Reader Gone Wild

昔有讀湯臨川《牡丹亭》死者,近時聞一癡女子以讀《紅樓夢》而死。 初,女子從其兄案頭搜得《紅樓夢》,廢寢食讀之。讀至佳處,往往輟卷冥想,繼之以淚。復自前讀之,反覆數十百遍,卒未嘗終卷,乃病矣。父 母覺之,急取書付火。女子乃呼曰:「奈何焚寶玉,黛玉?」自是笑啼失 常,言語無倫次,夢寐之間未嘗不呼寶玉也。延巫醫雜治,百弗效。一夕 瞪視牀頭燈,連語曰:「寶玉寶玉在此耶!」遂飲泣而瞑。

In the past, there was a girl who read Tang Xianzu’s Mudan ting and died; recently I’ve heard of a girl who was a fool for love, and who died because she read Honglou meng. In the beginning, the girl looked for Honglou meng on her brother’s desk, and finding it, neglected to eat and sleep as she read it. When she had read up to a delectable part (佳處), she would always rest the book and let her mind wander (輟卷冥想), and end by bursting into tears (繼之以淚). She began reading from the beginning again and again, leafing through it thousands of times; in the end she never once finished reading the novel before she grew ill. Her parents became aware of this and quickly took the book and burned it. The girl then cried, “How could you burn Baoyu and Daiyu?” From this time on she began laughing and crying in an unusual manner. Her words were no longer coherent, and she called for Baoyu continuously in her dreams. [The parents] invited witch healers and doctors who tried various cures, but a hundred cures had no effect. One night she stared at the lamp by the end of the bed and said repeatedly, "Baoyu! Baoyu has arrived!" Then she choked back her tears and died.

--anecdote from Yue Jun’s 樂鈞 (1766-1814) Er shi lu 耳食錄 (Record of Hearsay), printed in 1821. Translation by Sophie Volpp in her article "Wu Lanzheng’s Jiang Heng Qiu," Journal of Theater Studies (July 2011)