The Crab-Flower Club

by Cao Xueqin

  Wu Jin-xiao promptly appeared. He knelt down in the courtyard below and had already kotowed and called out his greetings before Cousin Zhen could have him raised up and brought into the hall.

  ‘You are still hale and hearty then?’ Cousin Zhen asked him.

  ‘Yes, sir, thank you sir,’ said the old man, beaming. ‘I still manage to get about.’

  ‘Your sons must be quite big fellows by now,’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘Why don’t you let them do the travelling for you?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, sir, I’m so used to the journey, I’d miss it now if I wasn’t to come. Shouldn’t know what to do with myself. The boys would be only too glad to come if I’d let them, of course – see what it’s like here “in the Emperor’s shadow” as we say – but they’re only youngsters yet: I’d be afeared of them having some mishap on the way. A few years longer and I shan’t need to worry.’

  ‘How many days have you been on the road?’ said Cousin Zhen.

  ‘Well, sir, as you know, there was a lot of snow this year: it must have been lying three or four foot thick in places. And that sudden thaw we had coming on top of it made the going very difficult. That must have put us back several days. It’s taken a month and two days altogether. But I do assure you, sir, seeing that the time was running out and knowing how anxious you’d be, we made as much speed as we could.’

  ‘I was wondering what could have made you so late,’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘Well, I’ve been looking at this list of yours. I see you’re holding out on me again this year, you old devil.’

  Wu Jin-xiao advanced a couple of steps – springing, as it were, to his own defence:

  ‘It’s like this, sir. The harvests this year have been really terrible. From the third month to the eighth month it rained on and off all the time. I doubt we had six fine days in a row together. Then in the ninth month we had hail as big as teacups. For fifty miles around, the damage to crops and livestock – and houses and people as well, for that matter – was terrible. That’s why I haven’t brought you more this year. That’s the honest truth, sir. You know I wouldn’t lie to you.’

  ‘I’d reckoned on your bringing me at least five thousand taels,’ said Cousin Zhen, frowning. ‘What am I supposed to do with an amount like this? We have only eight or nine farms now and of those eight or nine two have declared themselves disaster areas this year and aren’t contributing anything. With you holding back on me too, I might as well give up celebraing New Year altogether.’

  ‘Your lands have done better than some,’ said Wu Jin-xiao. ‘Take my cousin’s place. That’s only thirty mile from where I am, but my word, what a difference! My cousin manages eight farms for your relations at the other House. They’ve got several times as much land as you, but the vittles he’s brought them this year are no more than this lot here, and their cash yield on sales is no more than two or three thousand. Now they really have got something to make a fuss about.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘We’re not too badly off on this side. At least we haven’t got any new major commitments outside our regular annual expenditure. For us it’s a question of spending a bit more freely when we’re flush and economizing a bit when things are tighter. And even in the case of these New Year expenses, I suppose I could cut down on them if I really had to. It would simply be a question of brazening it out. But with our Rong-guo cousins it’s different. They’ve had all these new expenses during the past few years, none of which were optional, but no new source of income to set against them. Which means that for the past year or two they’ve had to start eating into their capital. If you folk can’t help them to make up the deficit, who else is there they can turn to?’

  ‘I know they’ve got a lot on their plate,’ said Wu Jin-xiao with a knowing smile, ‘but it can’t all be outgoings, can it? There must be something coming in as well. Surely Her Grace and old Live-For-Ever must give them a hand-out once in a while?’

  Cousin Zhen turned to Jia Rong with a laugh.

  ‘You heard that? Rich, isn’t it?’

  Jia Rong tittered.

  ‘What does a countryman like you living at the back of beyond know about such matters? You don’t suppose Her Grace has handed them the keys of the Emperor’s treasury, do you? She’s not her own mistress, even if she wanted to. She does give presents, of course, but it’s only on birthdays and feastdays and the like and never more than a few lengths of figured satin or some curios or knick-knacks. Even when she gives money, at the very most it will be a hundred gold. Now say a hundred gold is worth a thousand silver taels – it can’t be much more than that – what possible good can a thousand taels do them, when during each of the past two years they’ve been forced to draw on their capital to the tune of several thousands a year? During the first of those two years they had the Visitation – including the building of that great garden. Just imagine what that must have cost them. Another two years like these last two with another Visitation thrown in and they’ll be cleaned out!’

