贾惜春青灯古佛 · 9
Leaf 9 of the Red Chamber · 藕榭 Lotus Terrace
Jia Xichun 贾惜春
In Dream of the Red Chamber 紅樓夢 (c. 1791) · in the Main register (正冊) · nicknamed 藕榭 “Lotus Terrace”
The girl who paints the garden and then walks out of it: the only leaf in the main roll where the flight from the house is chosen, brush in hand, rather than suffered.
勘破三春景不长， 缁衣顿改昔年妆。 可怜绣户侯门女， 独卧青灯古佛旁。
She saw through the three springs, that their season is never long: a nun's black robe, and all the adornment of earlier years gone at a stroke. Pity the daughter of embroidered gates and a marquis's door, lying alone by the green lamp and the old Buddha.
畫 An old temple; inside it one beautiful woman, reading the sutras, sitting by herself.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 37
Joining the Club as Lotus Terrace
入社Drawn into Tanchun's poetry club under the name Lotus Terrace, and warns the sisters beforehand that her brush, not her pen, is what anyone can ask of her.
- ch. 42
The Picture of the Garden
畫苑Commissions herself out of the club's honour and into a year of work: the picture of the garden, with its silks, its brushes and its colours all argued over.
- ch. 50
Snow-Viewing in the Warm Studio
賞雪Holds the snow-day party in her warm studio, and the old dowager orders a picture of the plum-blossom errand that sent Baoyu off to the nunnery for a branch.
- ch. 74
Casting Off the Maid
棄婢A token from her own brother is found in her maid's box; every plea is made for the girl, and the fourth miss refuses them all, meaning to cut the Ning house off cleanly.
結局 The ending
Her verse sees through the three springs and trades last year's paint for a black robe; the painting before it is an old temple with one woman reading scripture. The 120-chapter text lets her have it: she will not stay in a house being taken apart, and takes the vow at the end.
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