“We must, indeed,” Tzu Hsi agreed.
She was still unbelieving. Her voice was not grave nor her manner concerned as she went on. “Yet the distances are great, our walls are strong, and I think disaster cannot happen soon or easily. Moreover, the Son of Heaven is too ill to be disturbed. Soon we must leave the city for the summer. Let action be postponed until the hot season is past and we have returned from the Summer Palace. Send word to the Viceroy to promise the English to memorialize the Throne and present their demands. When we receive the memorial we will send word that the Son of Heaven is ill and we must wait until the cold weather comes before he is well enough to make decisions.”
“Wisdom,” the Grand Councilor cried.
“Wisdom, indeed,” Prince Tsai now said, and Prince Yi nodded his head up and down. Prince Kung kept silent, except for the heavy sighs he drew up from his bosom.
But Tzu Hsi would not heed these sighs and she put an end to the audience. From the Imperial Library she went to the palace where her son lived with his nurses and his eunuchs and she stayed with him for hours, watching him while he slept and holding him upon her knees when he woke, and then when he wished to walk, she let him cling to her hand. In him was the source of her strength and resolution, and when she felt afraid she came here and renewed her courage. He was her tiny god, her jewel in the lotus, and she adored him with all her heart and being. Her heart was soft with love and she caught the child to her and held him close to her and longed that she could keep him as safe as once he had been in her own body.
From these hours with the child Tzu Hsi returned to her own palaces refreshed and she set herself to her continuous task, to study all letters and memorials which came before the Throne and to decide what the Emperor must command in reply.
In these months before the summer she arranged for the marriage of her sister to the Seventh Prince, whose name was Ch’un, his personal name I-huan. She had private audience with this Prince, that she might observe him herself on her sister’s behalf, and though he had an ugly face and a head too large for his body, she found him to be honest and simple, a man without ambition for himself and grateful to her for the alliance with her sister. The marriage was made before the departure of the Court for Yüan Ming Yüan, but there was no feasting, in respect for the illness of the Emperor, and Tzu Hsi herself only knew that on the appointed day her sister went with proper ceremony to Prince Ch’un’s palace, which was outside the walls of the Forbidden City.
The summer passed sadly even at Yüan Ming Yüan, for while the Emperor was ill no music could be made, no theatricals allowed, no merrymaking enjoyed. The glorious days followed one upon another, but Tzu Hsi, mindful of her dignity, did not so much as command a boating party on the Lotus Lake and she lived much alone. Nor did she dare to recognize still further her kinsman, Jung Lu, for gossip had sprung up after the birthday feast like smoke in a dry forest and it was everywhere known that to him she had once been betrothed. Until her power was beyond assail, she could not do more for Jung Lu, lest what she did be used against her to the Emperor, or if he died, against her son. Young though she was and passionate, she was mistress of herself, and when she wished she could be strong in patience.
The Court returned early in the autumn of that year to the Forbidden City, the harvest feasts were observed quietly, and as the peaceful months passed by Tzu Hsi believed that she had decided wisely not to allow a war to be made against the foreigners. For the Viceroy Yeh sent up better news. He reported that the Englishmen, though angry at delays, were helpless, and that their leader, Lord Elgin, “passed the days at Hong Kong stamping his feet and sighing.”
“Proof,” Tzu Hsi declared in triumph, “that the Queen of the West is my ally.”
