would break his heart and perhaps be the cause of his premature death.
Her Majesty said that was no excuse as I should not have to go out of
China but would be able to see my father and family any time I wished.
I told Her Majesty that I would much rather stay with her altogether and
that I did not want to marry anybody. Her Majesty then said: "I won't
listen to any excuse. I have already explained everything to your
mother, but much to my surprise she said it would be better to mention
it to you first, on account of your having been brought up differently
from the rest of the Court ladies. Had it not been for this fact I would
simply have arranged everything with your mother and the matter would
have been settled so far as you were concerned." I could not say
anything in answer to this, so commenced to cry. I told Her Majesty that
I was not like the rest of the Court ladies who pretended they did not
want to marry, when all the time they were simply looking forward to
getting married, if only for the change from the monotony of Court life.
I promised that I would stay with her forever, and that I had no desire
to go away from China again. I explained that I should not have gone
away at all had it not been that my father was transferred to Paris. Her
Majesty said: "Oh, well, I am very glad that you did go away as you are
more useful to me than you would have been had you stayed in China all
your life." After a lot more discussion Her Majesty said: "Well, I will
leave you to think the matter over. If you don't like the young man I
have chosen there are plenty of others," which remark did not help me
very much as I could see that she meant to marry me off anyway. However,
I had managed to get out of it this time, and thought I would be able
to arrange matters satisfactorily should the question come up again.
Nothing further was said about the matter until nearly a month later
when I heard that a marriage had been arranged between this gentleman
and the daughter of one of the princes. So everything ended very
satisfactorily from my point of view.

The twenty-sixth day of the eighth moon was the occasion of another
celebration. At the time the Manchu Dynasty began, Emperor Shung Chih,
who had fought very hard to gain the throne, found himself on the
twenty-sixth day of the eighth moon, absolutely out of provisions of
every kind and it was necessary for him and his army to live on the
leaves of trees, which was the only form