Imperial Woman

by Pearl S. Buck

  And her son, who ought always to love her, both by right and by debt, loved his wife better than his mother. Nay, she remembered daily that he loved even his foster mother, Sakota, more than he did her, his own mother, who had spent many weary hours with that childish Emperor who was never husband to her, and for what reason except to gain the throne for him, her son. Oh, those weary hours! She remembered the pallid yellow face and the hot sick hands always fumbling at her body and her gorge rose again.

  And how firmly she had held the Throne during the twelve years of her Regency, so that when her son was Emperor he might be spared the dangers of rebellion and conquest! She, and she alone, had kept the white men at bay and had forced tribute even from the wild tribes of Mongolia. She had put down the Muslim uprisings in Yünnan and the Shen-kan provinces. In peace and in safety her son now ruled, and though he knew her wisdom, he would not come to ask her guidance, who alone could guide him.

  Such thoughts forced a dark lonely strength into her mind. Her blood ran strong to her heart and her whole being rose up to battle against her present fate. So wounded was she, so hurt and beset, that she forgot all love, and set her will, sharp and narrow as a sword, to cleave her way again to power.

  Yet she was too just by nature to yield only to revenge and she must find other reasons for taking back her power. When her son began his reign a year ago the Empire was at peace for the first time in a score of years. Now suddenly fresh trouble arose. Upon the distant island of Taiwan, whose people were wild tribes, a few shipwrecked sailors had been washed ashore. When the savages saw these strangers they fell upon them and killed them. But they were Japanese seamen, and when the Emperor of Japan heard of the murder of his subjects, he sent his ships of war to carry soldiers to that island. These claimed the island in his name, and also other islands nearby. When Prince Kung, who was the head of the Foreign Office in Peking, protested such invasion, the Emperor of Japan declared that he would open war on China.

  Nor was this all. For fifteen centuries the Emperors of China had ruled the inner country of Annam as suzerains, and the people there were grateful for protection, since it gave freedom for their own rulers and yet saved them from marauders, and so mighty was the Chinese Empire that none had dared to attack its tributary peoples. None but the white man! For Frenchmen had crept into Annam within the last hundred years, and in the last twenty had so established themselves by trade and priesthood that France had compelled the King of Annam to sign a treaty, which took away the northeastern province of Tonkin, where Chinese bandits and outlaws daily crossed to and fro to do their work.

  This much the Empress Mother knew, but she had wished such troubles no longer to be her concern so that she could busy herself with her new palace. Now suddenly she decided they were her concern. She would declare that her son did nothing, the princes were given to pleasure, and unless such apathy were ended, the Empire would fall before her own life was ended. Therefore it was her clear duty to take the reins of government again into her hands.

  On a certain day, then, in early summer, at her command, the young concubines came fluttering into her palace as birds released from their cage. They had given up hope of being summoned before the Emperor, and now their hope was bright again, and in devotion they surrounded the Empress Mother as angels surround a goddess. The Empress Mother could not but smile and enjoy their worship, though she knew well enough that their love was not for her, but for themselves and what they hoped. She and she alone could bring them into the imperial bedchamber. She pitied them and beckoning them to come nearer she said,

  “My birds, you know that I cannot bring you all at once before the Emperor. The Consort would be angry and he would send you away again. So let me then send you to him one at a time, and it is only sensible that the prettiest shall be the first.”

  She was immediately fond of these four young girls now gathering about her. Such a young girl she, too, had been when she came to live behind these palace walls. She looked from one face to the other, the bright eyes gazing at her with confidence and hope, and she had not the heart to wound any of them. “How can I choose which is the pretty one?” she inquired. “You must choose among yourselves.”

  They laughed, four gay young voices joining together. “Our Venerable Ancestor,” the tallest one cried, the one least pretty, “how can you pretend that you do not know? Jasmine is the pretty one.”

  All turned to look at Jasmine, who blushed and shook her head and put her kerchief to her face to hide herself.

