The Last Empress - Anchee Min [134]
Under any other circumstances, I would have considered Pearl's request. I might even have admired her daring. But at this moment all I could see was Pearl's lack of perspective and consideration for my own and my son's safety.
In a way I felt sorry for Pearl, for she trusted in a strength of character Guang-hsu didn't possess. She saw who he might become instead of who he was.
"Take her with us," I instructed Li Lien-ying.
Several eunuchs began to tie Pearl up. She struggled, calling Guang-hsu for help.
He just looked on in despair.
"Guang-hsu," Pearl yelled, "you are the ruler of China, not your mother! The Western powers have promised to treat you with respect. Stand up for yourself!"
Li Lien-ying emptied a cart and the eunuchs hoisted Pearl into it like a sack of rice.
I ordered my son to get into his palanquin, and he obeyed.
Again we began to leave.
Smoke filled the air. The kitchen woks and lids clanged loudly as the bearers walked quickly toward the gate.
The eunuchs pushed the carts while the ladies in waiting walked alongside, carrying my belongings in baskets and cotton bags.
We didn't get far. Before we reached my own gate, Pearl broke free of the cart and ran toward Guang-hsu's palanquin. She pulled down his curtain and hit her head on the side of his palanquin, knocking down one of the bearers.
I stopped my palanquin and yelled her name. I made it clear that she was not going to stay behind.
The girl kissed Guang-hsu's feet, and then in a sudden motion she sprang back toward the Forbidden City.
Li Lien-ying took off after her.
"Leave her alone!" I called.
"My lady, Pearl is running toward the East Gate, where the foreign troops are."
"Let her," I said.
"She could be raped by the foreign soldiers!" "It is her choice."
"My lady, Lady Pearl might also mean to jump into the well."
Against all reason, I ordered our palanquins to turn around. We went after Pearl, back into the city, heading toward the well. We were not fast enough. In front of my eyes, Pearl leapt. But the well opening was too small. Pearl struggled, using her own weight to pull herself down.
"Guang-hsu!" I screamed.
Hiding inside his palanquin, my son made no response. He didn't know what was going on, or didn't want to know.
Using a knife, Li Lien-ying cut loose the longest bamboo stick of my palanquin. With the help of the other eunuchs, the stick was lowered down the well.
Li Lien-ying threw in a rope.
But Pearl was determined to have her way.
Li Lien-ying cursed and threatened. Eunuchs lit fireballs and threw them into the well, trying to smoke the girl out.
"Leave her to her wishes!" Emperor Guang-hsu cried out from his palanquin.
With Pearl's suicide on everyone's mind, we began our seven-hundred-mile journey northwestward and along the Great Wall. We pushed our carts and walked. Guang-hsu sobbed and refused my comfort.
I wondered what would have happened if I had allowed Pearl to have her way. It wouldn't do, I concluded. Once the powers succeeded in "rescuing" Guang-hsu and taking him hostage, we would lose ground in any negotiation. I would be forced to give up everything in exchange for my life, or my son would be forced to order my execution.
"I wouldn't survive either way," Guang-hsu would tell me later.
Nonetheless, my thoughts returned to Pearl as I played out what I might have said to her. She and I had shared the same fantasy, that my son and her husband had within him the power to transform himself. I had labored on that transformation since the day I adopted him. I credited myself for exposing Guang-hsu to Western ideas, and his fascination with Western culture had been my pride. But it hadn't been enough, I would have said.
I would have also let Pearl know that there are truths a mother knows about her child that she can never share with anyone else. The fact that I had been proud of Guang-hsu didn't mean that I didn't know his limitations. I had