China -- Court and courtiers -- Anecdotes; Cixi, Empress dowager of China, 1835-1908 -- Anecdotes; Empresses -- China -- Anecdotes
Her Majesty sent two eunuchs to see us the next morning, and also sent
us food and fruits. They told us that Her Majesty missed us, and had
told them to ask if we missed her. We told these eunuchs that we were
returning to the Court the next day. We stayed at home only two days and
a great many people came to see us, and kept us busy all the time. My
father suggested that we should start from the house at about 3:00 A.
M., so as to get to the Summer Palace before Her Majesty was up. We left
our house at 3:00 A. M. in total darkness, just like we had two months
before. What a change. I thought I was the happiest girl in the world.
I was told by many people, especially by the Young Empress, that Her
Majesty was extremely fond of me. I had also heard that she did not care
for young people at all. Although I was happy, I noticed that some of
the Court ladies did not like me, and they made me uncomfortable on many
occasions by not telling me just the way Her Majesty wanted the work to
be done. They smiled to each other whenever Her Majesty was saying to
my mother that she liked me, and that I was always careful in doing
anything that pleased her. I knew I was going to see those people again.
However, I made up my mind to fight my battles alone. I only wished to
be useful to Her Majesty, and would not take any notice of them.
It was a little after five o'clock when we reached the Summer Palace.
Our own eunuchs were very happy to see us again and told us that Her
Majesty was not up yet and that we had time to go to our rooms, where
they had some breakfast prepared for us. We went to see the Young
Empress first, and found she was ready to go to Her Majesty's Palace.
She was also very glad to see us, and told us that our Manchu costumes
were all ready, and that she had seen them and they were perfectly
lovely. We were very hungry, and enjoyed our breakfast immensely. After
that we went to see Her Majesty. She was awake, so we went into her
bedroom. We greeted her the same way that we did every morning, and
kowtowed to her and thanked her for all the things she had sent us while
we were at home. She sat up on the bed, smiled, and said: "Are you glad
to come back? I know everyone who comes to me and stays for a while
does not like to go away from here any more. I am glad to see you (to
my mother). How is Yu Keng?" My mother told her that my father was much
better. She asked us what we did for those two days, staying at home.
She also wanted to know whether we still remembered which day she had
chosen for us to change into our Manchu costume. We told her we knew the
date, and were looking forward to it. The eunuchs brought in three
large yellow trays, full of beautiful gowns, shoes, white silk socks,
handkerchiefs, bags for nuts, in fact the whole set, including the gu'un
dzan (Manchu headdress). We kowtowed to her, and told her we were very
much pleased with everything she had given us. Her Majesty told the
eunuchs to bring everything out for us to see.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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