More cheerful are the noises of the morning: the cocks crowing, the
wooden panels all round the neighborhood sliding back upon their
rollers; or the strange cry of some little fruit-hawker, patrolling
our lofty suburb in the early dawn. And the grasshoppers absolutely
seem to chirp more loudly, to celebrate the return of the sunlight.
Above all, rises to our ears from below the sound of Madame Prune's
long prayers, ascending through the floor, monotonous as the song of a
somnambulist, regular and soothing as the splash of a fountain. It
lasts three-quarters of an hour at least; it drones along, a rapid
flow of words in a high nasal key; from time to time, when the
inattentive Spirits are not listening, it is accompanied by a clapping
of dry palms, or by harsh sounds from a kind of wooden clapper made of
two discs of mandragora root; it is an uninterrupted stream of prayer;
its flow never ceases, and the quavering continues without stopping,
like the bleating of an old nanny-goat in delirium.
_"After having washed the hands and feet"_ say the sacred books, _"the
great God Ama-Térace-Omi-Kami, who is the royal power of Japan, must
be invoked; the manes of all the defunct Emperors descended from him
must also be invoked; next, the manes of all his personal ancestors,
to the furthest generation; the Spirits of the Air and Sea; the
Spirits of all secret and impure places; the Spirits of the tombs of
the district whence you spring, etc., etc."_
"I worship and implore you," sings Madame Prune, "Oh
Ama-Térace-Omi-Kami, royal power. Cease not to protect your faithful
people, who are ready to sacrifice themselves for their country. Grant
that I may become as holy as yourself, and drive from my mind all dark
thoughts. I am a coward and a sinner; purge me from my cowardice and
sinfulness, even as the north wind drives the dust into the sea. Wash
me clean from all my iniquities, as one washes away uncleanness in the
river of Kamo. Make me the richest woman in the world. I believe in
your glory, which shall be spread over the whole earth, and illuminate
it forever for my happiness. Grant me the continued good health of my
family, and above all, my own, who, oh Ama-Térace-Omi-Kami, do worship
and adore you, and only you, etc., etc."
Here follow all the Emperors, all the Spirits, and the interminable
list of the ancestors.
In her trembling old woman's falsetto, Madame Prune sings out all
this, without omitting anything, at a pace which almost takes away her
breath.
And very strange it is to hear: at length it seems hardly a human
voice; it sounds like a series of magic formulas, unwinding themselves
from an inexhaustible roller, and escaping to take flight through the
air. By its very weirdness, and by the persistency of its incantation,
it ends by producing in my scarcely awakened brain, an almost
religious impression.
Every day I wake to the sound of this Shintoist litany chanted beneath
me, vibrating through the exquisite clearness of the summer
mornings,--while our night-lamps burn low before the smiling Buddha,
while the eternal sun, scarcely risen, already sends through the
cracks of our wooden panels its bright rays, which dart like golden
arrows through our darkened dwelling and our blue gauze tent.
This is the moment at which I must rise, descend hurriedly to the sea
by grassy footpaths all wet with dew, and so regain my ship.
Alas! in the days gone by, it was the cry of the muezzin which used to
awaken me in the dark winter mornings, in far-away night-shrouded
Stamboul.