Displaying many affectations, M. Sucre dips the tip of his delicate
paint-brush in India-ink and traces a pair of charming storks on a
pretty sheet of rice-paper, offering them to me in the most courteous
manner, as a souvenir of himself. I have put them in my cabin on board,
and when I look at them, I fancy I can see M. Sucre tracing them with an
airy touch and with elegant facility.
The saucer in which he mixes his ink is in itself a little gem. It is
chiselled out of a piece of jade, and represents a tiny lake with a
carved border imitating rockwork. On this border is a little mamma toad,
also in jade, advancing as if to bathe in the little lake in which M.
Sucre carefully keeps a few drops of very dark liquid. The mamma toad
has four little baby toads, in jade, one perched on her head, the other
three playing about under her.
M. Sucre has painted many a stork in the course of his lifetime, and he
really excels in reproducing groups and duets, if one may so express it,
of this bird. Few Japanese possess the art of interpreting this subject
in a manner at once so rapid and so tasteful; first he draws the two
beaks, then the four claws, then the backs, the feathers, dash, dash,
dash--with a dozen strokes of his clever brush, held in his daintily
posed hand, it is done, and always perfectly well done!
M. Kangourou relates, without seeing anything wrong in it whatever, that
formerly this talent was of great service to M. Sucre. It appears that
Madame Prune--how shall I say such a thing, and, who could guess it
now, on beholding so devout and sedate an old lady, with eyebrows so
scrupulously shaven?--however, it appears that Madame Prune used to
receive a great many visits from gentlemen--gentlemen who always came
alone--which led to some gossip. Therefore, when Madame Prune was
engaged with one visitor, if a new arrival made his appearance, the
ingenious husband, to induce him to wait patiently, and to wile away the
time in the anteroom, immediately offered to paint him some storks in a
variety of attitudes.
And this is why, in Nagasaki, all the Japanese gentlemen of a certain
age have in their collections two or three of these little pictures, for
which they are indebted to the delicate and original talent of M. Sucre!
BOOK 3.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE FEAST OF THE TEMPLE
Sunday, August 25th.
About six o’clock, while I was on duty, the ‘Triomphante’ abandoned
her prison walls between the mountains and came out of dock. After much
manoeuvring we took up our old moorings in the harbor, at the foot of
the Diou-djen-dji hills. The weather was again calm and cloudless, the
sky presenting a peculiar clarity, as if it had been swept by a cyclone,
an exceeding transparency bringing out the minutest details in the
distance till then unseen; as if the terrible blast had blown away every
vestige of the floating mists and left behind it nothing but void and
boundless space. The coloring of woods and mountains stood out again in
the resplendent verdancy of spring after the torrents of rain, like the
wet colors of some freshly washed painting. The sampans and junks, which
for the last three days had been lying under shelter, had now put out to
sea, and the bay was covered with their white sails, which looked like a
flight of enormous seabirds.
At eight o’clock, at nightfall, our manoeuvres having ended, I embarked
with Yves on board a sampan; this time it is he who is carrying me off
and taking me back to my home.
On land, a delicious perfume of new-mown hay greets us, and the road
across the mountains is bathed in glorious moonlight. We go straight
up to Diou-djen-dji to join Chrysantheme; I feel almost remorseful,
although I hardly show it, for my neglect of her.
Looking up, I recognize from afar my little house, perched on high.
It is wide open and lighted; I even hear the sound of a guitar. Then I
perceive the gilt head of my Buddha between the little bright flames of
its two hanging night-lamps. Now Chrysantheme appears on the veranda,
looking out as if she expected us; and with her wonderful bows of hair
and long, falling sleeves, her silhouette is thoroughly Nipponese.
As I enter, she comes forward to kiss me, in a graceful, though rather
hesitating manner, while Oyouki, more demonstrative, throws her arms
around me.
Not without a certain pleasure do I see once more this Japanese home,
which I wonder to find still mine when I had almost forgotten its
existence. Chrysantheme has put fresh flowers in our vases, spread out
her hair, donned her best clothes, and lighted our lamps to honor my
return. From the balcony she had watched the ‘Triomphante’ leave the
dock, and, in the expectation of our prompt return, she had made her
preparations; then, to wile away the time, she was studying a duet on
the guitar with Oyouki. Not a question did she ask, nor a reproach did
she make. Quite the contrary.
“We understood,” she said, “how impossible it was, in such dreadful
weather, to undertake so lengthy a crossing in a sampan.”
She smiled like a pleased child, and I should be fastidious indeed if I
did not admit that to-night she is charming.
I announce my intention of taking a long stroll through Nagasaki; we
will take Oyouki-San and two little cousins who happen to be here, as
well as some other neighbors, if they wish it; we will buy the most
amusing toys, eat all sorts of cakes, and entertain ourselves to our
hearts’ content.
“How lucky we are to be here, just at the right moment,” they exclaim,
jumping with joy. “How fortunate we are! This very evening there is to
be a pilgrimage to the great temple of the jumping Tortoise! The whole
town will be there; all our married friends have already started, the
whole set, X----, Y----, Z----, Touki-San, Campanule, and Jonquille,
with ‘the friend of amazing height.’ And these two, poor Chrysantheme
and poor Oyouki, would have been obliged to stay at home with heavy
hearts, had we not arrived, because Madame Prune had been seized with
faintness and hysterics after her dinner.”
Quickly the mousmes must deck themselves out. Chrysantheme is ready;
Oyouki hurries, changes her dress, and, putting on a mouse-colored gray
robe, begs me to arrange the bows of her fine sash-black satin lined
with yellow-sticking at the same time in her hair a silver topknot.
We light our lanterns, swinging at the end of little sticks; M. Sucre,
overwhelming us with thanks for his daughter, accompanies us on all
fours to the door, and we go off gayly through the clear and balmy
night.
Below, we find the town in all the animation of a great holiday. The
streets are thronged; the crowd passes by--a laughing, capricious, slow,
unequal tide, flowing onward, however, steadily in the same direction,
toward the same goal. From it rises a penetrating but light murmur, in
which dominate the sounds of laughter, and the low-toned interchange of
polite speeches. Then follow lanterns upon lanterns. Never in my
life have I seen so many, so variegated, so complicated, and so
extraordinary.
We follow, drifting with the surging crowd, borne along by it. There
are groups of women of every age, decked out in their smartest clothes,
crowds of mousmes with aigrettes of flowers in their hair, or little
silver topknots like Oyouki--pretty little physiognomies, little, narrow
eyes peeping between their slits like those of new-born kittens, fat,
pale, little cheeks, round, puffed-out, half-opened lips. They are
pretty, nevertheless, these little Nipponese, in their smiles and
childishness.
The men, on the other hand, wear many a pot-hat, pompously added to
the long national robe, and giving thereby a finishing touch to their
cheerful ugliness, resembling nothing so much as dancing monkeys. They
carry boughs in their hands, whole shrubs even, amid the foliage of
which dangle all sorts of curious lanterns in the shapes of imps and
birds.
