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The voyage of the Ceylão to Shanghai was calm and monotonous.
From Shanghai I travelled up the Blue River to Tien-Tsin in a small steamer belonging to the Russel Company. I had not come to China out of a tourist's idle curiosity. The bluish, misty landscape, like that painted on porcelain vases, with bare little hills and an isolated shrub here and there, left me darkly indifferent.
As we passed Nanking, the steamer's captain, an insolent Yankee whose face I caricatured as a goat's muzzle, suggested a visit to the monumental ruins of the old porcelain city. I refused with a curt shake of the head, without taking my sad eyes from the muddy current.
How heavy and sombre the days of navigation between Tien-Tsin and Tung-Chou seemed to me. In my bitterness, I said that the flat boats were befouled by the smell of the Chinese rowers. We travelled now through low ground flooded by the Pei-Hó, now beside pale, endless rice fields. We passed a dismal village of black mud, a field covered in yellow coffins, and the swollen, greenish bodies of beggars drifting downstream beneath a low, dark sky.
At Tung-Chou I was surprised by an escort of Cossacks sent by the old General Camilloff. Camilloff, a hero of the Central Asian campaigns, was then Russia's ambassador in Peking. The interpreter Sá-Tó, as talkative as he was respectful, explained that letters bearing the imperial seal had announced my arrival weeks earlier. According to him, the chancery couriers crossed Siberia by sledge, continued by camel to the Great Wall, and handed the mail to Mongolian runners in scarlet leather, who galloped day and night towards Peking.
Camilloff had sent me a Manchurian pony with silk harness and a card on which he had written in pencil: 'Greetings!' 'The animal is soft-mouthed,' the card added.
I mounted, and amid the Cossacks' shout and the waving of their lances we galloped across the dusty plain. Evening was falling, and the gates of Peking closed when the last ray of sunlight left the towers of the Temple of Heaven. We first followed the caravan road, obstructed by enormous slabs of marble loosened from the old Imperial Way, and then crossed the white bridge of Pa-li-kao, flanked by haughty dragons.
We raced beside canals of black water, among orchards and bluish villages nestling beside pagodas. Suddenly, at a bend in the road, I stopped in astonishment.
Peking lay before me: a vast, monumental and barbarous wall of dull black stretched beyond sight. The gates, with curved roofs that seemed Babylonian to me, stood against the bloodied purple of the sunset.
To the north, in a violet haze, the mountains of Mongolia seemed suspended in the air.
A richly appointed litter awaited me by the gate of Tung-Tsen-Men to carry me to Camilloff's military residence. Seen close at hand, the wall seemed to rise to the sky with the terror of a biblical construction. At its base were crowded stalls and a fair I saw as exotic; swaying lanterns cast blood-coloured patches across the dusk, while the white awnings resembled butterflies resting beside the black wall.
I grew sad; I climbed into the litter and closed its scarlet silk curtains, embroidered in gold. Surrounded by Cossacks, I entered old Peking through a gate that seemed a Babel to me, amid carts, lacquered sedan chairs, Mongolian horsemen armed with arrows, bonzes in white robes, and long lines of dromedaries.
Soon afterwards the litter stopped in a dark, silent garden, where illuminated pavilions shone among ancient sycamores like lanterns resting on the grass. Running water murmured in the shadows, and I felt the restless tread of gazelles slipping lightly away among the trees. Beneath a portico of red-painted wood, lit by strings of paper lamps, a burly man with white moustaches waited, leaning on a great sabre: it was General Camilloff.
The old hero pressed me to his chest for a moment and immediately took me, in accordance with the Chinese customs he observed, to the bath of hospitality. It was a vast porcelain tub in which white sponges floated among thin slices of lemon, in an intense perfume of lilac.
Soon afterwards, bathed and wearing a white tie, I entered the sitting room of Camilloff's wife, Vladimira, on the general's arm, while moonlight filled the gardens. She was tall and fair, with green eyes that reminded me of Homer's sirens; a scarlet rose rested at the low neckline of her white silk dress. On the fingers I kissed lingered a delicate scent of sandalwood and tea.
