The Warning Voice

by Cao Xueqin

  ‘Yes, sir. I shall do my best to give satisfaction, sir,’ said Bao Er. ‘I realize it would be more than my life is worth to get into any trouble.’

  Cousin Zhen smiled and nodded.

  ‘Good. As long as you know.’

  For some minutes the four of them sat drinking together; but Er-jie knew that it was not for a family evening that Cousin Zhen had come and soon found an excuse for getting herself and her mother out of the way. She told him that she had to go to the other side of the house for something and was afraid to do so on her own. As soon as she and Mrs You were out of the room, Cousin Zhen drew up closer to San-jie. His behaviour became so familiar that the two maids in attendance grew embarrassed and slipped off to the kitchen. They were content that Cousin Zhen and San-jie should enjoy themselves in any way they chose, Provided that they did not have to stay and watch.

  Cousin Zhen’s two pages were all this time drinking with Bao Er in the kitchen, while the Mattress stood at the stove with her back to them. When the two maids burst in and began laughing and joking with the boys and asking to be given some wine, Bao Er was far from pleased.

  ‘What are you girls doing here? You ought to be in the sitting-room. Suppose they want service in there? There’ll be trouble.’

  His wife turned round wrathfully from the stove.

  ‘Silly old fool! Why don’t you get your nose back into your winecup? The sooner you’re flat on your back snoring and your little winkle tucked up out of harm’s way, the better it’ll be for all of us! What’s it to do with you whether they want service in there or not? I’m here to see to all that. If there’s any rain falling it won’t fall on your head. So what are you worrying about?’

  Bao Er was well aware that it was largely to his wife that he owed his favourable position with Jia Lian. He did little himself these days but draw his pay and drink his wine; but so exemplary was the Mattress’s service of Er-jie, that although Jia Lian knew of Bao Er’s failings, he had so far refrained from taking him to task about them out of consideration for her. Bao Er’s awareness of this kept him in obedient subjection to her. And so, when he heard himself addressed by her in this way, he merely drank a few more cups in silence and then took himself quietly off to bed.

  The Mattress had a few drinks herself now with the pages and the two girls, anxious to make herself as agreeable as possible so that the pages would give a good report of her to Cousin Zhen. But just as this little party in the kitchen was beginning to warm up, it was interrupted by a sudden knocking at the gate. The Mattress hurried out and opened it as Jia Lian was dismounting from his horse. In answer to his question whether there was anything to report, she whispered into his ear that Mr Zhen had come and was at this very moment in the guest-room in the west courtyard. Jia Lian went straight to his own room, where he found Er-jie sitting with her mother. The two women seemed somewhat flustered by his arrival, but he pretended not to notice.

  ‘Bring us some wine,’ he told the Mattress. ‘I think I shall have a cup or two and then go to bed. I feel rather tired tonight.’

  At once Er-jie was all over him, taking his coat, fetching him tea, asking him about his day – in short, showering on him all those little wifely attentions which so enchanted him. Presently the Mattress reappeared with their wine. Old Mrs You said that she did not want any and went off to bed. The two of them sat down together to drink it. One of the two maids, who had now been persuaded to resume their duties, came over from the kitchen to wait on them.

  Meanwhile Jia Lian’s trusty servant Rich – the only attendant he had brought with him on this visit – had been tying his master’s horse up in the stable. Finding another horse there already, he was able on closer inspection to identify it and to deduce what the Mattress by her whispering had attempted to conceal from him: viz., that Cousin Zhen was somewhere on the premises. Sure enough, on going to the kitchen when he had finished tying up the horse, he found two of Cousin Zhen’s pages, Happy and Lively, sitting there drinking. They, too, when they saw him enter, realized that both their masters must be present; but neither party was going to admit what each knew the other one must know.

  ‘We couldn’t keep up with the master,’ said Happy and Lively, ‘and it was getting too dark to go home, so we came here to beg a night’s shelter.’