As we advance in the direction of the temple, the streets become more
noisy and crowded. All along the houses are endless stalls raised
on trestles, displaying sweetmeats of every color, toys, branches of
flowers, nosegays and masks. There are masks everywhere, boxes full of
them, carts full of them; the most popular being the one that represents
the livid and cunning muzzle, contracted as by a deathlike grimace, the
long straight ears and sharp-pointed teeth of the white fox, sacred to
the God of Rice. There are also others symbolic of gods or monsters,
livid, grimacing, convulsed, with wigs and beards of natural hair. All
manner of folk, even children, purchase these horrors, and fasten them
over their faces. Every sort of instrument is for sale, among them many
of those crystal trumpets which sound so strangely--this evening they
are enormous, six feet long at least--and the noise they make is unlike
anything ever heard before: one would say gigantic turkeys were gobbling
amid the crowd, striving to inspire fear.
In the religious amusements of this people it is not possible for us to
penetrate the mysteriously hidden meaning of things; we can not divine
the boundary at which jesting stops and mystic fear steps in. These
customs, these symbols, these masks, all that tradition and atavism have
jumbled together in the Japanese brain, proceed from sources utterly
dark and unknown to us; even the oldest records fail to explain them to
us in anything but a superficial and cursory manner, simply because we
have absolutely nothing in common with this people. We pass through
the midst of their mirth and their laughter without understanding the
wherefore, so totally do they differ from our own.
Chrysantheme with Yves, Oyouki with me, Fraise and Zinnia, our cousins,
walking before us under our watchful eyes, move slowly through the
crowd, holding hands lest we should lose one another.
Along the streets leading to the temple, the wealthy inhabitants have
decorated the fronts of their houses with vases and nosegays. The
peculiar shed-like buildings common in this country, with their open
platform frontage, are particularly well suited for the display of
choice objects; all the houses have been thrown open, and the interiors
are hung with draperies that hide the back of the apartments. In front
of these hangings, and standing slightly back from the movement of the
passing crowd, the various exhibited articles are placed methodically in
a row, under the full glare of hanging lamps. Hardly any flowers compose
the nosegays, nothing but foliage--some rare and priceless, others
chosen, as if purposely, from the commonest plants, arranged, however,
with such taste as to make them appear new and choice; ordinary
lettuce-leaves, tall cabbage-stalks are placed with exquisite artificial
taste in vessels of marvellous workmanship. All the vases are of bronze,
but the designs are varied according to each changing fancy: some
complicated and twisted, others, and by far the larger number, graceful
and simple, but of a simplicity so studied and exquisite that to our
eyes they seem the revelation of an unknown art, the subversion of all
acquired notions of form.
On turning a corner of a street, by good luck we meet our married
comrades of the Triomphante and Jonquille, Toukisan and Campanule! Bows
and curtseys are exchanged by the mousmes, reciprocal manifestations of
joy at meeting; then, forming a compact band, we are carried off by the
ever-increasing crowd and continue our progress in the direction of the
temple.
The streets gradually ascend (the temples are always built on a height);
and by degrees, as we mount, there is added to the brilliant fairyland
of lanterns and costumes yet another, ethereally blue in the haze of
distance; all Nagasaki, its pagodas, its mountains, its still waters
full of the rays of moonlight, seem to rise with us into the air.
Slowly, step by step, one may say it springs up around, enveloping in
one great shimmering veil all the foreground, with its dazzling red
lights and many-colored streamers.
No doubt we are drawing near, for here are steps, porticoes and monsters
hewn out of enormous blocks of granite. We now have to climb a series of
steps, almost carried by the surging crowd ascending with us.
We have arrived at the temple courtyard.
This is the last and most astonishing scene in the evening’s
fairy-tale--a luminous and weird scene, with fantastic distances lighted
up by the moon, with the gigantic trees, the sacred cryptomerias,
elevating their sombre boughs into a vast dome.
Here we are all seated with our mousmes, beneath the light awning,
wreathed in flowers, of one of the many little teahouses improvised in
this courtyard. We are on a terrace at the top of the great steps, up
which the crowd continues to flock, and at the foot of a portico which
stands erect with the rigid massiveness of a colossus against the dark
night sky; at the foot also of a monster, who stares down upon us, with
his big stony eyes, his cruel grimace and smile.
This portico and the monster are the two great overwhelming masses in
the foreground of the incredible scene before us; they stand out with
dazzling boldness against the vague and ashy blue of the distant sphere
beyond; behind them, Nagasaki is spread out in a bird’s-eye view,
faintly outlined in the transparent darkness with myriads of little
colored lights, and the extravagantly dented profile of the mountains
is delineated on the starlit sky, blue upon blue, transparency upon
transparency. A corner of the harbor also is visible, far up, undefined,
like a lake lost in clouds the water, faintly illumined by a ray of
moonlight, making it shine like a sheet of silver.
Around us the long crystal trumpets keep up their gobble. Groups of
polite and frivolous persons pass and repass like fantastic shadows:
childish bands of small-eyed mousmes with smile so candidly meaningless
and coiffures shining through their bright silver flowers; ugly men
waving at the end of long branches their eternal lanterns shaped like
birds, gods, or insects.
Behind us, in the illuminated and wide-open temple, the bonzes sit,
immovable embodiments of doctrine, in the glittering sanctuary inhabited
by divinities, chimeras, and symbols. The crowd, monotonously droning
its mingled prayers and laughter, presses around them, sowing its alms
broadcast; with a continuous jingle, the money rolls on the ground into
the precincts reserved to the priests, where the white mats entirely
f disappear under the mass of many-sized coins accumulated there as if
after a deluge of silver and bronze.
We, however, feel thoroughly at sea in the midst of this festivity; we
look on, we laugh like the rest, we make foolish and senseless remarks
in a language insufficiently learned, which this evening, I know not
why, we can hardly understand. Notwithstanding the night breeze, we find
it very hot under our awning, and we absorb quantities of odd-looking
water-ices, served in cups, which taste like scented frost, or rather
like flowers steeped in snow. Our mousmes order for themselves great
bowls of candied beans mixed with hail--real hailstones, such as we
might pick up after a hailstorm in March.
Glou! glou! glou! the crystal trumpets slowly repeat their notes, the
powerful sonority of which has a labored and smothered sound, as if they
came from under water; they mingle with the jingling of rattles and the
noise of castanets. We have also the impression of being carried away
in the irresistible swing of this incomprehensible gayety, composed, in
proportions we can hardly measure, of elements mystic, puerile, and
even ghastly. A sort of religious terror is diffused by the hidden idols
divined in the temple behind us; by the mumbled prayers, confusedly
heard; above all, by the horrible heads in lacquered wood, representing
foxes, which, as they pass, hide human faces--hideous livid masks.
In the gardens and outbuildings of the temple the most inconceivable
mountebanks have taken up their quarters, their black streamers, painted
with white letters, looking like funeral trappings as they float in the
wind from the tops of their tall flagstaffs. Thither we turn our steps,
as soon as our mousmes have ended their orisons and bestowed their alms.
In one of the booths a man, stretched on a table, flat on his back, is
alone on the stage; puppets of almost human size, with horribly grinning
masks, spring out of his body; they speak, gesticulate, then fall back
like empty rags; with a sudden spring they start up again, change their
costumes, change their faces, tearing about in one continual frenzy.