We talked at length about Europe, nihilism, Zola, Leo XIII, and Sarah Bernhardt's thinness.
Warm air scented with heliotrope entered through the open gallery. Then Vladimira sat at the piano, and until late her contralto voice broke the melancholy silence of the Tartar city with the lively airs of Madame Favart and the caressing melodies of The King of Lahore.
Early the next morning, closeted with the general in one of the garden pavilions, I told him my lamentable story and the fantastical reasons that had brought me to Peking. He listened, darkly stroking his thick Cossack moustache. - Does my esteemed guest know Chinese? - he suddenly asked, fixing me with a shrewd gaze.
- I know two important words, General: mandarin and tea.
Camilloff ran his strong-veined hand over the scar across his bald head and explained that, according to him, mandarin was not a Chinese word and no one in China understood it. He claimed that Portuguese navigators in the sixteenth century had given that name to Chinese officials.
When he praised the navigators of my beautiful country, I murmured: - When we had navigators... Camilloff sighed as well, out of politeness, and continued.
He said that the word came from your fine verb mandar, meaning to give orders. - When we had verbs... - I growled, carried away by my instinctive habit of belittling my country. For a moment the general's round eye widened like an old owl's, but he continued patiently and gravely.
- That leaves you, then, with tea - Camilloff concluded. Camilloff acknowledged that the word played an important role in Chinese life, but considered it insufficient for social relations. Camilloff summed up the matter: his esteemed guest intended to marry a woman of the Ti-Chin-Fú family, continue the mandarin's domestic and social influence and replace the dead man; for all that, he had only the word tea at his disposal.
I could not deny that it was not enough. The venerable Russian added two objections: no woman of the Ti-Chin-Fú family, he claimed, would agree to marry a man she regarded as a barbarian, and it would be impossible, terribly impossible, for the Emperor, the Son of the Sun, to grant a foreigner the honours of a mandarin.
- But why should he refuse them to me? - I exclaimed. I argued that I came from a good family in the Minho, held a university degree, and should therefore count as a scholar in China as in Coimbra. I added that I had already worked in a public office, possessed millions, and knew the ways of administration.
The general bowed respectfully before this abundance of qualifications.
- It is not that the Emperor would refuse you - he explained at last. - The problem is that the person who put forward the proposal would immediately be beheaded; under Chinese law, on this point, the rule is explicit and blunt.
I lowered my head, crushed.
I murmured that I wanted to free myself from the hateful presence of old Ti-Chin-Fú and his paper kite. I asked whether giving half my millions to the Chinese treasury might appease Ti-Chin-Fú, since I could not use them personally to promote the prosperity of the state as a mandarin.
The general placed his enormous hand on my shoulder in a paternal gesture and declared: - A considerable error, young man! According to Camilloff, the millions would never reach the imperial treasury.
He claimed they would remain in the bottomless pockets of the ruling classes, spent on gardens, porcelain, floor-covering furs, and silks for concubines. They would not relieve the hunger of a single Chinese person or repair one stone of the public roads. He concluded that those millions would 'enrich the Asian orgy' and added that Ti-Chin-Fú's soul knew the empire well and would not be satisfied.
I then proposed using part of the fortune for large distributions of rice to the starving crowd, as a philanthropist.
- Disastrous - Camilloff replied with a terrible frown. He said the imperial court would see in it political ambition, a devious plan to win over the crowd, and a threat to the dynasty; I would be beheaded.
- Damnation! Then why did I come to China? - I shouted.
The diplomat slowly shrugged. But then he showed his yellow Cossack teeth in a crafty smile and said: - Do one thing.
He advised me to seek out Ti-Chin-Fú's family while he asked the prime minister, Prince Tong, where those descendants could be found. Then I should gather the relatives, give them one or two dozen million, and prepare a royal funeral for the dead man.