  ‘These simple country souls see “the bright outside but not the dark within”,’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘The situation our Rong-guo cousins are in is like the proverbial chime-hammer made of phellodendron wood: imposing to look at but bitter inside.’

  ‘You can tell they really are hard-up,’ said Jia Rong half-jokingly. ‘The other day I heard Auntie Lian plotting with Faithful to steal some of Lady Jia’s things to use as security for a loan.’

  ‘No, I think that was merely our Feng being her usual artful self,’ said Cousin Zhen, laughing. ‘They’re still not that poor. I expect she has noticed how much they have been spending beyond their means and is planning some economy or other. What you overheard would simply have been her way of letting people know how hard-up they are and preparing them for some cuts. I’ve got a rough idea of how their finances stand at present and I assure you that they aren’t quite as desperate as that yet.’

  Concluding the conversation on this more reassuring note, Cousin Zhen gave Wu Jin-xiao into the charge of the servants with instructions that he was to be properly looked after and entertained. Our narrative does not follow the old man into the servants’ quarters, however, but remains in the hall with Cousin Zhen.

  Cousin Zhen had a portion of the things that Wu Jin-xiao had brought set aside to be used as offerings to the ancestors; he had another portion set aside for sending to Rong-guo House; and while Jia Rong attended to its delivery, he personally supervised the selection of a third portion which he intended to keep for his own use. What remained he had piled up in orderly heaps on the pavement beneath the hall terrace to be shared out among the junior members of the clan, who were forthwith invited to come and collect their shares.

  At that point a large consignment of things arrived from the other mansion, most of them things to be used in the ancestral sacrifices, but some of them for Cousin Zhen himself. Having given orders for their disposal, Cousin Zhen went back to his supervision of the polishing and furniture-shifting in the hall. When that work was completed, he put on a lynx-skin coat and went out, still in his slippers, on to the terrace, where, having found himself a warm place under the eaves, he got the servants to spread out a wolfskin rug for him so that he could sit there and watch the young clansmen as they came to collect their shares. He noticed that Jia Qin was among them.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he called out to him. ‘Who told you to come?’

  Jia Qin came over and stood in front of him, arms held submissively at his sides.

  ‘I heard that you were having a family share-out, Uncle, so I came along without waiting to be called.’

  ‘These things I’m giving away now are intended for those of your uncles and cousins who haven’t got jobs or private incomes to support them,’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘During the years when you were unemployed yourself, I used to give you a share of the New Year things. But you aren’t unemployed now: you’ve got that supervisor’s job that my Rong-guo cousins gave you, looking after those young nuns in the family tem
ple. Not only have you got a salary of your own, but you control all the nuns’ allowances as well. Yet still you come here for my things. You are too greedy. And just look at you! No one would think from your appearance that you had money to spend and a responsible position. You used to have the excuse that you had no money, but what excuse have you got now? You look even more disreputable now than you did when you were unemployed!’

  ‘I’ve got a big family to support,’ said Jia Qin. ‘I have a lot of expenses.’

  ‘Humbug!’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘I know what you get up to in that temple of yours, don’t think I don’t! Once you set foot in that place, you are the master and nobody there can gainsay you. With money to spend and the rest of us a long way away in the city, you can do exactly as you like: invite the local riff-raff in every night to gamble with you and fill the place with your kept women and fancy boys. So having squandered all the money and reduced yourself to the disgraceful state I see you in now, you have the effrontery to try and get something out of me. All you are likely to get out of me, young man, is a good stout stick across the shoulders! And when this holiday is over, I shall make it my business to have a word with your Uncle Lian and see to it that he has you recalled.’

