Ver.07/27/01*END*
This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]
MADAME CHRYSANTHEME
By PIERRE LOTI
With a Preface by ALBERT SOREL, of the French Academy
BOOK 1.
PIERRE LOTI
LOUIS-MARIE-JULIEN VIAUD, "Pierre Loti," was born in Rochefort, of an old
French-Protestant family, January 14, 1850. He was connected with the.
French Navy from 1867 to 1900, and is now a retired officer with full
captain's rank. Although of a most energetic character and a veteran of
various campaigns--Japan, Tonkin, Senegal, China (1900)--M. Viaud was so
timid as a young midshipman that his comrades named him "Loti," a small
Indian flower which seems ever discreetly to hide itself. This is,
perhaps, a pleasantry, as elsewhere there is a much more romantic
explanation of the word. Suffice it to say that Pierre Loti has been
always the nom de plume of M. Viaud.
Lod has no immediate literary ancestor and no pupil worthy of the name.
He indulges in a dainty pessimism and is most of all an impressionist,
not of the vogue of Zola--although he can be, on occasion, as brutally
plain as he--but more in the manner of Victor Hugo, his predecessor, or
Alphonse Daudet, his lifelong friend. In Loti's works, however,
pessimism is softened to a musical melancholy; the style is direct; the
vocabulary exquisite; the moral situations familiar; the characters not
complex. In short, his place is unique, apart from the normal lines of
novelistic development.
The vein of Loti is not absolutely new, but is certainly novel. In him
it first revealed itself in a receptive sympathy for the rare flood of
experiences that his naval life brought on him, experiences which had not
fallen to the lot of Bernardin de St. Pierre or Chateaubriand, both of
whom he resembles. But neither of those writers possessed Loti's
delicate sensitiveness to exotic nature as it is reflected in the foreign
mind and heart. Strange but real worlds he has conjured up for us in
most of his works and with means that are, as with all great artists,
extremely simple. He may be compared to Kipling and to Stevenson: to
Kipling, because he has done for the French seaman something that the
Englishman has done for "Tommy Atkins," although their methods are often
more opposed than similar; like Stevenson, he has gone searching for
romance in the ends of the earth; like Stevenson, too, he has put into
all of his works a style that is never less than dominant and often
irresistible. Charm, indeed, is the one fine quality that all his
critics, whether friendly or not, acknowledge, and it is one well able to
cover, if need be, a multitude of literary sins.
Pierre Loti was elected a member of the French Academy in 1891,
succeeding to the chair of Octave Feuillet. Some of his writings are:
'Aziyade,' written in 1879; the scene is laid in Constantinople. This
was followed by 'Rarahu,' a Polynesian idyl (1880; again published under
the title Le Mariage de Loti, 1882). 'Roman d'un Spahi (1881) deals with
Algiers. Taton-gaye is a true 'bete-humaine', sunk in moral slumber or
quivering with ferocious joys. It is in this book that Loti has eclipsed
Zola. One of his masterpieces is 'Mon Freye Yves' (ocean and Brittany),
together with 'Pecheur d'Islande' (1886); both translated into German by
Elizabeth, Queen of Roumania (Carmen Sylva). In 1884 was published 'Les
trois Dames de la Kasbah,' relating also to Algiers, and then came
'Madame Chrysantheme' (1887), crowned by the Academy. 'Japoneries
d'automne' (1889), Japanese scenes; then 'Au Maroc' (Morocco; 1890).
Partly autobiographical are 'Le Roman d'un Enfant' (1890) and 'Le Livre
de la Pitie et de la Mort' (1891). Then followed 'Fantomes d'Orient
(1892), L'Exilee (1893), Le Desert (Syria; 1895), Jerusalem, La Galilee
(Palestine; 1895), Pages choisies (1896), Ramuntcho (1897), Reflets sur
la Sombre Route' (1898), and finally 'Derniers Jours de Pekin' (1903).
Many exquisite pages are to be found in Loti's work. His composition is
now and then somewhat disconnected; the impressions are vague, almost
illusory, and the mirage is a little obscure, but the intense and abiding
charm of Nature remains. Loti has not again reached the level of Madame
Chrysantheme, and English critics at least will have to suspend their
judgment for a while. In any event, he has given to the world many great
books, and is shrined with the Forty "Immortals."
