_July 14th_.
It is the National Fête day of France. In Nagasaki roadstead, all the
ships are dressed out with flags, and salutes are firing in our honor.
Alas! All day long, I cannot help thinking of that last fourteenth of
July, spent in the deep calm and stillness of my old home, the door
closed to all intruders, while the gay crowd roared outside; there I
had remained till evening, seated on a bench, shaded by a trellis
covered with honeysuckle, where in the bye-gone days of my childhood's
summers, I used to settle myself with my copybooks and pretend to
learn my lessons. Oh! those days when I was supposed to learn my
lessons: how my thoughts used to rove,--what voyages, what distant
lands, what tropical forests did I not behold in my dreams! At that
time, near the garden bench, in some of the crevices in the stone
wall, there dwelt many a big ugly black spider ever on the watch,
peeping out of his nook ready to pounce upon any giddy fly or
wandering centipede. One of my amusements consisted in tickling the
spiders gently, very gently, with a blade of grass or a cherry stalk
in their holes. Mystified, they would rush out, fancying they had to
deal with some sort of prey, whilst I would rapidly draw back my hand
in disgust. Well, last year, on that fourteenth of July, as I recalled
my days of Latin themes and translations, now forever flown, and this
game of boyish days, I actually recognized the very same spiders (or
at least their daughters), lying in wait in the very same holes.
Gazing at them and at the tufts of grass and moss around me, a
thousand memories of those summers of my early life welled up within
me, memories which for years past had lain slumbering under this old
wall, sheltered by the ivy boughs. While all that is ourselves
perpetually changes and passes away, the constancy with which Nature
repeats, always in the same manner, her most infinitesimal details,
seems a wonderful mystery; the same peculiar species of moss grow
afresh for centuries on precisely the same spot, and the same little
insects each summer do the same thing in the same place.
* * * * *
I must admit that this episode of my childhood and the spiders, have
little to do with the story of Chrysanthème. But an incongruous
interruption is quite in keeping with the taste of this country;
everywhere it is practiced, in conversation, in music, even in
painting; a landscape painter, for instance, when he has finished a
picture of mountains and crags, will not hesitate to draw in the very
middle of the sky a circle, or a lozenge, or some kind of framework,
within which he will represent anything incoherent and inappropriate:
a bonze fanning himself, or a lady taking a cup of tea. Nothing is
more thoroughly Japanese than such digressions made without the
slightest àpropos.
Moreover, if I roused my past memories, it was the better to force
myself to notice the difference between that 14th of July last year,
so peacefully spent amidst surroundings familiar to me from my
earliest infancy, and the present animated one, passed in the midst of
such a novel world.
To-day, therefore, under the scorching mid-day sun, at two o'clock,
three quick-footed djins dragged us at full speed,--Yves, Chrysanthème
and myself,--in Indian file, each in a little jolting cart, to the
further end of Nagasaki, and there deposited us at the foot of some
gigantic steps that run straight up into the mountain.
These are the granite steps leading to the great temple of Osueva;
wide enough to give access to a whole regiment; they are as grand and
imposing as any work of Babylon or Nineveh, and in complete contrast
with all the finical surroundings.
We climb up and up,--Chrysanthème listlessly, affecting fatigue, under
her paper parasol painted with pink butterflies on a black ground. As
we ascended, we passed under enormous monastic porticos, also in
granite of rude and primitive style. In truth, these steps and these
temple porticos are the only imposing works that this people has
created, and they astonish, for they scarcely seem Japanese.
We climb up still higher. At this sultry hour of the day, from top to
bottom of the immense gray steps, only we three are to be seen; on all
that granite there are but the pink butterflies on Chrysanthème's
parasol, to throw a cheerful and brilliant note.
We passed through the first temple yard, in which are a couple of
white china turrets, bronze lanterns, and the statue of a large horse
in jade. Then without pausing at the sanctuary, we turned to the left,
and entered a shady garden, which formed a terrace halfway up the
hill, and at the extremity of which was situated the
_Donko-Tchaya_,--in English: _the tea-house of the Toads_.
It was here that Chrysanthème was taking us. We sat down at a table,
under a black linen tent, decorated with large white letters (of
funereal aspect), and two laughing _mousmés_ hurried up to wait upon
us.
The word _mousmé_ means a young girl, or very young woman. It is one
of the prettiest words in the Niponese language; it seems almost as if
there were a little _moue_[C] in the very sound, and as if a pretty
taking little pout such as they put on, and also a little pert
physiognomy, were described by it. I shall often make use of it,
knowing none other in our own language that conveys the same meaning.
[Footnote C: _Moue_ means "pout" in French.]
