第四十回

第四十回 史太君两宴大观园 金鸳鸯三宣牙牌令

话说宝玉听了，忙进来看时，只见琥珀站在屏风跟前说：“快去吧，立等你说话呢。”宝玉来至上房，只见贾母正和王夫人众姊妹商议给史湘云还席。宝玉因说道：“我有个主意。既没有外客，吃的东西也别定了样数，谁素日爱吃的拣样儿做几样。也不要按桌席，每人跟前摆一张高几，各人爱吃的东西一两样，再一个什锦攒心盒子[2]，自斟壶，岂不别致。”贾母听了，说“很是”，忙命传与厨房：“明日就拣我们爱吃的东西作了，按着人数，再装了盒子来。早饭也摆在园里吃。”商议之间早又掌灯，一夕无话。

次日清早起来，可喜这日天气清朗。李纨侵晨[3]先起，看着老婆子丫头们扫那些落叶，并擦抹桌椅，预备茶酒器皿。只见丰儿带了刘姥姥板儿进来，说“大奶奶倒忙的紧。”李纨笑道：“我说你昨儿去不成，只忙着要去。”刘姥姥笑道：“老太太留下我，叫我也热闹一天去。”丰儿拿了几把大小钥匙，说道：“我们奶奶说了，外头的高几恐不够使，不如开了楼把那收着的拿下来使一天罢。奶奶原该亲自来的，因和太太说话呢，请大奶奶开了，带着人搬罢。”李氏便令素云接了钥匙，又令婆子出去把二门上的小厮叫几个来。李氏站在大观楼下往上看，令人上去开了缀锦阁，一张一张往下抬。小厮老婆子丫头一齐动手，抬了二十多张下来。李纨道：“好生着，别慌慌张张鬼赶来似的，仔细碰了牙子[4]。”又回头向刘姥姥笑道：“姥姥，你也上去瞧瞧。”刘姥姥听说，巴不得一声儿，便拉了板儿登梯上去。进里面，只见乌压压的堆着些围屏、桌椅、大小花灯之类，虽不大认得，只见五彩炫耀，各有奇妙。念了几声佛，便出来了。然后锁上门，一齐才下来。李纨道：“恐怕老太太高兴，越性把舡[5]上划子、篙桨、遮阳幔子都搬了下来预备着。”众人答应，复又开了，色色的搬了下来。令小厮传驾娘们到舡坞里撑出两只船来。

正乱着安排，只见贾母已带了一群人进来了。李纨忙迎上去，笑道：“老太太高兴，倒进来了。我只当还没梳头呢，才撷了菊花要送去。”一面说，一面碧月早捧过一个大荷叶式的翡翠盘子来，里面盛着各色的折枝菊花。贾母便拣了一朵大红的簪于鬓上。因回头看见了刘姥姥，忙笑道：“过来带花儿。”一语未完，凤姐便拉过刘姥姥来，笑道：“让我打扮你。”说着，将一盘子花横三竖四的插了一头。贾母和众人笑的不住。刘姥姥笑道：“我这头也不知修了什么福，今儿这样体面起来。”众人笑道：“你还不拔下来摔到他脸上呢，把你打扮的成了个老妖精了。”刘姥姥笑道：“我虽老了，年轻时也风流，爱个花儿粉儿的，今儿老风流才好。”

说笑之间，已来至沁芳亭子上。丫鬟们抱了一个大锦褥子来，铺在栏杆榻板上。贾母倚柱坐下，命刘姥姥也坐在旁边，因问他：“这园子好不好？”刘姥姥念佛说道：“我们乡下人到了年下，都上城来买画儿贴。时常闲了，大家都说，怎么得也到画儿上去逛逛。想着那个画儿也不过是假的，那里有这个真地方呢。谁知我今儿进这园里一瞧，竟比那画儿还强十倍。怎么得有人也照着这个园子画一张，我带了家去，给他们见见，死了也得好处。”贾母听说，便指着惜春笑道：“你瞧我这个小孙女儿，他就会画。等明儿叫他画一张如何？”刘姥姥听了，喜的忙跑过来，拉着惜春说道：“我的姑娘，你这么大年纪儿，又这么个好模样，还有这个能干，别是神仙托生的罢。”

贾母少歇一回，自然领着刘姥姥都见识见识。先到了潇湘馆。一进门，只见两边翠竹夹路，土地下苍苔布满，中间羊肠一条石子漫的路。刘姥姥让出路来与贾母众人走，自己却走[6]土地。琥珀拉着他说道：“姥姥，你上来走，仔细苍苔滑了。”刘姥姥道：“不相干的，我们走熟了的，姑娘们只管走罢。可惜你们的那绣鞋，别沾脏了。”他只顾上头和人说话，不防底下果跴滑了，咕咚一跤跌倒。众人拍手都哈哈的笑起来。贾母笑骂道：“小蹄子们，还不搀起来，只站着笑。”说话时，刘姥姥已爬了起来，自己也笑了，说道：“才说嘴就打了嘴。”贾母问他：“可扭了腰了不曾？叫丫头们捶一捶。”刘姥姥道：“那里说的我这么娇嫩了。那一天不跌两下子，都要捶起来，还了得呢。”

紫鹃早打起湘帘，贾母等进来坐下。林黛玉亲自用小茶盘捧了一盖碗茶来奉与贾母。王夫人道：“我们不吃茶，姑娘不用倒了。”林黛玉听说，便命丫头把自己窗下常坐的一张椅子挪到下首，请王夫人坐了。刘姥姥因见窗下案上设着笔砚，又见书架上磊着满满的书，刘姥姥道：“这必定是那位哥儿的书房了。”贾母笑指黛玉道：“这是我这外孙女儿的屋子。”刘姥姥留神打量了黛玉一番，方笑道：“这那像个小姐的绣房，竟比那上等的书房还好。”贾母因问：“宝玉怎么不见？”众丫头们答说：“在池子里舡上呢。”贾母道：“谁又预备下舡了？”李纨忙回说：“才开楼拿几，我恐怕老太太高兴，就预备下了。”贾母听了方欲说话时，有人回说：“姨太太来了。”贾母等刚站起来，只见薛姨妈早进来了，一面归坐，笑道：“今儿老太太高兴，这早晚就来了。”贾母笑道：“我才说来迟了的要罚他，不想姨太太就来迟了。”

说笑一会，贾母因见窗上纱的颜色旧了，便和王夫人说道：“这个纱新糊上好看，过了后来就不翠了。这个院子里头又没有个桃杏树，这竹子已是绿的，再拿这绿纱糊上反不配。我记得咱们先有四五样颜色糊窗的纱呢，明儿给他把这窗上的换了。”凤姐儿忙道：“昨儿我开库房，看见大板箱里还有好些匹银红蝉翼纱，也有各样折枝花样的，也有流云卍福花样的，也有百蝶穿花花样的，颜色又鲜，纱又轻软，我竟没见过这样的。拿了两匹出来，作两床绵纱被，想来一定是好的。”贾母听了笑道：“呸，人人都说你没有不经过不见过，连这个纱还不认得呢，明儿还说嘴。”薛姨妈等都笑说：“凭他怎么经过见过，如何敢比老太太呢。老太太何不教导了他，我们也听听。”凤姐儿也笑说：“好祖宗，教给我罢。”

贾母笑向薛姨妈众人道：“那个纱，比你们的年纪还大呢。怪不得他认作蝉翼纱，原也有些像，不知道的，都认作蝉翼纱。正经名字叫作‘软烟罗’。”凤姐儿道：“这个名儿也好听。只是我这么大了，纱罗也见过几百样，从没听见过这个名色。”贾母笑道：“你能够活了多大，见过几样没处放的东西，就说嘴来了。那个软烟罗只有四样颜色：一样雨过天晴，一样秋香色，一样松绿的，一样就是银红的，若是做了帐子，糊了窗屉，远远的看着，就似烟雾一样，所以叫作‘软烟罗’。那银红的又叫作‘霞影纱’。如今上用的府纱也没有这样软厚轻密的了。”薛姨妈笑道：“别说凤丫头没见，连我也没听见过。”

凤姐儿一面说，早命人取了一匹来了。贾母说：“可不是这个！先时原不过是糊窗屉，后来我们拿这个作被作帐子，试试也竟好。明儿就找出几匹来，拿银红的替他糊窗子。”凤姐答应着。众人都看了，称赞不已。刘姥姥也觑着眼看个不了，念佛说道：“我们想他作衣裳也不能，拿着糊窗子，岂不可惜？”贾母道：“倒是做衣裳不好看。”凤姐忙把自己身上穿的一件大红绵纱袄子襟儿拉了出来，向贾母薛姨妈道：“看我的这袄儿。”贾母薛姨妈都说：“这也是上好的了，这是如今的上用内造的，竟比不上这个。”凤姐儿道：“这个薄片子，还说是上用内造呢，竟连官用的也比不上了。”贾母道：“再找一找，只怕还有青的。若有时都拿出来，送这刘亲家两匹，做一个帐子我挂，下剩的添上里子〔一〕，做些夹背心子给丫头们穿，白收着霉坏了。”凤姐忙答应了，仍令人送去。

贾母起身笑道：“这屋里窄，再往别处逛去。”刘姥姥念佛道：“人人都说大家子住大房。昨儿见了老太太正房，配上大箱大柜大桌子大床，果然威武。那柜子比我们那一间房子还大还高。怪道后院子里有个梯子。我想并不上房晒东西，预备个梯子作什么？后来我想起来，定是为开顶柜收放东西，非离了那梯子，怎么得上去呢。如今又见了这小屋子，更比大的越发齐整了。满屋里的东西都只好看，都不知叫什么，我越看越舍不得离了这里。”凤姐道：“还有好的呢，我都带你去瞧瞧。”说着一径离了潇湘馆。

远远望见池中一群人在那里撑舡。贾母道：“他们既预备下船，咱们就坐。”一面说着，便向紫菱洲蓼溆一带走来。未至池前，只见几个婆子手里都捧着一色捏丝戗金五彩大盒子[8]走来。凤姐忙问王夫人早饭在那里摆。王夫人道：“问老太太在那里，就在那里罢了。”贾母听说，便回头说：“你三妹妹那里就好。你就带了人摆去，我们从这里坐了舡去。”

凤姐听说，便回身同了探春、李纨、鸳鸯、琥珀带着端饭的人等，抄着近路到了秋爽斋，就在晓翠堂上调开桌案。鸳鸯笑道：“天天咱们说外头老爷们吃酒吃饭都有一个篾片[9]相公，拿他取笑儿。咱们今儿也得了一个女篾片了。”李纨是个厚道人，听了不解。凤姐儿却知是说的是刘姥姥了，也笑说道：“咱们今儿就拿他取个笑儿。”二人便如此这般的商议。李纨笑劝道：“你们一点好事也不做，又不是个小孩儿，还这么淘气，仔细老太太说。”鸳鸯笑道：“很不与你相干，有我呢。”

