The Crab-Flower Club

by Cao Xueqin

  ‘No matter,’ said Grannie Liu. ‘Call her “Qiao-jie” then. That’s what the doctors mean when they talk about “fighting poison with poison and fire with fire”. You call her “Qiao-jie” like I say, and I guarantee that she’ll live to a ripe old age. I prophesy for this child that when she’s a big girl and the others are all going off to get married, she may for a time find that things are not going her way; but thanks to this name, all her misfortunes will turn into blessings, and what at first looked like bad luck will turn out to be good luck in the end.’

  Xi-feng was of course delighted with these ‘auspicious words’ and thanked her warmly.

  ‘May it turn out for her as you say!’

  She summoned Patience.

  ‘We’re going to be busy tomorrow and may not have the time then. As you’ve got nothing to do at the moment, why don’t you get the things for Grannie together, so that everything will be ready for her to start first thing tomorrow?’

  ‘Please don’t go giving me a lot of things,’ said Grannie Liu. ‘I’ve already put you to so much inconvenience these last few days, I should feel even more uncomfortable carrying a lot of things back with me.’

  ‘These are only very ordinary things,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Nothing special. Just a few things for you to take back with you and show off to the neighbours. Just so as to be able to say that you’ve been to town.’

  ‘Come over here, Grannie, and have a look,’ said Patience.

  Grannie Liu followed her into the next room. A full half of the kang was occupied by her piled-up presents. Patience picked them up one by one and explained them to her.

  ‘This sky-blue material is the gauze you said you wanted. The pale-blue gauze in a closer weave is a present from the Mistress to line it with. These are two lengths of wild-silk pongee. You can use it to make either a dress or a skirt with; it would do equally well for either. In this wrapping here there are two lengths of silk for making up into a New Year outfit. This is a box of various kinds of cakes and pastries made in the Imperial kitchens. There are some kinds that you’ve already eaten and some that you haven’t. You want to put them out on plates when you’re having someone to tea: you’ll find they’re a bit better than the ones you can buy in the shops. These two sacks are the ones you brought the vegetables in when you came. This one has got two bushels of pink “Emperor” rice in it. It makes a really delicious congee. This one has got fruit and nuts and other things from the Garden in it. And this packet here has got eight taels of silver in it. Everything up to here is from the Mistress. Now these two packets here have each got fifty taels of silver in them – a hundred taels in all. They’re a present from Her Ladyship, for starting a little business or buying some land with when you get back, so that you can be self-sufficient in future and not have to keep falling back on your friends. The two jackets’ – here Patience smiled somewhat embarrassedly – ‘the two jackets and the two skirts and the four head-scarves and the packet of embroidery silks are a present from me. The clothes have only been worn a very little but they aren’t new: so if you decide to throw them back at me, I shan’t complain.’

  Grannie Liu had been exclaiming rapturously as each item was shown to her and must have uttered several dozen ‘Holy Names’ by the time Patience came to her own gift.

  ‘Throw them back at you, Miss?’ she said warmly, touched by the maid’s kindness and humility. ‘How can you say such a thing? Fine clothes like these? I shouldn’t know where to buy them if I had the money! You make me feel ashamed. I don’t like to take them off you; yet if I don’t, you will think me ungrateful.’

  ‘Get away with you!’ said Patience. ‘That sort of talk is for strangers, and you are one of us. If I didn’t think of you so, I’d never have dared make the offer. You just take them and stop worrying. In any case, there’s something I want from you in return. Next New Year, bring us some of your home-dried mixed vegetables: pigweed and cowpeas and kidney beans and dried aubergines and dried gourd-shavings. Everyone here loves them. You just bring us some of them. We don’t want anything else from you, mind, so don’t go wondering what else to bring. Just bring some of them, and we’ll be quits.’

  Grannie Liu thanked her warmly and promised to remember the dried vegetables.

  ‘Now off to bed with you!’ said Patience. ‘I’ll look after this lot for you. You can leave it here tonight, and tomorrow we’ll send the boys out for a cab and get them to load it for you. So you’ve got nothing to worry about.’

