Imperial Woman (63 page)

Thirty iron cars were needed for the Court and their possessions and this long train wound its way among the bare hills and drew up at the station. From a window the Empress looked out and she was heartened to see a great crowd of her subjects who waited for her, princes and generals and the officials of the city standing in front, wearing official robes. To one side she saw foreign envoys in their strange dark coats and trousers, and she stared at their grim faces, repelled by their pallor and their large features, and then she forced a courteous smile.

All was performed in honor and in order. When the princes and generals and other Manchu and Chinese saw the face of the Empress at the window, they fell upon their knees, and the chief officer of the imperial household shouted to the foreigners to remove their hats, although this they had already done. First to come down from the train in much pride and state was the Chief Eunuch, Li Lien-ying. He paid no heed to anyone but immediately made himself busy in checking and examining the number of boxes of tribute and treasure that bearers carried from the boxcars. Next, the Emperor came down from the train but the Empress made a sign and he hastened to a sedan chair that was waiting and to him no greeting was given. Only when all was ready did the Empress herself descend from the train. Supported by her princes, she came down the steps and stood in the brilliant sunshine to view the scene and to be viewed, while her subjects bowed in obeisance, their foreheads on the clean-swept earth.

The foreigners stood together at the left, their heads bared but not bowed, and she was amazed at their number.

“How many of these foreigners are here?” she said in a clear voice which carried through the windless air to the very ears of the foreigners themselves. When they appeared to understand what she had said, she smiled graciously in their direction and then stood talking with her usual liveliness to several of the managers of her imperial household. All praised her, saying that she looked in health and youthful for her many years, and indeed, her skin was flawless even under the relentless sun, and her hair still abundant and black. When Li Lien-ying had finished his task he brought her the list of treasures, each chest checked and counter-checked, and the Empress took the scroll and examined it closely and gave it back to him, while she nodded approval.

When this was done, the Viceroy, Yuan Shih-k’ai, asked permission to present to her the foreign manager and engineer of the train, and she with perfect grace agreed to receive them. When the two tall white men stood before her, bareheaded, she thanked them for their courtesy in obeying her command whereby the train was not to travel beyond fifteen miles an hour, that she might arrive in safety. This done, she entered her gold palanquin and was lifted up by the bearers and carried to the city. She had decreed that her entrance was to be by the South Gate of the Chinese city, and thence she went to the great entrance gate of the imperial inner city. Here she paused again to worship at the shrine to the God of War, and she came down from her palanquin and knelt before the god to burn incense and give thanks, while the priests chanted their rituals. She rose from her knees when the service was finished and chancing to lift her eyes upward as she came from the shrine, she saw on the walls a hundred or more foreigners, men and women, who had come to gaze at her. At first she was angry and she was about to call out that they should be scattered by the eunuchs. Then she remembered. She was indeed the ruler, but by the mercy of this same enemy. She subdued her anger and forcing herself, yet so gracefully that all seemed natural to her and only courtesy and pleasure, she bowed to the foreigners, now to the right, now to the left, and smiled here and there toward them. This done, she went into her sedan again and so was carried once more into her own palace.

How beautiful was this ancestral palace to her now, undefiled by the enemy, saved by her surrender! She went from room to room, and into the great Throne Hall which Ch’ien Lung had built.

And I shall use this Throne Hall now for my own, she thought, and I shall rule from here—

And behind this Throne Hall were her courtyards, all as they had been, the gardens safe, the pools calm and clear. And beyond them was her small private throne room, and beyond it her sleeping chamber. All, all was as she had left it, the splendid doors untouched, their vermilion hues unmarred, the gold rooflets above them safe. And safe, too, was her Golden Buddha in his shrine.

Here, as did my Sacred Ancestor, I live and die in peace, she thought—

But it was too soon to think of peaceful death. Her first care when she had rested and had eaten her meal, was to know if her treasure was still safe. To that inner place she went, accompanied by her eunuch, and she stood before the wall, examining every crack and ledge of bricks.

