Reading lately deliberately, with recreative and reflective intervals, C. P. Fitzgerald's biography of the Empress Wu [Chao], as tantalizing in its reticences as illuminating in its explications. Tantalizing: [The Emperor] Kao Tsung was lecherous in temperament, and his tastes in sexual intercourse were curious. Wu Chao had won his attachment by her willingness to pander to these peculiarities, not hesitating, as historians put it, to "abase her body and endure shame in order to conform to the Emperor's will." Tantalizing and illuminating: Whatever the real nature of the intimate relationship which grew up between the Empress and the Chang brothers, and which continued uninterrupted for eight years, till she was eighty, the favour of the Changs soon surpassed all limits, and their behaviour was more such as might have been expected of the Empress's young ladies in waiting than of her lovers. Dressed in gaily coloured silks the Changs frequented the Palace with powdered and rouged faces, exacting from the Court a deference which was rarely given to Princes of the Blood...The Court had never been so gay and so free...The scholars of the Court were invited to make poems celebrating [Chang Ch'ang-tsung's] beauty, and numerous handsome young men were engaged to attend upon him. This indeed made something of a scandal, for the Empress was informed that many of the courtiers were obtaining large sums of money for introducing these youths to the service of Chang Ch'ang-tsung.

Meantime, I've fallen sick, yet once again, of an intestinal flu, barely managing to sustain myself without soiling my clothes with frequent ingestion of Imodium. And the weather is so lovely, the beaches so enticing--Tomorrow, whate'er my condition, I'm going to Kailua to bask in the sun and frolic in the surf.