enty-second day of the third moon she left the Palace, and we
were all sorry to lose her. Her Majesty did not realize how much she
missed her until after she had gone. For a few days we had nothing but
troubles. It seemed as if everything went wrong. Her Majesty was not
at all satisfied without Chiu Yuen. The rest of the servant girls were
scared, and tried their best to please Her Majesty, but they had not the
ability, so we had to help and do a part of their work so as not to make
Her Majesty nervous. Unfortunately, she stopped us, and said: "You
have enough to do of your own work, and I do not want you to help the
servants. You don't please me a bit that way." She could see that I was
not accustomed to her ways, for she had spoken severely, so she smiled
and said to me: "I know you are good to help them so as not to make me
angry, but these servants are very cunning. It isn't that they cannot do
their work. They know very well that I always select the clever ones to
wait on me in my bedroom and they don't like that, so they pretend to be
stupid and make me angry so that I will send them to do the common work.
The eunuchs are worse. They are all afraid to take Chiu Yuen's place.
Now I have found them out, and I will only keep the stupid ones to wait
on me from now." I almost laughed when I noticed that they all looked
serious for a moment. I thought these people must be really stupid, and
not lazy, but I had dealings with them every day and found them out all
right. The eunuchs don't seem to have any brains at all. They are such
queer people and have no feelings. They have the same mood all day
long--I should say they are in a cruel mood. Whenever Her Majesty gave
an order they always said "Jer" (Yes) and as soon as they got to our
waiting room they would say to each other: "What was the order? I have
forgotten all about it." Then they used to come to one of us who had
happened to be present when the order was given: "Please tell us what
the order was. I did not listen while Her Majesty was talking." We
used to laugh and make fun of them. We knew they were afraid to ask Her
Majesty, and of course we had to tell them. One of the eunuch writers
had to keep writing down the orders that had been given during the day,
for Her Majesty wanted to keep records of everything. There were twenty
eunuchs who were educated and they were excellent scholars. These had
to answer any questions which Her Majesty happened to ask them about