“Not one brick has been moved,” she said, much pleased. Then she laughed, her laughter as gay and mischievous as ever it had been. “I daresay,” she said, “that foreign devils passed this place again and again, but they had no wit or magic to know what lies here.”

She commanded then that Li Lien-ying should have the wall torn down and he must examine and check every parcel of her treasure and report to her.

“You must watch sharply,” she admonished. “I will not lose to thievish eunuchs what I have not lost to foreign devils.”

“Am I not to be trusted, Majesty?” the eunuch asked and rolled his eyes and pretended to be wounded.

“Well, well,” she said and went away again to her own chamber. Ah, the peace here, the joy of return! The price was high and it was not yet all paid, nor ever could be paid in full nor the debt ended, for so long as she lived she must be gracious to her enemies and pretend to love them. To this task she set herself this same day before the sun was set, and she announced that she would invite the wives of foreign envoys to visit her again, and she herself wrote the invitation, saying that in pleasant memory she renewed acquaintance. Then, that every stain might be removed from her, she commanded honors for the Pearl Concubine, and she decreed an edict saying that this lady had delayed too long before joining the Emperor in his exile, and because she was unwilling to watch the desecration of the imperial shrines and the pollution of the palaces by foreign enemies, she had leaped into a deep well.

This done, the night fell, and the Empress inquired of Li Lien-ying whether Jung Lu had yet arrived. If so, she would summon him to make report.

“I go, Majesty,” the eunuch said, and soon returned to say that Jung Lu had reached the imperial city a short time ago and even now approached.

In her private throne room she waited, and soon the curtains were put aside by Li Lien-ying and Jung Lu was there. He leaned heavily upon two tall young eunuchs, and between these youths he looked so aged, so infirm, that the joy of her return drained from the heart of the Empress.

“Enter, kinsman,” she said, and to the eunuchs she said, “Lead him here to this cushioned seat. He is not to make obeisance or tire himself. And you, Li Lien-ying, bring a bowl of strong hot broth and a jug of hot wine and some steamed bread. My kinsman is too weary in my service.”

The eunuchs ran to obey and when they were alone the Empress rose and went to Jung Lu and stood at his side, and seeing no one near she felt his brow and smoothed his hands. Oh, how thin his hands were, and his cheeks how fleshless, and the skin hot to her touch!

“I pray you,” he whispered, “I pray you stand away from me. The curtains have eyes, the walls have ears.”

“Shall I never be able to minister to you?” she pleaded.

But he was so uneasy, that she saw, and so troubled lest her honor be soiled, that she sighed and went back to her throne and sat there. Then he drew from his bosom a scroll and reading from it slowly and with difficulty, for his eyes seemed dim, he gave report that after she had gone from the train, he had supervised the ladies of the Court as they came down from the train. First of these were the Consort and the Princess Imperial, and these he had escorted to two yellow-curtained sedans. Next had come the four imperial concubines and these he had led to four sedans, whose curtains were green and only bordered with yellow satin. These were borne away by their bearers to the imperial city. After them the ladies of the Court descended and he led them to the official carts, each cart for two ladies.

“As usual,” he said, looking up from the scroll, “the elder ladies made much complaint and talk, each had to tell the other of the fearful journey on the train, the filth of smoke, and how they vomited. But talk was ended at last and I myself supervised the removal of the boxes of bullion, each marked with the name of the province and the city that had sent tribute—no small task, Majesty, since you will remember that before we entrained the baggage alone filled three thousand carts. Yet this is all nothing. I fear the anger of the people when they learn the cost of this long journey home. The Imperial Highway, Majesty, and the splendid resthouses, every ten miles, will make many taxes—”

Here the Empress stopped him with tender kindness. “You are too weary. Rest yourself now. We are home again.”

“Alas, a thousand burdens remain to be carried,” he murmured.

“But not by you,” she declared. “Others must bear them.”

