They were alone one night when about a thousand Boxers came along,
shouting their death cries and playing gongs. The Sisters began to pray
in their chapel as they awaited death. However, the noise died away,
and when day broke no one was in sight, so they escaped to Pekin and
took shelter with the bishop, taking their frightened little pupils
with them. When the Boxers were asked later why they had not entered
and killed the Sisters, they replied: "Because we saw soldiers' heads
and guns all around the convent walls." So the Sisters owed their lives
to this hallucination of their executioners.
The wells in the deserted gardens fill the air to-day with odors of
the dead. There were three large cisterns which furnished a water so
pure that they sent all the way from the legations to get it. The
Boxers filled these wells up to the brim with the mutilated bodies of
little boys from the Brothers' school and from Christian families in
the neighborhood. Dogs came to eat from the horrible pile which came up
to the level of the ground; but they had their fill, and so the bodies
were left, and have been so preserved by the cold and dryness that the
marks of torture upon them may still be seen. One poor thigh has been
slashed in stripes after the manner in which bakers sometimes mark
their loaves of bread, another poor hand is without nails. And here is
a woman from whom one of the private parts of her body has been cut and
placed in her mouth, where it was left by the dogs between her gaping
jaws. The bodies are covered with what looks like salt, but which
proves to be white frost, which in shady places never melts here. Yet
there is enough clear, implacable sunshine to bring out the emaciation
and to exaggerate the horrors of the open mouths, their agonized
expressions, and the rigidity of the anguished positions of the dead.
There is not a cloud to-day, but a pale sky which reflects a great
deal of light. All winter, it seems, it is much the same; even in the
coldest weather rains and snows are very exceptional in Pekin.
After our brief soldiers' breakfast, served on rare china in the long
gallery, I leave the Palace of the North to install myself in the kiosk
on the opposite shore, which I selected yesterday, and to begin my
work. It is about two o'clock; a summer's sun shines on my solitary
path, on the whiteness of the Marble Bridge, on the mud of the Lake,
and on the bodies that sleep amongst the frosted lotus leaves.
The guards at the entrance to the Rotunda Palace open and close behind
me the red lacquered doors. I mount the inclined plane leading to the
esplanade, and here I am alone, much alone, in the silence of my lofty
garden and my strange palace.
In order to reach my work-room, I have to go along narrow passageways
between old trees and the most unnatural rockwork. The kiosk is flooded
with light, the beautiful sunshine falls on my table and on my black
seats with their cushions of golden yellow; the beautiful melancholy
October sunshine illumines and warms my chosen retreat, where the
Empress, it seems, loved to come and sit and watch from this high point
her lake all pink with flowers.
The last butterflies and the last wasps, their lives prolonged by this
hot-house warmth, beat their wings against the window-panes. The great
imperial lake is spread out before us, spanned by the Marble Bridge;
venerable trees form a girdle around shores out of which rise the
fanciful roofs of palaces and pagodas,--roofs that are one marvellous
mass of faience. As in the landscapes painted on Chinese fans, there
are groups of tiny rocks in the foreground, and small enamelled
monsters from a neighboring kiosk, while in the middle distance there
are knotted branches which have fallen from some old cedar.
I am alone, entirely and deliciously alone, high up in an inaccessible
spot whose approaches are guarded by sentinels. There is the occasional
cry of a crow or the gallop of a horse down below, at the foot of
the rampart whereon my frail habitation rests, or the passing of an
occasional messenger. Otherwise nothing; not a single sound near enough
to trouble the sunny quiet of my retreat. No surprise is possible, no
visitor.
* * * * *
I have been working for an hour, when a light rustling behind me from
the direction of the entrance gives me the feeling of some discreet
and agreeable presence. I turn round, and there is a cat who has
stopped short with one foot in the air, hesitating and looking me
straight in the eye, as if to ask: "Who are you, and what are you doing
here?"
I call him quietly, he replies with a plaintive miaul; and I, always
tactful with cats, go on with my writing, knowing very well that in a
first interview one must not be too insistent.
He is a very pretty cat, yellow and white, with the distinguished and
elegant air of a grand seignior. A moment later and he is rubbing
against my leg; so then I put my hand slowly down on the small, velvety
head, which, after a sudden start, permits my caresses and abandons
itself to them. It is over; the acquaintance is made. He is evidently
a cat accustomed to petting, probably an intimate of the Empress.
