A GAME OF ARCHERY
July 14th.
This is the National Fete day of France. In Nagasaki Harbor, all the
ships are adorned with flags, and salutes are fired in our honor.
Alas! All day long, I can not help thinking of that last fourteenth of
July, spent in the deep calm and quiet of my old home, the door shut
against all intruders, while the gay crowd roared outside; there I had
remained till evening, seated on a bench, shaded by an arbor covered with
honeysuckle, where, in the bygone days of my childhood's summers, I used
to settle myself with my copybooks and pretend to learn my lessons. Oh,
those days when I was supposed to learn my lessons! How my thoughts used
to rove--what voyages, what distant lands, what tropical forests did I
not behold in my dreams! At that time, near the garden-bench, in some of
the crevices in the stone wall, dwelt many a big, ugly, black spider
always on the alert, peeping out of his nook ready to pounce upon any
giddy fly or wandering centipede. One of my amusements consisted in
tickling the spiders gently, very gently, with a blade of grass or a
cherry-stalk in their webs. Mystified, they would rush out, fancying
they had to deal with some sort of prey, while I would rapidly draw back
my hand in disgust. Well, last year, on that fourteenth of July, as I
recalled my days of Latin themes and translations, now forever flown,
and this game of boyish days, I actually recognized the very same spiders
(or at least their daughters), lying in wait in the very same places.
Gazing at them, and at the tufts of grass and moss around me, a thousand
memories of those summers of my early life welled up within me, memories
which for years past had lain slumbering under this old wall, sheltered
by the ivy boughs. While all that is ourselves perpetually changes and
passes away, the constancy with which Nature repeats, always in the same
manner, her most infinitesimal details, seems a wonderful mystery; the
same peculiar species of moss grows afresh for centuries on precisely the
same spot, and the same little insects each summer do the same thing in
the same place.
I must admit that this episode of my childhood, and the spiders, have
little to do with the story of Chrysantheme. But an incongruous
interruption is quite in keeping with the taste of this country;
everywhere it is practised, in conversation, in music, even in painting;
a landscape painter, for instance, when he has finished a picture of
mountains and crags, will not hesitate to draw, in the very middle of the
sky, a circle, or a lozenge, or some kind of framework, within which he
will represent anything incoherent and inappropriate: a bonze fanning
himself, or a lady taking a cup of tea. Nothing is more thoroughly
Japanese than such digressions, made without the slightest apropos.
Moreover, if I roused my past memories, it was the better to force myself
to notice the difference between that day of July last year, so
peacefully spent amid surroundings familiar to me from my earliest
infancy, and my present animated life passed in the midst of such a novel
world.
To-day, therefore, under the scorching midday sun, at two o'clock, three
swift-footed djins dragged us at full speed--Yves, Chrysantheme, and
myself--in Indian file, each in a little jolting cart, to the farther end
of Nagasaki, and there deposited us at the foot of some gigantic steps
that run straight up the mountain.
These are the granite steps leading to the great temple of Osueva, wide
enough to give access to a whole regiment; they are as grand and imposing
as any work of Babylon or Nineveh, and in complete contrast with all the
finical surroundings.
We climb up and up--Chrysantheme listlessly, affecting fatigue, under her
paper parasol painted with pink butterflies on a black ground. As we
ascended, we passed under enormous monastic porticoes, also in granite of
rude and primitive style. In truth, these steps and these temple
porticoes are the only imposing works that this people has created, and
they astonish, for they do not seem Japanese.
We climb still higher. At this sultry hour of the day, from top to
bottom of the enormous gray steps, only we three are to be seen; on all
that granite there are but the pink butterflies on Chrysantheme's parasol
to give a cheerful and brilliant touch.
We passed through the first temple yard, in which are two white china
turrets, bronze lanterns, and the statue of a large horse in jade. Then,
without pausing at the sanctuary, we turned to the left, and entered a
shady garden, which formed a terrace halfway up the hill, at the
extremity of which was situated the Donko-Tchaya--in English, the
Teahouse of the Toads.
This was the place where Chrysantheme had wished to take us. We sat down
at a table, under a black linen tent decorated with large white letters
(of funereal aspect), and two laughing 'mousmes' hastened to wait upon
us.
The word 'mousme' means a young girl, or very young woman. It is one of
the prettiest words in the Nipponese language; it seems almost as if
there were a little pout in the very sound--a pretty, taking little pout,
such as they put on, and also as if a little pert physiognomy were
described by it. I shall often make use of it, knowing none other in our
own language that conveys the same meaning.