Some Japanese Watteau must have mapped out this _Donko-Tchaya_, for it
has rather an affected air of rurality, though very pretty. Well
shaded, under a thick vault of large trees densely foliaged, a
miniature lake hard by, the chosen residence of a few toads, has given
it its attractive denomination. Lucky toads, who crawl and croak on
the finest of moss, in the midst of tiny artificial islets decked with
gardenias in full bloom. From time to time, one of them informs us of
his thoughts by a "Couac," uttered in a deep bass croak infinitely
more hollow than that of our own toads.
* * * * *
Under the tent of this tea-house, we are as it were on a balcony
jutting out from the mountain side, overhanging from on high the
grayish town and its suburbs buried in greenery. Around, above and
beneath us cling and hang on every possible point, clumps of trees and
fresh green woods, with the delicate and varying foliage of the
temperate zone. Then we can see, at our feet, the deep roadstead,
fore-shortened and slanting, diminished in appearance till it looks
like a terrible somber tear in the mass of large green mountains; and
further still, quite low down, on the waters which seem black and
stagnant, are to be seen, very tiny and overwhelmed, the men-of-war,
the steamboats and the junks, flags flying from every mast. On the
dark green, which is the dominant shade around, stand out these
thousand scraps of bunting, emblems of the different nationalities,
all displayed, all flying in honor of far-distant France. The colors
most prevailing in this motley assemblage are the white flag with a
red ball, emblem of the _Empire of the Rising Sun_, where we now are.
* * * * *
With the exception of three or four mousmés at the further end who are
practicing with bows and arrows, we are to-day the only people in the
garden, and the mountain round about is silent.
Having finished her cigarette and her cup of tea, Chrysanthème also
wishes to exert her skill; for archery is still held in honor among
the young women. The old man who keeps the range, picks out for her
his best arrows tipped with white and red feathers,--and she takes aim
with a serious air. The mark is a circle, traced in the middle of a
picture on which is painted in flat gray tones, terrifying chimera
flying through the clouds.
Chrysanthème is certainly an adroit markswoman, and we admire her as
much as she expected.
Then Yves, who is usually clever at all games of skill, wishes to try
his luck, and fails. It is amusing to see her, with her mincing ways
and smiles, arrange with the tips of her little fingers, the sailor's
broad hands, placing them on the bow and the string in order to teach
him the proper manner. Never have they seemed to get on so well
together, Yves and my dolly, and I might even feel anxious, were I
less sure of my good brother, and if, moreover, it were not a matter
of perfect indifference to me.
* * * * *
In the stillness of the garden, mid the balmy peacefulness of these
mountains, a loud noise suddenly startles us; a unique, powerful,
terrible sound, which is prolonged in infinite metallic vibrations. It
begins again sounding more appalling: _Boum!_ borne to us by the
rising wind.
"_Nippon Kané!_" explains Chrysanthème,--and she again takes up her
brightly-feathered arrows. "_Nippon Kané_ (the Japanese brass); it is
the Japanese brass that is sounding!" It is the monstrous gong of a
monastery, situated in a suburb beneath us. Well, it is powerful
indeed "the Japanese brass!" When the strokes are ended, when it is no
longer heard, a vibration seems to linger among the suspended foliage,
and an endless quiver runs through the air.
* * * * *
I am obliged to admit that Chrysanthème looks very charming shooting
her arrows, her figure well bent back the better to bend her bow; her
loose-hanging sleeves caught up to her shoulders, showing the graceful
bare arms polished like amber and very much of the same color. Each
arrow whistles by with the rustle of a bird's wing,--then a short
sharp little blow is heard, the target is hit, always.
At nightfall, when Chrysanthème has gone up to Diou-djen-dji, we
cross, Yves and myself, the European concession, on our way to the
ship, to take up our watch till the following day. The cosmopolitan
quarter exhaling an odor of absinthe, is dressed up with flags, and
squibs are being fired off in honor of France. Long lines of djins
pass by, dragging as fast as their naked legs can carry them, the crew
of the _Triomphante_, who are shouting and fanning themselves. The
"Marseillaise" is heard everywhere; English sailors are singing it,
gutturally with a dull and slow cadence like their own "God Save." In
all the American bars, grinding organs are hammering it with many an
odious variation and flourish, in order to attract our men.
* * * * *
Just one funny recollection comes back to me of that evening. On our
return, we had by mistake got into a street inhabited by a multitude
of ladies of doubtful reputation. I can still see that big fellow
Yves, struggling with a whole band of tiny little mousmés of some
twelve or fifteen years of age, who barely reached up to his waist,
and were pulling him by the sleeves, anxious to lead him astray.
Astonished and indignant he repeated as he extricated himself from
their clutches: "Oh, this is too much!" So shocked was he at seeing
such mere babies, so young, so tiny, already so brazen and shameless.