When we get outside of the Yellow City noise and life begin again. After the magnificent solitude to which we have become accustomed, whenever we return to everybody's Pekin, we are surprised to find such a roar among these humble crowds; it is hard to realize that the woods, the lakes, the horizons, which play at being the real country, are artificial things surrounded on all sides by the most swarming of cities.
It is incontestable that the people are returning in crowds to Pekin. (According to Monsignor Favier, the Boxers in particular are returning in all kinds of costumes and disguises.) From day to day the number of silk gowns, blue cotton gowns, slanting eyes, and queues increases.
We must move faster in spite of all the people, for it seems it is still some distance, and time is passing. Our outrider appears to be galloping. We cannot see him, for here the streets are even dustier than in the Yellow City; we see only the cloud of dust that envelops his little Mongolian horse, and we follow that.
At the end of half an hour's rapid riding the dust cloud stops in front of a ramshackle old house in a narrow street that leads nowhere. Is it possible that Li-Hung-Chang, rich as Aladdin, the owner of palaces and countless treasures, one of the most enduring favorites of the Empress and one of the glories of China, lives here?
For reasons unknown to me, the entrance is guarded by Cossack soldiers in poor uniforms but with naïve rosy faces. The room into which I am taken is dilapidated and untidy; there is a table in the middle of it and two or three rather well-carved ebony chairs; but that is all. At one end is a chaos of trunks, bags, packages, and bedding, all tied up as though in preparation for flight. The Chinese who comes to the door, in a beautiful gown of plum-colored silk, gives me a seat and offers me tea. He is the interpreter, and speaks French correctly, even elegantly. He tells me that some one has gone to announce me to his Highness.
At a sign from another Chinese he presently conducts me into a second court, and there, at the door leading into a reception-room, a tall old man advances to meet me. At his right and his left are silk-robed servants, both a whole head shorter than he is, on whose shoulders he leans. He is colossal, with very prominent cheek-bones, and small, very small, quick and searching eyes. He is an exaggeration of the Mongolian type, with a certain beauty withal, and the air of a great personage, although his furry gown of an indefinite color is worn and spotted. (I have been forewarned that in these days of abomination his Highness believes that he should affect poverty.) The large shabby room where he receives me is, like the first one, strewn with trunks and packages. We take arm-chairs opposite each other, while servants place cigarettes, tea, and champagne on a table between us. At first we stare at each other like two beings from different worlds.
After inquiring as to my age and the amount of my income (one of the rules of Chinese politeness), he bows again, and conversation begins.