  Jia Qin reddened, but dared not say anything.

  A servant came up then to report:

  ‘Someone with a present from the Prince of Bei-jing, sir Two scrolls and a perfume-bag.’

  Cousin Zhen turned to Jia Rong.

  ‘Go and entertain him for me. Tell him I’m out.’

  Jia Rong hurried off.

  Cousin Zhen then dismissed Jia Qin, and having presided over the distribution until all the things had been taken, returned to his own apartment to have his dinner with You-shi.

  Concerning the rest of that day and the night which followed our narrative is silent.

  The day after that was even busier. But to give further details of these preparations would be tedious. Suffice it to say that by the twenty-ninth of the twelfth month they had been completed. In both mansions new door-gods had been pasted up on all the doors, the inscribed boards at the sides and over the tops of gateways had been repainted, and fresh ‘good luck’ slips – auspicious couplets written in the best calligraphy on strips of scarlet paper – had been pasted up at the sides of all the entranc. In the Ning-guo mansion the central doors of the main outer gate, of the ornamental gate, of the outer reception hall, of the pavilion-gate, of the inner reception hall, of the triple gate dividing the inner from the outer parts of the mansion, and of the inner ornamental gate were all thrown open, so that a way was opened up from the street right through into the family hall inside. Red lanterns on tall scarlet stands lined either side of this route. At dusk, when the candles in them were lit, they took on the appearance of two long, parallel serpents of light, undulating slightly where they ascended or descended the steps of terraces.

  Next day, the last of the Old Year, Grandmother Jia and any of the Jia ladies who possessed patents of nobility attired themselves in the court dress appropriate to their rank and were borne in procession to the Palace, Grandmother Jia at the head in a palanquin carried by eight bearers, to make their kotows to the Imperial Concubine and felicitate her on the successful conclusion of the year. On their return from the banquet which she gave them, their chairs were set down outside the pavilion-gate of the Ning-guo mansion, where those of the younger Jia males who had not escorted them to the Palace were lined up on either side of the gateway waiting to receive them. When the ladies had all alighted, the young men conducted them on foot to the Jia family’s Hall of the Ancestors.

  Bao-qin had never been inside this part of the mansion before. She was being allowed in on this occasion by virtue of her recent adoption into the family and was anxious to take in every detail in order that she might retain as accurate an impression of it as possible.

  The Jia family’s Hall of the Ancestors was in a separate courtyard of its own in the west part of Ning-guo House, away from the more domestic parts of the mansion – a courtyard that was entered through an imposing five-frame gateway behind a black-lacquered wooden paling. An inscription in large characters hung over the central arch of the gate:

  ANCESTRAL TEMPLE OF THE JIA FAMILY

  with a column of smaller characters in the lower lefthand part of the board indicating that the calligrapher was a direct descendant in the sixty-somethingth generation of the Sage Confucius. A long couplet from the brush of the same calligrapher occupied the two vertical boards at the arch’s sides:

  With loyal blood poured out willingly upon the ground

  a myriad subjects pay tribute to their benevolent rulers

  For famous deeds lauded resoundingly to the skies

  a hundred generations offer sacrifices to their heroic ancestors

  Inside the gate a raised white marble walk shaded by an avenue of venerable pines and cypresses led up to a terrace on which ancient bronze tripods were ranged. Over the entrance to the temple’s vestibule, whose penthouse-roof swept forwards from the main building’s façade, hung a board framed in a carved and gilded border of nine interlacing dragons and inscribed in the Late Emperor’s calligraphy with the following words:

  HIS MINISTERS ARE AS SHINING STARS

  The vertical inscriptions on either side were in the same Imperial hand:

  Their achievements outshone the celestial luminaries

  Their fame is reflected in the generations that come after them

  The board over the entrance to the main hall of the temple was framed by two contending dragons and its inscription was of incised characters infilled in green. Both it and the matching couplet below it were in the calligraphy of the reigning sovereign:

  HONOUR THE DEAD AND KEEP THEIR MEMORIAL

  Their sons and grandsons enjoy the fruits of their blessedness

  The common people recall Ning and Rong with kindness

  Beyond the flickering brilliance of many lights and the glint and sheen of drapes and hangings Bao-qin could make out some of the spirit tablets of the ancestors, but not very clearly.

