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.
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."