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 that contains 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 of _Lai!
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, on whose 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
tumult and 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 that the 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.