The Warning Voice

by Cao Xueqin

  She went back to the pavilion then, to finish stacking the crockery.

  *

  Lady Wang was wrong. Dai-yu and Xiang-yun had not gone to bed. The sight of all those Jias enjoying the moonlight (in spite of Grandmother Jia’s complaint that the numbers were so few) and the thought of Bao-chai and Bao-qin enjoying a moon-party of their own with Aunt Xue and the two Xue males made the occasion a painful one for Dai-yu. She had slipped away not in order to go to bed but to lean on the terrace railings and cry. Bao-yu on this occasion had little thought for anything but Skybright’s illness, which had lately taken a serious turn for the worse, and after several appeals from his mother to go to bed, he had availed himself of the excuse for going back in order to find out how she was. Tan-chun was still feeling too much out of temper after the recent domestic upheavals to have any appetite for amusement. Ying-chun and Xi-chun might have kept Dai-yu company, but since they did not as a rule get on with her very well, it would not have occurred to them to do so. That left only Xiang-yun to offer her some comfort.

  ‘Now coz, this won’t do! You’re an intelligent girl: you must take more care of yourself. I must say, it is too bad of Chai and Qin. All that talk about spending Mid-Autumn night enjoying the moon together and using the occasion to revive the Poetry Club with another linked couplets session – and then, when the time comes, they leave us in the lurch and go off to enjoy the moon by themselves! No Poetry Club, no linked couplets, nothing! It’s all the fault of those wretched men! You remember the remark made by the first Song emperor: “No one but me is allowed to snore in this bedroom!” That’s the menfolk’s attitude at a party. Never mind. Since the others haven’t come, we’ll make up some linked couplets ourselves and take them along tomorrow to shame them with.’

  Xiang-yun was so enthusiastic a comforter that Dai-yu felt she could not show herself wholly unresponsive.

  ‘The trouble is, all these people here are making so much noise,’ she said. ‘It’s not an atmosphere very conducive to poetic inspiration.’

  ‘Although the hilltop is a good place for enjoying the moon from,’ said Xiang-yun, ‘the moon would look even better over water. I don’t know whether you realize it, but one side of this hill does actually give onto the lake. There is a little building there called the Concave Pavilion nestling in a hollow quite close to the water’s edge. Whoever made this Garden must have been quite an educated person. The place where we are now is obviously called the Convex Pavilion because it is on top of the convex hill, and Concave Pavilion must have been given its name because it is in a hollow. Those two words “concave” and “convex” are very seldom encountered in literature. Their use in landscape gardening for the naming of features must be even rarer. To my mind the linking together of these two pavilions by so unusual a pair of names suggests that they must have been specially designed for viewing the moon from: Convex Pavilion for those who like the small, remote moon of the mountains and high places, Concave Pavilion for those who prefer the silky whiteness of the great orb reflected in the surface of the water. “Convex” and “concave” are often thought of as vulgar, unpoetical words, but that is only because of their modern associations. Some people even call that well-known line of Lu You’s vulgar:

  In well-worn concave patch the ground ink settles;

  but I find that criticism rather silly.’

  ‘Lu You is by no means the only writer to have used those words in a work of literature,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Jiang Yan uses them in his prose-poem “Moss”, Dong-fang Shuo uses them somewhere in his Book of Marvels, and in Lives of the Painters they turn up in a description of Zhang Seng-yao’s decoration of the Ekayāna Monastery at Nanking. In fact, there must be countless instances in literature. I think it’s merely ignorance that nowadays leads people to dismiss them as “unpoetical”. To tell you the truth, it was I who gave these two pavilions their names. That year when Bao-yu did all the naming of places in the Garden there were several places left over afterwards which he either hadn’t got round to naming or had given names to that were thought unsuitable, and the task of naming them was given to us girls. The names we made up were taken to the Palace for Cousin Yuan’s approval and she sent word back saying that provided Uncle Zheng approved of them they were to be used. So that’s how I came to name these two pavilions. All right, let’s go down then.’