Camilloff described a funeral of the highest ceremony, with a league-long procession, rows of bonzes, a world of banners, palanquins, lances, plumes, and scarlet biers. There would also be legions of professional mourners wailing ominously.
- If, after that, your conscience does not fall asleep and the ghost persists... - the general concluded. - Then what? - I asked.
- Cut your throat - Camilloff replied. - Thank you, General.
One thing, however, seemed evident to Camilloff, the respectful Sá-Tó, the general's wife and me: if I wished to visit Ti-Chin-Fú's family, attend the funeral rites and mingle in Peking life, I would have to dress at once as a wealthy Chinese man of the educated class. In that way, we said, I would grow accustomed to the dress, manners and ceremonial of a mandarin.
I thought that my sallow complexion and long drooping moustache suited the disguise. The next morning, after the ingenious tailors of Rua Chá-Coua had prepared me, I entered the scarlet-silk room, where the porcelain laid for lunch was already gleaming on the black lacquer table.
The general's wife drew back as though Tong-Tché himself, the Son of Heaven, had appeared before her. I wore a dark-blue brocade tunic, fastened at the side and embroidered across the breast with dragons and golden flowers, beneath a short, full coat of pale-blue silk. The hazelnut-coloured satin trousers revealed yellow slippers stitched with pearls and stockings speckled with tiny black stars; in a silver-fringed sash I carried a bamboo fan bearing a portrait of Lá-o-Tsé.
Through the mysterious connections I attributed to clothing, I fancied that Chinese ideas and instincts were being born within me. I listed a taste for meticulous ceremonies, bureaucratic respect for formulas and a measure of learned scepticism, but also terror of the emperor, hatred of foreigners, ancestor worship, fanaticism about tradition and a preference for sweet things. In soul and stomach, I declared myself already entirely a mandarin.
Instead of saying 'Bonjour, Madame', I bent double, revolved my closed fists above my lowered head and solemnly performed the chin-chin. - It is adorable, it is exquisite! - the general's wife exclaimed, laughing and clapping her pale hands.
That morning, in honour of my new incarnation, the household served what it presented as a Chinese lunch. The napkins were made of scarlet tissue paper, with fabulous monsters drawn in black. The meal began with Ning-Pó oysters, two dozen of which I swallowed with what I called an intense Chinese delight. Slices of shark fin followed, then sheep's eyes with chopped garlic, water lilies in sugar syrup and Canton oranges. At last came the sacramental rice, which I called 'the rice of the ancestors'. I washed the meal down liberally with Chão-Chigne wine and afterwards received a bowl of boiling water for the imperial tea leaves.
I said that the first March harvest was unique and celebrated in a sacred rite by the pure hands of virgins. While we smoked, two singers entered and performed old songs from the Ming dynasty in a modulation I described as guttural.
Two crouching musicians plucked snakeskin-covered guitars in a melancholy rhythm that I called barbarous. 'China has charms of rare refinement,' I concluded, pleased with the spectacle the embassy had staged. Then the fair-haired general's wife wittily sang La Femme à barbe.
Camilloff left with his Cossack escort for Prince Tong's yamen, to discover where Ti-Chin-Fú's family lived. Replete and in good spirits, I went out with Sá-Tó to see Peking.
Camilloff's house stood in the Tartar city, among the military and noble quarters, where an austere tranquillity reigned. The streets resembled broad village roads scored by wheels, and often ran beside walls over which sycamore branches stretched.
At times a cart drawn by a Mongolian pony sped past, every part of it swaying: wheels with tall golden studs, canopy, silk curtains and plumes at the corners. Inside I glimpsed a Chinese lady in pale brocades, with flowers in her hair, two silver bangles turning at her wrists and what seemed to me an air of ceremonial boredom.
On other occasions, blue-clad bearers carried an aristocratic mandarin's sedan at a breathless trot towards the state yamens. Ragged servants marched ahead, holding aloft silk rolls embroidered with insignia of authority. Inside, the corpulent figure leafed through papers behind enormous round spectacles or slept with a drooping lip.
