husband’s been away so long: you can’t even look at an orchid now without thinking of him. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, dragging him into it like this!’

  Caltrop laughed, though her face had turned bright red.

  ‘You horrible little creature! What rubbish you talk!’

  She had begun getting up, intending to give Cardamome’s mouth a good pinch; but before she could do so, Cardamome had thrown herself upon her, forcing her backwards and pinning her to the ground, while at the same time she looked round and called to the other girls to help her.

  ‘Étamine! Nénuphar! Come and pinch her mouth for me!’

  Caltrop struggled to get free and the two of them rolled over and over on the ground. The others laughed and clapped their hands.

  ‘Careful! Mind the puddle!’ they shouted. ‘Mind she doesn’t spoil her skirt!’

  Cardamome looked round and saw that they had rolled towards a hollow in which rain-water had collected and that Caltrop’s skirt was half in it. Feeling somewhat scared, she let go of Caltrop, jumped up, and ran away. The others thought Caltrop’s plight a great joke, but fearing that, with Cardamome gone, she might vent her anger upon them, they ran off also, amidst peals of laughter.

  Caltrop got up and inspected her skirt. It was completely soaked, and the foul, stagnant water was dripping off it in half-a-dozen places. She was still exclaiming bitterly over it when Bao-yu appeared. Observing that the girls were playing match-my-flower, he had gone off to collect some flowers himself and had now come back to join them. Surprised to find the other girls all gone and Caltrop standing on her own there contemplating her skirt, he asked her what had happened to the game.