Zhen San Xiao Jie

Her Story

The third daughter of the Zhen house of Jinling, and the only one of the sisters who comes into the story’s frame.

Chapter 56: the four Zhen stewardesses tell Grandmother Jia that only the mistress came up to the capital, and brought the Third Young Lady with her; that very morning the two of them had gone into the palace to pay their respects. Grandmother Jia asks whether she is spoken for. Not yet, they say.

She is the daughter of the “mother and daughter” in Chapter 57, whom Wang Furen entertains with a first-rate banquet and a named opera troupe after Baoyu’s visit to the Zhen house, and who two days later go back to the post without a formal farewell. She never speaks and is never named.

In Xiang Li's Hands

Near-white robes with a blue-grey overwrap, a round black silk fan held up against her cheek, head tilted, eyes closed, the faintest smile. A long red sash with a bow and a jade toggle runs to the floor. The ground behind is a mottled green-grey wall.

Set beside her elder sister’s sheet, painted on the same green: the elder looks up and outward with both hands open, this one looks down and inward with a fan between her face and the room. Two ways of being a daughter nobody is allowed to describe.

The Calligraphy

甄三小姐 — surname, birth order, courtesy title, no name, and unusually placed: four characters down the left margin, where her sister’s sheet and her mother’s both carry theirs at the right.

Connections

• Zhen Furen 甄夫人 — her mother, who brings her to the capital and into the palace.
• Zhen Da Xiaojie 甄大小姐 — her elder sister, spoken of but left at home.
• Zhen Baoyu 甄宝玉 — her brother, left behind in Jinling with the old lady.
• Wang Furen 王夫人 — gives a banquet and an opera for her and her mother.
• Grandmother Jia 贾母 — asks after her betrothal and is told there is none.

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