Baozhu
宝珠
“The Daughter Who Volunteered”
Her Story
Maid to Qin Keqing 秦可卿. When her mistress dies in Chapter 13, one of the two maids, Ruizhu 瑞珠, kills herself against a pillar. Baozhu takes the other course: she asks to be counted Keqing’s adopted daughter and performs the mourning an unmarried daughter would have performed, since Keqing had none. She keeps the vigil, and when the coffin goes out to Iron Threshold Temple 铁槛寺 in Chapter 15 she stays there with it rather than return to the house.
In Xiang Li's Hands
She kneels, hem pooling into black at the floor, face tipped up, one hand flat at her throat. Blue-grey and aubergine, no red anywhere. The background is drawn but left uncoloured — a hanging canopy, tassels, a pillar, one large blank flower. The mourner is the only solid thing in the room.
The Calligraphy
Inscribed 宝珠, the personal name alone — the name a mistress would have used, not the daughterly title she took on after that mistress was dead.
Connections
- Qin Keqing 秦可卿 — her mistress, for whom she stood as chief mourner.
- Ruizhu 瑞珠 — the fellow maid who chose death instead; the two answers to the same event.
- Jia Zhen 贾珍 — head of the Ning-guo house, who staged the funeral she walked in.
Others of the same kind · maid – Yingchun, Tanchun, Xichun, Li Wan, Xiangyun Siqi 司棋 · Xiuju 绣橘 · Lianhua'r 莲花儿 · Shishu 侍书 · Cuimo 翠墨 · Xiaochan 小蝉 · Ruhua 入画 · Caiping 彩屏 · Cai'er 彩儿 · Suyun 素云 · Biyue 碧月 · Cuilü 翠缕 · Baoqin 抱琴 · Xiaoque 小鹊 and 5 more
Named on these pages Ruizhu 瑞珠
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