Only the Emperor’s ill health made Tzu Hsi sad. She did not pretend even in her own heart to love the motionless pallid figure that lay all but speechless upon his yellow satin cushions, but she feared his death because of the turmoil of the succession. The Heir was still so young that were the Dragon Throne to fall to him now, there would be mighty quarrels over who should be Regent. She, and she alone, must be the Regent, but was she able yet to seize the Throne and hold it for her son? Strong men in Manchu clans would come forward to assert their claims. The Heir might even be set aside and a new ruler take his place. Ah, there were plots everywhere. She knew it, for Li Lien-ying brought her news that Su Shun was plotting and persuading Prince Yi to plot with him and Prince Cheng made an evil third. There were lesser plots and weaker plotters. Who could know them all? Her fortune was that her advisor, Prince Kung, was honorable and made no plots, and that the Chief Eunuch, An Teh-hai, with all his command in the palaces and over the other eunuchs, was loyal to her, because she was the beloved of his master, the Emperor. From habit first and then because he had fared well under his master, the Chief Eunuch loved this frail ruler and he stayed always near the vast carved bed upon which he lay, unmoving and seldom speaking. It was the Chief Eunuch who heard when the Emperor whispered and he who leaned over him to hear what was wanted. Sometimes in the night when others slept, the Chief Eunuch went alone to fetch Tzu Hsi, to tell her that the Emperor was afraid and that he craved the touch of her hand and the sight of her face. Then, wrapped in dark robes, she followed the Chief Eunuch along the silent passageways and she entered the dim chamber where the candles always burned. She took her seat beside the great bed, and she held the Emperor’s hands, so chill and lifeless, between hers, and she let him gaze at her and made her eyes tender toward him, to comfort him. Thus she sat until he slept and she could steal away again. The Chief Eunuch, watching from a distance, perceived her perfect patience and her steadfast courtesy and careful kindness, and he began from that day to fix upon her the same devotion and loyalty that he had given the Emperor since first he came into the gates, a child of twelve, castrated by his own father that he might serve inside the imperial city. He was a thief sometimes, this eunuch, he took what he liked for himself from the vast stores belonging to his master, and all knew that he had heaped great treasures for himself. He could be cruel, too, and men died by rope and knife when he held his thumb downward to make the sign of death. But in that lonely heart of his, hidden beneath the layers of his increasing flesh and fat, he loved his sovereign, and him only, and when he saw the Emperor daily nearer death, he transferred that strange and steadfast devotion, hour by hour, to the woman, young and beautiful and strong, whom the Emperor loved above all others and would so love until he ceased to breathe.
None were prepared, therefore, for the hideous news which reached the palace gates one day at twilight, in the early winter of that year. It was a day like others, a gray day, chill and threatening snow. The city had been quiet, some business done, but without liveliness. Within the palace there had been little coming to and fro, no audience, for matters of importance had come before Prince Kung on the Emperor’s behalf, and decisions were postponed.
Tzu Hsi had spent the day in painting. Lady Miao, her teacher, stayed by her side, no longer instructing or forbidding, but watching while her imperial pupil brushed a picture of the branches of a peach tree in bloom. It was no easy task to please her teacher and Tzu Hsi took pains and worked in silence. First she must ink her brush in such a way that at one stroke she could give the branch its outline and also its shading, and this she did, with care and perfectly.
Lady Miao commended her. “Well done, Venerable.”
“I am not finished,” Tzu Hsi replied.
With equal care she drew another branch, intertwining with the first. To this Lady Miao remained silent. Tzu Hsi gathered her eyebrows into a frown.
“You do not like what I have done?”
“It is not what I like or do not like, Venerable,” the lady said. “The question you must ask yourself is whether the master painters of peach blossoms would so have intertwined two branches in this fashion.”
“Why would they not?” Tzu Hsi demanded.
“Instinct, not reason, rules where art is co
ncerned,” the lady said. “Simply, they would not.”
Tzu Hsi made her eyes big and pressed her red lips together, and prepared contention, but Lady Miao refused to contend.
“If you, Venerable, wish to intertwine the branches thus, then do so,” she said mildly. “The time has come when you paint as you wish.”
She paused and then said thoughtfully, her delicate head lifted to gaze at her pupil, “You are an amateur, Venerable, and it is not needful that you should be professional, as I must be, for I am an artist, and all my family have been artists. Yet were you free to be an artist, bearing no burdens of nation and state, you, Venerable, would have been among the greatest of all artists. I see power and precision in your brush, and this is genius, which needs only use to be complete. Alas, your life has not time enough for this greatness to be added to all the others you possess.”
