CHOOSING A BRIDE
Three days have passed. Night is closing, in an apartment which has been
mine since yesterday. Yves and I, on the first floor, move restlessly
over the white mats, striding to and fro in the great bare room, of which
the thin, dry flooring cracks beneath our footsteps; we are both rather
irritated by prolonged expectation. Yves, whose impatience shows itself
more freely, from time to time looks out of the window. As for myself, a
chill suddenly seizes me, at the idea that I have chosen to inhabit this
lonely house, lost in the midst of the suburb of a totally strange town,
perched high on the mountain and almost opening upon the woods.
What wild notion could have taken possession of me, to settle myself in
surroundings so foreign and unknown, breathing of isolation and sadness?
The waiting unnerves me, and I beguile the time by examining all the
little details of the building. The woodwork of the ceiling is
complicated and ingenious. On the partitions of white paper which form
the walls, are scattered tiny, microscopic, blue-feathered tortoises.
"They are late," said Yves, who is still looking out into the street.
As to being late, that they certainly are, by a good hour already, and
night is falling, and the boat which should take us back to dine on board
will be gone. Probably we shall have to sup Japanese fashion tonight,
heaven only knows where. The people of this country have no sense of
punctuality, or of the value of time.
Therefore I continue to inspect the minute and comical details of my
dwelling. Here, instead of handles such as we should have made to pull
these movable partitions, they have made little oval-holes, just the
shape of a finger-end, into which one is evidently to put one's thumb.
These little holes have a bronze ornamentation, and, on looking closely,
one sees that the bronze is curiously chased: here is a lady fanning
herself; there, in the next hole, is represented a branch of cherry in
full blossom. What eccentricity there is in the taste of this people!
To bestow assiduous labor on such miniature work, and then to hide it at
the bottom of a hole to put one's finger in, looking like a mere spot in
the middle of a great white panel; to accumulate so much patient and
delicate workmanship on almost imperceptible accessories, and all to
produce an effect which is absolutely nil, an effect of the most complete
bareness and nudity.
Yves still continues to gaze forth, like Sister Anne. From the side on
which he leans, my veranda overlooks a street, or rather a road bordered
with houses, which climbs higher and higher, and loses itself almost
immediately in the verdure of the mountain, in the fields of tea, the
underwood and the cemeteries. As for myself, this delay finally
irritates me thoroughly, and I turn my glances to the opposite side.
The other end of my house, also a veranda, opens first of all upon a
garden; then upon a marvellous panorama of woods and mountains, with all
the venerable Japanese quarters of Nagasaki lying confusedly like a black
ant-heap, six hundred feet below us. This evening, in a dull twilight,
notwithstanding that it is a twilight of July, these things are
melancholy. Great clouds heavy with rain and showers, ready to fall, are
travelling across the sky. No, I can not feel at home in this strange
dwelling I have chosen; I feel sensations of extreme solitude and
strangeness; the mere prospect of passing the night in it gives me a
shudder of horror.
"Ah! at last, brother," said Yves, "I believe--yes, I really believe she
is coming at last."
I look over his shoulder, and I see a back view of a little doll, the
finishing touches to whose toilette are being put in the solitary street;
a last maternal glance is given the enormous bows of the sash, the folds
at the waist. Her dress is of pearl-gray silk, her obi (sash) of mauve
satin; a sprig of silver flowers trembles in her black hair; a parting
ray of sunlight touches the little figure; five or six persons accompany
her. Yes! it is undoubtedly Mademoiselle Jasmin; they are bringing me my
fiancee!
I rush to the ground floor, inhabited by old Madame Prune, my landlady,
and her aged husband; they are absorbed in prayer before the altar of
their ancestors.
"Here they are, Madame Prune," I cry in Japanese; "here they are! Bring
at once the tea, the lamp, the embers, the little pipes for the ladies,
the little bamboo pots! Bring up, as quickly as possible, all the
accessories for my reception!"
I hear the front door open, and hasten upstairs again. Wooden clogs are
deposited on the floor, the staircase creaks gently under little bare
feet. Yves and I look at each other, with a longing to laugh.
An old lady enters--two old ladies--three old ladies, emerging from the
doorway one after another with jerking and mechanical salutations, which
we return as best we can, fully conscious of our inferiority in this
particular style. Then come persons of intermediate age--then quite
young ones, a dozen at least, friends, neighbors, the whole quarter, in
fact. And the entire company, on arriving, becomes confusedly engaged in
reciprocal salutations: I salute you--you salute me--I salute you again,
and you return it--and I re-salute you again, and I express that I shall
never, never be able to return it according to your high merit--and I
bang my forehead against the ground, and you stick your nose between the
planks of the flooring, and there they are, on all fours one before
another; it is a polite dispute, all eager to yield precedence as to
sitting down, or passing first, and compliments without end are murmured
in low tones, with faces against the floor.
