Imperial Woman (56 page)

“I will not be silent, and you may kill me if you like! You have no right to take him from the Throne. He is the Emperor by will of Heaven and you were but a tool of destiny.”

“Enough,” the Empress said. Her handsome face was stern as any man’s. “You have passed beyond the boundaries. From now on you shall never see your lord again.”

The Emperor leaped to his feet. “Oh, Sacred Mother,” he shouted. “You shall not kill this innocent one, the only creature who loves me, in whom there is no flattery or pretense, who has no guile—”

The concubine rose to her feet and clung to his arm and laid her face against him. “Who will make your supper as you like?” she sobbed. “And who will warm you when your bed is cold—”

“My niece, his Consort, will come here to live,” the Empress said. “You are not needed.”

She turned imperiously to Li Lien-ying and he came forward for her command. “Remove the Pearl Concubine. Take her to the most distant part of the palace. In the Palace of Forgotten Concubines there are two small inner rooms. These shall be her prison until she dies. She shall have no change of clothing until the garments that she wears fall from her in rags. Her food shall be coarse rice and beggar’s cabbage. Her name must not be mentioned in my presence. When she dies, do not inform me.”

“Yes, Majesty,” he said. But by his pale face and smothered voice he showed that even he could not approve the harshness of the task, except he must. He took the woman by the wrist and dragged her away. When she was gone the Emperor slipped to the floor, crumpling senseless at his sovereign’s feet. Above him the white dog stood and growled, and the Empress sat motionless, in silence, her eyes fixed upon the vista of the open doors.

V
Old Buddha

O
NCE MORE THE EMPRESS
ruled, and now because she was old, she said, and because no sign of womanhood was left to one so old she put aside all feint of screen and fan to shield her from the eyes of men. She sat upon the Dragon Throne as though she were a man, in the full light of torch or sun, clothed in magnificence and pride. Since she had accomplished what she had planned, she could be merciful and in mercy she allowed her nephew sometimes the appearance of his place. Thus when the autumn festival approached, she let him make the imperial sacrifices at the Altar of the Moon. Thus on the eighth day of the eighth moon month, at the Festival of Autumn, she received him in the Audience Hall under guard appointed by Jung Lu and there before the assembled Council and the Imperial Boards, she accepted from him the nine obeisances that signified her rule over him. Later in that day by her permission and under the same guard he made the imperial sacrifices under the Altar of the Moon, and he thanked Heaven for the harvests and for peace. Let him deal with gods, she said, while she dealt with men.

And she had much to do with men. First she put to death the six Chinese rebels whose advice had led the Emperor astray, and much she raged and grieved because the chief rebel of them all, that K’ang Yu-wei, escaped her with the help of Englishmen and on a foreign ship was taken to an English port and there lived safe in exile. Nor did she let her family clansmen go free. Prince Ts’ai, friend and ally of the Emperor, she cast into the prison chamber of the clan, and this man’s treachery she knew because his wife was another of her nieces, and he hated this wife and in her anger the woman had borne tales to her royal aunt. But when all had died who should be dead and the Empress had no enemies left alive inside her Court, she set herself to still another task, and this was to make what she had done seem right to all the people. For she knew the people were divided, that some took the Emperor’s part and said that the nation should be shaped to new times and have ships and guns and railroads and learn even from their enemies, the Western men, while others declared themselves for the sage Confucius and all the ancient ways and wisdom and these longed to free themselves of new men and new times and return to old ways.

Both must be persuaded, and to the task the Empress now set herself. By edicts and by skillful gossip leaking from the Court through eunuchs and ministers, the people were informed of the grave sins of the Emperor, and his chief sins were two, first, that he had plotted against his ancient aunt, had even planned her death so that he might be free to obey his new advisors and, next, that he was supported and upheld by foreigners, and was too simple in his mind to see that they hoped to make him their puppet and so seize the whole country for themselves. These two sins convinced all that the Empress did well to resume the imperial seat, for while those who revered Confucius and tradition could not condone a youth who plotted to destroy his elder, yet none could forgive a ruler who made friends of white men or Chinese rebels. Before many months had passed, the people approved the Empress as their sovereign and even foreigners said that it was better to deal with a strong female than a weak male ruler, for strength could be trusted but weakness was always doubtful.

