9. CHAPTER NINE
THE EMPEROR KWANG HSU
THE next day I arose earlier than usual and
dressed in a great hurry, as I feared I might be
late. When I got to Her Majesty's Palace
there were a few Court ladies there sitting on
the veranda. They smiled and asked me to sit
down with them as it was still too early, being
only five o'clock. I had been told to wake Her
Majesty at five thirty. The Young Empress
came up a few minutes later and we all courtesied
and wished her "good morning.'' After talking
with us a few minutes, she asked if Her Majesty
was awake and which one of us was on duty that
day. When I informed her that it was my turn,
she immediately ordered me to go to Her
Majesty's room at once. I went very quietly
and found some servant girls standing about and
one Court lady, who was sitting on the floor.
She had been on duty all night. When she saw
me she got up and whispered to me, that now that
I had come, she would go and change her clothes
and brush up a bit, and for me not to leave the
room until Her Majesty was awake. After this
Court lady had gone, I went near to the bed and
said: "Lao Tsu Tsung, it is half-past five.'' She
was sleeping with her face toward the wall, and
without looking to see who had called her, she
said: "Go away and leave me alone. I did not
tell you to call me at half-past five. Call me at
six,'' and immediately went off to sleep again.
I waited until six and called her again. She woke
and said: "This is dreadful. What a nuisance
you are.'' After she had said this, she looked
around and saw me standing by the bed. "Oh!
it is you, is it? Who told you to come and wake
me?'' I replied: "One of the Court ladies told
me that it was my turn to be on duty in Lao Tsu
Tsung's bedchamber.'' "That is funny. How
dare they give orders without receiving instructions
from me first? They know that this part
of their duty is not very pleasant and have put
it off on you because they know you are new
here.'' I made no reply to this. I got along as
best I could that day and found it no easy matter,
as Her Majesty was very exacting in everything.
However, the next time I managed to
divert her attention to things new or interesting
in order to take her mind off of what she was
doing, and in this way had much less trouble
getting her out of bed.
My reader can't imagine how very glad we
were to get back to our rooms, and it was just
10:30 P. M. I was very tired and sleepy, so I
undressed and went to bed at once. I think that
as soon as my head touched the pillow I was
asleep.
The following day there was the same thing,
the usual audience in the morning, of course busy
all the time, which went on for fifteen days
before I realized it. I began to take great interest
in the Court life, and liked it better every
day. Her Majesty was very sweet and kind to
us always, and took us to see the different places
in the Summer Palace. We went to see Her
Majesty's farm, situated on the west side of the
lake, and had to cross over a high bridge to get
there. This bridge is called Tu Tai Chiao
(Jade Girdle Bridge). Her Majesty often
took us under this bridge in a boat, or we walked
round on the border. She seemed very fond of
sitting on the top of this bridge on her stool and
taking her tea, in fact this was one of her favorite
places. She used to go and see her farm once
every four or five days, and it always pleased
her if she could take some vegetables and rice or
corn from her own farm. She cooked these
things herself in one of the courtyards. I
thought that was good fun, and also turned up
my sleeves to help her cook. We brought fresh
eggs also from the farm and Her Majesty taught
us how to cook them with black tea leaves.
Her Majesty's cooking stoves were very peculiar.
They were made of brass, lined with
bricks. They could be moved anywhere, for
they had no chimneys. Her Majesty told me
to boil the eggs first until they were hard, and
to crack them but to keep the shells on, and add
half a cup of black tea, salt and spices. Her
Majesty said: "I like the country life. It seems
more natural than the Court life. I am always
glad to see young people having fun, and not
such grand dames when we are by ourselves.
Although I am not young any more, I am still
very fond of play.'' Her Majesty would taste
first what we had been cooking, and would give
us all to taste. She asked: "Do you not think
this food has more flavor than that prepared by
the cooks?'' We all said it was fine. So we
spent the long days at the Court having good
fun.
I saw Emperor Kwang Hsu every morning,
and whenever I had the time he would always
ask some words in English. I was surprised to
learn that he knew quite a bit of spelling, too. I
found him extremely interesting. He had very
expressive eyes. He was entirely a different
person when he was alone with us. He would
laugh and tease, but as soon as he was in the presence
of Her Majesty he would look serious, and
as if he were worried to death. At times he
looked stupid. I was told by a great many people
who were presented to him at the different
audiences that he did not look intelligent, and
that he would never talk. I knew better, for
I used to see him every day. I was at the Court
long enough to study him, and found him to be
one of the most intelligent men in China. He
was a capital diplomat and had wonderful brains,
only he had no opportunities. Now a great
many people have asked me the same question,
if our Emperor Kwang Hsu had any courage
or brains. Of course outsiders have no idea how
strict the law is, and the way we have to respect
our parents. He was compelled to give up a
great many things on account of the law. I have
had many long talks with him and found him a
wise man, with any amount of patience. His life
was not a happy one; ever since his childhood his
health was poor. He told me that he never had
studied literature very much, but it came natural
to him. He was a born musician and could play
any instrument without studying. He loved the
piano, and was always after me to teach him.