To-morrow and every day I shall beg my orderly to bring him a cold
luncheon from my rations.
* * * * *
The illusion of summer ends with the day. The sun sets big and red
behind the Lake of the Lotus, all at once taking on a sad, wintry look;
at the same time a chill comes over all things, and the empty palace
grows suddenly gloomy. For the first time that day I hear footsteps
approaching, resounding in the silence on the pavement of the
esplanade. My servants, Osman and Renaud, are coming for me according
to instructions; they are the only human beings for whom the gate of
the walls below has orders to open.
It is icy cold as we cross the Marble Bridge in the twilight to return
to our home, and the moisture is gathering in clouds over the lake, as
it does every night.
After supper we go on a man hunt in the dark, through the courts and
rooms of the place. On the preceding nights we had observed through the
transparent window-panes disturbing little lights which were promptly
extinguished if we made any noise. These lights moved up and down the
uninhabited galleries, some distance away, like fireflies. To-night's
effort brings about the capture of three unknown men who with cutlasses
and dark lanterns have climbed over the walls to pilfer in the imperial
reserves. There are two Chinese and one European, a soldier of one
of the allied nations. Not to make too much ado over it, we content
ourselves with putting them out after cudgelling them well and boxing
their ears.
V
TUESDAY, October 23.
Last night there was a still harder frost, which covered the ground in
the courtyard with small white crystals. This we discover during our
regular morning exploration of the galleries and dependencies of the
palace.
The former lodgings of the begging missionaries and the schoolrooms are
overflowing with packing boxes containing reserve supplies of silk and
tea. There is also a heap of old bronzes, vases, and incense-burners
piled up to the height of a man.
But the church itself is the most extraordinary mine,--a regular Ali
Baba's cave, quite filled. In addition to antiquities brought from the
Violet City, the Empress had put there all the presents she received
two years ago for her Jubilee. (And the line of mandarins who on that
occasion brought presents to their sovereign was a league long and
lasted an entire day.)
In the nave and side aisles the boxes and cases are piled to half the
height of the columns. In spite of the confusion, in spite of the hasty
pillaging of those who have preceded us,--Chinese, Japanese, German,
and Russian soldiers,--a marvellous collection remains. The most
enormous of the chests,--those beneath,--protected by their weight and
by the mass of things on top of them, have not even been opened. The
first to go were the innumerable smaller articles on top, most of them
enclosed in glass cases or in yellow silk coverings, such as bunches
of artificial flowers in agate, jade, coral, or lapis lazuli, pagodas
and blue landscapes made of the feathers of the kingfisher marvellously
utilized. Works of Chinese patience which have cost years of toil are
now broken in bits by the stroke of a bayonet, while the glass which
protected them is crackling under one's feet on the floor.
Imperial robes of heavy silk brocaded with gold dragons lie on the
ground among cases of every description. We walk over them, we walk
over carved ivories, over pearls and embroideries galore. There are
bronzes a thousand years old, from the Empress's collection; there are
screens which seem to have been carved and embroidered by supernatural
beings, there are antique vases, cloisonné, crackle ware, lacquers.
Certain of the boxes underneath, bearing the names of emperors who
died a century ago, contain presents sent them from distant provinces,
which no one has ever taken the trouble to open. The sacristy of this
astonishing cathedral contains in a series of pasteboard boxes, all the
sumptuous costumes for the actors in the Empress's theatre, with many
fashionable headdresses of former times.
This church, so full of pagan riches, has kept its organ intact,
although it has been silent for thirty years. My comrade mounts with
me to the gallery to try the effect of some hymns of Bach and Händel
under these vaultings, while the African chasseurs, up to their knees
in ivories, silks, and court costumes, continue their task of clearing
things out below.
* * * * *
About ten o'clock this morning I cross over to the opposite side of the
Violet City to visit the Palace of Ancestors, which is in charge of our
marines. This was the Holy of Holies, the Pantheon of dead emperors, a
temple which was never even approached.
It is in a particularly shady spot; in front of the entrance gate are
light but ornate triumphal arches of green, red, and gold lacquer,
resting on frail supports, and mingling with the sombre branches of
the trees. Enormous cedars and cypresses, twisted by age, shelter the
marble monsters which crouch at the threshold and have given them a
greenish hue.
