钟情大士

Her Story

She belongs to the machinery of the novel rather than to its household. There is no Jia mansion here, no marriage, no death — she is one of four attendants of the Fairy Disenchantment 警幻仙姑 in the Land of Illusion, and the novel gives her two moments and no more.

Both fall in Chapter 5. Baoyu, asleep in Qin Keqing’s room, is led into the Land of Illusion, and the fairies come out to meet what they had been promised. Then they see him. 「姐姐曾说今日今时必有绛珠妹子的生魂前来游玩，故我等久待。何故反引这浊物来污染这清净女儿之境？」 — our sister said the living soul of little Crimson Pearl would come today, so we have waited a long while; why bring this filthy thing to pollute this clean girls’ realm? They were waiting for Daiyu. They got Baoyu. Disenchantment explains that the ancestral spirits of the two Jia houses have asked her to wake him through desire, and the fairies are appeased.

Later Baoyu asks their names. 「一名痴梦仙姑，一名钟情大士，一名引愁金女，一名度恨菩提，各各道号不一。」 That is the whole of her. She does not speak alone, act alone, or reappear.

So read her as a name rather than a person. 钟情 is to gather all one’s feeling onto a single object — the condition Baoyu is about to be given a lifetime of. The four titles between them spell out the sequence the novel then performs at full length: foolish dream, concentrated love, summoned grief, regret ferried across. She is the second stage.

In Xiang Li's Hands

Xiang Li paints a Guanyin. White robes edged mint and lavender, eyes lowered almost shut, a leafy green garland around the jewelled crown, long strands of coral and blue beads, one green streamer blown off into a grey wash. The raised left palm carries a shallow celadon dish — but heaped with pink blossoms, not the willow spray and pure-water vase the iconography expects. The right hand hangs, gathering a fold of skirt. The title 大士 is Guanyin’s own; she takes the title at its word, then puts flowers in the vessel.

The Calligraphy

钟情大士, four characters in a single column down the left, in a loose wet hand. It is not a name but a 道号 — a religious designation — and the novel supplies no other, no surname, no personal name, nothing to shorten. What is brushed here is a category of feeling with a body attached.

Connections

• Jing Huan 警幻仙姑 — the Fairy Disenchantment, whose attendant she is.
• Chimeng Xiangu 痴梦仙姑 — named in the same breath in Chapter 5; the first of the four.
• Yinchou Jinnü 引愁金女 — the third of the four.
• Duhen Puti 度恨菩提 — the fourth of the four.
• Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 — the “filthy thing” she objects to on sight, brought in place of the Crimson Pearl soul the four had been promised.

Others of the same kind · mythic frame / immortal Kongkong Daoren 空空道人 · Jinghuan Xiangu 警幻仙姑 · Yinchou Jinnü 引愁金女 · Duhen Puti 度恨菩提 · Shenying Shizhe 神瑛侍者 · Jiangzhu Xiancao 绛珠仙草

Named on these pages Yinchou Jinnü 引愁金女 · Duhen Puti 度恨菩提

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