Two Years in the Forbidden City

by Princess Der Ling

After the time set apart for mourning had expired, we all went back to the Summer Palace, where Miss Carl re-commenced her work on Her Majesty's portrait. Her Majesty apparently soon got tired of this portrait painting, for one day she asked me when I thought it would be finished. She was afraid that it would not be finished by the time the cold weather came on, when we always removed the Court to the Forbidden City, and she said it would be a lot of trouble and inconvenience to have to continue the portrait there. I told Her Majesty that it could easily be arranged and that she need not worry herself.

After I had been posing in Her Majesty's place for several days Her Majesty asked me whether Miss Carl had said anything about it, and if she did, I was to inform her that it was a command from Her Majesty, and that I dare not make any further suggestions in that respect. So we had no further trouble with Miss Carl after that. I had, however, quite a lot of trouble with the eunuchs, who, in spite of Her Majesty's instructions, were anything but polite to Miss Carl. Of course Miss Carl herself did not know this. I tried to make them behave better by threatening to tell Her Majesty about them, which had a good effect for a while, but they were soon as bad as ever.

At the commencement of the eighth moon, Her Majesty always attended to the transplanting of her chrysanthemums, which was one of her favorite flowers, so each day she would take us with her to the west side of the lake and, assisted by us, would cut the tops of the young plants and set them in flower pots. I was very much surprised at this, as there were no roots, only the stems of the flowers, but Her Majesty assured me that they would soon grow into very pretty plants. Every day we went over to water these flowers until they began to bud. In case it rained heavily, Her Majesty would order some of the eunuchs to go over and cover up these chrysanthemum plants with mats, so that they would not be broken. It was characteristic of Her Majesty that, no matter what other business she had to attend to, her flowers had her first consideration and she would, if necessary, even go without her usual rest in order to superintend them personally. She also spent quite a time in looking after her orchard, where she had planted apple trees, pear trees, etc. Another thing which I began to notice was that when the spring and summer days had passed, she got quite irritable and sad, while in the winter she was simply unbearable. She loathed cold weather.

One day, during the eighth moon, Her Majesty was taken slightly ill, and complained of suffering from severe headaches. This was the only time I ever saw Her Majesty actually sick. She, however, got up as usual in the morning, and held audience, but was unable to take her luncheon, and very soon had to retire to her bed. Several doctors were summoned, each of whom took her pulse. This was quite a ceremony in itself. The doctors knelt at the bedside, and Her Majesty stretched forth her arm, resting her hand upon a small pillow which was provided for that purpose. After this each doctor wrote out his prescription, all of which were different from each other. We handed them to Her Majesty, who chose the one which she thought was the nicest to take, and two attendants and the doctor himself had to take a dose in her presence before she would touch it. Then she would take it all right.

During this time it rained a great deal and was very hot. The climate at this time of the year is very damp, which causes the flies to make their appearance in millions. If there was one thing more than another that Her Majesty detested it was these flies. During the actual summer they were not so troublesome as at this particular time. Of course every precaution was taken to keep them away, a eunuch being posted at each door, provided with sort of a switch made of horse hair fastened at the end of a bamboo pole. We were never troubled by mosquitoes, however; in fact I never saw a mosquito curtain in the Palace during the whole of my stay there. These flies were an abomination, and in spite of all that could be done a few would find their way into the rooms. Whenever they alighted on Her Majesty she would scream, while if by any chance one were to alight on her food she would order the whole lot to be thrown away. This would spoil her appetite for the whole day and put her into a terrible temper as well. Whenever she saw one anywhere near her, she would order whoever happened to be present to go and catch it. I myself often received this order, but I detested them almost as much as Her Majesty did, they were so dirty, and stuck to one's hands whenever they touched them.

After her illness Her Majesty was indisposed more or less for quite a long time, and doctors were constantly in attendance. She took so many different kinds of medicine that instead of getting better she got worse and eventually contracted a fever. Her Majesty was very much afraid of fevers of any kind and we had to stay with her all night and all day and had to take our meals whenever we could get away from her bedside for a few minutes. Another peculiarity was Her Majesty's aversion for any kind of perfume near her when she was sick, while when she was feeling well she was simply smothered in it. The same applied to fresh flowers; in spite of her love for them under ordinary conditions, when she was sick she could not bear them anywhere near. Her nerves became absolutely unstrung, as she was unable to sleep during the day, and consequently the time passed very slowly to her. In order to make the time pass a little less tediously, she gave instructions for one of the better educated eunuchs to read to her during the daytime. This reading generally consisted of ancient Chinese history, poetry and all kinds of Chinese lore, and while the eunuch was reading to her we had to stand by her bedside, one of us being told off to massage her legs, which seemed to soothe her somewhat. This same program was gone through every day until she was completely herself again—some ten days later.

