"No! No!" she cried. "Help me to be brave! You must live, in order that when these tumultuous days are over, China will still be China, as it has ever been, as it will ever be. Your people need you to remold a crumbling Empire. Be brave, My Emperor. Rest in the knowledge that I understand. It will be harder for you to live, than to go with me. But, O My Emperor, wherever you are I shall be near. You will hear my voice in the trees, or in the sweet breeze that drifts into your room from the garden. At night, I will watch beside your bed. I will caress your forehead as you slumber. For all that is best in me, dwells in your heart, and that part of me will not perish."
"O my Beloved," he whispered, "you will never be out of my thought. Nor will the separation be for long. I am an old man. I cannot live much longer."
"To me, you are not old, nor will you ever die. Through your deeds, you will live. Through all the ages to come men will remember the Poet Emperor who sat upon the Dragon Throne and charmed into being all that was best in poets, painters and musicians."
As she finished, he caught up the thread, "Yes, they will remember the brave days when the Palace halls were sweetened by the music of the voice of Yang Kuei-fei, a girl so beautiful even flowers worshiped at her shrine. How I long once more to see you dancing in the Pear Garden to the strains of 'The Rainbow Skirt and Feather Jacket.'"
"But beauty passes, and only grim gray clouds remain."
