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包笑天 《钏影楼》
秋星阁与钏影楼，两个笔名，我是常用的。秋星阁这个名儿，我曾经用了在上海开过小书店，现在且不必去说它。至於钏影楼这个名儿。我用得最多，有好几方图章，都是刻着钏影楼的。人家觉得这钏影楼三字，未免有点脂粉气，好像是个应该属於女性所使用的。又怀疑着这钏影楼三字，好像是个香艳的名词，有没有我的什么罗曼史在里面？其实这钏影楼的名词，我不过纪念我母亲的一段盛德的事实罢了。
在我五六岁的时候，那一天，是旧历的大除夕了，那时我父亲从事商业，境况比较地还好。我们是习惯地在大除夕夜里吃年夜饭的。那时的吃年夜饭，并不像现时所流行的邀集亲朋，来往酬酢，因为各人自己也要回到家里吃年夜饭，只是家人团聚，成了一个合家欢。像苏州那些大家庭、大家族，到那一天，妇女孩子聚在一起，常常有数十人、百余人，不为奇。但我家吃年夜饭，只有六个人，便是祖母、父亲、母亲、我们姊弟二人，以及长住在我家里的那位顾氏表姊。
吃年夜饭已经在夜里十点多钟了，为的是在吃年夜饭之前，先要祀先，这便是陆放翁所谓家祭。苏州人家，对於家祭极隆重，一年有六次，如清明、端午、中元、下元、冬至、除夕，而除夕更为隆重。
而且也要必须等父亲从店里回来以後，然後设祭。大除夕这一天，无论那一家商号，都是最忙的一天。及至我父亲结好了账，从店里回来，已经要九十点钟了。吃年夜饭，照例要暖锅，装得满满的，还有许多冷盆，喝着一点儿酒，大家说说笑笑，吃完的时候，已经将近十二点钟了。虽然大除夕的夜里，人家有通宵不睡的，但是我们小孩子是要瞌睡了。
母亲在大除夕的夜里，每年常是不睡的，到深夜以後，还有什么封井（苏州人家每个宅子里都有井，除夕要封井，至初五方开）、接灶（送了灶君上天後，要於除夕夜里接他回来）、挂喜神（祖先的遗容，新年里要悬挂起来，有人来拜年，还要拜喜容）、装果盘（自己房里点守岁烛，供果盘，还用以待客）等等的事。除此以外，还要端正我们两个小孩明天元旦穿新衣服。父亲也还没有睡，他在算算家庭和个人的私账，一年到底用多少钱。
其时已经元旦的凌晨两点钟了，忽听得叩门声甚急，是什么人来呀？本来大除夕的一夜，讨账的人在路上络绎不绝，甚至於天已大明了，只要讨账的人手提一只灯笼，依旧可以向你追讨，一到认明是元旦，只可说恭喜了。但是我们家里的账，早数天都已清还，并不欠人家的账呀！
开门看时，原来是我父亲的一位旧友孙宝楚先生，形色仓黄，精神惨沮，奸像很急的样子。问其所以，他摇头太息，说是活不下去了。因为他亏空了店里一笔款子，大约四五百元。这四五百元，在从前是一笔不小的款子呢，这位孙先生，又不是一个高级职员，他一年的薪水，至多也不过百余元而已。这种钱庄上的规矩，伙友们支空了款子，到了年底，都要清还，如果不能清还，明年就停歇生意了。
但是大除夕，是一年最後的一天，孙君还不能归还这笔款子。即使借贷典质，也仅能筹到百余元。假如明年停歇了生意，一家老小，靠什么生活，况且还有八十多岁的老母，还有三个未成年的孩子呢。而且苏州的钱庄是通帮的，你为了用空了钱而停歇出来的，还有那一家再肯用你呢？那末到此地步，只有死路一条了。
他这一次来，当然是求助於我父亲了。不过，他怎样的会拉下这许多亏空的呢？全部是“做露水”（钱业中的卖空买空投机事业）蚀去了的。因为他是个中等职员，薪水微薄，不够瞻家，於是想弄点外快。不想这“做露水”的事，就像赌博一样，赢了想再赢，输了想翻本，就不免愈陷愈深了。
作品译文
Bracelet Shadow Chamber
Qiu Xing Ge (Autumn Star Garret) and Chuan Ying Lou (Bracelet Shadow Chamber) are two pen-names I have used often. I once operated a small bookshop in Shanghai under the name Qiu Xing Ge, but that is not what I am going to talk about here. Chuan Ying Lou is the name I used most frequently. I have several seals engraved with this name. People might consider the three characters Chuan Ying Lou a bit feminine. There is also a suspicion that Chuan Ying Lou seems to carry an erotic undertone—does it in any way reflect my romances? The truth is I have used this name in remembrance of an act of great benevolence by my mother.
