Bao Er jia de
鲍二家的
“Overheard”
Her Story
Jia Lian’s mistress. In Chapter 44, Xifeng leaves her own birthday drinking party early, comes home and hears the two of them through the door wishing her dead and Ping’er in her place. She beats the woman, and beats Ping’er, and the row runs all the way up to Grandmother Jia. That night Bao Er’s wife hangs herself. Jia Lian quiets her relatives with two hundred taels of silver and a funeral.
In Xiang Li's Hands
The one sheet in this block that paints desire instead of work. Bare to the waist, hand on hip, jade bangles, head tilted, faint smile; a red-and-black flowered robe slides off her shoulder and pools on the floor. No background. She paints the mistress and declines the rope.
The Calligraphy
The inscription is 鲍二媳妇, not the roster’s 鲍二家的 — 媳妇, the blunter word for a man’s wife — and it sits low on the left beside her hip rather than in the top corner, level with the body it names.
Connections
- Jia Lian 贾琏 — the master whose mistress she is.
- Wang Xifeng 王熙凤 — the wife who overhears them and beats her.
- Ping’er 平儿 — named in the overheard conversation as her intended replacement.
- Bao Er 鲍二 — her husband, paid off after her death.
Others of the same kind · servant's wife / senior serving-woman Zhou Rui jia de 周瑞家的 · Lin Zhixiao jia de 林之孝家的 · Lai Da jia de 赖大家的 · Wang Shanbao jia de 王善保家的 · Wu Xindeng xifu 吴新登媳妇 · Wang'er xifu 旺儿媳妇 · Zhang Cai jia de 张材家的 · Zheng Hua jia de 郑华家的 · Wu Xing jia de 吴兴家的 · Laixi jia de 来喜家的 · Qin Xian jia de 秦显家的 · Liu jia de 柳家的 · Shan Daniang 单大娘 · Jin Wenxiang xifu 金文翔媳妇 and 10 more
Named on these pages Bao Er 鲍二
Dream of the Red Chamber
Xiang Li painted all 413 characters of the novel between 1975 and 1985, the first person to complete the entire cast. See the whole collection · Chinese Empresses
