Imperial Woman (32 page)

Upon the stage the famous actor made his last bow and sat down. The property man ran forward to bring a bowl of tea. The actor took off his weighty many-colored helmet and wiped his sweat away with a silk kerchief. In the small theater the serving eunuchs wrung soft towels from basins of perfumed water steaming hot and tossed them here and there where hands were raised to catch them. The eunuch Li Lien-ying brought a hot perfumed towel on a gold salver to the Empress Mother. She took it and touched it delicately first to her temples and then to her palms, and when the eunuch was gone again, she spoke low and sharply.

“I do command you to wed Lady Mei. No, you shall not speak. She is the gentlest woman in our Court, the truest soul, and she loves you.”

“Can you command my heart?” he cried beneath his breath.

“You need not love her,” she said cruelly.

“If she is what you say, then I would do her such injustice as is against my nature,” he retorted.

“Not if she knows you do not love her and still longs to be your wife.”

He pondered this awhile. Upon the stage a new young actor stood and sang his best, while serving eunuchs brought trays of sweetmeats, hot and cold, to feed the throng. Since the actor was unknown, he was not heeded, and eyes crept toward the Empress Mother. She felt them on her, and she knew she must dismiss Jung Lu.

She spoke between her set teeth. “You may not disobey me. It is decreed that you shall accept this marriage, and on the same day you shall take your seat among the Councilors. And now retire!”

He rose and made his deep obeisance. His silence gave assent. She inclined her head. With careful grace she lifted her head again and seemed intent upon the stage.

In the night, when she was alone, the scene returned to her. She could not remember what story the actors played upon the stage when he was gone, nor what songs they sang. She had sat fanning herself slowly, the stage a blur before her eyes, and then, her whole body tense in agony, she had folded the fan and stayed motionless, gazing at the stage while pain pervaded all her being. She loved one only and she would love him until she died. He was the lover whom she craved, the husband she denied herself.

And as her mind fluttered here and there like a caged bird against the bars, she thought of a queen, an English queen, Victoria, of whom Prince Kung had told her. Ah, fortunate queen, who was allowed to wed a man she loved! But then Victoria was not concubine or widow to an emperor. She was born to her throne and she could lift up the man she loved to sit beside her. But no woman could be born to sit upon the Dragon Throne, and she could only seize it for herself.

And thus am I, the Empress Mother said to herself, so much the stronger than that English Queen. I have seized my throne—

But is strength comfort for a woman?

She lay in her great bed, still wakeful, though the watchman struck his brass gong twice to signify that midnight was two hours past. She lay motionless while pain ran through her very blood and her breath caught deep and hard inside her bosom. And why was she not all woman? Why could she not be content to yield the throne and be his wife whom she so loved ? What pride possessed her to rise to yet higher power? How did it serve her, a woman, if a dynasty held or fell?

She saw herself at last, a woman in her secret need and longing, yet not a woman in her lust for more than love. Place and power, the pride of being above all—these too were her necessity. But surely she was woman in her love for her son? Her relentless self replied that though he to her was all child, and she to him all mother, yet beyond the closeness of their blood-bond was another bond. He was the Emperor and she the Empress Mother. The common boons of womanhood were not enough. Oh, cursed woman to be born with such a heart and brain!

She turned upon her pillow and wept with pity for herself. I cannot love, she thought. I cannot love enough to make me willing to yield myself to love. And why? Because I know myself too well. Were I to cramp myself into my love, my heart would die, and having given all, I would have nothing left but hatred for him. And yet I love him!

The watchman beat his bronze gong again and called his cry. “Three hours past midnight!”

She pondered then awhile on love, weeping when thought grew too sorrowful. Suppose, when Jung Lu was wed to Lady Mei, that she could persuade him to meet her in some secret room of a forgotten palace. Her eunuch could be watchman, she would pay him well and did she suspect his loyalty, a word would put a dagger in his heart. If, once or twice, a few times, say, in her life years, she could meet her love as only woman, then she could be happy, having so much, if not all. Did she not hold his heart?

Ah, but could she hold his heart? While she sat upon her throne another woman would lie in his bed. He being man, could he remember always that it was the Empress whom he loved and not the woman in his arms?