There were several beautiful grand pianos at the
Audience Hall. He had very good taste for
foreign music, too. I taught him some easy
waltzes and he kept the time beautifully. I
found him a good companion and a good friend,
and he confided in me and told me his troubles
and sorrows. We talked a great deal about
western civilization, and I was surprised to learn
he was so well informed in everything. He used
to tell me, time after time, his ambitions for the
welfare of his country. He loved his people and
would have done anything to help them whenever
there was famine or flood. I noticed that he
felt for them. I know that some eunuchs gave
false reports about his character, — that he was
cruel, etc. I had heard the same thing before I
went to the Palace. He was kind to the eunuchs,
but there was always that distinction between the
master and the servants. He would never allow
the eunuchs to speak to him unless they were
spoken to, and never listened to any kind of
gossip. I lived there long enough, and I know
just what kind of cruel people those eunuchs
were. They had no respect for their master.
They came from the lowest class of people from
the country, had no education, no morals, no feeling
for anything, not even between themselves.
The outside world has heard so many things
against His Majesty, the Emperor Kwang
Hsu's character, but I assure my readers that
these things were told by the eunuchs to their
families, and of course they always stretched it
out as far as possible in order to make the conversation
interesting. The majority of the people
living in Peking get all kinds of information
through them. I have witnessed the same thing
many a time during my stay at the Palace.
One day during the time of Her Majesty's
afternoon rest we heard a dreadful noise. It
sounded just like the firing off of fire-crackers.
Such a noise was quite unusual in the Palace for
such things are not allowed to be brought into
the Palace grounds. Of course Her Majesty
woke up. In a few seconds time everyone became
excited and were running to and fro as if
the building was on fire. Her Majesty was giving
orders and telling the eunuchs to be quiet,
but no one listened to her and kept yelling and
running around like crazy people, all talking at
the same time. Her Majesty was furious and
ordered us to bring the yellow bag to her. (I
must explain about this bag. It was made of
ordinary yellow cloth and contained bamboo
sticks of all sorts and sizes and are made to beat
the eunuchs, servant girls and old women servants
with.) This bag was carried everywhere
Her Majesty went, to be handy in case of emergency.
Everyone of us knew where this bag
was kept. We took all the sticks from the bag
and Her Majesty ordered us to go to the courtyard
and beat the eunuchs. It was such a funny
sight to see all the Court ladies and servant girls
each with a stick trying to separate the excited
crowd. On my part I thought I was having
good fun so I laughed and found the rest were
laughing too. Her Majesty was standing on the
veranda watching us but she was too far away
to see well and with all that noise, we knew she
could not hear us laughing. We tried our best
to separate the crowd, but were laughing so much
we did not have enough strength to hurt any of
them. All of a sudden all the eunuchs became
quiet and stopped talking, for one of them saw
the head eunuch, Li Lien Ying, followed by all
his attendants coming towards them. Everyone
of them became frightened and stood there like
statues. We stopped laughing, too, and turned
back each with a stick in our hand, walking toward
Her Majesty. Li Lien Ying was having
a nap, too, and had heard the noise and had come
to enquire what the trouble was and to report it
to Her Majesty. It seemed one of the young
eunuchs caught a crow. (The eunuchs hated
crows, as they are considered an unlucky bird.
The people in China called eunuchs crows because
they were very disagreeable. That was the
reason why the eunuchs hated them so.) They
always set traps to catch them and then tied a
huge fire-cracker to their legs, set fire to the
cracker and then set the unfortunate birds free.
Naturally the poor birds would be glad to fly
away and by the time the powder exploded
would be high up in the air and the poor bird
would be blown to pieces. It seemed this was
not the first time the eunuchs had played this
cruel trick. I was told it always delighted them
so much to see blood and torture. They always
invited others to drink some wine with them to
celebrate an occasion such as this. This cruel
deed was always done outside of the wall of the
Audience Hall but that day the crow flew towards
Her Majesty's own Palace while she was
sleeping and the powder exploded while the bird
was passing the courtyard. After the head
eunuch had told Her Majesty what had happened,
she was very angry and ordered that this
young eunuch be brought in and receive punishment
in her presence. I noticed one of the head
eunuch's attendants push the culprit out from
the crowd. The head eunuch immediately gave
orders to lay this man on the ground and two
eunuchs stood on each side of him and beat him
on his legs with two heavy bamboo sticks one at
a time. The victim never uttered a word while
this was going on. The head eunuch counted
until this man had received one hundred blows,
then he gave orders to stop. Then he knelt in
front of Her Majesty waiting for her orders and
at the same time kowtowed on the ground until
his head made a noise on the stone steps, asking
to be punished for his carelessness and neglect of
duty. Her Majesty said that it was not his
fault and ordered him to take the offender away.