正说着，只见贾母等来了，各自随便坐下。先着丫鬟端过两盘茶来，大家吃毕。凤姐手里拿着西洋布手巾，裹着一把乌木三镶银箸[10]，敁敠[11]人位，按席摆下。贾母因说：“把那一张小楠木桌子抬过来，让刘亲家近我这边坐着。”众人听说，忙抬了过来。凤姐一面递眼色与鸳鸯，鸳鸯便拉了刘姥姥出去，悄悄的嘱咐了刘姥姥一席话，又说：“这是我们家的规矩，若错了我们就笑话呢。”调停已毕，然后归坐。

薛姨妈是吃过饭来的，不吃，只坐在一边吃茶。贾母带着宝玉、湘云、黛玉、宝钗一桌，王夫人带着迎春姊妹三个人一桌，刘姥姥傍着贾母一桌。贾母素日吃饭，皆有小丫鬟在旁边，拿着漱盂、麈尾、巾帕等物。如今鸳鸯是不当这差的了，今日鸳鸯偏接过麈尾来拂着。丫鬟们知道他要撮弄刘姥姥，便躲开让他。鸳鸯一面侍立，一面悄向刘姥姥说道：“别忘了。”刘姥姥道：“姑娘放心。”那刘姥姥入了坐，拿起箸来，沉甸甸的不伏手。原是凤姐和鸳鸯商议定了，单拿一双老年四楞象牙镶金的筷子与刘姥姥。刘姥姥见了，说道：“这叉爬子比俺那里铁锨还沉，那里犟的过他。”说的众人都笑起来。

只见一个媳妇端了一个盒子站在当地，一个丫鬟上来揭去盒盖，里面盛着两碗菜。李纨端了一碗放在贾母桌上。凤姐儿偏拣了一碗鸽子蛋放在刘姥姥桌上。贾母这边说声“请”，刘姥姥便站起身来，高声说道：“老刘，老刘，食量大似牛，吃一个老母猪不抬头。”自己却鼓着腮不语。

众人先是发怔，后来一听，上上下下都哈哈的大笑起来。史湘云撑不住，一口饭都喷了出来；林黛玉笑岔了气，伏着桌子叫“嗳哟”；宝玉早滚到贾母怀里，贾母笑的搂着宝玉叫“心肝”；王夫人笑的用手指着凤姐儿，只说不出话来；薛姨妈也撑不住，口里茶喷了探春一裙子；探春手里的饭碗都合在迎春身上；惜春离了坐位，拉着他奶母叫揉一揉肠子。地下的无一个不弯腰屈背，也有躲出去蹲着笑去的，也有忍着笑上来替他姊妹换衣裳的，独有凤姐鸳鸯二人撑着，还只管让刘姥姥。

刘姥姥拿起箸来，只觉不听使，又说道：“这里的鸡儿也俊，下的这蛋也小巧，怪俊的。我且肏攮一个。”众人方住了笑，听见这话又笑起来。贾母笑的眼泪出来，琥珀在后捶着。贾母笑道：“这定是凤丫头促狭鬼儿闹的，快别信他的话了。”那刘姥姥正夸鸡蛋小巧，要肏攮一个，凤姐儿笑道：“一两银子一个呢，你快尝尝罢，那冷了就不好吃了。”刘姥姥便伸箸子要夹，那里夹的起来，满碗里闹了一阵好的[12]，好容易撮起一个来，才伸着脖子要吃，偏又滑下来滚在地下，忙放下箸子要亲自去捡，早有地下的人捡了出去了。刘姥姥叹道：“一两银子，也没听见个响声儿就没了。”

众人已没心吃饭，都看着他笑。贾母又说：“这会子又把那个筷子拿了出来，又不请客摆大筵席。都是凤丫头支使的，还不换了呢。”地下的人原不曾预备这牙箸，本是凤姐和鸳鸯拿了来的，听如此说，忙收了过去，也照样换上一双乌木镶银的。刘姥姥道：“去了金的，又是银的，到底不及俺们那个伏手。”凤姐儿道：“菜里若有毒，这银子下去了就试的出来。”刘姥姥道：“这个菜里若有毒，俺们那菜都成了砒霜了。那怕毒死了也要吃尽了。”贾母见他如此有趣，吃的又香甜，把自己的也都端过来与他吃。又命一个老嬷嬷来，将各样的菜给板儿夹在碗上。

一时吃毕，贾母等都往探春卧室中去说闲话。这里收拾过残桌，又放了一桌。刘姥姥看着李纨与凤姐儿对坐着吃饭，叹道：“别的罢了，我只爱你们家这行事。怪道说‘礼出大家’。”凤姐儿忙笑道：“你可别多心，才刚不过大家取笑儿。”一言未了，鸳鸯也进来笑道：“姥姥别恼，我给你老人家赔个不是。”刘姥姥笑道：“姑娘说那里话，咱们哄着老太太开个心儿，可有什么恼的！你先嘱咐我，我就明白了，不过大家取个笑儿。我要心里恼，也就不说了。”鸳鸯便骂人“为什么不倒茶给姥姥吃。”刘姥姥忙道：“刚才那个嫂子倒了茶来，我吃过了。姑娘也该用饭了。”凤姐儿便拉鸳鸯：“你坐下和我们吃了罢，省的回来又闹。”鸳鸯便坐下了。婆子们添上碗箸来，三人吃毕。

刘姥姥笑道：“我看你们这些人都只吃这一点儿就完了，亏你们也不饿。怪只道风儿都吹的倒。”鸳鸯便问：“今儿剩的菜不少，都那去了？”婆子们道：“都还没散呢，在这里等着一齐散与他们吃。”鸳鸯道：“他们吃不了这些，挑两碗给二奶奶屋里平丫头送去。”凤姐儿道：“他早吃了饭了，不用给他。”鸳鸯道：“他不吃了，喂你们的猫。”婆子听了，忙拣了两样拿盒子送去。鸳鸯道：“素云那去了？”李纨道：“他们都在这里一处吃，又找他作什么。”鸳鸯道：“这就罢了。”凤姐儿道：“袭人不在这里，你倒是叫人送两样给他去。”鸳鸯听说，便命人也送两样去后，鸳鸯又问婆子们：“回来吃酒的攒盒可装上了？”婆子道：“想必还得一会子。”鸳鸯道：“催着些儿。”婆子应喏了。

凤姐儿等来至探春房中，只见他娘儿们正说笑。探春素喜阔朗，这三间屋子并不曾隔断。当地放着一张花梨大理石大案，案上磊着各种名人法帖[13]，并数十方宝砚，各色笔筒，笔海内插的笔如树林一般。那一边设着斗大的一个汝窑花囊[14]，插着满满的一囊水晶球儿的白菊。西墙上当中挂着一大幅米襄阳[15]《烟雨图》，左右挂着一副对联，乃是颜鲁公墨迹，其词云：

烟霞闲骨格 泉石野生涯[16]

案上设着大鼎。左边紫檀架上放着一个大观窑的大盘，盘内盛着数十个娇黄玲珑大佛手[17]。右边洋漆架上悬着一个白玉比目磬，旁边挂着小锤。那板儿略熟了些，便要摘那锤子要击，丫鬟们忙拦住他。他又要那佛手吃，探春拣了一个与他说：“玩罢，吃不得的〔二〕。”东边便设着卧榻，拔步床[19]上悬着葱绿双绣花卉草虫的纱帐。板儿又跑过来看，说“这是蝈蝈，这是蚂蚱”。刘姥姥忙打了他一巴掌，骂道：“下作黄子[20]，没干没净的乱闹。倒叫你进来瞧瞧，就上脸[21]了。”打的板儿哭起来，众人忙劝解方罢。贾母因隔着纱窗往后院内看了一回，说道：“后廊檐下的梧桐也好了，就只细些。”

正说话，忽一阵风过，隐隐听得鼓乐之声。贾母问“是谁家娶亲呢？这里临街倒近。”王夫人等笑回道：“街上的那里听的见，这是咱们的那十几个女孩子们演习吹打呢。”贾母便笑道：“既是他们演，何不叫他们进来演习。他们也逛一逛，咱们可又乐了。”凤姐听说，忙命人出去叫来，又一面吩咐摆下条桌，铺上红毡子。贾母道：“就铺排在藕香榭的水亭子上，借着水音更好听。回来咱们就在缀锦阁底下吃酒，又宽阔，又听的近。”众人都说那里好。

贾母向薛姨妈笑道：“咱们走罢。他们姊妹们都不大喜欢人来坐着，怕脏了屋子。咱们别没眼色，正经坐一回子船喝酒去。”说着大家起身便走。探春笑道：“这是那里的话，求着老太太、姨妈、太太来坐坐还不能呢。”贾母笑道：“我的这三丫头却好，只有两个玉儿可恶。回来吃醉了，咱们偏往他们屋里闹去。”

说着，众人都笑了，一齐出来。走不多远，已到了荇叶渚。那姑苏选来的几个驾娘早把两只棠木舫撑来，众人扶了贾母、王夫人、薛姨妈、刘姥姥、鸳鸯、玉钏儿上了这一只，落后李纨也跟上去。凤姐儿也上去，立在舡头上，也要撑舡。贾母在舱内道：“这不是顽的，虽不是河里，也有好深的。你快不给我进来。”凤姐儿笑道：“怕什么！老祖宗只管放心。”说着便一篙点开。到了池当中，舡小人多，凤姐只觉乱晃，忙把篙子递与驾娘，方蹲下了。然后迎春姊妹等并宝玉上了那只，随后跟来。其馀老嬷嬷散众丫鬟俱沿河随行。

宝玉道：“这些破荷叶可恨，怎么还不叫人来拔去。”宝钗笑道：“今年这几日，何曾饶了这园子闲了，天天逛，那里还有叫人来收拾的工夫。”林黛玉道：“我最不喜欢李义山的诗，只喜他这一句：‘留得残荷听雨声’[22]。偏你们又不留着残荷了。”宝玉道：“果然好句，以后咱们就别叫人拔去了。”说着已到了花溆的萝港之下，觉得阴森透骨，两滩上衰草残菱，更助秋情。

贾母因见岸上的清厦旷朗，便问“这是你薛姑娘的屋子不是？”众人道：“是。”贾母忙命拢岸，顺着云步石梯上去，一同进了蘅芜苑，只觉异香扑鼻。那些奇草仙藤愈冷愈苍翠，都结了实，似珊瑚豆子一般，累垂可爱。及进了房屋，雪洞一般，一色玩器全无，案上只有一个土定瓶[23]中供着数枝菊花，并两部书，茶奁茶杯而已。床上只吊着青纱帐幔，衾褥也十分朴素。