Some Japanese Watteau must have mapped out this Donko-Tchaya, for it has
rather an affected air of rurality, though very pretty. It is well
shaded, under a shelter of large trees with dense foliage, and a
miniature lake close by, the chosen residence of a few toads, has given
it its attractive denomination. Lucky toads, who crawl and croak on the
finest of moss, in the midst of tiny artificial islets decked with
gardenias in full bloom. From time to time, one of them informs us of
his thoughts by a 'Couac', uttered in a deep bass croak, infinitely more
hollow than that of our own toads.
Under the tent of this tea-house, we sit on a sort of balcony jutting out
from the mountain-side, overhanging from on high the grayish town and its
suburbs buried in greenery. Around, above, and beneath us cling and
hang, on every possible point, clumps of trees and fresh green woods,
with the delicate and varying foliage of the temperate zone. We can see,
at our feet, the deep roadstead, foreshortened and slanting, diminished
in appearance till it looks like a sombre rent in the mass of large green
mountains; and farther still, quite low on the black and stagnant waters,
are the men-of-war, the steamboats and the junks, with flags flying from
every mast. Against the dark green, which is the dominant shade
everywhere, stand out these thousand scraps of bunting, emblems of the
different nationalities, all displayed, all flying in honor of far-
distant France. The colors most prevailing in this motley assemblage are
the white flag with a red ball, emblem of the Empire of the Rising Sun,
where we now are.
With the exception of three or four 'mousmes' at the farther end, who are
practising with bows and arrows, we are today the only people in the
garden, and the mountain round about is silent.
Having finished her cigarette and her cup of tea, Chrysantheme also
wishes to exert her skill; for archery is still held in honor among the
young women.
The old man who keeps the range picks out for her his best arrows tipped
with white and red feathers--and she takes aim with a serious air. The
mark is a circle, traced in the middle of a picture on which is painted,
in flat, gray tones, terrifying chimera flying through the clouds.
Chrysantheme is certainly an adroit markswoman, and we admire her as much
as she expected.
Then Yves, who is usually clever at all games of skill, wishes to try his
luck, and fails. It is amusing to see her, with her mincing ways and
smiles, arrange with the tips of her little fingers the sailor's broad
hands, placing them on the bow and the string in order to teach him the
proper manner. Never have they seemed to get on so well together, Yves
and my doll, and I might even feel anxious, were I less sure of my good
brother, and if, moreover, it was not a matter of perfect indifference to
me.
In the stillness of the garden, amid the balmy peacefulness of these
mountains, a loud noise suddenly startles us; a unique, powerful,
terrible sound, which is prolonged in infinite metallic vibrations. It
begins again, sounding more appalling: 'Boum!' borne to us by the rising
wind.
"Nippon Kane!" exclaims Chrysantheme--and she again takes up her
brightly feathered arrows. "Nippon Kane ("the Japanese brass"); it is
the Japanese brass that is sounding!" It is the monstrous gong of a
monastery, situated in a suburb beneath us. It is powerful indeed, "the
Japanese brass"! When the strokes are ended, when it is no longer heard,
a vibration seems to linger among the suspended foliage, and a prolonged
quiver runs through the air.
I am obliged to admit that Chrysantheme looks very charming shooting her
arrows, her figure well bent back the better to bend her bow; her loose-
hanging sleeves caught up to her shoulders, showing the graceful bare
arms polished like amber and very much the same color. Each arrow
whistles by with the rustle of a bird's wing--then a short, sharp little
blow is heard, the target is hit, always.
At nightfall, when Chrysantheme has gone up to Diou-djen-dji, we cross,
Yves and I, the European concession, on our way to the ship, to take up
our watch till the following day. The cosmopolitan quarter, exhaling an
odor of absinthe, is dressed up with flags, and squibs are being fired
off in honor of France. Long lines of djins pass by, dragging, as fast
as their naked legs can carry them, the crew of the 'Triomphante,' who
are shouting and fanning themselves. The Marseillaise is heard
everywhere; English sailors are singing it, gutturally, with a dull and
slow cadence like their own "God Save." In all the American bars,
grinding organs are hammering it with many an odious variation and
flourish, in order to attract our men.
One amusing recollection comes back to me of that evening. On our
return, we had by mistake turned into a street inhabited by a multitude
of ladies of doubtful reputation. I can still see that big fellow Yves,
struggling with a whole band of tiny little 'mousmes' of twelve or
fifteen years of age, who barely reached up to his waist, and were
pulling him by the sleeves, eager to lead him astray. Astonished and
indignant, he repeated, as he extricated himself from their clutches,
"Oh, this is too much!" so shocked was he at seeing such mere babies,
so young, so tiny, already so brazen and shameless.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Efforts to arrange matters we succeed often only in disarranging
Irritating laugh which is peculiar to Japan
Ordinary, trivial, every-day objects
Seeking for a change which can no longer be found