I arrived unexpectedly to-day at Diou-djen-dji, in the midst of a
burning noonday heat. At the foot of the stairs lay Chrysanthème's
wooden clogs and her sandals of varnished leather.
In our rooms, up above, all was open to the air; bamboo blinds lowered
on the sunny side, and through their transparency came warm air and
golden threads of light. To-day, the flowers Chrysanthème had placed
in our bronze vases were lotus, and my eyes fell, as I entered, upon
their great rosy cups.
According to her usual custom, she was lying flat on the floor
enjoying her daily siesta.
What a singular originality these bouquets of Chrysanthème always
have: a something difficult to define, a Japanese slimness, a
mannered grace which we should never succeed in imparting to them.
She was sleeping flat on her face upon the mats, her high headdress
and tortoiseshell pins standing out boldly from the rest of the
horizontal figure. The train of her tunic prolonged her delicate
little body, like the tail of a bird; her arms were stretched
crosswise, the sleeves spread out like wings,--and her long guitar lay
beside her.
She looked like a dead fairy; or still more did she resemble some
great blue dragon-fly, which, having alighted on that spot, some
unkind hand had pinned to the floor.
Madame Prune, who had come upstairs after me, always officious and
eager, manifested by her gestures her sentiments of indignation on
beholding the careless reception accorded by Chrysanthème to her lord
and master, and advanced to wake her.
"Pray do nothing of the kind, my good Madame Prune, you don't know how
much I prefer her like that!" I had left my shoes below, according to
custom, by the side of the little clogs and sandals; and I entered on
the tips of my toes, very, very softly, to go and sit awhile under the
verandah.
What a pity this little Chrysanthème cannot always be asleep; she is
really extremely decorative seen in this manner,--and like this, at
least, she does not bore me. Who knows what may perchance be going on
in that little head and heart! If I only had the means of finding out!
But strange to say, since we have kept house together, instead of
pushing my studies in the Japanese language further, I have neglected
them, so much have I felt the utter impossibility of ever interesting
myself in the subject.
Seated under my verandah, my eyes wandered over the temples and
cemeteries spread at my feet, over the woods and green mountains, over
Nagasaki lying bathed in the sunlight. The cicalas were chirping their
loudest, the strident noise trembling feverishly in the hot air. All
was calm, full of light and full of heat.
Nevertheless, to my taste, it is not yet enough so! What then can have
changed upon the earth? The burning noon-days of summer, such as I can
recall in days gone by, were more brilliant, more full of sunshine;
Nature seemed to me in those days more powerful, more terrible. One
would say this was only a pale copy of all that I knew in early
years,--a copy in which something is wanting. Sadly do I ask
myself,--Is the splendor of the summer only this? _was it_ only this?
or is it the fault of my eyes, and as time goes on shall I behold
everything around me paling still more?
Behind me a faint and melancholy strain of music,--melancholy enough
to make one shiver,--and shrill, shrill as the song of the
grasshoppers, began to make itself heard, very softly at first, then
growing louder and rising in the silence of the noonday like the
diminutive wail of some poor Japanese soul in pain and anguish; it was
Chrysanthème and her guitar awaking together.
It pleased me that the idea should have occurred to her to greet me
with music, instead of eagerly hastening to wish me "Good morning."
(At no time have I ever given myself the trouble to pretend the
slightest affection for her, and a certain coldness even has grown up
between us, especially when we are alone.) But to-day I turn to her
with a smile, and wave my hand for her to continue. "Go on, it amuses
me to listen to your quaint little impromptu." It is singular that the
music of this essentially merry people should be so plaintive. But
undoubtedly that which Chrysanthème is playing at this moment is worth
listening to. Whence can it have come to her? What unutterable dreams,
forever hidden from me, fly through her yellow head, when she plays or
sings in this manner?
Suddenly: Pan, pan, pan! Some one knocks three times, with a harsh
and bony finger against one of the steps of our stairs, and in the
aperture of our doorway appears an idiot, clad in a suit of gray
tweed, who bows low. "Come in, come in, M. Kangourou. How well you
come, just in the nick of time! I was actually becoming enthusiastic
over your country!"
It was a little washing bill, which M. Kangourou respectfully wished
to hand to me, with a profound bend of the whole body, the correct
pose of the hands on the knees, and a long snake-like hiss.