贾母叹道：“这孩子太老实了。你没有陈设，何妨和你姨娘要些。我也不理论，也没想到，你们的东西自然在家里没带了来。”说着，命鸳鸯去取些古董来，又嗔着凤姐儿：“不送些玩器来与你妹妹，这样小器。”王夫人凤姐儿等都笑回说：“他自己不要的。我们原送了来，他都退回去了。”薛姨妈也笑说：“他在家里也不大弄这些东西的。”贾母摇头道：“使不得。虽然他省事，倘或来一个亲戚，看着不像；二则年轻的姑娘们，房里这样素净，也忌讳。我们这老婆子，越发该住马圈去了。你们听那些书上戏上说的小姐们的绣房，精致的还了得呢。他们姊妹们虽不敢比那些小姐们，也不要很离了格儿。有现成的东西，为什么不摆？若很爱素净，少几样倒使得。我最会收拾屋子的，如今老了，没有这些闲心了。他们姊妹们也还学着收拾的好，只怕俗气，有好东西也摆坏了。我看他们还不俗。如今让我替你收拾，包管又大方又素净。我的梯己两件，收到如今，没给宝玉看见过，若经了他的眼，也没了。”说着叫过鸳鸯来，亲吩咐道：“你把那石头盆景儿和那架纱桌屏，还有个墨烟冻石鼎，这三样摆在这案上就够了。再把那水墨字画白绫帐子拿来，把这帐子也换了。”鸳鸯答应着，笑道：“这些东西都搁在东楼上的不知那个箱子里，还得慢慢找去，明儿再拿去也罢了。”贾母道：“明日后日都使得，只别忘了。”说着，坐了一回方出来，一径来至缀锦阁下。文官等上来请过安，因问“演习何曲”。贾母道：“只拣你们生的演习几套罢。”文官等下来，往藕香榭去不提。

这里凤姐儿已带着人摆设整齐，上面左右两张榻，榻上都铺着锦裀蓉簟[24]，每一榻前有两张雕漆几，也有海棠式的，也有梅花式的，也有荷叶式的，也有葵花式的，也有方的，也有圆的，其式不一。一个上面放着炉瓶[25]，一分攒盒；一个上面空设着，预备放人所喜食物。上面二榻四几，是贾母薛姨妈；下面一椅两几，是王夫人的，馀者都是一椅一几。东边是刘姥姥，刘姥姥之下便是王夫人。西边便是史湘云，第二便是宝钗，第三便是黛玉，第四迎春、探春、惜春挨次下去，宝玉在末。李纨凤姐二人之几设于三层槛内，二层纱厨之外。攒盒式样，亦随几之式样。每人一把乌银洋錾自斟壶，一个十锦珐琅杯。

大家坐定，贾母先笑道：“咱们先吃两杯，今日也行一令才有意思。”薛姨妈等笑道：“老太太自然有好酒令，我们如何会呢，安心要我们醉了。我们都多吃两杯就有了。”贾母笑道：“姨太太今儿也过谦起来，想是厌我老了。”薛姨妈笑道：“不是谦，只怕行不上来倒是笑话了。”王夫人忙笑道：“便说不上来，就便多吃一杯酒，醉了睡觉去，还有谁笑话咱们不成。”薛姨妈点头笑道：“依令。老太太到底吃一杯令酒才是。”贾母笑道：“这个自然。”说着便吃了一杯。

凤姐儿忙走至当地，笑道：“既行令，还叫鸳鸯姐姐来行更好。”众人都知贾母所行之令必得鸳鸯提着，故听了这话，都说“很是”。凤姐儿便拉了鸳鸯过来。王夫人笑道：“既在令内，没有站着的理。”回头命小丫头子：“端一张椅子，放在你二位奶奶的席上。”鸳鸯也半推半就，谢了坐，便坐下，也吃了一钟酒，笑道：“酒令大如军令，不论尊卑，惟我是主。违了我的话，是要受罚的。”王夫人等都笑道：“一定如此，快些说来。”鸳鸯未开口，刘姥姥便下了席，摆手道：“别这样捉弄人，我家去了。”众人都笑道：“这却使不得。”鸳鸯喝令小丫头子们：“拉上席去！”小丫头子们也笑着，果然拉入席中。刘姥姥只叫“饶了我罢！”鸳鸯道：“再多言的罚一壶。”刘姥姥方住了声。

鸳鸯道：“如今我说骨牌副儿[26]，从老太太起，顺领说下去，至刘姥姥止。比如我说一副儿，将这三张牌拆开，先说头一张，次说第二张，再说第三张，说完了，合成这一副儿的名字。无论诗词歌赋，成语俗话，比上一句，都要叶韵。错了的罚一杯。”众人笑道：“这个令好，就说出来。”

鸳鸯道：“有了一副了。左边是张‘天’。”贾母道：“头上有青天。”众人道：“好。”鸳鸯道：“当中是个‘五与六’。”贾母道：“六桥梅花香彻骨。”鸳鸯道：“剩得一张‘六与幺’。”贾母道：“一轮红日出云霄。”鸳鸯道：“凑成便是个‘蓬头鬼’。”贾母道：“这鬼抱住钟馗腿。”[27]说完，大家笑说：“极妙。”贾母饮了一杯。

鸳鸯又道：“有了一副。左边是个‘大长五’。”薛姨妈道：“梅花朵朵风前舞。”鸳鸯道：“右边还是个‘大五长’。”薛姨妈道：“十月梅花岭上香。”鸳鸯道：“当中‘二五’是杂七。”薛姨妈道：“织女牛郎会七夕。”鸳鸯道：“凑成‘二郎游五岳’[28]。”薛姨妈道：“世人不及神仙乐。”说完，大家称赏，饮了酒。

鸳鸯又道：“有了一副。左边‘长幺’两点明。”湘云道：“双悬日月照乾坤。”鸳鸯道：“右边‘长幺’两点明。”湘云道：“闲花落地听无声。”鸳鸯道：“中间还得‘幺四’来。”湘云道：“日边红杏倚云栽。”鸳鸯道：“凑成‘樱桃是九熟’。”湘云道：“御园却被鸟衔出。”[29]说完饮了一杯。

鸳鸯道：“有了一副。左边是‘长三’。”宝钗道：“双双燕子语梁间。”鸳鸯道：“右边是‘三长’。”宝钗道：“水荇牵风翠带长。”鸳鸯道：“当中‘三六’九点在。”宝钗道：“三山半落青天外。”鸳鸯道：“凑成‘铁锁练孤舟’。”宝钗道：“处处风波处处愁。”[30]说完饮毕。

鸳鸯又道：“左边一个‘天’。”黛玉道：“良辰美景奈何天。”宝钗听了，回头看着他。黛玉只顾怕罚，也不理论。鸳鸯道：“中间‘锦屏’颜色俏。”黛玉道：“纱窗也没有红娘报。”鸳鸯道：“剩了‘二六’八点齐。”黛玉道：“双瞻玉座引朝仪。”鸳鸯道：“凑成‘篮子’好采花。”[31]黛玉道：“仙杖香挑芍药花。”说完，饮了一口。

鸳鸯道：“左边‘四五’成花九。”[32]迎春道：“桃花带雨浓。”[33]众人道：“该罚！错了韵，而且又不像。”迎春笑着饮了一口。原是凤姐儿和鸳鸯都要听刘姥姥的笑话，故意都令说错，都罚了。至王夫人，鸳鸯代说了个，下便该刘姥姥。

刘姥姥道：“我们庄家人闲了，也常会几个人弄这个，但不如说的这么好听。少不得我也试一试。”众人都笑道：“容易说的。你只管说，不相干〔三〕。”鸳鸯笑道：“左边‘四四’是个人。”刘姥姥听了，想了半日，说道：“是个庄家人罢。”众人哄堂笑了。贾母笑道：“说的好，就是这样说。”刘姥姥也笑道：“我们庄家人，不过是现成的本色，众位别笑。”鸳鸯道：“中间‘三四’绿配红。”刘姥姥道：“大火烧了毛毛虫。”众人笑道：“这是有的，还说你的本色。”鸳鸯道：“右边‘幺四’真好看。”刘姥姥道：“一个萝亶一头蒜。”众人又笑了。鸳鸯笑道：“凑成便是一枝花。”[35]刘姥姥两只手比着，说道：“花儿落了结个大倭瓜。”众人大笑起来。只听外面乱嚷——

[1] 牙牌令——用牙牌作为酒令。牙牌，用象牙、骨角、硬木等制成，面上有点数和颜色，供游戏或赌博用。

[2] 什锦攒心盒子——一种盛果、菜的食盒，中心一圆格，四周以扇形盘格向中心聚拢。又称“攒盒”。攒心，即向心。

[3] 侵晨——天将亮时，渐近清晨。

[4] 牙子——这里指镶在几面或凳面边沿的雕花装饰。

[5] 舡（xiānɡ）——吴语。同“船”。

[6] （qǐn寝）走——小心地行走。《说文》：“，行难也。”

〔一〕 “下剩的添上里子”，原作“子（点去）剩的上里子”，从各本改。

[8] 捏丝戗（qiànɡ呛）金五彩大盒子——一种有窗孔的透气的漆捧盒，窗孔捏铜丝成纱状。“戗金”为漆器工艺之一，在深色漆地上，镂划出纤细的花纹沟槽，槽内涂胶，上粘金箔，呈现金色花纹。

[9] 篾（miè灭）片——旧时依附于富贵人家，为主子帮闲凑趣的人叫“篾片”。

[10] 乌木三镶银箸——在乌木筷子的下截、中腰及顶端包镶银箔，故称“三镶”。银能试毒，银箸是贵重餐具。

[11] 敁敠（diān　duō颠多）——也写作“掂掇”，估量、盘算、斟酌的意思。

[12] 好的——句末助词，强调前面的动作。

[13] 法帖——这里指供人临摹的前人书法范本。

[14] 汝窑花囊——汝窑所烧制的花囊。汝窑：北宋时建于汝州（今河南临汝）的青器窑。花囊：插花的用具，肚子和口径均较花瓶为大，囊口封闭，上有圆孔多个，便于插枝软而朵大的花。

[15] 米襄阳——即米南宫，本名米芾，因是襄阳人，故称米襄阳。宋代书画家，善画烟雨山水。

[16] “烟霞”一联——是对古代隐士浪迹山林优闲情趣的写照。唐代田游岩曾对唐高宗李治说：“臣所谓泉石膏肓，烟霞痼疾者”。《新唐书·田游岩传》。或为此联所本。烟霞：代指山水，山林。骨格：这里是性情、志趣、格调的意思。