Her tears burned dry in sudden jealousy. She rose in her bed and threw aside her silken coverlet and drawing up her knees she laid her forehead down and bit her lips and sobbed silently, lest her woman hear.

The watchman beat his gong again and called, “Four hours past midnight!”

When she was spent with bitter weeping she lay down once more, exhausted. She was born what she was, a woman and more than a woman. The very weight of genius was her destruction. Tears trembled on her eyelids again.

And then from somewhere in herself an alien strength welled up. Destruction? If she allowed herself to be destroyed by her own love and jealousy, then call it true destruction, because she was not great enough to use the size of her own nature.

Yet how strong I am, she muttered. Yes, she would make of strength a comfort. The tears dried on her eyelids and through her veins came the old powerful faith in what she was. She reckoned up her thoughts and separated true from false. Madness, folly, vain dreaming, to imagine a secret room in some forgotten palace! He would never take such yielding. If she would not give up all for love, he would be too proud to be her private lover. Once—yes, once, but only once, when he was still a boy on that past day—and she had found him virgin. Well, she had that first fruit, a memory to keep, yet not to think about but put away, forever unforgotten. He would not yield again.

And now there came a thought to her so new that she was struck with wonder. Grant that she could not love any man enough to forsake all and follow after love. Let it be so, for so she was born. Yet was it not a gift for him if she let him love her with all his heart and pour his love into her service?

It may be that I love him best, she thought, when I accept his love for me and let it be my refuge.

With this wisdom a strange peace came flowing gently through her veins and stilled her restless heart. She closed her eyes.

The watchman’s gong beat once again. She heard his morning call.

“Dawn,” he sang, “and all is well!”

She set the wedding day early. Let it be soon, that it might be the sooner irrevocable! Yet Lady Mei could not be married from the imperial palaces, though she had no other home.

“Summon the Chief Eunuch,” the Empress Mother commanded.

Li Lien-ying, standing silent in his usual place by the door of the Imperial Library, where the Empress had now spent four days without speaking to anyone except to give commands, went with all speed to obey. The Chief Eunuch was in his own rooms, taking his midmorning breakfast, a meal of various meats, which he ate slowly and with relish. Since the death of his late sovereign he had comforted himself with pleasures, but now he hastened to obey the summons.

The Empress Mother looked up from her book when he appeared before her and when she saw him she spoke with much distaste.

“You, An Teh-hai, do you dare to let yourself become so smug? I swear you’ve put on fat even in these days of mourning.”

He tried a look of sadness. “Venerable, I am full of water. Prick me and liquid flows. I am ill, your Majesty, not fat.”

She heard this with her usual look of sternness when she felt it necessary to reproach one beneath her. Nothing escaped her notice, and though her mind and heart were occupied with her own secret woes, she could, as usual, turn her thought for the moment to so small a matter as the Chief Eunuch’s waxing fat.

“I know how you eat and drink,” she said. “You grow rich, you know you do. Take care that you do not grow too rich. Remember that my eyes are on you.”

The Chief Eunuch made humble reply. “Majesty, we all know your eyes are everywhere at once.”

She continued to look at him severely for a moment, her immense eyes burning upon him, and though he could not in proper courtesy lift his eyes to her face, nevertheless he felt her look and began to sweat. Then she smiled.

“You are too handsome to grow fat,” she said. “And how can you play the hero on the stage if your belt does not meet around your middle?”

He laughed. It was true he loved to act a hero in court plays. “Majesty,” he promised, “I’ll starve myself to please you.”

In good humor then she said, “I did not call you here to talk about you, but to say it is my will that you arrange for the marriage of Lady Mei to Jung Lu, Commander of the Guard. You know he is to wed her?”

“Yes, Majesty,” the Chief Eunuch said.

He knew of the marriage as he knew everything within the palace walls. Li Lien-ying told him all that he heard, and so did every eunuch and serving woman, and the Empress Mother knew this.

