Zijuan

Her Story

She is not Lin Daiyu’s by birth. In Chapter 3, when Daiyu arrives at the Rong mansion with an old nurse and a ten-year-old girl called Xueyan, Grandmother Jia looks at the pair of them, decides neither will do, and hands over one of her own second-rank maids, 鹦哥. Readers have long taken that girl to be Zijuan under her earlier name. She becomes the chief maid at Naiad’s House 潇湘馆 and the closest thing Daiyu has to family.

Chapter 57 is hers. She remarks to Baoyu, as though it were nothing, that Daiyu will be going home to Suzhou next year. He goes rigid — eyes fixed, hands cold, unable to speak — and the household believes he is dying. When he comes round he will not let go of her, so Grandmother Jia leaves her at Green Delights to nurse him. That night she tells Daiyu why she did it: 趁早儿老太太还明白硬朗的时节，作定了 大事要紧 — settle the great matter while the old lady is still clear-headed and strong. She has no father or brother to speak for her mistress, so she speaks. It is the only piece of political action any maid in the novel takes on behalf of a girl who is not herself.

In Chapter 97 Daiyu burns her manuscripts and in Chapter 98 she dies, with Zijuan beside her, while the wedding music carries across the garden. Afterwards Zijuan is assigned to Baoyu’s rooms and will not speak to him; Chapter 113 is titled for her thawing. In Chapter 118, when Xichun asks for a maid to follow her into religion and nobody volunteers, Zijuan kneels to Lady Wang and asks to go. She had wanted to die with Daiyu, she says, and could not. She serves Xichun for the rest of her life.

In Xiang Li's Hands

Bamboo, and the bamboo is red. Zijuan stands three-quarters turned, one hand lifted near her cheek, in a spiral-patterned olive cape over a green robe flecked yellow, an ochre sash flung out right in loose black loops. The ground is a pink wash combed with drifting lines. Behind her the thickets of Naiad’s House are brushed in vermilion over grey stems — the household bamboo made the colour of blood. Her name is the cuckoo, the bird said to cry until it bleeds. She is the servant, and the only figure here dressed like a lady.

The Calligraphy

紫鹃 stands at the upper right in two loose running characters — the given name alone, no surname, no house, no mistress. The novel never records a surname for her, and the name she is inscribed with is one the Jia family gave her; her first name is dropped as completely here as it is in the book. Set against a page of red bamboo, those two characters do most of the work of the painting.

Connections

• Lin Daiyu 林黛玉 — her mistress at Naiad’s House, whom she served from Chapter 3 to Chapter 98 and would have died with.
• Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 — the object of her Chapter 57 test; he collapsed at the lie and she nursed him through it.
• Grandmother Jia 贾母 — her first mistress, who gave her to Daiyu and whose remaining lifetime she counted as the deadline.
• Jia Xichun 贾惜春 — the mistress she chose in Chapter 118, following her into religion when no other maid would.
• Xueyan 雪雁 — the maid Daiyu brought from Suzhou, and the other half of the Naiad’s House household.

Others of the same kind · maid – Daiyu (Naiad's House / 瀟湘館) Xueyan 雪雁 · Chunxian 春纤

Named on these pages Lin Daiyu 林黛玉 · Jia Xichun 贾惜春 · Yingge 鹦哥 · Xueyan 雪雁 · Chunxian 春纤

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