Imperial Woman

by Pearl S. Buck

  On the tenth day of this same month Sakota, Empress Dowager, fell ill of a strange and sudden illness, which could not be cured by all the zeal of the Court physicians. Before their remedies could reach her vital organs, she died, convulsed by inner agonies. An hour before her death when already she knew her fate, she roused herself and asked for a scribe, and to him she spoke this edict, to be sent forth when she was gone. These were her dying words:

  “Though I am of good frame and had imagined that I would surely live to a ripe old age, yesterday I was stricken with an unknown illness, exceedingly painful, and now it appears that I must depart this world. The night draws near, all hope is gone. I am forty-five years of age. For twenty years I have held the high position of the Regent of the Empire. Many titles have been given me, and rewards accorded me for virtue and for grace. Why should I therefore fear to die? I do but ask that the twenty-seven months of usual mourning be reduced to twenty-seven days, in order that the thrift and sobriety in which I have lived may also mark my end. I have not desired pomp or vain display in all my life, nor do I wish them for my funeral.”

  This edict was sent forth by Prince Kung in the name of the dead, and the Empress said nothing, though she knew that such last words reproached her for her own extravagance and love of beauty. Nevertheless she kept the added bitterness within her heart and when, in yet another year, a new disaster fell upon the nation, she took the chance once more to blame Prince Kung. Here was the circumstance. Frenchmen had claimed the province of Tongking as booty, and when the Empress sent a fleet of Chinese junks into the river Min to expel them, the Frenchmen were victorious and the fleet was destroyed. Upon this the Empress fell into a mighty rage and she wrote an edict with her own hands, accusing Prince Kung of incompetence, if not of treason, and though she made her words mild and full of mercy, she made the blow severe. Thus she wrote:

  “We recognize the past merits of Prince Kung and therefore we will, in clemency, allow this prince to retain his hereditary princedom, and all the emoluments thereby, but he is hereby deprived of all his offices and also of his double salary.”

  And with Prince Kung the Empress dismissed also his several colleagues. In his place she put Prince Ch’un, the husband of her sister and the father of the little Emperor, and with him such princes as she chose. Her clansmen were angry, for Prince Ch’un was thus made chief of state and at her command, and they feared he would set up a dynasty of his own, usurping that of T’ung Chih. But the Empress feared no one on earth or in the heavens. Her enemies were gone and in her lonely pride she silenced all who opposed her. Yet she was too prudent to appear a tyrant without reason and when the Censor Erh-hsün sent his memorial before her, declaring that if Prince Ch’un were given so much power then was the Grand Council useless, she remembered that this censor was a good and upright man, experienced as the one-time Viceroy of Manchuria and again as her Viceroy in the province of Szechuen, and she answered him with care. In an edict which she commanded sent to all parts of the realm, she observed that by law and custom a prince of the blood should never have held such power as she had given to Prince Kung. Yet she had been compelled to summon what aid she could in her task of rebuilding the nation to its former strength and glory. Moreover, she said, Prince Ch’un’s present appointment was only temporary. And she closed her edict thus:

  “You, Princes and Ministers, do not realize how great and numerous are the problems with which We must deal alone. As to the Grand Council, let the Councilors beware of making Prince Ch’un’s position an excuse for shirking their responsibilities. In conclusion, We desire that in the future Our Ministers pay more respect to the motives behind their Sovereign’s actions, and abstain from troubling Us with their querulous complaints. The Memorialist’s requests are hereby refused.”

  It was ever her habit to write in plain firm language, without wasteful ceremonial words, and when her ministers and princes received this edict they were speechless. In such silence the Empress ruled for seven years and as a tyrant absolute and gracious.

  They were good years. The Empress, surrounded by the silence of her princes and her ministers, gave few audiences. She observed the ceremonies carefully nevertheless, and considered the wishes of her people. She proclaimed all festivals and allowed many holidays and Heaven approved her reign, for in all these years there was neither flood nor drought and harvests were plenteous. Nor was there war anywhere throughout her realm. In distant places her foreign foes maintained themselves but they did not come out for battle. Moreover, since she ruled by fear, her subjects carried no rumors to her ears and her councilors hid their doubts inside their minds.

