Chapter 6
She has placed her dresses and her fine sashes in little closed recesses, hidden in one of the walls of our apartment (the north wall, the only one of the four which will not take to pieces.) The doors of these niches are white paper panels; the standing shelves and inside partitions, consisting of light woodwork, are put together in too finical a manner, too ingenious a way, giving rise to suspicions of secret drawers and conjuring tricks. We only put there things without any value, having a vague feeling that the cupboards themselves might spirit them away.
The box in which Chrysanthème stores away her gewgaws and letters, is one of the things that amuses me the most; it is of English origin, in tin, and bears on its cover the colored representation of some manufactory in the neighborhood of London. Of course, it is as an exotic work of art, as a precious knick-knack, that Chrysanthème prefers it to any of her other boxes in lacquer or inlaid work. It contains all that a mousmé requires for her correspondence: Indian ink, a paintbrush, very thin gray tinted paper, cut up in long narrow strips, and funnily shaped envelopes, into which these strips are slipped (after having been folded up in some thirty folds); the envelopes being ornamented with pictures of landscapes, fishes, crabs, or birds.
On some old letters addressed to her, I can make out the two characters that represent her name: "Kikou-San" (Chrysanthème, Madame). And when I question her, she replies in Japanese, with an air of importance:
"My dear creature, they are letters from my female friends."
Oh! those friends of Chrysanthème, what funny little faces they have! That same box contains their portraits, their photographs stuck on visiting cards, which are printed on the back with the name of Uyeno, the fashionable photographer in Nagasaki,--little creatures fit only to figure daintily on painted fans, and who have striven to assume a dignified attitude when once their necks have been placed in the head-rest and they have been told: "Now don't move!"
It would really amuse me to read her friends' letters,--and above all my mousmé's answers.
XXIX.
_August 10th_.
This evening it rained heavily, and the night was thick and black. At about ten o'clock, on our return from one of the fashionable tea-houses we constantly frequent, we arrived,--Yves, Chrysanthème and myself,--at the certain familiar angle of the principal street, the certain turn where we must take leave of the lights and noises of the town, to clamber up the black steps and steep lanes which lead to our home at Diou-djen-dji.
There, before beginning our ascension, we must first buy lanterns from an old trades-woman called Madame Très-Propre,[E] whose faithful customers we are. It is amazing what a quantity of these paper lanterns we consume. They are invariably decorated in the same way, with painted night-moths or bats; fastened to the ceiling at the further end of the shop, they hang in enormous clusters, and the old woman, seeing us arrive, gets upon a table to take them down. Gray or red are our usual choice; Madame Très-Propre knows our preferences and leaves the green or blue lanterns aside. But it is always hard work to unhook one, on account of the little short sticks by which they are held, and the strings by which they are tied getting entangled together. In an exaggerated pantomime, Madame Très-Propre expresses her despair at wasting so much of our valuable time: oh! if it only depended on her personal efforts! but ah, for the natural perversity of inanimate things which have no consideration for human dignity. With monkeyish antics, she even deems it her duty to threaten the lanterns and shake her fist at these inextricably tangled strings which have the presumption to delay us. It is all very well, but we know this maneuver by heart; and if the old lady loses patience, so do we. Chrysanthème, who is half asleep, is seized with a fit of kitten-like yawning which she does not even trouble to hide behind her hand, and which appears to be endless. She pulls a very long face, at the thought of the steep hill we must struggle up to-night through the pelting rain.
[Footnote E: In Japanese: _O Séï-San_.]
I have the same feeling, and am thoroughly annoyed.
To what purpose, good heavens, do I clamber up every evening to that suburb, when it offers me no attraction whatever?
The rain increases, what are we to do? Outside, djins pass rapidly by, calling out: "Take care!" splashing the foot-passengers and casting through the shower streams of light from their many-colored lanterns. Mousmés and elderly ladies pass by, tucked up, muddy, laughing nevertheless, under their paper umbrellas, exchanging greetings, clacking their wooden pattens on the stone pavement; the whole street is filled with the noise of the pattering feet and pattering rain.