  “Are you the prettiest?” the Empress Mother asked, smiling. She enjoyed playfulness with young creatures, human or beast.

  At this Jasmine could only shake her head again and again and cover her face with her hands, too, while the others laughed aloud.

  “Well, well,” the Empress Mother said at last. “Take your hands down from your face, child, so that I may see you for myself.”

  The girls pulled Jasmine’s hands away, and the Empress Mother studied the downcast and rosy face. It was not a shy face so much as mischievous, or perhaps only merry. Nor was it a gentle face. Indeed, there was boldness in the full curved lips, the large eyes, the slightly flaring nostrils of the small tilted nose. Alute was like her father, who had been assistant to the Imperial Tutor to the Emperor, a man of delicately handsome face and frame. To such a woman as Alute Jasmine was the complete foil. Instead of Alute’s slender graceful body, tall for a woman, Jasmine was small and plump, and her greatest beauty was a skin without blemish or fault. It was a baby’s skin, cream white except for the flushed cheeks and red mouth.

  Thus satisfied, the Empress Mother’s mood changed suddenly. She waved the concubines away, and yawned behind her jeweled hand.

  “I will send for you when the day comes,” she said half carelessly to Jasmine, and the concubines could only retire, their embroidered sleeves folded like bright wings.

  Thereafter naught remained except for the Chief Eunuch to inquire of Alute’s woman what few days in the month the Consort could not enter the royal bedchamber. These were seven days distant, and the Empress Mother sent word to Jasmine to be ready on the eighth day. Her robe, she commanded, must be peach pink, and she was to use no perfume, for she herself would provide perfume from her own bottles.

  Upon the day Jasmine came so robed, and the Empress Mother received her and observed her carefully from head to foot. First she commanded the small cheap jewels she wore to be taken away.

  “Bring me the case from my jewel room marked thirty-two,” she said to her ladies, and when the box was brought, she lifted from it two flowers shaped like peonies, made of rubies and pearls, and these she gave to Jasmine to fasten above her ears. She gave her bracelets, too, and rings, until the girl was beside herself with delight, biting her scarlet lips and flashing her black eyes in joy.

  When this was done, the Empress Mother called for a heavy musk perfume, and she bade Jasmine rub it on her palms and under her chin, behind her ears and between her breasts and loins.

  “Well enough,” the Empress Mother said when all was done. “Do you now come with me and my ladies. We go to my son, the Emperor.”

  No sooner had these words left her lips than she thought—and why should she go to the Emperor? Alute would hear of her presence, for Alute had her spies, doubtless, and she would make pretext to come to bow before the Empress Mother. But, unbidden, she could not dare to come here to the Empress Mother’s own palace.

  “Stay—” the Empress Mother put out her hand. “Since I know my son is alone today, I will invite him here. And I will command my cooks to prepare a feast of the Emperor’s favorite dishes. My son will dine with me. The day is fair. Let the tables be set under the trees in the courtyard, and let the Court musicians attend us, and after we have dined the Court actors must give us a play.”

  She tossed her commands into the air left and right, and eunuchs ran to obey and her ladies hastened hither and thither.

  “And you, Jasmine,” she said next, “you are to
stand near me and tend my tea bowl, and be silent unless I bid you speak.”

  “Yes, Venerable Ancestor,” the girl said, her big eyes lively and her cheeks scarlet.

  Thus it came about that in an hour or two the bugles announced the Emperor and soon thereafter his sedan entered the vast courtyard, where the eunuchs were already busy with tables and the musicians with their instruments.

  The Empress Mother was seated in her private audience hall upon her small throne, and near her stood Jasmine, who held her head down while she toyed with a fan. Behind these two the ladies stood in a half circle.

  The Emperor came in wearing a robe of sky-blue satin embroidered in gold dragons, his tasseled hat upon his head, and in his hand a jade piece to cool his palms. He bowed before his mother without obeisance, since he was Emperor, and she received his greeting and did not rise. Now this was a symbol, for all must rise before the Emperor, and the ladies looked at one another to ask why the Empress Mother kept her seat. The Emperor seemed not to notice, however, and he sat down on a small throne on his mother’s right, and his eunuchs and guardsmen withdrew to the outer court.