And here was the wile and wit of this Old Buddha. She knew the power of woman, and so that men could be persuaded, she made a feast and invited as her guests the wives of all white men who were ambassadors and ministers from Western lands and lived in the capital to represent their governments. Never in all her many years had the Empress looked upon a white face but now she prepared to do so, although the very thought revolted her. But if she won the women, she said, the men would follow. She chose her birthday for the meeting, not a great birthday but a small one, her sixty-fourth, and she invited seven ladies, wives of seven foreign envoys, to appear at audience.

The whole court was stirred, the ladies curious, the serving women busy, the eunuchs running here and there, for none had seen a foreigner. Only the Empress was calm. She it was who thought to order foods the guests might like, and she sent eunuchs to inquire if they could eat meat or did their gods forbid, and whether they liked mild Chinese green teas or black Indian teas, and would they have their sweetmeats made with pig’s fat or with vegetable oils. True, she was indifferent to their answers, and she ordered what she wished, but courtesy was done.

Thus she planned every courtesy. At midmorning she sent Chinese guards in full uniform of scarlet and yellow and on horseback to announce the sedan chairs. An hour later these sedans, each with five bearers and two mounted horsemen, waited at the gates of the British Legation, and when the foreign ladies came out, the chairs were lowered and their curtains drawn, for the ladies to enter. As though this were not courtesy enough, the Empress commanded the chief of her Board of Diplomatic Service to take with him four interpreters, all in sedans and accompanied by eighteen horsemen and sixty mounted guards to receive the ladies. Each man was dressed in his official robe and each held himself in high dignity and gave every courtesy to the foreign guests.

At the first gate to the Winter Palace the procession stopped and the ladies were invited to enter on foot. Inside the gate seven court sedans waited, all cushioned in red satin, and each borne by six eunuchs, garbed in bright yellow satin girdled with crimson sashes. With escorts following, the ladies were now carried to the second gate, there to dismount again.

The Empress had commanded that they be ushered into a small foreign train of cars, drawn by a steam engine, which the Emperor had bought some years before for his amusement and his information. The train carried them through the Forbidden City to the entrance hall of the main palace. Here the guests came down from the train and sat upon seven chairs and drank tea and rested. The highest princes then invited them to the great Audience Hall, where the Emperor and his Consort sat upon their thrones. The Empress, that arch diplomat, had willed her nephew to sit at her right hand this day, so that in the eyes of all they might appear united.

According to the length of their stay in Peking, the guests now stood in rank before the thrones, and an interpreter presented each in turn to Prince Ch’ing, who then presented her to the Empress.

The Empress gazed at each face, and however much she was amazed by what she saw, she leaned down from her throne and put out her two hands and clasped the right hand of each lady in her own jeweled hands, and upon the forefingers of their hands she placed a ring of pure and heavy Chinese gold, set with a large round pearl.

They gave their thanks, and to each the Empress inclined her head. Then, followed by her nephew, she rose and left the room, her eunuchs flocking behind to screen her as she went.

Outside the doors she turned left toward her own palace, and without speaking to him, waved the Emperor toward the right. The four eunuchs who were his guard by day and night led him again to his prison.