Suddenly three, even four, appear at the same time; they are nothing
more than the four limbs of the outstretched man, whose legs and arms,
raised on high, are each dressed up and capped with a wig under which
peers a mask; between these phantoms tremendous fighting and battling
take place, and many a sword-thrust is exchanged. The most fearful of
all is a certain puppet representing an old hag; every time she appears,
with her weird head and ghastly grin, the lights burn low, the music of
the accompanying orchestra moans forth a sinister strain given by the
flutes, mingled with a rattling tremolo which sounds like the clatter of
bones. This creature evidently plays an ugly part in the piece--that of
a horrible old ghoul, spiteful and famished. Still more appalling than
her person is her shadow, which, projected upon a white screen, is
abnormally and vividly distinct; by means of some unknown process this
shadow, which nevertheless follows all her movements, assumes the
aspect of a wolf. At a given moment the hag turns round and presents the
profile of her distorted snub nose as she accepts the bowl of rice which
is offered to her; on the screen at the very same instant appears the
elongated outline of the wolf, with its pointed ears, its muzzle and
chops, its great teeth and hanging tongue. The orchestra grinds, wails,
quivers; then suddenly bursts out into funereal shrieks, like a concert
of owls; the hag is now eating, and her wolfish shadow is eating
also, greedily moving its jaws and nibbling at another shadow easy to
recognize--the arm of a little child.
We now go on to see the great salamander of Japan, an animal rare in
this country, and quite unknown elsewhere, a great, cold mass, sluggish
and benumbed, looking like some antediluvian experiment, forgotten in
the inner seas of this archipelago.
Next comes the trained elephant, the terror of our mousmes, the
equilibrists, the menagerie.
It is one o’clock in the morning before we are back at Diou-djen-dji.
We first get Yves to bed in the little paper room he has already
once occupied. Then we go to bed ourselves, after the inevitable
preparations, the smoking of the little pipe, and the tap! tap! tap!
tap! on the edge of the box.
Suddenly Yves begins to move restlessly in his sleep, to toss about,
giving great kicks on the wall, and making a frightful noise.
What can be the matter? I imagine at once that he must be dreaming of
the old hag and her wolfish shadow. Chrysantheme raises herself on her
elbow and listens, with astonishment depicted on her face.
Ah, happy thought! she has guessed what is tormenting him:
“Ka!” (“mosquitoes”) she says.
And, to impress the more forcibly her meaning on my mind, she pinches my
arm so hard with her little pointed nails, at the same time imitating,
with such an amusing play of her features, the grimace of a person who
is stung, that I exclaim:
“Oh! stop, Chrysantheme, this pantomime is too expressive, and indeed
useless! I know the word ‘Ka’, and had quite understood, I assure you.”
It is done so drolly and so quickly, with such a pretty pout, that in
truth I can not think of being angry, although I shall certainly have
tomorrow a blue mark on my arm; about that there is no doubt.
“Come, we must get up and go to Yves’s rescue; he must not be allowed to
go on thumping in that manner. Let us take a lantern, and see what has
happened.”
It was indeed the mosquitoes. They are hovering in a thick cloud about
him; those of the house and those of the garden all seem collected
together, swarming and buzzing. Chrysantheme indignantly burns several
at the flame of her lantern, and shows me others (Hou!) covering the
white paper walls.
He, tired out with his day’s amusement, sleeps on; but his slumbers are
restless, as may be easily imagined. Chrysantheme gives him a shake,
wishing him to get up and share our blue mosquito-net.
After a little pressing he does as he is bid and follows us, looking
like an overgrown boy only half awake. I make no objection to this
singular hospitality; after all, it looks so little like a bed, the
matting we are to share, and we sleep in our clothes, as we always
do, according to the Nipponese fashion. After all, on a journey in a
railway, do not the most estimable ladies stretch themselves without
demur by the side of gentlemen unknown to them?
I have, however, placed Chrysantheme’s little wooden block in the centre
of the gauze tent, between our two pillows.
Without saying a word, in a dignified manner, as if she were rectifying
an error of etiquette that I had inadvertently committed, Chrysantheme
takes up her piece of wood, putting in its place my snake-skin drum;
I shall therefore be in the middle between the two. It is really
more correct, decidedly more proper; Chrysantheme is evidently a very
decorous young person.
Returning on board next morning, in the clear morning sun, we walk
through pathways full of dew, accompanied by a band of funny little
mousmes of six or eight years of age, who are going to school.
Needless to say, the cicalas around us keep up their perpetual sonorous
chirping. The mountain smells delicious. The atmosphere, the dawning
day, the infantine grace of these little girls in their long frocks and
shiny coiffures-all is redundant with freshness and youth. The flowers
and grasses on which we tread sparkle with dewdrops, exhaling a perfume
of freshness. What undying beauty there is, even in Japan, in the fresh
morning hours in the country, and the dawning hours of life!
Besides, I am quite ready to admit the attractiveness of the little
Japanese children; some of them are most fascinating. But how is it
that their charm vanishes so rapidly and is so quickly replaced by the
elderly grimace, the smiling ugliness, the monkeyish face?
CHAPTER XXXV. THROUGH A MICROSCOPE
The small garden of my mother-in-law, Madame Renoncule, is, without
exception, one of the most melancholy spots I have seen in all my
travels through the world.
Oh, the slow, enervating, dull hours spent in idle and diffuse
conversation on the dimly lighted veranda! Oh, the detestable peppered
jam in the tiny 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 mold from want of sunlight.
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 full-grown 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, the
wonder is whether it is all artificial, or whether one is not one’s self
the victim of some morbid illusion; and whether 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 bareness, 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
preserved by constant scrubbing with 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 are artificially twisted, imitating
trunks of old trees covered with tropical creepers. Everywhere are
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 can not help smiling when I think of some of the so-called “Japanese”
drawing-rooms of our Parisian fine ladies, overcrowded with knickknacks
and curios and hung with coarse gold embroideries on exported satins. 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 called a ‘godoun’, shut in by iron gratings.
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 good woman, and were it
not for the insurmountable feeling of spleen the sight of her garden
produces on me, I should often go to 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 fashionable. 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 geisha 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 Chrysantheme (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: Mademoiselle La
Neige,--[Oyouki-San]--and Mademoiselle La Lune,--[Tsouki-San.]--as
well as five little brothers-in-law: Cerisier, Pigeon, Liseron, Or, and
Bambou.
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 Nipponese family, Bambou is the one I love the most.
CHAPTER XXXVI. MY NAUGHTY DOLL
Tuesday, August 27th.
During this whole day we--Yves, Chrysantheme, Oyouki and myself--have
spent the time wandering through dark and dusty nooks, dragged hither
and thither by four quick-footed djins, in search of antiquities in the
bric-a-brac shops.
Toward sunset, Chrysantheme, who has wearied me more than ever since
morning, and who doubtless has perceived it, pulls a very long face,
declares herself ill, and begs leave to spend the night with her mother,
Madame Renoncule.
I agree to this with the best grace in the world; let her go, tiresome
little mousme! Oyouki will carry a message to her parents, who will shut
up our rooms; we shall spend the evening, Yves and I, in roaming about
as fancy takes us, without any mousme dragging at our heels, and shall
afterward regain our own quarters on board the ‘Triomphante’, without
having the trouble of climbing up that hill.
First of all, we make an attempt to dine together in some fashionable
tea-house. Impossible! not a place is to be had; all the absurd paper
rooms, all the compartments contrived by so many ingenious tricks of
slipping and sliding panels, all the nooks and corners in the little
gardens are filled with Japanese men and women eating impossible
and incredible little dishes. Numberless young dandies are dining
tete-a-tete with the ladies of their choice, and sounds of dancing-girls
and music issue from the private rooms.