“The lady has no parents,” she continued. “I must therefore stand in the place of parent to her. Yet as Regent I stand also in the place of the young Emperor and it would not be fitting to give her the appearance of a princess by my presence at her marriage. You are to take her to my nephew’s house, the Duke of Hui. Let her be accompanied with all honor and ceremony. From that house my kinsman, the Commander, will receive her.”

“Majesty, when is this day to be?” he inquired.

“Tomorrow she shall go to the Duke. You are to go today and bid the household prepare for her. He has two old aunts, and let them be her motherly companions. Then you shall go to the Commander and announce that I have decided that the marriage must take place two days from now. When it is over you are to come and tell me. Until she is his wife, do not trouble me.”

“Majesty, I am your servant.” He bowed and went away. But she had already turned to her book and she did not lift her head.

Upon her books she seemed intent for two whole days. Late at night while serving eunuchs mended candles and hid their yawns behind their sleeves, she read slowly and carefully through one book and then another. These were books of medicine, of which she knew nothing, but she was determined to know everything, and whatever she was most ignorant of, that she longed most to know. This was not only her true craving for knowledge and her curiosity concerning the universe, but also it was that she might always know more than any person to whom she spoke. Thus in these two days, while the marriage she had ordained took place, she rigorously denied her imagination and she forced her whole brain upon an ancient work of medical jurisprudence. This work, in many volumes, was well known to all courts of law, and even local magistrates in petty courts throughout the nation studied its precepts before judging the case of any who died from unknown causes. The Board of Punishments shaped its practice by this work, and some eighteen years ago the Emperor, T’ao Huang, then ruling, annoyed by the disorder of the earlier volumes, had commanded a well-known judge, named Sung Tz’u, to compile all past versions into one edition. This great book, too, the Empress now studied, closing her mind to all else.

Thus she compelled herself to learn that the human body has three hundred and sixty-five bones, the number being the same as the number of days that the sun rises and sets within a solar year, that males have twelve ribs on each side, eight long and four short, though females have fourteen ribs on each side. She read that if parent and child or husband and wife cut themselves and let their blood flow into a bowl of water, the two bloods will mix into one, but the blood of two strangers not related by such bonds will never mingle. She learned, too, the secrets of many poisons, how they can be used for illness or for death, and how their use may be concealed.

At the end of two days she had not once left the Imperial Library except to go to her palace for food and sleep. On the morning of the third day the eunuch Li Lien-ying coughed in the distance to announce himself. She looked up from the page where she was reading of the power of mandrake as a poison.

“What now?” she asked.

“Majesty, the Chief Eunuch is returned.”

She closed the book and took the corner of the silken kerchief which hung from her jade shoulder button and touched it to her lips.

“Let him approach,” she said.

The Chief Eunuch came and made his obeisance.

“Stand behind me to say what you have to say,” she commanded.

He stood behind her and while she listened she gazed beyond the open doors into the great courtyard, where chrysanthemums blazed scarlet and gold in the calm and brilliant sunlight of that autumn day.

“Majesty,” he began, “all has been done with due honor and propriety. The Commander sent the red bridal sedan to the palace of the Duke of Hui and the bearers withdrew. The two elder aunts of the Duke, as I instructed them under Your Majesty’s order, then escorted the lady as the bride and they led her to the sedan and placed her therein and drew the inner curtain and locked the door. The bearers were called and they lifted the sedan and carried it to the palace of the Commander and the two elders accompanied it in their own sedans. At the palace of the Commander, two other elder ladies, who were the cousins of his father, met the bridal sedan and the four elders together led the bride into the palace. There the Commander waited, and with him stood his own generation, his parents being dead.”

“Did the elders not powder the face of the bride with rice powder?” the Empress Mother inquired.

The Chief Eunuch made haste to correct his memory. “Majesty, they did so, and they dropped the maidenhood veil of red silk to cover her. Then she stepped over the saddle as the rite demands—the Commander’s own Mongol saddle it was, which he had from his ancestors—and then she stepped over charcoal embers and so she entered into his palace, surrounded by the elder ladies. There an aged marriage singer waited and he bade the bridal couple kneel twice and give thanks to Heaven and to Earth. Then the elder ladies led the bride and groom into the bedchamber and they told the two to sit down on the marriage bed together.”