尤氏宁国府的当家奶奶 · 23
Leaf 23 of the Red Chamber · 珍大奶奶 Mistress Zhen of Ningguo
Lady You 尤氏
In Dream of the Red Chamber 紅樓夢 (c. 1791) · in the household (当家) · nicknamed 珍大奶奶 “Mistress Zhen of Ningguo”
Ningguo's housekeeper and the only person in it with manners: she buries her father-in-law single-handed, and takes the storm that her husband's behaviour raises.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 14
Yielding the Keys to Xifeng
托病讓權Just at Qin Keqing's collapse she falls ill — or seems to — and stands aside, so that it is Xifeng who is fetched across to run Ningguo through the most scandalous fortnight of its year.
- ch. 63
The Mourning Opened Alone
獨理喪事Her father-in-law Jia Jing dies of his own elixir while her husband is away; she has the body coffined, the servants paid and the mourning opened before Jia Zhen comes galloping home.
- ch. 68
Weeping and Rage at the Gate
鳳姐登門You Erjie has been lured into the garden by Xifeng, and Ningguo is now the guilty house: Xifeng comes weeping and raging through its gates, her husband quits the room, and silver closes the row.
結局 The ending
She is left holding the wreck: two funerals, a search of her own gates, her husband sentenced away. The later chapters keep her in charge of a thinned Ningguo and give her neither a death nor a clearance; the blame the register lays at Ningguo was never meant for her.
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