[17] 佛手——即佛手柑，形状像半握着的拳，秋天成熟，皮色鲜黄，有芳香。

〔二〕 “吃不得的”，原作“吃不得的东西”，从己卯、梦稿、戚序、甲辰、舒序本删。

[19] 拔步床——我国型制最大的传统卧床，床前留空二至三尺，与床门围子形成小廊屋，前有镂雕花罩，两边有小柜，床屉下有抽斗，柜上设奁合、灯台，并置有衣笼、便桶等，成为一个有照明条件的生活空间。

[20] 下作黄子——下流种子。隋代称三岁以下的小孩为“黄”，唐代称初生的婴儿为“黄”。见元代马端临《文献通考·户口一》。

[21] 上脸——因受宠而放肆的意思。俗有“蹬着鼻子上脸”的话。

[22] 留得残荷听雨声——唐代李商隐《宿骆氏亭寄怀崔雍崔衮》中的诗句。原诗“残”作“枯”。

[23] 土定瓶——仿定窑（北宋时建于定州，即今河北曲阳）烧制的一种质地较粗的瓶子。土定：仿定窑瓷的品种之一。

[24] 锦裀（yīn音）蓉簟（diàn电）——锦裀：这里指华美的丝绸褥子。裀：褥子、垫子、毯子等的通称。蓉簟：有荷花图案的竹席。蓉：芙蓉，荷花。簟：竹席。

[25] 炉瓶——焚香用具。即本书第五十三回所说的“炉瓶三事”，指一个香炉、一个香盒和一个放香铲等用的瓶子。

[26] 骨牌副儿——用两张以上骨牌的色点配成一套，叫做“一副儿”。这里是三张牌为一副儿。

[27] 左边是张“天”……这鬼抱住钟馗（kuí葵）腿——天：指天牌。此牌上下两个六点，点色红绿各半，互相岔开。头上有青天：这是一句旧谚语的下半部分，全句为“眼子头上有青天”，意思是容易上当受骗常常吃亏的人，自有头上的“青天”来保佑。六桥梅花香彻骨：这是一张五六共十一点的牌，各点皆绿色。这里用“六桥”代指六点，“梅花”代指五点。六桥：即跨虹、东浦、压堤、望山、锁澜、映波等六座桥，北宋苏轼修建于杭州西湖苏堤上，堤上多种梅花。西湖的里湖也有六座桥，为明代知府杨孟所建，俗称里六桥。香彻骨：香气沁透肌骨。一轮红日出云霄：这是一张幺六共七点的牌，“一轮红日”代指红色的幺点，“云霄”代指绿色的六点。蓬头鬼：是长六、五六、幺六这副牌的名称。这鬼抱住钟馗腿：钟馗，传说是唐代开元间人，应举未中，死后托梦给唐玄宗，立誓要除尽天下妖孽。玄宗醒后，命画工吴道子画成图像，告示天下，岁暮时家家画其像“以祛邪魅”。

[28] 左边是个“大长五”……凑成“二郎游五岳”——大长五：牌名，上下各五点，皆绿色。梅花朵朵：因为“大长五”是由两个梅花形的五点组成，所以说“梅花朵朵”。大五长：是为了押韵而把“大长五”倒过来的说法。十月梅花：因为“大五长”是由两个梅花形的五点共十点组成，所以说“十月梅花”。杂七：是一张上二下五共七点皆为绿色的牌。二郎游五岳：是长五、二五、长五这副牌的名称。这里用“二郎”代指其中的一个“二”，“五岳”代指其中的五个“五”。二郎：神话传说人物，也称“灌口二郎”。五岳：中岳嵩山、东岳泰山、南岳衡山、西岳华山、北岳恒山。

[29] 左边“长幺”两点明……御园却被鸟衔出——长幺：牌名，上下各一点，皆红色。双悬日月照乾坤：唐代李白《上皇西巡南京歌》中的诗句。“双悬日月”代指“长幺”的两个红点。乾坤：本为《周易》的两个卦名，这里引申为天地的代称，亦即指牌面的上下两点。闲花落地听无声：唐代刘长卿《别严士元》中的诗句。这里用“闲花”代指“长幺”的两个红点，而“长幺”又名地牌，所以称作“落地”。日边红杏倚云栽：唐代高蟾《下第后上永崇高侍郎》中的诗句。这是一张“幺四”牌，“日”代指红色的一点，“红杏”代指红色的四点。樱桃是九熟：是长幺、幺四、长幺这副牌的名称，全副九点皆红色，所以用九颗熟透的樱桃作比。御园却被鸟衔出：这句和上句紧紧相连，意思是樱桃被鸟从皇帝的花园里衔出去了。御园：皇帝的花园。衔，同“含”。

[30] 左边是“长三”……处处风波处处愁——长三：牌名，上下各三点，皆绿色，双行斜排。双双燕子语梁间：这句诗或改宋代刘季孙的“呢喃燕子语梁间”而成，用“双双燕子”代指“长三”分两行平行斜排的绿色六点。三长：是为了押韵而把“长三”倒过来的说法。水荇牵风翠带长：唐代杜甫《曲江对雨》中的诗句。这里用形似绿色飘带的水荇秧蔓代指“长三”分两行斜排的绿色六点。三六：牌名，上三下六共九点，皆绿色。三山半落青天外：唐代李白《登金陵凤凰台》中的诗句。这里用“三山”代指“三六”上面斜排的三点，用“青天”代指“三六”下面相当于“天牌”一半的六点。铁锁练孤舟：原庆远府（府治在今广西宜山）旧歌谣中的一句。在这里是一副骨牌的名字。明代栖筠子《牌统孚玉》用此句代指长三、三六、长三这副牌。其中两个“长三”和“三六”中的“三”代指铁锁，“六”代指“孤舟”。又，第六十二回中亦重出此句，其中“锁”作“索”，“练”作“缆”。处处风波处处愁：或系改唐代薛莹《秋日湖上》“烟波处处愁”而成。

[31] “锦屏”……凑成“篮子”好采花——锦屏：牌名，上四下六共十点，上红下绿形似彩色屏风，故称锦屏或锦屏风。纱窗也没有红娘报：出自《西厢记》金圣叹评本第一本第四折中张生的唱词，原为“纱窗外定有红娘报”，金圣叹改“定有”为“没有”，此依金批本。纱窗：代指牌上的六个绿点。红娘：代指牌上的四个红点。二六：牌名，上二下六共八点，各点皆绿色。双瞻玉座引朝仪：见唐代杜甫《紫宸殿退朝口号》：“户外昭容紫袖垂，双瞻御座引朝仪。”双：指站在殿门外的两个女官（昭容），这里代指牌上的两点。瞻：仰望。御座：皇帝的座位。朝仪：封建时代臣子朝见皇帝时按礼仪规定所站的行列，这里代指牌上的六点。凑成篮子好采花：这副牌由长六、四六、二六凑成，名叫“篮子”，其中红色的四点像花朵，所以说“好采花”。

[32] 花九——牌名，也叫“四五”。这张牌上四下五共九点，点色上红下绿，故称“花九”。

[33] 桃花带雨浓——唐代李白《访戴天山道士不遇》中的诗句。

〔三〕 “你只管说，不相干”，原作“不相干，只管说”，从各本改。

[35] 左边“四四”是个人……凑成便是一枝花——四四：牌名，上下各四共八点，全红色，也叫“长四”，又叫“人牌”，所以说“是个人”。三四：牌名，上三下四共七点，点色上绿下红。大火烧了毛毛虫：这里用“大火”代指“三四”下边红色的四点，用“毛毛虫”代指“三四”上边绿色斜排的三点。幺四：牌名，上一下四共五点，皆红色。一个萝亶一头蒜：这里用“一个萝亶”代指“幺四”上边红色的一点，用紫皮多瓣的“一头蒜”代指“幺四”下边红色的四点。一枝花：是长四、三四、幺四这副牌的名称，其中斜排的三个绿点像花枝，其馀红色的各点像花朵。

CHAPTER 40. Lady Jia holds two feasts in one day in the Prospect Garden And Faithful makes four calls on three dominoes in the Painted Chamber

HEARING that he was wanted, Bao-yu hurried to the gate of the inner mansion. Amber was standing in front of the screen-wall waiting for him.

‘Hurry! You’re holding everyone up. There’s something they want to talk to you about,’ she said.

In fact, when he arrived at his grandmother’s room, she and his mother and the girls were already discussing it – ‘it’ being the question of what arrangements they should make for the return party for Shi Xiang-yun.

‘I’ll tell you what to do,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Since there won’t be any outsiders at this party, instead of having a fixed menu and formally-laid tables, why not get them to do one or two of everyone’s favourite dishes, put them in those lacquer food-boxes that have different compartments for the different dishes, and serve them on little individual tables with a “self-service” wine-kettle each, so that everyone can pour their own wine? I’m sure that would be jollier than a formal party.’

Grandmother Jia was much taken with this proposal and at once sent orders to the kitchen to do as he had suggested.

‘Tell them that tomorrow we want them to choose some of the things they know we like and put them in boxes – one box for each of us. And tell them that we shall want lunch served in the Garden tomorrow as well.’

The lamps had by now been lit. Of the night which followed our record gives no account.

Rising early next morning, they were delighted to observe that it was going to be a beautiful clear, autumn day. Li Wan was among the earliest up, and at once began to supervise the older women and maids in sweeping up fallen leaves, polishing chairs and tables, and getting ready the sets of teacups, winecups and so forth that would be needed for the party. Xi-feng’s maid Felicity, accompanied by Grannie Liu and little Ban-er, arrived while they were in the midst of this activity.

‘You are very busy, Mrs Zhu,’ said Grannie Liu.

Li Wan smiled.

‘I told you you’d never get away! You kept saying yesterday that you had to go, but I knew they wouldn’t let you.’

‘It was Her Old Ladyship that kept me,’ said Grannie Liu. ‘She said she wanted me to enjoy meself for a day or two before I went back.’

Felicity produced several large keys.

‘Mrs Lian says the little tables already in use may not be enough and we’d better open the upstairs storeroom and get some more out, just for today. She meant to come over herself and see to it, but she’s with Her Ladyship at the moment and can’t get away, so she says would you mind opening the storeroom for her and getting some of the servants to carry them down?’

Li Wan sent Candida to the storeroom with the keys and told one of the old women to go to the inner gate and get some of the pages on duty there to help with the carrying. She herself went and stood in the courtyard behind Prospect Hall and watched from below while the Painted Chamber was opened up and the tables were one by one carried down from it. The team of maids, pages and old nannies worked together with such enthusiasm that soon more than twenty of the little tables had been manhandled downstairs into the courtyard.