As good luck will have it, at the same moment passes 415, our poor relative, who, seeing our distress, stops and promises to help us out of our difficulty; as soon as he has deposited on the quay an Englishman he is conveying, he will come to our aid and bring all that is necessary to relieve us from our lamentable situation.
At last our lantern is unhooked, lighted, and paid for. There is another shop opposite, where we stop every evening; it is Madame L'Heure's,[F] the woman who sells waffles; we always buy a provision from her, to refresh us on the way. A very lively young woman is this pastry-cook, and most anxious to make herself agreeable; she looks quite like a screen picture, behind her piled-up cakes, ornamented with little posies. We will take shelter under her roof while we wait; and, to avoid the drops that fall heavily from the water-spouts, wedge ourselves tightly against her display of white and pink sweetmeats, so artistically spread out on fresh and delicate branches of cypress.
[Footnote F: In Japanese: _Tôki-San_.]
Poor 415, what a providence he is to us! Already he re-appears, most excellent cousin, ever smiling, ever running, while the water streams down his handsome bare legs; he brings us two umbrellas, borrowed from a China merchant, who is also a distant relative of ours. Like me, Yves has till now never consented to use such a thing, but he now accepts one because it is droll: in paper, of course, with innumerable folds waxed and gummed, and the inevitable flight of storks forming a wreath all round.
Chrysanthème, yawning more and more in her kitten-like fashion, becomes coaxing in order to be helped along, and tries to take my arm:
"I beg you, mousmé, this evening to take the arm of Yves-San; I am sure that will suit us all three."
And there they go, she, tiny figure, hanging on to the big fellow, and so they climb up. I lead the way, carrying the lantern that lights our steps, and whose flame I protect as well as I can under my fantastic umbrella. On each side of the road is heard the roaring torrent of stormy waters rolling down from the mountain side. To-night the way seems long, difficult and slippery; a succession of interminable flights of steps, gardens and houses piled up one above another; waste lands, and trees which in the darkness shake their dripping foliage on our heads.
One would say that Nagasaki is ascending at the same time as ourselves; but yonder, and very far away, in a kind of vapory mist which seems luminous on the blackness of the sky; and from the town there rises a confused murmur of voices and rumbling of gongs and laughter.
The summer rain has not yet refreshed the atmosphere. On account of the stormy heat, the little suburban houses have been left open like sheds, and we can see all that is going on. Lamps ever lighted burn before the altars dedicated to Buddha and to the souls of the ancestors; but all good Niponese have already lain down to rest. Under the traditional tents of bluish-green gauze, we can see them, stretched out in rows by whole families; they are either sleeping, or hunting the mosquitoes, or fanning themselves. Niponese men and women, Niponese babies too, lying side by side with their parents; each one, young or old, in his little dark-blue cotton night-dress, and with his little wooden block to rest the nape of his neck.
A few houses are open, where amusements are still going on; here and there, from the somber gardens, the sound of a guitar reaches our ears, some dance giving in its weird rhythm a strange impression of sadness.
Here is the well, surrounded by bamboos, where we are wont to make a nocturnal halt for Chrysanthème to take breath. Yves begs me to throw forward the red gleam of my lantern, in order to recognize the place, for it marks our half-way resting place.
And at last, at last, here is our house! The door is closed, all is silent and black. Our panels have been carefully shut by M. Sucre and Madame Prune; the rain streams down the wood of our old black walls.
In such weather it is impossible to allow Yves to return down hill, and wander along the shore in quest of a sampan. No, he shall not return on board to-night; we will put him up in our house. His little room has indeed been already provided for in the conditions of our lease, and notwithstanding his discreet refusal, we immediately set to work to make it. Let us go in, take off our boots, shake ourselves like so many cats that have been out in a shower, and step up to our apartment.
In front of Buddha, the little lamps are burning; in the middle of the room, the night-blue gauze is stretched. On entering, the first impression is a favorable one; our dwelling is pretty, this evening, the late hour and deep silence give it an air of mystery. And then also, in such weather, it is always pleasant to get home.