During all this time the offender was still on the
ground, and did not dare to move. Two eunuchs
each took hold of a foot and dragged him out of
the courtyard. We were all afraid even to
breathe aloud for fear Her Majesty would say
that we were pretending to be frightened at
witnessing this punishment, at the same time when
it was over we would go and gossip about how
cruel she was. No one was surprised at what
had happened, as we were accustomed to seeing
it almost every day and were quite used to it.
I used to pity them, but I changed my mind very
soon after I had arrived.
The first person I saw punished was a servant
girl, she had made a mistake about Her Majesty's
socks and had brought two which were not
mates, Her Majesty finding that out, ordered
another servant girl to slap her face ten times
on each cheek. This girl did not slap hard
enough, so Her Majesty said they were all good
friends and would not obey her orders, so she
told the one who had been slapped to slap the
other. I thought that was too funny for anything
and wanted to laugh the worst way, but of
course did not dare. That night I asked those
two girls how they felt slapping each other that
way. The reason why I asked them was because
they were laughing and joking as usual
immediately they were out of Her Majesty's
bedchamber. They told me that was nothing;
that they were quite used to it and never bothered
themselves about such small things. I in turn
soon became used to it, and was as callous as they
were.
Now regarding the servant girls, they are a
much better class of people than the eunuchs.
They are the daughters of Manchu soldiers, and
must stay ten years at the Palace to wait upon
Her Majesty, and then they are free to marry.
One got married after my first month at the
Court. Her Majesty gave her a small sum of
money, five hundred taels. This girl was so
attached to Her Majesty that it was very hard
for her to leave the Court. She was an extremely
clever girl. Her name was Chiu Yuen
(Autumn's Cloud). Her Majesty named her
that because she was so very delicate looking and
slight. I liked her very much during the short
time that we were together. She told me not to
listen to anyone's gossip at the Court, also that
Her Majesty had told her she was very fond
of me. On the twenty-second day of the third
moon she left the Palace, and we were all sorry
to lose her. Her Majesty did not realize how
much she missed her until after she had gone.
For a few days we had nothing but troubles. It
seemed as if everything went wrong. Her
Majesty was not at all satisfied without Chiu
Yuen. The rest of the servant girls were scared,
and tried their best to please Her Majesty, but
they had not the ability, so we had to help and
do a part of their work so as not to make Her
Majesty nervous. Unfortunately, she stopped
us, and said: "You have enough to do of your
own work, and I do not want you to help the
servants. You don't please me a bit that way.''
She could see that I was not accustomed to her
ways, for she had spoken severely, so she smiled
and said to me: "I know you are good to help
them so as not to make me angry, but these
servants are very cunning. It isn't that they
cannot do their work. They know very well
that I always select the clever ones to wait on
me in my bedroom and they don't like that, so
they pretend to be stupid and make me angry so
that I will send them to do the common work.
The eunuchs are worse. They are all afraid to
take Chiu Yuen's place. Now I have found
them out, and I will only keep the stupid ones
to wait on me from now.'' I almost laughed
when I noticed that they all looked serious for
a moment. I thought these people must be really
stupid, and not lazy, but I had dealings with
them every day and found them out all right.
The eunuchs don't seem to have any brains at
all. They are such queer people and have no
feelings. They have the same mood all day
long — I should say they are in a cruel mood.
Whenever Her Majesty gave an order they
always said "Jer'' (Yes) and as soon as they
got to our waitingroom they would say to each
other: "What was the order? I have forgotten
all about it.'' Then they used to come to one of
us who had happened to be present when
the order was given: "Please tell us what the
order was. I did not listen while Her Majesty
was talking.'' We used to laugh and make fun
of them. We knew they were afraid to ask Her
Majesty, and of course we had to tell them.
One of the eunuch writers had to keep writing
down the orders that had been given during the
day, for Her Majesty wanted to keep records
of everything. There were twenty eunuchs who
were educated and they were excellent scholars.