We constantly stopped before the wealthy shops, whose vertical signs bore golden characters on a scarlet ground. In a church-like silence, customers examined Ming porcelain, bronzes, enamels, ivory, silks, inlaid weapons and the wonderful fans of Swaton. A girl in a blue tunic with paper poppies in her plaits unfolded a rare brocade before an absorbed customer, while the merchant wrote at the back with a brush on sandalwood tablets. A sweet scent seemed to issue from the objects themselves and, without my knowing why, unsettled and saddened me.
We reached the wall enclosing the Forbidden City, the emperor's sacred dwelling. Young noblemen descended from a temple terrace where they had practised archery; Sá-Tó told me that they belonged to the select guard which escorted, in ceremonies, the yellow parasol embroidered with the imperial dragon. They all bowed deeply before an old man with a venerable beard, a yellow coat and a staff on which tame larks perched: according to Sá-Tó, he was a prince of the empire.
Nothing amused me so much as watching two corpulent mandarins at a garden gate exchange endless bows, refusals, courtesies and little laughs of etiquette before entering. The ceremonial made the long peacock feathers on their backs sway comically. Whenever I raised my eyes, I always saw enormous paper kites shaped like dragons, cetaceans or fabulous birds.
That improbable legion of transparent monsters undulated across the Peking sky. - Sá-Tó, enough of the Tartar city; let us see the Chinese quarters.
We entered the Chinese city through the monstrous gate of Tchin-Men. There, I said, lived the bourgeoisie, the merchants and the rabble; the streets ran in lines like a musical stave across ancient, muddy ground. Amid filth accumulated over generations, a few slabs of rose-coloured marble still appeared, remnants which I associated with the greatness of the Ming. On either side were vacant plots where hungry dogs howled, dark hovels and poor shops with narrow signs swinging from iron rods.
In the distance stood purple-coloured wooden arches, crowned by roofs of glazed blue tiles that shone like enamel. A dense crowd moved without pause beneath the yellowish dust, while an acrid smell rose from the black drains. Long camel caravans slowly opened a path through the throng, led by Mongolian men dressed in sheepskin.
Beside the canal bridges, half-naked performers masked as demons executed feats which I called both barbarous and subtle. I also lingered before astrologers in long robes, with paper dragons fixed to their backs, noisily selling horoscopes and astrological readings. 'Oh, fabulous and singular city!' I exclaimed, still seduced by the spectacle.
A clamour interrupted me: a soldier with large spectacles was driving a group of prisoners with his parasol, tied to one another by their queues. Along the same avenue passed a mandarin's noisy funeral procession, laden with pennants and standards. Men burnt papers in portable braziers, and ragged women wailed in grief, rolling upon mats. Immediately afterwards, those women rose, laughed, and a bearer dressed in white mourning clothes served them tea from a large bird-shaped teapot.
Near the Temple of Heaven, I found a multitude of almost naked beggars who wore only a brick tied around the waist with string. Women with old paper flowers in their hair gnawed bones, while children's corpses decayed beside them beneath the blowflies. Further on, a condemned man in a wooden cage stretched his emaciated hands through the bars to beg for alms; in a narrow square, Sá-Tó showed me small cages containing severed heads, from which thick black blood dripped.
- Ugh! Sá-Tó, now I want rest, silence and an expensive cigar - I exclaimed, weary and dazed.
Sá-Tó bowed and led me up a granite staircase to the high city walls. There stretched a promenade so broad that four war chariots could travel along it abreast for leagues. While the guide yawned in an embrasure of the battlements, relieved of his duty, I smoked and contemplated vast Peking at my feet for a long while.
It seemed to me a formidable biblical city, Babel or Nineveh, which the prophet Jonah had taken three days to cross. The square wall bounded the four quarters of the horizon, and the monumental gate towers became almost transparent in the bluish distance. Within the enclosure, woods, artificial lakes, canals gleaming like steel, marble bridges, fields of ruins and glazed roofs shining in the sun all mingled together. Everywhere rose pagodas, white temple terraces, triumphal arches and thousands of pavilions among the garden foliage. There were spaces that resembled heaps of porcelain and others like mounds of mud, punctuated by bastions of heroic and fabulous appearance.
