Dream of the Red Chamber, Volume One

Dream of the Red Chamber, Volume One

Cao Xueqin

Dream of the Red Chamber, written by Cao Xueqin in the eighteenth century, stands among the greatest achievements of Chinese literature. More than a family chronicle, more than a love story, and more than a portrait of aristocratic decline, it is a vast and subtle meditation on youth, beauty, illusion, desire, memory, and the impermanence of worldly glory.

At the center of the novel is the Jia family, a powerful noble household whose splendor conceals the seeds of decay. Within its gardens, halls, chambers, and courtyards unfolds a world of exquisite refinement: poetry gatherings, family rituals, festivals, delicate friendships, rivalries, jealousies, and quiet sorrows. Yet beneath the elegance lies an unmistakable sense of transience. Wealth fades, affection is wounded, and even the most beautiful moments are touched by loss.

The emotional heart of the novel is the relationship between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, two sensitive and gifted young people bound together by deep sympathy, poetic feeling, and a tragic awareness of the world’s fragility. Around them move many unforgettable figures: the capable and dignified Xue Baochai, the brilliant but sharp Wang Xifeng, the gentle young women of the Grand View Garden, and the elders whose ambitions, fears, and compromises shape the fate of the household. Cao Xueqin gives each character a living voice, allowing even minor figures to possess complexity, humor, and sorrow.

One of the novel’s enduring powers lies in its fusion of realism and symbolism. It records domestic life with extraordinary precision—the management of servants, the etiquette of visits, the pressures of marriage, the economics of a great family—while also opening onto Buddhist and Daoist reflections on illusion and awakening. The title itself suggests both splendor and dream: a chamber of beauty, love, and refinement, but also a world destined to vanish like mist.

Cao Xueqin wrote from intimate knowledge of aristocratic society and its collapse. His own family had once enjoyed imperial favor before falling into ruin, and this historical experience gives the novel its emotional depth. The work mourns not merely a household, but an entire way of life. Yet its sadness is never simple. It is filled with wit, tenderness, irony, lyricism, and profound compassion for human weakness.

To read Dream of the Red Chamber is to enter one of the richest fictional worlds ever created. Its greatness lies not only in its scale, but in its sensitivity to fleeting emotion: a glance, a poem, a quarrel, a flower falling in the wind. Through these delicate details, Cao Xueqin reveals the full tragedy and beauty of human existence.

Zhen Shiyin, in a Dream and an Illusion, Recognizes the Spiritual Stone; Jia Yucun, Amid Dust and Wind, Cherishes Thoughts of a Lady

This is the first chapter at the opening of the book. The author himself says: because he once passed through a spell of dream and illusion, he therefore concealed the true events and, borrowing the story of the “Spiritual Stone,” composed this book, The Story of the Stone. Hence the words “Zhen Shiyin,” and so forth. But what events and what people are recorded in the book? He further says: “Now, living busily and obscurely in the dusty world, having accomplished nothing at all, I suddenly recall all the women of former days. Examining them one by one with care, I find that their conduct, judgment, and insight were all superior to mine. How is it that I, a dignified man with beard and brows, am truly inferior to those women of the inner chambers? I have more than enough shame, and regret is useless, on this day of utter helplessness. At such a time, I naturally wish to take all the guilt of my past—when, relying on Heaven’s grace and ancestral virtue, I wore brocade and fine silk, feasted on sweets and rich food, turned my back on the kindness of my father’s and elder brothers’ teaching, failed the virtue of my teachers’ and friends’ admonitions, and have come to this day without one skill accomplished and half a lifetime sunk in distress—and compile it into a volume, to tell all under heaven: my guilt is indeed unavoidable; yet in the women’s apartments there were originally people vividly worthy of record, and it must never be that, because I am unworthy, and because I protect my own shortcomings, they too are made to vanish altogether. Though today I dwell under thatched rafters and reed windows, with a tile stove and rope bed, with morning and evening wind and dew, willows by the steps and flowers in the courtyard, none of these has yet hindered the feelings in my breast or the ink of my brush. Though I am unlearned and my writing lacks literary elegance, what harm is there in using false words and village speech to elaborate a story? It may make the women’s chambers shine and be transmitted; it may also please the eyes of the world and break people’s melancholy. Would that not be fitting?” Hence the words “Jia Yucun,” and so forth.

In this chapter, whenever the words “dream” and “illusion” are used, they are meant to alert the reader’s eyes and mind; they are also the original intention and fundamental purpose of this book.

Honored readers, from where, you may ask, did this book come? To speak of its origin may seem close to absurdity, but examined carefully, it is deeply interesting. Let me set forth its source, so that readers may clearly understand and not be perplexed.

It turns out that when the goddess Nüwa smelted stones to mend the sky, she refined at Baseless Cliff on Great Waste Mountain thirty-six thousand five hundred and one stubborn stones, each twelve zhang high and twenty-four zhang square. The Empress Nüwa used only thirty-six thousand five hundred of them, leaving just one unused, which she abandoned beneath Green Ridge Peak on that mountain. Who would have known that, after being tempered and refined, this stone had already become spiritually conscious? Seeing that all the other stones had been used to mend the sky, while it alone, being without talent, was unfit to be chosen, it blamed and lamented itself, crying in grief day and night, ashamed and sorrowful.

One day, just as it was sighing and grieving, it suddenly saw a monk and a Taoist coming from far away. Their bones and bearing were extraordinary, their manner and spirit strikingly different from ordinary men. Laughing and talking, they came beneath the peak and sat beside the stone, speaking freely and loftily. At first they talked of cloud mountains, misty seas, immortals, mysteries, and marvels; afterward they spoke of glory, splendor, wealth, and rank in the red dust of the mortal world. When the stone heard this, its worldly heart was unconsciously stirred, and it too wanted to go among men and enjoy this glory and wealth. But hating its own rough stupidity, it had no choice but to speak in human words, saying to the monk and Taoist: “Masters, your disciple is a foolish thing and cannot properly pay respects. Just now I heard the two of you speak of the glory and splendor of the human world, and my heart earnestly longs for it. Though my substance is rough and stupid, my nature has some slight understanding. Besides, seeing that you two masters have the forms of immortals and the bodies of Taoist adepts, you are surely no ordinary beings; you must possess the talent to mend heaven and save the world, and the virtue to benefit things and aid people. If you would kindly show a little compassion and carry your disciple into the red dust, so that I may enjoy a few years in the arena of wealth and rank and the land of tenderness, I shall forever wear your great kindness in my heart and never forget it through ten thousand kalpas.”