Part 10 (1/2)
XII
WALKING ON THE WALL
Don't think that even in all this excitement our taste for shopping has become quiescent. Far from it! Shopping freshens one up, relaxes one's mind, makes one more keen for the next bit of rumor that comes along. We know where all the antique-shops are situated, those along Ha-ta-Men Street, out on Morrison Street, in the Tartar City, all those without the Wall, and those in the Chinese City, as well as the p.a.w.nshops down the lower part of Chi'en Men Street, the Thieves' Market, and all the various bazaars. And we know the days on which the temple fairs are held. We know all about them and get bargains every day, sometimes real finds, and sometimes stone lions of the purest Ming, such as I described a few days ago. And in the intervals, when we are not out questing on our own, the dealers and runners from the various shops appear at our door, bow themselves in with such ingratiating compliments that we can't resist, and then stoop over and undo wonderful blue cotton bundles and exhibit such treasures that there's no withstanding them. The most irresistible of all these dealers is ”Tiffany” (his Chinese name has given way to this nickname, which is solemnly printed on his card), dealer in jewels and jade, a giant Chinese about six feet tall, weighing some three hundred pounds, with the smiling, innocent face of a three-foot child! When Tiffany enters the room and squats down over his big blue bundle, his knees spread out, he looks like a wide blue elephant, and there is no refusing his bland, smiling, upturned face, his gentle, ”No buy. Just look-see.” Then from the bundle come strings of pearls, translucent jade of ”number-one” quality, snuff-bottles fit for a museum. The only way of getting rid of him is to tell him that a new American lady has just arrived on the floor below, whereupon he gathers up his treasures and goes in search of her! His method of gaining admittance to our room is ingenious. A gentle knock, and we open to find the doorway suffused by Tiffany.
”No want things to-day, Mr. Tiffany. No can buy.”
To which comes the pleasant reply: ”No want Missy buy. Come bring Missy c.u.mshaw.”
A slender hand slips around the open door, against one side of which I press my knee while he braces a huge foot against the other, and in the hand lies a red leather box painted with flowers and dragons. ”Present for Missy; c.u.mshaw,” says the pleasant voice, and what can you do?
”Amelican lady you say down-stair, she buy heap pearls, so I bring Missy c.u.mshaw.” Whereupon in he comes, with his grat.i.tude for the American lady, his bargains, his wheedling, and we are lost!
[Ill.u.s.tration: Village outside walls of Peking]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fortune teller]
After some weeks of this--Tiffany and others, and our own excursions--our room became a veritable curio-shop, and our curios were so overlaid with spring dust which the ”boys” had failed to remove that we called in a packer one day, had everything boxed, and resolved to buy nothing more. On this afternoon, March 16, we went over to the legation compound to arrange with our consul for invoices, and as we crossed the compound Dr. Reinsch appeared from his house, and came over and spoke to us. He looked very tired and troubled, showing the strain of the last few weeks.
”I've just had word from the Chinese Foreign Office,” he said, ”that the Russian Government has been overturned!” He had no details, just the mere fact, but the shock was so great that we forgot all about our visit to the consul, forgot our intention to obtain an invoice; all we wanted to do was get off and talk it over! We flew back to the hotel, simply bursting with the news! It's so exciting, in this old, barbaric city, to hear such news as that, so casually, from your minister! No one in the hotel to talk to,--three o'clock, a bad hour! So we went for a walk on the only available place for a walk that Peking affords, the top of the wall. For you can't walk with comfort in the streets, they are too crowded, with camels and wheelbarrows to be dodged at every turn. And as we walked on the wall, discussing that bit of tremendous news, going over and over again the possibilities contained in those few words, we met other people out walking, also talking it over. The French minister and his first-secretary came by, deeply engrossed in conversation. Some little distance behind us came Dr. Reinsch with one of the press correspondents. We met all diplomatic Peking walking on the wall that afternoon, talking it over! For the wall is a good safe place for conversations: one can't possibly be overheard, for one can see people coming a mile off. Only foreigners may go there: the Chinese aren't allowed on it, except the soldiers at the blockhouses by the towers. The most frequent visitor is the baby camel owned by the American marine guards, which comes up to browse on the weeds growing between the stones. We once asked a marine where they found this mascot. ”Stole it first,” was the reply, ”and paid four dollars afterward!”