  The two girls descended the slope of the little mountain. A few steps round a turn in the pathway which skirted the foot of it took them to the pavilion. Near the water’s edge, linking it with Lotus Pavilion farther along the shore, was a bamboo railing. The two old women who were on night watch in it, little imagining that an overspill from the hilltop party would come their way, had long since put their light out and gone to sleep. Dai-yu and Xiang-yun laughed when they saw that the pavilion was in darkness.

  ‘They’ve gone to sleep. Never mind. All the better. Let’s sit outside here on the covered verandah and look at the moonlight on the water.’

  They found a couple of drum-shaped bamboo stools to sit down on. A great white moon in the water reflected the great white moon above, competing with it in brightness. The girls felt like mermaids sitting in a shining crystal palace beneath the sea. A little wind that brushed over the surface of the water making tiny ripples seemed to cleanse their souls and fill them with buoyant lightness.

  ‘If only I were in a boat now, with some wine to drink!’ said Xiang-yun. ‘If this were my own home, I should jump into a boat now immediately.’

  ‘There’s an old saying: “Who seeks perfection must abandon joy”,’ said Dai-yu. ‘If you ask me, I think we are very well the way we are. Why do we have to be in a boat to enjoy this?’

  Xiang-yun laughed.

  ‘“One conquest breeds appetite for another.” That applies to most of us, you know, not only to generals.’

  While she was speaking, a flute began to play. They listened for some moments to its plaintive rise and fall.

  ‘Grandma and Aunt Wang are obviously enjoying themselves,’ said Dai-yu, smiling. ‘The flute is a very happy touch. We shall put it to our own purposes, you and I. It shall inspire our verse. We both like pentameters, don’t we? Let’s do linked pentameters as we did on that other occasion.’

  ‘What rhyme?’ said Xiang-yun.

  ‘We could use a number for a rhyme,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Let’s count the uprights in the railing as far as that angle over there. Whatever the number is shall be our rhyme.’

  ‘That’s a very ingenious idea,’ said Xiang-yun.

  The two girls got up and walked along the railing to count.

  It turned out that there were exactly eight posts from one angle of the railing to the next.

  ‘Hmn,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Eight. I wonder how far we shall get with that rhyme. The danger with this sort of thing always is that after a time the rhyming becomes forced – or else one simply can’t go on at all. Well, you begin.’

  ‘I’d like to have been able to see afterwards which of us had done better,’ said Dai-yu, ‘but unfortunately we haven’t got anything to write with.’

  ‘I’ll write it out tomorrow,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I may not be very clever, but I’ve got a reasonably good memory.’

  ‘All right,’ said Dai-yu. ‘I’ll start with something very prosy and obvious.’

  DAI-YU:

  Fifteenth night of the Eighth, Mid-Autumn moon –

  Xiang-yun thought a bit before following.

  XIANG-YUN:

  Whose joys the First Full Moon’s do emulate. Under your crystal-constellated heaven –

  DAI-YU:

  The sounds of music everywhere pulsate.

  At many a board the reckless winecups fly –

  ‘Ha! I like the “reckless winecups”,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I must try to do them justice. Let me see.’

  ‘She thought for a bit.

  XIANG-YUN:

  Where friends are met your feast to celebrate.

  The air is crisp, the wind more bracing bl
ows –

  ‘You finished the couplet very well,’ said Dai-yu, ‘but that second line is a bit weak, isn’t it?’

  ‘We’ve got a long way to go and the rhyming will soon begin to get harder,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I want to save up any good ideas I may have until later.’

  ‘Mind you produce some good lines later then,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Otherwise you are going to look pretty silly!’

  She proceeded to finish the couplet.

  DAI-YU:

  In the clear sky the cold stars scintillate.

  Grey hairs are mocked when they for cakes dispute –

  ‘I don’t like that line,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘It sounds like an allusion, but I think you have just made it up to confuse me.’

  ‘That shows you don’t read much,’ said Dai-yu. ‘It’s a perfectly good allusion. There’s a story about quarrelling over cakes in the Official History of the Tang Dynasty. I’ll show you it tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, anyway, I’m not going to be confused,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I can cap that line.’