Passing the first enclosure, we naturally find a second. The courts,
always shaded by old trees, succeed one another in solemn magnificence.
They are paved with large stones, between which grows a weed common in
cemeteries; each one of the cedars and cypresses which cast its shadow
here is surrounded by a marble circle and seems to spring from a bed of
carving. A thick layer of thousands of pine needles continually falling
from the branches, covers everything. Gigantic incense-burners of dull
bronze, centuries old, rest on pedestals bearing emblems of death.
Everything here has an unprecedented stamp of antiquity and mystery. It
is a unique place, haunted by the ghosts of the Chinese emperors.
On each side are secondary temples, whose walls of lacquer and gold
have taken on with time the shades of old Cordova leather. They contain
broken catafalques, emblems and objects pertaining to certain funeral
rites.
It is all incomprehensible and terrible; one feels profoundly incapable
of grasping the meaning of these forms and symbols.
At length, in the last court on a white marble terrace guarded by
bronze roes, the Ancestors' Palace lifts its tarnished gold façade,
surmounted by a roof of yellow lacquer.
* * * * *
It consists of one immense room, grand and gloomy, all in faded gold
turning to coppery red. At the rear is a row of nine mysterious double
doors, which are sealed with wax. In the centre are the tables on which
the repasts for the ancestral shades were placed, and where, on the
day the Yellow City was taken, our hungry soldiers rejoiced to find an
unexpected meal set forth. At each extremity of this lofty room chimes
and stringed instruments await the hour, which may never come again,
when they shall make music for the Shades. There are long, horizontal
zithers, grave in tone, which are supported by golden monsters with
closed eyes; gigantic chimes, one of bells, the others of marble slabs
and jade, suspended by gold chains and surmounted by great fantastic
beasts spreading their golden wings toward the dusky gold ceiling.
There are also lacquered cupboards as big as houses, containing
collections of old paintings, rolled on ebony or ivory sticks, and
wrapped in imperial silks.
Some of these are marvellous, and are a revelation of Chinese art of
which we of the Occident have no conception,--an art at least equal to
our own, though profoundly unlike it. Portraits of emperors in silent
revery, or hunting in the forest, portray wild places which give one
a longing for primitive nature, for the unspoiled world of rocks and
trees. Portraits of dead empresses painted in water-colors on faded
silks recall the candid grace of the Italian Primitives,--portraits
so pale, so colorless, as to seem like fleeting reflections of
persons, yet showing a perfection of modelling attained with absolute
simplicity, and with a look of concentration in the eye that makes you
feel the likeness and enables you for one strange moment to live face
to face with these princesses of the past who have slept for centuries
in this splendid mausoleum. All these paintings were sacred, never seen
or even suspected to exist by Europeans.
Other rolls, which when spread out on the pavement are six or eight
metres long, represent processions, receptions at court, or lines
of ambassadors; cavaliers, armies, banners; men of all kinds by the
thousands, whose dress, embroideries, and arms, suggest that one should
look at them with a magnifying glass. The whole history of Chinese
costume and ceremonial is contained in these precious miniatures.
We even find here the reception, by I know not what emperor, of an
ambassador from Louis XIV.; small persons with very French faces are
represented as though for exhibition at Versailles, with wigs after the
fashion of Roi-Soleil.
* * * * *
The nine magnificent sealed doors at the back of the temple, shut
off the altars of nine emperors. They were good enough to break the
red wax seals for me and to destroy the fastenings at one of the
forbidden entrances, so that I might penetrate into one of the sacred
sanctuaries,--that of the great Emperor Kouang-Lu, who was in his glory
at the beginning of the eighteenth century. A serjeant has orders to
accompany me in this profanation, holding in his hand a lighted candle,
which seems to burn reluctantly here in the light cold air of the tomb.
The temple itself was quite dark, but here it was black night itself,
and it seemed as though dirt and cinders had been thrown about; the
dust that accumulates so endlessly in Pekin seems a sign of death and
decay. Passing from daylight, however dim, to the light of one small
candle that is lost in the shadows, one sees confusedly at first, and
there is a momentary hesitation, especially if the place is startling
in itself. I see before me a staircase rising to a sort of tabernacle,
which seems to be full of artistic creations of some unknown kind.