I picked up a Tientsin paper a few days ago, and was interested to read an ”Ordonnance” promulgated by the French consul-general at Tientsin. By the terms of this decree every Chinese employed in the French concession is obliged to have a little book containing his name, age, place of birth, and so on, together with his photograph and finger-prints. A duplicate _carnet_ is on file at the French police bureau in Tientsin, and no Chinese can find employment in the concession, as cook, groom, clerk, chauffeur, or in any other capacity, unless he is first registered with the police. The idea of having one's finger-prints recorded, like a common criminal, seems somehow humiliating. I imagine there would be some comment if the j.a.panese enforced such regulations in their concessions in China.
XIII
MEETING THE PRESIDENT OF CHINA
Ever since we came to Peking we have been anxious to meet the President of China, Li Yuan Hung. Dr. Reinsch said he would arrange it for us ”at the first opportune moment.” Opportune moments are scarce in Peking, as you can well imagine; consequently we have been waiting for weeks for such a moment to arrive, for a pause longer than usual between impeachments and betrayals and plots of various kinds. We had waited so long, in fact, that we had quite forgotten about it, until we came in one day just before tiffin time, rather late, and found the whole hotel in a blaze of excitement: we were to meet the President that afternoon!
And, what's more, best clothes were required! Really, I had not foreseen that contingency, and therefore felt uncomfortable and self-conscious when arrayed in my other hat, with the feather, the hat which has been reposing in the hat-box for eight long months, waiting for just such an emergency! Every one else, however, was in the same state of excitement as to dress; that is, all those who like ourselves had been long in the Orient, and whose clothes had fallen off a bit in appearance. In sharp contrast were the newly arrived tourists with their smart new outfits, beautiful as only Americans can be beautiful. But never mind: we reflected that the President would never know the difference; he would consider us all alike and all outlandish. There were others in the party who had lived so long in Peking that they were reduced to Gillard's best,--Gillard's, the one ”department store” of the city, about on a plane with the general store of a country village or a frontier town, only worse. Sooner or later every one in Peking is reduced to Gillard's Emporium, where the stocks are old-fas.h.i.+oned and musty, and the thing you want has just been sold out. And if you can't get it at Gillard's, there is nowhere else to go. Up-stairs Mrs. Gillard makes Paris gowns on the latest models, which look all right, too, till tourist season comes round and you see the difference. Well, finally we were all ready, and a.s.sembled at the front door of the hotel,--the smart and beautiful Americans; those clad in Gillard's best, and ourselves, something intermediate. The men were upset, too: several of them had been obliged to borrow top hats. And at the last moment a rumor spread that ceremonial bows were required. That created such consternation that several of us considered backing out.
We were all to meet at the Pei Hei Gate at two o'clock, so we started early, for we had a long distance to travel. The smart Americans went in motors, as was fitting, but the rest of us made a long procession of rickshaws, and jogged happily along the dusty streets, out through the gates of the legation quarter, past the North Glacis, through the gates of the Imperial City, and finally, after half an hour's run, reached the Pei Hei Gate, leading into the old and abandoned Winter Palace. It then transpired that a visit to this old palace was part of the program, and we were to wander for two hours through its beautiful and extensive grounds, until four o'clock, when the President would receive us. Now March is March the world over, but March in Peking is excessive. No one who has not pa.s.sed a spring in North China can know the meaning of dust.
On this clear, bright March afternoon a cla.s.sic dust-storm was in progress and in this, dressed in our best clothes, we were to wander for two hours through the closed grounds of the Winter Palace, which had been thrown open to us by special courtesy of the President!