‘Gently now, gently!’ said Li Wan as they were moving them. ‘No need to go at it as if all the devils in hell were after you! You’ll chip the edges off them if you’re not careful.’

She turned to Grannie Liu.

‘Wouldn’t you like to go up and have a look?’

The old woman needed no second asking. Holding Ban-er tightly by the hand, she scrambled up the stairway and looked inside. The interior was stacked high with folding screens, tables, chairs, lanterns and furniture of every kind. Much of what she saw she could not identify, but the dull gleam of gold, the rich glow of coloured lacquers, and the artistry and sumptuousness of the objects drew many a pious ejaculation from her before she descended. The door of the storeroom was then locked and the remaining maids came down.

‘I wonder how energetic Lady Jia will be feeling today,’ said Li Wan. ‘Perhaps while you are about it you had better get out the oars and punt-poles and paddles and some boat-awnings as well, in case she decides to go on the water.’

‘Yes’m,’ said the maids, and proceeded to unlock the storeroom again and carry down the items specified. Li Wan meanwhile sent one of the pages to tell the boatwomen that they were to pole a couple of punts out from the boathouse and have them by in readiness.

While this activity was still in progress, Grandmother Jia arrived at the head of a troupe of females. Li Wan hurried forward to greet her.

‘You are very energetic this morning, Grandmother; I didn’t expect you in the Garden so soon. I was hoping that you would still be doing your hair. I’ve picked some chrysanthemums for you to wear and I was just about to send them round to you.’

Even as she was saying this, Casta arrived carrying a large dish of peacock-green glaze shaped like a lotus-leaf, in which chrysanthemum-flowers of many different colours were being kept in moisture. Grandmother Jia chose a dark red one to fasten in the side of her hair. As she turned her head to do so, she caught sight of Grannie Liu and smiled at her in welcome.

‘Come over here! You must have one too!’

Before she had finished, Xi-feng had already seized the old woman by the hand and was dragging her over.

‘Come on, let me dress you up properly!’

She began sticking the chrysanthemums into her hair, putting them in at every angle, and continued until all the flowers in the dish had been used up. The effect was so ludicrous that Grandmother Jia and the rest all burst out laughing. Grannie Liu, not a whit perturbed, good-humouredly joined in the laughter.

‘I don’t know what my poor old head can have done to deserve so much honour,’ she said.

‘You ought to pull them out and throw them in her face,’ said the others. ‘She’s made you look like an old vamp!’

‘I may be getting on now,’ said Grannie Liu, ‘but I used to be a stylish young woman in my time. I loved to have a bit of powder for my cheek and a flower to wear in my hair. ’Tis no matter: now I shall be a stylish old ’un.’

During this exchange they had been moving towards Drenched Blossoms Pavilion. Maids went on ahead with a rolled-up patterned rug which they spread out on one of the bench-boards that ran along the inner sides of the balustrades. Seating herself on the rug with her back against the railings, Grandmother Jia invited Grannie Liu to sit down beside her and tell her what she thought of the Garden.

‘Holy Name!’ said Grannie Liu. ‘You know, we country folk like to get a picture at the New Year that we can stick up on the wall. Every year just before New Year the farmers come into town to buy one. Many’s the time of an evening when the day’s work was done we’ve sat and looked at the picture on our wall and wished we could get inside it and walk around, never imagining that such beautiful places could really be. Yet now I look at this Garden here, and it’s ten times better than any picture I ever saw. If only I could get someone to make a painting of it all, just the way it is, that I could take back to show the others, I do believe I should die content!’

Grandmother Jia smilingly pointed a finger in Xi-chun’s direction.

‘You see my little great-niece over there? She can paint. Shall we get her to do you a painting of it?’

Grannie Liu jumped up and going over to Xi-chun, took her impulsively by the hand.

‘Dear Miss!’ she said. ‘To think that one so young and pretty should be so gifted and all! I do believe you must be one of the holy spirits born in a human shape!’

The simple earnestness with which this was uttered made the others all laugh. After resting a little longer, Grandmother Jia, who intended to show her guest as much of the Garden as possible, got up again and resumed the tour.

The first place they came to was the Naiad’s House. The green bamboos engulfed them as they entered the gate and brilliant green moss carpeted the ground beneath. Through the midst of the bamboos a raised cobbled path wound its way towards the house. Grannie Liu stepped aside to let Grandmother Jia and the rest walk on it while she herself walked on the ground below. Amber held a hand out to draw her up.

‘Walk on the path, Grannie! You’ll slip on the moss down there.’

‘Don’t you mind me, my dear!’ said Grannie Liu. ‘I’m used to it. You keep to the path, though, with the rest. You don’t want to muddy those fancy shoes of yours.’

Unfortunately the necessity of looking up to talk to someone who was walking at a higher level had distracted her attention from the ground beneath, and even as she said this, her feet slipped on the treacherous moss, her legs flew out from under her, and she landed on her posterior with a thump. The girls clapped their hands delightedly. Grandmother Jia laughed too, though trying her hardest to sound cross.

‘Little monsters!’ she said. ‘Don’t just stand there laughing. Help her up!’

But Grannie Liu had already scrambled up unaided, and was laughing herself.

‘It serves me right,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken so soon!’

‘Are you sure you haven’t hurt your back?’ Grandmother Jia asked her. ‘Let one of the maids massage it for you.’

‘God bless my soul!’ said Grannie Liu. ‘I’m not that delicate! I don’t suppose a day goes by but what I take a tumble or two. If I was to have meself massaged every time, it would never do!’

Nightingale was already waiting with the bamboo blind raised for them to enter. Grandmother Jia led her party through the doorway and sat down inside. Dai-yu waited on her in person, offering her tea in a covered cup which she carried on a little tray.

We shan’t be taking tea, niece,’ said Lady Wang. ‘Don’t bother to pour for the rest of us.’

Hearing this, Dai-yu ordered one of the maids to fetch the chair by the window that she normally sat on herself and bring it up for her aunt to sit on. Grannie Liu noticed the inkstone and brushes on the table in front of it and all the books on the bookshelves and said that she supposed this must be ‘the young gentleman’s study’.

Grandmother Jia smiled and pointed to Dai-yu.

‘It belongs to her – my little grand-daughter.’

As though incredulous, Grannie Liu studied Dai-yu attentively for some moments in silence.

‘It doesn’t look at all like a young lady’s room,’ she said finally. ‘It looks to me like a very high-class young gentleman’s study.’

‘Where is Bao-yu, by the way?’ said Grandmother Jia.

‘He’s on the lake in one of the punts,’ said the maids.

‘Oh? Whose idea was it to get the punts out?’ she asked.

‘It was my idea,’ said Li Wan hurriedly. ‘It occurred to me just now when we were getting things out of the storeroom that you might perhaps feel like going on the water today.’

Grandmother Jia was about to make some comment when Aunt Xue’s arrival was announced and she rose up, together with the rest of the company, to welcome her.

‘Aren’t you energetic today, Lady Jia!’ said Aunt Xue smilingly when all were seated once more. ‘Here already!’

‘We were just discussing what sort of fine to impose on late arrivals,’ said Grandmother Jia teasingly. ‘We didn’t have you in mind, of course!’

A certain amount of good-humoured banter followed. In the course of it Grandmother Jia chanced to notice that the gauze in Dai-yu’s windows was faded, and drew Lady Wang’s attention to it.

‘This kind of gauze looks very well on a window when it’s new,’ she said, ‘but after a while it loses its greenness. Green isn’t a suitable colour for the windows here in any case. There are no peach or apricot trees outside to make a contrast when they are in flower, and there is already enough green in all those bamboos. I seem to remember that we used to have four or five different shades of window gauze somewhere or other. You must look some out tomorrow for her and have this changed.’

‘The other day when I had to open the silk-store,’ said Xi-feng, ‘I came across a lot of rose-coloured “cicada wing” gauze in a long wooden chest. It was a beautiful fresh colour and the material was beautifully soft and light. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any quite like it before. I’d like to have taken a couple of lengths of it for facing quilts with. I’m sure it would make lovely quilts.’

‘Pooh!’ said Grandmother Jia scornfully. ‘I thought you were supposed to be such an authority on materials – and you can’t even name a gauze properly! You’re not as clever as you thought, my girl! You’ll have to watch your tongue a bit in future.’

Aunt Xue put in an extenuating word for her niece, while laughing with the rest at her discomfiture.

‘However much of an authority she may be, I’m sure she would never presume to compete with you, Lady Jia. If she is wrong about the gauze, you must give her the benefit of your greater experience and put her right. I am sure the rest of us would like to know too.’

‘As a matter of fact that gauze is a good deal older than any of you here,’ said Grandmother Jia, ‘so it is not very surprising that Feng mistook it for cicada wing. There is a certain resemblance, and cicada wing is what anyone would most likely take it to be who hadn’t seen it before. The proper name for it, though, is “haze diaphene”.’

‘What a pretty name!’ said Xi-feng. ‘I must have seen several hundred different gauzes in my time, but I must confess I’ve never heard that name mentioned before.’

Grandmother Jia laughed.

‘And what great age have you now reached, my dear, to be talking so freely about your vast experience? Haze diaphene used to come in four colours: “clear-sky blue”, “russet green”, “pine green” and “old rose”. Hung up as bed-curtains or pasted in windows it looks from a distance like a coloured haze. That’s why they called it “haze diaphene”. The old rose kind is sometimes called “afterglow”. You won’t find fabric made as fine or as soft as that nowadays, not even among the gauzes made for the Imperial Household.’

‘Never mind about Feng,’ said Aunt Xue, ‘I’ve never heard about this kind of gauze before either.’

While they continued to talk about it, Xi-feng sent someone to fetch a piece from the storeroom.

‘That’s right, that’s it!’ said Grandmother Jia when it arrived. ‘When we first had it, we used it only for covering windows with, but later on we began experimenting and found that it made very good quilts and bed-curtains as well. Get a few lengths of it out tomorrow. You can use the “old rose” kind to re-cover these windows with.’

Xi-feng promised to see to it. Meanwhile the others were examining the gauze and admiring its quality. Grannie Liu was particularly impressed, uttering a whole series of ‘Holy Names’ as she subjected it to close and careful scrutiny. ‘I could never hope to get anything as good as this to make a dress with,’ she said. ‘It seems a terrible waste to use it on windows.’

‘Actually it isn’t much good for clothing,’ said Grandmother Jia.

‘What about this, then?’ said Xi-feng, pulling out a flap of the quilted crimson gauze dress she was wearing underneath her jacket and holding it up for them to see.

‘Yes, very fine,’ said Grandmother Jia, examining it. ‘Ah, yes, now there you are! This is a modern Imperial Household gauze; but you see it’s still not as good as that one there.’

