受戒 (8 page)

As it was, apart from the cooks and water-carriers, the store had virtually four ranks of people:
guanshi, daoshang, tongshi
and
xianggong
.
^[18]
 

After being trained for three years and one solar term, the few
xianggongs
at the Baoquantang had completed their apprenticeships and left. The one at work now was named Chen. He had a big head, large eyes and thick lips. His voice was harsh and slurring.

王二把他的买卖乔迁到隔壁源昌去了，但是每天九点以后他一定还是端了一杯茶到保全堂店堂里来坐个点把钟。儿子大了，晚上再来的零星生意，他一个人就可以应付了。

且说保全堂。

这是一家门面不大的药店。不知为什么，这药店的东家用人，不用本地人，从上到下，从管事的到挑水的，一律是淮城人。他们每年有一个月的假期，轮流回家，去干传宗接代的事。其余十一个月，都住在店里。他们的老婆就守十一个月的寡。药店的“同仁”，一律称为“先生”。先生里分为几等。一等的是“管事”，即经理。当了管事就是终身职务，很少听说过有东家把管事辞了的。除非老管事病故，才会延聘一位新管事。当了管事，就有“身股”，或称“人股”，到了年底可以按股分红。因此，他对生意是兢兢业业，忠心耿耿的。东家从不到店，管事负责一切。他照例一个人单独睡在神农像后面的一间屋子里，名叫“后柜”。总账、银钱，贵重的药材如犀角、羚羊、麝香，都锁在这间屋子里，钥匙在他身上，——人参、鹿茸不算什么贵重东西。吃饭的时候，管事总是坐在横头末席，以示代表东家奉陪诸位先生。熬到“管事”能有几人？全城一共才有那么几家药店。保全堂的管事姓卢。二等的叫“刀上”，管切药和“跌”丸药。药店每天都有很多药要切。“饮片”切得整齐不整齐，漂亮不漂亮，直接影响生意好坏。内行人一看，就知道这药是什么人切出来的。“刀上”是个技术人员，薪金最高，在店中地位也最尊。吃饭时他照例坐在上首的二席——除了有客，头席总是虚着的。逢年过节，药王生日（药王不是神农氏，却是孙思邈），有酒，管事的
举杯，必得“刀上”先喝一口，大家才喝。保全堂的“刀上”是全县头一把刀，他要是闹脾气辞职，马上就有别家抢着请他去。好在此人虽有点高傲，有点倔，却轻易不发脾气。他姓许。其余的都叫“同事”。那读法却有点特别，重音在“同”字上。他们的职务就是抓药，写账。“同事”是没有什么了不起的，每年都有被辞退的可能。辞退时“管事”并不说话，只是在腊月有一桌辞年酒，算是东家向“同仁”道一年的辛苦，只要是把哪位“同事”请到上席去，该“同事”就二话不说，客客气气地卷起铺盖另谋高就。当然，事前就从旁漏出一点风声的，并不当真是打一闷棍。该辞退“同事”在八月节后就有预感。有的早就和别家谈好，很潇洒地走了；有的则请人斡旋，留一年再看。后一种，总要作一点“检讨”，下一点“保证”。“回炉的烧饼不香”，辞而不去，面上无光，身价就低了。保全堂的陶先生，就已经有三次要被请到上席了。他咳嗽痰喘，人也不精明。终于没有坐上席，一则是同行店伙纷纷来说情：辞了他，他上谁家去呢？谁家会要这样一个痰篓子呢？这岂非绝了他的生计？二则，他还有一点好处，即不回家。他四十多岁了，却没有传宗接代的任务，因为他没有娶过亲。这样，陶先生就只有更加勤勉，更加谨慎了。每逢他的喘病发作时，有人问：“陶先生，你这两天又不大好吧？”他就一面喘嗽着一面说：“啊不，很好，很（呼噜呼噜）好！”