She could not finish. While Tzu Hsi listened, her great eyes fixed upon her teacher’s face, the Chief Eunuch burst into the pavilion where the ladies sat. Both turned to him, amazed and startled, and indeed he was a fearful sight. He had run all the way from somewhere, his eyes were rolling and ready to burst, his breath coming out of him in gasps that tore his breast, his bulk of flesh pale and wet with sweat. Two streams were running down his jellied cheeks, in spite of cold.
“Venerable,” he bawled, “Venerable—prepare yourself—”
Tzu Hsi rose instantly to hear the news of death—whose death?
“Venerable,” the Chief Eunuch roared, “a messenger from Canton—the city’s lost—the foreigners have seized it—the Viceroy is taken! He was climbing down the city wall to escape—”
She sat down again. It was disaster but not death.
“Collect your wits,” she said sternly to the trembling eunuch. “I thought from your looks that the enemy was inside the palace gates.”
Nevertheless she put down her brushes, and Lady Miao withdrew silently. The Chief Eunuch waited, wiping his sweat away with his sleeves.
“Invite Prince Kung to join me here,” Tzu Hsi commanded. “Then do you return and take your place with the Emperor.”
“Yes, Venerable,” the Chief Eunuch said humbly, and made haste away.
In a few minutes Prince Kung came alone, bringing no councilor or other prince. He knew the worst, for he himself had received from the exhausted courier the memorial written in an unknown hand, but bearing the Viceroy’s own seal, and he brought it with him.
“Read it to me,” Tzu Hsi said, when she had acknowledged his obeisance.
He read it slowly and she listened, sitting upon her little throne in her own library, her eyes thoughtful upon the pot of yellow orchids on the table. She heard all that the courier had told the Chief Eunuch, and much more. Six thousand Western warriors had landed and they had marched to the gates of Canton and there had attacked. The imperial forces had made a show of noise and bravery and then had fled and the Chinese rebels hiding inside the city had opened the gates and let the foreign enemy come in. The Viceroy, hearing the evil news, had run from his palace to a parquet on the city wall and then his officers had let him down by a rope. But halfway down the Chinese had seen him dangling and they shouted to the enemy, who swarmed up the wall and cut him down and took him prisoner. All high officials were taken prisoners, and the Viceroy was deported to Calcutta in distant India. Then the Western men, arrogant and honoring no one, set up a new government, all Chinese, and thus defied the Manchu dynasty. Still worse, the memorial continued, the Englishmen declared that they had new demands from their own Queen Empress but they would not say what these were. Instead, they insisted that they would appear before the Emperor in Peking and tell him what they would have.
In this quiet place, where an hour ago Tzu Hsi had painted peach blossoms, the dreadful news now fell upon her. She heard it and said not one word. She sat musing, and Prince Kung, looking sidewise at her, pitied the beautiful and lonely woman and waited for her to speak.
“We cannot receive these hateful strangers at our court,” she said at last. “And still I do believe they use Victoria’s name without her knowledge. Yet I cannot reach her distant throne, nor reveal to our people the mortal illness of the Emperor. The Heir is still too young, the succession is not clear. We must deny the foreigners entrance. At any cost, we must still delay and promise and delay again, making winter our excuse.”
He was greatly sorry for her in the midst of his own deep alarm and he spoke gently.
“Empress, I say what I have already said. You do not understand the nature of these men. It is too late. Their patience is at an end.”
“Let us see,” she said, and that was all she would say. To his pleadings and to his advice she shook her head, her face pale, and the black shadows creeping beneath her tragic eyes. “Let us see,” she said, “let us see.”
Heaven helps me, Tzu Hsi told herself, and indeed that winter was cold beyond any that man had known. Day after day when she rose and looked from her window the snow lay deeper than the day before. Imperial couriers to the south took three times as long as usual to reach the capital and it was months before her reply could reach Canton again. The aged Viceroy Yeh was now wasting away in a prison in Calcutta, whither the English had transported him, but her heart was hard against him. He had failed the Throne and no excuse was strong enough to forgive him such defeat. Let him die! Pity and mercy she would keep for those who could serve her.