  Overwhelmed by so much kindness, Grannie Liu went back into the other room to take her leave of Xi-feng, and after thanking her many times over, went off to Grandmother Jia’s apartment to spend the night.

  She was up betimes next morning and would like to have said good-bye to Grandmother Jia as soon as she had completed her toilet, and made an early start; but the family forestalled her. Knowing that the old lady was indisposed, they had trooped in first thing to inquire how she was and had already sent outside for a doctor. The latter’s arrival at the mansion was shortly after announced by an old woman-servant, whereupon the old women in attendance on Grandmother Jia urged her to conceal herself behind the curtains of the summer-bed. But Grandmother Jia refused to budge.

  ‘I’m old, too, woman – old enough to be his mother, I shouldn’t wonder. What have I got to fear from him at my age? I’m not going behind any curtains. Let him examine me where I am.’

  Seeing that she was resolved to stay, the old women brought up a little table and put a small pillow on it for her to rest her arm on. These preparations completed, they gave orders for the doctor to be admitted.

  Dr Wang was shortly to be observed crossing the courtyard below, conducted by Cousin Zhen, Jia Lian and Jia Rong. Modestly declining to walk up the central ramp, he followed Cousin Zhen up the right-hand side steps onto the terrace, where two old women, one on either side of the doorway, were holding up the door-blind in readiness. Bao-yu came forward to welcome the doctor as the two old women were conducting him through the outer room, and led him, still accompanied by the other gentlemen, to his grandmother inside.

  The old lady was sitting up very stiffly on a couch. She was wearing a black crepe jacket lined with pearly-haired baby lamb’s skin. Four little maids, their hair still done up in childish ‘horns’, stood two on either side of her, holding fly-whisks and spittoons, and five or six old serving-women were fanned out in a sort of bodyguard behind her. Vaguely discernible glimpses of brightly-coloured dresses and golden hair-ornaments betrayed the presence of numerous younger women behind the green muslin curtains at the back. Not daring to raise his head in so much female company, Dr Wang advanced and saluted his patient. Observing that he was dressed in the uniform of a mandarin of the sixth rank, Grandmother Jia deduced that he must be a Court Physician, and in returning his salutation was careful to address him with the ‘Worshipful’ to which his appointment entitled him.

  ‘And what is the Worshipful’s name?’ she asked Cousin Zhen.

  ‘Wang.’

  ‘When I was a young woman, the President of the Imperial College of Physicians was a Wang,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Wang Jun-xiao. Famous for his diagnoses.’

  The doctor bowed.

  ‘He was my great-uncle,’ he said, smiling demurely, but still not daring to raise his head.

  Grandmother Jia laughed.

  ‘That makes you a friend of the family.’

  She stretched out an arm and slowly arranged it for him on the pillow. The old women brought up a large stool which they set down in front of her table and slightly to one side. Dr Wang knelt on it, squatting on his heel with one haunch so that he was half-sitting on the edge of the stool, and in that polite but uncomfortable posture proceeded at great length to take the old lady’s pulses, first in one arm and then in the other. After that he made another bow and retired, eyes still on the floor, as they had been throughout the consultation.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Grandmother Jia as he was leaving. ‘See him out, will you, Z
hen? And see that he gets some tea.’

  Murmuring a reply, Cousin Zhen himself withdrew, followed by Jia Lian and Jia Rong, and conducted Dr Wang back to one of the gentlemen’s rooms in the front part of the mansion.

  ‘There’s nothing seriously wrong with Lady Jia,’ said Dr Wang when they were seated. ‘She has a slight chill. There is no need for her to take any medicine. A light, simple diet for a day or two and see that she keeps warm. That should be enough. I’ll write out a prescription that you can have made up if she feels like taking something. If not, I should just forget about it.’

  He drank his tea and wrote out the prescription. Just as he was about to leave, the nurse came hurrying in with Xi-feng’s little girl in her arms.

  ‘Doctor, have a look at us too, will you?’

  The doctor went over, took one of the child’s hands and supported it on his own left hand while he felt her pulse. Then he felt her forehead and inspected her tongue.