以上，是“先生”一级。“先生”以下，是学生意的。药店管学生意的却有一个奇怪称呼，叫做“相公”。

因此，这药店除煮饭挑水的之外，实有四等人：“管事”、“刀上”、“同事”、“相公”。

保全堂的几位“相公”都已经过了三年零一节，满师走了。现有的“相公”姓陈。

陈相公脑袋大大的，眼睛圆圆的，嘴唇厚厚的，说话声气粗粗的——呜噜呜噜地说不清楚。

He rose earlier than anyone else in the shop. The first thing in the morning, he emptied and brushed all the chamberpots of his fellow clerks, and then left them in the toilet. After that, he swept the floor, cleaned tables, chairs and the counter, dusted the furniture and opened the doors. Doors in this area were all made of planks about one foot wide, fitted in the slots of frames and thresholds. Chen pulled down the planks one after another and set them upright against the wall in the order of E1, E2, E3, E4, Wl, W2, W3, W4.
^[19]
 Another task he did was expose medicine to the sun. At sunrise he placed the medicine cut and dripped by Mr Xu onto a round shallow basket, placed it on his head, climbed up a ladder and laid it down on the flat roof. Towards evening he went there again to take it back. This was his happiest moment of the day. He had a chance to look around from this high spot. He saw the roofs of many shops and houses which were pitch black. He saw green trees in the distance and slow-moving sails behind the trees. He saw pigeons. He saw drifting and fluttering kites. He saw, too, miraculous clouds on July evenings, mysterious, flexible and varying in colour. They were grey, white, yellow, tangerine, or with gold lining. They kept changing, taking the shape of a lion, tiger, horse, or dog. Chen at that time was really happy and relaxed. Apart from that moment, the days appeared to him routine and monotonous. Still another task was to pound medicine. He walked back and forth on a wooden board placed in a boat-shaped iron trough. If it was pepper, he sneezed continually. He also had to cut paper. He used a large curved knife to cut stacks of white paper into squares of different sizes to wrap the medicine. Still another task was to print wrapping paper. He had two more routine tasks during the day. In the morning, he rolled many paper spills for smoking waterpipes. He turned the coin rack upside down and rolled paper spills on it one after another. Although no one in the Baoquantang smoked a water pipe, it had somehow become a practice to get them ready every day in case some outsiders needed them. In the afternoon Chen cleaned the lamp-chimneys. More than ten oil lamps were used in the shop, and all the lamp-chimneys had to be rubbed once a day. In the evening Chen spread poultices on pieces of cloth. He was doing that from the time when people began to light oil lamps to the time that Wang Er came over to sit and chat. After ten he placed the chamberpots under the clerks' beds and blew out the lamps. After latching the door, he could make his bed and sleep. The clerks slept in the back side rooms, but Chen slept alone in the sitting room. After he laid down the bed board and unrolled his bedding, the small world was entirely his now. Before he slept, he would always recite a few passages from Medical Recipes in Jingles. Those working at the apothecary had to know something about medicine. Families of limited means could not go to the doctor when someone was sick. Thus, if someone came to the apothecary to state the symptoms of an illness, the staff had to be able to say at once, "Drink a dose of bupleurum," "Take three doses of Huoxiangzhengqiwan”,
^[20]
  or "Apply some Qilisan".
^[21]
 Sometimes he sat in his quilt and thought about his family, about his mother who had been widowed for many years, and about a Spring Festival picture of a unicorn and a boy, which had hung behind the door for many years. He thought and thought until he got tired. He began to snore heavily as soon as his head touched the pillow.

Xianggong
Chen had been learning the trade for over a year now. He had burnt joss-sticks thirty times before Marshal Zhao and Shennong. It was his routine work on the first and the fifteenth of every month. Marshal Zhao rode on a black tiger with a golden whip in his hand. On his right and left side was a eight-inch-long couplet in gilded characters against a black background:"Golden whip in hand, he is coming with treasures; black tiger under his legs, he is bringing us riches." Shennong wore long hair and curly whiskers. He was stark-naked apart from a wreath of large leaves round his waist. He had long fingernails and toenails. He was seated on a rock with one hand clutching a head of glossy ganoderma. Chen was familiar with these two idols and was most pious when burning joss-sticks.

