IX
It is dark when I reach my dwelling-place. The fires are already lighted in the subterranean furnaces, and a soft heat rises through the thick yellow carpets. We feel much at home and quite comfortable now in this palace, which at first seemed so dreary to us.
I dine, as usual, at a small ebony table, which is lost in the long gallery so dark at either end, in company with my comrade, Captain C., who has discovered new and wonderful treasures during the day, which he has spread out, that we may enjoy them for at least an evening.
First, there is a throne of a style unknown to us; some screens of colossal size that rest in ebony sockets, on which shining birds are battling with monkeys amid the flowers of a dream. Candelabra, which have remained in their silk cases since the seventeenth century, now hang from the arches above our heads,—a shower of pearls and enamel,—and many other indescribable things added to-day to our wealth of articles of antique art.
It is the last time we shall be able to enjoy our gallery in its completeness, for to-morrow most of these objects are to be labelled and sent off with the reserve stock. Retaining one salon for the general, who is to winter here, the rest of this wing of the palace is to be cut up by light partitions into lodgings and offices for the staff. This work will be done under the direction of Captain C., who is chief architect and supervisor, whilst I, a passing guest, will have only a consulting voice.
As this evening marks the last chapter of our imperial phantasmagoria, we sit up later than usual. For this once we are childish enough to array ourselves in sumptuous Asiatic garments, then we throw ourselves down on the cushions and call opium—so favorable to weary and blasé imaginations such as ours have unfortunately begun to be—to our aid. Alas! to be alone in this palace would have seemed magical enough to us a few years ago without the aid of any avatar.
The opium, needless to say, is of exquisite quality; its fumes, rising in rapid little spirals, soon make the air sweet and heavy. It quickly brings to us the ecstasy, the forgetfulness, the relief, the youthful lightness so dear to the Chinese.
There is absolute silence without; absolute silence and deserted courts, where all is cold and black. The gallery grows warm, the heat of the furnace is heavy, for these walls of glass and paper, so frail as a protection against surprises from without, form rooms almost hermetically sealed and propitious to the intoxication that comes from perfumes.
Stretched out upon the silken cushions, we gaze at the receding ceiling, at the row of arches so elaborately carved into lacework, from which the lanterns with the dangling pearls are suspended. Chimæras of gold stand out from the thick folds of the green or yellow silks. High screens of cloisonné, lacquer, or ebony, the great luxury of China, shut off the corners, forming luxurious nooks filled with jars, bronzes, and monsters with eyes of jade,—eyes which squintingly follow you.
Absolute silence, except that from a distance one of those shots is heard which never fails to mark the torpor of the night, or a cry of distress or alarm; skirmishes between Europeans in the posts and thieving Chinamen; sentinels afraid of the dead or of the night shooting at a shadow.
In the foreground, which is lighted by one lamp, the only luminous things whose design and color are engraved upon our already fixed gaze are four gigantic incense-burners—hieratic in form, and made of an adorable blue cloisonné—resting on gold elephants. They stand out against a background of black lacquer traversed by flying birds, whose plumage is made of different kinds of mother-of-pearl. No doubt our lamp is going out, for, with the exception of these nearer things, we scarcely see the magnificence of the place until the outline of some rare vase five hundred years old, the reflection of a piece of inimitable silk, or the brilliancy of some bit of enamel recalls it to our memory.
The fumes of the opium keep us awake until very late, in a state of mind that is both lucid and at the same time confused. We have never until now understood Chinese art; it is revealed to us for the first time to-night. In the beginning we were ignorant, as is all the world, of its almost terrible grandeur until we saw the Imperial City and the walled palace of the Son of Heaven; now at this nocturnal hour, amid the fragrant fumes that rise in clouds in our over-heated gallery, our impressions of the big sombre temples, of the yellow enamelled roofs crowning the Titanic buildings that rise above terraces of marble, are exalted above mere captivated admiration to respect and awe.
In the thousand details of its embroidery and carvings which surround us in such profusion, we learn how skilful and how exact this art is in rendering the grace of flowers, exaggerating their superb and languishing poses and their deep or deliciously pale colorings; then in order to make clear the cruelty of every kind of living thing, down to dragons and butterflies, they place claws, horns, terrible smiles, and leering eyes upon them! They are right; these embroideries on our cushions are roses, lotus flowers, chrysanthemums! As for the insects, the scarabs, the flies, and the moths, they are just like those horrid things painted in gold relief on our court fans.
When we arrive at that special form of physical prostration which sets the mind free (disengages the astral body, they say at Benares), everything in the palace, as well as in the outside world, seems easy and amusing. We congratulate ourselves upon having come to live in the Yellow City at so unique a period in the history of China, at a moment when everything is free, and we are left almost alone to gratify our whims and curiosity. Life seems to hold to-morrows filled with new and interesting circumstances. In our conversation we find words, formulas, images, to express the inexpressible, the things that have never been said. The hopelessness, the misery that one carries about like the weight on a convict's leg, is incontestably lessened; and as to the small annoyances of the moment, the little pin-pricks, they exist no longer. For example, when we see through the glass gallery the pale light of a moving lantern in a distant part of our palace, we say without the slightest feeling of disturbance: "More thieves! They must see us. We'll hunt them down to-morrow!"
And it seems of no consequence, even comfortable to us, that our cushions and our imperial silks are shut off from the cold and the horrors by nothing but panes of glass.