The Warning Voice (70 page)
Authors: Cao Xueqin
Old Mrs You and the Zhangs
Chapter 64
as well as
chapter 67
was missing from Red Ink-stone recensions of the first eighty chapters made during the author's lifetime, but a version or versions of it seem to have turned up not long afterwards, since Gao E, writing less than thirty years after his death, mentions only that âsome manuscripts' had
chapter 67
missing, but says nothing about
chapter 64
. Like
chapter 67
,
chapter 64
exists in two quite widely differing versions. Towards the end of it, when the arrangements are being made for Jia Lian's secret marriage to Er-jie, one of the versions has Cousin Zhen summoning both Zhang Hua's father and Zhang Hua himself to the mansion in order to get the existing betrothal revoked. This clashes with what we are told about Zhang Hua in
chapter 68
(obviously a late development of the plot) viz., that he was living elsewhere, having been turned out of doors by his father, and knew nothing about the breaking off of the engagement. In the version of
chapter 64
used by Gao E, which is the one I have followed, old Zhang is the only one summoned to the mansion, and it is to him alone that Mrs You pays the twenty taels.
Old Mrs You is a considerable embarrassment to the author (or his editors) after her installation in Little Flower Lane. (Before the grafting-on of the San-jie story, I suggest, she and San-jie never moved into the house with Er-jie at all and therefore did not need to be accounted for.) In
chapter 65
the author (or editor) seems uncertain what to do with her during the outrageous scenes following Cousin Zhen's visit, and by the time Xi-feng appears on the scene in
chapter 68
, she has dwindled away altogether. Towards the end of
chapter 68
Xi-feng refers to her as someone who is dead.
The failure to account for Mrs You's disappearance is so obviously due to an editorial oversight that I thought no reader could object to my liquidating her myself. Xi-feng's
turning up at the house in half mourning was almost certainly meant to be a reminder that Jia Lian had married Er-jie illegally in a period of national and family mourning â what we should nowadays call a âput-down'. I have deliberately misinterpreted it as a gesture of sympathy for Er-jie's bereavement in order to have an excuse for introducing a couple of lines about old Mrs You's demise. They are not to be found in any Chinese text.
Fivey, Bao Er and The Mattress
In one of the two versions of
chapter 64
the domestic arrangements made for the house in Little Flower Lane where Er-jie is to be installed after her secret marriage are entirely in the hands of Cousin Zhen. They include the transfer to this new establishment of a married couple called Bao Er and his wife from the staff of Ning-guo House. Thereafter, in
chapter 65
et seq
., the woman is invariably referred to as âBao Er's wife'. In the more colourful version followed by Gao E it is Jia Lian who chooses the couple and Bao Er is identified with the servant whom Jia Lian cuckolded in chapter 44 and whose unfortunate wife hanged herself after the discovery of her adultery by Xi-feng. His new wife, we are told, is none other than our old friend The Mattress. Her husband, the drunken cook Droopy Duo, had finally succumbed to the drink and she had married Bao Er
en secondes noces
. That this is a late afterthought in the development of the plot is confirmed by the fact that in
chapter 65
the wife is referred to merely as âBao Er's woman'.
This late identification of Er-jie's housekeeper with The Mattress creates problems farther on in the novel. In
chapter 77
, when Bao-yu visits the dying Skybright in her cousin's squalid house and is nearly seduced by his wife, one version identifies the cousin and his wife with Droopy Duo and The Mattress. (The Chinese name for The Mattress in this chapter is slightly different from the one given in chapter 21, but it is fairly clear that the same person is intended.) In this version the woman abandons her assault on Bao-yu's virtue out of respect for his decency towards Skybright. In the version which Gao E followed, Skybright's cousin is a young man called Wu Gui â a pun on the Chinese word for âcuckold' â and his wife is left anonymous. Bao-yu is rescued not by the wife's change of heart but by the arrival of Fivey and her mother on an errand from Aroma.
The earlier version is in no sense a âbetter' one, because what it tells us about Droopy conflicts with what we are told about him in chapter 21. (In chapter 21 he appears to be a houseborn servant with parents still living; in
chapter 77
he appears to be an orphan who was originally in service outside.) My translation fairly consistently follows the version found in Gao E's edition, but I have left Skybright's cousin anonymous.
The duplication of the name âBao Er' found in the earlier version of
chapter 64
(one a servant of Jia Lian and one a servant of Cousin Zhen) was no doubt unintentional. If we regard it as an error, we can say that nevertheless it was a creative one, since it suggested the wholly successful identification of the two characters â the cuckold of chapter 44 and the housekeeper's husband of
chapter 65
. It can be paralleled by other, less creative duplications which I have deliberately not reproduced in my translation in order to avoid confusion. In the Chinese text there are two pages called âShou-er'. One, in chapter 28, is Bao-yu's page. I call him âOldie'. The other is Cousin Zhen's page and appears in
chapter 65
. I call him âLively'. There are also two pages called âXing-er'. One, who appears in chapter 53, is Cousin Zhen's page. I call him âMerry'. The other is Jia Lian's page âJoker', who appears in
chapters 65
,
66
,
67
and
68
.
