Ma Wei Slope

II

I am a woman of a village which I shall not name. My given names are Winter Cherry, and the name of my family does not matter, for when once a girl has entered the palace of the Emperor, her name and her origin may be forgotten.

I am eighteen years old.

When I lived with my parents I was brought up to read and write, to know what was good poetry and what was not. On my father’s estate I learned the elements of husbandry: in my father’s house I learned to play the flute, to embroider silk, to weave and sew. All these learnings are now of no use to me, who must strive only to attend to those things which go to joy the Emperor, whom I have only seen at a distance. The Empress lives, unseen, in her own palace: only sometimes do we hear the shout of bearers as she goes, screened, to diminish boredom by movement.

Here, in the Palace Park, there are no men that are men, save the occasional poet whom the Emperor fancies for a quarter-of-an-hour walk and who is supposed, when in the Emperor’s company, to be no more of a man than are the others, like Han Im, who organise and rule this world of girls.

Capricious, beautiful, willow amongst weeds, Mistress Yang Kuei-fei occupies and has long occupied the Emperor’s time and thoughts. So it has been since she first came. No more does the Son of Heaven attend to matters of State: these are swept from his attention by her immediate presence.

Sometimes I see two swallows together, and envy them. Then I weep.

WINTER CHERRY.

Chang-an.

The Sixth Moon.