  “I heard you were alone today, my son,” the Empress Mother said, “and to guard against your melancholy until the Consort returns, I thought to keep you here for a while. The sun is not too hot for us to dine under the trees in the courtyard, and the musicians will beguile us while we dine. Choose a play, my son, for the actors to perform for our amusement afterwards. By then it will be sunset and so one day passed.”

  She said this in a sweet and loving voice, her great eyes warm upon him, and her beautiful hand outstretched to touch his hand upon his knee.

  The Emperor smiled and was astonished, as anyone could see, for of late his imperial mother had not been kind. Indeed, she had reproved him much, and he would have refused to come to her this day, except he was unwilling to bear her wrath alone. When Alute was with him, she gave him strength.

  “Thank you, my mother,” he said, pleased to know she was not angry. “It is true I was lonely, and true, too, that I was casting here and there in my mind to know how to spend the day.”

  The Empress Mother spoke to Jasmine. “Pour tea, my child, for your lord.”

  The Emperor lifted his head at these words and stared at Jasmine, nor did he take his eyes away while with pretty grace she took the bowl of tea from a eunuch and presented it with both hands.

  “Who is this lady?” the Emperor inquired as though she were not there.

  “What!” the Empress Mother cried in feigned surprise. “Do you not recognize your own concubine? She is one of the four I chose for you. Can it be that you do not yet know who they are?”

  In some confusion the Emperor shook his head and smiled again but ruefully. “I have not summoned them. The time has not yet come—”

  The Empress Mother pursed her lips. “In courtesy you should have summoned them each at least once,” she said. “Alute must not be too selfish while her younger sisters waste their lives in waiting.”

  The Emperor did not answer. He lifted his bowl and paused for her to take drink from her own bowl and then he drank and Jasmine knelt and took the bowl again. Now as she did this she raised her eyes to his and he looked down for that instant into her face, so gay and vivid, so childlike in its hues of cream and rose beneath the soft black hair that he could not look away too quickly.

  Thus began the day, and while it passed the Empress Mother summoned Jasmine again and again to wait upon the Emperor, to fan him, to keep away a vagrant fly, to serve him when they dined at noon beneath the trees, to fetch him tea and choose sweetmeats for him while the play went on, to put a footstool near his feet and cushions beneath his elbows, and so until the sunset fell. At last the Emperor smiled openly at Jasmine, and when she came near him she smiled at him, not shyly or with boldness, but as a child smiles at a playmate.

  The Empress Mother was well pleased to see these smiles, and when twilight fell and the day was done, she said to the Emperor:

  “Before you leave me, my son, I have a wish to tell you.”

  “Say on, Mother,” he replied. He was in a happy mood, his belly filled with favorite foods, his heart lightened and his fancy teased by the pretty girl who belonged to him, his for the taking, if ever he so wished.

  “You know how I long to leave the city when the spring comes,” the Empress Mother said. “For many months I have not stirred from these walls. Now why should we not go together, you and I, and worship at the tombs of our Ancestors? The distance is but eighty miles, and I will ask our provincial Viceroy, Li Hung-chang, to send his own guard to protect us as we come and go. You and I, my son, alone may represent our two generations, since it would not be fitting for you to take the Consort with you upon so mournful a journey.”

  She had already set her mind secretly to take Jasmine with her as though to serve her, and it would be easy to send Jasmine to her son’s tent at night.

  The Emperor considered, his finger at his lower lip. “When shall we go?” he asked.

  “A month from this very day,” the Empress Mother said. “You will be alone then as now, and in these days when the Consort cannot come to you, we will make the journey. She will welcome you the more when you return.”