The fact is, to-day is the third and last day of the great pilgrimage
to the temple of the jumping Tortoise, of which we saw the beginning
yesterday; and all Nagasaki is at this time given over to amusement.
At the tea-house of the Indescribable Butterflies, which is also full to
overflowing, but where we are well known, they have had the bright idea
of throwing a temporary flooring over the little lake--the pond
where the goldfish live--and our meal is served here, in the pleasant
freshness of the fountain which continues its murmur under our feet.
After dinner, we follow the faithful and ascend again to the temple.
Up there we find the same elfin revelry, the same masks, the same music.
We seat ourselves, as before, under a gauze tent and sip odd little
drinks tasting of flowers. But this evening we are alone, and the
absence of the band of mousmes, whose familiar little faces formed
a bond of union between this holiday-making people and ourselves,
separates and isolates us more than usual from the profusion of oddities
in the midst of which we seem to be lost. Beneath us lies always the
immense blue background: Nagasaki illumined by moonlight, and the
expanse of silvered, glittering water, which seems like a vaporous
vision suspended in mid-air. Behind us is the great open temple, where
the bonzes officiate, to the accompaniment of sacred bells and wooden
clappers-looking, from where we sit, more like puppets than anything
else, some squatting in rows like peaceful mummies, others executing
rhythmical marches before the golden background where stand the gods. We
do not laugh to-night, and speak but little, more forcibly struck by
the scene than we were on the first night; we only look on, trying to
understand. Suddenly, Yves, turning round, says:
“Hullo! brother, there is your mousme!”
Actually, there she is, behind him; Chrysantheme, almost on all fours,
hidden between the paws of a great granite beast, half tiger, half dog,
against which our fragile tent is leaning.
“She pulled my trousers with her nails, for all the world like a little
cat,” said Yves, still full of surprise, “positively like a cat!”
She remains bent double in the most humble form of salutation; she
smiles timidly, afraid of being ill received, and the head of my little
brother-in-law, Bambou, appears smiling too, just above her own. She
has brought this little mousko--[Mousko is the masculine of mousme,
and signifies little boy. Excessive politeness makes it mousko-san (Mr.
little boy).]--with her, perched astride her back; he looks as absurd
as ever, with his shaven head, his long frock and the great bows of his
silken sash. There they stand gazing at us, anxious to know how their
joke will be taken.
For my part, I have not the least idea of giving them a cold reception;
on the contrary, the meeting amuses me. It even strikes me that it is
rather pretty of Chrysantheme to come around in this way, and to
bring Bambou-San to the festival; though it savors somewhat of her low
breeding, to tell the truth, to carry him on her back, as the poorer
Japanese women carry their little ones.
However, let her sit down between Yves and myself and let them bring her
those iced beans she loves so much; and we will take the jolly little
mousko on our knees and cram him with sugar and sweetmeats to his
heart’s content.
When the evening is over, and we begin to think of leaving, and of going
down again, Chrysantheme replaces her little Bambou astride upon her
back, and sets forth, bending forward under his weight and painfully
dragging her Cinderella slippers over the granite steps and flagstones.
Yes, decidedly low, this conduct! but low in the best sense of the word:
nothing in it displeases me; I even consider Chrysantheme’s affection
for Bambou-San engaging and attractive in its simplicity.
One can not deny this merit to the Japanese--a great love for little
children, and a talent for amusing them, for making them laugh,
inventing comical toys for them, making the morning of their life happy;
for a specialty in dressing them, arranging their heads, and giving to
the whole personage the most fascinating appearance possible. It is the
only thing I really like about this country: the babies and the manner
in which they are understood.
On our way we meet our married friends of the Triomphante, who, much
surprised at seeing me with this mousko, jokingly exclaim:
“What! a son already?”
Down in the town, we make a point of bidding goodby to Chrysantheme at
the turning of the street where her mother lives. She smiles, undecided,
declares herself well again, and begs to return to our house on the
heights. This did not precisely enter into my plans, I confess. However,
it would look very ungracious to refuse.
So be it! But we must carry the mousko home to his mamma, and then
begin, by the flickering light of a new lantern bought from Madame
Tres-Propre, our weary homeward ascent.
Here, however, we find ourselves in another predicament: this ridiculous
little Bambou insists upon coming with us! No, he will take no denial,
we must take him with us. This is out of all reason, quite impossible!
However, it will not do to make him cry, on the night of a great
festival too, poor little mousko! So we must send a message to Madame
Renoncule, that she may not be uneasy about him, and as there will soon
not be a living creature on the footpaths of Diou-djen-dji to laugh at
us, we will take it in turn, Yves and I, to carry him on our backs, all
the way up that climb in the darkness.
And here am I, who did not wish to return this way tonight, dragging a
mousme by the hand, and actually carrying an extra burden in the shape
of a mousko on my back. What an irony of fate!
As I had expected, all our shutters and doors are closed, bolted, and
barred; no one expects us, and we have to make a prodigious noise at the
door. Chrysantheme sets to work and calls with all her might:
“Hou Oume-San-an-an-an!” (In English: “Hi! Madame Pru-u-uu-une!”)
These intonations in her little voice are unknown to me; her long-drawn
call in the echoing darkness of midnight has so strange an accent,
something so unexpected and wild, that it impresses me with a dismal
feeling of far-off exile.
At last Madame Prune appears to open the door to us, only half awake
and much astonished; by way of a nightcap she wears a monstrous cotton
turban, on the blue ground of which a few white storks are playfully
disporting themselves. Holding in the tips of her fingers, with an
affectation of graceful fright, the long stalk of her beflowered
lantern, she gazes intently into our faces, one after another, to
reassure herself of our identity; but the poor old lady can not get over
her surprise at the sight of the mousko I am carrying.
CHAPTER XXXVII. COMPLICATIONS
At first it was only to Chrysantheme’s guitar that I listened with
pleasure now I am beginning to like her singing also.
She has nothing of the theatrical, or the deep, assumed voice of the
virtuoso; on the contrary, her notes, always very high, are soft, thin,
and plaintive.
She often teaches Oyouki some romance, slow and dreamy, which she has
composed, or which comes back to her mind. Then they both astonish me,
for on their well-tuned guitars they will pick out accompaniments in
parts, and try again each time that the chords are not perfectly true
to their ear, without ever losing themselves in the confusion of these
dissonant harmonies, always weird and always melancholy.
Usually, while their music is going on, I am writing on the veranda,
with the superb panorama before me. I write, seated on a mat on the
floor and leaning upon a little Japanese desk, ornamented with swallows
in relief; my ink is Chinese, my inkstand, just like that of my
landlord, is in jade, with dear little frogs and toads carved on the
rim. In short, I am writing my memoirs,--exactly as M. Sucre does
downstairs! Occasionally I fancy I resemble him--a very disagreeable
fancy.
My memoirs are composed of incongruous details, minute observations of
colors, shapes, scents, and sounds.
It is true that a complete imbroglio, worthy of a romance, seems ever
threatening to appear upon my monotonous horizon; a regular intrigue
seems ever ready to explode in the midst of this little world of
mousmes and grasshoppers: Chrysantheme in love with Yves; Yves with
Chrysantheme; Oyouki with me; I with no one. We might even find here,
ready to hand, the elements of a fratricidal drama, were we in any other
country than Japan; but we are in Japan, and under the narrowing and
dwarfing influence of the surroundings, which turn everything into
ridicule, nothing will come of it all.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE HEIGHT OF SOCIABILITY!
