尤二姐贾琏偷娶的外室 · 38
Leaf 38 of the Red Chamber · 二姨 Jia Lian's Secret Second Wife
You Erjie 尤二姐
In Dream of the Red Chamber 紅樓夢 (c. 1791) · in the household (当家) · nicknamed 二姨 “Jia Lian's Secret Second Wife”
Taken as a hidden second wife by a man who cannot rule his own household, she trusts the match to be decent and is destroyed by a house that has only one mistress in it.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 64
The Jade Dragon Taken as Pledge
情遺龍佩Pleaded for through a young nephew of the Ning house, she is courted by Jia Lian at her mother's lodging beside the mourning hall and takes his jade dragon pendant as a pledge of a proper marriage.
- ch. 65
Married in Secret Beyond the Gate
偷娶二姨While his wife is out of the way at the temple, he marries her secretly and sets her up in a bought house beyond the gate, where her mother and sister, living on nothing, do not object.
- ch. 68
Moved into the Garden to Watch
賺入園中Xifeng, having torn the whole story out of a frightened servant, fawns on the girl's mother until she is moved into the garden — housed in plain rooms, watched, and cut off from her husband.
- ch. 69
The Gold Swallowed After a Dream
吞金自盡Insulted daily by a concubine Xifeng has put in her way, fevered, and warned in a dream by her dead sister, she swallows raw gold and is found dying; her husband weeps, and can do nothing else.
結局 The ending
She dies in chapter 69 with raw gold in her belly, in a house where her husband's wife praised her in public and let her be starved in private. The funeral is made deliberately shabby, and Jia Lian, who let all of it happen, ends the chapter swearing quietly to avenge 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