It was Chinese New Year’s Eve that day. I was five or six years old. My father was a businessman at that time and we were relatively well off. It was our custom to have New Year dinner on the evening of New Year’s Eve. The New Year dinner then did not at all resemble the kind of festivities that go on among friends and relatives nowadays, because everybody went home for it. It was a family reunion, a time when members of the family gathered together. For those big families and clans in Suzhou, it was not uncommon to have scores of or even over 100 members, women and children included, gathering together on that day. However there were only six of us sharing the New Year dinner in my family, namely grandmother, father, mother, my sister an I and cousin Gu who had always lived with us.
It was already past ten at night when New Year dinner was served, since we had to make sacrificial offerings to our ancestors first. This was what Lu You referred to as the family sacrificial rite. It was observed with great ceremony by the Suzhou families. There were altogether six of these occasions in a year—Grave-sweeping Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Ghost Festival, Ancestor Day, Winter Solstice and New Year’s Eve, with New Year’s Eve being the most steeped in ceremony.
The rite could only commence when father got back from the shop. New Year’s Eve being the busiest day for any shop, it would be nine or ten o’clock already when father, having squared up his accounts, came home. It was the custom to have a hot pot piled high with food at the dinner table on New Year’s Eve, plus numerous cold dishes. Everybody laughed and joked together, sipping wine at the same time. By the time we finished, it was nearly twelve. Some people stayed up all night on New Year’s Eve, but we children would just doze off.
Mother usually stayed up. There were various things to attend to late in the night, like sealing up the well (in Suzhou, there was a well in each house which had to be sealed up from New Year’s Eve until the fifth day of the New Year); receiving the kitchen god (after sending the kitchen god off to heaven, it was necessary to receive him back on New Year’s Eve); hanging up the portraits of God of Happiness (portraits of the deceased ancestors which had to be hung up during New Year; people coming to pay New Year calls had to pay their respects to these portraits as well); and arranging the fruit trays (lighting the New Year candles in her room, preparing fruit trays as offerings as well as for entertaining guests). Besides, she had to get ready the new outfits for us two children to wear on New Year’s Day. Father would not go to bed either. He would work on the family and his personal accounts to find out how much had been spent in the year. On the occasion in question it was already past two o’clock in the early hours of New Year’s day when suddenly there came the sound of urgent knocking on the door. Who could it be? It was true that there could be an endless flow of debt collectors in the streets on New York’s Eve, and even when morning had broken, they could still go after you for payment as long as they had a lantern in hand. But once it was undeniably New Year’s Day, there was nothing they could do but to wish you a Happy New Year. However, we had already settle our accounts a few days earlier. We did not owe anybody anything!
When the door was opened, there stood Mr. Sun Baochu, an old acquaintance of my father’s. he was extremely pale and drawn, very dejected looking and had an air of desperation about him. When asked what it was all about, he just shook his head and sighed, saying that it would be the end of him because he had incurred a loss on the accounts he managed, to the tune of approximately four to five hundred dollars. Four to five hundred dollar was quite a substantial amount in those days. Mr. Sun, no being a very senior member of staff himself, couldn’t be earning more than a hundred odd dollars a year. It was an established practice among the traditional Chinese banks that any money overdrawn by the staff had to be repaid in full by the end of the year. Otherwise employment would be terminated in the following year.
Yet it was New Year’s Eve—the last day of the year—and Mr. Sun still wasn’t able to repay the sum of money. At the most, he could only manage to raise 100 dollars or so by borrowing or pawning. If he should lose his job the next year, what would his family live on? What was more, he had an eighty-year-old mother and three young children too! Another thing was the banks in Suzhou had connections with one another. If you should come to that, you were doomed.
Obviously he was coming to my father for help. But how could he have overdrawn such an enormous account? It was all due to the losses he had suffered in “dewing” (a kind of speculative financial dealing). Since he was only in the middle management, his meager salary was not sufficient for him to make ends meet. Therefore he was tempted to make something on the side. Little did he realize that this “dewing” business was like gambling—when you win, you want to win more; when you lose, you want to win back what you have lost. And ultimately he ended up in deep waters.
