"She is very young," I say; "and then she is too white, too much like
our own women. I wished for a yellow one just as a change."
"But that is only the paint they have put on her, sir! Beneath it, I
assure you, she is yellow."
Yves leans towards me and whispers:
"Look over there, brother, in that corner by the last panel; have you
noticed the one who is sitting down?"
Not I. In my annoyance I had not observed her; she had her back to the
light, was dressed in dark colors, and sat in the careless attitude of
one who keeps in the background. The fact is this one pleased me much
better. Eyes with long lashes, rather narrow, but which would have
been called good in any country in the world; almost an expression,
almost a thought. A coppery tint on her rounded cheeks; a straight
nose; slightly thick lips, but well modeled and with pretty corners.
Less young than Mdlle. Jasmin, about eighteen years of age perhaps,
already more of a woman. She wore an expression of ennui, also of a
little contempt, as if she regretted her attendance at a spectacle
which dragged so much, and was so little amusing.
"M. Kangourou, who is that young lady over there, in dark blue?"
"Over there, sir? A young lady called Mdlle. Chrysanthème. She came
with the others you see here; she is only here as a spectator. She
pleases you?" said he with eager suddenness, espying a way out of his
difficulty. Then, forgetting all his politeness, all his
ceremoniousness, all his Japanesery, he takes her by the hand, forces
her to rise, to stand in the dying daylight, to let herself be seen.
And she, who has followed our eyes and begins to guess what is on
foot, lowers her head in confusion, with a more decided but more
charming pout, and tries to step back, half sulky, half smiling.
"It makes no difference," continues M. Kangourou, "it can be arranged
just as well with this one; she is not married either, sir!"
She is not married! Then why didn't the idiot propose her to me at
once instead of the other, for whom I have a feeling of the greatest
pity, poor little soul, with her pearly gray dress, her sprig of
flowers, her expression which grows sadder, and her eyes which twinkle
like those of a child about to cry.
"It can be arranged, sir!" repeats Kangourou again, who at this moment
appears to me a go-between of the lowest type, a rascal of the meanest
kind.
Only, he adds, we, Yves and I, are in the way during the negotiations.
And, while Mdlle. Chrysanthème remains with her eyelids lowered, as
befits the occasion, while the various families, on whose countenances
may be read every degree of astonishment, every phase of expectation,
remain seated in a circle on my white mats, he sends us two into the
verandah, and we gaze down into the depths below us, upon a misty and
vague Nagasaki, a Nagasaki melting into a blue haze of darkness.
Then ensue long discourses in Japanese, arguments without end. M.
Kangourou, who is washerman and low scamp in French only, has returned
for these discussions to the long formulas of his country. From time
to time I express impatience, I ask this worthy creature whom I am
less and less able to consider in a serious light:
"Come now, tell us frankly, Kangourou, are we any nearer coming to
some arrangement? is all this ever going to end?"
"In a moment, sir, in a moment;" and he resumes his air of political
economist seriously debating social problems.
Well, one must submit to the slowness of this people. And, while the
darkness falls like a veil over the Japanese town, I have leisure to
reflect, with as much melancholy as I please, upon the bargain that is
being concluded behind me.
* * * * *
Night has closed in, deep night; it has been necessary to light the
lamps.
It is ten o'clock when all is finally settled, and M. Kangourou comes
to tell me:
"All is arranged, sir: her parents will give her up for twenty
dollars a month,--the same price as Mdlle. Jasmin."
On hearing this, I am possessed suddenly with extreme vexation that I
should have made up my mind so quickly to link myself in ever so
fleeting and transient a manner with this little creature, and dwell
with her in this isolated house.
We come back into the room; she is the center of the circle and
seated; and they have placed the aigrette of flowers in her hair.
There is actually some expression in her glance, and I am almost
persuaded that she--this one--- thinks.
Yves is astonished at her modest attitude, at her little timid airs of
a young girl on the verge of matrimony; he had imagined nothing like
it in such a marriage as this, nor I either, I must confess.
"She is really very pretty, brother," said he; "very pretty, take my
word for it!"
These good folks, their customs, this scene, strike him dumb with
astonishment; he cannot get over it, and remains in a maze. "Oh! this
is too much," and the idea of writing a long letter to his wife at
Toulven, describing it all, diverts him greatly.
Chrysanthème and I join hands. Yves too advances and touches the
dainty little paw;--after all, if I wed her, it is chiefly his fault;
I should never have remarked her without his observation that she was
pretty. Who can tell how this strange arrangement will turn out? Is it
a woman or a doll? Well, time will show.
The families having lighted their many-colored lanterns swinging at
the ends of slight sticks, prepare to beat a retreat with many
compliments, bows and curtsies. When it is a question of descending
the stairs, no one is willing to go first, and at a given moment, the
whole party are again on all fours, motionless and murmuring polite
phrases in undertones.
_"Haul back there!"_ said Yves, laughing and employing a nautical term
used when there is a stoppage of any kind.
At length they all melt away, descend the stairs with a last buzzing
accompaniment of civilities and polite phrases finished from one step
to another in voices which gradually die away. He and I remain alone
in the unfriendly empty apartment, where the mats are still littered
with the little cups of tea, the absurd little pipes, and the
miniature trays.
"Let us watch them go away!" said Yves, leaning out. At the door of
the garden is a renewal of the same salutations and curtsies, and
then the two groups of women separate, their bedaubed paper lanterns
fade away trembling in the distance, balanced at the extremity of
flexible canes which they hold in their finger-tips, as one would hold
a fishing-rod in the dark to catch night-birds. The procession of the
unfortunate Mdlle. Jasmin mounts upwards, towards the mountain, while
that of Mdlle. Chrysanthème winds downwards by a narrow old street,
half stairway, half goat-path, which leads to the town.
Then we also depart. The night is fresh, silent, exquisite, the
eternal song of the cicalas fills the air. We can still see the red
lanterns of my new family, dwindling away in the distance, as they
descend and gradually become lost in that yawning abyss, at the bottom
of which lies Nagasaki.
Our way, too, lies downwards, but on an opposite slope by steep paths
leading to the sea.
And when I find myself once more on board, when the scene enacted on
the hill up above recurs to my mind, it seems to me that my betrothal
is a joke, and my new family a set of puppets.