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I went into her sleeping apartments. Others also entered there,
sat upon her couch, and had their friends photograph them. I
could not allow myself to do so. I stood silent, with head
uncovered as I gazed with wonder and admiration at the bed, with
its magnificently embroidered curtains hanging from the ceiling
to the floor, its yellow-satin mattress ten feet in length and
its great round, hard pillow, with the delicate silk spreads
turned back as though it were prepared for Her Majesty's return.
On the opposite side of the room there was a brick kang bed, such
as we find in the homes of all the Chinese of the north, where
her maids slept, or sat like silent ghosts while the only woman
that ever ruled over one-third of the human race took her rest.
The furnishings were rich but simple. No plants, no intricate
carvings to catch the dust, nothing but the two beds and a small
table, with a few simple and soothing wall decorations, and the
monotonous tick-tock of a great clock to lull her to sleep.
If Shakespeare could say with an English monarch in his mind,
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," we might repeat it
with added emphasis of Tze Hsi. For forty years she had to rise
at midnight, winter as well as summer, and go into the dark,
dreary, cold halls of the palace, lighted much of the time with
nothing but tallow dips, and heated only with brass braziers
filled with charcoal, and there sit behind a screen where she
could see no one, and no one could see her, and listen to the
reports of those who came to these dark audiences
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