One day Her Majesty asked me: "What kind of medicine does a foreign doctor usually give in case of a fever? I have heard that they make you take all kinds of pills. This must be very dangerous, as you never know what they are made of. Here in China all medicines are made from roots, and I can always find out whether I am receiving the right medicine, as I have a book which explains what each different medicine is for. Another thing I have heard is that foreign doctors generally operate on you with a knife, while we cure the same sickness by means of our medicine. Li Lien Ying told me that one of our little eunuchs had a boil on his wrist and someone advised him to go to the hospital. Of course they didn't know what they would do, and the foreign doctor there opened the boil with a knife, which frightened the child very much. I was very much surprised when I heard he was all right again in a couple of days." Continuing, Her Majesty said: "A year ago one of the foreign ladies came to the Palace, and hearing me cough a lot, gave me some black pills and told me to swallow them. I did not like to offend her, so I took the pills and told her I would take them by and bye. However, I was afraid to take them and threw them away." Of course I answered that I didn't know much about medicines, to which she replied that she had seen me take foreign medicines whenever I was not feeling well. She then said: "Of course I know there are people in Peking who do take the medicines given them by foreign doctors and even some of my own relatives patronize these foreigners also. They try not to let me know, but I do know for all that. In any case, if they choose to kill themselves by taking these things, it is none of my business; that is the reason why, when they are sick, I never send my own doctors to attend them."

When Her Majesty had completely recovered from her illness she used to go out on the lake a great deal, sometimes in an open boat and at other times in a steam launch. She always appeared to enjoy this kind of thing. For some reason or other she always insisted on taking the west side of the lake, which was very shallow, and invariably the launch would get stuck fast in the mud, which seemed to afford Her Majesty great enjoyment; she simply loved to feel the launch strike the bottom. The open boats would then come alongside and we would have to get out of the launch and enter the boats and proceed to the top of the nearest hill to watch the efforts of the eunuchs trying to refloat the launch. It was a characteristic of Her Majesty to experience a keen sense of enjoyment at the troubles of other people. The eunuchs knew this quite well, and whenever opportunity offered, they would do something which they thought would amuse Her Majesty. So long as it was nothing of a serious nature Her Majesty would always overlook it, but in case it proved serious or was carelessness, she would always order them to be severely punished. Thus it was very hard to tell just what to do in order to please her.

Another of Her Majesty's peculiarities was inquisitiveness. For example: As I have stated before, it was the custom for Her Majesty to have sweetmeats brought to her before every meal, and after she had finished with them, the remainder were distributed among the Court ladies. Whenever it happened that we were very busy, we did not bother with the sweetmeats at all, which Her Majesty very soon found out. One day, after she had finished dining, she came and looked through the window to see what we were doing, and saw some of the eunuchs eating the sweetmeats which she had given to us. She did not say anything, but simply ordered that the sweetmeats should be brought back again, making us believe that she wanted some more herself. I knew that there was something wrong, as she never ordered them back before. When she saw what was left of them, she asked who had been eating so many, as they were nearly all finished, but she got no reply—we were all too scared. However, after thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that it would be best to tell her the truth, for I was quite certain that she knew anyhow. So I told her that we had all been very busy and had forgotten all about the sweetmeats, and that the eunuchs had come and taken them themselves, and I added that this was not the first time they had done so. I was rather glad that she had given me this opportunity to report the eunuchs, for Her Majesty replied that if she intended the eunuchs to have sweetmeats, she herself could give them some, but thought it a lack of appreciation on our part not eating them ourselves after she had been so kind as to provide them for us. She turned to me, and said: "I am glad that you have told the truth, as I saw myself what was happening." She gave orders that the offending eunuchs should each have three months' wages deducted as a punishment, but of course I knew very well they didn't mind that, as they were making many times the amount of their salary in other ways. On my return to the sitting room, one of the Court ladies said: "You should not have told Her Majesty about the eunuchs, they are sure to revenge themselves in some way." I asked how they could possibly injure me in any way, as they were only servants, but she told me that they would find some underhand way in which to get even with me, this being their general custom. Of course I knew the eunuchs were a bad lot, but could not see what cause they had to be against me in any way. I knew they dare not say anything against me to Her Majesty, so I forgot all about the matter. I found out afterwards that one of the tricks they used to play on any of the Court ladies who offended them was to try and prejudice Her Majesty against us. For instance, if Her Majesty told one of the eunuchs that a certain thing should be done, instead of telling me what Her Majesty wanted, the eunuch would go off to one of the other ladies and tell her. In this way Her Majesty would get the impression that I was too lazy to wait upon her myself, and of course the other lady would get all the credit. Although Her Majesty was very kind to me, also the Young Empress, it was very hard to get along with eunuchs, and it was not good policy to offend them in any way. They regarded themselves as being exclusively the servants of Her Majesty, the Empress Dowager, and refused to take instructions from anybody else, consequently they were often very rude to the other ladies of the Court, not even excepting the Young Empress.

Everything proceeded as usual until the eighth moon, when the Emperor was to sacrifice at the "Temple of the Sun." On this occasion the Emperor wore a red robe.