贾环荣国府二房的庶子 · 27
Leaf 27 of the Red Chamber · 环三爷 Third Master Huan
Jia Huan 贾环
In Dream of the Red Chamber 紅樓夢 (c. 1791) · in the household (当家) · nicknamed 环三爷 “Third Master Huan”
The spare child the book dares to make ugly: he spills a candle on his brother's face, tells a lie that nearly gets him killed, and is never asked to account for it.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 25
The Lamp Tipped into a Face
潑油燙面Left to hold a candle while Baoyu lies down powdered, he tips the lamp into his brother's face on purpose; the household is told it was an accident, and no one with the power to punish him doubts it.
- ch. 33
The Slander at His Father's Side
進讒父前At his father's side he reports that Baoyu tried to violate a maidservant and drove her to the well; the beating that follows is the nearest the book comes to a son killed by his own household.
- ch. 60
The Cheaper Powder Brought Back
換粉受辱He begs rose water from Baoyu to conciliate the maid he is carrying on with, is given the cheaper powder instead, is flung out for bringing it, and takes the humiliation straight to his mother.
- ch. 78
The Painted Heroine Poem
同題姽婳Set beside Baoyu and Jia Lan to write on the heroine Lin Sihniang, he turns in competent verse that no one pretends is anything, and watches his father read the difference without a word.
結局 The ending
He is allowed no arc. The one hundred and twenty chapters give him a wife of monstrous temper who rules him far better than his father managed, no rank, no trade and no elegy, and let him stand unnoticed at the edges of the family's restoration — the child the house made by treating him as nothing.
The book itself: what happens, how long it is, which English version to read — The story · How long it is · Which translation · The lamp-oil night · The family tree · The first expulsion