July 18th.
By this time, four officers of my ship are married like myself, and
inhabiting the slopes of the same suburb. This arrangement is quite an
ordinary occurrence, and is brought about without difficulties, mystery,
or danger, through the offices of the same M. Kangourou.
As a matter of course, we are on visiting terms with all these ladies.
First, there is our very merry neighbor Madame Campanule, who is little
Charles N-----‘s wife; then Madame Jonquille, who is even merrier than
Campanule, like a young bird, and the daintiest fairy of them all;
she has married X-----, a fair northerner who adores her; they are a
lover-like and inseparable pair, the only one that will probably weep
when the hour of parting comes. Then Sikou-San with Doctor Y-----; and
lastly the midshipman Z------with the tiny Madame Touki-San, no taller
than a boot: thirteen years old at the outside, and already a regular
woman, full of her own importance, a petulant little gossip. In my
childhood I was sometimes taken to the Learned Animals Theatre, and I
remember a certain Madame de Pompadour, a principal role, filled by a
gayly dressed old monkey; Touki-San reminds me of her.
In the evening, all these folk usually come and fetch us for a long
processional walk with lighted lanterns. My wife, more serious, more
melancholy, perhaps even more refined, and belonging, I fancy, to a
higher class, tries when these friends come to us to play the part
of the lady of the house. It is comical to see the entry of these
ill-matched pairs, partners for a day, the ladies, with their disjointed
bows, falling on all fours before Chrysantheme, the queen of the
establishment. When we are all assembled, we set out, arm in arm, one
behind another, and always carrying at the end of our short sticks
little white or red paper lanterns; it is a pretty custom.
We are obliged to scramble down the kind of street, or rather
goat’s-path, which leads to the Japanese Nagasaki--with the prospect,
alas! of having to climb up again at night; clamber up all the steps,
all the slippery slopes, stumble over all the stones, before we shall
be able to get home, go to bed, and sleep. We make our descent in the
darkness, under the branches, under the foliage, among dark gardens and
venerable little houses that throw but a faint glimmer on the road; and
when the moon is absent or clouded over, our lanterns are by no means
unnecessary.
When at last we reach the bottom, suddenly, without transition, we find
ourselves in the very heart of Nagasaki and its busy throng in a long
illuminated street, where vociferating djins hurry along and thousands
of paper lanterns swing and gleam in the wind. It is life and animation,
after the peace of our silent suburb.
Here, decorum requires that we should separate from our wives. All
five take hold of each others’ hands, like a batch of little girls out
walking. We follow them with an air of indifference. Seen from behind,
our dolls are really very dainty, with their back hair so tidily
arranged, their tortoiseshell pins so coquettishly placed. They shuffle
along, their high wooden clogs making an ugly sound, striving to walk
with their toes turned in, according to the height of fashion and
elegance. At every minute they burst out laughing.
Yes, seen from behind, they are very pretty; they have, like all
Japanese women, the most lovely turn of the head. Moreover, they are
very funny, thus drawn up in line. In speaking of them, we say: “Our
little trained dogs,” and in truth they are singularly like them.
This great Nagasaki is the same from one end to another, with
its numberless petroleum lamps burning, its many-colored lanterns
flickering, and innumerable panting djins. Always the same narrow
streets, lined on each side with the same low houses, built of paper
and wood. Always the same shops, without glass windows, open to all
the winds, equally rudimentary, whatever may be sold or made in them;
whether they display the finest gold lacquer ware, the most marvellous
china jars, or old worn-out pots and pans, dried fish, and ragged
frippery. All the salesmen are seated on the ground in the midst of
their valuable or trumpery merchandise, their legs bared nearly to the
waist.
And all kinds of queer little trades are carried on under the public
gaze, by strangely primitive means, by workmen of the most ingenious
type.
Oh, what wonderful goods are exposed for sale in those streets! What
whimsical extravagance in those bazaars!
No horses, no carriages are ever seen in the town; nothing but people on
foot, or the comical little carts dragged along by the runners. Some
few Europeans straggling hither and thither, wanderers from the ships in
harbor; some Japanese (fortunately as yet but few) dressed up in coats;
other natives who content themselves with adding to their national
costume the pot-hat, from which their long, sleek locks hang down; and
all around, eager haggling, bargaining, and laughter.
In the bazaars every evening our mousmes make endless purchases; like
spoiled children they buy everything they fancy: toys, pins, ribbons,
flowers. And then they prettily offer one another presents, with
childish little smiles. For instance, Campanule buys for Chrysantheme an
ingeniously contrived lantern on which, set in motion by some invisible
machinery, Chinese shadows dance in a ring round the flame. In return,
Chrysantheme gives Campanule a magic fan, with paintings that change at
will from butterflies fluttering around cherry-blossoms to outlandish
monsters pursuing each other across black clouds. Touki offers Sikou a
cardboard mask representing the bloated countenance of Dai-Cok, god of
wealth; and Sikou replies with a present of a long crystal trumpet, by
means of which are produced the most extraordinary sounds, like a turkey
gobbling. Everything is uncouth, fantastical to excess, grotesquely
lugubrious; everywhere we are surprised by incomprehensible conceptions,
which seem the work of distorted imaginations.
In the fashionable tea-houses, where we finish our evenings, the little
serving-maids now bow to us, on our arrival, with an air of respectful
recognition, as belonging to the fast set of Nagasaki. There we carry on
desultory conversations, full of misunderstandings and endless ‘quid pro
quo’ of uncouth words, in little gardens lighted up with lanterns, near
ponds full of goldfish, with little bridges, little islets, and little
ruined towers. They hand us tea and white and pink-colored sweetmeats
flavored with pepper that taste strange and unfamiliar, and beverages
mixed with snow tasting of flowers or perfumes.
To give a faithful account of those evenings would require a more
affected style than our own; and some kind of graphic sign would have
also to be expressly invented and scattered at haphazard among the
words, indicating the moment when the reader should laugh--rather a
forced laugh, perhaps, but amiable and gracious. The evening at an end,
it is time to return up there.
Oh! that street, that road, that we must clamber up every evening, under
the starlit sky or the heavy thunder-clouds, dragging by the hands our
drowsy mousmes in order to regain our homes perched on high halfway up
the hill, where our bed of matting awaits us.