I
SATURDAY, October 20.
It snows. The sky is lowering and overcast, with no hope of clearing,
as though there were no longer any sun. A furious north wind is
blowing, and the black dust whirls and eddies, commingling with the
snowflakes.
This morning, my first interview with our minister took place at the
Spanish legation. His temperature has fallen, but he is still very
weak, and must remain in bed for some days, so I am obliged to postpone
until to-morrow or the day after the communications I have to make to
him.
I take my last meal with the members of the French legation in the
chancellor's house, where, in default of sumptuous quarters, they have
offered me the most kindly hospitality. At half-past one the two little
Chinese chariots arrive, lent me for the emigration of myself, my
people, and my light luggage to the Yellow City.
The Chinese chariots are very small, very massive, very heavy, and
entirely without springs; mine has something of the elegance of a
hearse; the outside is covered with a slaty-gray silk, with a wide
border of black velvet.
We are to journey toward the northwest, in the opposite direction
from the Chinese City where we were yesterday, and from the Temple
of Heaven. We have five or six kilometres to go almost at a walk, on
account of the pitiable condition of the streets and bridges, where
most of the paving stones are missing.
These Chinese chariots cannot be closed; they are like a simple sentry
box mounted on wheels,--so to-day we are lashed by the wind, cut by the
snow, blinded by the dust.
First come the ruins of the legation district, full of soldiers. Then
more lonely, almost deserted and entirely Chinese ruins--one gray,
dusty devastation, seen vaguely through clouds of black and clouds
of white. At the gates and on the bridges are European or Japanese
sentinels, for the whole city is under military rule. From time to time
we meet soldiers and ambulances carrying the flag of the Red-Cross
Society.
At last the first enclosure of the Yellow or Imperial City is announced
by the interpreter of the French legation, who has kindly offered to
be my guide, and to share my chariot with its funeral trappings. I try
to look, but the wind burns my eyes.
We are passing with frightful jolts through great blood-colored
ramparts, not by way of a gate, but through a breach made with a mine
by Indian cavalrymen.
Pekin, on the farther side of this wall, is somewhat less injured.
In some of the streets the houses have kept their outside covering
of gilded woodwork and their rows of chimæras along the edges of the
roofs; all this is crumbling and decayed, it is true, licked by the
flames or riddled by grape-shot. An evil-looking rabble, dressed in
sheepskins or blue cotton rags, still swarms in some of the houses.
Another rampart of the same blood red and a great gate ornamented with
faience through which we must pass,--this time it is the real gate of
the Imperial City, the gate of the region which no one was ever allowed
to enter; it is to me as though it had been announced as the gate to
mystery or to an enchanted land.
We enter, and my surprise is great; for it is not a city, but
a wood,--a sombre wood, infested with crows which croak in the
gray branches. The trees are the same as those at the Temple of
Heaven,--cedars, arbor-vitæ, and willows,--old trees all of them, of
twisted shapes, unknown in our country. Sleet and snow cling to their
branches, and the inevitable dust in the narrow, windy paths engulfs us.
There are also wooded hills where kiosks of faience rise among the
cedars; in spite of their height, it is plain that they are artificial.
Obscured by the snow and dust, we can see here and there in the distant
wood austere old palaces, with enamelled roofs, guarded by horrible
marble monsters which crouch at the thresholds.
The whole place is of an incontestable beauty, while at the same time
it is dismal, unfriendly, and disturbing under this sombre sky.
Now we approach some enormous object which we shall soon be alongside
of. Is it a fortress, a prison, or something more lugubrious still?
Double ramparts without end, always blood red, with gloomy dungeons
and a moat thirty metres wide, full of water-lilies and dying roses.
This is the Violet City, enclosed in the heart of the impenetrable
Imperial City, and more impenetrable still. It is the residence of the
Invisible, of the Son of Heaven--God! but the place is gloomy, hostile,
savage, beneath this sombre sky!
