Chapter 4
Moreover, if I roused my past memories, it was the better to force myself to notice the difference between that 14th of July last year, so peacefully spent amidst surroundings familiar to me from my earliest infancy, and the present animated one, passed in the midst of such a novel world.
To-day, therefore, under the scorching mid-day sun, at two o'clock, three quick-footed djins dragged us at full speed,--Yves, Chrysanthème and myself,--in Indian file, each in a little jolting cart, to the further end of Nagasaki, and there deposited us at the foot of some gigantic steps that run straight up into 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,--Chrysanthème listlessly, affecting fatigue, under her paper parasol painted with pink butterflies on a black ground. As we ascended, we passed under enormous monastic porticos, also in granite of rude and primitive style. In truth, these steps and these temple porticos are the only imposing works that this people has created, and they astonish, for they scarcely seem Japanese.
We climb up still higher. At this sultry hour of the day, from top to bottom of the immense gray steps, only we three are to be seen; on all that granite there are but the pink butterflies on Chrysanthème's parasol, to throw a cheerful and brilliant note.
We passed through the first temple yard, in which are a couple of 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, and at the extremity of which was situated the _Donko-Tchaya_,--in English: _the tea-house of the Toads_.
It was here that Chrysanthème was taking us. We sat down at a table, under a black linen tent, decorated with large white letters (of funereal aspect), and two laughing _mousmés_ hurried up to wait upon us.
The word _mousmé_ means a young girl, or very young woman. It is one of the prettiest words in the Niponese language; it seems almost as if there were a little _moue_[C] in the very sound, and as if a pretty taking little pout such as they put on, and also 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.
[Footnote C: _Moue_ means "pout" in French.]
Some Japanese Watteau must have mapped out this _Donko-Tchaya_, for it has rather an affected air of rurality, though very pretty. Well shaded, under a thick vault of large trees densely foliaged, a miniature lake hard 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 are as it were on a 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. Then we can see, at our feet, the deep roadstead, fore-shortened and slanting, diminished in appearance till it looks like a terrible somber tear in the mass of large green mountains; and further still, quite low down, on the waters which seem black and stagnant, are to be seen, very tiny and overwhelmed, the men-of-war, the steamboats and the junks, flags flying from every mast. On the dark green, which is the dominant shade around, 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 mousmés at the further end who are practicing with bows and arrows, we are to-day the only people in the garden, and the mountain round about is silent.
Having finished her cigarette and her cup of tea, Chrysanthème 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.
Chrysanthème 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 dolly, and I might even feel anxious, were I less sure of my good brother, and if, moreover, it were not a matter of perfect indifference to me.
* * * * *
In the stillness of the garden, mid 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 Kané!_" explains Chrysanthème,--and she again takes up her brightly-feathered arrows. "_Nippon Kané_ (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. Well, 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 an endless quiver runs through the air.
* * * * *
I am obliged to admit that Chrysanthème 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 of 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 Chrysanthème has gone up to Diou-djen-dji, we cross, Yves and myself, 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.
* * * * *
Just one funny recollection comes back to me of that evening. On our return, we had by mistake got 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 mousmés of some twelve or fifteen years of age, who barely reached up to his waist, and were pulling him by the sleeves, anxious 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.
XII.
_July 18th_.
There are now four of us, four officers of my ship, married like myself, and inhabiting the slopes of the same suburb. It is quite an ordinary occurrence, and is arranged without difficulties, mystery or danger, through the negotiations of the same M. Kangourou.
As a matter of course, we are on visiting terms with all these ladies.
First there is our very merry neighbor Madame Campanule, who is little Charles N----'s wife; then Madame Jonquille, who is even merrier than Campanule, like a young bird and the daintiest fairy of the whole lot: she has married X----, a fair northerner who adores her; they are a loverlike and inseparable pair, the only one that will probably weep when the hour of parting comes. Then Sikou-San with Doctor Y----; and lastly the midshipman Z---- with the tiny Madame Touki-San, no taller than a boot: thirteen years old at the outside and already a regular woman, full of her own importance, a petulant little gossip. In my childhood, I was sometimes taken to the _Learned Animals_ Theater, and I remember a certain Madame de Pompadour, a principal rôle, filled by a gayly dressed-up old monkey; Touki-San reminds me of her.
