门子
门子：浏览李湘艺术网站的红楼梦资料。本页正文暂为英文，完整译文待补充。
门子
“The Gourd Monk”
His Story
Once a novice at the Gourd Temple 葫芦庙 beside the Zhen house in Suzhou; after the temple burned he became a runner at the Yingtian yamen. In Chapter 4 he recognises the newly posted Jia Yucun, stops him from trying the Feng Yuan murder honestly, and shows him the 护官符 — the list of local families no magistrate may cross. Yucun takes the advice, then finds a pretext to have the man sent far away for knowing too much. The novel never gives him a personal name.
In Xiang Li's Hands
Black robe over ochre, a peacock feather stuck in his cap, blue scarf at the throat, grinning sideways, an inked sheet held out at arm’s length. The ground is a mottled pink, the loudest in this group. Feather and grin are stock comic-role signals: a clown who happens to be right.
The Calligraphy
The inscription refuses both the office and the namelessness and calls him 葫芦僧, the Gourd Monk — the boy he used to be rather than the doorman he is.
Connections
- Jia Yucun 贾雨村 — the magistrate he coaches, and who exiles him for it.
- Xue Pan 薛蟠 — the killer the 护官符 protects.
- Xiangling 香菱 — the girl fought over, whom he identifies as the neighbour’s child Zhen Yinglian.
Others of the same kind · official / noble / royal Qin Zhong 秦钟 · Jia Yucun 贾雨村 · Bei Jing Wang 北静王 · Leng Zixing 冷子兴 · Zhang Rugui 张如圭 · Xiping Junwang 西平郡王 · Nan'an Taifei 南安太妃 · Zhangshiguan 长史官 · Feng Ziying 冯紫英 · Sun Shaozu 孙绍祖 · Yun Guang 云光 · Fu Shi 傅试 · Fu Qiufang 傅秋芳 · Li Yanei 李衙内 and 9 more
Named on these pages Guai Zi 拐子
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