We continue to advance under the old trees into what seems the park of
death.
[Illustration: MARBLE BRIDGE OVER MOAT BEFORE SOUTHERN GATE OF THE
FORBIDDEN CITY]
These dumb, closed palaces, seen first on one side, then on the other,
are the Temple of the God of the Clouds, the Temple of Imperial
Longevity, or the Temple of the Benediction of Sacred Mountains. Their
names, inconceivable to us, the names of an Asiatic dream, make them
still more unreal.
My companion assures me that this Yellow City is not always so terrible
as it is to-day; for this weather is exceptional in a Chinese autumn,
which is usually magnificently luminous. He promises me afternoons of
warm sunshine in this wood, unique in all the world, where I shall make
my home for several days.
"Now look," he said, "look! This is the Lake of the Lotus, and that is
the Marble Bridge."
The Lake of the Lotus and the Marble Bridge! These two names have long
been known to me as the names of things _which could not be seen_, but
of things whose reputations had crossed insurmountable walls. They call
up images of light and intense color, and are a surprise to me here in
this mournful desert, in this icy wind.
The Lake of the Lotus! I had pictured it as sung by the Chinese poets,
of an exquisite limpidity with great calices open to an abundance of
water, a sort of aquatic plain covered with pink flowers, pink from one
end to the other. And this is it!--This slime and this gloomy swamp,
covered with dead leaves turned brown by the frost! It is infinitely
larger than I supposed, this lake made by the hand of man; it goes on
and on toward nostalgic shores, where ancient pagodas appear among the
old trees, under the gray sky.
The Marble Bridge! Yes, this long, white arch supported by a series of
white pillars, this exceedingly graceful curve, the balustrades with
monsters' heads,--this all corresponds to the idea I had of it; it is
very sumptuous and very Chinese. I had not, however, foreseen the two
dead bodies decaying in their robes, which lay among the reeds at the
entrance to the bridge.
The large dead leaves on the lake are really lotus-leaves; I recognize
them now that I see them near at hand, and remember to have seen
similar ones--but oh, so green and fresh--on the ponds of Nagasaki
or of Yeddo. And there once must have been here the effect of an
uninterrupted covering of pink blossoms; their fading stems rise now by
thousands above the slime.
They will undoubtedly die, these fields of lotus, which for centuries
have charmed the eyes of the emperors, for the lake is almost empty; it
is the Allies who have turned its water into the canal that connects
Pekin with the river, in order to re-establish this route which the
Chinese had dried up for fear of its serving the purpose of the
invaders.
The Marble Bridge, white and solitary, leads us across to the other
bank of the lake, very narrow at this point, and there I shall find
the Palace of the North, which is to be my residence. At first I do
not see that there are enclosures within enclosures, all with great
gates, dilapidated and in ruins. A dull light falls from the wintry sky
through opaque clouds that are filled with snow.
In the centre of a gray wall there is a breach where an African
chasseur is on guard; on one side lies a dead dog, on the other a pile
of rags and filth breathing a corpse-like odor. This, it appears, is
the entrance to my palace.
We are black with dust, powdered with snow, and our teeth are
chattering with cold, when we finally get down from our chariot in
a court encumbered with débris, where my comrade, Captain C., the
aide-de-camp, comes to meet me. With an approach like this, one well
might wonder if the promised palace were not chimerical.
Just back of this court there is, however, the first appearance of
magnificence. Here and there is a long gallery of glass, light,
elegant, and apparently intact, amid so much destruction. Through
the panes one has glimpses of gold, porcelains, and imperial silks
with designs of dragons and clouds. This is one corner of the palace,
completely hidden until you are right upon it.