  In such tranquility the Empress could devote herself to the fulfillment of her dream. It was to complete the building of the new Summer Palace. She let her wish be known and when the people heard it, they sent gifts of gold and silver, and provinces doubled their tribute. Nor would she allow anyone to think her dream was only for herself. In edicts, which she wrote as letters to her subjects, she gave thanks to them and declared that the Summer Palace would be her retreat when she had given the Throne to its rightful heir, Kwang Hsü, the young Emperor, her nephew and adopted son, which she would do, she promised, as soon as he had completed his seventeenth year.

  Thus the Empress made even her dream seem righteous before the people, and so it seemed also to her. As pleasant duty, then, she spent her time in designing and causing to be built vast halls of magnificence and beauty to satisfy her soul, and for this she chose to return to the ancient site of the Emperor Ch’ien Lung. This Emperor, who had been strong son of a strong mother, had built his pleasure palace to his mother’s wish. The lady had once visited Hangchow, a city of pure beauty, and had admired the great pleasure houses there, until her son, Ch’ien Lung, declared that he would build a like one for her outside the walls of Peking. This was his Summer Palace, and he built it with every grace and convenience and in it gathered treasures from the whole world. All had been destroyed, however, by the command of the Englishman Lord Elgin, and only the invincible ruins now remained.

  This was the site the Empress chose, fulfilling thus not only her own dream but rebuilding those dreams of the Imperial Ancestors. With matchless taste she included in her plans the Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas, which Ch’ien Lung had made and the foreigners had not destroyed, and the bronze pavilions which their fires had not burned, and the fair placid lake. But other ruins she would not rebuild or have removed. Let them stand, she said, for memory’s sake, to lead the minds of men to ponder on the end of life and how all palaces may be destroyed by time and enemies.

  Near the southeastern region of the lake, she planned and caused to be built her own palaces where she and the Emperor could live apart and yet not too far. There, too, she placed a vast theater where in her old age she could enjoy her favorite pastime, and near the marble gates, roofed with blue tiles, she set the Audience Hall, for even on holidays, she said, the ruler must be ready to hear the voices of the ministers and princes. This Audience Hall was stately and very large, decorated with carved woods and precious ancient lacquered furniture and ornaments, and upon its glass doors were painted huge the character for longevity. Before the hall there stretched a marble terrace, whence wide marble steps led to the lake. On the terrace itself were placed bronze birds and beasts and in summer awnings of silk shaded the deep verandas.

  Westward the imperial woman built her home, one hall after another surrounded by the deep pillared verandas where in meditation she loved to walk. When rain fell she paced back and forth to gaze over the misted waters and the dripping cypress trees. In summer she ordered fragrant matting of sweet grass to be stretched over her courtyards, and these were outdoor rooms, filled with rockeries and flowers; and among all her flowers she still loved best the small green orchids for which she had been named as a child. Along the lake she built a marble-pillared corridor, a mile long, and here, too, she walked, to gaze upon a peony mountain, crabapple trees and oleanders, and pomegranates.
With increasing passion she loved beauty, for beauty, she told herself, and only beauty, was pure and good and worthy of her love.

  Encouraged by her people’s willingness, the Empress grew reckless with magnificence. Her royal bed was hung with imperial-yellow satin whereon she caused to be embroidered, by the finest craftswomen, a cloud of flying phoenixes. From everywhere in the Western world she gathered clocks for her amusement, clocks of gold set with jewels. Some were made with cunning decorations of birds that sang, some with cocks that crowed, some centered upon streams of running water that turned the inner wheels. Yet, in spite of such toys, she made a library for herself that the greatest scholars envied and she never ceased to read her books.