At both right and left, closed by complicated locks, are some severe
chests which I am permitted to examine. In their compartments and in
their double secret bottoms the sovereign's imperial seals have been
concealed by the hundreds,--heavy seals of onyx, jade, or gold struck
off for every occasion of his life and in commemoration of all the
acts of his reign; priceless relics which no one dared touch after his
obsequies, and which have lain there for twice one hundred years.
I go up into the tabernacle and the serjeant holds his candle before
the marvels there,--jade sceptres and vases, some of a peculiar and
exquisite workmanship in both dark and light jade, in cloisonné on
gold, or in plain solid gold. Behind the altar in an obscure position
a grand figure which I had not perceived followed me with an oblique
look that reached me through two curtains of yellow imperial silk,
whose folds were black with dust. It is a pale portrait of the defunct
Emperor,--a life-sized portrait, so obscure, as seen by the light of
our single wretched candle, as to seem like the reflection of a ghost
in a tarnished mirror. What a nameless sacrilege would our opening the
chests where his treasures were hidden seem to this dead man, nay, even
our presence in this most impenetrable of all places in an impenetrable
city!
When everything is carefully closed again, when the red seals have
been put back in place and the pale image of the Emperor returned
to silence, to its customary shadows, I hasten to get away from the
tomblike chill, to breathe the air again, to seek on the terrace some
of the autumn sunshine which filters through the cedar branches.
I am going to take breakfast to-day with the French officers at the
extreme north end of the imperial wood, at the Temple of the Silkworm.
This, too, is an admirable old sanctuary, preceded by sumptuous courts
with marble terraces and bronze vases. This Yellow City is a complete
world of temples and palaces set in green. Up to last month the
travellers who thought they were seeing China, and to whom all this
remained closed, forbidden, could have no idea of the marvellous city
opened to us by the war.
* * * * *
When I start back to my Palace of the Rotunda, about two o'clock,
a burning sun is shining on the dark cedars and willows; one seeks
shade as if it were summer, and the willows are losing many of their
leaves. At the entrance to the Marble Bridge, not far from my gate, the
two bodies in blue gowns which lie among the lotus are bathed in an
ironical splendor of light.
After the soldiers on guard have closed the low postern by which one
gains access to my high garden, I am again alone in the silence until
the sun's rays, falling oblique and red upon my writing-table, announce
the coming of the melancholy evening.
I am scarcely seated at my work before a friendly head, discreetly
rubbed against my leg to attract my attention, announces the visit of
the cat. I am not unprepared for this visit, for I now expect it every
day.
An hour of ideal quiet goes by, broken only by two or three ravens'
cries. Then I hear the noise of cavalry galloping over the stone
pavements at the foot of my wall; it proves to be Field-Marshal von
Waldersee, followed by an escort of soldiers with small flags at the
tips of their spears. He is returning to the palace where he lives, not
far from here, one of the most sumptuous of all the residences of the
Empress. My eyes follow the cavalcade as it crosses the Marble Bridge,
turns to the left, and is lost behind the trees. Then the silence
returns, absolute as before.
From time to time I go out to walk on my high terrace, and always
discover there something new. There are enormous tam-tams under my
cedars, with which to call upon the gods; there are beds of yellow
chrysanthemums and Indian-yellow carnations, upon which the frost has
left a few flowers; there is a kind of daïs of marble and faience
supporting an object quite indefinite at first sight,--one of the
largest blocks of jade in the world, cut in imitation of an ocean wave
with monsters struggling in the foam.
I visit some deserted kiosks,--still furnished with ebony thrones,
divans, and yellow silk cushions,--which seem like little clandestine
love nests. There is no doubt that the beautiful sovereign, passionate
still, though aging, used to isolate herself here with her favorites
among the imperial silks in these protecting shadows.
* * * * *
My only companion in my palace of dreams to-day is the big alabaster
goddess robed in gold, who perpetually smiles upon broken vases and
withered flowers; her temple, where the sun never enters, is always
cold and grows dark before it should.
But now real night has come, and I begin to feel chilly. The sun, which
in France is at its meridional apogee, is sinking; sinking here, a big
red ball without light or heat, going down behind the Lake of the Lotus
in a wintry mist.
The chill of the night comes on suddenly, giving me the sensation of
an abrupt descent into a cave of ice and a furtive little feeling of
anguish at being exiled so far from home.
I greet my two servants like friends when they come for me, bringing a
cape for me to wear on the way back to the palace.