  ‘I’m afraid the young lady is not going to be very pleased with my advice,’ he said with a smile. ‘A good, cleansing hunger is what she needs. Let her miss a couple of meals. No need for a prescription. I shall send you some pills that you can dissolve in hot ginger-water and give her to drink at bedtime. That should help do the trick.’

  With that he took his leave once more and departed.

  Cousin Zhen and the other two went back to Grandmother Jia’s apartment with the prescription and reported what the doctor had said. Then they laid the prescription on the table and withdrew.

  Lady Wang, Li Wan, Xi-feng, Bao-chai and the rest came out from behind the curtain as soon as the doctor had gone. Lady Wang sat with Grandmother Jia for a while before returning to her own apartment.

  The coast was now at last clear for Grannie Liu to come forward and take her leave.

  ‘You must come again when you have the time,’ said Grandmother Jia. She ordered Faithful to see her off. ‘I can’t see you off myself,’ she said. ‘I’m not feeling too well today.’

  Grannie Liu, having thanked her and said good-bye, followed Faithful out of the room and into a room at the side of the courtyard. Faithful pointed to a large bundle on the kang:

  ‘These are dresses given to Her Old Ladyship by various people over the years as birthday or festival presents, but as she refuses to wear any clothes made by outsiders, they’ve none of them ever been worn. It’s a shame to keep them, really. She told me yesterday to pick out a few for you to take back with you, either to give away as presents or to wear yourself about the house. In this box here you’ll find those pastries you wanted. This parcel has got the medicines in you were talking about the other day: the Red Flower Poison Dispellers, the Old Gold Anti-Fever Pastilles, the Blood Renewing Elixir Pills and the Easy Birth Pills. You’ll find each kind wrapped up separately inside its own prescription. These two little silk purses are to wear.’ Faithful undid the draw-strings and extracted from each purse a golden ‘Heart’s Desire’ medallion with a device showing an ingot, a writing-brush and a sceptre. She smiled at Grannie Liu mischievously:

  ‘You give me these and keep the purses.’

  Grannie Liu, surprised and delighted (as she showed by her many pious ejaculations) to be receiving these further presents in addition to what Patience had shown her the night before, seemed eager to accede to this request.

  ‘Yes, yes, Miss. You keep them by all means.’

  Faithful, who had not intended to be taken seriously, replaced the medallions in their purses and did them up again.

  ‘I was only pulling your leg. I’ve got lots of these things already. Keep them to give the children at New Year.’

  While she was speaking, a little maid came in carrying a Cheng Hua enamelled porcelain cup, which she handed to Grannie Liu.

  ‘Master Bao said I was to give you this.’

  ‘Well!’ said Grannie Liu as she took the cup from her. ‘Now what do you make of that? Reckon it must be something I did for him in a past life.’

  ‘Those clothes I gave you to change into the other day when you had your bath were mine,’ said Faithful. ‘If you don’t mind taking them off me, I’ve got some more like them that I’d like to make you a present of.’

  As Grannie Liu made no objection, Faithful got out several more sets of clothing and wrapped them up for her.

  Grannie Liu wanted to go into the Garden to thank Bao-yu and the girls and say good-bye to them; she also wanted to take her leave of Lady Wang; but Faithful prevented her.

  ‘It isn’t necessary. In any case, they won’t be seeing anyone at this hour. I can thank them for you when I see them later. Well, good-bye then. Come again when you can.’

  She ordered an old servant-woman to fetch two pages from the inner gate to help Grannie Liu out with her things. The old servant undertook to do this and also went with Grannie Liu to collect the things from Xi-feng’s apartment. When they had got them all together, she fetched the boys from the outside corner gate who carried them out to the street for her and loaded them into a waiting cab. Grannie Liu and Ban-er then got in themselves and set off without more ado on their journey back home.

  At this point they pass also out of our narrative, which turns now to other matters.

  After they had eaten their lunch, Bao-chai and the rest of the young people called once more on Grandmother Jia, to see how she was progressing. On their way back, as they reached that point in the Garden where their paths separated, Bao-chai called Dai-yu over to her.

