GENTLENESS WOKE ME from my reverie. The music was growing louder, bonze bells were ringing, and thousands of birds were singing. The dancing girls knelt on the ground and then flipped over backward, their faces disappearing in a ripple of sleeves. A giant peony opened up one petal at a time, and in the heart of this great flower, I read the characters, “Ten thousand years to the Sacred Emperor.” I ordered for a glass of wine to be taken to Piety to congratulate him for his creation. Proud and gratified, he prostrated himself toward me and downed the entire glass. Miracle sat facing him, his bored expression unchanged.

Not far from him, Spirit, my eldest brother’s son, suppressed a grimace and forced himself to smile at his cousin.

Spirit was beautiful, elegant, and cultured; he was the one successful incarnation in a clan bent on raising its status to extraordinary heights. Where Piety was still rigid and unrefined as a peasant, Spirit-who was five years younger than him-was from a more highly evolved strain, comprising subtlety and an urbane ambiguity. Piety was as inflexible as Spirit was amenable. The first was like an attacking chariot storming forwards; the second could navigate every kind of current, could insert himself through every closed door. The more demonstrations of loyalty Piety laid on, the less I trusted him. Spirit kept to his cousin’s shadow, but he showed me genuine adulation. While he urged Piety to supplant Miracle, he knew how to tackle my son, who the officials no longer dared approach. He slipped easily from one camp to the other, and he strove to reconcile my ministers with the clan by acting as my secret messenger. The more impatient Piety was to oust Miracle from the Eastern Palace and take up residence there himself; the more adroitly Spirit carried out his work. His maneuvering had not escaped my attention. Spirit also wanted the title of Supreme Son and was waiting patiently for the outcome of this insoluble conflict: The two cousins would kill each other, and he would then present himself as the ideal candidate.

The Princess of Eternal Peace was sitting close to Spirit, but she seemed distracted. With her oval face, wide forehead, and full mouth, her slender, well-muscled body and her haughty, energetic bearing, she was disturbingly like me in my youth. Given that her ancestors, grandfathers, father, mother, and brothers had all been Emperor, my only daughter wore her name, Moon, with glory. My large family of descendants paled in comparison to her luminous presence, they were the insignificant stars in my darkness. I had renounced the affection of my sons long ago and concentrated all my maternal passions on her. She was erudite, intelligent, and blessed with a scope for politics that was lacking in the male members of both clans. But this princess would never be heir to the throne: The ministers would not let her reign; her brothers and cousins would join forces to supplant her; the people would see her accession as a usurping of power and would rise up in revolt on the smallest sign from one of the princes. Moon was sentimental, tortured, hesitant, and fragile. She could advise, but she would never subdue. Too much power would have killed her.

I had given her an income equivalent to that of a king. I had chosen a life for her devoted to the arts and to love; I had hoped her life would be full of pure, crystalline joy to make the immortals jealous. But terrible suffering-that epidemic that ignored the crimson walls of the Palace, which invited itself into the homes of rich and poor alike and which struck down beggars just as readily as princes-had succeeded in reaching Moon in her jade cocoon.

At the age of thirteen, my daughter conceived a violent passion for Xue Shao, whom she had met while walking beside the River Luo. To fulfill her desires, I ordered the young aristocrat to repudiate his legitimate wife, and I offered them the most lavish wedding in history. But prince consorts have hearts as capricious as imperial princesses: Having been forcibly married, Xue Shao remained attached to the memory of his first wife who had chosen to commit suicide rather than be abandoned. He had treated Moon with respectful contempt. Moon was accepted and rejected, feared and loathed by her husband’s family, and she had hidden her pain from me until the day I discovered that this unworthy son-in-law was involved in a conspiracy.

Xue Shao was executed; Moon lost her failed source of happiness. I urged her to remarry, and she fell in love with my nephew Tranquility who was also a married man. The cousin, astonished by this unexpected good fortune, did not wait to be begged. He dismissed his wife and loved Moon with religious fervor. But she was haunted by the memory of Xue Shao: The imperial princess preferred an impossible love to the adoration she was offered. Very soon after they were married, she betrayed her husband in the arms of a guards officer.

I despaired at my daughter’s turbulent emotions. When she chose Tranquility, I thought the gods had showed me the path of hope: Marriages between my nephews and my children would knit together the two clans, both tributaries of the same river. But the failure of this exemplary marriage only increased hostilities.

Filial love cost me endless waiting, much disappointment, and considerable pain. I kept the succession unclear to maintain the balance: My nephews continued to live in hope, and my ministers continued to obey me, while I woke a little more tired every morning. The crown, which conferred power on me, was not enough to alter the course of the stars, the cycle of the seasons, or the hearts of men.

After his wife and his concubine had been executed and his sons had been captured, Miracle became a ghost. Moon changed her lover, and Tranquility drowned his sorrows in alcohol. My nephews pursued their fight for my favor. None of them was interested in the people, the land or the splendor of the Empire. None of them knew anything of self-abnegation and the sacrifices of being sovereign.

I envied all those who saw their lives stretching to infinity in generations to come. I searched in vain for the future of my dynasty.

The seasons came and went. In springtime, the skies were filled with peach rose, pear white, grenadine orange, and magnolia mauve. In the autumn, the wounded leaves of the maples and the bloody tears of the persimmon trees showered over the city. I lived in the most beautiful palace in the most beautiful city in the world. I was surrounded by indolent calligraphers and sensuous poetesses draped in muslin and silk. I owned the world’s best chargers, so swift they struck flying swallows as they galloped. I commanded warrior and spiritual princes, philosopher and strategist ministers. I was adored by an entire nation of passionate, hardworking people. But these triumphs, this grandeur-the apotheosis of earthly achievement-no longer moved me.

Beauty is not happiness. The secret flavor that wet my appetite had disappeared. The inner light that gives people their soul, the city its color, the rain its sweet melancholy, and the monotone days their serenity-that light had been extinguished.

I lost my faithful companions Ruby and Emerald that year. Despite her perseverance, the Princess of Gold proved unable to seduce Time. Death interrupted her futile gabbling and juvenile laughter. Her perfume dissipated; her name was no longer whispered. The very day after her burial, she was forgotten.

I could not bear anyone to use the words “old” or “tired,” and I exiled every official who dared advise me to retire. I flew into a rage whenever my ministers broached the subject of the succession. “I am not senile yet,” I would reply coolly to anyone who tried to imply that I must appoint a Supreme Son. I would wake with new aches and pains and go to bed with a little more despair. The world may well have recognized me as a goddess, but I was no less human for it. My slide into decline proved that my fate would be as miserable as a commoner’s: I was condemned to die.