Feng Shi
封氏
“The Wife Who Was Left”
Her Story
Zhen Shiyin’s wife and Feng Su’s daughter. In Chapter 1 her three-year-old daughter Yinglian is lost at the Lantern Festival; that spring a fire from the temple next door burns the house to the ground. The family takes shelter with her father, who eats up what is left of their land money. Then her husband walks off with a lame Taoist and does not come back. She stays, keeps two maids, and lives by needlework. The novel never gives her a personal name.
In Xiang Li's Hands
She stands alone on a slab of wet black ink, in a plum-brown robe worked all over with dark scrolling, wide sleeves lifting off her arms to show a pale green lining. The face is composed, turned a little away. Nothing of the fire, nothing of the lost child.
The Calligraphy
封氏 — the father’s surname plus the marker for a married woman — is exactly what the novel gives her and no more, and the inscription declines to invent the rest.
Connections
- Zhen Shiyin 甄士隐 — her husband, who renounces the world and leaves her behind.
- Zhen Yinglian 甄英莲 — her daughter, lost at three and sold into the Xue household as Xiangling.
- Feng Su 封肃 — her father, who takes the family in and takes their money with them.
Others of the same kind · Zhen family (Nanjing) Zhen Baoyu 甄宝玉 · Zhen Shiyin 甄士隐 · Feng Su 封肃 · Huo Qi 霍启 · Jiaoxing 娇杏 · Zhen Yingjia 甄应嘉
Named on these pages Zhen Shiyin 甄士隐 · Feng Su 封肃 · Huo Qi 霍启 · Jiaoxing 娇杏
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
