_July 18th_.
There are now four of us, four officers of my ship, married like
myself, and inhabiting the slopes of the same suburb. It is quite an
ordinary occurrence, and is arranged without difficulties, mystery or
danger, through the negotiations of the same M. Kangourou.
As a matter of course, we are on visiting terms with all these ladies.
First there is our very merry neighbor Madame Campanule, who is little
Charles N----'s wife; then Madame Jonquille, who is even merrier than
Campanule, like a young bird and the daintiest fairy of the whole lot:
she has married X----, a fair northerner who adores her; they are a
loverlike and inseparable pair, the only one that will probably weep
when the hour of parting comes. Then Sikou-San with Doctor Y----; and
lastly the midshipman Z---- with the tiny Madame Touki-San, no taller
than a boot: thirteen years old at the outside and already a regular
woman, full of her own importance, a petulant little gossip. In my
childhood, I was sometimes taken to the _Learned Animals_ Theater, and
I remember a certain Madame de Pompadour, a principal rôle, filled by
a gayly dressed-up old monkey; Touki-San reminds me of her.
In the evening, all these folk generally come and fetch us for a long
processional walk with lighted lanterns. My wife, more serious, more
melancholy, perhaps even more refined, and belonging, I fancy, to a
higher class, tries when these friends come to us to play the part of
the lady of the house. It is comical to see the entry of these
ill-matched couples, partners for a day, the ladies with their
disjointed bows falling on all fours before Chrysanthème, the queen of
the establishment. When we are all assembled, we start off, arm in
arm, one behind the other, and always carrying at the end of our short
sticks little white or red paper lanterns;--it seems it is pretty.
We are obliged to scramble down the kind of street, or rather
goat's-path, which leads to the Japanese Nagasaki,--with the prospect,
alas! of having to climb up again at night; clamber up all the steps,
all the slippery slopes, stumble over all the stones, before we shall
be able to get home, go to bed, and sleep. We make our descent in the
darkness, under the branches, under the foliage, betwixt dark gardens
and venerable little houses that throw but a faint glimmer on the
road; and when the moon is absent or clouded over, our lanterns are
by no means unnecessary.
When at last we reach the bottom, suddenly, without transition, we
find ourselves in the very heart of Nagasaki and its busy throng in a
long illuminated street, where vociferating djins hurry along and
thousands of paper lanterns swing and gleam in the wind. It is life
and animation, after the peace of our silent suburb.
Here, decorum requires we should separate from our wives. All five
take hold of each others' hands, like a batch of little girls out
walking. We follow them with an air of indifference. Seen from behind,
our dolls are really very dainty, with their back hair so tidily done
up, their tortoiseshell pins so coquettishly arranged. They shuffle
along, their high wooden clogs making an ugly sound, striving to walk
with their toes turned in, according to the height of fashion and
elegance. At every minute they burst out laughing.
Yes, seen from behind, they are very pretty; they have, like all
Japanese women, the most lovely turn of the head. Moreover, they are
very funny, thus drawn up in line. In speaking of them, we say: "Our
little dancing dogs," and in truth they are singularly like them.
This great Nagasaki is the same from one end to another, with its
numberless petroleum lamps burning, its many-colored lanterns
flickering, and innumerable panting djins. Always the same narrow
streets, lined on each side with the same low houses, built in paper
and wood. Always the same shops, without glass windows, open to all
the winds, equally rudimentary whatever may be sold or made in them;
whether they display the finest gold lacquer ware, the most marvelous
china jars, or old worn-out pots and pans, dried fish, and ragged
frippery. All the salesmen are seated on the ground in the midst of
their valuable or trumpery merchandise, their legs bared nearly to the
waist. And all kinds of queer little trades are carried on under the
public gaze, by strangely primitive means, by workmen of the most
ingenuous type.
Oh! what wonderful goods are exposed for sale in those streets! what
whimsical extravagances in those bazaars!
No horses, no carriages are ever seen in the town; nothing but people
on foot, or the comical little carts dragged along by the runners.
Some few Europeans straggling hither and thither, wanderers from the
ships in harbor; some Japanese (fortunately as yet but few in number)
dressed up in coats; other natives who content themselves with adding
to their national costume the pot hat, from which their long sleek
locks hang down; and all around, eager haggling, bargaining,--and
laughter.
In the bazaars every evening our mousmés make endless purchases; like
spoilt children they buy everything they fancy: toys, pins, ribbons,
flowers. And then they prettily offer each other presents, with
childish little smiles. For instance, Campanule buys for Chrysanthème
an ingeniously contrived lantern on which, set in motion by some
invisible machinery, Chinese shadows dance in a ring round the flame.
In return, Chrysanthème gives Campanule a magic fan, with paintings
that change at will from butterflies fluttering round cherry-blossoms,
to outlandish monsters pursuing each other across black clouds. Touki
offers Sikou a cardboard mask representing the bloated countenance of
Daï-Cok, god of wealth; and Sikou replies by a long crystal trumpet,
by means of which are produced the most extraordinary sounds, like a
turkey gobbling. Everything is uncouth, fantastical to excess,
grotesquely lugubrious; everywhere we are surprised by
incomprehensible conceptions, which seem the work of distorted
imaginations.
In the fashionable tea-houses where we finish up our evenings, the
little servant-girls now bow to us, on our arrival, with an air of
respectful recognition, as belonging to the fast set of Nagasaki.
There we carry on desultory conversations, full of misunderstandings
and endless _quid pro quo's_ of uncouth words,--in little gardens
lighted up with lanterns, near ponds full of gold fish, with little
bridges, little islets and little ruined towers. They hand us tea and
white and pink-colored sweetmeats flavored with pepper that taste
strange and unfamiliar, and beverages mixed with snow tasting of
flowers or perfumes.
* * * * *
To give a faithful account of those evenings, would require a more
affected style than our own; and some kind of graphic sign would have
also to be expressly invented and scattered at haphazard amongst the
words, indicating the moment at which the reader should laugh,--rather
a forced laugh, perhaps, but amiable and gracious. The evening at an
end; it is time to return up there.
Oh! that street, that road, that we must clamber up every evening,
under the starlit sky, or the heavy thunder-clouds, dragging by the
hand our drowsy mousmé in order to regain our home perched on high
half-way up the hill, where our bed of matting awaits us.