Read Online The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Margaret Drabble
Ads: Link
blessed.’ Those were his very words. How could I forget them? How could I ever be made to believe that Prince Sado was nothing but a weak and evil man?
Evil, in my view, is a word that has been much abused.
Mercifully, Prince Sado’s prophecy was fulfilled. I was already pregnant whenŬiso died, and my second son, of glorious and majestic memory, was born that autumn. He was born on an auspicious day in an auspicious year, sixty years after the birth of his childless step-grandmother Queen Chŏngsŏng, who claimed that he was an answer to her prayer. Sado and I greeted his arrival with joy. We have all heard tales of mothers who have turned against their surviving children through the loss of one, and who have grieved rather than rejoiced over new births. And I understand these reactions, for the loss of a child is like no other loss and can drive one to irrationality, to wildness and despair. But my second son, Chŏngjo, was from the moment of his birth a joy to me, and a compensation for his brother’s death. I used to dream that the two little brothers played together in the garden, and these dreams comforted me. I induced these benign dreams. I learned to dream them at will. I was never to forgetŬiso – now, even in eternity, I remember him – but I did not turn my face or my breast from Chŏngjo. My bondswoman Pongnyŏ brought me rice and seaweed soup, traditional fare to build up the strength of a nursing mother, and I in turn nursed my baby. I nursed him myself for some weeks, which might perhaps have been considered improper, had it been widely known. A ceremonial presentation of the royal nipple was all that was usually expected of a princess, but I wanted to feel the baby at the breast, and now I have that memory, though it was soon, and for good reason, snatched from me. I had always suspected thatŬiso’s wet nurse, despite my careful choice of her, might have carried some infection to him, and I wished to avoid any repetition of this possibility. Maybe, I wondered, it had been worse than an infection – who knows what may happen in the jealous byways of a palace? My mother, who was able to be with me for some of this period, supported me in this decision – though I have to say that my mother’s mental and physical health were not good. She was always anxious, always sickly, always full of apprehensions.
But I need not have feared for my second-born, for Chŏngjo was a sturdy and robust child from birth. He was as strong as his brotherŬiso had been weak. He latched on to the teat boldly and took his food greedily; he never regurgitated one drop or morsel. He was put early to the test. When he was only three weeks old, there was a serious health scare, for a measles epidemic broke out in the city and the palace. Measles, in those days, was a much-feared illness. Although strict etiquette forbade me or the baby to leave our quarters for twenty-one days after my confinement, the court physicians of the Medical Bureau insisted that the baby prince be moved, and he was taken to Naksŏn Hall, in another part of the palace compound. There I arranged for him to be tended by an elderly lady-in-waiting and by my own wet nurse: I was not too anxious for him, for already in his short life he had shown a firmer will to survive thanŬiso had ever manifested. That very day, despite our diligent efforts to appease the measles spirits with rice cake and herbs, Prince Sado himself was also taken very ill. (If you address the spirits of measles or of smallpox politely, as ‘distinguished guests’, and feed them properly, they are supposed to take pity on their hosts and move on to other dwellings – that is our superstition, and it is one that for some reason, rational though I am, I have always been tempted to observe. Why should we not be polite to microbes? We lose nothing by courtesy.)
I, still weak from childbirth, caught the disease, too, though my case was not as severe as that of my husband. Baby Chŏngjo’s
Evil, in my view, is a word that has been much abused.
Mercifully, Prince Sado’s prophecy was fulfilled. I was already pregnant whenŬiso died, and my second son, of glorious and majestic memory, was born that autumn. He was born on an auspicious day in an auspicious year, sixty years after the birth of his childless step-grandmother Queen Chŏngsŏng, who claimed that he was an answer to her prayer. Sado and I greeted his arrival with joy. We have all heard tales of mothers who have turned against their surviving children through the loss of one, and who have grieved rather than rejoiced over new births. And I understand these reactions, for the loss of a child is like no other loss and can drive one to irrationality, to wildness and despair. But my second son, Chŏngjo, was from the moment of his birth a joy to me, and a compensation for his brother’s death. I used to dream that the two little brothers played together in the garden, and these dreams comforted me. I induced these benign dreams. I learned to dream them at will. I was never to forgetŬiso – now, even in eternity, I remember him – but I did not turn my face or my breast from Chŏngjo. My bondswoman Pongnyŏ brought me rice and seaweed soup, traditional fare to build up the strength of a nursing mother, and I in turn nursed my baby. I nursed him myself for some weeks, which might perhaps have been considered improper, had it been widely known. A ceremonial presentation of the royal nipple was all that was usually expected of a princess, but I wanted to feel the baby at the breast, and now I have that memory, though it was soon, and for good reason, snatched from me. I had always suspected thatŬiso’s wet nurse, despite my careful choice of her, might have carried some infection to him, and I wished to avoid any repetition of this possibility. Maybe, I wondered, it had been worse than an infection – who knows what may happen in the jealous byways of a palace? My mother, who was able to be with me for some of this period, supported me in this decision – though I have to say that my mother’s mental and physical health were not good. She was always anxious, always sickly, always full of apprehensions.
But I need not have feared for my second-born, for Chŏngjo was a sturdy and robust child from birth. He was as strong as his brotherŬiso had been weak. He latched on to the teat boldly and took his food greedily; he never regurgitated one drop or morsel. He was put early to the test. When he was only three weeks old, there was a serious health scare, for a measles epidemic broke out in the city and the palace. Measles, in those days, was a much-feared illness. Although strict etiquette forbade me or the baby to leave our quarters for twenty-one days after my confinement, the court physicians of the Medical Bureau insisted that the baby prince be moved, and he was taken to Naksŏn Hall, in another part of the palace compound. There I arranged for him to be tended by an elderly lady-in-waiting and by my own wet nurse: I was not too anxious for him, for already in his short life he had shown a firmer will to survive thanŬiso had ever manifested. That very day, despite our diligent efforts to appease the measles spirits with rice cake and herbs, Prince Sado himself was also taken very ill. (If you address the spirits of measles or of smallpox politely, as ‘distinguished guests’, and feed them properly, they are supposed to take pity on their hosts and move on to other dwellings – that is our superstition, and it is one that for some reason, rational though I am, I have always been tempted to observe. Why should we not be polite to microbes? We lose nothing by courtesy.)
I, still weak from childbirth, caught the disease, too, though my case was not as severe as that of my husband. Baby Chŏngjo’s
Similar Books