In this fine town of Nagasaki, about five or six o’clock in the evening,
one hour of the day is more comical than any other. At that moment every
human being is naked: children, young people, old people, old men, old
women--every one is seated in a tub of some sort, taking a bath. This
ceremony takes place no matter where, without the slightest screen, in
the gardens, the courtyards, in the shops, even upon the thresholds, in
order to give greater facility for conversation among the neighbors
from one side of the street to the other. In this situation visitors
are received; and the bather, without any hesitation, leaves his tub,
holding in his hand his little towel (invariably blue), to offer
the caller a seat, and to exchange with him some polite remarks.
Nevertheless, neither the mousmes nor the old ladies gain anything by
appearing in this primeval costume. A Japanese woman, deprived of her
long robe and her huge sash with its pretentious bows, is nothing but a
diminutive yellow being, with crooked legs and flat, unshapely bust;
she has no longer a remnant of her little artificial charms, which have
completely disappeared in company with her costume.
There is yet another hour, at once joyous and melancholy, a little
later, when twilight falls, when the sky seems one vast veil of yellow,
against which stand the clear-cut outlines of jagged mountains and
lofty, fantastic pagodas. It is the hour at which, in the labyrinth
of little gray streets below, the sacred lamps begin to twinkle in the
ever-open houses, in front of the ancestor’s altars and the familiar
Buddhas; while, outside, darkness creeps over all, and the thousand and
one indentations and peaks of the old roofs are depicted, as if in black
festoons, on the clear golden sky. At this moment, over merry, laughing
Japan, suddenly passes a sombre shadow, strange, weird, a breath of
antiquity, of savagery, of something indefinable, which casts a gloom
of sadness. And then the only gayety that remains is the gayety of
the young children, of little mouskos and little mousmes, who spread
themselves like a wave through the streets filled with shadow, as they
swarm from schools and workshops. On the dark background of all these
wooden buildings, the little blue and scarlet dresses stand out in
startling contrast,--drolly bedizened, drolly draped; and the fine loops
of the sashes, the flowers, the silver or gold topknots stuck in these
baby chignons, add to the vivid effect.
They amuse themselves, they chase one another, their great pagoda
sleeves fly wide open, and these tiny little mousmes of ten, of five
years old, or even younger still, have lofty head-dresses and imposing
bows of hair arranged on their little heads, like grown-up women. Oh!
what loves of supremely absurd dolls at this hour of twilight gambol
through the streets, in their long frocks, blowing their crystal
trumpets, or running with all their might to start their fanciful kites.
This juvenile world of Japan--ludicrous by birth, and fated to become
more so as the years roll on--starts in life with singular amusements,
with strange cries and shouts; its playthings are somewhat ghastly,
and would frighten the children of other countries; even the kites have
great squinting eyes and vampire shapes.
And every evening, in the little dark streets, bursts forth the overflow
of joyousness, fresh, childish, but withal grotesque to excess. It would
be difficult to form any idea of the incredible things which, carried by
the wind, float in the evening air.
CHAPTER XXXIX. A LADY OF JAPAN
My little Chrysantheme is always attired in dark colors, a sign here of
aristocratic distinction. While her friends Oyouki-San, Madame Touki,
and others, delight in gay-striped stuffs, and thrust gorgeous ornaments
in their chignons, she always wears navy-blue or neutral gray, fastened
round her waist with great black sashes brocaded in tender shades, and
she puts nothing in her hair but amber-colored tortoiseshell pins. If
she were of noble descent she would wear embroidered on her dress in the
middle of the back a little white circle looking like a postmark with
some design in the centre of it--usually the leaf of a tree; and this
would be her coat-of-arms. There is really nothing wanting but this
little heraldic blazon on the back to give her the appearance of a lady
of the highest rank.
In Japan the smart dresses of bright colors shaded in clouds,
embroidered with monsters of gold or silver, are reserved by the great
ladies for home use on state occasions; or else they are used on the
stage for dancers and courtesans.
Like all Japanese women, Chrysantheme carries a quantity of things in
her long sleeves, in which pockets are cunningly hidden. There she keeps
letters, various notes written on delicate sheets of rice-paper, prayer
amulets drawn up by the bonzes; and above all a number of squares of a
silky paper which she puts to the most unexpected uses--to dry a teacup,
to hold the damp stalk of a flower, or to blow her quaint little nose,
when the necessity presents itself. After the operation she at once
crumples up the piece of paper, rolls it into a ball, and throws it out
of the window with disgust.
The very smartest people in Japan blow their noses in this manner.
CHAPTER XL. OUR FRIENDS THE BONZES
September 2d.
Fate has favored us with a friendship as strange as it is rare: that
of the head bonzes of the temple of the jumping Tortoise, where we
witnessed last month such a surprising pilgrimage.
The approach to this place is as solitary now as it was thronged and
bustling on the evenings of the festival; and in broad daylight one is
surprised at the deathlike decay of the sacred surroundings which at
night had seemed so full of life. Not a creature to be seen on the
time-worn granite steps; not a creature beneath the vast, sumptuous
porticoes; the colors, the gold-work are dim with dust. To reach the
temple one must cross several deserted courtyards terraced on the
mountain-side, pass through several solemn gateways, and up and up
endless stairs rising far above the town and the noises of humanity into
a sacred region filled with innumerable tombs. On all the pavements, in
all the walls, are lichen and stonecrop; and over all the gray tint of
extreme age spreads like a fall of ashes.
In a side temple near the entrance is enthroned a colossal Buddha seated
in his lotus--a gilded idol from forty-five to sixty feet high, mounted
on an enormous bronze pedestal.
At length appears the last doorway with the two traditional giants,
guardians of the sacred court, which stand the one on the right hand,
the other on the left, shut up like wild beasts, each in an iron cage.
They are in attitudes of fury, with fists upraised as if to strike, and
features atrociously fierce and distorted. Their bodies are covered with
bullets of crumbled paper, which have been aimed at them through the
bars, and which have stuck to their monstrous limbs, producing an
appearance of white leprosy: this is the manner in which the faithful
strive to appease them, by conveying to them their prayers written upon
delicate leaflets by the pious bonzes.
Passing between these alarming scarecrows, one reaches the innermost
court. The residence of our friends is on the right, the great hall of
the pagoda is before us.
In this paved court are bronze torch-holders as high as turrets. Here,
too, stand, and have stood for centuries, cyca palms with fresh, green
plumes, their numerous stalks curving with a heavy symmetry, like the
branches of massive candelabra. The temple, which is open along its
entire length, is dark and mysterious, with touches of gilding in
distant corners melting away into the gloom. In the very remotest part
are seated idols, and from outside one can vaguely see their clasped
hands and air of rapt mysticism; in front are the altars, loaded with
marvellous vases in metalwork, whence spring graceful clusters of gold
and silver lotus. From the very entrance one is greeted by the sweet
odor of the incense-sticks unceasingly burned by the priests before the
gods.
To penetrate into the dwelling of our friends the bonzes, which is
situated on the right side as you enter, is by no means an easy matter.