  And always, everywhere she looked, she saw in vistas the blue waters of the lake. In its center was the island upon which stood a temple to the Dragon King to which led a marble bridge with seventeen arches. Upon that island, too, was a small sandy beach, and half buried in its sand the bronze cow, placed by Ch’ien Lung, stood stalwart through the centuries to ward off floods. Many bridges the Empress caused to be built so that wherever she might wish to go she went, but one bridge she loved above all others, a hunchbacked bridge that curved into the air for thirty feet. There, so high, she loved to stand and gaze across the water upon the roofs, the pagodas and the terraces of her vast possession.

  Lulled by beauty, she let the years slip by, until one day her eunuch, whose duty it was to remind her of what she forgot, begged her to remember that the young Emperor, Kwang Hsü, her nephew, was now near the end of his seventeenth year and therefore she should choose a consort for him. On this day the Empress was watching the completion of a new pagoda which she had designed to carry further the pointed height of a mountain behind the Summer Palace. Nevertheless she perceived at once that Li Lien-ying was right and she must no longer delay the marriage of the Heir. What care she had spent upon the choice of Consort for her true son! She felt no such care now except that she would choose a woman always loyal to herself as Empress, and above all not one like Alute, who had loved her lord too well.

  “I desire only peace,” the Empress said to Li Lien-ying. “Name me some maidens you know who will not love my nephew as Alute loved my son. Strife I can no longer bear. I will not be disturbed by love or hate.”

  Then seeing that Li Lien-ying, now growing fat, looked ill at ease as he knelt before her, she bade him sit and rest himself while he thought what names to suggest. The huge eunuch gladly obeyed, puffing and sighing and fanning himself, for the season was too warm for spring, and everywhere the trees and shrubs were bursting into early bloom.

  “Majesty,” he said after thought, “why not that good plain maiden who is the daughter of your brother, Duke Kwei Hsiang?”

  The Empress clapped her hands softly in approval, casting upon the ugly face of her slave a look of affection. “Why did I not think of her?” she replied. “She is the best among my younger ladies of the Court, silent and ready, modest and always devoted to me. She is my favorite—I daresay because I can forget she lives!”

  “And for the imperial concubines?” Li Lien-ying inquired.

  “Name me some pretty girls,” she said carelessly, her eyes already lifted to the tall spire of the pagoda rising above the pine trees. “Only let them be stupid,” she added.

  To which the Eunuch said, “The Viceroy of Canton deserves reward, Majesty, for holding down the rebels always restless in the southern provinces. He has two daughters, one pretty and one fat, both stupid.”

  “I will name them,” the Empress said, still carelessly. “Do you prepare the decree,” she added.

  Thus directed, Li Lien-ying rose with great heaves and sighs, while she laughed at him, which pleased him, and he mumbled that his Old Buddha must not disturb herself, for he would arrange everything and she need only appear on the day of the wedding.

  “You!” she scolded, pointing at him with her outthrust little finger, wearing its ruby-jeweled nail shield. “You dare to call me Old Buddha!”

  “Majesty,” he said, puffing and panting, “it is what the people call you everywhere, since you prayed down the rains last summer.”

  It was true that in the last winter no snow fell and the skies continued hard as blue sapphire through the spring and even in the summer no rains came down. The Empress then decreed prayers and fasting and she herself prayed and fasted and commanded the whole Court so to do. On the third day Buddha yielded, the skies melted and the rains rushed out. The happy people ran into the streets and drank the blessed rain and bathed their hands and faces and praised their Empress for her power even with the gods and cried out:

  “She is our own Old Buddha!”

  Since then the Chief Eunuch had always called her Old Buddha. It was gross flattery and she knew it was and yet she liked it. Old Buddha! It was the highest name a people could bestow upon a ruler, for it meant they beheld in him a god. And by now she had forgot that she was ever a woman. At the age of fifty-five, she was a being apart from men and women and beyond them all, as Buddha was.

  “Get away with you,” she said, laughing. “What will you be saying next, you monstrous fellow!”

  But when he had gone she wandered here and there, lonely among the fabulous gardens she had made, the sun falling on her handsome aging face and on the glittering robes she loved to wear. At the distance which she now demanded, her ladies followed as usual like a flock of hovering butterflies.