  XIANG-YUN:

  Green girls divide the melons, eight and eight.

  New scents the jade-like cassia have enriched –

  ‘Now that really is a bogus allusion,’ said Dai-yu.

  ‘We’ll look both our allusions up tomorrow and the others can judge between us,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘In the meanwhile, let’s get on with this and stop wasting time.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ said Dai-yu, ‘but I don’t like your other line either. We ought to be able to manage without clichés like “jade-like cassia”. I call that mere padding.’

  DA.-YU:

  Closed day-lilies the morrow’s gold gestate. A blaze of candles gilds the radiant feasters –

  ‘“Gold gestate”!’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Well, that’s one way of getting a rhyme – a pretty cheap one if you ask me! And your second line is quite as much padding as mine was.’

  ‘If you hadn’t started with “jade-like cassia”, I shouldn’t have brought in my gold-gestating day-lilies,’ said Dai-yu. ‘And as regards my second line, I should have thought a few words on the brilliance of the feast were called for, in order to do justice to the occasion.’

  Since Dai-yu was evidently not going to concede anything, Xiang-yun was obliged to finish off the couplet.

  XIANG-YUN:

  Whom frequent sconcings soon inebriate. Competing, they observe the game’s strict order –

  ‘Ah, that’s a good line!’ said Dai-yu.

  She thought a bit before capping it.

  DAI-YU:

  And rules for ‘I spy’ gravely promulgate.

  Some shake the pretty dice and make them roll –

  ‘I like “gravely promulgate”,’ said Xiang-yun, laughing. ‘It lifts a vulgar subject up and gives it tone. But then your “dice” in the next line bring us back again to the banal.’

  She followed as best she could.

  XIANG-YUN:

  Or, to the drum’s quick beat, the branch rotate.

  The clear rays glint on roofs and courts below –

  ‘Well capped!’ said Dai-yu. ‘But then in your next line you wander off the track. Is that the best you can do, padding out with that stuff about moonlight?’

  ‘In point of fact we haven’t said much about the moon yet,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Surely a few words on the subject are in order? Isn’t that what our poem is supposed to be about?’

  ‘All right, let it pass,’ said Dai-yu. ‘We’ll have another look at it tomorrow.’

  She continued.

  DAI-YU:

  And all in silvery light illuminate.

  Prizes and forfeits impartially they ponder –

  ‘Oh dear! are we back with that lot again?’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Why not something about ourselves for a change?’

  XIANG-YUN:

  Sibling verse-contests they adjudicate.

  Poets lean on railings, seeking inspiration –

  ‘You’ve managed to get round to us at last!’ said Dai-yu.

  DAI-YU:

  Or hunt for rhymes, propped up against a gate.

  The excitement lingers, though the party’s over –

  ‘Oh, does it?’ said Xiang-yun.

  XIANG-YUN:

  The sounds of music softly terminate.

  Slowly the talk and laughter fade to silence –

  ‘It’s getting harder all the time now to rhyme,’ said Dai-yu.

  DAI-YU:

  Leaving a moonscape hushed and desolate.

  On dewy steps the tiny toadstools sprout –

  ‘Just a minute, I can’t think how to rhyme this,’ said Xiang-yun.

  She got up and paced to and fro, hands clasped behind her, thinking.

  ‘Ha, yes, that’ll do!’ she said after some moments. ‘Good job I thought of that word, otherwise I might have had to give up.’

  XIANG-YUN:

  Tight-curled albizzia bushes pernoctate.

  A rain-swelled swirl rips through the brook-bed rocks –

  Dai-yu leapt to her feet, unable to restrain a cry of admiration.

  ‘You wretch! You certainly have left the good things till last. “Pernoctate” is a splendid word. But what is “albizzia” for goodness’ sake?’