These had to answer any questions which Her
Majesty happened to ask them about Chinese
literature, while she had a good knowledge of
it herself. I noticed that it pleased her a great
deal if anyone could not answer a question, or
knew less than she did. She took delight in
laughing at them. Her Majesty was also very
fond of teasing. She knew that the Court ladies
did not know very much about literature, so she
used to try it on us. We had to say something
whether it was appropriate to her questions or
not, and that would make her laugh. I was told
that Her Majesty did not like anyone to be too
clever, and yet she could not bear stupid people,
so I was rather nervous, and did not know how
to act for the first three weeks I was there, but
it did not take me very long to study her. She
certainly admired clever girls, but she did not
like those who would show their cleverness too
much. How I won her heart was this way.
Whenever I was with her I used to fix my whole
attention on her and watched her very closely
(not staring, for she hated that) and always carried
out her orders properly. I noticed another
thing, and that was that whenever she wanted
anything to be brought to her, such as cigarettes,
handkerchief, etc., she would only look at
the article and then look at anyone who happened
to be there at the time. (There was always
a table in the room, on which everything
she needed for the day was placed.) I got so
used to her habits that after a short time I knew
just what she wanted by looking at her eyes, and
I was very seldom mistaken. This pleased her
a great deal. She was strong-minded, and
would always act the way she thought was right,
and had perfect confidence in herself. At times
I have seen her looking very sad. She had
strong emotions, but her will was stronger. She
could control herself beautifully, and yet she liked
people to sympathize with her — only by actions,
not by words, for she did not like anyone to
know her thoughts. I am sure my readers will
think how hard it was to be the Court lady of
Her Majesty, the Empress Dowager of China,
but on the contrary I enjoyed myself very much,
as she was so interesting, and I found that she
was not at all difficult to please.
The first day of the fourth moon Her Majesty
was worried over the lack of rain. She prayed
every day after the audience for ten days, without
any result. Every one of us kept very quiet.
Her Majesty did not even give any orders that
day, and spoke to no one. I noticed that the
eunuchs were scared, so we went without our
luncheon. I worked so hard that morning, and
was so hungry — in fact all the Court ladies were.
I felt sorry for Her Majesty. Finally she told
me I could go, as she wanted to rest a while, so
we came back to our own quarters. I questioned
our own eunuch Wang as to why Her Majesty
was worrying about rain, for we were having
lovely weather then, day after day. He told me
that Lao Fo Yeh (Old Buddha) was worried
for the poor farmers, as all their crops were dead
without rain for so long. Wang also reminded
me that it had not rained once since I came to
live at the Palace. I did not realize that it was
so long as two months and seven days, and
on the other hand it seemed to me longer than
that, for the life was very nice and pleasant, and
Her Majesty was very kind to me, as if she had
known me for years already. Her Majesty took
very little food at dinner that night. There was
not a sound anywhere, and everyone kept quiet.
The Young Empress told us to eat as fast as
we could, which puzzled me. When we came
back to our waitingroom, the Young Empress
said to me that Her Majesty was very much
worried for the poor farmers and that she would
pray for rain, and stop eating meat for two or
three days. That same night, before Her
Majesty retired, she gave orders that no pigs were
to be slaughtered within the gates of Peking.
The reason of this was that by sacrificing ourselves
by not eating meat the Gods would have
pity on us and send rain. She also gave orders
that everyone should bathe the body and wash
out the mouth in order that we might be cleansed
from all impurities and be ready to fast and pray
to the Gods. Also that the Emperor should go
to the temple inside the Forbidden City, to perform
a ceremony of sacrifice (called Chin Tan).
He was not to eat meat or hold converse with
anyone, and to pray to the Gods to be merciful
and send rain to the poor farmers. His Majesty,
the Emperor Kwang Hsu, wore a piece of jade
tablet about three inches square, engraved "Chai
Chieh'' (the meaning being just like Chin Tan —
not to eat meat but to pray three times a day),
both in Manchu and Chinese, and all the eunuchs
who went with the Emperor wore the same kind
of tablets. The idea was that this jade tablet
was to remind one to be serious in performing
the ceremonies.