  By ancient custom the menfolk were divided in ranks to left and right of the hall so that each generation was on a different side from the one which followed it, fathers and sons separated, grandfathers and grandsons together. Jia Jing presided over the sacrifice with Jia She acting as his assistant; Cousin Zhen held the drink-offering; Jia Lian and Jia Cong the silk-offering; Bao-yu carried the incense; Jia Chang and Jia Ling unrolled the kneeling-mat in front of the great incense-burner. Then the black-coated musicians struck up and the ceremony began: the threefold offering of the Cup, the standings, kneelings and prostrations, the burning of the silk-offering, the libation – every movement precisely in time to the solemn strains of the music. The music ceased at the same time as the ceremony, and the participants filed out and, grouping themselves round Grandmother Jia, conducted her to the main hall of the Ning-guo mansion where, under the richly-embroidered frieze which hung high in front of them, against a background of brilliantly-decorated screens, high above the smoking incense and flickering candles of the altar, the portraits of the ancestors hung, those of the ducal siblings, Ning-guo and Rong-guo, resplendent in dragon robes and jade-encrusted belts, in the centre and somewhat raised above the rest.

  The men ranged themselves in ascending order of seniority in the space between the hall and the ornamental gate, so that the two most junior ones, Jia Xing and Jia Zhi, were just inside the gate and the two most senior ones, Jia Jing and Jia She, were at the top of the terrace steps and under the eaves of the hall. The womenfolk of the family were ranged inside the hall in corresponding ranks but in reverse order: that is to say, the most junior were nearest the threshold and the most senior furthest inside the hall, but whereas the senior male in a generation was at the east end of his row, the senior female in the same generation would be at the west end of hers, and vice versa. The male domestics of all ages were ranged in the courtyard on the further side of the ornament
al gate.

  The manner of making the offerings was as follows. Each ‘course’ was passed from hand to hand by the servants until it reached the ornamental gate. There it was received by Jia Xing and Jia Zhi and passed on from hand to hand until it reached Jia Jing at the top of the terrace steps. Jia Rong, as senior grandson of the senior branch of the family, was permitted, alone of all the males, to stand inside the threshold with the women. He received the dishes from his grandfather Jia Jing’s hands and passed them to his wife, Hu-shi. Hu-shi passed them to the row ending in Xi-feng and You-shi, who passed them forwards to Lady Wang standing at the side of the altar. Lady Wang then put them into the hands of Grandmother Jia, who raised them up reverently towards the portraits before laying them down on the altar in front of her. Lady Xing stood to the west of the altar facing eastwards and helped her lay them down. When meat, vegetables, rice, soup, cakes, wine and tea had all been transmitted to the altar by this human chain and offered up there by Grandmother Jia and her two daughters-in-law, Jia Rong withdrew and took up his position next to Jia Qin in the courtyard below, at the head of the most junior generation of Jia family males.

  Now came the most solemn part of the ceremony. As Grandmother Jia, clasping a little bundle of burning joss-sticks with both her hands, knelt down for the incense-offering, the entire congregation of men and women, rank upon rank of them, close-packed as flowers in a flower-bed, knelt down in perfect time with her and proceeded to go through the motions of the Great Obeisance. This was done with such silent concentration that, from five-frame hall and three-frame vestibule, from portico and terrace, terrace steps and courtyard, for some minutes nothing could be heard but the faint tinkling made by jade girdle-pendants and tiny golden bells and the soft scrape and scuffle of cloth-soled boots and shoes.

  The ceremony over, Jia Jing, Jia She and the rest of the menfolk hurried back to the Rong-guo mansion so that they could be waiting there in readiness to make their kotows to Grandmother Jia on her return.