Stately her person, tall and fair,Clad in her robes embroidered and plainFingers as softest buds that grow,Skin as an unguent firm and white,Neck as the tree worm's breed,Mantis front and the silk moth's brow,Dimples playing in witching smile,Beautiful eyes, so dark and bright!Stately in person, proud and free,Screened by her plumes, then to court comes she.Chinese Song.
Stately her person, tall and fair,Clad in her robes embroidered and plainFingers as softest buds that grow,Skin as an unguent firm and white,Neck as the tree worm's breed,Mantis front and the silk moth's brow,Dimples playing in witching smile,Beautiful eyes, so dark and bright!Stately in person, proud and free,Screened by her plumes, then to court comes she.Chinese Song.
Stately her person, tall and fair,Clad in her robes embroidered and plainFingers as softest buds that grow,Skin as an unguent firm and white,Neck as the tree worm's breed,Mantis front and the silk moth's brow,Dimples playing in witching smile,Beautiful eyes, so dark and bright!Stately in person, proud and free,Screened by her plumes, then to court comes she.Chinese Song.
Stately her person, tall and fair,
Clad in her robes embroidered and plain
Fingers as softest buds that grow,
Skin as an unguent firm and white,
Neck as the tree worm's breed,
Mantis front and the silk moth's brow,
Dimples playing in witching smile,
Beautiful eyes, so dark and bright!
Stately in person, proud and free,
Screened by her plumes, then to court comes she.
Chinese Song.
All things, even a journey from Lu Chang to Peking, must end some day, and Tuen's heart was leaping wildly, when after the long, tedious months upon the water she at last found herself seated in a sedan, entering the great outer wall of the capital city. Mechanically she kept repeating Szu's parting words: "A wise man adapts himself to circumstances as water shapes itself to the vessel thatcontains it," but she merely did this because she must do something to keep her courage up, and not because she found any wisdom or any consolation in the proverb.
As in all places in China she saw a multitude of people about her, through which the chair bearers made their way with loud cries ofLai! Lai!(Clear the way! Clear the way!) Now they met some high mandarin, surrounded by numerous attendants, who looked haughtily out from his sedan window at the mass of humanity about him, and next would come a bride in her gilded chair, hung with garlands of flowers, while behind her followed relations, attendants and servants bearing the wedding gifts, and beating loud tom-toms, and above the sound of kettle-drum and fire-crackers resounded the wild wailing of the bride who went to the husband she had never seen. Elaborately carved portals, onwhose top the dragon writhed in many a curve, spanned the wide streets; stores filled with tempting wares opened before the passers-by, their tall signs gay with bright-colored letters and hung with fluttering flags; and quaint little houses, painted in blue and green and gold, almost toppled over each other in the struggle for space. The streets were the home of a mighty throng. The Mohammedan, conspicuous in his red cap, touched elbows with the strongly marked Hebrew; the money-seller, with his long string of cash, weighed cautiously the coins brought him to change; the barber deftly shaved the head of his customer who was perched on a three-legged stool, in constant danger of being jostled by a hurried pedestrian; the cook took the long pole from his shoulders, and unloading the utensils from his movable kitchen, prepared food to tempt the lookers-on; the cobbler squatted by the wayside mending shoes;fortune-tellers waited for the curious; the dentist, with his necklace of shining teeth as proof of skill and customers, importuned the sufferers; the travelling blacksmith, with his implements beside him, solicited trade; jugglers performed various feats in return for the coins thrown them and delighted an ever-changing audience; and book-sellers, tinkers, druggists, musicians, razor-grinders, and pedlers of every description, cried out their wares as they went on their endless peregrinations. Wheel-barrows filled with vegetables and dromedaries bearing coal from Tartary were followed by a funeral procession, the mourners, arrayed in pure white, walking behind the gayly painted casket; and so the great population, shouting, laughing, gesticulating, surged and swelled, and the round of life was ever the same.