In the evening, all these folk generally come and fetch us for a long processional walk with lighted lanterns. My wife, more serious, more melancholy, perhaps even more refined, and belonging, I fancy, to a higher class, tries when these friends come to us to play the part of the lady of the house. It is comical to see the entry of these ill-matched couples, partners for a day, the ladies with their disjointed bows falling on all fours before Chrysanthème, the queen of the establishment. When we are all assembled, we start off, arm in arm, one behind the other, and always carrying at the end of our short sticks little white or red paper lanterns;--it seems it is pretty.
We are obliged to scramble down the kind of street, or rather goat's-path, which leads to the Japanese Nagasaki,--with the prospect, alas! of having to climb up again at night; clamber up all the steps, all the slippery slopes, stumble over all the stones, before we shall be able to get home, go to bed, and sleep. We make our descent in the darkness, under the branches, under the foliage, betwixt dark gardens and venerable little houses that throw but a faint glimmer on the road; and when the moon is absent or clouded over, our lanterns are by no means unnecessary.
When at last we reach the bottom, suddenly, without transition, we find ourselves in the very heart of Nagasaki and its busy throng in a long illuminated street, where vociferating djins hurry along and thousands of paper lanterns swing and gleam in the wind. It is life and animation, after the peace of our silent suburb.
Here, decorum requires we should separate from our wives. All five take hold of each others' hands, like a batch of little girls out walking. We follow them with an air of indifference. Seen from behind, our dolls are really very dainty, with their back hair so tidily done up, their tortoiseshell pins so coquettishly arranged. They shuffle along, their high wooden clogs making an ugly sound, striving to walk with their toes turned in, according to the height of fashion and elegance. At every minute they burst out laughing.
Yes, seen from behind, they are very pretty; they have, like all Japanese women, the most lovely turn of the head. Moreover, they are very funny, thus drawn up in line. In speaking of them, we say: "Our little dancing dogs," and in truth they are singularly like them.
This great Nagasaki is the same from one end to another, with its numberless petroleum lamps burning, its many-colored lanterns flickering, and innumerable panting djins. Always the same narrow streets, lined on each side with the same low houses, built in paper and wood. Always the same shops, without glass windows, open to all the winds, equally rudimentary whatever may be sold or made in them; whether they display the finest gold lacquer ware, the most marvelous china jars, or old worn-out pots and pans, dried fish, and ragged frippery. All the salesmen are seated on the ground in the midst of their valuable or trumpery merchandise, their legs bared nearly to the waist. And all kinds of queer little trades are carried on under the public gaze, by strangely primitive means, by workmen of the most ingenuous type.
Oh! what wonderful goods are exposed for sale in those streets! what whimsical extravagances in those bazaars!
No horses, no carriages are ever seen in the town; nothing but people on foot, or the comical little carts dragged along by the runners. Some few Europeans straggling hither and thither, wanderers from the ships in harbor; some Japanese (fortunately as yet but few in number) dressed up in coats; other natives who content themselves with adding to their national costume the pot hat, from which their long sleek locks hang down; and all around, eager haggling, bargaining,--and laughter.
In the bazaars every evening our mousmés make endless purchases; like spoilt children they buy everything they fancy: toys, pins, ribbons, flowers. And then they prettily offer each other presents, with childish little smiles. For instance, Campanule buys for Chrysanthème an ingeniously contrived lantern on which, set in motion by some invisible machinery, Chinese shadows dance in a ring round the flame. In return, Chrysanthème gives Campanule a magic fan, with paintings that change at will from butterflies fluttering round cherry-blossoms, to outlandish monsters pursuing each other across black clouds. Touki offers Sikou a cardboard mask representing the bloated countenance of Daï-Cok, god of wealth; and Sikou replies by a long crystal trumpet, by means of which are produced the most extraordinary sounds, like a turkey gobbling. Everything is uncouth, fantastical to excess, grotesquely lugubrious; everywhere we are surprised by incomprehensible conceptions, which seem the work of distorted imaginations.