‘Well, what do you make of that?’ said Xi-feng. ‘That one there is only an “Official Use” fabric, yet this one I’m wearing, which isn’t as good quality, is “Imperial Household”!’

‘Anyway, have another look tomorrow,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘I think you’ll find that besides the “old rose” pieces you saw in that chest, there’s a lot of “clear-sky blue” somewhere as well. If there is, get it all out; give a length of it to our kinswoman here; I should like two lengths myself for a set of bed-hangings; and any left over can be matched with suitable lining-material and made up into waistcoats for the girls. There’s no point in keeping it until it gets mildewed.’

Xi-feng, having first promised that she would do all these things, told the servant who had brought the sample to take it back to the storeroom.

‘We’re a bit cramped in here,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Let’s move on to somewhere else now.’

‘They say that “great families live in great houses”,’ said Grannie Liu, ‘and truly, when I first went into Your Ladyship’s apartment yesterday and saw those great chests and cupboards and tables and beds, the size of everything fairly took my breath away. That great wardrobe of yours is higher and wider than one of our rooms back home. I’m not surprised you keep a ladder in the back courtyard. When I first saw it, I thought to myself, “Now what can they need a ladder for? They don’t ripen things on the roofs as we do, so it can’t be for that.” And then of course I realized: it must be for getting things out of the compartment on top of that wardrobe of yours, for you could never reach it else. And yet this place here, for all it’s so much smaller, seems to me more perfect than your big one. The things here are all so pretty. I don’t know what they are, some of them, but the more I look at them, the less I want to leave!’

‘There are other pretty places besides this,’ said Xi-feng. ‘We’re taking you to see them all.’

As they left the Naiad’s House, they could make out, at some distance from where they stood, a number of people punting on the lake. Remarking that since the boats were already out they might just as well use them, Grandmother Jia conducted her little party in the general direction of Amaryllis Eyot and Flowery Harbour. Before they had reached the water’s edge, however, a number of elderly women approached, each bearing one of those large summer food-boxes of the kind they make in Soochow, with tops and bottoms of varicoloured lacquer-work delicately patterned in needle-engraving of gold, and panels of gilded bamboo basket-work in their sides. Seeing them approach, Xi-feng asked Lady Wang where she wanted lunch to be laid.

‘Ask Grandmother,’ said Lady Wang. ‘Wherever she wants it, of course.’

Grandmother Jia, who had been moving on, now turned back to tell them.

‘Your Cousin Tan’s would be a nice place to have it. You go on ahead and lay it there, and the rest of us will follow by boat.’

Xi-feng, accompanied by Li Wan, Tan-chun, Faithful and Amber, led the women with the lunch-boxes by a short cut to the Autumn Studio. They put out a couple of tables there in the Paulownia Room.

‘We’re often hearing how the gentlemen at their parties outside have a buffoon to provide them with their laughs,’ said Faithful while they were getting ready. ‘Today we’ve got a buffoon of our own – a female one.’

Li Wan, being a good, simple soul, did not understand what she meant; but Xi-feng knew immediately that she was referring to Grannie Liu and gleefully agreeing that they should have some laughs at the old woman’s expense, at once began plotting something with Faithful.

‘You two are awful!’ Li Wan protested laughingly. ‘Anyone would think you were a couple of mischievous children. And what will Lady Jia say?’

‘Don’t worry, Mrs Zhu!’ said Faithful. ‘You won’t be involved in this one little bit. I promise to keep you out of it.’

Grandmother Jia now arrived with the others, the company sat down informally, and maids went round and served everyone with tea. When they had all finished their tea, Xi-feng came in carrying a bundle of silver-tipped and silver-ornamented ebony chopsticks wrapped in a West Ocean linen napkin, and proceeded to lay the places.

‘Put that little yellow cedar-wood table next to my place so that Mrs Liu can sit by me,’ said Grandmother Jia.

As the maids hastened to comply, Xi-feng tipped a wink at Faithful, who took the opportunity presented by this diversion to draw Grannie Liu aside and quietly brief her on the decorums to be observed by anyone eating with the family.

‘It’s part of the rules of this household,’ she told the old woman in conclusion. ‘If you don’t do it properly, they will laugh at you.’

The places being now all laid, the company sat down to table, with the exception of Aunt Xue, who had eaten already and continued sitting where she was, drinking tea. Bao-yu, Xiang-yun, Dai-yu and Bao-chai sat at one of the two large tables with Grandmother Jia at their head, and Ying-chun, Tan-chun and Xi-chun sat at the other one, presided over by Lady Wang. Grannie Liu had a little table of her own next to Grandmother Jia.

Normally when Grandmother Jia took her meals it was the junior maids who stood with spittoons, fly-whisks and napkins in their hands behind the chairs. Faithful had long since graduated from such menial duties. On this occasion, however, she borrowed a fly-whisk from one of the younger girls and did some whisking herself. This was a signal for the other maids, who knew that something was afoot, to melt discreetly away, leaving the stage clear for Faithful. Fly-whisk in hand, Faithful took up a position on her own and darted a questioning glance at her victim.

‘All right, Miss, don’t worry!’ said Grannie Liu, and having settled herself in her place, picked up her chopsticks. She found them extremely heavy and unwieldy. They were a pair of old-fashioned, square-handled ivory ones inlaid with gold, which Xi-feng and Faithful had planted on her in furtherance of their plan.

‘What’s this you’ve given me?’ said Grannie Liu. ‘A pair of tongs? These are heavier than one of our iron shovels. I shall never be able to manage with these.’

The others all laughed.

A woman-servant now entered carrying one of the luncheon-boxes and stood in the middle of the room holding it while a maid removed the lid. There were two dishes inside. Li Wan took out one of them and set it down on Grandmother Jia’s table. The second, a bowl of pigeon’s eggs (deliberately chosen for their mirth-provoking possibilities) was taken out by Xi-feng and set down in front of Grannie Liu.

‘Please!’ said Grandmother Jia, waving her chopsticks at the food as a polite indication that they should begin. At once Grannie Liu leaped to her feet and, in ringing tones, recited the following grace:

‘My name it is Liu, I’m a trencherman true; I can eat a whole sow With her little pigs too.’

Having concluded, she puffed out both her cheeks and stared in front of her with an expression of great determination.

There was a moment of awestruck silence; then, as it dawned on them that they really had heard what they thought they had heard, the whole company, both masters and servants, burst out into roars of laughter.

Shi Xiang-yun, unable to contain herself, spat out a whole mouthful of rice.

Lin Dai-yu, made breathless by laughter, collapsed on the table, uttering weak ‘Aiyos’.

Bao-yu rolled over, convulsed, on to his grandmother’s bosom.

Grandmother Jia, exclaiming helplessly ‘Oh, my heart!’ ‘Oh, my child!’, clung tightly to her heaving grandson.

Lady Wang pointed an accusing finger at Xi-feng, but laughter had deprived her of speech.

Aunt Xue exploded a mouthful of tea over Tan-chun’s skirt.

Tan-chun planted a bowlful of rice on the person of Ying-chun.

Xi-chun got up from the table and going over to her nurse, took her by the hand and asked her to massage her stomach.

The servants were all doubled up. Some had to go outside where they could squat down and laugh with abandon. Those who could control themselves sufficiently helped the casualties to mop up or change their clothes.

Only Xi-feng and Faithful remained straight-faced throughout this outburst, politely urging Grannie Liu to begin. Manipulating the unwieldy chopsticks with considerable difficulty, the old woman prepared to do so.

‘Even your hens here are special,’ she remarked. ‘Such pretty little eggs they lay! I must see if I can’t get one of these under me belt!’

Under the impact of these remarks the company’s composure, which it had only just recovered, once more broke down. Grandmother Jia, abandoning any attempt at self-control, was now actually weeping with laughter. Amber, who feared a seizure, pounded her energetically on the back.

‘That wicked devil Feng is behind this,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Don’t believe a thing she tells you!’

‘They cost a silver tael apiece,’ said Xi-feng, as Grannie Liu continued to praise the diminutive ‘hen’s’ eggs. ‘You should eat them quickly, while they’re still hot. They won’t be so nice when they’re cold.’

Grannie Liu obediently held out her chopsticks and tried to take hold of one, but the egg eluded her. After chasing it several times round the inside of the bowl, she did at last succeed in getting a grip on it. But as she craned forward with open mouth to reach it, it slipped through the chopsticks and rolled on to the floor. At once she laid down the chopsticks, and would have gone down on hands and knees to pick it up, but before she could do so one of the servants had retrieved it and carried it off for disposal.

‘That’s a tael of silver gone,’ Grannie Liu said regretfully, ‘and we didn’t even hear the clink!’

The others had by now lost all interest in eating, absorbed by the entertaining antics of their guest.

‘Who got those chopsticks out?’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘They’re not meant for occasions like this; they’re for using at formal banquets. Whoever it was, I expect it was that wicked Feng who put them up to it. Take them away at once and get her another pair!’

The servants had in point of fact had nothing to do with the chryselephantine chopsticks, which had been smuggled in at the last moment by Faithful and Xi-feng; nevertheless, on hearing the order, they obediently came forward and replaced them with a silver and ebony pair like those that had been provided for the rest.

‘Out goes gold and in comes silver!’ said Grannie Liu. ‘But when all’s said and done, our wooden ones at home are handier.’

‘If there’s any poison in what you are eating,’ said Xi-feng, ‘the silver will tell you by changing colour.’

‘If this food is poisoned,’ said Grannie Liu, ‘then what we eat at home must be pure arsenic. Anyway, I intend to eat it all, come what may!’

Delighted to have found someone who, besides being so amusing, had so evident a relish for her food, Grandmother Jia insisted on making all her own portion over to Grannie Liu and ordered one of the older women to go round with a pair of chopsticks and a bowl and make a selection from all the dishes to give to little Ban-er.

Presently, when they had finished eating, Grandmother Jia and the others moved into Tan-chun’s bedroom for a chat, while in the Paulownia Room the servants cleared away the remains of the meal and hastily relaid a table for Li Wan and Xi-feng. Grannie Liu, who had lingered behind, observed them sitting down at opposite sides of it to begin their meal. She was greatly impressed by this glimpse of the upper-class etiquette which requires young married women to eat on their own when the rest have finished.

‘What I like best of all here,’ she said, ‘is your way of doing things. I’m not surprised they say that “good breeding is to be found in great houses”.’

The compliment was sincerely meant, but Xi-feng understood it in a different sense.

‘I do hope we haven’t hurt your feelings,’ she said. ‘It was only a joke, you know.’

The words were scarcely out of her mouth when Faithful came hurrying in.

‘Please don’t be offended, Mrs Liu. I’ve come in to apologize.’

