The Last Days of Pekin

by Pierre Loti

In a room which is almost dark and where the evening sun never enters, two poor girls, two sisters who look alike, are seated with bowed heads amid lamentable disorder, in positions indicative of supreme consternation,—one on a chair, the other on the edge of an ebony bed which they must share at night. They are dressed in humble black, but here and there on the floor are scattered shining silks and tunics embroidered in big flowers and gold chimæras,—the garments they put on when going to meet the armies, in the midst of whistling bullets on days of battle,—their attire as warriors and goddesses.

For they are a kind of Jeanne d'Arc,—if it is not blasphemy to pronounce a name of almost ideal purity in this connection,—they are the goddesses of the incomprehensible Boxers, so atrocious and at the same time so admirable: hysterical creatures, exciting both the hatred and terror of the foreigner, who one day fled without fighting in a panic of fear, and the next with the shrieks of the possessed threw themselves straight into the face of death, under a shower of bullets from troops ten times as numerous as themselves.

The goddesses, taken prisoners, are the property, the curious bibelot, if one may use the word, of the seven Allies. They are not badly treated. They are merely shut up for fear they will commit suicide, which has become a fixed idea with them. What will be their fate? Already their captors are tired of seeing them and don't know what to do with them.

On a day of defeat the junk in which they sought refuge was surrounded, and they, with their mother, who followed them everywhere, threw themselves into the water. The soldiers fished them out fainting. The goddesses after much care came to their senses. But the mamma never again opened her oblique old Chinese eyes. The girls were made to believe that she had been taken to a hospital and would soon come back. At first the prisoners were brave, animated, haughty, and always well dressed. But this very morning they have been told that their mother is no more, and it is that which has stunned them, like a physical blow.

Having no money to buy mourning dress, which in China is always white, they asked to be allowed white leather shoes—which at this moment cover their doll-like feet, and which are as essential here as the crape veil is with us.

They are both slender and of a waxen pallor, scarcely pretty, but with a certain grace, a certain charm as they stand there, one in front of the other, without tears, with drooping eyes and with arms falling straight at their sides. They do not raise their eyes even to ascertain who enters or what is wanted of them. They do not stir as we come in, nothing matters to them now. They await death, indifferent to everything.

They inspire in us an unlooked-for respect by the dignity of their despair, respect and infinite compassion. We have nothing to say to one another, and are as embarrassed at being there as though we had been guilty of some indiscretion.

It occurred to us to put some money on the disordered bed; but one of the sisters, while appearing not to see us, threw the pieces of silver onto the floor and with a gesture invited the servant to dispose of them as she wished. So that this was on our part a further mistake.

There is such an abyss of misunderstanding between European officers and Boxer goddesses that it is impossible to show our sympathy for them in any way. So we, who came to be amused by a curious sight, depart in silence with a tightening of the heartstrings at the thought of the two poor creatures imprisoned in a gloomy room in the fading evening light.