Great wooden doors, with huge gilded dragons in high relief, opened into apartments on the right and left of this splendid hall. These portals were always thrown wide, and heavily padded satin portières hung from the lintels. The front and rear of the hall was almost entirely of glass, with the pillars that supported the roof standing clear between the windows—the lower half of plate-glass, the upper, of transparent Korean paper.
The apartments to the right, where, at a sign from Her Majesty, I followed the Ladies, were her day-rooms. Her sitting-room, projecting on the verandah, brilliantly lighted by two sides of windows, was in dazzling contrast to the somber splendor of the Throne-room. The sun pouring through the windows, the gay flowers and growing plants, the fruits piled high in great painted bowls, the divans, beneath the windows, with satin cushions, the touches of femininity, the subtle perfume, even the small shrine to Buddha—everything bespoke the characteristics of its august mistress, who, in her hours of ease, loved sunshine and flowers, and reveled in beauty and perfume.
On entering, Her Majesty approached the small shrine, lighted three slender tapers of fragrant incense, and placed them upright in the perfumed ashes of the golden censer at the feet of Buddha. She rearranged the offerings, placed a picture of the Mother of Buddha behind the Image, and then stood in reverent attitude a few seconds before turning to her waiting tirewomen to have her outer garments removed.
As I had now learned that my interest in her surroundings pleased her, I looked around the room. It was as lofty as the Great Throne-room, but the rear wall was divided into two stories, and a hidden stairway led to the upper rooms. In an alcove, under the second floor, was built the bed where she took her siesta in the afternoon, screened from the sitting-room by beautifully embroidered satin curtains. The walls of carved teakwood had a rare frieze of panels of flying birds and bats in mother-of-pearl. There were scrolls bearing quotations from the classics; and, of course, many beautiful and curious clocks adorned the dragon tables, the window-seats, and carved chests!
In prominent places, each flanked by good-luck pennants, hung two steel-engravings: the first representing Queen Victoria in regal array; the second, the Queen and Prince Consort, surrounded by their children and grandchildren. I was surprised to see them here in Her Majesty’s living-room, though I had heard that the Empress Dowager had a great admiration for the Queen, and that she thought there were many points of similarity in their reigns. They had each been widows the greater part of their lives, and had each ruled over great empires. She said she noticed in the Queen’s face the same lines of longevity that she, herself, had. She probably dreams of as long a life as the great Queen of England had.
The Empress Dowager was astonished that I had seen so many members of the English Royal family, and the Queen herself, when I had never had an “Audience,” and was still more so when she learned that the Great English Empress took her daily promenade outside her Palace Walls in “an open chair,” and could be seen by anyone who happened to pass that way.
Her Majesty told me I might go up the hidden stairway, leading from her bed-alcove to the floor above, where was her private chapel. Here, on special occasions, services were held by lama priests. It was a beautiful haven, in whose dim, religious light one might meditate or pray.
Its high altar, with a great golden Buddha of fine design, had tall, golden candlesticks, shining with pearls and rubies. Richly wrought and enameled vases held bouquets of jeweled flowers, and censers, damascened with gold, sent up spirals of perfumed smoke. The floor was covered with a splendid silken rug of Imperial yellow, and small, exquisitely executed, paintings of the saints and personified attributes formed a dado around the walls.
Curiously shaped windows, with bits of translucent shell set into the elaborate latticework, shed but a dim light, and out of mysterious depths shone the splendid jewels of the altar ornaments, the dull gold of the Great Buddha, and the gleaming dado of red-and-gold clothed saints! This was Her Majesty’s favorite chapel. She had followed me up and showed it with pride. She appreciated its perfect artistic quality as much, I am sure, as she loved its religious element.
Here she could come, from the privacy of her bed-alcove, mount the hidden stairs when she willed, unnoticed and unattended, and here seek that peace which seemed so far away those troubled days of January, 1904, when all looked so dark for her country.
Her Majesty’s Throne-room is in the first of three large halls in the northeastern corner of the enclosure, which, with their courts, extend to the exterior walls of the Palace. The buildings are raised about eight feet above the marble-paved court and are approached by handsome, white marble steps. Leading up to the second, for the first time I saw a “spirit-stairway” used in secular architecture. This “spirit-stairway” consists of a block of marble placed in the center and reaching from the top to the bottom of the stairway. This block, instead of being cut into steps, is elaborately carved with the double dragon. It lies in the middle of the stairway like a beautiful heavy carpet thrown over it, too stiff to take the form of steps. The “spirit-stairway,” not to be touched by mortal feet, is used in the approaches to all the fine temples; and when, as in the case of the Temple of Heaven at Peking, the stairs are high, the effect is as beautiful as it is original and
