The violence erased itself from my memory, and only her astonishing beauty remained to obsess me. What torture it was to feel her gentle breasts on my face and her stomach soft as a newly hatched chick only to wake from this impotent dream! I now missed her cries of ecstasy that had frightened me. At night I smelled the air to try and catch the scent of her hair. One strand at a time, it slid over my breast, but I could not hold it. My life had become more unbearable than before I knew her. Now, I had to stand by my choice even if it would be the death of me!
One afternoon, in the grip of madness, I ran to her palace. She received me with no sign of surprise. We had barely exchanged a few polite words before she dismissed her servants, led me to the Pavilion of Dusk, and pushed me to the floor. She lay on top of me, and once again I let myself be beaten. Her pleasure became more intense as she inflicted more pain and humiliation on me. I cried. I hated myself. I despised myself for loving such a monster. My tears fuelled her ecstasy. When she had mortified me with insults, when she had stripped me, abused me, and violated me, she sent me back to the women in the Side Court.
I had become her slave. She who understood the strength of silence never called me. My wounds barely had time to heal before I hurried back to her. Sometimes I found her palace empty: She had left; she was serving the imperial bed. My stomach constricted, and my limbs turned to stone. In the emperor’s arms, she was a servile slave! I would go back to my world, devastated, dead.
She was not interested in horses, books, or her little boy, the beautiful prince with such sad eyes. She loved jewels, dresses, and tiny little dogs with curly coats. Before making love she was charming, all smiles, gentle. She touched up my makeup, dressed me, made me blush with her shameless jokes. But naked she would gradually go mad, insulting me and trampling over me. It was only when she had unleashed onto me her loathing for all humanity that she reached a form of release, a voluptuous happiness. The Pavilion of Dusk was my torture chamber. She forced strangers on me, girls I did not desire. In that accumulation of mouths and breasts, above the mirror that multiplied the gaping orifices further, she would beat me until I bled. The other women would fondle one another as they watched me. They were naked, with their heads between one another’s thighs, their bodies writhing in the blaze of sunlight, shrieking with pleasure; and I felt only loathing.
The seasons changed. I silenced my pain, my body stiffened, my heart was sickened, but still I feigned rapture. There was nothing left to say between us. The tender words had given way to repetitive moans, the fascination had been tarnished by a wearied eroticism. Her gaze was not so misty now; her face was harder. I found her ugly, and she was tiring of my battered body. My visits became less frequent, but I did not know how to bring an end to this liaison. I pitied her: Without me, without my strong muscles that were the lure to her demon, how could she achieve physical gratification? And without that gratification, how could she live?
One evening when I went to her palace, her keepers told me that their mistress was out. When I went back past her door after nightfall, I saw a girl coming out. I hid behind a tree and saw the same servants who used to take me back to the Side Court helping her along, lighting her way with lanterns. I recognized a Forest of Treasure who had arrived at Court a month earlier. She staggered as she walked. Her tears were barely audible, but they reached my ears. While the keepers were distracted, I slipped into the palace and crept into the Pavilion of Dusk.
Through the petal-shaped apertures, I could see there were so many candelabras that the room was lit up as if it were midday. She was lying naked on the cushions, musing happily and eating fruit while the servants massaged her legs. I knocked down the door, pushed aside the terrified girls, and sat astride her. My hands tightened around her neck, and I strangled her with all my might. She struggled. Her face turned purple, and her eyes rolled back in their sockets. The women threw themselves at me in vain, and I abandoned her when I thought she was dead.
That night I dreamt of the sun-bleached skull of a horse. The dark cavities of its eyes, so like a woman’s avid orifice, stared at me. I woke screaming. There was blood on my bed: I had just had my first menses.
The Gracious Wife had foreseen this stain in me. She had plucked me in my innocence and betrayed me when I was reduced to corruption. The following day Governess arranged a ceremony to celebrate my reaching fertility. She burned the stained corner of the sheet, then made me drink the ashes blended with warm wine. The women of the Side Court gave me gifts and paid me compliments. My cousin had regained consciousness but was still in bed; she sent me an enamel box containing a pearl necklace and this poem:
I sent back the necklace with a note:
The treasures of the ocean Must return to the night Of furious waves.
I stopped seeing her.
THE GRACIOUS WIFE had passed on to me her refined taste in clothes and her experienced eye with women. In that Court so full of extraordinary beauties, I decided to perfect my appearance. My skin was tanned by the sun; my figure was slim with bronzed muscles. I was like a challenge to those pale faces and concealed bodies. My energetic stride sneered at their sickly little footsteps. In contrast to the profusion of jewels, muslins, and embroidered shoes with upturned points, I had my tunics of heavy cloth tailored to fit closely, and my archer’s wrists were free of any jewelry. To other women the choice of clothes was a form of ingenious exhibition, a shameless seduction. To me, dresses were like a breastplate that I put on to set off to war against this life.
I was complimented on my elegance, my skin color, my features. I found consolation in a string of casual affairs, girls who, unlike the Gracious Wife, afforded me some pleasure. My memories of the Pavilion of Dusk burned through my entrails. I succeeded in using my charms like a weapon; I learned to play with others’ hearts and to master my own desires.
The snow fell, and the days were short and sunless. On the night of the New Year Banquet, I saw my cousin dancing up on a dais between firework displays carried on the heads of two acrobats. Her silhouette swayed and twirled between those sparkling showers, like a bird hovering in its cage decorated with precious stones.
FOUR
One afternoon in the spring, the groom entrusted a Turkish colt to me. The wild animal charged around the outdoor manege, whinnying, jumping, but however furiously he twisted and lurched, I stuck fast in the saddle. When he slowed down, exhausted, I reinforced my every order with a crack of the whip.
I did not realize that this commotion had attracted a good many spectators. When I leapt to the ground, a eunuch ran over and told me that Princess Sun of Jin and the King of Jin wished to give me their compliments.
On the far side of the enclosure, I found a girl in boy’s clothing, and the young king, who wore a tunic of willow-green brocade embroidered with golden lions over a second tunic in daffodil yellow. The princess’s eyes shone, and she could scarcely conceal her admiration. The king flushed as he accepted my greeting. He had beautiful elongated eyes and was shy as a little girl.