Tuen was very glad when she had made her way through all this din and tumultand come to the second wall, the wall of the imperial city, where the yellow-tiled roofs shone like gold in the sunshine. In the distance could be seen King Shan, the Artificial Mountain, its five summits topped with beautiful pavilions. Trees of every kind clustered at its base, while through the foliage, now rich in autumn colors, glistened the water of a silvery lake, and the gleaming roof of the Temple of Great Happiness. Tuen had only a confused idea of this beautiful panorama, for now they had reached the third wall which encircles the Prohibited City—the home of the Son of Heaven. She had often heard how all within this closely guarded enclosure was gold and silver, so brilliant and so gorgeous that it dazzled the beholder, and her little bias eyes were open very wide behind the curtains of her sedan as she peeped cautiously out. The guards in the tower above the Meridian Gate hastened to open it on her approach,for her sedan was hung with yellow, the imperial color. She was borne over pleasant streams, spanned with bridges of sculptured marble, through courts where fountains played and flowers bloomed, and through splendid gilded corridors. Gate after gate of elaborately carved marble opened as if by magic at her approach and then quickly closed again, for she who enters here goes out no more. The magnificent Gate of Extensive Peace shut with a loud clang behind her, but she heard it not, for now she was being carried through beautiful walks with stately bronze figures on either side, past temples and pavilions and palaces, even past that most sacred and superb of all the buildings, the Tranquil Palace, with its tower of burnished copper adorned with images that seemed made of gold. Tuen had never pictured anything so lovely, so enchanting. The Viceroy's yâmen dwindled into insignificance before all this grandeur,and she felt like a veritable beggar maid brought to a king. And just as she was beginning to think that it must all be some enchanted dream from which she would soon awake, the chair-bearers stopped in front of the Palace of Earth's Repose, which is the royal harem, and the last gate closed between her and all the world.
News travels very slowly through all the many gates that guard the Emperor from his subjects, and what goes on in the Forbidden City is a secret to the rest of the Empire. But sometimes, even from that jealously watched home of royalty, rumors creep abroad, and are whispered from mouth to mouth, for gossip will not be quiet, even though you cut out its tongue. Someway it became noised abroad after a while that Tuen, the maiden from Lu Chang, was the favorite wife of the Emperor, and second only to the Empress herself. Then nothing more was known until it was announced thatthe Empress was dead, and after a while through the many gates crept the news that Tuen had become the royal consort.
Again there was silence, then at last the Emperor was gathered to his fathers, and Tuen, the little slave girl, during the infancy of her son, became Empress of all China, and ruler over one third of the population of the world. Thus does Fate shift the figures in the game of life.
It was a crisp, chill November afternoon, with just a hint of frost in the air that made it bracing. Milky clouds dimmed the intense blue of the heavens, an occasional gust of wind tore off bright-hued leaves from the trees and tossed them gayly about, and already the grass was turning brown. But in the imperial Flower Garden there was as yet no sign of fading flowers or winter bareness, and as the Empress Tuen came out into it, attended by richly apparelled ladies of the court, and followed by slaves and eunuchs, she saw only a scene of beauty. She too was in the autumn of life now. Her eyes no longer sparkled with the fire of youth, her cheeks, once pink as a lotus bloom,were now marked by the cruel furrows of time, and her figure had lost its girlish grace many a year ago, for to-day was her sixtieth birthday. The day was to have been celebrated throughout the Empire with a lavish magnificence that would render it the greatest event in Chinese history for many centuries, for her loyal subjects had planned to render fitting honor to this remarkable woman. The streets for ten miles were to have been covered with rich carpets and decorated with lamps and pictures, and the rarest wares—porcelains, bronzes, jade, and silver—were to have been arranged along this gorgeous avenue. But the inglorious war with Japan had so heavily taxed the people that, at the request of the Empress, these elaborate preparations had been abandoned, though many costly presents had been sent her from every province. Now, weary of gifts and adulation, she wished to be alone, to rest fora time from the affairs of state. With a gesture all the attendants were dismissed, and she sat down in the massive stone chair on the bank of the placid Lake of Dreams. There was no more beautiful spot to be found in all the land than this Flower Garden where the Empress, when she tired of her gilded prison, came for a breath of outer air. It was adorned