‘Bless you, I’m not offended!’ said Grannie Liu. ‘We were only cheering up Her Ladyship, dear old soul. What should I be offended for? I knew when you told me to say those things it was only for a laugh. If I’d felt offended, I should never have said them.’

A chastened Faithful turned angrily on the other servants.

‘Come on! why aren’t you pouring Mrs Liu some tea?’

‘That’s all right,’ said Grannie Liu hurriedly. ‘I’ve had some already. I drank the tea that the young woman handed to me a while ago. You get on with your own lunch, Miss. Don’t mind me!’

Xi-feng took Faithful by the hand.

‘Yes, eat now with us. It’ll keep you out of mischief.’

Faithful sat down and one of the old women laid another bowl for her and another pair of chopsticks. When the three young women had finished, Grannie Liu, who had been watching them, remarked on how little they had eaten.

‘None of you here seems to eat more than a bite or two,’ she said. ‘It’s a marvel to me you’re not famished. No wonder you all look as if the wind could blow you over!’

‘There is a lot left over today,’ Faithful commented. ‘Where are all the others?’ she asked the old serving-woman.

‘They’re still here in waiting, Miss,’ said the old woman. ‘They’re not off duty yet. We can give it to them, if you like, before they go.’

‘They’ll never finish all this lot,’ said Faithful. ‘Pick out a couple of bowlfuls and take them to Patience in Mrs Lian’s room.’

‘No need,’ said Xi-feng. ‘She’s had her lunch already.’

‘If she can’t eat it herself, she can give it to the cat,’ said Faithful.

The old woman put the contents of two of the dishes into a box and carried it off to give Patience.

‘Where’s Candida?’ said Faithful.

‘She’s in there eating with the rest,’ said Li Wan. ‘What do you want her for?’

‘It’s all right,’ said Faithful. ‘Nothing.’

‘Aroma isn’t here,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Why don’t you send her a couple of dishes?’

Faithful gave orders for this to be done. She inquired of the remaining old women whether the boxes for the drinking party were ready yet.

‘I think they’ll be a while yet,’ said one of them.

‘Hurry them up a bit, will you?’ said Faithful, and the old woman went off to do her bidding.

The young women, accompanied by Grannie Liu, now went into Tan-chun’s room, where Grandmother Jia and the others were chatting and laughing together.

This room, a three-frame apartment which Tan-chun, who loved spaciousness, had left undivided, had in the midst of it a large rosewood table with a Yunnanese marble top piled high with specimen-books of calligraphy and littered with several dozen miscellaneous ink-stones and a small forest of writing-brushes standing in brush-holders and brush-stands of every conceivable shape and size. On one side of the table was a bucket-sized ‘pincushion’ flower-vase of Ru ware stuck all over with snow-white pompom chrysanthemums. On the west wall of the room hung a ‘Landscape in Mist and Rain’ by Mi Fei, flanked by a pair of scrolls bearing a couplet written by the Tang calligrapher Yan Zhen-qing:

My heart has discovered true ease amidst the clouds and mists of the mountains;

My life has gained a fierce freedom from the rocks and torrents of the fells.

Against the wall beneath was a long, high table. On it, towards the left, stood a large Northern Song porcelain dish heaped with those ornamental citrus fruits they call ‘Buddha’s hands’, whose brilliant yellow contrasted agreeably with the greenish blue of the glaze. To the right a white jade chime in the form of a two-headed fish hung in a varnished wooden frame to whose side a tiny hammer was attached. Ban-er, whom growing familiarity was making bolder, was with difficulty restrained from unfastening the hammer and striking the fish with it. He then said that he wanted one of the ‘yellow things’ to eat, and Tan-chun selected a Buddha’s hand from the dish and gave it to him.

‘There you are,’ she said, ‘but it’s only to play with. It isn’t good to eat.’

On the opposite side of the room was a large four-poster bed whose silk gauze hangings had a pattern of bright green plants and insects in reversible embroidery. Ban-er ran over to it and began identifying the insects:

‘That’s a cricket. That’s a grasshopper …’

Grannie Liu dealt him a hefty slap:

‘Little varmint! Who said you could go running around putting your dirty hands on everything? Just because you’ve been allowed in to have a look, it doesn’t mean you have to start getting above yourself.’

The blow had been hard enough to make him cry, and it took the combined efforts of the others present to comfort him.

Meanwhile Grandmother Jia had been looking through the gauze-covered windows into the courtyard behind.

‘Those paulownias by the verandah eaves are still very fine,’ she remarked. ‘It’s a pity they’ve begun losing their leaves.’

A little gust of wind blew across the courtyard as she spoke, bearing on it a faint strain of music from outside.

‘That must be a wedding,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realize we were so near to the street here.’

‘You could never hear the street from here, Mother,’ said Lady Wang, laughing. ‘Those are our twelve little actresses rehearsing.’

‘If they’re going to be playing anyway,’ said Grandmother Jia, ‘we may as well have them to play in here. It will be entertainment for us and it will make an outing of sorts for them.’

Xi-feng at once ordered the troupe to be summoned, and made hurried arrangements for a long table to be brought in, that the actresses could sit down to perform at, and covered with a red rug.

‘Much better put them in Xi-chun’s water pavilion,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘The music will sound even better coming across the water. Later on when we take our wine we can sit in the downstairs of the Painted Chamber. It’s nice and open there and close enough to the pavilion for listening to the music from.’

Everyone agreed that this would be a good idea.

Grandmother Jia now turned with a smile to Aunt Xue.

‘I think we’d better be on our way now. These young people don’t much like having visitors, you know. They are terrified of getting their rooms dirty. We mustn’t be tactless and overstay our welcome. I think we’d better take another little turn in the boats now, and then it will be just about time to go and have our drinks.’

‘How unfair!’ said Tan-chun laughing. ‘When I ask you or Mother or Aunt Xue to come here, you never do.’

‘Oh, my little Tan is all right,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘It’s those two Yus who are so detestable. We shall go and brawl in their rooms later on when we are drunk!’

The others (including the detestable Yus) all laughed.

Emerging in a single group from the Autumn Studio, they arrived after a short walk at Duckweed Island, where their specially imported Soochow boatwomen were waiting with two elegantly decorated punts. Grandmother Jia, Lady Wang, Aunt Xue, Grannie Liu, Faithful and Silver were handed one by one aboard the first one. They were joined a little later by Li Wan, and finally by Xi-feng, who stood in the bows and said she was going to punt.

‘Feng!’ Grandmother Jia called nervously from inside the cabin. ‘It’s too dangerous to fool about. It isn’t like the open river here, but it’s still quite deep. Come in here with us!’

‘It’s all right, Grannie! Don’t be nervous!’ said Xi-feng, laughing, as she shoved off from the bank. But the punt, being somewhat overloaded, was hard to manage, so that by the time they were in midstream she was already in difficulties and had to hand the pole over to one of the boatwomen and sit down rather abruptly on her haunches.

When their elders were safely away, Bao-yu and the six girls got into the second punt and were poled along in the wake of the first one. The maids and older women proceeded in the same direction on foot along the shore.

‘These raggedy-looking lotus-leaves everywhere are rather ugly,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I can’t think why they haven’t been cleared away.’

‘Now when could they have been?’ said Bao-chai. ‘With parties being held here practically every day this autumn, the Garden has never been free long enough.’

‘I can’t abide the poems of Li Shang-yin,’ said Dai-yu, ‘but there is just one line of his that I am rather fond of:

Leaves but dead lotus-leaves for the rain to play on.

Trust you not to “leave the dead lotus-leaves”!’

‘It is a good line, I agree,’ said Bao-yu. ‘We’ll tell them that in future they are not to remove them.’

They were drifting into Flowery Harbour now, and the dank chill of its creeper-hung grotto seemed to penetrate their bones. Dead reeds and dying caltrop-leaves added to the autumnal melancholy of the scene. A clean, airy-looking building was visible at some distance beyond the bank above.

‘Isn’t that Bao-chai’s place?’ said Grandmother Jia.

On being told that it was, she asked the women to moor the boats there, and having disembarked, ascended from the landing-stage by a flight of cloud-shaped stone steps and proceeded, with the rest of the party, to the gateway of Allspice Court.

A delectable fragrance assailed their nostrils as they entered. Outside the house the leaves of the mysterious, unnamable creepers had turned an even intenser green in the colder weather, and where before there had been flowers, there now hung trusses of the most beautiful coral-red berries. Indoors, however, it was stark and bare. The only decoration in Bao-chai’s room was a vase of the cheaper kind of Ding ware on the table, with a few chrysanthemums in it. Apart from the flowers there were only a few books and some tea-things on the table. The bed-hangings were of black gauze, and the quilts and covers were of the same forbidding plainness as the hangings.

‘This child is really too self-effacing!’ Grandmother Jia muttered, evidently shocked by what she saw. The tone in which she addressed Bao-chai was a somewhat reproachful one: ‘If you haven’t any things of your own, why ever didn’t you ask your Aunt Wang for some? I’m afraid I never thought about it before. Of course. I realize now. You must have left all your stuff behind in Nanking.’

She at once ordered Faithful to supply Bao-chai with some ornaments, and then turned, with some asperity, on Xi-feng.

‘Really, Feng! I do think it rather stingy of you! Couldn’t you have spared your cousin a few knick-knacks?’

Lady Wang and Xi-feng both laughed.

‘She said herself that she didn’t want any. We gave her some things, but she sent them all back again.’

Aunt Xue corroborated this.

‘She was just the same in Nanking, Lady Jia. She’s never cared much for that sort of thing.’

Grandmother Jia shook her head.

‘That will never do. It saves trouble, no doubt, to keep one’s room so bare. But what would any of our relations think if they were to come here and see this? Besides, it isn’t natural for a young girl to be so austere. If girls are to live so austerely, what sort of a stable ought an old woman like me to live in? Think of the descriptions of young ladies’ boudoirs you find in plays and romances – such exquisite refinement of luxury! I’m not exactly suggesting that you should emulate them – but you shouldn’t fall too far short, all the same. After all, when the things are there for the asking, it seems silly not to use them. Use them sparingly, by all means, if your tastes are on the austere side; but don’t dispense with them altogether! I’ve always had rather a flair for decorating interiors. I don’t exercise it much nowadays, because I’m too old; but I think the girls have inherited a little of it from me. The thing one always has to be on one’s guard against is bad taste – which generally means no more than arranging good things in a bad way. I don’t think any of my girls has bad taste. Now why don’t you let me decorate this room for you? I promise you it shall look both dignified and austere. There are still a few things tucked away in my dowry that Bao-yu doesn’t know about. (I wouldn’t let him see them, or they’d have disappeared long ago!).’

She called Faithful to her and instructed her what to bring.

