The Warning Voice (57 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xiang-yun laughed.

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

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

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

‘What rhyme?' said Xiang-yun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘She thought for a bit.

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

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

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

She proceeded to finish the couplet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Ah, that's a good line!' said Dai-yu.
She thought a bit before capping it.

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

She followed as best she could.

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

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

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

She continued.

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

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

‘Oh, does it?' said Xiang-yun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After thinking for a while, she produced the following.

DAI-YU:

And wind-combed leaves on ledges congregate.
The Weaving Maid in lonely splendour shines –

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

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

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

A raft floats skywards with a human freight.
Waxing or waning, the moon's face, ever changing –

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

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

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

Xiang-yun laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DAI-YU:

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

Xiang-yun clapped her hands.

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

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

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

‘Bravo! An excellent line!' said this person. ‘But it is, indeed, a little too melancholy. Don't do any more. If you go on from there, the danger is that you may produce something forced and mechanical, which instead of offsetting the beauty of your line will merely spoil it.'

Startled by this unexpected interruption, the two girls looked hard in the direction from which it came and with some surprise recognized the speaker as Adamantina.

‘What are
you
doing here?' they asked her.

‘Hearing the sounds of your moon-watching party, followed later by the sound of a flute playing, I was tempted to come out and enjoy the moon myself. I wanted to see it over this open expanse of water, where it appears to most advantage, and as I approached, I could hear you both reciting. Such pure refinement constrained me to stay and listen. But there were lines which, in spite of their excellence, contained a note of almost decadent melancholy, lines which made me fearful for the person uttering them. That is why I came out of my concealment and prevented you from going on. Lady Jia has
long since broken up the party. Everyone else in the Garden must be in bed by now. I wonder where your maids are. Doubtless they are somewhere looking for you. Are you not afraid of catching cold? Come with me, and I shall give you some hot tea to drink. It must be nearly dawn.'

Dai-yu laughed.

‘I'd no idea the night was so far advanced.'

The three of them walked together to Green Bower Hermitage. A faint light still flickered in the Buddha shrine and the incense in the burner gave off a tiny smoke. All the old lay-sisters were asleep. A little maid, nodding sleepily on Adamantina's meditation mat, appeared to be the only person still up. She roused herself when Adamantina called to her and made some tea with water from the already boiling kettle. Just at that moment there was a knocking at the gate and the little maid hurried to open it. It turned out to be Nightingale and Kingfisher with two or three old womenservants, looking for their mistresses. They found their mistresses drinking tea inside.

‘Well!' they said. ‘You've led us a fine old dance! We've been all over the Garden looking for you. We even tried Mrs Xue's outside. In the end we happened to go to that little pavilion under the mountain, just as the caretakers were waking up. When we asked them about you they said, “There were two people talking outside on the covered verandah a while ago, then a third one came along and we heard them saying they were going to the Hermitage.” That's how we knew you were here.'

Adamantina told the little maid to take them round to the back where they could sit down and have some tea. She herself took paper, inkstone, brush and ink and began writing out the poem in linked couplets at the other two's dictation.

Dai-yu was impressed by Adamantina's enthusiasm.

‘I have never before liked to ask for your opinions about poetry because I have never before seen you show so much interest,' she said; ‘but since you now obviously are in the mood for discussing it, won't you please favour us with some criticism? If you think that what we have done is no good at
all, let us burn it; but if you can see ways of improving it, do please correct it for us.'

‘I certainly would not presume to alter any of it,' said Adamantina smiling; ‘but as there are no less than twenty-three couplets here, I am pretty sure that all your best lines must have been used up by now, and that if you were to go on, there would be a danger that you might begin to flag. What I should have liked to do would have been to go on for you myself; but I am afraid that if I did, I might only succeed in adding a dog's tail to your leopard-skin!'

Dai-yu had never seen Adamantina compose poetry before and took her up eagerly on her obvious willingness to do so now.

‘Oh
please
do, if you have a mind to! Though our verses may be of little value, they will gain distinction by being associated with yours.'

‘In order to conclude what you have done so far,' said Adamantina, ‘it will be necessary to bring the poem back to what we Buddhists call the “proper aspect”. If we continue to abandon reality and go chasing after the bizarre and the supernatural, we shall be guilty not only of unmaidenliness but also of losing sight of our subject.'

Mesdemoiselles Lin and Shi agreed.

Adamantina picked up the brush and began, muttering and writing by turns, until, having knocked off some dozen or so couplets, all in the same apparently effortless manner, she laid the brush down again and handed the paper over for the other two to read. This is what she had written: