"Empress" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sa Shan)

THREE

Heaven and Earth, sun and moon, day and night, man and woman… in this world where yin and yang repel and attract each other, the energy of duality is all-powerful. The heart of the Empire, the Absolute Master’s estate, did not escape cosmic law. The Outer City, which was dedicated to administration, was the very opposite of the Inner Palace, which was devoted to pleasure. In the former, where there were no women, the Son of Heaven governed as leader of all the officials and generals and fulfilled his duties as high priest by performing rites throughout the year. In the second, the male sex was banished, and only the sovereign, relieved of his sacred duties, drank of the exquisite loveliness of the ten thousand beauties.

In the Outer City, there were soldiers from guards’ regiments stationed beneath awnings, each with his brocade tunic under a bronze breastplate, his saber in his leather belt, his bow bound with rattan, and his arrows dipped in crimson stain. The successions of magnificent buildings with tiles of glazed turquoise and green were a solemn, majestic sight. Their imposing proportions represented celestial harmony, their clean lines symbolized earthly fertility. The architecture in the Inner Palace was less conventional. The more gifted master-builders had tried their hand at fantasy and had ventured into exuberance. Martial strength had stepped down; grace and indolence pervaded everything. My eyes, so accustomed to the dimensions of our rustic homes, had to adapt to the excesses here. My nose, which knew the smells of the countryside, could not recognize the subtle fragrances of exotic fruits and rare flowers. There were birds whose cages were like palaces of gold, dispensing their trills with virtuosity. I discovered the heady pleasures of touch: silk, crepe, satin, brocade, velvet, muslin, gauze, fine porcelain, the coolness of jade dishes, the warmth of lacquered trays, the shimmer of golden goblets, and showers of petals.

There were two long narrow courtyards attached to the Inner City, like two arms protecting a body: The Eastern Palace, the residence of the Imperial Heir and his close government; and on the western side, the Side Quarters reserved for the Court ladies.

The Side Court was a kingdom within the Empire, a painted box inside a golden trunk; it was a labyrinth of tiny rooms separated by walls of adobe clay, bamboo hedges, and narrow passageways. Official pavilions, little gardens, tunnels of wisteria, and countless bedrooms were linked by long covered galleries. Thousands of women came and went with a rustling of sleeves and a murmuring of fans, without ever exposing themselves to the sun or the rain. Imperial hierarchy was scrupulously respected despite the confines of that overpopulated world. The further down someone was on the social scale, the smaller her room, the simpler the decor, and the more modest the furniture. The slave quarter was packed with ramshackle little houses, gloomy rooms, and cold beds; the women there were like insignificant stitches in a vast embroidery.

Nestling under ancient trees, my room was dark; it gleamed with draperies and opened onto a veranda. From my ivory bed I could look through the gauze curtains held up by gold hooks and watch the square of sky marked out by the little courtyard I shared with three other Talented Ones. At dusk, when the sun lingered behind the double ramparts, I could see scattered sparrows spiraling through the inky blueness.

IN KEEPING WITH my rank, the Court granted me two servants and a governess-a strict, cold woman who managed to give me orders while still entrenched in her inferior position. Ruby and Emerald were twins. They were the daughters of a poor family, and their father had entrusted them to a dealer called Zhang who ran a flourishing trade in the West of the Capital that supplied the Court and dignitaries’ families with the prettiest young girls. In the evening, as they uncoiled my hair, they whispered the secrets of the Palace to me. This was how I learned that the imperial servants were not real men: Their parents had cut off their virile parts before selling them to Court. I also discovered that Governess, who was of noble birth, had been the wife of a lord who fought under the standard of the Sui dynasty. After their defeat, the men of her clan had been executed, and she had to become an imperial slave.

In the Palace of Celestial Breath, I followed the training given to new women at Court. The great curtsey, the minor curtsey, greetings of respect, greetings of condescension, greetings from equal to equal, the quick walk, the slow walk… there was no spontaneity in the Forbidden City. Natural responses were considered the premise of the people and of Barbarians; all the elegance of our movements derived from the height of restraint. Looking, eating, drinking, sitting down, sleeping, rising, speaking, listening-the most elementary acts in life were meticulously regulated by superstitious and aesthetic codes.

Inner thoughts had to be impregnated with the same rigorous austerity. Moral observance exemplified delicacy of mind; perversion was a crime that could lead to death. One hundred prohibitions were written in fine calligraphy on a ten-panel screen. The study of Inner Law was supplemented by reading Behaviour of a Lady at Court by the Empress of Learning and Virtue.

I was improving my skills in music and dance. The directives for clothing taught me to distinguish between the nine official hierarchies-thanks to the variations in colors and the way things were worn.

The moon filled out and wasted away. The trees had already lost their leaves. I lamented my awkwardness, and I envied the more lowly servants who seemed to move around me with such grace and ease. Despite my efforts, my muscles were still taut; I walked too quickly; I could not distribute my weight between my toes and my heels; my inclinations, my prostrations, and my stride lacked reserve-I could not shake off a rough-hewn animal brutality.

The Palace of Celestial Breath grew busier as more new recruits to inner service arrived. These included Talented Xu, whose reputation preceded her: She was the daughter of a learned family and had started talking at just five months. At four she could already comment on Confucius’ Discussions and recite the poems in the Anthology. At eight she started writing and created this verse in the style of songs favored by the ancient kingdom of Chu: “I contemplate the deep, luxurious forest; caressing the branches of the blossoming cinnamon tree, I address the mountain that has lived a thousand years and ask: why this loneliness?”

One winter morning, she finally appeared. Buried in a cape of mauve satin lined with silver fox, her face looked tiny and extraordinarily pale. Her eyes were so long and slanting they reached her temples and were like two timid dashes of calligraphy. She coughed a good deal, and her sickly beauty softened even the surliest of the instructors. From the very first day, she was granted the privilege to withdraw when she deemed that she was tired. According to rumor, she was the one in our group who would be favored by the Emperor. She was a year older than me and had a quiet, learned way about her and all the mysterious charm of a woman who is already promised to someone. She had no difficulty carrying out the Court movements accurately and with a delicate grace. A good many girls buzzed around her, and she soon had a devoted band of admirers as well as a collection of rivals who were quick to criticize her. Not knowing how to approach her, I kept my distance; I feigned indifference.

At night, in my dreams, my former life went on. I walked those strange corridors of time and went back to my childhood. On the banks of the River Long, the wind danced with the huge waves. On my horse, I would fly higher and freer than the seagulls. Waking was brutal. My heart would stop. I was so dazed I would forget who I was and where I was. Then, gradually, the distress would intensify and become harrowing. The chill of the Forbidden City would overrun me.

The pages of life that had already turned could not be opened again.

SINCE THE DEATH of the Empress of Learning and Virtue two years previously, the title of Mistress of the World was still unclaimed. In the Side Court, it was said that Great Chancellor Wu Ji, who was the brother of the noble deceased, had such a tight hold on the government that he would never allow another family to sully her throne. The sovereign had in fact wanted to invest Precious Wife, the daughter of Emperor Yang of the overthrown dynasty and already the mother of two princes, but the ministers of the Outer Court refused to swear loyalty to a descendant of the enemy clan. Then the Emperor’s favorite, Yang, was singled out and promoted to Gracious Wife after giving birth to a son. Once again the ministers criticized her because, while in the gynaeceum, she had served the King of Qi who was later killed in a coup. A sullied woman would never be sovereign of China.

But even the most powerful of men could not contain the ambitions of women obsessed with childbearing and fascinated by the dignity of rank. The ten thousand women in the Side Court were ten thousand flowers desperately dreaming of spring. Whether carefully planted out in pots or crudely sown in wasteland, they wilted in the harsh atmosphere of constant waiting, the deprivation of an endless winter. A sniffle, a shiver, a migraine, or a stomachache was enough to cull these souls so worn down with hoping. There were no old women with white hair in the Side Court. Every day the dead were left by the North Gate. Somewhere, far from the ramparts of the Capital, in the cemetery for Imperial Serving Women, slumbered adolescents who had never seen anything of the world and mature women who, poor creatures, had been too familiar with melancholy.

The pathways in the Side Court wound around like the never-ending threads of a vast spider web. Our pavilions were like dead insects, and the survivors still believed in miracles. Princesses, nobles, and commoners had lost their names and were recognized only by the titles they had been given. I was Talented One Wu, an intruder in the land of gods, a pebble on a tray of fine pearls. I too aspired tentatively to the imperial bed, to be favored by the Son of Heaven.

Rumor had it that the sovereign liked fat women with double chins: I was upset that I was thin. The young girls competed over their jewels, their dresses, and their extravagances. They spent the money given to them by their families on frenzied orders. I had been robbed of my jewels to pay for my cousins’ careers. My brothers had sent me nothing. When Mother managed to send me a few small coins, I knew she had secretly sold another of her Buddhist statuettes, the only things of value she still owned. This money made me weep. How could I spend it to buy a pretty hairpin?

Winter came, and the first snow fell on the Side Court. Icicles hanging from the awnings and footprints left in the frost by the birds awakened my dormant energy. Our timetable recommended practicing sport in this season. With my coat thrown off, my sleeves pushed up, and wearing my Tatar boots, I launched myself into the snow. My strength and enthusiasm amazed the Palace intendant instructing us. He suggested I take the archery lessons that were offered to volunteers accompanying the sovereign on his hunting trips.

All the suffering I had endured melted away when I mounted a horse with the brand of the imperial stables. On the archery range, which had been swept of snow, I galloped with the urgency of a blind man hurtling toward a distant thread of light. The wind slapped my face, and the sky whipped up my thoughts. The speed freed me from the torments of frustration, and I felt my pride blossoming once more. Far from the crowd of women, the painted faces, and the affected smiles, I rediscovered the powerful pleasure of being alone.

Before the end of the year, I received my official gowns. In the absence of an Empress, the Precious Wife led the Ladies of the Inner Court and the Ladies of the Outer Court in prostrating themselves before His Majesty to give him their best wishes. Palace etiquette required us to walk with small steps and lowered eyes. Because my rank entitled me to a place far from the throne, during the salutation, I could just see a dark smudge with something resembling a face obscured by a glittering crown.

Back in the Side Court, everyone said that the Emperor wanted to meet his new mistresses and would name a date on which he would receive them. The thought of this put the Pavilion of Celestial Breath into a frenzy of excitement. Soon, one of the Great Intendants told us of the imperial summons. The day before the presentation I could not sleep. Even though I had galloped all afternoon and shot two quivers of a dozen arrows, I felt neither tired nor appeased. A thousand times I went over what I would wear, practiced my walk, and prepared answers in case His Majesty deigned to ask me anything. A thousand times I imagined my joy and pride if I were the chosen one. Mother could forget her poverty and sorrow: No one would dare humiliate her any more. As an imperial favorite and promoted to a superior rank, I would ask for permission for her to visit with Little Sister. When I bore a prince, Mother, as Royal Grandmother, would be given a palace with countless servants. As I shared my pillow with the Son of Heaven, I would remind him that Father had been a Veteran of the dynasty, companion in war to the Noble Emperor Lordly Forebear. I would beg him to grant him a posthumous title as Great Lord of the first rank.

I tried in vain to calm my teeming hopes. The more I laughed at my extravagant dreams, the more desperately I longed to reach this man coveted by his ten thousand serving women. No, I wanted neither privilege, nor favor, nor glory. I was indifferent to gold, pearls, and sumptuous palaces. I would ask nothing of the sovereign other than to be saved from this fate that condemned me to wither in silence and die, drowning in a swamp of women.

The Son of Heaven was an invincible warrior. Thanks to his dazzling victories, Emperor Lordly Forebear had been able to dethrone Sovereign Yang and inaugurate our Tang dynasty. Throughout the Empire, the people sang of his eventful battles. Recently, during the campaign against the Turks of the East, he had subjugated the barbarian leader with just one war cry. I imagined His Majesty to be powerfully built with a square face and a wide forehead. I pictured him with an intimidating glare, forceful gestures, a loud voice, and a long, well-tended beard. I did not know what I should do once in the imperial bed. We had been told we had to allow him to undress us. Would I have the strength to hold the gaze of a man who had looked Tatars in the eye? What would I feel when he touched my body with the hand that had severed thousands of heads?

I wanted him to be my freedom; I wanted him to be the luminous star throwing its light on my forehead; I wanted him to be that height toward which all my energy would be drawn so that all my ardor and devotion would be beautiful and pure.

THE OFFICERS OF protocol shouted orders in their shrill voices. The Beauties of the fourth rank, the Talented Ones of the fifth rank, and the Treasures of the sixth rank lined up in hierarchical order.

Then silence descended. We stood and waited for the Emperor who was on his way back from the Morning Salutation. Rays of sunlight filtered through the lattice-work of the closed windows and fell on the gleaming black paving stones of the floor, hundreds of wilted flowers.

At the foot of the throne, on a scarlet carpet embroidered with dragons in gold thread, sandalwood burned in three-legged bronze stoves. But the cold was a powerful eagle hovering between the beams and columns, breathing icily over us, scouring our cheeks with its wings of iron. Eyes lowered, hands clasped inside my sleeves, and bent slightly forward, I stood rigidly in the pose of respectful expectation. Time dripped past in the hydraulic clock. My hair was woven together with false hair and wound so tightly around a structure with bronze thread that it tugged at my scalp. My topknot, a cubit and a half high and decorated with five tree-shaped jewels in gold, rubies, sapphires, and other gemstones, symbols of my rank, was weighing me down. The pain crept down my back, my legs, and my arms. I shook from head to toe.

The sounds of a great commotion began, far away at first. Footsteps, coughing, then someone came into the hall. The officer of protocol announced, “The sovereign is preparing to leave the Palace of Audiences!” A wave of panic ran through the group of women who struggled to keep still. Little cries escaped from a few constricted throats. One young girl fainted. Another started to sob. Both were carried out by eunuchs.

Suddenly the musicians struck the bronze bells and sounding stones. The side doors were drawn aside, and two servants dressed in yellow brocade raised the curtains and held them back with gold-plated forked rods. An ice-cold wind filled the hall. After a long time had passed, two valets came in with incense burners and stood to the left and right of the throne. There was another long pause. Two more eunuchs appeared, carrying long-handled, round fans. The imperial servants filed in two by two, then a strident voice cut through the silence: “The Noble Sovereign of the great Tang dynasty!”

My blood froze. I fell to my knees with my forehead on the ground. The accelerated fluttering of my heart mingled with the endless rustling of satin and silk soles rubbing against the carpet, like an impetuous and inexhaustible mountain stream. At the request of the caller, I stood back up but fell to my knees again before making the great curtsey. When I recovered from the dizzying effect of the salutations, I could see through the corners of my eyes that all the candelabras had been lit. There were countless eunuchs around the throne, some carrying the long-handled fans that denoted imperial rank, others holding more everyday objects: towels, boxes of food, glasses, jugs, and bowls.

The General Intendant of the Side Court called forward the ladies of the Court by order of hierarchy and seniority. Waves of heat surged through me. I was covered in sweat. I was afraid my makeup would run, afraid I would not hear my name, afraid I would faint. I was afraid the Emperor would choose a girl ranked before me and that my one chance would vanish before it even arrived.

All of a sudden I heard: “Daughter of Wu Shi Yue, from the district of Wen Shui, in the province of Bing, Talented One Wu.”

My head buzzed. I stepped forward, eyes lowered. I made my way slowly toward the throne, and my thighs quaked beneath my dress. At the exact distance required by protocol, facing the imperial dais, I carried out the three great prostrations. At some stage in the proceedings- and I have no idea how because to look at the sovereign constituted a crime punishable by death-I glimpsed a man wrapped in a yellowish brown tunic. He wore a simple headdress of glazed white linen. I managed to make out his features in his puffy, listless face. I was overcome by a feeling of disappointment more icy than the North Wind.

One after another, all the girls were presented to the sovereign who remained silent through the entire ceremony. Each of us was accorded the same amount of time; no one was gratified with a nod, a smile, or a request to come forward and show her face. Once back in the Side Court, I spent the whole rest of the day thinking of that huge, tall hall full of mysterious frescoes. Had the Son of Heaven looked at us at all? I was not sure he had. In any event, up on his throne, how could he have seen the women’s faces under their imposing headdresses when they had to keep their heads lowered and their eyes fixed humbly on the ground?

The moon was waning in the sky. Soon it would perish only to be born again. I discovered that Talented One Xu would be received in the imperial bed. A peculiar emotion paralyzed my body like a poison. I scarcely listened to the rumors that claimed the selection had been rigged. As soon as she had arrived at the Palace, Talented One Xu had been under the wing of the Great Chamberlain who came from the same province. This eunuch, who enjoyed the sovereign’s complete trust, had engineered for all the names to be erased from the roll-call so that only his candidate was taken to the Palace of Precious Dew.

The new favorite left the Side Court where the living conditions were no longer in keeping with her rank, and she moved into the Middle Court. Something in me had died. I discovered Taoist texts that told of the purification of mind and body, of men who had become immortal, and of union with the celestial breath. I went back to my daily routine of prayers to Buddha, which had stopped when I arrived in the Palace. The world was an illusion, and all desire a source of suffering. How could I have forgotten the teachings of the Great One?

Like the moon, I would be reborn of annihilation.

THE PAVILION OF Celestial Breath closed its doors, and my young companions dispersed, each to her official duties.

The everyday life of a lady at Court was filled with banquets, dancing, and concerts; with the sequence of seasons that required changes of wardrobe; with constant trips between summer palaces and winter residences; with futile events and serious ones; and with light-hearted ceremonies and imposing ones.

The six ministries and twenty-four departments of the imperial gynaeceum had been created during the ancient Zhou dynasty, and each had a share in organizing festivities. There were pavilions that served as offices to the Great Lady Intendants, who directed countless female officials. All of them worked to make our life harmonious and pleasant. In the absence of an Empress, the Precious Wife reigned over our kingdom. She was a weak, gentle character and felt happier entrusting command to her favorite eunuch, General Intendant, in her palace. According to the rules, the four wives of the first rank were responsible for how the women behaved. Not one of these ladies deigned to be soiled by such involvement, and all of them delegated their power.

The duties of a Talented One were to keep records of feasting and days of rest, as well as ensuring that the silk worms were reared satisfactorily. Even though they were paltry tasks, I relied on these occupations to escape boredom. On the very first day, Governess informed me that she would free me from such minor concerns and explained that, from the fifth rank up, it was a woman’s duty to be at leisure.

Painted beams, gilded partitions, and fragrant powders entwined us like ivy around trees. This dull, slow life stifled our youth. The freshness and vivacity drained from my companions and me without our knowing when or how. The Court had a liking for fat women, so my companions crammed themselves with food. Their transparent white skin quivered over ample folds of fat. They spent their days perfecting their hair and makeup. Their daily walk through the Northern Gardens was becoming a ritual, and they would spend this time comparing their beauty and exchanging gossip. To escape the loneliness and monotony, some had pet cats and dogs, while others formed friendships and called each other “sister.”

There were women everywhere in the Side Court. They trod softly along the galleries, appeared and disappeared behind screens, and let their silhouettes linger on the partitions covered in rice paper. The servants observed a respectful silence, but the mistresses needed to chatter constantly to kill their boredom. A closed door or a secured shutter was tantamount to some inadmissible act, so all the bedrooms had to remain open for impromptu visits. Throughout the day, groups of Court ladies would appear from nowhere, expecting me to offer them tea and to listen to their chattering.

I found refuge in the Inner Institute of Letters where learned eunuchs gave lessons in literature, philosophy, history, geography, astrology, and mathematics to the few students who voluntarily attended their lectures. Books became wings that bore me far away from the Palace. The annals of former dynasties tore me from the immobility of the present. I lived in those vanished kingdoms and I took part in plots, galloped across battlefields, and shared in the rise and fall of heroes.

I visited the library regularly, and I sometimes would run into Talented One Xu, who had already been promoted to the rank of Delicate Concubine of the second imperial rank. I now had to give her a deep curtsey, and she replied with a condescending nod. Her body had thickened, her expression darkened. Her face had lost its poetic naivete. When she smiled at me, I could see a vague melancholy on her lips that seemed to express resentment and resignation. I longed to ask her questions but did not dare. A Delicate Concubine would never confide in a Talented One of inferior rank.

Was she not happy on the other side of the wall?

In the Side Court, I may have struggled to be like a perfect lady, but in the exercise quarters, I abandoned all civility. On horseback, with a bow in my hand, I forgot how time passed one slow drip after another, and I became one with my speeding mount and embraced the power of my arrows as they reached their target.

After each training session, I would linger a while at the stables. The eunuch grooms had become my friends: I would recite to them the poems I had read that morning, and they taught me to school foals and told me what was going on in the Palace.

That was how I discovered that, in the days when the sovereign was still only King of Qin, he had set an ambush for his older brothers at the Northern Gate, not far from the stables. The imperial heir and the King of Qi had been killed, and the Emperor Lordly Forebear had been forced to abdicate in his favor. Our sovereign had usurped the throne! Heroes seemed to attach little importance to filial devotion! I was shattered by this revelation.

And in her latest letter Mother told me that Little Sister had succumbed to an epidemic. Poorly tended by the clan, she had died. I lost my appetite; I loathed the dresses, the perfumes, the gardens. The beauty of that Palace was a screen hiding corpses and lies.

I grew thinner while all around me girls reveled in their flesh. I had grown tall and slender, a bundle of muscles on a strong frame.

ONE DAY SHE appeared. Her face was white as snow, like a perfectly circular mirror fashioned by the most adept craftsmen. Her mouth was a crimson cherry, ready to drop from the tree. Her eyes, like the long leaves of the willow, disappeared into the black hair that swept over her temples, and they glittered with a strange light. Seeing her, I forgot my own sorrow, the Side Court, and my sister’s decomposing body. I forgot that the world existed, and I understood what eternal friendship meant.

“Are you the girl who loves horses?” her clear, haughty voice woke me from my torpor. “Do you not greet the Gracious Wife?”

I bent my knees and leaned right down to the ground. When I stood back up, she looked me straight in the eye. The other women’s eyes were water, ice, fire, and rock; she alone had eyes full of mists and vapors.

“My little cousin, I have heard stories of you,” she said, pronouncing each word carefully. Her lips were two petals of red grenadine. “I shall take care of your instruction, my little, wild one.”

A mysterious smile appeared in the corners of her mouth, and she left me where I stood: Followed by a dozen servants and ladies-in-waiting, she disappeared into the trees.

That evening I could still see her smooth face; so pure it was almost childlike, her dresses of layered silk and muslin in exquisitely subtle shades. She wore her hair in the shape of a butterfly adorned with the most beautiful jewels I had ever seen. How old was she? I did not know. In the Inner Palace, ladies were careful to hide their age. She was timeless.

We were related through my mother’s family. But, in the Side Court, everyone knew that Father had been an ennobled commoner, a wood merchant who had become a dignitary. Was it a mark of respect or out of irony that she had called me cousin? But she too had a dark stain on her past. She had been a concubine to the King of Qi, the third son of the Emperor Lordly Forebear, who was killed at the Northern Gate and stripped of his princely title. Along with the other women in his retinue, she had come into the Side Court as a slave. The new sovereign had taken her to his bed, she had delivered a boy child, and he had offered her the title of wife.

I enjoyed imagining the King of Qi’s palace surrounded by his own brother’s army: In the gynaeceum eunuchs wailing lamentations, women fleeing to their rooms, and wet nurses hiding the king’s sons. Soon the clatter of weapons echoed around the palace, fierce-faced soldiers broke into the inner apartments where no man had dared tread before. They ransacked pavilions, strangled male children, looted treasure, and dragged concubines out by their hair. In all this furious assault, jostled, chained, and wracked with sobs of fear, my cousin was like pear blossom damaged by the rain and sullied in the mud. A feeling of intense suffering and, yet, nameless pleasure swept over me. I could see her face streaming with tears. I could picture her insulted and violated by the soldier’s crude and penetrating stares. They thought she was beautiful. They threw her at their master’s feet, at the feet of the future sovereign of the empire. He commanded her to expose her white bosom, her belly soft as a turtle dove; he ordered her to dance, writhe, and grovel at his feet. His hands, still warm with blood, caressed her, he sprayed her with his seed. Humiliated and violated, she had to smile, to love, to please.

My body was on fire. I let the full voluptuous pleasure of this poor tortured woman overcome me. Inch by inch, from my toes to the top of my head, my cousin devoured me, made me quiver, glided over my skin. I drank her as a child drinks milk.

THE GRACIOUS WIFE lived on the other side of the wall, in the Middle Court, in one of the palaces surrounded by purple walls with ancient acacias and cypress trees towering over them. She lived in a garden that a modest Talented One was forbidden to enter. For her, virgins picked the delicately colored clouds at dusk to weave with, and palace seamstresses cut out the finest of dresses. Embroiderers with needles of diamonds and threads of sunlight created enchanted images. The divine wife bathed in waters fragranced with extract of moonlight, and she inhaled the breath of the stars. Such a delicate, diaphanous goddess did not eat vulgar, earthly food. The bees offered her their honey, and fruits longed to be chosen to melt on her tongue. When she was thirsty, she moistened her lips on morning dew harvested on lily petals. When she smiled, flowers blanched in jealousy and leaves fell from the trees to kiss the tips of her feet.

She had told me that she would take care of my instruction. Even though she was a distant noble and even though I had no reason to, I believed her. She was the gift that the heavens had sent to console me in suffering. Her misty eyes and indolent voice would soothe the incandescent fires of my tortured life. In her I would find some protection, a screen of silk painted with fabulous landscapes to camouflage death and sorrow. She would teach me to be a woman, and I would offer her my arrogant pride on bended knee!

In fact my longing to see her again supplanted every other agony. Freed from the anguish of mourning, I was now enslaved by a new torment. I did not know this was being in love: Taut as an archer’s bow, my soul distended with expectation, my desire tightly coiled, my stomach tensed.

I started to take an interest in my appearance and in what girls wore. In the mornings, I would look at myself in the mirror with her eyes, with her words in my ear. “Do you like me like this?” I would whisper to her in my heart. At night, I lay down with her, in her arms, in the soft waves of her hair.

At the Inner Institute of Letters, I leafed through books trying to find a diagnosis for my illness. The ancient philosophers spoke only of virtue, wisdom, and immortality. I searched through the Annals in vain for similar anecdotes. The official literature in our vast library was filled with dry words, harsh thoughts, and moralizing pronouncements. Our ancestors had built a civilization where affection and tenderness were prohibited. Luckily there were the poets whose words traveled across time and poured limpid delight into my heart. I found my own desperate adoration expressed in their odes to mountain goddesses and water spirits.

When I drew an arrow, I hoped to dazzle her with my strength. I would have liked to give her every horse I schooled. An imperial decree ordered for a female polo team to be formed: I was quick to enlist in the hope that one day she would smile down at me from her imperial tribune. My loneliness was now like a velvet coat in which I wrapped myself so I could better devote my soul to her. I told her about my childhood and asked her a thousand questions. The answers I imagined for her made me feel less alone, not so sad. I needed to see her. My intuition could not be wrong: We would see each other again!

