Cai Pin

Her Story

Not an individual. 彩嫔 is a rank of palace woman, and in this novel the word appears in one place only: the imperial visit of Chapter 18. When Yuanchun’s palanquin is set down inside her family’s own garden, the novel is exact about who is permitted to help her out of it — 只有昭容、彩嫔等引领元春下舆, only the Zhaorong and the Caipin and their like lead Yuanchun down. Later the household has to feed them: 执事太监及彩嫔、昭容各侍从人等, the duty eunuchs and the Caipin and Zhaorong and all their attendants, entertained in the Ning mansion and Jia She’s house. Not one of them is named, and not one of them speaks. Their function in the scene is the measure of the distance the palace has put between a woman and her mother: the hands that may take Yuanchun’s arm belong to the court, not to her family.

In Xiang Li's Hands

A single court lady, which is already an argument — she takes an anonymous rank and gives it one face. Gold and kingfisher headdress massed with pink blossom, long strings of jade swinging from the ear, eyes lowered, one hand raised to the throat. Peach and crimson robes have slid off a shoulder; a turquoise bead strand falls across the lap. The ground is mottled blue, and there is no procession anywhere in it.

The Calligraphy

彩嫔, two characters of court rank standing where a personal name would go — the sheet addresses her by her place in a hierarchy, because the novel gives her nothing else.

Connections

• Jia Yuanchun 贾元春 — the imperial consort they attend, and hand down from the palanquin.
• Zhaorong 昭容 — the other palace rank named in the same sentence of Chapter 18.
• Baoqin 抱琴 — Yuanchun’s own maid, who went into the palace with her.
• Grandmother Jia 贾母 — head of the family that must kneel to its own daughter while palace women hold her arm.

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