A monster of the fish tribe, but having claws and horns, is hung
over their door by iron chains; at the least breath of wind he swings
creakingly. We pass beneath him and enter the first vast and lofty hall,
dimly lighted, in the corners of which gleam gilded idols, bells, and
incomprehensible objects of religious use.
Quaint little creatures, choir-boys or pupils, come forward with a
doubtful welcome to ask what is wanted.
“Matsou-San!! Dondta-San!!” they repeat, much astonished, when they
understand to whom we wish to be conducted. Oh! no, impossible, they can
not be seen; they are resting or are in contemplation. “Orimas! Orimas!”
say they, clasping their hands and sketching a genuflection or two
to make us understand better. (“They are at prayer! the most profound
prayer!”)
We insist, speak more imperatively; even slip off our shoes like people
determined to take no refusal.
At last Matsou-San and Donata-San make their appearance from the
tranquil depths of their bonze-house. They are dressed in black crape
and their heads are shaved. Smiling, amiable, full of excuses, they
offer us their hands, and we follow, with our feet bare like theirs,
to the interior of their mysterious dwelling, through a series of
empty rooms spread with mats of the most unimpeachable whiteness.
The successive halls are separated one from the other only by bamboo
curtains of exquisite delicacy, caught back by tassels and cords of red
silk.
The whole wainscoting of the interior is of the same wood, of a pale
yellow shade made with extreme nicety, without the least ornament, the
least carving; everything seems new and unused, as if it had never been
touched by human hand. At distant intervals in this studied bareness,
costly little stools, marvellously inlaid, uphold some antique bronze
monster or a vase of flowers; on the walls hang a few masterly sketches,
vaguely tinted in Indian ink, drawn upon strips of gray paper most
accurately cut but without the slightest attempt at a frame. This is
all: not a seat, not a cushion, not a scrap of furniture. It is the very
acme of studied simplicity, of elegance made out of nothing, of the most
immaculate and incredible cleanliness. And while following the bonzes
through this long suite of empty halls, we are struck by their contrast
with the overflow of knickknacks scattered about our rooms in France,
and we take a sudden dislike to the profusion and crowding delighted in
at home.
The spot where this silent march of barefooted folk comes to an end,
the spot where we are to seat ourselves in the delightful coolness of a
semi-darkness, is an interior veranda opening upon an artificial site.
We might suppose it the bottom of a well; it is a miniature garden no
bigger than the opening of an oubliette, overhung on all sides by the
crushing height of the mountain and receiving from on high but the dim
light of dreamland. Nevertheless, here is simulated a great natural
ravine in all its wild grandeur: here are caverns, abrupt rocks, a
torrent, a cascade, islands. The trees, dwarfed by a Japanese process of
which we have not the secret, have tiny little leaves on their decrepit
and knotty branches. A pervading hue of the mossy green of antiquity
harmonizes all this medley, which is undoubtedly centuries old.
Families of goldfish swim round and round in the clear water, and tiny
tortoises (jumpers probably) sleep upon the granite islands, which are
of the same color as their own gray shells.
There are even blue dragon-flies which have ventured to descend,
heaven knows whence, and alight with quivering wings upon the miniature
water-lilies.
Our friends the bonzes, notwithstanding an unctuousness of manner
thoroughly ecclesiastical, are very ready to laugh--a simple, pleased,
childish laughter; plump, chubby, shaven and shorn, they dearly love our
French liqueurs and know how to take a joke.
We talk first of one thing and then another. To the tranquil music of
their little cascade, I launch out before them with phrases of the
most erudite Japanese, I try the effect of a few tenses of verbs:
‘desideratives, concessives, hypothetics in ba’. While they chant they
despatch the affairs of the church: the order of services sealed with
complicated seals for inferior pagodas situated in the neighborhood; or
trace little prayers with a cunning paint-brush, as medical remedies to
be swallowed like pills by invalids at a distance. With their white and
dimpled hands they play with a fan as cleverly as any woman, and when we
have tasted different native drinks, flavored with essences of flowers,
they bring up as a finish a bottle of Benedictine or Chartreuse, for
they appreciate the liqueurs composed by their Western colleagues.
When they come on board to return our visits, they by no means disdain
to fasten their great round spectacles on their flat noses in order
to inspect the profane drawings in our illustrated papers, the ‘Vie
Parisienne’ for instance. And it is even with a certain complacency that
they let their fingers linger upon the pictures representing women.
The religious ceremonies in their great temple are magnificent, and
to one of these we are now invited. At the sound of the gong they make
their entrance before the idols with a stately ritual; twenty or thirty
priests officiate in gala costumes, with genuflections, clapping of
hands and movements to and fro, which look like the figures of some
mystic quadrille.
But for all that, let the sanctuary be ever so immense and imposing in
its sombre gloom, the idols ever so superb, all seems in Japan but a
mere semblance of grandeur. A hopeless pettiness, an irresistible effect
the ludicrous, lies at the bottom of all things.
And then the congregation is not conducive to thoughtful contemplation,
for among it we usually discover some acquaintance: my mother-in-law,
or a cousin, or the woman from the china-shop who sold us a vase only
yesterday. Charming little mousmes, monkeyish-looking old ladies enter
with their smoking-boxes, their gayly daubed parasols, their curtseys,
their little cries and exclamations; prattling, complimenting one
another, full of restless movement, and having the greatest difficulty
in maintaining a serious demeanor.
CHAPTER XLI. AN UNEXPECTED CALL
September 3d.
My little Chrysantheme for the first time visited me on board-ship to
day, chaperoned by Madame Prune, and followed by my youngest sister
in-law, Mademoiselle La Neige. These ladies had the tranquil manners of
the highest gentility. In my cabin is a great Buddha on his throne, and
before him is a lacquer tray, on which my faithful sailor servant places
any small change he may find in the pockets of my clothes. Madame Prune,
whose mind is much swayed by mysticism, at once supposed herself before
a regular altar; in the gravest manner possible she addressed a brief
prayer to the god; then drawing out her purse (which, according to
custom, was attached to her sash behind her back, along with her little
pipe and tobacco-pouch), placed a pious offering in the tray, while
executing a low curtsey.
They were on their best behavior throughout the visit. But when the
moment of departure came, Chrysantheme, who would not go away without
seeing Yves, asked for him with a thinly veiled persistency which
was remarkable. Yves, for whom I then sent, made himself particularly
charming to her, so much so that this time I felt a shade of more
serious annoyance; I even asked myself whether the laughably pitiable
ending, which I had hitherto vaguely foreseen, might not, after all,
soon break upon us.
CHAPTER XLII. AN ORIENTAL VISION
September 4th.
Yesterday I encountered, in an ancient and ruined quarter of the town,
a perfectly exquisite mousme, charmingly dressed; a fresh touch of color
against the sombre background of decayed buildings.
I met her at the farthest end of Nagasaki, in the most ancient part of
the town. In this region are trees centuries old, antique temples of
Buddha, of Amiddah, of Benten, or Kwanon, with steep and pompous roofs;
monsters carved in granite sit there in courtyards silent as the grave,
where the grass grows between the stones. This deserted quarter is
traversed by a narrow torrent running in a deep channel, across which
are thrown little curved bridges with granite balustrades eaten away
by lichen. All the objects there wear the strange grimace, the quaint
arrangement familiar to us in the most antique Japanese drawings.