他一天的生活如下：起得比谁都早。起来就把“先生”们的尿壶都倒了涮干净控在厕所里。扫地。擦桌椅、擦柜台。到处掸土。开门。这地方的店铺大都是“铺闼子门”——一列宽可一尺的厚厚的门板嵌在门框和门槛的槽子里。陈相公就一块一块卸出来，按“东一”、“东二”、“东三”、“东四”、“西一”、“西二”、“西三”、“西四”次序，靠墙竖好。晒药，收药。太阳出来时，把许先生切好的“饮片”、“跌”好的丸药——都放在匾筛里，用头顶着，爬上梯子，到屋顶的晒台上放好；傍晚时再收下来。这是他一天最快乐的时候。他可以登高四望。看得见许多店铺和人家的房顶，都是黑黑的。看得见远处的绿树，绿树后面缓缓移动的帆。看得见鸽子，看得见飘动摇摆的风筝。到了七月，傍晚，还可以看巧云。七月的云多变幻，当地叫做“巧云”。那是真好看呀：灰的、白的、黄的、橘红的，镶着金边，一会一个样，像狮子的，像老虎的，像马、像狗的。此时的陈相公，真是古人所说的“心旷神怡”。其余的时候，就很刻板枯燥的。碾药。两脚踏着木板，在一个船形的铁碾糟子里碾。倘若碾的是胡椒，就要不停地打喷嚏。裁纸。用一个大弯刀，把一沓一沓的白粉连纸裁成大小不等的方块，包药用。刷印包装纸。他每天还有两项例行的公事。上午，要搓很多抽水烟用的纸枚子。把装铜钱的钱板翻过来，用“表心纸”一根一根地搓。保全堂没有人抽水烟，但不知什么道理每天都要搓许多纸枚子，谁来都可取几根，这已经成了一种“传统”。下午，擦灯罩。药店里里外外，要用十来盏煤油灯。所有灯罩，每天都要擦一遍。晚上，摊膏药。从上灯起，直到王二过店堂里来闲坐，他一直都在摊膏药。到十点多钟，把先生们的尿壶都放到他们的床下，该吹灭的灯都吹灭了，上了门，他就可以准备睡觉了。先生们都睡在后面的厢屋里，陈相公睡在店堂里。把铺板一放，铺盖摊开，这就是他一个人的天地了。临睡前他总要背两篇《汤头歌诀》——药店的先生总要懂一点医道。小户人家有病不求医，到药店来说明病状，先生们随口就要说出：“吃一剂小柴胡汤吧”，“服三付霍香正气丸”，“上一点七厘散”。有时，坐在被窝里想一会家，想想他的多年守寡的母亲，想想他家房门背后的一张贴了多年的麒麟送子的年画。想不一会，困了，把脑袋放倒，立刻就响起了很大的鼾声。

陈相公已经学了一年多生意了。他已经给赵公元帅和神农爷烧了三十次香。初一、十五，都要给这二位烧香，这照例是陈相公的事。赵公元帅手执金鞭，身骑黑虎，两旁有一副八寸长的黑地金字的小对联：“手执金鞭驱宝至，身骑黑虎送财来。”神农爷虬髯披发，赤身露体，腰里围着一圈很大的树叶，手指甲、脚趾甲都很长，一只手捏着一棵灵芝草，坐在一块石头上。陈相公对这二位看得很熟，烧香的时候很虔敬。

Chen frequently got beatings, as was common with apprentices. But Chen seemed to be beaten more than was his due. In most cases he was thrashed because he had committed errors such as cutting paper aslant, or breaking a lamp-chimney while rubbing it. The boy did not seem clever. His memory was poor and his movements slow. He was most frequently thrashed by Mr Lu. Not that Mr Lu had an exceptionally quick temper, but that thrashing was for the good of the boy, for making him somebody in the world. One day he got a thorough beating. When descending the stairs after getting the medicine back from exposure to the sun, he missed a step and upset a whole round basket of alismatis into the sewer. It was Mr Xu who beat him this time. Mr Xu gave him a sound beating by means of a wooden door latch. The boy screamed with pain, "Oh, my! My! I won't do it again. Oh, my! It's all my fault, my!"And no-body could persuade Mr Xu to stop the beating. Everyone knew how he was. The more you tried to stop him, the more fiercely he would beat the boy. What's more, it was a big blunder the boy had committed. (Alismatis was not really precious, but cutting it was time-consuming for it had to be cut into copper-shaped round pieces of equal thickness.) After some time, it was Lao Zhu, the cook, who managed to stop the beating. As everybody knew, Lao Zhu was honest and upright by nature and in the employment of the store the longest. He went to work the earliest of all but hardly ever had a good meal. What he had was just the remaining soup and juice mixed with some rice crust after everyone else had eaten. His fellow clerks all looked at him in awe. He seized the door latch from Mr Xu's hand and remarked, "He is as much flesh and blood as everyone else. "