  ‘There’s plenty of room here for you to sleep,’ said Rich expansively. ‘Make yourselves at home. Actually I came here to bring the mistress her monthly allowance. Now that I’ve given it to her, I think I shall spend the night here as well.’

  ‘Come and have a drink then,’ said Happy. ‘We’ve had a lot to drink already.’

  Rich sat down and poured himself some wine; but before he could drink any, there was a sound of neighing and trampling from the stable and he and Lively had to run out and shout at the horses. The two animals sharing the same manger had taken a dislike to each other and started kicking. It was only after a great deal of shouting and whoaing that the pages succeeded in quieting them and tying them up on separate sides of the stable.

  While they were doing this, Happy was able to drink several more cups of wine, and by the time they got back into the kitchen, he was already glassy-eyed. The Mattress was evidently waiting for an opportunity to retire.

  ‘Well, boys,’ she said to them as they entered, ‘I’ll leave you to it then. I’ve made you a pot of tea, so you can help yourselves. I’m going off to bed.’

  The boys were reluctant to let her go, and there was a good deal of kissing and fondling and noisy ribaldry before she finally succeeded in extricating herself. She closed the door behind her as she went, and Rich and Lively proceeded to bar it on the inside, preparatory to going to bed. When they went back to look at the kang, however, they found Happy sprawled out in the middle of it, already fast asleep.

  ‘Come on, there’s a good chap, get up and lie down again properly!’ they said, shaking him. ‘Don’t be so selfish! Where are we supposed to go?’

  ‘What about a bit of bum-cake?’ mumbled Happy, momentarily returning to consciousness. ‘Turn and turn about. Fair shares for all.’

  The others, seeing that he was too drunk to reason with, blew the lamp out and settled themselves on either side of him as best they could.

  The commotion in the stable had caused Er-jie’s apprehensiveness to return, but by forcing herself to keep up a flow of chatter, she succeeded in distracting Jia Lian’s attention away from it. So successful was she that, after a few more drinks, he began to grow amorous and, having first sent the girl off with the dirty things, proposed that they should bar the door for the night and begin undressing. Er-jie was beautiful at any time, but in only a crimson shift, with her fashionable coiffure shaken out into billowing black clouds and her face all soft and glowing with desire, she possessed an extra dimension of beauty that was not revealed in the daytime. He hugged her to him with a delighted laugh.

  ‘They’re always telling me how perfect that termagant wife of mine is,’ he said, ‘but the way you look tonight, she’s not fit to carry your shoes!’

  ‘I may have looks, but I’ve got no class,’ said Er-jie. ‘Without class, one might just as well not be good-looking.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ said Jia Lian. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You all treat me as if I were a fool,’ said Er-jie tearfully.’ ‘You think that I know nothing –’

  ‘No!’

  ‘– but though we’ve only been married two months –’

  ‘I know you’re not a fool!’ he insisted.

  ‘– though we’ve only been together for so short a time,’ she continued, ‘I already feel that I’m yours completely and for ever, in this life or any life to come. Because you are my husband, I shall always look up to you and never, never deceive you. My future is assured. But what is to become of my sister? We can’t let things go on the way they are at present. We must think of some permanent solution for her.’

  Jia Lian laughed reassuringly.

  ‘Look, I’m
not a jealous man. I know about your past and it doesn’t bother me. You really mustn’t worry. I realize that now we are married you must feel awkward about Cousin Zhen being here, but surely the solution would be for Cousin Zhen and your sister to have a formal union and after that we can forget our inhibitions and make it a foursome. What do you say to that?’

  Er-jie wiped her eyes.

  ‘It’s very nice of you to suggest it, but I don’t know what the other two would think of your idea. For one thing, my sister is such a funny girl. And for another, I don’t know whether your cousin would like having everything dragged out into the open.’

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ said Jia Lian, ‘you see! I’ll go over and have it out with him now. There’s no time like the present. It’s only a question of breaking the ice.’

