OUR PIOUS HOSTS
M. Sucre and Madame Prune, my landlord and his wife, two perfectly unique
personages recently escaped from the panel of some screen, live below us
on the ground floor; and very old they seem to have this daughter of
fifteen, Oyouki, who is Chrysantheme's inseparable friend.
Both of them are entirely absorbed in the practices of Shinto religion:
perpetually on their knees before their family altar, perpetually
occupied in murmuring their lengthy orisons to the spirits, and clapping
their hands from time to time to recall around them the inattentive
essences floating in the atmosphere. In their spare moments they
cultivate, in little pots of gayly painted earthenware, dwarf shrubs and
unheard-of flowers which are delightfully fragrant in the evening.
M. Sucre is taciturn, dislikes society, and looks like a mummy in his
blue cotton dress. He writes a great deal (his memoirs, I fancy), with a
paint-brush held in his fingertips, on long strips of rice-paper of a
faint gray tint.
Madame Prune is eagerly attentive, obsequious, and rapacious; her
eyebrows are closely shaven, her teeth carefully lacquered with black, as
befits a lady of gentility, and at all and no matter what hours, she
appears on all fours at the entrance of our apartment, to offer us her
services.
As to Oyouki, she rushes upon us ten times a day--whether we are sleeping
or dressing--like a whirlwind on a visit, flashing upon us, a very gust
of dainty youthfulness and droll gayety--a living peal of laughter. She
is round of figure, round of face; half baby, half girl; and so
affectionate that she bestows kisses on the slightest occasion with her
great puffy lips--a little moist, it is true, like a child's, but
nevertheless very fresh and very red.