To-day, Yves, my mousmé and myself went to the best photographer in
Nagasaki, to be taken in a group together.
We shall send the photograph to France. Yves already smiles as he
thinks of his wife's astonishment when she sees Chrysanthème's little
face between us two, and he wonders what explanation he will give her.
"Well, I will just say it is one of your friends, that's all!"
There are, in Japan, photographers in the style of our own, with this
one difference, that they are Japanese, and inhabit Japanese houses.
The one we design to honor to-day carries on his profession in the
suburbs, in that ancient quarter of big trees and gloomy pagodas
where, the other day, I met the pretty little mousmé. His signboard,
written in several languages, is stuck up against a wall on the edge
of the little torrent which, rushing down from the green mountain
above, is crossed by many a curved bridge of old granite and lined on
either side by light bamboos or oleanders in full bloom.
It is astonishing and puzzling to find a photographer perched there,
in the very heart of old Japan.
We have come at the wrong moment; there is a file of people at the
door. Long rows of djins' cars are stationed there, awaiting the
customers they have brought, who will all have their turn before us.
The runners, naked and tatooed, carefully combed in sleek bands and
shiny chignons, are chatting together, smoking little pipes, or
bathing their muscular legs in the fresh water of the torrent.
The courtyard is irreproachably Japanese, with its lanterns and dwarf
trees. But the studio where one sits might be in Paris or Pontoise;
the self-same chair in "old oak," the same faded "poufs," plaster
columns and pasteboard rocks.
The people who are being _taken_ at this moment are two ladies of
quality, evidently mother and daughter, who are sitting together for a
cabinet-sized portrait, with accessories of Louis XV. time. A strange
group this, the first great ladies of this country I have seen so
near, with their long aristocratic faces, dull, lifeless, almost gray
by dint of rice-powder, and their mouths painted heart-shape in vivid
carmine. Withal an undeniable look of good breeding that strongly
impresses us, notwithstanding the intrinsic differences of races and
acquired notions.
They scanned Chrysanthème with an obvious look of scorn, although her
costume was as ladylike as their own. For my part, I could not take my
eyes off these two creatures; they captivated me like incomprehensible
things that one had never seen before. Their fragile bodies,
outlandishly graceful in posture, are lost in stiff materials and
redundant sashes, of which the ends droop like tired wings. They make
me think, I know not why, of great rare insects; the extraordinary
patterns on their garments have something of the dark motley of
night-moths. Above all, the mystery of their tiny slits of eyes,
drawn back and up so far that the tight-drawn lids can scarcely open;
the mystery of their expression, which seems to denote inner thoughts
of a silly, vague, complacent absurdity, a world of ideas absolutely
closed to ourselves. And I think as I gaze at them: "How far we are
from this Japanese people! how utterly dissimilar are our races!"
Then we have to let several English sailors pass before us, decked out
in their white drill clothes, fresh, fat and pink like little sugar
figures, who attitudinize in a sheepish manner round the shafts of the
columns.
At last it is our turn; Chrysanthème slowly settles herself in a very
affected style, turning in the points of her toes as much as possible,
according to the fashion.
And on the negative we are shown we look like a supremely ridiculous
little family drawn up in a line by a common photographer at a fair.