As a mere outline, little Chrysanthème has been seen everywhere and by
everybody. Whoever has looked at one of those paintings on china or on
silk that now fill our bazaars, knows by heart the pretty stiff
head-dress, the leaning figure, ever ready to try some new gracious
salutation, the scarf fastened behind in an enormous bow, the large
falling sleeves, the dress slightly clinging about the ankles with a
little crooked train like a lizard's tail.
But her face, no, every one has not seen it; there is something
special about it.
Moreover, the type of women the Japanese paint mostly on their vases
is an exceptional one in their country. It is almost exclusively among
the nobility that these personages are found with their long pale
faces, painted in tender rose-tints, and silly long necks which give
them the appearance of storks. This distinguished type (which I am
obliged to admit was also Mdlle. Jasmin's) is rare, particularly at
Nagasaki.
In the middle class and the people, the ugliness is more pleasant and
sometimes becomes a kind of prettiness. The eyes are still too small
and hardly able to open, but the faces are rounder, browner, more
vivacious; and in the women there remains a certain vagueness in the
features, something childlike which prevails to the very end of their
lives.
They are so laughing, so merry, all these little Niponese dolls!
Rather a forced mirth, it is true, studied and at times with a false
ring in it; nevertheless one is attracted by it.
Chrysanthème is an exception, for she is melancholy. What thoughts can
be running through that little brain? My knowledge of her language is
still too restricted to enable me to find out. Moreover, it is a
hundred to one that she has no thoughts whatever. And even if she
had, what do I care?
I have chosen her to amuse me, and I would really rather she should
have one of those insignificant little thoughtless faces like all the
others.