‘I want you to fetch that bonseki and the little screen and the little tripod of smoky agate. Those three things arranged on the table here will be enough. There’s also a set of white satin hangings hand-painted in black ink. I’d like you to get them too and put them up in place of these bed-curtains.’

‘Yes, madam,’ said Faithful. ‘But these things are all stored in the attic over the east wing and I’m not sure which chests they’re in, so it will take me quite a while to find them. Can’t I leave it until tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow is immaterial,’ said Grandmother Jia, ‘as long as it gets done.’

After sitting for a while longer in Bao-chai’s room, they got up and again moved on to the covered area underneath the Painted Chamber. Élégante and the other little actresses came forward to make their curtseys and to inquire what pieces they should play.

‘Choose a few of the ones you are most familiar with,’ said Grandmother Jia, and the little actresses went off to the Lotus Pavilion. No further mention of them is made in this part of our narrative.

Supervised by Xi-feng, the servants had by now completed the seating arrangements for the drinking-party. Two wooden couches covered with woven grass mats and embroidered cushions had been placed side by side at the head. Each had a pair of carved lacquer tables in front of it. On one of each pair there was an incense set – a miniature metal vase, a miniature cassolette and a miniature tripod, all for burning different kinds of incense in – on the other was a large lacquer box. These two couches with a pair of tables each were for Grandmother Jia and Aunt Xue.

Of the places ranged below them only one, Lady Wang’s, had a couch and two tables; all the rest had one table and a chair. On the east side, nearest to Grandmother Jia, sat Grannie Liu with Lady Wang below her; on the west side Xiang-yun had been laid first, nearest to Aunt Xue, then Bao-chai, then Dai-yu, then Ying-chun, then Tan-chun, then Xi-chun, with Bao-yu in the very last place of all. A table and chairs had been laid for Li Wan and Xi-feng between the inner and outer mosquito screens which protected those inside the room from the insects of the lake.

The little lacquer tables were of many different shapes – some four-lobed like a begonia leaf, some five-lobed like plum-flowers, some shaped like multi-petalled sunflowers, some like lotus leaves, some square, some round – and the lacquer boxes were designed to match the shapes of the tables. Everyone had his own nielloed silver ‘self-service’ wine kettle and a little polychrome cloisonné winecup.

‘Well now,’ said Grandmother Jia when they were all seated, ‘let’s have a cup or two to warm up on, and after that I think it would be more fun if we played a drinking game.’

‘I am sure you know lots of good ones,’ said Aunt Xue, ‘but what about the rest of us? I am afraid this is just a trick to make us all drunk. We might just as well drink the extra cups now, since we’re bound to lose anyway, and forget about the game!’

‘Come, Mrs Xue, you’re being excessively modest all of a sudden!’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘But perhaps you think I’m too old for this sort of thing?’

‘No, no, no. And I’m not being modest, either,’ said Aunt Xue, laughing. ‘I am afraid of not being able to give the answers and making a fool of myself.’

‘Even if we can’t give the answers,’ said Lady Wang, ‘it only means drinking a few more cups of wine. And if we get drunk, we can go to bed. No one is going to laugh at us, I hope!’

Aunt Xue smiled and nodded.

‘Very well, I shall do as I am told then. But I think Lady Jia ought to drink a cup first, as proposer of the game.’

‘Of course,’ said Grandmother Jia, and drained off a cup forthwith.

Xi-feng stepped forward into their midst to make a proposal:

‘If you are going to play a drinking game, may I suggest that you have Faithful as your M.C.?’

The others, knowing that when Grandmother Jia played drinking games it was generally Faithful who helped her out, agreed readily to this proposal, whereupon Xi-feng went to fetch Faithful and drew her into their midst.

‘If Faithful is going to be our M.C.,’ said Lady Wang, ‘we can’t possibly have her standing up all the time.’ She turned to one of the little maids behind her: ‘Put a chair for her over there, will you, where Mrs Zhu and Mrs Lian are sitting.’

When the chair had been brought, Faithful, offering polite resistance, allowed herself to be propelled towards it, and having first apologized for the liberty of doing so, sat down. At once she established her authority by drinking a bumper-cup.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘The rules of drinking are as strict as the rules of war. Now that you’ve made me your M.C., any of you who doesn’t do exactly as I say, no matter who it is, has to pay a forfeit.’

‘Agreed, agreed,’ said the others. ‘Hurry up and tell us what the game is’.

Before she could do so, Grannie Liu, waving her hand in protest, got up and began to go.

‘’Tisn’t right to make sport of folks like this. I’m going home!’

‘No, no, we can’t have that!’ said the others, laughing.

‘Back to the chair with her!’ Faithful shouted to the younger maids. They complied gleefully, seizing the old woman on either side and marching her back to her seat.

‘Let me off this game!’ she pleaded, as they forced her into it; but Faithful was adamant.

‘Another word from you,’ she said, ‘and you’ll be made to drink a whole kettleful as a punishment.’

Grannie Liu’s protests then ceased.

‘What I’m going to do,’ said Faithful, ‘is to call threesomes with the dominoes, starting from Her Old Ladyship, going round in an anti-clockwise direction, and ending up with Mrs Liu. First I shall make a separate call for each of the three dominoes and after that I shall make a call for the whole threesome, so you’ll get four calls each. Every time I call, you’ve got to answer with something that rhymes and that has some connection with the call. It can be something from a poem or song or ballad, or it can be a proverb or some well-known expression – anything you like as long as there is a connection and it rhymes.’

‘Good!’ said the others approvingly. ‘That’s a good game. Let’s have a call then.’

‘Right,’ said Faithful. ‘Here comes the first one.’ She laid down a double six. ‘On my left the bright blue sky.’1

‘The Lord looks down from heaven on high,’ said Grandmother Jia.

‘Bravo!’ said the others.

The second domino was a five-six.

‘Five and six together meet,’ said Faithful.

‘By Six Bay Bridge the flowers smell sweet.’

‘Leaves six and ace upon the right.’

‘The red sun in the sky so bright,’ said Grandmother Jia.

‘Altogether that makes: “A shock-headed devil with hair like tow”,’ said Faithful.

‘The devil shouts, “Zhong Kui, let me go!”,’ said Grandmother Jia.

Amidst laughter, and applause for the successful completion of her turn, she picked up and drained her winecup.

‘Here comes the next one,’ said Faithful, laying down a double five. ‘On my left all the fives I find.’

‘Plum-blossoms dancing in the wind,’ said Aunt Xue.

‘On my right all the fives again,’ said Faithful.

‘Plum-blossoms in the tenth month’s rain,’ said Aunt Xue.

‘Between them, two and five make seven.’

‘On Seventh Night the lovers meet in heaven.’

‘Together that gives: “The Second Prince plays in the Five Holy Hills”.’

‘The immortals dwell far off from mortal ills.’

Again there was applause, and Aunt Xue drank her wine.

‘Next threesome coming up,’ said Faithful. ‘All the aces, one and one.’

‘Two lamps for earth, the moon and sun,’ said Xiang-yun.

‘On my right once more aces all.’

‘And flowers to earth in silence fall,’ said Xiang-yun.

‘Between them, ace again with four.’

‘Apricot trees make the sun’s red-petalled floor,’ said Xiang-yun.

‘Together that makes nine ripe cherries.’

‘Winged thieves have stripped the Emperor’s trees of berries,’ said Xiang-yun, and drank her wine.

‘A pair on the left then, three and three,’ said Faithful.

‘Swallows in pairs round the old roof-tree,’ said Bao-chai.

‘A pair of threes upon the right,’ said Faithful.

‘Green duckweed-trails on the water bright.’

‘A three and six between them lie.’

‘Three peaks upon the rim of sky,’ said Bao-chai.

‘Together that gives: “The lone boat tied with an iron chain”,’ said Faithful.

‘The waves on every hand and the heart’s pain,’ said Bao-chai, and drank what remained in her winecup.

‘Sky on the left, the good fresh air,’ said Faithful, putting down a double six.

‘Bright air and brilliant morn feed my despair,’ said Dai-yu.

Bao-chai, recognizing the quotation, turned and stared; but Dai-yu was too intent on keeping her end up to have noticed.

‘A four and a six, the Painted Screen,’ said Faithful.

‘No Reddie at the window seen,’ said Dai-yu, desperately dredging up a line this time from The Western Chamber to meet the emergency.

‘A two and a six, four twos make eight.’

‘In twos walk backwards from the Hall of State,’ said Dai-yu, on safer ground with a line from Du Fu.

‘Together makes: “A basket for the flowers you pick”,’ said Faithful.

‘A basket of peonies slung from his stick,’ Dai-yu concluded, and took a sip of her wine.

‘Four and five, the Flowery Nine,’ said Faithful.

‘The flowering peach-tree drenched with rain,’ said Ying-chun.

‘Forfeit! Forfeit!’ said the others, laughing. ‘It doesn’t rhyme; and besides, the words don’t fit.’

Ying-chun laughed and sipped her wine. As a matter of fact her failure was intentional. Eager for more laughs, Xi-feng and Faithful had secretly intimated to the four remaining cousins that they should give the wrong answers on purpose, in order to come the more quickly to Grannie Liu. Accordingly Tan-chun, Xi-chun and Bao-yu, all deliberately fell down on their first calls as well, leaving only Lady Wang to dispose of, which Faithful accomplished by the simple expedient of supplying the answers for her herself. It was now Grannie Liu’s turn.

‘We often play a game like this ourselves back home when we get together of an evening,’ said Grannie Liu, ‘only the way we do it, it doesn’t sound so pretty as this. Howsomever. I don’t mind having a try.’

‘It’s easy, really,’ said the others. ‘Don’t worry about what it sounds like. Just say what comes naturally.’

Faithful began to lay.

‘A pair of fours on the left, the Man.’

Grannie Liu was a good long while puzzling over this. Finally she said.

‘Is it a farmer?’

The others roared with laughter.

‘That’s all right,’ said Grandmother Jia reassuringly. ‘That answer will do very well.’

‘You young people shouldn’t laugh at me,’ said Grannie Liu to the others. ‘I’m a countrywoman born and I can’t help my country talk.’

‘Green three, red four, contrasting colours,’ called Faithful.

‘The fire burns up the caterpillars,’ said Grannie Liu.

‘Why, so it might,’ said the others. ‘Stick to your “country talk”, Grannie, you’re doing fine!’

‘Red four on the right and the ace is red,’ said Faithful.

‘A turnip and a garlic-head.’

More laughter.

‘ “The Flower” those three together show,’ said Faithful.

‘This flower will to a pumpkin grow,’ said the flower-bedecked ancient, gesturing with her hands to demonstrate the size of the imagined pumpkin.

The following chapter will show how the party progressed.