They seat themselves at last, smiling, in a ceremonious circle; we two
remaining standing, our eyes fixed on the staircase. And at length
emerges the little aigrette of silver flowers, the ebony coiffure, the
gray silk robe and mauve sash of Mademoiselle Jasmin, my fiancee!
Heavens! why, I know her already! Long before setting foot in Japan,
I had met her, on every fan, on every teacup with her silly air, her
puffy little face, her tiny eyes, mere gimlet-holes above those expanses
of impossible pink and white cheeks.
She is young, that is all I can say in her favor; she is even so young
that I should almost scruple to accept her. The wish to laugh leaves me
suddenly, and instead, a profound chill seizes my heart. What! share
even an hour of my life with that little doll? Never!
The next question is, how to get rid of her.
She advances smiling, with an air of repressed triumph, and behind her
looms M. Kangourou, in his suit of gray tweed. Fresh salutes, and behold
her on all fours, she too, before my landlady and before my neighbors.
Yves, the big Yves, who is not about to be married, stands behind me,
with a comical grimace, hardly repressing his laughter--while to give
myself time to collect my ideas, I offer tea in little cups, little
spittoons, and embers to the company.
Nevertheless, my discomfited air does not escape my visitors.
M. Kangourou anxiously inquires:
"How do you like her?" And I reply in a low voice, but with great
resolution:
"Not at all! I won't have that one. Never!"
I believe that this remark was almost understood in the circle around me.
Consternation was depicted on every face, jaws dropped, and pipes went
out. And now I address my reproaches to Kangourou: "Why have you brought
her to me in such pomp, before friends and neighbors of both sexes,
instead of showing her to me discreetly, as if by chance, as I had
wished? What an affront you will compel me now to put upon all these
polite persons!"
The old ladies (the mamma, no doubt, and aunts), prick up their ears, and
M. Kangourou translates to them, softening as much as possible, my
heartrending decision. I feel really almost sorry for them; the fact is,
that for women who, not to put too fine a point upon it, have come to
sell a child, they have an air I was not prepared for: I can hardly say
an air of respectability (a word in use with us which is absolutely
without meaning in Japan), but an air of unconscious and good-natured
simplicity. They are only doing a thing that is perfectly admissible in
their world, and really it all resembles, more than I could have thought
possible, a bona fide marriage.
"But what fault do you find with the little girl?" asks M. Kangourou, in
consternation.
I endeavor to present the matter in the most flattering light:
"She is very young," I say; "and then she is too white, too much like our
own women. I wished for one with an ivory skin, just as a change."
"But that is only the paint they have put on her, Monsieur! Beneath it,
I assure you, she is of an ivory hue."
Yves leans toward me and whispers:
"Look over there, brother, in that corner by the last panel; have you
noticed the one who is sitting down?"
Not I. In my annoyance I had not observed her; she had her back to the
light, was dressed in dark colors, and sat in the careless attitude of
one who keeps in the background. The fact is, this one pleased me much
better. Eyes with long lashes, rather narrow, but which would have been
called good in any country in the world; with almost an expression,
almost a thought. A coppery tint on her rounded cheeks; a straight nose;
slightly thick lips, but well modelled and with pretty corners. A little
older than Mademoiselle Jasmin, about eighteen years of age perhaps,
already more of a woman. She wore an expression of ennui, also of a
little contempt, as if she regretted her attendance at a spectacle which
dragged so much, and was so little amusing.
"Monsieur Kangourou, who is that young lady over there, in dark blue?"
"Over there, Monsieur? She is called Mademoiselle Chrysantheme. She
came with the others you see here; she is only here as a spectator. She
pleases you?" said he, with eager suddenness, espying a way out of his
difficulty. Then, forgetting all his politeness, all his
ceremoniousness, all his Japanesery, he takes her by the hand, forces her
to rise, to stand in the dying daylight, to let herself be seen. And
she, who has followed our eyes and begins to guess what is on foot,
lowers her head in confusion, with a more decided but more charming pout,
and tries to step back, half-sulky, half-smiling.
"It makes no difference," continues M. Kangourou, "it can be arranged
just as well with this one; she is not married either, Monsieur!"