Euergesia and the Little Actresses
In the Chinese text of
chapter 77
there are not one but two nuns staying with Lady Wang after the Mid-Autumn Festival, one from Water Moon Priory and one from the Convent of the Saviour King. The names given them do not appear anywhere else in the novel. That given to the nun from Water Moon Priory, âZhi-tong', is reminiscent of the Chinese names of Euergesia's little acolytes in chapter 15, Zhi-shan (whom I call âBenevolentia') and Zhi-neng (whom I call âSapientia'). It is presumably Mother Euergesia â although the Chinese text does not name her there â who visits the mansion with Sapientia in chapter 7 (
The Golden Days
, p. 172). In
chapter 77
Parfumée goes off with Zhi-tong to Water Moon Priory while the other two ex-actresses, Ãtamine and Nénuphar, go with the other nun to the Convent of the Saviour King. Later on, in chapter 93, however, it seems to be implied that the three girls are all living together at Water Moon Priory. Chapter 93 contains a further confusion involving the name of the priory and that of the family's Temple of the Iron Threshold which my friend John Minford has explained in an Appendix to Volume Four. In order to anticipate what is said in chapter 93, I have eliminated one of the two nuns in
chapter 77
and transformed the other one into Mother Euergesia. I have, in any case, a strong suspicion that Euergesia is intended here and that Xueqin simply forgot what he had called her in that much earlier part of the novel.
ABBOT ZHANG
an old Taoist, chief priest of the Lunar Queen Temple
ACADEMICIAN MEI
Xue Bao-qin's prospective father-in-law
ADAMANTINA
a genteel and eccentric young nun residing in Prospect Garden
ADVENT
Caltrop's maid
ALTHÃE
one of the Jia family's troupe of child actresses, later attached to Shi Xiang-yun
AMBER
maid of Grandmother Jia
AROMA
principal maid of Bao-yu
ARTÃMISIE
one of the Jia family's troupe of child actresses, later attached to Tan-chun
AUBERGINE
one of the Jia family's troupe of child actresses, later attached to You-shi
AUNT ER
see
YOU ER-JIE
AUNT FENG
see
WANG XI-FENG
AUNT SAN
see
YOU SAN-JIE
AUNT XING
see
LADY XING
AUNT XUE
widowed sister of Lady Wang and mother of Xue Pan and Bao-chai
AUNT ZHAO
concubine of Jia Zheng and mother of Tan-chun and Jia Huan
AUNT ZHOU
Jia Zheng's other concubine
AUTUMN
concubine given to Jia Lian by his father
AVENTURIN
see
PARFUMÃE
AVIS | } | maids of Lady Wang |
AVOCET |
AZURE
one of Jia She's girl concubines
BAO-CHAI
see
XUE BAO-CHAI
BAO ER
servant of Jia Lian cuckolded by his master and later installed by him in Er-jie's household
BAO-QIN
see
XUE BAO-QIN
BAO-YU
see
JIA BAO-YU
BRIGHTIE | } | couple employed by Xi-feng in various |
BRIGHTIE'S WIFE |
BUTTERFLY
You-shi's maid
CALTROP
Xue Pan's âchamber wife'; originally daughter of Zhen Shi-yin, kidnapped in infancy
CANDIDA
maid of Li Wan
CARDAMOME
youngest of Jia family troupe of child actresses, later attached to Xue Bao-qin
CARMINE
concubine purchased by Jia She
CASTA
maid of Li Wan
CHAI
see
XUE BAO-CHAI
CHAMBERLAIN ZHOU
eunuch official in the Imperial Palace
CHEERFUL
page employed by Xi-feng
CHESS
principal maid of Ying-chun
CICADA
junior maid working for Tan-chun
CIGGY
see
CICADA
CITRONELLA
see
NUMBER FOUR
âCLOUD MAIDEN'
poetry club pseudonym of
SHI XIANG-YUN
COOK LIU
chief cook in the Prospect Garden kitchen; mother of Fivey
COUSIN BAO
see
JIA BAO-YU
COUSIN CHAI
see
XUE BAO-CHAI
COUSIN DAI
see
LIN DAI-YU
COUSIN FENG
see
WANG XI-FENG
COUSIN LIAN
see
JIA LIAN
COUSIN LIN
see
LIN DAI-YU
âCOUSIN OAF'
see
XUE PAN
COUSIN PAN
see
XUE PAN
COUSIN TAN
see
JIA TAN-CHUN
COUSIN WAN
see
LI WAN
COUSIN XING
see
XING XIU-YAN
COUSIN YING
see
JIA YING-CHUN
COUSIN ZHEN
son of Jia Jing; acting head of the senior (Ning-guo) branch of the Jia family
DADDY XIA
see
XIA BING-ZHONG
DAI-YU
see
LIN DAI-YU
DOVE
concubine of Cousin Zhen
DOWAGER PRINCESS OF NAN-AN, THE
high-ranking acquaintance of Grandmother Jia
DR WANG
see
WANG JI-REN
EBONY
maid of Tan-chun
ÃLÃGANTE
member of the Jia family troupe of child actresses, later attached to Grandmother Jia
EMERALD
maid of Bao-yu
ER-JIE
see
YOU ER-JIE
ÃTAMINE
member of the Jia family troupe of child actresses, later attached to Bao-chai
EUERGESIA
elderly nun in charge of Water Moon Priory
FAITHFUL
principal maid of Grandmother Jia
âFARMER SWEETRICE'
poetry club pseudonym of
LI WAN
FATHER WANG
see
ONE PLASTER WANG
FELICITY
maid attendant on Xi-feng
FENG
see
WANG XI-FENG
FIVEY
consumptive daughter of Cook Liu
FLOWER
concubine of Cousin Zhen
FORTUNE
maid of Aunt Zhao
âFROWNER'
see
LIN DAI-YU
GOODY FEI
trusted elder servant of Lady Xing
GRANDMOTHER
Jia widow of Bao-yu's paternal grandfather and head of the Rong-guo branch of the Jia family
GRANDMOTHER
YOU
see
MRS YOU