I walked through it all at the burning hour of midday, and saw not a
soul, unless, indeed, through the open windows of the bonze-houses, I
caught sight of some few priests, guardians of tombs or sanctuaries,
taking their siesta under dark-blue gauze nets.
Suddenly this little mousme appeared, a little above me, just at the
point of the arch of one of these bridges carpeted with gray moss; she
was in full sunshine, and stood out in brilliant clearness, like a fairy
vision, against the background of old black temples and deep shadows.
She was holding her robe together with one hand, gathering it close
round her ankles to give herself an air of greater slimness. Over her
quaint little head, her round umbrella with its thousand ribs threw a
great halo of blue and red, edged with black, and an oleander-tree full
of flowers, growing among the stones of the bridge, spread its glory
beside her, bathed, like herself, in the sunshine. Behind this youthful
figure and this flowering shrub all was blackness. Upon the pretty red
and blue parasol great white letters formed this inscription, much used
among the mousmes, and which I have learned to recognize: ‘Stop! clouds,
to see her pass!’ And it was really worth the trouble to stop and look
at this exquisite little person, of a type so ideally Japanese.
However, it will not do to stop too long and be ensnared--it would only
be another delusion. A doll like the rest, evidently, an ornament for a
china shelf, and nothing more. While I gaze at her, I say to myself that
Chrysantheme, appearing in this same place, with this dress, this play
of light, and this aureole of sunshine, would produce just as delightful
an effect.
For Chrysantheme is pretty, there can be no doubt about it. Yesterday
evening, in fact, I positively admired her. It was quite night; we
were returning with the usual escort of little married couples like
ourselves, from the inevitable tour of the tea-houses and bazaars. While
the other mousmes walked along hand in hand, adorned with new silver
topknots which they had succeeded in having presented to them, and
amusing themselves with playthings, she, pleading fatigue, followed,
half reclining, in a djin carriage. We had placed beside her
great bunches of flowers destined to fill our vases, late iris and
long-stemmed lotus, the last of the season, already smelling of autumn.
And it was really very pretty to see this Japanese girl in her little
car, lying carelessly among all these water-flowers, lighted by gleams
of ever-changing colors, as they chanced from the lanterns we met or
passed. If, on the evening of my arrival in Japan, any one had pointed
her out to me, and said: “That shall be your mousme,” there can not be a
doubt I should have been charmed. In reality, however, I am not charmed;
it is only Chrysantheme, always Chrysantheme, nothing but Chrysantheme:
a mere plaything to laugh at, a little creature of finical forms and
thoughts, with whom the agency of M. Kangourou has supplied me.
CHAPTER XLIII. THE CATS AND THE DOLLS
The water used for drinking in our house, for making tea, and for lesser
washing purposes, is kept in large white china tubs, decorated with
paintings representing blue fish borne along by a swift current through
distorted rushes. In order to keep them cool, the tubs are kept out of
doors on Madame Prune’s roof, at a place where we can, from the top of
our projecting balcony, easily reach them by stretching out an arm.
A real godsend for all the thirsty cats in the neighborhood, on warm
summer nights, is this corner of the roof with our gayly painted tubs,
and it proves a delightful trysting-place for them, after all their
caterwauling and long solitary rambles on the tops of the walls.
I had thought it my duty to warn Yves the first time he wished to drink
this water.
“Oh!” he replied, rather surprised, “cats, do you say? But they are not
dirty!”
On this point Chrysantheme and I agree with him: we do not consider cats
unclean animals, and we do not object to drink after them.
Yves considers Chrysantheme much in the same light. “She is not dirty,
either,” he says; and he willingly drinks after her, out of the same
cup, putting her in the same category with the cats.
These china tubs are one of the daily preoccupations of our household:
in the evening, when we return from our walk, after the clamber up,
which makes us thirsty, and Madame L’Heure’s waffles, which we have
been eating to beguile the way, we always find them empty. It seems
impossible for Madame Prune, or Mademoiselle Oyouki, or their young
servant, Mademoiselle Dede,--[Dede-San means “Miss Young Girl,” a very
common name.]--to have forethought enough to fill them while it is still
daylight. And when we are late in returning home, these three ladies are
asleep, so we are obliged to attend to the business ourselves.
We must therefore open all the closed doors, put on our boots, and go
down into the garden to draw water.
As Chrysantheme would die of fright all alone in the dark, in the midst
of the trees and buzzing of insects, I am obliged to accompany her to
the well. For this expedition we require a light, and must seek among
the quantity of lanterns purchased at Madame Tres-Propre’s booth, which
have been thrown night after night into the bottom of one of our little
paper closets; but alas, all the candles are burned down! I thought as
much! Well, we must resolutely take the first lantern to hand, and stick
a fresh candle on the iron point at the bottom; Chrysantheme puts forth
all her strength, the candle splits, breaks; the mousme pricks her
fingers, pouts and whimpers. Such is the inevitable scene that takes
place every evening, and delays our retiring to rest under the dark-blue
gauze net for a good quarter of an hour; while the cicalas on the roof
seem to mock us with their ceaseless song.
All this, which I should find amusing in any one else,--any one I
loved--irritates me in her.
CHAPTER XLIV. TENDER MINISTRATIONS
September 11th.
A week has passed very quietly, during which I have written nothing.
By degrees I am becoming accustomed to my Japanese household, to the
strangeness of the language, costumes, and faces. For the last
three weeks no letters have arrived from Europe; they have no doubt
miscarried, and their absence contributes, as is usually the case, to
throw a veil of oblivion over the past.
Every day, therefore, I climb up to my villa, sometimes by beautiful
starlit nights, sometimes through downpours of rain. Every morning
as the sound of Madame Prune’s chanted prayer rises through the
reverberating air, I awake and go down toward the sea, by grassy
pathways full of dew.
The chief occupation in Japan seems to be a perpetual hunt after curios.
We sit down on the mattings, in the antique-sellers’ little booths,
taking a cup of tea with the salesmen, and rummage with our own hands in
the cupboards and chests, where many a fantastic piece of old rubbish is
huddled away. The bargaining, much discussed, is laughingly carried on
for several days, as if we were trying to play off some excellent little
practical joke upon each other.
I really make a sad abuse of the adjective little; I am quite aware
of it, but how can I do otherwise? In describing this country, the
temptation is great to use it ten times in every written line. Little,
finical; affected,--all Japan is contained, both physically and morally,
in these three words.
My purchases are accumulating in my little wood and paper house; but
how much more Japanese it really was, in its bare emptiness, such as
M. Sucre and Madame Prune had conceived it. There are now many lamps of
sacred symbolism hanging from the ceiling; many stools and many vases,
as many gods and goddesses as in a pagoda.
There is even a little Shintoist altar, before which Madame Prune has
not been able to restrain her feelings, and before which she has fallen
down and chanted her prayers in her bleating, goat-like voice:
“Wash me clean from all my impurity, O Ama-Terace-Omi-Kami! as one
washes away uncleanness in the river of Kamo.”
Alas for poor Ama-Terace-Omi-Kami to have to wash away the impurities of
Madame Prune! What a tedious and ungrateful task!!
