"Hi! Chrysanthème!"
She turns confused, and reddening even to her ears at having been
caught at this work.
She is quite wrong, however, to be so much troubled, for I am, on the
contrary, delighted. The fear that I might be leaving her in some
sadness had almost given me a pang, and I infinitely prefer that this
marriage should end as it had begun, in a joke.
"That is a good idea of yours," I say; "a precaution which should
always be taken in this country of yours, where so many evil-minded
people are clever in forging money. Make haste and get through it
before I start, and if any false pieces have found their way into the
number, I will willingly replace them."
However, she refuses to continue before me, and I expected as much; to
do so would have been contrary to all her notions of politeness,
hereditary and acquired, all her conventionality, all her
_Japanesery_. With a disdainful little foot, clothed as usual in
exquisite socks with a special hood for the great toe, she pushes away
the piles of white dollars and scatters them on the mats.
"We have hired a large covered sampan," she says to change the
conversation, "and we are all going together,--Campanule, Jonquille,
Touki, all your mousmés--to watch your vessel set sail. Pray sit down
and stay a few minutes."
"No, I really cannot stay. I have several things to do in the town,
d'you see, and the order was given for every one to be on board by
three o'clock in time for muster before starting. Moreover, I would
rather escape, as you can imagine, while Madame Prune is still
enjoying her siesta; I should be afraid of being drawn into some
corner, or of provoking some heartrending parting scene."
Chrysanthème bows her head and says no more, but seeing that I am
really going, rises to escort me.
Without speaking, without the slightest noise, she follows me as we
descend the staircase and cross the garden full of sunshine, where the
dwarf shrubs and the deformed flowers seem, like the rest of the
household, plunged in warm somnolence.
At the outer gate I stop for the last adieu: the little sad pout has
reappeared, more accentuated than ever on Chrysanthème's face; it is
the right thing, it is correct, and I should feel offended now were it
absent.
Well, little mousmé, let us part good friends; one last kiss even, if
you like. I took you to amuse me; you have not perhaps succeeded very
well, but after all you have done what you could: given me your little
face, your little curtseys, your little music; in short, you have
been pleasant enough in your Japanese way. And who knows, perchance I
may yet think of you sometimes when I recall this glorious summer,
these pretty quaint gardens, and the ceaseless concert of the cicales.
She prostrates herself on the threshold of the door, her forehead
against the ground, and remains in this attitude of superlatively
polite salute as long as I am in sight, while I go down the pathway by
which I am to disappear for ever.
As the distance between us increases, I turn once or twice to look at
her again; but it is a mere civility, and meant to return as it
deserves her grand final salutation.