In her own dining hall the Empress ate her usual noon meal, surrounded by her favorite ladies, while her foreign guests dined in the banquet hall with her lesser ladies, eunuchs and interpreters remaining to do them courtesy. The Empress, while she ate heartily as usual, was in good spirits, laughing much at the strange faces of the foreigners. Their eyes, she said, were most strange of all, some pale gray, others light yellow, or blue like the eyes of wild cats. She declared the foreigners coarse in bone, but she granted that their skins were excellent, white and pink, except for the Japanese, whose skin was coarse and brown. The English lady was the handsomest, the Empress said, but the dress of the German lady was the most beautiful, a short jacket worn over lace and a full long skirt of rich brocaded satin. She laughed at the high cockade the Russian lady wore upon her head, and the American lady, she said, looked like a hard-faced nun. Her ladies laughed and applauded all she said, and they declared they had never seen her in better wit, and so in pleasant humor the meal was finished and the Empress changed her robes and returned to the banquet hall. There the guests had been escorted to another hall while tables were cleared, and when they returned the Empress already sat upon her throne chair to receive them. She had meanwhile sent for her niece, the young Empress, who now stood beside her. As the guests came in, the Empress presented her niece to each in turn, and she was much pleased to see the looks of praise they gave the niece, admiring her rich crimson robes and her decorations and her jewels. Until now the Empress had not put on her finest robes or jewels, but seeing the looks of the foreign ladies, she perceived that they, in spite of being only foreigners, discerned the quality of satins and jewels, and she decided privately that when she received them for the third and last time at the end of the day she would astonish them with her own beauties of apparel. She felt pleased by her guests and she rose and held out her hands to them as they came near, one by one, and put her hands on her own breast and then on theirs and repeated again and again the words of the ancient sage, “All under Heaven are one family,” and she bade the interpreters to explain what she said in English and in French. When this was done, she dismissed the guests, sending them to her theater and saying that she had chosen her favorite play for their amusement and that the interpreters would explain it to them as the actors played.

Again she withdrew, and now she went to her chambers and, being somewhat weary, she allowed herself to be first bathed in warm scented waters before she was clothed in fresh garments. This time she chose her costliest robe of gold-encrusted satin embroidered in phoenixes of every shade and hue, and she wore her famous great collar of matched pearls and she even changed the shields upon her fingernails from gold set with pearls and jade to gold set with Burmese rubies and Indian sapphires. Upon her head she wore a high headdress of pearls and rubies interset with diamonds from Africa. Never, so her ladies said, had they seen her more beautiful. Indeed, the freshness of her ivory skin, the red of her unwrinkled lips, the blackness of her fabulous eyes and clear brows, were those of a woman in her youth.

Once more the Empress returned to the banquet hall, where her guests were now drinking tea and eating sweetmeats, and she came in state, not walking but borne in her palace chair, and eunuchs lifted her to her throne. The foreign ladies rose, their admiration bright upon their faces, and she smiled at all, and lifted up her bowl of tea and drank from one side, and summoning each lady to her she put the other side of the bowl to the lady’s lips, and again she said, “All one family—under Heaven, all are one.” And feeling bold and free and much in triumph, she commanded gifts to be brought and given to the ladies, a fan, a scroll of her own painting, and a piece of jade, to each alike. When this was done and the ladies were overcome with gratitude, she bade them all farewell and so the day was over.

Within the next few days her spies reported that the foreign ladies had praised her much to their lords, saying that no one so gentle and beautiful and generous with gifts as she had shown herself to be could also be evil or cruel. She was well pleased and she felt that she was indeed what they had said she was. Now, having won the favor of all, she set herself to clean away rebels and reformers from among the Chinese whom she ruled, and to bring the whole people under the power of her own hand and heart again. The more she pondered this task the more she perceived that it could not be done so long as the Emperor, her nephew, lived. His melancholy, his pensive ways, his very submission, had won those who surrounded him, even while they obeyed her. And once again she compelled herself to do what must be done, while Li Lien-ying whispered in her ear.

“So long as he lives, Majesty,” the gaunt eunuch insisted, “the nation will remain divided. They will seek the excuse for division between you, Sacred Mother, and him. They are born for division, these Chinese. They love dissent and never are they happier than when they plot and plan against their rulers. The rebel leaders foment eternally beneath the waters. They remind the people day and night that a Manchu and not a Chinese sits above them. Only you can keep the peace, because the people know you and trust your wit and wisdom, though you are Manchu.”