贾迎春二木头 · 8
Leaf 8 of the Red Chamber · 菱洲 Water-Caltrop Islet
Jia Yingchun 贾迎春
In Dream of the Red Chamber 紅樓夢 (c. 1791) · in the Main register (正冊) · nicknamed 菱洲 “Water-Caltrop Islet”
Nicknamed Blockhead by the servants for never crying out when pricked: her leaf is the register's plainest warning that a gentle girl is not safe in a house that can sell her.
子系中山狼， 得志便猖狂。 金闺花柳质， 一载赴黄粱。
Son-and-over, the wolf of Zhongshan, who runs wild as soon as he is in his luck. A flower-and-willow body from a golden bower: one year of it, and then the millet dream.
畫 A fierce wolf running down a beautiful girl, with the look of eating her.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 71
The Pawned Gold Phoenix
金鳳Her nurse's daughter pawns the threaded-gold phoenix her late mother left and then pleads sickness to avoid paying it back; the second miss will not pursue it.
- ch. 74
The Maid She Would Not Save
搜檢Her head maid Si-qi is found with a love-token from a man of the household; she neither speaks for the girl nor is able to keep her.
- ch. 79
Sold for Five Thousand Taels
誤嫁Her father Jia She takes five thousand taels from Sun Shaosu and signs the match away; the protests of her brothers and stepmothers do not reach the second miss.
- ch. 80
Tears in the Old Garden
哭訴Called home and let into the old garden, she can only tell the girls that her husband reckons her the price of his money and uses her like a servant.
結局 The ending
The painting before her verse shows a wolf about to eat a girl, and the verse reads her husband's surname from two characters: the wolf of Zhongshan, rampant the moment he prevails. A flower-and-willow frame from a golden bower — the register gives her one year, and the text gives no more.
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