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Updated: May 2, 2025
Here we are in Peking at last, the beautiful, barbaric capital of China, the great, gorgeous capital of Asia. For Peking is the capital of Asia, of the whole Orient, the center of the stormy politics of the Far East. We are established at the Grand Hôtel des Wagons-Lits, called locally the "Bed-Wagon Hotel," or, as the marines say, the "Wagon Slits."
As we approached Peking, we caught a glimpse of the Great Wall, a massive gray bulk, with the immense corner tower, which produced a feeling of awe, standing as though it were an entrance into a city of mystery a walled town of over twenty miles in circumference which was virtually the product of four walled cities in one. We were housed in the new and spacious Grand Hôtel des Wagons-lits.
We reached the shabby old station, the other evening, worn out from the long two-days' journey up from Shanghai, and it was good to have the porter from the Wagons-Lits greet us and welcome us like old friends. It was pleasant to walk back along the long platform of the station, under the Water Gate, and to find ourselves, in a minute or two, in the warm, bright lobby of this precious hotel.
But she was used to that in the people she met. Mrs. Hilary hated travelling, which is indeed detestable. She lay back and smelled salts, and they were of no avail. At Paris she tried and failed to dine. She passed a wretched night, being of those who detest nights in trains without wagons-lits, but save money by not having wagons-lits, and wonder dismally all night if it is worth it.
La bonne compagnie they found in the lounges of great hotels, on transatlantic liners, in wagons-lits, in music-halls, and in expensive motor-cars and restaurants. La bonne compagnie was dancing one-steps to ragtime music. This, they said, is the thing.
We are undecided. If we take a house and settle down, we must give up our nice, warm little rooms at the old Wagons-Lits, forgo all the amusing gossip of the lobby, told in such frankness by the interesting people who know things, or think they do. They say housekeeping is not difficult here.
We thought Paris was the hotbed of rumors during the last two years of the war Paris with its censored press, suppressed speech, and general military rule, so that all one lives on are the rumors that never get into the papers; but Peking is stupendous. Here the rumors simply fly, and the corridors of the old Wagons-Lits Hotel seems to be the pivotal spot of the whirlwind.
But the Wagons-Lits Hotel is not on that list, and, as I say, tinned cream is all that I get for my "pollidge." But it is very good indeed, these chilly October mornings. After all, what does food matter? Peking is so rich in other things! To-day at breakfast, with the "Gazette" propped against the coffee-pot, I began my usual search for news. Found it, too, in a moment, in the editorial column.
I write to you from Vienna, which I reached yesterday at four o'clock in the afternoon. Everything went well on the journey. From Warsaw to Vienna I travelled like a railway Nana in a luxurious compartment of the "Societe Internationale des Wagons-Lits." Beds, looking-glasses, huge windows, rugs, and so on. Ah, my dears, if you only knew how nice Vienna is!
Under the pressure of that further inspiration she refused to wait any longer, but dodged an omnibus, a motor car, and some hansoms, and pushed open the swing doors of the Bureau de la Campagnie des Wagons-Lits. She did not notice that the automobile stopped very quickly a few yards higher up the street.
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