My cousin, the Gracious Wife, continued to be invisible as the air around me. The memory of her was like an old song that I obsessed over but whose notes were gradually melting away. Spring was drawing to an end. The cherry blossom scattered pink and mauve tears on the wind. She had sent me no messenger. Every day the image of her darkened a little more, and her snowy whiteness became a hazy shadow, but I still clung to it to breathe, to live, and to escape from the Side Court and its swarming women.

Days went by, and I turned my entrails into a deep reservoir, collecting this new brand of suffering, drop by drop. My skin was smoother, my hair blacker, my hips more rounded. My breasts swelled beneath my tunic, and people watched me as I walked. More and more women paid court to me, but not one of them thrilled me in the same way, and I coolly rejected their friendship. How could these flitting fireflies touch me when I was promised to her, the motionless star?

A gloomy, gray summer began. The cicadas screeched furiously in the trees. The suffocating heat continued in the night. Tossing and turning on my bed of woven bamboo, I decided to forget her.

The emperor was leaving to spend the summer at his Residence of Nine Merits. All the pavilions started dismantling, packing, and wrapping. Every woman took her own animals, her furniture, her books, and her crockery. I leaned against the balustrade on the terrace and watched my governess scolding the servants. Birds fluttered in their cages, and eunuchs went back and forth to my room bringing out huge trunks. All the commotion seemed so far away.

A young valet in a robe of yellow brocade followed Emerald up the steps. He came over to me and bowed deeply: “The mistress of the Palace of Splendid Dawn, the Gracious Wife Yang, wishes to see you.”

My heart leapt: She was coming to me when I had stopped thinking of her. My cousin had asked to meet me the following morning in the Northern Garden, by the Pond of Pearls, to feed the goldfish. I stayed awake all night, unable to believe my happiness. I was terrified by the thought that I might not be beautiful enough, fragrant enough, intelligent enough. At dawn, when I had been dressed and made-up, I listened for the first morning bells announcing that the Side Gate would be open so that I could rush to my appointment.

The mist had not yet lifted in the Northern Garden. The first rays of sunlight infused between the sky and the land, a color wash of dancing pinks, ochres, mauves, and yellows. A pond emerged slowly from the darkness, a mirror of bronze. A long gallery zigzagged over its rippling waters, between the emerald leaves of the lotuses. Seeing my shadow over the water, the fish began to gather. These impatient creatures would have to learn to savor the waiting.

The sun burned off the mists, and a blue sky gradually revealed itself. At my feet, a great meadow of flowers sloped gently down to a new gallery around a raised pavilion. There were a few peonies still opening, the lilac bloomed with furious abandon, and the pomegranate trees were covered in crimson-colored buds. The morning dew quivered on leaves, adding its sparkle to the delight in my heart. The gardening women, dressed in orchid blue and pale pink, were beginning their work. The first concubines to rise came and went through the wood of weeping willows. A group of eunuchs came over to the pond. They scattered grain in the water. The heat was rising. I waved my fan with little effect: My brow was covered in sweat, and my dress was drenched. I stood scouring all four horizons, and my heart quaked at every movement. I thought of going back and changing my clothes, but the fear of missing my appointment nailed me to the spot.

Had she fallen ill? Perhaps, in my euphoria, I had the wrong day. Who had sent that eunuch? Was it a cruel joke?

Ruby woke me from my torpor when she came to tell me that lunch was served. That evening I discovered that the emperor had decided to leave with his favorites in the cool of first light.

THE STARS RIPPLED up above the mountains. Beneath the waves of the Silver River, pavilions, and pagodas, the women and the trees became fish. The summer palace was our aquarium. Despite the cool air and the scent of nocturnal flowers, I could not sleep. In the mountains, there was no archery training and no polo ground. My muscles jittered and maddened me. Ruby and Emerald lay on my doorstep chatting. Their muffled whispering drifted through the gauze curtain and filled the room.

In the Middle Court, the emperor had grown weary of capricious women, and he now cherished only Delicate Concubine Xu. The abandoned wives now waged a communal war against her. The poetess had just lost a boy child in the eighth month: Rumors abounded that she had been poisoned and that the blame lay with one of the jealous favorites. Since our missed appointment, I had had no news of the Gracious Wife. Caught as she was in the torments of intrigue, when would she have time to think of me?

The summer passed. I no longer believed I had anything to wait for. My journey back to Long Peace was one long monotonous swaying of my carriage. I could not wait to see my horse again. The day after our return, a messenger from the Gracious Wife burst into my room: Her Highness was waiting for me to visit; she was free at the end of every afternoon.

Escorted by Ruby and Emerald, I went to her quarters that very day. Surprised by my haste, she received me in her indoor clothes. She offered me tea and asked me about how I had come to be at the palace. I stammered. Her pretty face and her body wrapped in a fragrant cloud made me feel uncomfortable. Beneath her grenadine red tunic, she wore a dress of chrysanthemum yellow muslin through which I could see her shoulders and the tops of her naked breasts. A long shawl of pale green crepe was wound around her arms and hung limply on the floor. With no wig or framework, she had coiled her hair into a lazy topknot and pierced this black mound with a pin bearing a pearl the size of a quail’s egg.

Seeing her so happy and animated, I forgot the purpose of my visit: to warn her of the danger that lay in wait for her. The spiteful rumors accused her of being the poisoner. She had to defend herself! Her misty gaze drifted over me, and this haze of languor was a disguise for her dark eyes probing me.