In the fashionable tea-houses where we finish up our evenings, the little servant-girls now bow to us, on our arrival, with an air of respectful recognition, as belonging to the fast set of Nagasaki. There we carry on desultory conversations, full of misunderstandings and endless _quid pro quo's_ of uncouth words,--in little gardens lighted up with lanterns, near ponds full of gold fish, with little bridges, little islets and little ruined towers. They hand us tea and white and pink-colored sweetmeats flavored with pepper that taste strange and unfamiliar, and beverages mixed with snow tasting of flowers or perfumes.
* * * * *
To give a faithful account of those evenings, would require a more affected style than our own; and some kind of graphic sign would have also to be expressly invented and scattered at haphazard amongst the words, indicating the moment at which the reader should laugh,--rather a forced laugh, perhaps, but amiable and gracious. The evening at an end; it is time to return up there.
Oh! that street, that road, that we must clamber up every evening, under the starlit sky, or the heavy thunder-clouds, dragging by the hand our drowsy mousmé in order to regain our home perched on high half-way up the hill, where our bed of matting awaits us.
XIII.
The cleverest amongst us has been Louis de S----. Having formerly inhabited Japan, and made a marriage Japan fashion there, he is now satisfied to remain the friend of our wives, of whom he has become the _Komodachi taksan takaï, the very tall friend_ (as they say on account of his excessive height and slenderness). Talking Japanese more freely than we can, he is their confidential adviser, disturbs or reconciles at will our households, and has infinite amusement at our expense.
This _very tall friend_ of our wives enjoys all the fun that these little creatures can give him, without any of the worries of domestic life. With brother Yves, and little Oyouki (the daughter of Madame Prune, my landlady,) he makes up our incongruous party.
XIV.
M. Sucre and Madame Prune,[D] my landlord and wife, two perfectly unique personages but recently escaped from the panel of some screen, live below us on the ground floor; and very old they seem to have this daughter of fifteen, Oyouki, who is Chrysanthème's inseparable friend.
[Footnote D: In Japanese: _Sato-san_ and _Oumé-San_.]
Both of them are entirely absorbed in the practices of Shintoist devotion: perpetually on their knees before their family altar, perpetually occupied in murmuring their lengthy orisons to the Spirits, and clapping their hands from time to time to recall around them the inattentive essences floating in the atmosphere;--in their spare moments they cultivate in little pots of gayly-painted earthenware, dwarf shrubs and unheard-of flowers which smell deliciously in the evening.
M. Sucre is taciturn, dislikes society, looks like a mummy in his blue cotton dress. He writes a great deal, (his memoirs, I fancy) with a paint-brush held in his finger-tips, on long strips of rice-paper of a faint gray tint.
Madame Prune is eagerly attentive, obsequious and rapacious; her eye-brows are closely shaven, her teeth carefully lacquered with black as befits a lady of gentility, and at all and no matter what hours, she appears on all fours at the entrance of our apartment, to offer us her services.
As to Oyouki, she rushes upon us ten times a day,--whether we are sleeping, or dressing,--like a whirlwind on a visit, flashing upon us, a very gust of dainty youthfulness and droll gayety,--a living peal of laughter. She is round of figure, round of face; half baby, half girl; and so affectionate that she bestows kisses on the slightest occasion with her great puffy lips,--a little moist, it is true, like a child's, but nevertheless very fresh and very red.
XV.
In our dwelling, open as it is all the night through, the lamps burning before the gilded Buddha procure us the company of the insect inhabitants of every garden in the neighborhood. Moths, mosquitoes, cicalas, and other extraordinary insects of which I don't even know the names,--all this company assembles around us.
It is extremely funny, when some unexpected grasshopper, some free-and-easy beetle presents itself without invitation or excuse, scampering over our white mats, to see the manner in which Chrysanthème indicates it to my righteous vengeance,--merely pointing her finger at it, without another word than "Hou!" said with bent head, a particular pout, and a scandalized air.
There is a fan kept expressly for the purpose of blowing them out of doors again.
XVI.
Here, I must own, that to the reader of my story it must appear to drag a little.
