With the Empress Dowager of China

We alighted at the Foreign Office and were met by a number of officials with their interpreters, coming out to receive us. After readjusting ourselves in the waiting-room, we were met, when we came out, by the Chief Eunuch of the Palace, who conducted us to the red-covered Palace chairs, each carried by six men. They bore us past the Imperial gateway (used only for Their Majesties), through a door of entrance at the left, when we were within the sacred precincts of one of the residences of the Sons of Heaven and within the walls of the favorite Palace of the Empress Dowager! Before we could take in our surroundings, we had been rapidly carried through various courts and gardens, and had come at last to a larger, quadrangular court, filled with pots of rare blooming plants and many beautiful growing shrubs. Here the bearers put down our chairs; we descended and walked through the court, preceded and followed by a number of eunuchs. The great plate-glass doors of the Palace in front of us, blazing with the huge red character “Sho” (longevity), were swung noiselessly back, and we were at last within the Throne-room of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Dowager of China!

A group of Princesses and Ladies-in-waiting stood to receive us.

Beginning anything is momentous. Every artist knows how the wonderful possibilities of the bare canvas in its virgin purity standing before him inspires him with almost a feeling of awe; how he hesitates about beginning, so great is the responsibility. This bare canvas may become a masterpiece, the full expression of his thought, or it may come forth a maimed and distorted effort. Today in these strange surroundings, with these unusual and unfavorable conditions, my hesitancy was greater than usual; for upon this beginning depended my being able to go on with the portrait.

My hands trembled! The inscrutable eyes of the wonderful woman I was to paint, fixed piercingly upon me, were also disconcerting; but just then the eighty-five clocks in this particular Throne-room began to chime, play airs, and strike the hour in eighty-five different ways. The auspicious moment had come! I raised my charcoal and put the first stroke upon the canvas of the first portrait that had ever been painted of the Empress Dowager of Great China, the powerful Tze-Shi. The Princesses, Ladies-in-waiting, the high eunuchs and attendants, stood in breathless silence around, intently watching my every movement, for everything touching Her Majesty is a solemnity.

For a few moments I heard the faintest ticking of the eighty-five clocks as if they were great Cathedral bells clanging in my ears, and my charcoal on the canvas sounded like some mighty saw drawn back and forth. Then, happily, I became interested, and absolutely unconscious of anything but my sitter and my work.

We had scarcely finished luncheon, on this my second day at the Sea Palace, before the chairs were ordered for a promenade. It had begun to rain, and the air was chilly; but Her Majesty had made up her mind to have a walk at that hour, and nothing ever interfered with her plans, in so far as she was able to carry them out. No weather, however disagreeable or severe, ever kept her from an outdoor promenade that she had planned. The open chairs were brought, as if the day were fine. Her Majesty and the Empress took their seats in their yellow chairs. Their attendant eunuchs unfurled the huge yellow umbrellas, used only for Their Imperial Majesties and the young Empress; the second Empress took her orange-colored chair; the Princesses and the rest of us seated ourselves in our red chairs, and our eunuchs raised the red umbrellas over us. Her Majesty the Empress and Princesses, clothed in the brilliant colors daily worn, the eunuchs still wearing their richly embroidered gala costumes, the chair-bearers still clad in the festive red, the yellow and red chairs with the big yellow, orange, and red umbrellas made a quaint procession, bright with color, that started off through the courts into the gardens.

Her Majesty loves every phase of nature and every kind of weather; but it seemed to me as if she particularly loved rain.

On one of our promenades in the park I saw a curious instance of her wonderful personal magnetism and her power over animals. A bird had escaped from its cage, and some eunuchs were making efforts to catch it, when Her Majesty and suite came into that part of the grounds. The eunuchs had found it impossible to entice the bird back into its cage; nor would it come upon a long stick with a perch attached, which they held up near the tree where it rested. The eunuchs scattered at the approach of Her Majesty, and she inquired the cause of their being here. The Chief Eunuch explained what they were doing, and the Empress Dowager said, “I will call it down.” I thought this was a vain boast, and in my heart I pitied her. She was so accustomed to have the whole world bow to her, she fancied even a bird in the grounds would obey her mandates, and I watched to see how she would take her defeat. She had a long, wand-like stick, which had been cut from a sapling and freshly stripped of its bark. She loved the faint forest odor of these freshly cut sticks, and in the spring often had one when she went out. They were long and slender, with a crook at the top. I used to think she looked like the pictures of fairies when she walked with these long, white wands.

We were still having daily walks in the gardens, and there was always some delightful little incident to make them pleasant and memorable. One day, when we were out and were resting, while Her Majesty was sitting alone before the “Peony Mountain,” the young Empress and Ladies stood in a group at a little distance. We were near some arborvitae trees, and the young Empress picked a piece that looked like a “peacock’s feather.” She told me to kneel and let her “decorate” me. She stuck the curiously shaped branch in my hair so that it hung over the neck and looked like the “peacock feather,” which is given as a reward of merit to the highest officials, and is always worn upon their hats. When she had placed it, she told me to rise, and called me “Your Excellency Carl,” which is the title of those who possess the decoration of the peacock feather. I kept it in my hair and soon quite forgot my “decoration.” When we were walking on, Her Majesty noticed it. She had been preoccupied and sad that day, but when she saw it she smiled, and said, “Who decorated you with the peacock feather?” I told her the young Empress had done so. She said that was her prerogative, but she added, “If you were a man you would win it, and probably a yellow jacket also, for you are fearless.” Why did she think me fearless? Could she have heard that the foreigners in Peking seemed to think it was almost as much as taking my life in my own