class="c16">ARROW-BEARER hurries off.]

SCENE IV

The TARTAR EMPEROR, disguised as the Viceroy of the South, with FOUNT-IN-THE-FOREST, his minister.

FOUNT

I see no one——Your Majesty may come forward.

EMPEROR

Your Majesty! Do you wish to ruin me?

FOUNT

Oh! Sire.

EMPEROR

Again!

FOUNT

When we are alone, I cannot refrain——

EMPEROR

You must——Behind those blinds, probably spies are watching us.

FOUNT

Eaves-droppers, rather. That is the Pavilion of Ladies-in-Waiting.

EMPEROR

The Pavilion of the Ladies-in-Waiting——So there are also Ladies-in-Waiting here? In very truth, it seems to me that I am dreaming. Yet I knew what I came hither to find that after three centuries of reign the Emperors of my dynasty had never succeeded in subduing the secret resistance of the conquered—I knew that. That in the Southern Provinces the rebels had never yet bowed the head, aye, I knew that. That Nanking was their capital and that here a descendant of the Mings had even reigned. For more than seventeen years before being crushed by our armies, of all that I was aware——But I thought this phantom empire was more mysterious, more hidden in the dark, and here I find a palace as beautiful as mine, with guards, dignitaries, ministers, a ceremonial regulated as at my own Court——Our Empire is too large it seems, to be governed by one head alone——I wished to see with my own eyes. I was prepared for all surprises, yet this is beyond me.

[He sits down on a bench under a tree in full bloom.]

FOUNT

What is more surprising still is that you are here unknown to all; here in the midst of your implacable enemies, and clad in the fashion of three hundred years ago.

EMPEROR

It is a happy coincidence that this Viceroy of the South whose place I have taken is of my build——What can he be thinking of this adventure, in the ship where he is now held a prisoner for me? What can he imagine, do you suppose?

FOUNT

Anything—except the truth.

EMPEROR

Yet if he should escape, would I not be lost indeed?

FOUNT

My heart feels as though in a vice. Are you not lost in any case?

EMPEROR

Silence! After all, what have I to risk? My life? Under the shadow of that throne from which they would banish me, is not life an unending agony? With what crushing weight do the slow hours fall upon me. Who can describe the horror of that indolent stagnation, of that idle solitude? Oh! the rage which consumes the soul, when one is the Master and yet has no power! If I find death here, I shall be a thousand times happier for having come. All my unhappy existence down to the present has not been worth as much to me as these last few days of flight and travel, this rapture of escape, for a time, from that grey, silky web wherein I am a prisoner. Oh! to work, to work in the sunshine, to work like a man, to attempt some daring act, which, if I die, will at least remain behind to honour my memory.

FOUNT

You are wonderful, you are noble, you are fearless. But I, who am as nothing, I have the right to tremble.

EMPEROR

It is you, however, who have awakened my spirit, who have aroused it from its deadly torpor; it is you who have inspired me with will and strength. Have you not approved of my project? Have you not found noble, and worthy of a sage, the dream which carried me away.

FOUNT [kneeling before the EMPEROR]

I cried aloud with enthusiasm, I wept with emotion when I grasped your sublime thought——But it is an impossible dream, and the wish to realise it is a madness as generous as it is vain. I fear for you, Sire, my well beloved Master, I fear!

EMPEROR

You fear what? Up to to-day has not my plan worked out as if by magic.

FOUNT

Up to to-day, yes, I cannot deny it.

EMPEROR

My departure from the Palace, which seemed so perilous—not an obstacle! You, my dear minister, enter your official palanquin, I was at your side in the costume of your Secretary! I smiled, you remember, like a schoolboy playing truant. My manner was so gay as to frighten you.——And your poor little secretary, your pupil, as dear to you as a son, consented to take my place in my bed with its funereal silk draperies, in that sepulchral chamber, railed and walled in again and again, where one stifles with the perfumes which are too sweet. If I come through safe, what can I do in recognition of this boy's tremendous devotion, who acted as substitute for the martyr which I was, who entered into the mummied body of an Emperor of China?

FOUNT

Will he know how to play the part which he assumed?

EMPEROR

Oh! it is an easy part, that of sovereign in my sad, closed room. One sleeps, reads, meditates, and keeps one's self from doing more. I have made use of the weapon which is so often used against me. I have been accused of being ill when I am not so. This time it is I that pretend. Who will dare to doubt?

FOUNT

And the doctor who is taking care of the mock Emperor—are you sure of his fidelity?

EMPEROR

My doctor? What interest would he have in betraying me? He thinks I am engaged in some affair of gallantry and I have promised him a province if my absence is not discovered. He is watching his patient carefully and has strictly forbidden anyone to go near him.

FOUNT

That is capital!

EMPEROR

Even in my city of Peking there is no risk of my being recognised, since none of my subjects have even seen my face. Flight is made easy for an invisible emperor! And once on the ship—so freighted with your anxiety, do you remember? what rapture it was to fly through space, light as the cloudlets of smoke which followed in our track!

FOUNT

It is true, the kidnapping of the Viceroy and his companions was the more dangerous feat, but our sailors managed it marvellously. The immortals are with us, your Majesty.

EMPEROR

Poor little Viceroy! As the escort who came to greet him had never seen him, nothing was simpler than that I should be taken for him. I told you, Fount-in-the-Forest, that all must be as simple as child's-play!

FOUNT

Sire! Did you compose novels of adventure they would be more interesting even than those of the famous Lo Kwan-chung.

EMPEROR

Well, you see, they left me but two things in my splendid solitude; love and opium. Opium exalts the imagination, and I have had plenty of leisure to dream about my plans.

FOUNT

I plan out the future in my writings—prophetically, perhaps, but then I leave to the generations that are to come the duty of fulfilling my prophesies. You, Sire, are offering your own blood as a sacrifice to assuage unconquerable hate. The Immortal gods shall bow to you as to their equal: but those on whom you wish to heap your kindness will destroy you.

EMPEROR

Who knows? Hatred often yields to love.

FOUNT

Not such immemorial hatred as this. Nothing has softened it, and for these three hundred years it has not even known the weakness of a love affair. Never has a Tartar married a Chinese woman, never has a Chinese loved a Tartar woman. During the three years since you issued the decree authorising marriages between the two races, none have availed themselves of the permission.

EMPEROR

Yes, there has