With the Empress Dowager of China

by Katharine A. Carl

When the ladies of the Legation were first received at the Palace, the Empress Dowager naturally followed the Chinese Imperial custom of giving each lady a present. This precedent having been established and seeming to have given pleasure, when the ladies were received the next time, which was after the Boxer rebellion, she gave them presents again. Unfortunately, this act was construed into a desire on her part to wheedle the foreigners, and curry favor, so that she might receive better treatment at the hands of the Powers. The truth is, she loves to play the Lady Bountiful, and she never mixes up the social with the political, and I am sure she had no “arrière-pensée” but was simply indulging her usual bent. After the first few Audiences (when the presents were really of value), Her Majesty gave small and unimportant presents at the garden parties, which were made the subject of ridicule. Her Majesty had heard that the ladies did not wish to receive such handsome presents as she had first given, and she hence gave inexpensive souvenirs. Finally, the Ministers asked the Chinese Foreign Office to request the Empress Dowager to give no more presents at the Audiences, and the custom was abolished; though Her Majesty continued to give presents in private, and she still sends, on the four great Chinese festivals, flowers, fruits, and confectionery to all the ladies of the Legation, as well as to every lady who has ever been received at the garden parties, and on the departure of any Minister from Peking, she sends his wife some parting presents.

But though present-giving has been stopped at the Audiences of the foreign ladies, it goes on with the same excess in the Palace and among officials in China. At each of Their Majesties’ Birthdays, in spite of their protests and edicts to prevent it, presents pour into the Palace! Every official who has ever been presented in Audience, or who has the right, by his official position, to send anything, does so. Edicts from the Throne to prevent it will remain as ineffectual as those with reference to the binding of the feet of the Chinese women (which Her Majesty has for years been “recommending” in edicts to be abolished), for it has become so thoroughly a part of Chinese life as to be almost indispensable. Present-giving in China is one of those “unwritten laws” whose tyranny is hardest to break away from. Though the system of present-giving is a great tax on the officials, as well as their subordinates, in this instance the change must come from the people.

As I was an inmate of the Palace for so long, of course I came in for my share of presents from the Empress Dowager. At every festival I was remembered, as well as the Princesses and Ladies of the Court, and when presents were sent to the ladies of the Legation, she sent similar ones to me. Many of the presents she made me showed a real consideration for my comfort and displayed much forethought. When the weather became cool, and the Ladies of the Court put on wadded dresses, Her Majesty sent one of her maids to my apartments to get one of my tailor-made dresses. She had the Palace tailors copy this in wadded silk. It was wonderful how well they did it, too, for, as I knew nothing about it, I could give no advice. She ordered a few changes made in the severity of the tailor-costume, thinking it was too hard in its lines. She had a long, soft sash to tie at the side, which, she decided, made it look more graceful. When the Princesses put on furs, Her Majesty, herself, designed for me a long fur-lined garment which she thought would be comfortable to paint in. She had some trouble in arriving at a result which pleased her, which would be warm enough, and which, at the same time, would not interfere with the freedom of movement necessary for me to work with ease. At the time of the Chinese New Year, she sent me two curiously fashioned fur-lined dresses. She had the skirts copied from old pictures. They were not unlike our pleated skirts, with an embroidered panel down the center of the front. The jackets were a sort of compromise between European and Chinese, and the costumes were not only pretty but very comfortable.[7]

THE AUTHOR IN CHINESE COSTUME

For wearing with these she ordered a sable hat, for the Chinese ladies wear some sort of coiffure on the head, winter and summer. This had an embroidered crown of pale lavender satin, with long satin streamers embroidered in gold with good-luck emblems. The brim could be worn either turned off the face or pulled over the ears and tied under the chin with lavender strings. She said she had some trouble in finding a design which she thought would suit me. This hat she had also had copied from old prints. I learned later she had tried three sorts of sables before she got a color which she thought would be becoming to my unfortunate blonde hair! On the front of the brim she placed a Princess Button. This is worn only by Ladies of the Court, and represents the Flaming Pearl of the Dynasty. It was established by the founders of the Dynasty and is the distinguishing jewel of the members of the Imperial family. It consists of a large pearl, surrounded by three alternating rows of seed-pearls and corals, which are supposed to represent flames! This Flaming Pearl, symbol of the “Unattainable,” is the eternal quest of the double dragon!

Her Majesty also presented me with a number of other charming things that I shall always treasure as coming from her, and as evidence of her consideration for “the stranger within her gates,” or as spontaneous offerings from her naturally generous nature—ever desirous of giving pleasure. I wish I might have preserved the flowers and curious grasses which she, herself, gathered and gave me on our many promenades around the beautiful grounds of the Summer Palace, but which, alas! are withered and gone!

CHAPTER XXVIII SOME WINTER DAYS AT THE PALACE

The big, official portrait for St. Louis was advancing. I was able to accomplish much more now that I had a place where I could work uninterruptedly, and quietly study the painting when I was not working. Her Majesty came, with her usual retinue, to pose, but it was not at fixed times, and was often when I did not expect her. She was looking more and more anxious these days; but she came to pose whenever it was necessary, and was very particular as to all the details in the portrait. She often had the jewels and ornaments changed, and her pearl mantle was made over, after she saw it in the first sketch, as she did not like its form.

The throne, about which there had been a question when I began the portrait, and which had been a present to Her Majesty from the late Emperor Tong Chih, her son, had been “lost” during the Boxer troubles, but Her Majesty thought it might be reproduced from descriptions and from sketches by the Palace painters who had seen it; but I could not consent to work either from memory or other painters’ sketches, and I was finally obliged to paint, “faute de mieux,” one of the carved teakwood thrones of which Her Majesty is so fond. This throne did not suit the straight lines of the composition so well as almost any other in the Palace would have done, but Her Majesty wished it.