She is not married! Then why didn't the idiot propose her to me at once
instead of the other, for whom I have a feeling of the greatest pity,
poor little soul, with her pearl-gray dress, her sprig of flowers, her
now sad and mortified expression, and her eyes which twinkle like those
of a child about to cry.
"It can be arranged, Monsieur!" repeats Kangourou again, who at this
moment appears to me a go-between of the lowest type, a rascal of the
meanest kind.
Only, he adds, we, Yves and I, are in the way during the negotiations.
And, while Mademoiselle Chrysantheme remains with her eyelids lowered,
as befits the occasion, while the various families, on whose countenances
may be read every degree of astonishment, every phase of expectation,
remain seated in a circle on my white mats, he sends us two into the
veranda, and we gaze down into the depths below us, upon a misty and
vague Nagasaki, a Nagasaki melting into a blue haze of darkness.
Then ensue long discourses in Japanese, arguments without end.
M. Kangourou, who is laundryman and low scamp in French only, has
returned for these discussions to the long formulas of his country.
From time to time I express impatience, I ask this worthy creature,
whom I am less and less able to consider in a serious light:
"Come now, tell us frankly, Kangourou, are we any nearer coming to some
arrangement? Is all this ever going to end?"
"In a moment, Monsieur, in a moment;" and he resumes his air of political
economist seriously debating social problems.
Well, one must submit to the slowness of this people. And, while the
darkness falls like a veil over the Japanese town, I have leisure to
reflect, with as much melancholy as I please, upon the bargain that is
being concluded behind me.
Night has closed in; it has been necessary to light the lamps.
It is ten o'clock when all is finally settled, and M. Kangourou comes to
tell me:
"All is arranged, Monsieur: her parents will give her up for twenty
dollars a month--the same price as Mademoiselle Jasmin."
On hearing this, I am possessed suddenly with extreme vexation that I
should have made up my mind so quickly to link myself in ever so fleeting
and transient a manner with this little creature, and dwell with her in
this isolated house.
We return to the room; she is the centre of the circle and seated; and
they have placed the aigrette of flowers in her hair. There is actually
some expression in her glance, and I am almost persuaded that she--this
one--thinks.
Yves is astonished at her modest attitude, at her little timid airs of a
young girl on the verge of matrimony; he had imagined nothing like it in
such a connection as this, nor I either, I must confess.
"She is really very pretty, brother," said he; "very pretty, take my word
for it!"
These good folks, their customs, this scene, strike him dumb with
astonishment; he can not get over it, and remains in a maze. "Oh! this
is too much," he says, and the idea of writing a long letter to his wife
at Toulven, describing it all, diverts him greatly.
Chrysantheme and I join hands. Yves, too, advances and touches the
dainty little paw. After all, if I wed her, it is chiefly his fault;
I never should have remarked her without his observation that she was
pretty. Who can tell how this strange arrangement will turn out? Is it
a woman or a doll? Well, time will show.
The families, having lighted their many-colored lanterns swinging at the
ends of slight sticks, prepare to retire with many compliments, bows, and
curtseys. When it is a question of descending the stairs, no one is
willing to go first, and at a given moment, the whole party are again on
all fours, motionless and murmuring polite phrases in undertones.
"Haul back there!" said Yves, laughing, and employing a nautical term
used when there is a stoppage of any kind.
At length they all melt away, descending the stairs with a last buzzing
accompaniment of civilities and polite phrases finished from one step to
another in voices which gradually die away. He and I remain alone in the
unfriendly, empty apartment, where the mats are still littered with the
little cups of tea, the absurd little pipes, and the miniature trays.
"Let us watch them go away!" said Yves, leaning out. At the door of the
garden is a renewal of the same salutations and curtseys, and then the
two groups of women separate, their bedaubed paper lanterns fade away
trembling in the distance, balanced at the extremity of flexible canes
which they hold in their fingertips as one would hold a fishing-rod in
the dark to catch night-birds. The procession of the unfortunate
Mademoiselle Jasmin mounts upward toward the mountain, while that of
Mademoiselle Chrysantheme winds downward by a narrow old street, half-
stairway, half-goat-path, which leads to the town.
Then we also depart. The night is fresh, silent, exquisite, the eternal
song of the cicalas fills the air. We can still see the red lanterns of
my new family, dwindling away in the distance, as they descend and
gradually become lost in that yawning abyss, at the bottom of which lies
Nagasaki.
Our way, too, lies downward, but on an opposite slope by steep paths
leading to the sea.
And when I find myself once more on board, when the scene enacted on the
hill above recurs to my mind, it seems to me that my betrothal is a joke,
and my new family a set of puppets.