Winter crept slowly by and spring came again, a bitter and uneasy spring. She longed for the first leaves to bud on the date trees and for the bamboo sprouts to crack the earth. Inside the palaces the sacred lilies bloomed, warmed by the burning charcoal smothered in ashes in which their bowls were placed. Dwarf plum trees, coaxed by hot stoves, stood blossoming in porcelain jars. She made a mock spring from such flowers in her halls and in the branches of the potted trees she commanded birds in cages to be hung so that she could hear their songs. When she thought of the peril in which the nation stood it comforted her to open the cages and let the birds fly out and settle on her shoulders and her hands and take food from her lips, and she played tenderly with her dogs. To such creatures her love flowed out because they were so innocent.
Innocent, too, was her little son, and she knew, and this was her deepest joy, that he loved her and her alone, as yet. When she came into the room where he was, though he had not seen her for a day or two if she were busy, he forgot all others and ran into her arms. She could be cruel, and anyone who crossed her will felt instantly her relentless cruelty; and yet this tenderness flowed from her toward all weak and innocent creatures and certainly toward others who loved her. Thus she bore with the evil of the eunuch, Li Lien-ying, because he worshipped her. She winked at his thieving and his mischief and his demand for bribes from those who sought her for the Emperor’s favor. In the same mood, she forgave the Emperor his helplessness and decadence and his folly with women. For he would have women with him nightly because with her he was impotent, but not always with little young women. Yet her he loved and those he did not. She could forgive him because she did not love him, and she was tender to him because he loved her.
All this Prince Kung knew, and she knew that he knew, and that never would he put his knowledge into words, for she saw understanding in his eyes and she heard it in the gentleness of his voice. But she was lonely as only the high can be lonely, and since she could never speak her loneliness, he was the more steadfast in his loyalty, not as a man, for he had his own beautiful and beloved wife, a quiet woman, sweet of heart, who fulfilled his every need. She was the daughter of an old and honorable mandarin, Kwei Liang by name, a man of good common sense who was at all times faithful to the Throne and who gave wise counsel always to the Emperor Hsien Feng, now ruling, as he had also to T’ao Kuang, the Emperor’s father, now dead.
The spring crept slowly on. It deepened into summer and still Tzu Hsi could not decide if it were safe to go to the Summer Palace. She longed for its peace. All winter she had not looked beyond the wa
lls of the Forbidden City and she was sick for the sight of the lakes and mountains of Yüan Ming Yüan. Never had she longed for beauty as she did now, when all was uncertainty about her, and she yearned for the natural beauty of sky and water and earth. When she slept at night she did not dream of lovers but of gardens not enclosed and of the peacefulness of moonlight on the bare and distant hills. She spent hours poring over landscape scrolls and painted scenes, imagining she walked beside rivers or the sea and that at night she slept in pine forests or in a temple hidden in a bamboo grove. When she woke she wept, for these dreams were as real as memories, clear and never to be forgotten, but which she could never see.
But one day, suddenly as a storm comes down, the rumors of the evil for which she felt herself always waiting came rushing northward and instantly she put aside all hope of Yüan Ming Yüan. The Western men were moving up the coast in ships of war. Imperial couriers in relay ran day and night to tell the news before the ships could reach the Taku forts at Tientsin, which city was a scant eighty miles from the capital itself. Now consternation fell on everyone, on commoners as well as on courtiers. The Emperor bestirred himself and he commanded his Grand Councilors and ministers and princes to gather in the Audience Hall and he sent a summons to the two Consorts to seat themselves behind the Dragon Screen. There Tzu Hsi went, leaning on her eunuch’s arm, and she sat herself upon the higher of the two small thrones there. In a while Tzu An, the Empress of the Eastern Palace, came, too, and Tzu Hsi, always courteous, rose and waited while she sat on the other throne. That Empress was aging beyond her years, for she was not yet thirty-two. Her face had grown long and thin and melancholy, and she made a faint sad smile when Tzu Hsi pressed her hand.
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