Imperial Woman by Pearl S. Buck Read Free Book Online Page B

straight heavenward from the altar. It spread into a fragrant cloud and in the clouds I saw a face—”
    “A man’s face,” he repeated.
    She nodded her head, as a child nods when she is too shy to speak.
    “Was it my face?” he asked.
    “Yes, Majesty,” she said. “Your imperial face!”
    Two days, two nights, and she was still in the royal bedchamber. Three times he slept and each time she went to the door and beckoned to her serving woman, and the woman came creeping through the curtains to the boudoir beyond. There the eunuchs had prepared a ready bath, a cauldron of water upon coals, so that the woman needed only to dip the water into the vast porcelain jar and make her mistress fresh again. She had brought clean garments and different robes and she brushed Yehonala’s hair and coiled it smoothly. Not once did the young girl speak except to give direction and not once did the serving woman ask a question. Each time when her task was done Yehonala went in again to the imperial bedroom and the heavy doors were closed behind the yellow curtains.
    Inside that vast chamber she sat upon a chair near the window to wait until the Emperor woke. What had been done was done. She knew now what this man was, a weak and fitful being, possessed by a passion he could not satisfy, a lust of the mind more frightful than lust of the flesh. When he was defeated he wept upon her breast. This, this was the Son of Heaven!
    Yet when he woke she was all duty and gentleness. He was hungry and she sent for the Chief Eunuch and bade him bring the dishes that his sovereign enjoyed. And she ate with the Emperor and she fed the little dog with bits of meat and released him now and then into the courtyard outside the window. When the meal was over the imperial man commanded his Chief Eunuch once more to draw the curtains over the window and hide the sunlight and he bade them leave him alone and not come unless summoned, nor would he meet his ministers that day or the next and not until he felt inclined.
    An Teh-hai looked grave. “Majesty, evil news has come from the south, for T’ai P’ing rebels have seized the half of another province. Your ministers and princes are impatient for audience.”
    “I will not come,” the Son of Heaven said peevishly, and fell back upon his pillows.
    The Chief Eunuch then could but leave the room.
    “Bar the doors,” the Emperor commanded Yehonala.
    So she barred the doors and when she turned to him again he was staring at her with fearful and unsatisfied desire.
    “Come here,” he muttered. “I am strong now. The meats have made me strong.”
    Again she must obey. This time it was true that he was strong, and then she remembered something the ladies who lived in the Palace o£ Forgotten Concubines had told her in their gossip. They said that if the Emperor delayed too long in his bedchamber, a powerful herb was mixed in his favorite dish which gave him sudden and unusual strength. Yet so dangerous was this herb that he must not be roused too far, for then exhaustion followed so extreme that it could end in death.
    On the third morning, this exhaustion fell. The Emperor sank into half-fainting silence upon his pillow. His lips were blue, his eyes half closed, he could not move, his narrow face set slowly into a greenish pallor, which, upon his yellow skin, made him seem dead. In great fear Yehonala went to the door to summon help. Before she could call she saw An Teh-hai, the Chief Eunuch, approaching, expecting the summons.
    “Let the Court physicians be immediately called,” she commanded.
    She looked so proud and cold, her great eyes so black, that An Teh-hai obeyed.
    Yehonala returned to the bedside. The Emperor had fallen asleep. She looked down on his unconscious face and suddenly she longed to weep. She stood there shivering in the strange chill which had fallen upon her again and again in these two days and three nights and she went to the door and opened it enough to let her slender body