Chrysanthème has brought but few things with her, knowing that our
married life would be of short duration.
She has placed her dresses and her fine sashes in little closed
recesses, hidden in one of the walls of our apartment (the north wall,
the only one of the four which will not take to pieces.) The doors of
these niches are white paper panels; the standing shelves and inside
partitions, consisting of light woodwork, are put together in too
finical a manner, too ingenious a way, giving rise to suspicions of
secret drawers and conjuring tricks. We only put there things without
any value, having a vague feeling that the cupboards themselves might
spirit them away.
The box in which Chrysanthème stores away her gewgaws and letters, is
one of the things that amuses me the most; it is of English origin, in
tin, and bears on its cover the colored representation of some
manufactory in the neighborhood of London. Of course, it is as an
exotic work of art, as a precious knick-knack, that Chrysanthème
prefers it to any of her other boxes in lacquer or inlaid work. It
contains all that a mousmé requires for her correspondence: Indian
ink, a paintbrush, very thin gray tinted paper, cut up in long narrow
strips, and funnily shaped envelopes, into which these strips are
slipped (after having been folded up in some thirty folds); the
envelopes being ornamented with pictures of landscapes, fishes, crabs,
or birds.
On some old letters addressed to her, I can make out the two
characters that represent her name: "Kikou-San" (Chrysanthème,
Madame). And when I question her, she replies in Japanese, with an air
of importance:
"My dear creature, they are letters from my female friends."
Oh! those friends of Chrysanthème, what funny little faces they have!
That same box contains their portraits, their photographs stuck on
visiting cards, which are printed on the back with the name of Uyeno,
the fashionable photographer in Nagasaki,--little creatures fit only
to figure daintily on painted fans, and who have striven to assume a
dignified attitude when once their necks have been placed in the
head-rest and they have been told: "Now don't move!"
It would really amuse me to read her friends' letters,--and above all
my mousmé's answers.