Beside that grand architecture, the multitude was reduced, in my gaze, to grains of black sand carried to and fro by a gentle wind. Among mysterious trees, the imperial palace raised roofs of vivid golden yellow, and I longed to penetrate its secrets and see the magnificence of the centuries-old dynasties.
In the distance, the tower of the Temple of Heaven resembled three superimposed parasols; beyond it stood the column of the Principles and the jasper terraces of the Sanctuary of Purification. Questioned by me, Sá-Tó pointed out the Temple of the Ancestors, the Palace of Sovereign Concord, the Pavilion of the Flowers of Letters and the Historians' Kiosk. I devoured those monuments with a desire to know the classes inhabiting them, the principle of their institutions, the meaning of their cults, the spirit of their letters, their grammar and dogma, and the inner life of a Chinese scholar. Yet that world remained as inviolable to me as a sanctuary.
I sat upon the wall and let my eyes wander over the sandy plain stretching from the gates to the foothills of the Mongolian mountains, amid waves of dust and slow lines of caravans. The silence of those heights enveloped Peking and made the melancholy that overcame me more desolate. It was a longing for my own self, a grief at feeling isolated in a world that I still considered harsh and barbarous.
With moist eyes, I remembered my Minho village: the churchyard beneath the oaks, the tavern with a laurel branch at the door, the farrier's shed and the cool streams when the flax grew green. It was the season when pigeons migrated south from Peking, gathering in flocks above the temple woods and imperial pavilions. Each bird carried a light bamboo tube which the air made whistle to protect the bird from kites.
The white clouds passed as though borne by a languid breeze, leaving in the silence a slow sigh, an Aeolian undulation that faded into the pale air; I returned home with a heavy heart, lost in thought.
At dinner, Camilloff unfolded his napkin and good-naturedly asked what impression Peking had made upon me. - Peking brings to mind, General, these lines by one of our poets: 'By the rivers that flow, in Babylon I found myself...' - Peking is a monster! - Camilloff replied, thoughtfully rocking his bald head.
The general claimed that three hundred million people obeyed the capital and its conquering Tartar class, collectively attributing to them subtlety, industry, endurance, fecundity and an expansionist drive. He further said that they studied European sciences and possessed a formidable navy, interrupting his prophecy to offer me a glass of Médoc. According to Camilloff, the army which had once expected to defeat foreigners with cardboard dragons from which fireworks emerged had already adopted Prussian tactics and needle guns: 'A grave matter!' I replied that in Portugal, whenever Macau and the Celestial Empire were discussed, certain patriots ran their fingers through their hair and carelessly said: 'We shall send fifty men and sweep China away.'
A silence followed such foolishness. After a formidable cough, Camilloff murmured condescendingly: - Portugal is a beautiful country. - It is a filthy dump, General - I exclaimed curtly. The general's wife delicately placed a chicken wing on the rim of her plate and said that Portugal was the country in Mignon's song where the orange tree flowered. Meriskoff, who had earned a doctorate at Bonn and was ever ready with a commentary, respectfully corrected her: Mignon's sweet land was Goethe's Italy, 'Italia mater', the eternal love of sensitive humanity.
- I prefer France! - sighed the first secretary's wife. - Ah, France! - murmured an attaché, rolling one tender eye. Meriskoff adjusted his gold spectacles and declared that France suffered from one evil: the Social Question. Camilloff growled darkly, 'Oh, the Social Question!' and the attaché repeated weightily, 'Ah, the Social Question!' And, discoursing with such wisdom, we finally reached the coffee course.
As we went down into the garden, the general's wife leant sentimentally on my arm and murmured close to my face. - Ah, if only I could live in those passionate countries where the orange groves flourish! - That is where one loves, my lady - I whispered to her. And I gently led Vladimira into the darkness of the sycamores.