She snapped her thumb and forefinger toward her favorite dog, and the great creature, huge and white as a northern bear, loped to her side and slowed his pace to hers. Behind them followed Li Lien-ying. In silence they walked toward the lake and crossed the marble bridge, but as she went she looked at all the beauty she had made, the fiery maples on the hillside, the late rosy lotus lilies upon the lake, the golden roofs and the soaring slender pagodas, the terraced gardens and the clustering pine trees. All, all were hers, created by her mind and heart. Yet all would lose meaning were she a prisoner here. Yes, even beauty could not be enough, were she to lose her power and freedom. Alas, she wished she need not hold another prisoner, yet she must and not for her own sake alone but for a people’s. Her wisdom, she did in truth believe, must now save the nation from her nephew’s folly.
Thus affirming her own will she reached the island, and her great dog at her side and the tall dark eunuch following, she entered the pavilion.
The Emperor was there already in his priestly robes of worship and he rose to receive her. His narrow face was pale, his large eyes sad, his mouth, a woman’s mouth for delicacy, the lips gently carved and always parted, was trembling.
“Down on your knees,” she said, and sat herself upon the central seat. In every hall, pavilion, chamber or resting place, this central seat was hers.
He fell on his knees before her, and put his forehead to the floor. The great dog smelled him carefully from head to foot and then lay down across her feet to guard her.
“You!” the Empress said most bitterly, and gazed down upon the kneeling man. “You who should be strangled, sliced and thrown to wild beasts!”
He did not speak or move.
“Who put you on the Dragon Throne?” she asked. She did not raise her voice, she needed not, it fell as cold as steel upon his ears. “Who went at night and took you from your bed, a whining child, and made you Emperor?”
He murmured something—words she could not hear. She pushed him with her foot.
“What do you say? Lift up your head, if you dare to let me hear you.”
He lifted up his head. “I said—I wish you had not taken that child from his bed.”
“You weakling,” she retorted, “to whom I gave the highest place in all the world! How much a strong man would rejoice, how grateful he would be to me, his foster mother, how worthy of my pride! But you, with your foreign toys, your playthings, corrupted by your eunuchs, fearful of your Consort, choosing petty concubines above her who is your Empress—I tell you, there is not a Manchu prince or commoner who does not pray that I take back the throne! By day and night I am besought. And who supports you? Fool, who but Chinese rebels? It is their plot to coax and natter and persuade you to listen to them, and when they have you in their power, they will depose you and end our dynasty. You have betrayed not only me but all our Sacred Ancestors. The mighty who have ruled before us, these you would sacrifice. Reforms! I spit upon reforms! The rebels shall be killed—and you, and you—”
Her breath came suddenly too tight. She stopped and put her hand upon her heart and felt it beat as though it must break. Her dog looked up and growled and she tried to smile.
“A beast is faithful but a man is not,” she said. “Yet I will not kill you, nephew. You shall even keep the name of Emperor. But you shall be a prisoner, guarded, wretched. You shall implore me to sit in your place and rule. And I will yield, though unwilling and truly so, for how proud I might have been if you were strong and ruled as a ruler should. Yet since you are weak, not fit to rule, I am compelled to take your place. And from now on until you die—”
At this moment curtains parted in a doorway and the Pearl Concubine ran in and threw herself upon the floor beside him and sobbing loudly she besought the Empress to blame him no more.
“I do assure you, Holy Mother,” so she sobbed. “He is sorry that he has disturbed your mind. He wishes only what is good, I do assure you, for a man more kind and gentle never lived. He cannot hurt a mouse. Why, I do assure you, Imperial Mother, my cat caught a mouse the other day and he with his own hands pried her mouth open and took the mouse and tried to coax it back to life!”
“Be silent, silly girl,” the Empress said.
But the Pearl Concubine would not be silent. She lifted up her head and sat back on her heels and while the tears ran down her pretty cheeks she shrieked at the haughty woman who was Empress.
“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
ONCE 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.”