Bei Jing Wang
北静王
“The Beads Off His Own Wrist”
His Story
Water Rong 水溶, Prince of Beijing. One of four princely houses whose founders earned their titles alongside the Jia ancestors and whose descendants still hold them. The novel gives him one sentence of description and never revises it: 年未弱冠，生得形容秀美，情性谦和 — not yet twenty, beautiful, mild.
He appears at a funeral. In Chapter 14 the cortege for Qin Keqing leaves the Ningguo gates and the great houses put up roadside altars along the route. The Prince of Beijing does not send a deputy. He comes himself, stops the procession, and asks 「那一位是衔宝而诞者？」 — which of them is the boy born with the jade in his mouth.
Chapter 15 is the whole of their acquaintance. The prince takes the jade in his hand, asks whether the inscription really works, and tells Jia Zheng that 「令郎真乃龙驹凤雏」, a dragon colt and a phoenix chick whose cry will be clearer than the old bird’s. Then, in the same breath, a warning nobody else in the book bothers to give kindly: a boy of that quality will be adored by his grandmother and his mother, and 「钟溺则未免荒失学业」. He invites Baoyu to his house, where scholars gather, to talk. And he slides a string of beads off his own wrist — 「此是前日圣上亲赐鹡鸰香念珠一串，权为贺敬之礼」.
Both his gifts go wrong. In Chapter 16 Baoyu offers the imperial beads to Daiyu, who says 「什么臭男人拿过的！我不要他」 and throws them down. And in Chapter 28 the crimson sash Baoyu exchanges with the actor Jiang Yuhan turns out to have been a present from the Prince of Beijing — the object that surfaces in Chapter 33 and helps get Baoyu flogged nearly to death.
He is the only figure of authority in the novel who looks at Baoyu and sees something to encourage. It changes nothing, and both things he hands over end on the ground.
In Xiang Li's Hands
The only one of these eight given a finished background: dense grey wash carved edge to edge with pale cloud scrolls, so the figure stands inside weather rather than in front of nothing. He wears ivory white massed with gold-and-turquoise dragon roundels, a red-and-gold collar, a gilt crown on the topknot. Both hands are at his chest, and what they hold is the rosary — dark beads, four green markers, a red tassel to the knee. The face is young to the point of androgyny, drawn with the fine line she gives the girls. She paints the one instant he matters.
The Calligraphy
水溶 — two characters, personal name only, high on the right, and the title is nowhere. Everyone in the novel calls him 北静王, and so do the catalogue and the register line above; the paper calls him Water Rong, which is what an equal would call him. The one man here who could have been inscribed with a rank is the one given a name instead.
Connections
- Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 — meets him at Qin Keqing’s funeral and receives the imperial rosary from his wrist.
- Jia Zheng 贾政 — presented to him at the roadside; is told his son is a dragon colt and warned not to spoil him.
- Qin Keqing 秦可卿 — the funeral he attends in person, which is the occasion of everything else.
- Lin Daiyu 林黛玉 — refuses the rosary in Chapter 16 and throws it down.
- Jiang Yuhan 蒋玉菡 — the actor to whom he gave the crimson sash that reaches Baoyu in Chapter 28.
Others of the same kind · official / noble / royal Qin Zhong 秦钟 · Jia Yucun 贾雨村 · Leng Zixing 冷子兴 · Zhang Rugui 张如圭 · Menzi 门子 · Xiping Junwang 西平郡王 · Nan'an Taifei 南安太妃 · Zhangshiguan 长史官 · Feng Ziying 冯紫英 · Sun Shaozu 孙绍祖 · Yun Guang 云光 · Fu Shi 傅试 · Fu Qiufang 傅秋芳 · Li Yanei 李衙内 and 9 more
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