ALBERT SOREL
de l'Academie Francaise.
DEDICATION
To Madame la Duchesse de Richelieu
MADAME LA DUCHESSE,
Permit me to beg your acceptance of this work, as a respectful tribute of
my friendship.
I feel some hesitation in offering it, for its theme can not be deemed
altogether correct; but I have endeavored to make its expression, at
least, in harmony with good taste, and I trust that my endeavors have
been successful.
This record is the journal of a summer of my life, in which I have
changed nothing, not even the dates, thinking that in our efforts to
arrange matters we succeed often only in disarranging them. Although the
most important role may appear to devolve on Madame Chrysantheme, it is
very certain that the three principal points of interest are myself,
Japan, and the effect produced on me by that country.
Do you recollect a certain photograph--rather absurd, I must admit--
representing that great fellow Yves, a Japanese girl, and myself, grouped
as we were posed by a Nagasaki artist? You smiled when I assured you
that the carefully attired little damsel placed between us had been one
of our neighbors. Kindly receive my book with the same indulgent smile,
without seeking therein a meaning either good or bad, in the same spirit
in which you would receive some quaint bit of pottery, some grotesquely
carved ivory idol, or some fantastic trifle brought to you from this
singular fatherland of all fantasy.
Believe me, with the deepest respect,
Madame la Duchesse,
Your affectionate
PIERRE LOTI.
INTRODUCTION
We were at sea, about two o'clock in the morning, on a fine night, under
a starry sky.
Yves stood beside me on the bridge, and we talked of the country, unknown
to both, to which destiny was now carrying us. As we were to cast anchor
the next day, we enjoyed our anticipations, and made a thousand plans.
"For myself," I said, "I shall marry at once."
"Ah!" said Yves, with the indifferent air of one whom nothing can
surprise.
"Yes--I shall choose a little, creamy-skinned woman with black hair and
cat's eyes. She must be pretty and not much bigger than a doll. You
shall have a room in our house. It will be a little paper house, in a
green garden, deeply shaded. We shall live among flowers, everything
around us shall blossom, and each morning our dwelling shall be filled
with nosegays--nosegays such as you have never dreamed of."
Yves now began to take an interest in these plans for my future
household; indeed, he would have listened with as much confidence if I
had expressed the intention of taking temporary vows in some monastery of
this new country, or of marrying some island queen and shutting myself up
with her in a house built of jade, in the middle of an enchanted lake.
I had quite made up my mind to carry out the scheme I had unfolded to
him. Yes, led on by ennui and solitude, I had gradually arrived at
dreaming of and looking forward to such a marriage. And then, above all,
to live for awhile on land, in some shady nook, amid trees and flowers!
How tempting it sounded after the long months we had been wasting at the
Pescadores (hot and arid islands, devoid of freshness, woods, or
streamlets, full of faint odors of China and of death).
We had made great way in latitude since our vessel had quitted that
Chinese furnace, and the constellations in the sky had undergone a series
of rapid changes; the Southern Cross had disappeared at the same time as
the other austral stars; and the Great Bear, rising on the horizon, was
almost on as high a level as it is in the sky above France. The evening
breeze soothed and revived us, bringing back to us the memory of our
summer-night watches on the coast of Brittany.
What a distance we were, however, from those familiar coasts! What a
tremendous distance!
MME. CHRYSANTHEME
CHAPTER I
THE MYSTERIOUS LAND
At dawn we beheld Japan.
Precisely at the foretold moment the mysterious land arose before us,
afar off, like a black dot in the vast sea, which for so many days had
been but a blank space.
At first we saw nothing by the rays of the rising sun but a series of
tiny pink-tipped heights (the Fukai Islands). Soon, however, appeared
all along the horizon, like a misty veil over the waters, Japan itself;
and little by little, out of the dense shadow, arose the sharp, opaque
outlines of the Nagasaki mountains.
The wind was dead against us, and the strong breeze, which steadily
increased, seemed as if the country were blowing with all its might,
in a vain effort to drive us away from its shores. The sea, the rigging,
the vessel itself, all vibrated and quivered as if with emotion.