  Again the Emperor wondered why his imperial mother was so changed, that she should thus speak of Alute. Yet who could ever know her reasons? And it was true that though she could be cruel and hateful she could be as truly kind and loving toward him, and between these two halves of her he had gone uncertain all his life.

  “We will go, my mother,” he said, “and it is indeed my duty to worship at the tombs.”

  “Who can say otherwise?” the Empress Mother replied, and was pleased once more at her own cleverness.

  So all came about as she had planned. On a certain night far outside the walls of Peking, in the shadow of the Ancestral Tombs, the Emperor sent a eunuch to bring Jasmine to him. He had spent the day in worship before the tombs, his mother always at his side, instructing him in obeisance and in prayers. The day began with sunshine, but in the afternoon there came a thunderstorm and after it a steady rain which continued into the night. Under the leathern roof of his tent the young Emperor lay wakeful and lonely. It was not seemly to bid his eunuch strum a violin or sing, for these were days of mourning and respect for the eight Ancestral Emperors who surrounded him in their tombs. He lay listening to the rain and fell to thinking of the dead and how certainly one day he would be the ninth to lie outside in the rain. And while he so thought a fearful melancholy seized him, a dread and terror lest he would not live his life out but might die young. He fell into a fit of shivering and he longed for his young wife who was so far away. He had promised her to be faithful to her, and it was this promise which had prevented his summoning until now even one concubine into the bedchamber. But he had not made fresh promise for these days at the tombs, for indeed, not he nor Alute could know that his imperial mother would bring Jasmine as her companion. Nor had his mother spoken of her. Nor had he himself made one sign throughout the solemn day that he saw Jasmine. But he had seen her as she moved here and there about his mother’s tent, where he had taken his night meal after the ceremonial fast. Now he thought of her and he could not put her image away.

  To his eunuch he only said that he was cold. “I am chilled to my marrow,” he said. “I never felt so cold as this before, a coldness strange as death.”

  The Emperor’s eunuchs had been well bribed by Li Lien-ying and so this eunuch said at once:

  “Sire, why do you not send for the First Concubine? She will warm your bed and quickly drive the chill from your blood.”

  The Emperor pretended to be unwilling. “What—while I am in the shadow of the tombs of my Ancestors?”

  “A concubine, merely,” the eunuch urged. “A concubine is no one.”

  “Well—well,” the Emperor agreed, still seeming to be unwilling.

  He lay shivering while the eunuch ran through the wet darkness of the
night, and the rain thundered on the taut leathern roof above his head. And in a very little while he saw the flash of lanterns and the tent door parted like a curtain. There Jasmine stood, wrapped in a sheet of oiled silk against the rain. But rain had caught in the blown strands of the soft hair about her face, it glistened on her cheeks and hung on the lashes of her eyes. Her lips were red and her cheeks as red.

  “I sent for you because I am cold,” the Emperor muttered.

  “Here am I, my lord,” she said. She put aside the oiled silk and then her garments one by one and she came into his bed, and her body was warm from head to foot against his chilled flesh.

  In her own tent the Empress Mother lay awake in the darkness and listened to the steady beating of the rain, a peaceful sound, and all was peace within her heart and mind. The eunuch had reported what he had done, and she had given him an ounce of gold. She needed now to do no more. Jasmine and Alute would carry on the war of love, and knowing her own son, she knew that Jasmine was already the victor.

  The summer passed, the Empress Mother sighed that she was growing old, that when the Summer Palace was built she would retire there for her last years. She said her bones ached and that her teeth were loose, and there were mornings when she would not rise from bed. Her ladies did not know what to make of such pretended illness and old age, for the truth was the Empress Mother seemed instead to be renewed in youth and strength. When she lay in bed, insisting on her headaches, she was so young and beautiful, her eyes so bright, her skin so clear, that lady looked at lady and wondered what went on inside that handsome skull. Never had the Empress Mother eaten so well and heartily, not only at her meals but of the sweetmeats that she enjoyed between meals. When she moved it was not slowly and with dragging footsteps, but with fresh grace and youthfulness.