  ‘I came across it yesterday in the Prose Anthology,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I was going to look it up because I didn’t know what kind of tree it was, but Cousin Chai told me I didn’t need to: she said it was another name for what we nowadays call “mimosa”. I didn’t believe her, so I looked it up all the same. She was right. That girl knows everything.’

  ‘Well, it was very clever of you to have thought of it,’ said Dai-yu, smiling, ‘especially as mimosa does in fact close up at night. But that “rain-swelled swirl” line is brilliant. That single line is worth all the lines we have made up so far put together. I shall have to think very carefully before capping it. I very much doubt whether, even so, I shall be able to think of anything as good.’

  After thinking for a while, she produced the following.

  DAI-YU:

  And wind-combed leaves on ledges congregate.

  The Weaving Maid in lonely splendour shines –

  ‘Your capping line is not at all bad,’ said Xiang-yun, ‘but that second line wanders off the track a bit. Still, I suppose you could say your “Weaving Maid” is saved from being mere padding by the “lonely”. It introduces an element of feeling into the line.’

  XIANG-YUN:

  Damp airs the silver Toad of the moon inflate.

  See where the Hare immortal medicine pounds –

  Dai-yu nodded silently for some moments before reciting her own two lines.

  DAI-YU:

  Thither Chang E was forced to emigrate.

  A man moves upwards through the constellations –

  Xiang-yun, gazing up at the moon, also nodded.

  XIANG-YUN:

  A raft floats skywards with a human freight.

  Waxing or waning, the moon’s face, ever changing –

  ‘That capping line is not good,’ said Dai-yu. ‘It merely repeats what my line said in other words. You manage to get clear again with your second line. I suppose you wanted to compensate for the sameness of the first couplet by making a big jump in the second.’

  DAI-YU:

  Its substance changeless and inanimate.

  Soon the clepsydra’s night-long drip will cease –

  Xiang-yun was about to continue when Dai-yu drew her attention to a black shape in the middle of the lake.

  ‘Look, in that dark shadow there, like a human shape! Do you think it could be a ghost?’

  Xiang-yun laughed.

  ‘Oh, she’s seeing ghosts now! I’m not afraid of ghosts. I shall throw a stone at it.’

  She bent down to pick up a pebble and hurled it into the centre of the lake. They heard a plop and saw the distorted image of the moon expand and contract as concentric ripples travelled outwards from the shattered surface. There was a loud squawk, and from
the middle of the dark shadow a white stork flew up and flapped his way across the water in the direction of Lotus Pavilion.

  ‘So that’s who it was!’ said Dai-yu. ‘I wasn’t expecting him to be there. He gave me quite a shock.’

  ‘I’m very grateful to that stork,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘He’s given me a first line for the next couplet.’

  XIANG-YUN:

  Black shades the lamp’s last gleams annihilate

  A stork’s dark shape crosses the cold, bright water –

  Dai-yu murmured admiringly, but stamped with vexation when she began to think about finishing the couplet.

  ‘Wretched stork, coming to her aid like that! This is not like the “rain-swelled swirl” couplet: I’m not going to be able to complete it by paralleling the whole line. A contrast for the dark moving shape is the most I can hope for. But your line is so natural, so simple and expressive. I feel almost like giving up.’

  ‘Perhaps if we both thought about it we could finish it together,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Or, if you prefer, let’s break off now and you can try again tomorrow.’

  Dai-yu stared up at the sky, ignoring her. Suddenly, after remaining immobile for some seconds, she gave a little laugh.

  ‘Stop your chatter, girl! I can finish this couplet. Listen:

  DAI-YU:

  Where, moon-embalmed, a dead muse lies in state.

  Xiang-yun clapped her hands.

  ‘Excellent! Couldn’t be better! I love your “dead muse”!’ She sighed. ‘I mean excellent from a purely poetic point of view, because it’s so original. It’s a bit morbid, though. I don’t think it can be good for a person in your state of health to indulge in such chilling fantasies.’

  ‘With you to compete against, how else could I keep my end up?’ said Dai-yu. ‘Because I put so much into that last line –’

  Just at that moment a figure stepped out from behind the spur of rock beyond the railings.