My mother-in-law Madame Renoncule's small garden is, without
exception, one of the most melancholy spots I have seen during all my
peregrinations through the world.
Oh, the slow, enervating, dull hours spent in idle and diffuse
conversation in the dimly lighted verandah! Oh, the horrid peppered
jam in the microscopic pots! In the middle of the town, enclosed by
four walls, is this park of five yards square, with little lakes,
little mountains, and little rocks, where all wears an antiquated
appearance, and everything is covered with a greenish moldiness from
want of sun.
Nevertheless a true feeling for nature has inspired this tiny
representation of a wild spot. The rocks are well placed, the dwarf
cedars, no taller than cabbages, stretch their gnarled boughs over the
valleys in the attitude of giants wearied by the weight of centuries;
and their look of _big trees_ perplexes one and falsifies the
perspective. When from the dark recesses of the apartment one
perceives at a certain distance this diminutive landscape dimly
lighted up, the wonder is whether it is all artificial, or whether one
is not oneself the victim of some morbid illusion; and if it is not
indeed a real country view seen through a distorted vision out of
focus, or through the wrong end of a telescope.
To any one familiar with Japanese life my mother-in-law's house in
itself reveals a refined nature,--complete nudity, two or three
screens placed here and there, a teapot, a vase full of lotus-flowers,
and nothing more. Woodwork devoid of paint or varnish, but carved in
most elaborate and capricious openwork, the whiteness of the pinewood
being kept up by constant scrubbings of soap and water. The posts and
beams of the framework are varied by the most fanciful taste: some are
cut in precise geometrical forms; others artificially twisted,
imitating trunks of old trees covered with tropical creepers.
Everywhere little hiding-places, little nooks, little closets
concealed in the most ingenious and unexpected manner under the
immaculate uniformity of the white paper panels.
I cannot help smiling when I think of some of the so-called _Japanese_
drawing-rooms, overcrowded with knick-knacks and curios and hung with
coarse gold embroideries on exported satins, of our Parisian fine
ladies. I would advise those persons to come and look at the houses of
people of taste out here; to visit the white solitudes of the palaces
at Yeddo. In France we have works of art in order to enjoy them; here
they possess them merely to ticket them and lock them up carefully in
a kind of mysterious underground room shut in by iron gratings called
a _godoun_. On rare occasions, only to honor some visitor of
distinction, do they open this impenetrable depositary. The true
Japanese manner of understanding luxury consists in a scrupulous and
indeed almost excessive cleanliness, white mats and white woodwork;
an appearance of extreme simplicity, and an incredible nicety in the
most infinitesimal details.
My mother-in-law seems to be really a very nice woman, and were it not
for the insurmountable feeling of spleen the sight of her garden
produces on me, I would often go and see her. She has nothing in
common with the mammas of Jonquille, Campanule or Touki: she is vastly
their superior; and then I can see that she has been very good-looking
and stylish. Her past life puzzles me; but in my position as a
son-in-law, good manners prevent my making further inquiries.
Some assert that she was formerly a celebrated guécha in Yeddo, who
lost public favor by her folly in becoming a mother. This would
account for her daughter's talent on the guitar; she had probably
herself taught her the touch and style of the Conservatory.
Since the birth of Chrysanthème (her eldest child and first cause of
this loss of favor), my mother-in-law, an expansive although
distinguished nature, has fallen seven times into the same fatal
error, and I have two little sisters-in-law: Mdlle. La Neige,[G] and
Mdlle. La Lune,[H] as well as five little brothers-in-law: Cerisier,
Pigeon, Liseron, Or, and Bambou.
[Footnote G: In Japanese: _Oyouki-San_ (like Madame Prune's
daughter).]
[Footnote H: In Japanese: _Tsouki-San_.]
Little Bambou is four years old,--a yellow baby, fat and round all
over, with fine bright eyes; coaxing and jolly, sleeping whenever he
is not laughing. Of all my Niponese family, Bambou is the one I love
the most.