陈相公老是挨打。学生意没有不挨打的，陈相公挨打的次数也似稍多了一点。挨打的原因大都是因为做错了事：纸裁歪了，灯罩擦破了。这孩子也好像不大聪明，记性不好，做事迟钝。打他的多是卢先生。卢先生不是暴脾气，打他是为他好，要他成人。有一次可挨了大打。他收药，下梯一脚踩空了，把一匾筛泽泻翻到了阴沟里。这回打他的是许先生。他用一根闩门的木棍没头没脸地把他痛打了一顿，打得这孩子哇哇地乱叫：“哎呀！哎呀！我下回不了！下回不了！哎呀！哎呀！我错了！哎呀！哎呀！”谁也不能去劝，因为知道许先生的脾气，越劝越打得凶，何况他这回的错是不小。（泽泻不是贵药，但切起来很费工，要切成厚薄一样状如铜钱的圆片。）后来还是煮饭的老朱来劝住了。这老朱来得比谁都早，人又出名的忠诚耿直。他从来没有正经吃过一顿饭，都是把大家吃剩的残汤剩水泡一点锅巴吃。因此，一店人都对他很敬畏。他一把夺过许先生手里的门闩，说了一句话：“他也是人生父母养的！”

Chen did not even dare to cry when he was being flogged. In the evening, after the door was shut, he sobbed for quite a long while. He said to his mother who was in the distant hometown:"Mum, I've had another beating. Don't worry, Mum. Just two more years' of beating, and I will be able to make you a living. "

Wang Er came to the Baoquantang every day because the place was full of bustle and excitement. Other stores were deserted after nine o'clock with just an accountant balancing the books and an apprentice taking catnaps. But at the Baoquantang there was a large assembly of people, all homeless bachelors. Among those present were also a few frequent visitors such as
qiangyuan
, the rent collector, Bayan Har Mountain, the live-fish seller, Lao Bing who lit and prepared opium for others, and a man named Zhang Han, who was a relative and hanger-on of the Lian family, who owned the Wanshun Sauce and Pickle Shop opposite the Baoquantang. Zhang Han's full name was Zhang Hanxuan. He was frequently referred to as Zhang Han perhaps because since he had been reduced to sponging on others, the character
xuan
^[22]
 did not befit him. Zhang Han was seventy now. He was a spitting image of Voltaire, with a tapering face and a pointed nose. He had worked as assistant to a ranking official in his younger days, having been to many places and having really seen the world. He was a know-all. Take tobacco-smoking for example. He would tell you that there were five kinds:waterpipe, long-stem pipe, snuff, "refined"tobacco (vs. opium) and Chao tobacco.
^[23]
 The last variety was never found in these regions. For alcohol-drinking, he could give a list of names like Shandong yellow, number one red, lotus white ...For tea-drinking, he would mention the Longjing of Shifeng
^[24]
 and the Biluochun of Suzhou how tea Yunnan
^[25]
 was roasted in a jar and how the tea cup for the Gongfu Tea
^[26]
 of Fujian was even smaller than the tiny handleless wine cup, and that the tea was so strong that three small cups of it were sufficient to go with an entire leg of stewed pork. He was most familiar with Zibuyu,
^[27]
 and Stories of Autumn Rainy Nights.
^[28]
 He could tell many ghost stories. He knew how people released venomous insects in Yunnan and how people in the western part of Hunan drove standing corpses home. He had seen. with his own eyes drought ghosts, walking corpses and fox spirits. He could not only give a detailed description of them but tell exactly when and where he had seen them. He knew people of all ranks. He had knowledge, too, of witchcraft, fortune-telling, astrology and physiognomy. For he had read Physiognomy by the Hemp-clothed Daoist Priest and Physiognomy of Willow Village and could tell people's fortunes from Qimendunjia, Liurenke and Lingqijing.
^[29]
 He never made his appearance until about nine o'clock. (What he did in the daytime was anybody's guess. ) People were elated from the moment he came, and he did almost all the talking the whole evening. He was a great story-teller. His stories all followed a logical sequence, with an introduction, development, transition and summing-up. He spoke in a rhythmical tone, rising and falling, with modulation and cadence. His descriptions were vivid and lifelike. Just like a pingtan actor, he would stop at a most critical juncture and leisurely puff at his pipe. The anxious listeners would ask over and over again, "What happened then?" "What happened later?" This was also a happy time for Xianggong Chen. He listened while spreading ointment. When he was too much absorbed in listening, the bamboo stick would stay too long on the oil paper and would waste a sheet of ointment. The moment he realized this, he would hurriedly tuck the sheet of ointment stealthily into his pocket. Nobody would discover it, and nobody would beat him for it.