They say one never realizes the meaning of the word decay until one has seen Peking. And the climax of decay is reached here, in this former abode of the old empress dowager, where everything remains as she left it, or as the Boxers left it, or as the European looters left it after the Boxer troubles. Scattered through the beautiful grounds are magnificent buildings, all fallen into ruin. The roofs of the palaces and temples, blazing with the imperial yellow tiles, are dropping to pieces, and rank gra.s.s is replacing the fallen tiles and dislodging those that are left. In one of the temples we walked through littered debris of rich carvings, kicked against the broken heads and hands of gilded G.o.ds fallen from the altars, and brushed against the loosened shreds of old paintings swaying in tatters from the walls. One building contained the remains of a once beautiful fountain, painted and lacquered, now moldering and fallen into dust. At the four corners of the room the old G.o.ds, life-size, had been gathered into piles and covered with matting, and from beneath this dusty covering protruded dirty, battered heads and gilded bodies, ludicrous and pathetic.
In the grounds it was no better. Weeds grew shoulder high, springing from between the stones of the great courtyards and open s.p.a.ces connecting the temples and palaces, and we pushed ourselves through this brush, and stumbled over rolling stones, all the while enveloped by the whirling dust, the everlasting Peking dust, straight from the Gobi Desert. All this was very disastrous to our personal appearance, and at the end of two hours we were all reduced to pretty much the same level: really, there wasn't much difference between the beautiful Americans, those attired in Gillard's best, and ourselves, when we took to our rickshaws (and motors) again and set off for the President's palace, in the Forbidden City.
The grounds of this palace presented a much better appearance than anything we had seen in Peking. The roads were newly swept, and everything was very neat and clean and orderly, though bare. The lawns, if such they could be called, were as arid and gra.s.sless as the great plains of Chili. We arrived a few minutes before four, and descended from our vehicles, grand and otherwise, and then a cleaning-up process took place. Dusty shoes were brushed off with handkerchiefs, dusty coats slapped and patted, wind-blown hair rearranged, dust cleaned out from the corners of eyes, and powder-papers pa.s.sed from hand to hand among the women. One lady remarked cheerfully, ”Well, we surely don't look very nifty to meet the President,” but we made ourselves as ”nifty” as we could, in the circ.u.mstances, standing together in a laughing group on the lee side of the palace, and asking one another if we'd do. I remember that once, years ago, when I was living in the Latin Quarter, some of us went over to a tea on ”the other side,” and before pulling the door-bell, we stood first on one foot and then on the other, polis.h.i.+ng our dusty shoes on our stockings. Well, here we were doing the same thing, before meeting the President of China!
We got clean at last, and then soberly marched round the corner of the building and presented ourselves in the anteroom of the palace, leading to the President's apartments. Here we found Dr. Reinsch waiting for us, and he sorted us into groups of eight, and left us waiting till the summons came. In former times the mandarins used to wait in this anteroom, before an audience with the empress dowager, and we tried to imagine the big bare room of to-day filled with these high officials in their gorgeous robes. Nothing remains of the old glories of the palace save the elaborate carving on wall and ceiling, and a few pieces of magnificent old furniture. The ceiling is now disfigured with a gaudy, cheap European chandelier, while standing here and there on beautiful ebony tables are hideous modern vases, straight from the five-and-ten-cent store. The floor was covered with ugly oilcloth. Such is China modernized, imbued with Western culture.
Our group of eight was the first to be called, and Dr. Reinsch led the way with an interpreter. We pa.s.sed out of the antechamber and along an open marble corridor, lined with Chinese soldiers in their padded gray cotton uniforms, who stood at salute as the American minister pa.s.sed.
Immediately we found ourselves in another room, also plainly furnished, and the next moment were shaking hands with an una.s.suming little man clad in a frock-coat, the President, Li Yuan Hung. Through the interpreter the President explained that he would like us to pa.s.s into the room beyond, where he could speak with us one by one, personally.
He waved his hand toward the other room, and my recollection is that we led the way! It all happened so quickly, I can't remember; but somehow our group seemed to be waiting in the other room when the President and Dr. Reinsch arrived at our heels, a second later. However, you can't expect people not brought up in courts to know much about such things, and we were probably fl.u.s.tered, anyway.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Courtesy of Press Ill.u.s.trating Service