Emperor monologue (Act 1) — The Daughter of Heaven

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?