In default of exciting intrigues and tragic adventures, I would fain have known how to infuse into it a little of the sweet perfumes of the gardens which surround me, something of the gentle warmth of the sunshine, of the shade of these graceful trees. Love being wanting, I should like it to breathe of the restful tranquillity of this far-away suburb. Then, too, I should like it to reëcho the sound of Chrysanthème's guitar, in which I begin to find a certain charm, for want of something better, in the silence of the lovely summer evenings.
All through these moonlit nights of July, the weather has been calm, luminous and magnificent. Ah! what glorious clear nights, what exquisite roseate tints beneath that wonderful moon, what mystery of blue shadows in the thick tangle of trees. And, from the heights where stood our verandah, how prettily the town lay sleeping at our feet!
After all, I do not positively detest this little Chrysanthème, and when there is no repugnance on either side, habit turns into a make-shift of attachment.
XVII.
Always, over, in, and through everything, rises day and night from this Japanese landscape the song of the cicalas, ceaseless, strident, and prodigious. It is everywhere, and never-ending, at no matter what hour of the burning day, what hour of the cool and refreshing night. In the midst of the roads, as we approached our anchorage, we had heard it at the same time from the two shores, from both walls of green mountains. It is wearisome and haunting; it seems to be the manifestation, the noise expressive of the special kind of life peculiar to this region of the world. It is the voice of summer in these islands; it is the song of unconscious rejoicing, always content with itself and always appearing to inflate, to rise upwards, in a greater and greater exultation at the sheer happiness of living.
It is to me the noise characteristic of this country,--this, and the cry of the falcon, which had in like manner greeted our entry into Japan. Over the valleys and the deep bay sail these birds, uttering from time to time their three cries, "Han! han! han!" in a key of sadness, which seems the extreme of painful astonishment. And the mountains around re-echo their cry.
XVIII.
Yves, Chrysanthème, and little Oyouki have struck up a friendship so great that it amuses me: I even think, that in my home life, this intimacy is what affords me the greatest entertainment. They form a contrast which gives rise to the most absurd jokes, and most unforeseen situations. He brings into this fragile little paper house, his sailor's freedom and ease of manner, and his Breton accent; side by side with these tiny mousmés of affected manners and bird-like voices, who, small as they are, rule the big fellow as they please; make him eat with chopsticks; teach him Japanese "_pigeon-vole_,"--and cheat him, and quarrel, and almost die of laughter over it all.
Certainly he and Chrysanthème take a pleasure in each other's company. But I remain serenely undisturbed, and cannot imagine that this little chance doll with whom I play at married life, could possibly bring a serious trouble between this "brother" and myself.
XIX.
My family of Japanese relations, very numerous and very conspicuous, is a great source of diversion to those of my brother officers who visit me in my villa on the hill,--most especially to _komodachi taksan takaï (the immensely tall friend)_.
I have a charming mother-in-law--quite a woman of the world,--little sisters-in-law, little cousins, and aunts who are still quite young.
I have even a poor cousin, twice removed, who is a djin. There was some hesitation in owning this latter to me; but, behold! during the ceremony of introduction, we exchanged a smile of recognition, it was number 415.
Over this poor 415, my friends on board crack no end of jokes,--one in particular, who, less than any one has the right to make them, little Charles N----, for his mother-in-law was once a porter, or something of the kind, at the gateway of a pagoda.
I, however, who have a great respect for strength and agility, much appreciate this new relative of mine. His legs are undoubtedly the best in all Nagasaki, and whenever I am in a hurry, I always beg Madame Prune to send down to the djin stand, and engage my cousin.
XX.
I arrived unexpectedly to-day at Diou-djen-dji, in the midst of a burning noonday heat. At the foot of the stairs lay Chrysanthème's wooden clogs and her sandals of varnished leather.
In our rooms, up above, all was open to the air; bamboo blinds lowered on the sunny side, and through their transparency came warm air and golden threads of light. To-day, the flowers Chrysanthème had placed in our bronze vases were lotus, and my eyes fell, as I entered, upon their great rosy cups.
According to her usual custom, she was lying flat on the floor enjoying her daily siesta.
What a singular originality these bouquets of Chrysanthème always have: a something difficult to define, a Japanese slimness, a mannered grace which we should never succeed in imparting to them.