Yuzhu'r
Yuzhu'r 玉柱儿 — Nombrado por otro. Hijo de la nodriza húmeda de Jia Yingchun, y apenas una presencia: lo que la novela le da es una madre y una esposa.
玉柱儿
“Named After Someone Else”
His Story
Son of Jia Yingchun’s wet-nurse, and barely a presence: what the novel gives him is a mother and a wife. In Chapter 73 the nurse loses at gambling and pawns Yingchun’s gold phoenix hairpin; when it is missed, this man’s wife comes to Yingchun’s rooms to press her into covering for her mother-in-law, and Yingchun reads on and says nothing while the maid Xiuju argues for her. He is spoken of, never seen. The Zhiyanzhai manuscripts print his name 王住儿.
In Xiang Li's Hands
A stage face: blue winged cap with gilt fittings, mauve robe over pale blue, both hands out and empty, sleeves and an orange sash flying, mouth open in a grin. Bare paper. The liveliest sheet among the stewards, for a man the novel never puts on the page.
The Calligraphy
The inscription refuses him a name of his own — 旺儿之子, “Wang’er’s son” — which withholds the given name and attaches him to Lai Wang rather than to Yingchun’s nurse.
Connections
- Jia Yingchun 贾迎春 — whose nurse was his mother, and whose hairpin the family pawned.
- Xiuju 绣橘 — Yingchun’s maid, who argues the case her mistress will not.
- Ping’er 平儿 — who comes and settles the matter of the hairpin.
Others of the same kind · steward / manager Lai Da 赖大 · Lai Er 赖二 · Lai Sheng 赖升 · Lai Shangrong 赖尚荣 · Lai Mama 赖嬷嬷 · Lin Zhixiao 林之孝 · Zhou Rui 周瑞 · Dai Liang 戴良 · Yu Lu 俞禄 · Wang Xin 王信 · Laiwang 来旺 · Jin Cai 金彩 · Jin Wenxiang 金文翔 · Jiao Da 焦大 and 8 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
