Huo Qi
霍启
“Calamity Begins”
His Story
A servant in the Zhen house at Suzhou. In Chapter 1 he carries his master’s three-year-old daughter Yinglian out to see the lantern displays on the fifteenth night, sets her down on a doorstep while he relieves himself, and comes back to find her gone. He searches until dawn, does not dare face the family, and runs off to another province. That is the whole of him. His name read aloud is 祸起 — calamity begins — and everything in the novel proceeds from what he did in that minute.
In Xiang Li's Hands
Two moments. The first is the flight: bent double, running, hands open and empty, black ink boiling above him. The second is the loss — mouth open, brows knotted, a lotus lantern swinging from a pole in his hand, red hatching across the sheet like fire. The child is in neither.
The Calligraphy
霍启, the plain two characters on both sheets, a name that works as a pun before it works as a person.
Connections
- Zhen Yinglian 甄英莲 — the child he was carrying, lost at the festival and sold on as Xiangling.
- Zhen Shiyin 甄士隐 — his master, whose household begins to come apart that night.
- Feng Shi 封氏 — the child’s mother, left with the consequence.
Others of the same kind · Zhen family (Nanjing) Zhen Baoyu 甄宝玉 · Zhen Shiyin 甄士隐 · Feng Shi 封氏 · Feng Su 封肃 · Jiaoxing 娇杏 · Zhen Yingjia 甄应嘉
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