  He strode off, the bolder for being a little drunk, to the courtyard on the western side of the compound. Light was streaming through the sitting-room window. He pushed the door open and walked in.

  ‘Where’s the big chief, then?’ he cried. ‘Cousin, I’ve come to pay you my respects!’

  Speechless with embarrassment, Cousin Zhen rose to his feet and motioned him dumbly to a seat.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Jia Lian, noting his embarrassment. ‘After we’ve always been such good friends, and after all you’ve done for me – because if I cut myself into a million pieces, I still couldn’t begin to show you how grateful I am – you’re not, surely, going to start feeling uneasy on my account? My dear coz, from this day on I want you to carry on exactly as you used to in the past. Otherwise I shall give up any idea of getting myself an heir and stop coming here altogether!’

  He tried to kneel down at this point, but Cousin Zhen, who was becoming quite frantic with embarrassment, quickly reached out to stop him.

  ‘All right, Lian,’ he said, ‘all right. Whatever you say, coz. I’ll be guided by you.’

  ‘Come on, let’s have some more wine!’ Jia Lian said to the servant-girl. ‘I’m going to drink with my dear cousin.’ He turned to San-jie with a leer. ‘Why don’t you and my dear cousin share a cup? You and Zhen drink a cup together and I’ll drink a cup to your future happiness. To Zhen and San-jie!’

  San-jie leaped to her feet and, pointing her finger at Jia Lian from where she stood on the kang, fixed him with a withering look of contempt.

  ‘Don’t try the talking horse on me, my friend! If you two want to drink, I’ll watch you drink. But count me out of it. People who work shadow-puppets should be careful not to break the screen. You surely can’t be so stupid as to imagine that we haven’t seen by now how things really stand in your household? If you and your cousin thought that by spending a few taels of your stinking money you could buy my sister and me for your whores, you were very much mistaken. You see, I know all about your old woman and how scared you are of her. I know that it’s because of her that when you married my sister you had to smuggle her out here like a man who’s stolen a gong and doesn’t dare to play on it. Well, I should like to meet this Feng lady and find out just how many heads and arms she’s got. If we can reach a satisfactory agreement, well and good; but if there’s the slightest difficulty, I’m perfectly prepared to take her on and fight it out with her single-handed. But before I do that, I promise to have the liver and lights out of you two, or my name’s not “San-jie”! – You said you wanted a drink, didn’t you? All right, I’ll drink with you.’

  She picked up the wine-kettle and poured out a cupful of wine; then, having drunk half of it herself, she threw an arm round Jia Lian’s neck and pressed the winecup to his lips.

  Jia Lian was shocked by this onslaught into instant soberness; and Cousin Zhen, ill-prepared for such strident shrewishness by what had passed earlier in the evening, was almost equally taken aback. The two of them, for all their boasted experience, found themselves reduced to a condition of tongue-tied helplessness by this single unmarried girl.

  But San-jie had not finished with them yet.

  ‘Why don’t you ask my sister to join us?’ she asked. ‘If we’re going to have fun, let’s all have fun together. “Home is handiest” as the proverb says. There are no outsiders here. We’re all in the family. Come one, come all!’

  Cousin Zhen was by now looking for an opportunity to leave, but San-jie was careful to give him none. He had not suspected that she could be like this and deeply regretted having come; but he could not simply walk out without giving offence to Jia Lian.

  Out of deliberate disregard for appearances she had taken off her hair-ornaments and outer clothes, and from time to time as she spoke, the animated gestures with which her words were accompanied caused the imperfectly-fastened crimson shift she was wearing to gape open, revealing glimpses of leekgreen breast-binder and snow-white flesh beneath; the red shoes that peeped out below her green drawers were all the time tap-tapping or coming together in a manner that was anything but ladylike, and her earrings bobbed to and fro like little swings. To her

  brow’s dusky crown and lips incarnadine

  the lamplight lent an added softness and brightness; and the wine she had drunk gave her eyes, which were at all times sparkling and vivacious, an even more irresistible allure. The two men were spellbound, and yet at the same time repelled. Her looks and gestures were all that inflamed concupiscence could desire; but her words and the very frankness of a provocation too brazen to be seductive kept them at bay.

