SCENE VII
_The_ EMPEROR. _The_ EMPRESS
[_The_ EMPEROR _enters and approaches her. The_ EMPRESS, _her eyes lowered, stands motionless._]
EMPEROR
Daughter of Heaven, deign to raise your eyes to gaze upon the heart-broken conqueror who bows before you. Deign to look and to recognise him. Doubtless you will remember him. But can you feel anything save utter hatred for him?
EMPRESS
[_Far away, her eyes still lowered._] To recognise him, I do not need to hear his voice again nor to gaze upon his face. The light has dawned upon my mind during the hours of my captivity. Before I was brought in here, I knew full well into whose presence I was coming.
[_A silence, during which the EMPEROR remains bowed before her._]
EMPRESS
To the Daughter of the Mings, what message can the Tartar Emperor have?
EMPEROR [_Seeing her hands bound with the silken cord_]
Oh! but your hands are tied! I ordered that to save you from yourself. But now! [_He approaches, yet hesitates to touch her hands. The_ EMPRESS _draws back, gazing at him for the first time._] Oh! pardon----Before you, in the depth of my grief, I had forgotten. I had almost dared to touch your bruised hands. And yet you are more sacred to me here than there in Nanking, in all your splendour. [_He strikes the gong softly. An_ OFFICIAL _appears._]
EMPEROR [_To the_ OFFICIAL]
Let the Governess of the Palace come here at once! [_To the_ GOVERNESS, _as she enters and prostrates herself._] Untie the hands of the Empress, and then go.
[_The_ GOVERNESS _obeys and goes out. A pause._]
Your voice is no longer yours. Your eyes are no longer yours. You stand here before me, yet your soul seems to be at an infinite distance. I did not expect to find you so, and you frighten me. The Majesty of death is upon you.
EMPRESS
They are calling to me from the Land of the Shades. Allow me to cross the threshold soon, from you I can accept no mercy. My faithful ones, my warriors, are wondering at my delay in rejoining them, and my son is listening to catch the echo of my footfall behind him on the dark path.
EMPEROR
Your son!----Ah! Your son! Who has mourned him more than I, excepting only you? Ten of my couriers, my swiftest horsemen, were sent at once, riding their horses night and day, spurring them to death, leaving their corpses by the roadside, in a frantic effort to arrive in time and avert the evil which could not be repaired----
EMPRESS
What was achieved? Where is the body of my little son?
EMPEROR
It is now in an imperial hearse, making its slow way to the north, preceded by funeral music, followed by a thousand dignitaries in costumes of state befitting the rank of a young sovereign.
EMPRESS
And where are they taking him, my son?
EMPEROR
To those inviolable forests where the Tartar Emperors repose. There, in a vale, which the spade of men has never touched, two leagues of dark cedars will envelope in their silence, his tomb built all of porcelain.
EMPRESS
Will you grant me the favour to sleep near him?
EMPEROR [_Very gently, speaking like a child_]
But----in accordance with the custom of the Empresses, you will yourself choose the site and scene in the forest and will have the long marble avenues built----so that all may be in readiness when your hour strikes.
EMPRESS
My hour _has sounded_--ah! many days ago. I heard it, but my hands were tied and your guards were ever about me. Now you will give me my last freedom, will you not? so that I may join all the dead heroes who are awaiting me. To keep me back would be unworthy of you, my noble enemy. You would not do that!----
EMPEROR [_After a pause_]
Keep you back, you?----O! no, not I----But your duty----Daughter of the Mings, you are incapable of failing in your duty!
EMPRESS [_Excitedly at last_]
My duty! What duty? Already have I been decoyed by that word. They urged me thereby to flee like a common woman beset by fear. While all my brave defenders knew how to die heroically, my soldiers, my princes, even my ladies-in-waiting, I like a coward escaped through the subterranean passages of my palace----to fulfil my duty! It was the hour when my soldiers were falling by the thousand, struck down by yours, when my walls were crumbling under the assault of your armies----the draught of the Great Deliverance had been brought me in a cup, and I was calm as I am now--but smiling. I was about to raise the cup to my lips, to pass beyond the reach of all, proud and inviolable, in my imperial attire. The vaults beneath the ground, the sleeping place of my ancestors, unknown to your Tartars, stood open close at hand, and there was still time to carry me down into them----But duty! Ah! my duty, it appeared, was to flee, and I yielded----And until the day when your soldiers took me captive, I wandered on and on through the country, at the head of my defeated troops----I, the Empress, the Invisible, desecrating my majesty among all those thousands of men----marching before them like some mad woman!----
EMPEROR
Say rather that you were the sublime heroine, the great warrior-Empress, the goddess of battle, who braved arrows and bullets, and will live on eternally in poetry and history!
EMPRESS
I sought to justify my flight, that was all. I did all I could, but none can ever atone for a cowardly action. It was in my own palace that I should have met my death, in the funeral fire lighted by my own hand, in which so many heroes were consumed----My ashes should have mixed with theirs. Duty, do you say? But do you believe that I still belong to Earth? My cities are in ruins, my armies annihilated, my son dead. And at this very moment I know that one by one the heads of my few remaining soldiers are falling into the dust beneath your high Tartar walls. Then what duty remains, I ask you? [_She takes the dagger from the fold of her robe and raises her hand to strike herself._] Nothing, nothing but this! [_The Emperor rushes towards her with a cry, seizes her wrist, takes the dagger, and hurls it to the ground._] Ah! So you dare to touch me now?
EMPEROR [_Bowing very low_]
Your pardon! Only listen to me. You may die afterwards if you wish it, I promise you--but in some less terrible way----without this bloodshed. I will even furnish you the means, if you still wish it----
EMPRESS [_With sudden gentleness_]
In some less terrible way! Yes, that is what I desire. The Potion of the Great Deliverance, we sovereigns are never without it. You have it too, have you not?
EMPEROR
Night and day within easy reach, especially since you began to risk your life hourly, in the thick of the battle. I feared that I should be unable to capture alive my beautiful Phoenix of War! Be assured, we have the Deliverance. It is in this golden case, among the trinkets at my girdle.
EMPRESS
And you will give it to me?
EMPEROR
Yes.
EMPRESS
You swear it?
EMPEROR
Yes. After you have listened to me, I shall have this supreme courage. To refuse you would be unworthy of you and of myself. But, after you have heard me, only afterwards----
EMPRESS
Well, speak, sire. In return for your promise, take the last minutes in which my ears can hear, my eyes can see----