Oh, our evening meal on the night of our arrival in this strange
dwelling! It is almost totally dark. At an ebony table my companion
and I are seated, wrapped in our military cloaks with collars turned
up, our teeth chattering with cold, and are served by our orderlies
with trembling limbs. A feeble little Chinese candle of red wax, stuck
in a bottle,--a candle picked up in the débris from some ancestral
altar,--sheds a dim light, blown as it is by the wind. Our plates, in
fact all the dishes, are of porcelain of inestimable value,--imperial
yellow, marked with the cipher of a fastidious emperor, who was a
contemporary of Louis XV. But our wine and our muddy water--boiled and
reboiled for fear of poison in the wells--are in horrible old bottles
with bits of potato, cut into shape by the soldiers, for corks.
The gallery where this scene takes place is very long; the distance
is lost in obscurity where the splendors of an Asiatic tale are dimly
perceived. Its sides are of glass up to the height of a man, and this
frail wall is all that separates us from the sinister darkness which
surrounds us; one has a feeling that the wandering forms outside, the
phantoms attracted by our small light, may from a distance see us at
table, and this is disturbing. Above the glass there is a series of
light frames containing rice-paper, which reach to the ceiling, from
which marvellous ebony sculptures depend, delicate as lacework; this
rice-paper is torn, and allows the mortally cold night wind to strike
us. Our frozen feet rest on imperial yellow carpets of the finest wool,
with the five-horned dragons sprawling upon them. Close to us gigantic
incense-burners of cloisonné of the old inimitable blue, with gold
elephants as pedestals, are softly burning; there are magnificent and
fanciful screens; phoenixes of enamel spread their long wings; thrones,
monsters, things without age and without price abound. And there we
are, inelegant, dusty, worn, soiled, with the air of coarse barbarians,
installed like intruders in fairyland.
What must this gallery have been scarcely three months ago, when
instead of silence and death there was life, music, and flowers;
when a crowd of courtiers and servants in silken robes peopled these
approaches so empty and ruined to-day; when the Empress, followed by
the ladies of the palace, passed by dressed like goddesses!
Having finished our supper, which consisted of the regular army ration,
having finished drinking our tea out of museum-like porcelain, now for
the hour of smoking and conversation. No, we try in vain to think it
amusing to be here, in this unforeseen and half fantastic way. It is
too cold; the wind chills us to the marrow. We do not enjoy anything.
We prefer to go off and to try to sleep.
My comrade, Captain C., who has taken possession of the place, leads me
with a lantern and a few followers to the apartment set aside for me.
It is on the _rez-de-chausée_, of course; there are no real stories in
Chinese houses. As in the gallery, from which we come, there is nothing
between me and the night outside but a few panes of glass, very light
shades of white silk, and windows of rice-paper torn from one end to
the other. As to the door, which is made of one great pane of glass, I
fasten it with a cord, since there is no lock.
There are some admirable yellow rugs on the floor, thick as cushions.
I have a big imperial bed of carved ebony, and my mattress and pillows
are covered with precious silk embroidered in gold, but there are no
sheets, although I have a soldier's gray woollen blanket.
* * * * *
To-morrow my companion tells me I may go and select from her Majesty's
reserve supply whatever I wish in the way of further decorations for
this room, as it can do no one any harm to move things about.
Assuring me that the gates of the outer enclosure, as well as the
breach by which I entered, are guarded by sentinels, he retires with
his orderlies to the other end of the palace.
Dressed, and with my boots on, I stretch myself out on the beautiful
silk cushions, adding to my gray blanket an old sheepskin and two or
three imperial robes embroidered with gold chimæras. My two servants
arrange themselves in like manner on the floor. Before blowing out the
red candle from some ancestral altar, I am constrained to admit in my
secret soul that the accusation that we are "Occidental barbarians" has
been completely confirmed since supper.
The wind has tormented and torn all that was left of the rice-paper
in my panes; above me there is a perpetual sound like the movement
of the wings of nocturnal birds or the flight of bats. I distinguish
occasionally, although half asleep, a short fusillade or an isolated
cry in the distance.