Suddenly she spoke to me: “My cousin, do you already have an older sister?”

I shook my head to mean no.

“Why not? All the girls in the Side Court have sisters.”

I flushed so deeply that I felt my ears burning. How could I tell her that I wanted to remain faithful to her?

“You are not beautiful,” she went on. “But there is something unusual about you that is very striking. The way you look, your body… Has a woman ever offered to take you in hand?”

Then she leaned closer to me and whispered in my ear: “Have you ever been kissed?”

I wanted to be swallowed up by the ground.

“Come, I’ll show you my secret garden.”

She stood up and I followed her, with my eyes lowered. I heard her flash an impetuous order at my servants: “You may go home. Tell your governess that I shall keep my cousin here to dine. I shall send her back later.”

I was ashamed and embarrassed, unable to breathe a word.

After going through a string of rooms and courtyards, she pushed open a crimson door set into a wall painted with the white of pear trees in blossom. The servants stopped and closed the door behind us. There were mauve lanterns lighting a walkway that ran past pomegranate trees laden with fruit on one side and went around a pond covered with lotus flowers on the other.

She took my hand and led me toward a pavilion. My heart beat frantically, and I no longer had any strength in my arms. I sensed that something was about to happen, and it was too late to flee.

The door opened onto a mysterious embracing perfume. I saw a hexagonal room with the dusk filtering through the windowless wooden walls in which craftsmen had carved thousands of apertures in the shape of five-petaled flowers.

“I had this pavilion built so that I could watch the sunset without being dazzled. It’s the only time of day when the sky is a faithful reflection of life. Look over there, look at the crimson, the deep red, the violet, the scarlet. Tonight, somewhere in our empire, innocent blood is flowing!”

I opened my eyes wide. In that eruption of red and gold, I could make out her face, a hazy circle of black drawing closer. She took me in her arms. I was amazed when I felt her tongue probing my mouth. She leaned the full weight of her body against me, and I fell down into the cushions with her. Her expert hands untied my belt and peeled off my dress, trousers, and silk slippers.

“Undress me,” she said.

I did not know that when sisters slept together they had to be naked, but I obeyed her without hesitating. She removed the golden pin with the pearl, and her long hair tumbled endlessly over her neck. She lay down on this sheet of gleaming hair and drew me on top of her. She put her hand between my thighs. Almost before I felt the agile serpents of her fingers, I gave an involuntary groan.

I started to cry over this undeserved happiness, this little corner of love in my lonely life. My sobbing aroused my cousin. She slid against my body, whispering instructions. I did as she asked. I imitated what she did and watched her face express itself with smiles or frowns. She was trembling and peculiarly tense. Her cheeks grew red and droplets of sweat formed on her brow. The sun slipped off her body. It lingered on the ceiling for a moment, then disappeared through the partitioned wall. She lay in the dark, no longer moving. She was silent for a long time. I was starting to think that she might be dead when she rubbed the flint and lit a candle. Her face was framed by her messy hair, and she looked pale as a ghost.

“I hate night time,” she said darkly. “The shades are my enemies. I know that all these women are jealous of my beauty, and they wait until it’s dark to cast evil spells over me. Can you hear their voices?”

The garden was quiet; I could hear the rustle of leaves, the earth breathing. But she blocked her ears with her hands to escape the malevolent incantations. In the candlelight the roses of her breasts were so pale that her body seemed almost unreal. Then her face was filled with a grimace of pain, as if a strident sound had just pierced her ear-drums; she shuddered and whipped her hands away. A strange snigger of distress distorted her face, and she started throwing the cushions we had been lying on to the four corners of the room. It was only then that I saw that the floor was made of bronze and mercury-it was a mirror.

“Spread your legs,” she said, bringing the candle closer. “Look!”

It was the first time I had seen it, seen that cleft: hairy, convoluted, red-a monstrous lesion.

“Have a good look. It’s with that hideous mouth that they sing, they curse, and they spit their venom! Can’t you hear their hideous music?”

I tried to put my arms around her. She slapped me and started screaming: “Go away! Go away! You disgust me! You’re just a whore, a spy from the Delicate Concubine, a poisoner! Go away!”

“Highness, you’re wrong, I mean you no harm. I love you.”

I knelt before her with my forehead to the ground. She spat at me like a fury and struck me repeatedly. I hid my face in my hands and wept. Then she collapsed, exhausted; the demon left her, and her lucidity was restored. She crawled over to me and begged me to kiss her. We made love again, but I no longer felt anything. Suddenly she started moaning as if in her death throes, and she drenched me in her moment of ecstasy.

IN THE SIDE City eyes were constantly spying, ears constantly listening: Soon I was treated to mysterious smiles expressing irony and envy. A feeling of pride mingled with aching sorrow overwhelmed me. What did they know of this wounded, damaged woman’s madness? When I kissed the Gracious Wife, I believed I was tasting of some delicacy, but I was just drinking the first draught of a terrible poison. I went over the events of that late afternoon a thousand times, throwing myself into that incandescent pavilion as a fisherman throws his net into the river. As I studied every moment, slowly, minutely, forgotten details emerged. Pleasure, shuddering, uneasiness, disgust-the most contradictory emotions caught at my throat in the day and kept me awake at night.

I was determined not to see her again, not to go back to that abyss that swallowed the sunlight, but this woman who was in thrall to demons could surely read the secrets in my heart. Days passed, and I received no further invitation, and absence-that wily magician-turned my aversion to desire. Daily life came to the fore again, with all its weariness and filth. The women around me were walking wounds. I felt an urgent longing to love, to raise myself to the skies through whatever obsession brought me new hope. The Gracious Wife was a lie, a liberating lie!

