Cai'er
彩儿
“A Name on the Roll”
Her Story
A small maid in Xichun’s rooms. The novel gives her the name and very little after it: what it records is her mother, a Garden servant with a bad mouth. Cai’er belongs to the lower rank of the household — the girls kept on the wage roll and sent on errands, whose names surface once inside somebody else’s quarrel and then close over. She has no scene of her own.
In Xiang Li's Hands
A child’s round face under two looped buns, bangs cut straight. Mauve cape sleeves fly out to both sides; beneath them a black robe, blue collar, apricot skirt. Held horizontally across her chest, in both hidden hands, a long yellow roll capped at each end in dark metal.
The Calligraphy
彩儿 — the diminutive 儿 kept rather than a formal name, and set low at the left margin instead of the usual right.
Connections
- Cai’er’s mother 彩儿娘 — her mother, also a Garden servant, expelled around Chapter 74 for gossiping.
- Jia Xichun 贾惜春 — her mistress.
- Caiping 彩屏 — the senior maid of the same rooms, sharing the 彩 of her name.
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 · Suyun 素云 · Biyue 碧月 · Cuilü 翠缕 · Baoqin 抱琴 · Xiaoque 小鹊 · Xiaojixiang'r 小吉祥儿 and 5 more
Named on these pages Cai'er niang 彩儿娘
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