Chrysantheme, who is a Buddhist, prays sometimes in the evening before
lying down; although overcome with sleep, she prays clapping her hands
before the largest of our gilded idols. But she smiles with a childish
disrespect for her Buddha, as soon as her prayer is ended. I know that
she has also a certain veneration for her Ottokes (the spirits of her
ancestors), whose rather sumptuous altar is set up at the house of her
mother, Madame Renoncule. She asks for their blessings, for fortune and
wisdom.
Who can fathom her ideas about the gods, or about death? Does she
possess a soul? Does she think she has one? Her religion is an obscure
chaos of theogonies as old as the world, treasured up out of respect
for ancient customs; and of more recent ideas about the blessed final
annihilation, imported from India by saintly Chinese missionaries at
the epoch of our Middle Ages. The bonzes themselves are puzzled; what
a muddle, therefore, must not all this become, when jumbled together in
the childish brain of a sleepy mousme!
Two very insignificant episodes have somewhat attached me to her--(bonds
of this kind seldom fail to draw closer in the end). The first occasion
was as follows:
Madame Prune one day brought forth a relic of her gay youth, a
tortoise-shell comb of rare transparency, one of those combs that it is
good style to place on the summit of the head, lightly poised, hardly
stuck at all in the hair, with all the teeth showing. Taking it out of
a pretty little lacquered box, she held it up in the air and blinked her
eyes, looking through it at the sky--a bright summer sky--as one does to
examine the quality of a precious stone.
“Here is,” she said, “an object of great value that you should offer to
your little wife.”
My mousme, very much taken by it, admired the clearness of the comb and
its graceful shape.
The lacquered box, however, pleased me more. On the cover was a
wonderful painting in gold on gold, representing a field of rice, seen
very close, on a windy day; a tangle of ears and grass beaten down and
twisted by a terrible squall; here and there, between the distorted
stalks, the muddy earth of the rice-swamp was visible; there were even
little pools of water, produced by bits of the transparent lacquer on
which tiny particles of gold seemed to float about like chaff in a thick
liquid; two or three insects, which required a microscope to be well
seen, were clinging in a terrified manner to the rushes, and the whole
picture was no larger than a woman’s hand.
As for Madame Prune’s comb, I confess it left me indifferent, and I
turned a deaf ear, thinking it very insignificant and expensive. Then
Chrysantheme answered, mournfully:
“No, thank you, I don’t want it; take it away, dear Madame Prune.”
And at the same time she heaved a deep sigh, full of meaning, which
plainly said:
“He is not so fond of me as all that.--Useless to bother him.”
I immediately made the wished-for purchase.
Later when Chrysantheme will have become an old monkey like Madame
Prune, with her black teeth and long orisons, she, in her turn, will
retail that comb to some fine lady of a fresh generation.
On another occasion the sun had given me a headache; I lay on the
floor resting my head on my snake-skin pillow. My eyes were dim; and
everything appeared to turn around: the open veranda, the big expanse
of luminous evening sky, and a variety of kites hovering against its
background. I felt myself vibrating painfully to the rhythmical sound of
the cicalas which filled the atmosphere.
She, crouching by my side, strove to relieve me by a Japanese process,
pressing with all her might on my temples with her little thumbs and
turning them rapidly around, as if she were boring a hole with a gimlet.
She had become quite hot and red over this hard work, which procured me
real comfort, something similar to the dreamy intoxication of opium.
Then, anxious and fearful lest I should have an attack of fever, she
rolled into a pellet and thrust into my mouth a very efficacious prayer
written on rice-paper, which she had kept carefully in the lining of one
of her sleeves.
Well, I swallowed that prayer without a smile, not wishing to hurt her
feelings or shake her funny little faith.
CHAPTER XLV. TWO FAIR ARISTOCRATS
Today, Yves, my mousme and I went to the best photographer in Nagasaki,
to be taken in a group. We shall send the picture to France. Yves laughs
as he thinks of his wife’s astonishment when she sees Chrysantheme’s
little face between us, and he wonders how he shall explain it to her.
“I shall just say it is one of your friends, that’s all!” he says to me.
In Japan there are many photographers like our own, with this
difference, that they are Japanese, and inhabit Japanese houses. The
one we intend to honor to-day carries on his business in the suburbs,
in that ancient quarter of big trees and gloomy pagodas where, the other
day, I met the pretty little mousme. His signboard, written in several
languages, is posted 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 with 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 tattooed, their hair carefully combed in sleek bands and shiny
chignons, are chatting, 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 poses 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 photographed at this moment are two ladies of
quality, evidently mother and daughter, who are sitting together for
a cabinet-size portrait, with accessories of the time of Louis XV. 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 they have an undeniable look of good breeding that
strongly impresses us, notwithstanding the intrinsic differences of race
and acquired notions.
They scanned Chrysantheme with a look of obvious 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 never had 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, I ponder over the mystery of their tiny slits of eyes,
drawn back and up so far that the tight-drawn lids can hardly 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 totally dissimilar are our races!”
We are compelled 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 around the shafts
of the columns.
At last it is our turn; Chrysantheme settles herself slowly in a very
affected style, turning in the points of her toes as much as possible,
according to the fashion.
And on the negative shown to us we look like a supremely ridiculous
little family drawn up in a line by a common photographer at a fair.
CHAPTER XLVI. GRAVE SUSPICIONS
September 13th.
Tonight Yves is off duty three hours earlier than I; occasionally this
happens, according to the arrangement of the watches. At those times he
lands first, and goes up to wait for me at Diou-djen-dji.
From the deck I can see him through my glass, climbing up the green
mountain-path; he walks with a brisk, rapid step, almost running; what a
hurry he seems in to rejoin little Chrysantheme!
When I arrive, about nine o’clock, I find him seated on the floor, in
the middle of my rooms, with naked torso (this is a sufficiently
proper costume for private life here, I admit). Around him are grouped
Chrysantheme, Oyouki, and Mademoiselle Dede the maid, all eagerly
rubbing his back with little blue towels decorated with storks and
humorous subjects.
Good heavens! what can he have been doing to be so hot, and to have put
himself in such a state?
He tells me that near our house, a little farther up the mountain,
he has discovered a fencing-gallery: that till nightfall he had been
engaged in a fencing-bout against Japanese, who fought with two-handed
swords, springing like cats, as is the custom of their country. With his
French method of fencing, he had given them a good drubbing. Upon which,
with many a low bow, they had shown him their admiration by bringing him
a quantity of nice little iced things to drink. All this combined had
thrown him into a fearful perspiration.
Ah, very well! Nevertheless, this did not quite explain to me!
He is delighted with his evening; intends to go and amuse himself every
day by beating them; he even thinks of taking pupils.
Once his back is dried, all together, the three mousmes and himself,
play at Japanese pigeon-vole. Really I could not wish for anything more
innocent, or more correct in every respect.
Charles N----and Madame Jonquille, his wife, arrived unexpectedly about
ten o’clock. (They were wandering about in the dark shrubberies in our
neighborhood, and, seeing our lights, came up to us.)
They intend to finish the evening at the tea-house of the toads, and
they try to induce us to go and drink some iced sherbets with them. It
is at least an hour’s walk from here, on the other side of the town,
halfway up the hill, in the gardens of the large pagoda dedicated to
Osueva; but they stick to their idea, pretending that in this clear
night and bright moonlight we shall have a lovely view from the terrace
of the temple.
Lovely, I have no doubt, but we had intended going to bed. However, be
it so, let us go with them.