  ‘Frowner, come with me. There’s something I want to talk to you about.’

  Dai-yu followed her to Allspice Court. When they were inside her room, Bao-chai sat down.

  ‘Well?’ she said to Dai-yu. ‘Aren’t you going to kneel down? I am about to interrogate you.’

  Dai-yu was mystified.

  ‘Poor Bao-chai!’ she said, laughing. ‘The girl’s gone off her head. Interrogate me about what?’

  ‘My dear, well-bred young lady!’ said Bao-chai. ‘My dear, sheltered young innocent! What were those things I heard you saying yesterday? Come now, the truth!’

  Dai-yu, still mystified, continued to laugh. She was beginning to feel somewhat uneasy, though she would not admit it.

  ‘What awful thing am I supposed to have said? I expect you’re making it up, but you may as well tell me.’

  ‘Still acting the innocent?’ said Bao-chai. ‘What were those things you said yesterday when we were playing that drinking game? I couldn’t think where you could have got them from.’

  Dai-yu cast her mind back and remembered, blushing, that the day before, when stumped for an answer, she had got through her turn by citing passages from The Return of the Soul and The Western Chamber. She hugged Bao-chai imploringly.

  ‘Dear coz! I really don’t know. I just said them without thinking. If you tell me not to, I promise not to say them again.’

  ‘I really don’t know either,’ said Bao-chai. ‘I just thought they sounded rather interesting. I thought perhaps you might be able to tell me what they were.’

  ‘Dear coz! Please don’t tell anyone about this. I promise not to repeat such things again.’

  Moved by the scarlet, shame-filled face and pitifully entreating voice, Bao-chai relented and did not pursue her questioning. Having first drawn her down into a seat and handed her some tea, she began, very gently, to address her in the following manner:

  ‘What do you take me for? I’m just as bad. At seven or eight I used to be a real little terror. Ours was reckoned to be rather a literary family. My grandfather was a bibliophile, so the house we lived in was full of books. We were a big family in those days. All my boy cousins and girl cousins on my father’s side lived with us in the same house. All of us younger people hated serious books but liked reading poetry and plays. The boys had got lots and lots of plays: The Western Chamber, The Lute-player, A Hundred Yuan Plays – just about everything you could think of. They used to read them behind our backs, and we girls used to read them behind theirs. Eventually
the grown-ups got to know about it and then there were beatings and lectures and burning of books – and that was the end of that.

  ‘So, you see, in the case of us girls it would probably be better for us if we never learned to read in the first place. Even boys, if they gain no understanding from their reading, would do better not to read at all; and if that is true of boys, it certainly holds good for girls like you and me. The little poetry-writing and calligraphy we indulge in is not really our proper business. Come to that, it isn’t a boy’s proper business either. A boy’s proper business is to read books in order to gain an understanding of things, so that when he grows up he can play his part in governing the country.

  ‘Not that one hears of that happening much nowadays. Nowadays their reading seems to make them even worse than they were to start with. And unfortunately it isn’t merely a case of their being led astray by what they read. The books, too, are spoiled, by the false interpretations they put upon them. They would do better to leave books alone and take up business or agriculture. At least they wouldn’t do so much damage.

  ‘As for girls like you and me: spinning and sewing are our proper business. What do we need to be able to read for? But since we can read, let us confine ourselves to good, improving books; let us avoid like the plague those pernicious works of fiction, which so undermine the character that in the end it is past reclaiming.’

  This lengthy homily had so chastened Dai-yu that she sat with head bowed low over her teacup and, though her heart consented, could only manage a weak little ‘yes’ by way of reply.

  At that moment Candida came into the room:

  ‘Mrs Zhu says will you please come over to discuss an important matter with her? Miss Ying and Miss Tan and Miss Xi and Miss Shi and Master Bao are there already, waiting for you.’

  ‘I wonder what it is this time,’ said Bao-chai.

  ‘We shall soon find out if we go,’ said Dai-yu.

  So off she went, and Bao-chai with her, to Sweet-rice Village. They found everyone else there, as Candida had said. Li Wan greeted them with a smile.