  The wedding day drew near, an ill-fated day, not blessed by Heaven. The omens were not good. The night before a mighty wind blew down from the north and tore away the matting roofs the eunuchs had built to cover the great entrance courtyard of the Forbidden City, the place the Empress had decreed for the wedding ceremonies. The dawn opened gray and dark, rain fell early and the skies were relentless. The red wedding candles would not light, and the sweetmeats were soft with damp. When the bride entered the vast courtyard and took her place beside the bridegroom he turned his head away to show his dislike and the Empress, seeing him thus offend the one she had chosen, could not hide her rage except by such effort that anger turned inward and boiled through her veins and settled in her heart to a bitter deathless hatred for her nephew because he could defy her. There he sat, a tall, pale reedy boy, a weakling, his face not bearded, his hands too delicate and always trembling, and yet he was stubborn! This was the heir she had chosen for the Throne! His weakness was rebuke to her, his stubborn will an enemy. Thus she raged in secret while tears ran down the young bride’s sallow cheeks.

  The rites proceeded, the Empress seemed indifferent, and when the day was ended she left the Forbidden City and returned to her Summer Palace, henceforth to be her home.

  From there in the first month of her fifty-sixth year she declared by edict to the nation that once more she had retired from the Regency and that the Emperor now sat alone upon the Dragon Throne. As for herself, she said, she withdrew from the Forbidden City. And so she did, within that same month, moving all her treasures to the Summer Palace, with the intent to live and die there, against the wish of her many princes and her ministers. These besought her to keep one hand at least upon the reins of empire, for the Emperor, they declared, was headstrong and weak-willed, a dangerous combination of waywardness and yielding.

  “Too much under the sway of his tutors, K’ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch’i-Ch’ao,” they said.

  “And Majesty, he loves too well those foreign toys,” her Chief Censor said. “To this day the young Emperor, though he is a man now and wed, will sit before his toy trains and wind a key or light a small fire to see them run along toy tracks. We doubt that this is only play. We fear he has his plans to build these foreign railroads upon our own ancient soil.”

  She laughed at them, very gay to think that she had shaken off her cares and duties. “It is your business now, my lords and princes,” she declared. “Do what you will with your young sovereign, and let me rest.”

  They were troubled to a man, the more because Prince Kung a
nd Jung Lu were banished from the Court. “But may we come to you if our young Emperor will not heed us?” they inquired. “Remember, Majesty, that he fears only you.”

  “I am not in another country,” she said, still waggish. “I am but nine miles away. I have my eunuchs, my spies and courtiers. I shall not let the Emperor take away your heads, I daresay, so long as I know you are loyal to me.”

  Her great eyes shone and sparkled as she spoke and her lips, still red as youth itself, curved and smiled and teased, and seeing her high humor they were assured again and went away.

  She let the years glide by once more, though keeping secret hold upon her power through spies in every palace. Thus she learned that the young Emperor did not love his plain Consort, that they quarreled, and that he turned to his two concubines, the Pearl and the Lustrous.

  “But they are stupid,” Li Lien-ying in his daily gossip told her. “We need not fear them.”

  “They will debauch him,” she said indifferently. “I have no hope of him or any man.” She seemed not to care, but for a moment her great eyes were bleak and lightless. “Ah well,” she said, and roused herself and turned her head away.

  Yet she could be as sharp in her command as any ruler is. When the princes of her own Yehonala Clan desired by memorial to raise the title of Prince Ch’un, the Emperor’s father, and thus give the Emperor the opportunity to show filial piety by placing his father higher than himself in the law of generations, she would not allow it. No, the imperial line was still to be through her, and not through any other. Kwang Hsü was her son by adoption, and she was the Imperial Ancestor. Yet with her old grace, she refused gently so that she did not wound Prince Ch’un, whom she had chosen for her sister’s husband now many years ago. She praised the Prince, she spoke of his unchanging loyalty and then said that he himself would not accept the honor, so modest was he.