with graceful pavilions, temples, groves, and lakes, and many Emperors had exhausted the skill and ingenuity of the landscape gardeners of the realm in an endeavor to make this little park enchanting enough to beguile away the tedium of the days of "Heaven's Consort," as the Empress was styled. Flowers of every hue bloomed here; sparkling streams dashed down the sides of artificial mountains and wound like a silver ribbon among the flowers, their waters spanned here and there by quaintly carved marble bridges; the musical splashing of the fountains couldbe heard through the stillness; half hid away under moss-covered rocks were dark, quiet pools where the lilies loved to bloom; stone grottoes nestled among the trees and overhanging vines, and shrubs cut into likenesses of lions, tigers, giraffes, elephants, and horses, grew beside the walks. In the distance the gilded roof of the Hall of Perfect Peace shone like a beacon, and the sun touched the burnished tower before the Tranquil Palace and transformed it into a pillar of fire, and then fell upon the top of the marble Gate of Extensive Peace, and lo, it seemed made of pearl and ivory. But to-day the Empress paid but slight attention to these glories of the capital, for her mind was filled with painful thoughts. Day by day dire reports came from the scene of war of the havoc wrought among her soldiers, and disgraceful accounts of defeat that made her blood boil. She had prayed unto the gods and offeredsacrifices unto them, and for many days she had burned incense on the altar of the God of War, but alas! the gods were deaf, and ruin threatened her kingdom. Her son, the Emperor, was weak and characterless, and for a long time she had been the true head of the vast Empire. In executive ability and knowledge of statecraft foreigners had compared her to Catherine the Great of Russia, for her wisdom and keen insight into governmental affairs had been talked of in every court in Europe. Greater than Emperor and cabinet officers, shrewder than even Li Hung Chang, was this old Empress, who had placed crowns on several brows, and who was the creator of viceroys and state policy. Neither had she forgotten from whence she came, or neglected to reward any who had served her well. In the first hour of her independence and power she caused search to be made for her father and mother, only to learn that they hadbeen long dead, but upon her brother she had heaped the most distinguished honors. Nor had she failed to compensate the Viceroy of Lu Chang for all his kindness to her, and all over the land the story-tellers loved to relate the wonderful history of Tuen, the little slave girl, who was now their beloved Empress.
But now as she sat alone in the garden she was very sorrowful. She had hoped that Li Hung Chang would be able to stir up the patriotism of her subjects and inflame them with martial ardor, but he had been powerless to avert the shame of defeat—defeat at the hands of a little patriotic, plucky nation that she could have put in one of her provinces—a defeat that was the saddest blot on the annals of her people. Oh, it was infamous! She clenched her hands until her many rings cut into the tender flesh, as she inwardly chafed and raged at her own helplessness. Her meditations were atlast interrupted by the approach of a eunuch, and she threw back her head and regarded him angrily, impatient that he should have dared to intrude on her solitude. Three times did he humbly bow, then, kneeling before her, knock his head nine times upon the ground before he spoke.
"A gift has arrived for the Empress and awaits her acceptance."
She motioned him haughtily away, but his curiosity was so much excited that he still further dared the royal displeasure.
"It is a very strange thing," he ventured. "Nothing like it has ever been sent before, for it is said to come from the barbarians here who teach the 'Jesus doctrine.'"
"Let it be brought to me here," she said listlessly, although she arched her brows in amazement.
Quickly he went away, and in his steadcame the ladies of the court, bearing a teak-wood box. At a sign from the Empress it was opened and disclosed a beautifully wrought silver casket. With her own hand she raised the lid of this casket, wondering what jewel or article of priceless value these strangers had sent her, while the ladies of the court peeped eagerly over her shoulders. But what she saw when the lid fell back was a book, whose covers were of solid silver embossed in bamboo designs, while in one corner in shining letters of gold were the strange words: "Complete New Testament," and in the centre of this remarkable book was a plate of gold upon which was engraved: "Scriptures for the Salvation of the World."
Then she looked again at the casket, and on the lid she read that this book was a present from the Christian women of China, and she marvelled greatly, but she said nothing.
Thus was the Holy Bible placed even on the Dragon's Throne, and then once again the gates of the Forbidden City closed, and all was silence.
Transcriber's Note:A Table of Contents has been added.
Transcriber's Note:A Table of Contents has been added.