Empress

The moon in all her immaculate purity hung in the sky, laughing at this world of dust. She congratulated me for my carefully considered maneuvers and invited me to share in her eternal solitude.

Endless moons, an opaque universe, thunder, tornadoes, the quaking earth. Rare moments of peace; forehead up against my knees, arms around my head, I though, I listened, I longed not to exist. but life was there, a transparent pearl, a star revolving slowly on its own axis.

I envied these women I saw before me, their beauty still intact. Life has its revenge of life. Untimely death is the secret of eternal youth.

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 succeeded in using my charms like a weapon; I learned to play with other's hearts and to master my own desires.

would you dare to love me?

I had lost some of my naivete and gained strength. These women with their pointless scheming could not contain me, and I watched the volatile world of the gynaeceum with a detached eye. The Forbidden City had buried my youth, and in the monastery, I had died and come back to life. Friends, enemies and mistresses had all disappeared. I was a ghost from a lost world, still going from one season to the next and still living for one man alone.

In the closed world of the gynaeceum, despite the gardens and parkland extending beyong the horizon, despite the insurmountable walls separating pavillions and palaces, the tangled web of our fate was inescapable. Why did these women love each other to the point of madness? Why did they loathe one another so vehemently, and why did sworn enemies feel such horror and fascination for one another? Why should furious hate become obsession, then intoxication and the very reason to live? Because love and hate were the two heads of the demon.

In our time women can demonstrate prowess in a thousand ways. Long ago the great Princess Sun of Ping fought for her father, the August Sovereign. At her funeral, His Majesty called for the trumpets and drums to be sounded, an honor reserved for men. My dear, from this day you must dress her as a boy. Give her an education worthy of her own determination.

She died a few days later, and her death buried once and for all the intrigues between the Precious Wife, the Gracious Wife, and all the Imperial favorites. Rivalries and alliances, loathing and attraction had been dissolved. Their existence had been a pointless tragedy, just as the talent of one prodigious poetess had been.

Men’s strengths go hand in hand with their weaknesses. That is why there is no such thing as an invincible warrior, and why heroes die.

Men's freedom is their unfaithfulness: the Son of Heaven or the son of a peasant, they could both reduce me to the mediocre torments of a woman.

A man who does not like power will suffer from its cruelty.

A great emptiness had been carved out of my soul; I watched all the effervescence of the world with a derisive smile.

My position at the Palace is our one opportunity. Have confidence in my destiny. Do not weep.

A man who does not like power will suffer from its cruelty. He would be unable to raise his hand in punishment or to untangle the web woven by good and evil.

The role of Empress became a full-time occupation.

I held in my hand an invisible sword that sliced through every illusion. The sharpness of the blade gave me its icy and dazzling strength. I no longer believed in the compassion of men; I believed in the strength og the gods. I had averted my eyes from my suffering and fixed them on the stars.