The next morning Her Majesty got up very
early and ordered me not to bring any jewels
for her. She dressed herself in great haste. Her
breakfast was very simple that day, just milk and
steamed bread. Our own breakfast was cabbage
and rice cooked together, with a little salt. It
was tasteless. Her Majesty did not talk to us
at all, except when giving orders, and so, of
course, we kept silent. Her Majesty wore a
pale gray gown, made very plain, with no embroidery
or trimmings of any kind. She wore
gray shoes to match, not to mention her gray
handkerchief. We followed her into the hall
where a eunuch knelt with a large branch of
willow tree. Her Majesty picked a little bunch
of leaves and stuck it on her head. The Young
Empress did the same, and told us to follow
her example. Emperor Kwang Hsu took
a branch and stuck it on his hat. After that
Her Majesty ordered the eunuchs and the servant
girls to do the same thing. It was a funny
sight, and everyone did look queer with a
bunch of leaves on the head. The head eunuch
came and knelt in front of Her Majesty and
said that everything was prepared for the
ceremony in the little pavilion in front of her
own palace. She told us that she preferred to
walk, as she was going to pray. It took us only
a few minutes to cross the courtyard. When we
arrived at this pavilion I noticed a large square
table was placed in the center of the room. A
few large sheets of yellow paper and a jade
slab, containing some vermilion powder instead
of ink, with two little brushes to write with. At
each side of the table stood a pair of large porcelain
vases, with two large branches of willow.
Of course no one was allowed to speak, but I
was curious and wanted to find out why everyone
had to wear the willow leaves on the head.
Her Majesty's yellow satin cushion was placed
in front of this table. She stood there and took
a piece of sandalwood and placed it in the incense
burner filled with live charcoal. The Young
Empress whispered to me to go over and help
Her Majesty to burn them. I placed several
pieces in until she told me that was enough.
Then Her Majesty knelt on her cushion, the
Young Empress knelt behind her, and we all
knelt in a row behind the Young Empress,
and commenced to pray. The Young Empress
taught us that very morning how to say the
prayer: "We worship the Heavens, and beg
all the Buddhas to take pity on us and save the
poor farmers from starving. We are willing to
sacrifice for them. Pray Heaven send us rain.''
We repeated the same prayer three times, and
bowed three times — nine times in all. After that
Her Majesty went to her usual morning audience.
It was much earlier than usual that morning
for the Court was returning to the Forbidden
City at noon. His Majesty, the Emperor
Kwang Hsu, was to pray at the Forbidden City
and Her Majesty always wanted to accompany
him wherever he went. It was nine o'clock in
the morning when the audience was over. She
ordered me not to bring any jewels for her to
the Forbidden City this time, for she would not
need them at all. I went to the jewel-room and
locked everything up, and placed the keys in a
yellow envelope, sealed it, and placed the
envelope among the others, and gave them
to a eunuch who takes care of these things. We
packed all her favorite things. Her gowns
were the most important things to pack, she had
so many and it was impossible to take all. I
noticed that the Court lady who was looking after
her gowns was the busiest amongst us. She had
to select gowns enough to last four or five days.
She told me that she had selected about fifty
different ones. I told her that Lao Tsu Tsung
might stay at the Forbidden City four or five
days, and that she would not need so many gowns.
She said it was safer to bring many, for one was
not sure what would be Her Majesty's idea for
the day. Packing at the Court was very simple.
Eunuchs brought many yellow trays, which are
made of wood, painted yellow, about five feet by
four feet and one foot deep. We placed a large
yellow silk scarf in the tray, then the gowns,
and covered them with a thick yellow cloth.
Everything was packed the same way. It took us
about two hours to pack fifty-six trays. These
things always started off first, carried by the
eunuchs. His Majesty, the Emperor Kwang
Hsu, the Young Empress and all the Court ladies,
had to kneel on the ground for Her Majesty's
sedan chair to pass the Palace Gate, then
we went in search of our own chairs. The procession
as usual was pretty, soldiers marching in
front of her chair, four young Princes riding on
horseback on each side of her, and from forty to
fifty eunuchs also on horseback behind her,
all dressed in their official robes. The Emperor's
chair and the Young Empress' chair were
of the same color as Her Majesty's. The Secondary
wife of the Emperor had a deep yellow
chair. The chairs of the Court ladies were red,
and were carried by four chair bearers, instead
of eight like their Majesties. Our own eunuchs
also rode on horseback, behind us. We rode a
long time, it seemed to me, before I noticed the
Emperor's chair begin to descend from the stone-paved
road, and we all followed him. I could
see that Her Majesty's chair was still going
straight on, and we took a nearer route to reach
Wan Shou Si (The long life temple), to await
Her Majesty's arrival. We alighted from our
chairs and started at once to prepare Her
Majesty's tea and her little dishes. I went to
help her to alight, and supported her right arm
to mount the steps. Her Majesty sat on Her
Throne, and we placed a table in front of her
and my sister brought her tea. (The custom
was, that if she went anywhere, or during the
festivals, we must bring to her everything, instead
of the eunuchs.) We placed all the dainties in
front of her, and then we went to rest. Her
Majesty always stopped at this temple on the
way from the Summer Palace to the Forbidden
City.