  And a poor pair they made of it in a situation where something other than carnal satisfaction was required of them. Not only was there none of that lively repartee that might have been expected of men who prided themselves on their gallantry; they could not produce so much as a single amusing remark between them and sat there, as the effortless flow of talk continued to pour out of her, fascinated but unresponding. Sometimes she abused them, called them names, said the most outrageous things to them. It was as though the roles had been reversed – as though she was the man and they were a pair of poor, simpering playthings whose services she had paid for. And when she had had enough of playing with them, she dismissed them ignominiously, bolted the door after them, and went to bed.

  From that time onwards, whenever one of the servants did some small thing to displease her, she would launch into loud abuse of Cousin Zhen, Jia Lian and Jia Rong, denouncing all three of them as swindlers, deceivers and oppressors of the widow and the orphan.

  Cousin Zhen, when he finally got back after that visit, was chary of exposing himself again. Sometimes when San-jie felt in the mood, she would send one of the boys round to summon him and he would visit her then gladly enough, for he still had some small hope of winning her; but he was careful to behave himself when he did, and to defer in everything to her wishes.

  San-jie was a very peculiar young woman. She took a perverse pleasure in enhancing her natural beauty by affecting a striking style of dress and by adopting every conceivable kind of outrageously seductive attitude. The effect was that every male who encountered her was smitten – not only the susceptible ones like Jia Lian and Cousin Zhen, but those made of sterner stuff as well; yet all of them, after only a few minutes in her company, felt their ardour extinguished and their advances repelled by the reckless, forthright, almost insolent way in which she received them.

  When her mother and sister took her to task for her cavalier treatment of the two cousins, she told Er-jie she was ‘stupid’.

  ‘Why should that pair of precious rascals be allowed to ruin girls like us that are worth a million of them and get away with it?’ she said.’ They shan’t do so if I can help it. Besides, that wife of Lian’s is a very dangerous woman. We’re all right for the time being because she hasn’t found out yet about your marriage; but she will do one of these days, and when that time comes she’s not going to sit still and do nothing. There’s sure to be a most terrible row, and who knows which of us will come out of it alive? It’s only fair that they should be made to jump a bit now. If we’re going to end up with a bad name anyway, let’s at
least get what we can out of them while we’ve got the chance!’

  Her mother and sister, seeing that it was useless to argue with her, left her alone.

  San-jie certainly put her precept into practice. Her demands for special kinds of food, for clothing, for jewellery became daily more extravagant and capricious. Given a silver ornament she would express a desire for a gold one. If she had something with pearls in it, she would like something with gems in it as well. While she was eating the fatted goose, her mind was already contemplating the slaughter of the duck. And woe betide the cook if anything was not quite to her taste! Over would go dishes, table and all! Or, if a newlymade garment displeased her, no matter how expensive the material, she would quickly reduce it to ribbons, using a pair of scissors to aid the process and uttering a fresh malediction at every tear. Cousin Zhen, who, having some time previously exhausted the possibilities with Er-jie and grown somewhat tired of her, had willingly yielded her up to Jia Lian and transferred his attentions to her sister, now found that San-jie, far from proving the complaisant mistress he had hoped for, was actually costing him a great deal of money – money, moreover, on which there seemed little prospect of a return.

  Nowadays when Jia Lian came he spent the whole of his time there with Er-jie and scarcely dared venture from her room. Because of San-jie he too was beginning to regret the situation into which he had got himself.

  On the other hand Er-jie was so loving and so devoted to him; he found her so sympathetic. In her gentleness, in the wifely submissiveness with which she insisted on discussing everything with him before she would make any decision, she was ten times better than Xi-feng. And in respect of looks, voice and deportment she was at least five times better.