Imperial Masquerade: The Legend of Princess Der Ling

16 Eunuchs and jewels

16 Eunuchs and jewels Long after Der Ling and her sister got into their silk-hung beds they stayed up discussing everything that had happened during the day. One of the stranger occurrences was a confidence shared with the sisters by the eunuch who escorted them to their residence. Cixi had arranged for Louisa and her daughters to have four eunuch attendants, whose supervisor was their escort. Der Ling noticed that certain doorways had been walled over between where their pavilion was and where the emperor lived, and asked why this was. “He smiled,” she remembered, and said: “ ‘You will have to learn a lot before you find out this wicked place.’” The eunuch pointed out that the passageway between the emperor’s and the Young Empress’ residences had been blocked up, so that the only way they could see each other was to do so by first going through Cixi’s own palace complex. In fact, within the emperor’s residence, the Hall of Jade Billows, can still be seen a wall which was built on the pavilion’s west side, blocking all exits — doors and windows — to the lake. By flickering lamplight in a dark courtyard, these stories gave Der Ling the shivers. When she told the eunuch she would like to rest, he bowed and disappeared. 150 Imperial Masquerade Der Ling was awakened from a short sleep by a rapping on her window. It was another eunuch. He announced that it was five o’clock and time for her to rise for her duties. “[M]y thoughts wandered to Paris,” she recalled, “and I thought how strange it was that I used to go to bed at 5 o’clock after the dances.”1 Then it swept over her just where she had spent the night, and “I immediately got up and opened my window and looked out,” Der Ling wrote. “The day was just dawning and the sky was a beautiful deep red which was reflected in the lake, which was perfectly calm . . . I could see Her Majesty’s peony mountain, which was literally covered with these beautiful flowers.”2 It was a moment of calm before hours of flurry. On her way to Cixi’s quarters Der Ling encountered a group of beautifully dressed young Manchu noblewomen, to whom the Young Empress introduced her, explaining that they were court ladies in training and thus were not allowed near the Empress Dowager till their grasp of etiquette was firm. Considering that Der Ling mentions having to undergo no training at all for her task of serving the Empress Dowager, save what she had learned at home, the comparative ease with which she had penetrated the court must have rankled in some of these young women as well as in the more seasoned ones. (Rong Ling’s memoirs of many years later do point out that the girls and Louisa had a crash course in court etiquette from Prince Qing; why Der Ling did not mention this in Two Years in the Forbidden City, or whether Rong Ling was fabricating the lessons received, we cannot know.) Der Ling says the Young Empress told them they would have to help Cixi dress for the day. On reaching her bedroom, they found the dowager still in her ornately carved bed, which like most traditional northern Chinese beds was built over a brick kang, a furnace that could be fired up to keep the occupant warm on cold winter nights. The dowager’s bedding was just as eye-catching. She slept on three yellow brocade mattresses, Der Ling records, with several satin coverlets in various colors, over which was placed a yellow satin quilt embroidered with golden dragons. The bed was crowded with pillows of all shapes and sizes, and one that particularly drew Der Ling’s attention: stuffed with flowers, this pillow had a square opening in the middle, into which Cixi could fit her ear and thus, theoretically, hear even in her sleep. This petal-filled pillow was 151 Eunuchs and jewels just one of many fragrant objects strewn on or near the bed: its frame was strung with dozens of scent-saturated gauze sachets. “The odor from these bags was very strong,” Der Ling recalled, “and made one feel sick until they became used to it.” To her surprise and apprehension, Der Ling was asked by Cixi if she would like to...