Out of the northern archway came the camels and the horses, the soldiers, the lamas, the eunuchs, out came all the quaint gay paraphernalia—umbrellas, and fans, palankeens, and sedan chairs, and banners—and slowly crossed the great courtyard, the arena; a stop, a long pause, then on again, and the southern gate swallowed them up, again the clack of the strips of wood, and the mighty bier, borne on the shoulders of the Babylonish slaves. Slowly, slowly, then it stood still, and we felt as if it must stay there for ever, as if the eighty men who upheld it must be suffering unspeakable things. Once more the clack of the strips of wood, and the southern archway in due course swallowed it up, too, with the few halberdiers and the detachment of soldiery who completed the procession. Outside the Chien Men was the railway station, the crowded people—crowded like Chinese flies in summer, and that is saying a great deal—were cleared away by the soldiers, the bier was lifted on to a car, the bands struck up a weird funeral march, the soldiers presented arms, the lama priests fell on their knees, and then very, very slowly the train steamed out of the station, and the last of the Manchu Empresses was borne to her long home.
Was it impressive I asked myself as I went down the ramp? And the answer was a little difficult to find. Quaint and strange and Eastern, for the thing that has struck me so markedly in China was here marked as ever. It was like the paper money that was thrown with such lavish generosity into the air. Amongst all the magnificence was the bizarre note—that discordant touch of tawdriness. Beneath the gorgeous robes of the attendants, plainly to be seen, were tatters and uncleanliness, the soldiers in their ill-fitting uniforms looked makeshift, and the police wanted dusting. And yet—and again I must say and yet, for want of better words—behind it all was some reality, something that gripped like the haunting sound of the dirge, or the stately march of the camels that have defied all change.
CHAPTER VI—A TIME OF REJOICING
The charm of Peking—A Chinese theatre—Electric light—The custodian of the theatre—Bargaining for a seat—The orchestra—The scenery of Shakespeare—Realistic gesture—A city wall—A mountain spirit—Gorgeous dresses—Bundles of towels—Women's gallery—Armed patrols—Rain in April—The food of the peasant—Famine—The value of a daughter—God be thanked.
The Legation Quarter in Peking, as I was reminded twenty times a day, is not China, it is not even Peking, but it is a pleasant place in which to stay; a place where one may foregather and exchange ideas with one's kind, and yet whence one may go forth and see all Peking; more, may see places where still the foreigner is something to be stared at, and wondered at, and where the old, unchanging civilisation still goes on. Ordinarily if you would see something new, something that gives a fresh sensation, it is necessary to go out from among your kind and brave discomfort, or spend a small fortune to guard against that discomfort, but here, in Peking, you who are interested in such things may see an absolutely new world, and yet have all the comforts, except reading matter, to which you have been accustomed in London. It was no wonder I lingered in Peking. Always there was something new to see, always there was something fresh to learn, and at any moment, within five minutes, I could step out into another world, the world of Marco Polo, the world the Jesuit Fathers saw when first the Western nations were beginning to realise there were any countries besides their own.