The violence erased itself from my memory, and only her astonishing beauty remained to obsess me. What torture it was to feel her gentle breasts on my face and her stomach soft as a newly hatched chick only to wake from this impotent dream! I now missed her cries of ecstasy that had frightened me. At night I smelled the air to try and catch the scent of her hair. One strand at a time, it slid over my breast, but I could not hold it. My life had become more unbearable than before I knew her. Now, I had to stand by my choice even if it would be the death of me!

One afternoon, in the grip of madness, I ran to her palace. She received me with no sign of surprise. We had barely exchanged a few polite words before she dismissed her servants, led me to the Pavilion of Dusk, and pushed me to the floor. She lay on top of me, and once again I let myself be beaten. Her pleasure became more intense as she inflicted more pain and humiliation on me. I cried. I hated myself. I despised myself for loving such a monster. My tears fuelled her ecstasy. When she had mortified me with insults, when she had stripped me, abused me, and violated me, she sent me back to the women in the Side Court.

I had become her slave. She who understood the strength of silence never called me. My wounds barely had time to heal before I hurried back to her. Sometimes I found her palace empty: She had left; she was serving the imperial bed. My stomach constricted, and my limbs turned to stone. In the emperor’s arms, she was a servile slave! I would go back to my world, devastated, dead.

She was not interested in horses, books, or her little boy, the beautiful prince with such sad eyes. She loved jewels, dresses, and tiny little dogs with curly coats. Before making love she was charming, all smiles, gentle. She touched up my makeup, dressed me, made me blush with her shameless jokes. But naked she would gradually go mad, insulting me and trampling over me. It was only when she had unleashed onto me her loathing for all humanity that she reached a form of release, a voluptuous happiness. The Pavilion of Dusk was my torture chamber. She forced strangers on me, girls I did not desire. In that accumulation of mouths and breasts, above the mirror that multiplied the gaping orifices further, she would beat me until I bled. The other women would fondle one another as they watched me. They were naked, with their heads between one another’s thighs, their bodies writhing in the blaze of sunlight, shrieking with pleasure; and I felt only loathing.

The seasons changed. I silenced my pain, my body stiffened, my heart was sickened, but still I feigned rapture. There was nothing left to say between us. The tender words had given way to repetitive moans, the fascination had been tarnished by a wearied eroticism. Her gaze was not so misty now; her face was harder. I found her ugly, and she was tiring of my battered body. My visits became less frequent, but I did not know how to bring an end to this liaison. I pitied her: Without me, without my strong muscles that were the lure to her demon, how could she achieve physical gratification? And without that gratification, how could she live?

One evening when I went to her palace, her keepers told me that their mistress was out. When I went back past her door after nightfall, I saw a girl coming out. I hid behind a tree and saw the same servants who used to take me back to the Side Court helping her along, lighting her way with lanterns. I recognized a Forest of Treasure who had arrived at Court a month earlier. She staggered as she walked. Her tears were barely audible, but they reached my ears. While the keepers were distracted, I slipped into the palace and crept into the Pavilion of Dusk.

Through the petal-shaped apertures, I could see there were so many candelabras that the room was lit up as if it were midday. She was lying naked on the cushions, musing happily and eating fruit while the servants massaged her legs. I knocked down the door, pushed aside the terrified girls, and sat astride her. My hands tightened around her neck, and I strangled her with all my might. She struggled. Her face turned purple, and her eyes rolled back in their sockets. The women threw themselves at me in vain, and I abandoned her when I thought she was dead.

That night I dreamt of the sun-bleached skull of a horse. The dark cavities of its eyes, so like a woman’s avid orifice, stared at me. I woke screaming. There was blood on my bed: I had just had my first menses.

The Gracious Wife had foreseen this stain in me. She had plucked me in my innocence and betrayed me when I was reduced to corruption. The following day Governess arranged a ceremony to celebrate my reaching fertility. She burned the stained corner of the sheet, then made me drink the ashes blended with warm wine. The women of the Side Court gave me gifts and paid me compliments. My cousin had regained consciousness but was still in bed; she sent me an enamel box containing a pearl necklace and this poem:

I sent back the necklace with a note:

The treasures of the ocean Must return to the night Of furious waves.

I stopped seeing her.

THE GRACIOUS WIFE had passed on to me her refined taste in clothes and her experienced eye with women. In that Court so full of extraordinary beauties, I decided to perfect my appearance. My skin was tanned by the sun; my figure was slim with bronzed muscles. I was like a challenge to those pale faces and concealed bodies. My energetic stride sneered at their sickly little footsteps. In contrast to the profusion of jewels, muslins, and embroidered shoes with upturned points, I had my tunics of heavy cloth tailored to fit closely, and my archer’s wrists were free of any jewelry. To other women the choice of clothes was a form of ingenious exhibition, a shameless seduction. To me, dresses were like a breastplate that I put on to set off to war against this life.

I was complimented on my elegance, my skin color, my features. I found consolation in a string of casual affairs, girls who, unlike the Gracious Wife, afforded me some pleasure. My memories of the Pavilion of Dusk burned through my entrails. I succeeded in using my charms like a weapon; I learned to play with others’ hearts and to master my own desires.

The snow fell, and the days were short and sunless. On the night of the New Year Banquet, I saw my cousin dancing up on a dais between firework displays carried on the heads of two acrobats. Her silhouette swayed and twirled between those sparkling showers, like a bird hovering in its cage decorated with precious stones.