She scanned his aging handsome face with careful love and he submitted to her searching eyes. They were closer now, these two, than marriage itself could have made them. Flesh denied, their minds had interwoven in every thought, their hearts had mingled in every mood, and knowledge was complete. She put out her right hand and stroked his right hand gently, and felt it cool beneath her palm. In such communion a moment passed. Then, speechless, they interchanged a long deep look and he left her.

How could she know that it was the last time that she was to touch his living flesh? He fell ill in that same night of his old illness. Again he lay upon his bed unconscious for many days. The Empress sent her Court physicians to him and when none could heal she sent a physician, partly soothsayer, whom her brother Kuei Hsiang proclaimed magic in his cures. But fate forbade, and Jung Lu’s life was come to its end. He died, still silent and unknowing, before dawn in the third moon month, the fourth sun month, of the next new year. The Empress decreed full mourning for the Court and she herself wore no bright colors for a year, and she put aside her jewels for that time.

But none could light the inner darkness of her heart. Had she been only woman, she could have stood beside his coffin and herself laid the purple satin coverlet upon his shoulders. She could have sat the night out in his dead presence and worn white mourning to signify her loss. She could have wept and wailed aloud to ease her heart. But she was imperial woman, and she could not leave her palace nor weep aloud nor show herself moved beyond the point of lofty grief for a dead loyal servant of the Throne. Her one comfort was to be alone, and she coveted such hours as she could steal from her heavy daily tasks of new government of a troubled land.

One night when she had bade her women draw the curtains so that she could weep unseen, she lay sleepless, the silent tears draining from her heart, until the watchman beat his midnight drum. And still she lay sleepless, and was so desperate with the weary weight of sorrow that she fell into a dream, a trance, and felt her soul taken from her body. She dreamed she saw Jung Lu somewhere, but young again, except that he spoke with old wisdom. She dreamed he took her in his arms and held her and for so long that her sorrow lifted and she felt light and free, her burden gone. And then she seemed to hear him speak.

“I am with you always.” This was his voice. “And when you are most gentle and most wise, I am with you, my mind in yours, my being in your being.”

Memory—memory! Yet was it not more than memory? The warmth of certainty welled through her soul and into her body. When she awoke, the weariness was gone from limbs and flesh. She who had been loved could never be alone. This was the meaning of the dream.

There came such a change in the life of the Empress thereafter that none could comprehend it, and only she knew and she kept it secret. She was possessed by ancient wisdom and she made defeat a victory. She fought no more but yielded, with grace, her lively mind. Thus, to the amazement of all, she even encouraged young Chinese men to go abroad and learn the skills and knowledge of the West.

“Those who are between fifteen and twenty-five,” she decreed, “those who have good intelligence and good health may cross the Four Seas, if they wish. We will defray the cost.”

And she summoned to her the minister Yuan Shih-k’ai and the rebel Chinese scholar Chang Chih-tung and after many days of hearing them face to face, she decreed that the old imperial examinations belonged to the past, and she sent out an edict saying that two thousand five hundred years ago, in the time of that good and enlightened ruler the Regent Duke Chou, doubtless universities were not unlike the present seats of learning in the West, and she proved by history books that the eight-legged classical essay was not sent down from ancient times, but was a device of Ming scholars only some five hundred years ago, and therefore that present youth should go not only to Japan, but also to Europe and America, since under Heaven and around the Four Seas, all peoples were one family.

This she did one year after the death of Jung Lu, in body.

Before another year had passed, she decreed against the use of opium, not suddenly, for she was tenderly mindful of the aged men and women who were used to a pipe or two at night to waft them to sleep. No, she said, within ten years, year by year, the importation and the manufacture of opium must be stopped.

And in that same year, while she meditated much, she saw that the foreigners, whom she would not call enemies and yet could not call friends, for they were still strange to her, would never agree to yield those evil special rights and privileges which gave to all white men, good and evil alike, the same protection, unless she decreed that tortures must end for any crimes committed, and she decreed that law and not force and agony must judge the crime. Dismemberment and slicing, she commanded, must be no more, and branding and flogging and the punishment of innocent relatives must cease. Once, long ago, Jung Lu had so adjured her, but she had not heeded him then. Now she remembered.