You are sovereign and doubly sovereign now, mistress of the destiny of China, arbiter of all. [The EMPRESS looks at him as though deeply hurt.] Mistress of the destiny of China, yes! Be not offended. I do not intend to speak of your power over the Emperor——But, defeated and captive, what does it matter? Are you not always the Daughter of the Mings? Hundreds of millions of hearts bear secret allegiance to you. The rebellion quelled to-day by my soldiers will break out afresh to-morrow, will always be renewed. You are the only being in the world who has the power to still it for ever——and that takes away the right to die——
EMPRESS [Interrupting]
The dead await me——I belong to them now——I hear their voices calling to me to come——
EMPEROR
I want to tell you in the fewest words. But I feel as though you were already gone, already cold. I press on and I am all at a loss. It seems as if I were speaking to a tombstone. Powers, you and I, I said, ah, yes, great powers! Two rival lives of fabled emperors, of deified heroes, growing feebler and feebler by centuries of slavery to rites and forms, prisoners in an excess of luxury; two dynasties that seemed doomed to an immortality of mummyhood, have by some miracle produced you and me, who are alive and young. As a result of our union, a new China might arise, living like us, to dominate the world. Together we might accomplish that holy mission for the well-being and happiness of our races, and the eternal glory of our two united names. But without you, no, I can do nothing. I shall sink again into my gilded solitude, my sickly idleness, my opium-drugged sleep. If you but knew my youth, how isolated and lonely, spent in an apartment decorated in black ebony! In the gloom of this palace, an imaginative child, I outlined this glorious plan of union with you. It haunted my brain. Then your son would have been my son. It was like a child still that I set out on that adventure to see you in your palace at Nanking. And as I beheld, my man's will, which still floated in the midst of dreams, was suddenly concentrated upon one definite desire. Ah, what obstacles I overcame! First, I had to escape from your palace; then to return here unhindered within the terrible walls of the Yellow City; and then to wrest the power from those grim evil-doers who had so long tortured my youthful will and my reason. The war was already at its height, hatred was enchained, the smell of blood was in the air, and Chinese and Tartars were howling like wild beasts. All this, you know full well, I was unable to stop.
EMPRESS
I know.
EMPEROR
That I did all in my power to save your son—you believe that, do you not?
EMPRESS