Come, let us at once prepare Yves' room. Chrysanthème, quite elated at the prospect of having her big friend near her, sets to work with a good will; moreover, the task is an easy one, we have only to slip three or four paper panels in their grooves, to make at once a separate room or compartment in the great box we live in. I had thought that these panels were entirely white; but no! on each of them is a group of two storks painted in gray tints in those inevitable attitudes consecrated by Japanese art: one bearing aloft its proud head and haughtily raising its leg, the other scratching itself. Oh these storks! how sick one gets of them, at the end of a month spent in Japan!
Yves is now in bed and sleeping under our roof.
Sleep has come to him sooner than to me to-night; for somehow I fancy I had seen long glances exchanged between him and Chrysanthème.
I have left this little creature in his hands like a toy, and I begin to fear lest I should have thrown some perturbation in his mind. I do not trouble my head about this little Japanese girl. But Yves,--it would be decidedly wrong on his part, and would greatly diminish my faith in him.
We hear the rain falling on our old roof; the cicalas are mute; odors of wet earth reach us from the gardens and the mountain. I feel terribly dreary in this room to-night; the noise of the little pipe irritates me more than usual, and as Chrysanthème crouches in front of her smoking-box, I suddenly discover in her an air of low breeding, in the very worst sense of the word.
I should hate her, my mousmé, if she were to entice Yves into committing a fault,--a fault which I should perhaps never be able to forgive.
XXX.
_August 12th_.
The Y---- and Sikou-San couple were divorced yesterday. The Charles N---- and Campanule household is getting on very badly. They have had some annoyance with those prying, grinding, insupportable little men, dressed up in suits of gray, who are called police agents and who by threatening their landlord, have had them turned out of their house--under the obsequious amiability of this people, there lurks a secret hatred towards us Europeans--they are therefore obliged to accept their mother-in-law's hospitality, a very painful position. And then Charles N---- fancies his wife is faithless. It is hardly possible, however, for us to deceive ourselves: these would-be maidens, to whom M. Kangourou has introduced us, are young people who have already had in their lives one, or perhaps more than one, adventure; it is therefore only natural that we should have our suspicions.
The Z---- and Touki-San couple jog on, quarreling all the time.
My household maintains a more dignified air, though it is none the less dreary. I had indeed thought of a divorce, but have really no good reason for offering Chrysanthème such a gratuitous affront; moreover there is another more imperative reason why I should remain quiet: I too have had difficulties with the civilian authorities.
Day before yesterday, M. Sucre quite upset, Madame Prune almost swooning, and Mdlle. Oyouki bathed in tears, stormed my rooms. The Niponese police agents had called and threatened them with the law for letting rooms outside of the European concession to a Frenchman morganatically married to a Japanese; and the terror of being prosecuted brought them to me, with a thousand apologies, but the humble request that I should leave.
The next day I therefore went off, accompanied by _the wonderfully tall friend_, who expresses himself better than I do in Japanese, to the register office, with the full intention of making a terrible row.
In the language of this exquisitely polite people, terms of abuse are totally wanting; when very angry, one is obliged to be satisfied with using the _thou_, mark of _inferiority_ and the _familiar conjugation_, habitual towards those of low birth. Seating myself on the table used for weddings, in the midst of all the flurried little policemen, I open the conversation in the following terms:
"In order that _thou shouldest_ leave me in peace in the suburb I am inhabiting, what bribe must I offer _thee_, set of little beings more contemptible than any mere street porter?"
Great and mute scandal, silent consternation, and low bows greet my words.
"Certainly," they at last reply, my honorable person shall not be molested, indeed they ask for nothing better. Only, in order to subscribe to the laws of the country, I ought to have come here and given my name and that of the young person that--with whom--
"Oh! that is going too far! I came here on purpose, contemptible creatures, not three weeks ago!"
Then taking up myself the civil register, and turning over the pages rapidly, I found my signature and beside it the little hieroglyphics drawn by Chrysanthème:
"There, set of idiots, look at that!"
Arrival of a very high functionary,--a ridiculous little old fellow in a black coat, who from his office has been listening to the row:
"What is the matter? What is it? What is this annoyance put upon the French officers?"
I politely state my case to this personage, who cannot make apologies and promises enough. The little agents prostrate themselves on all fours, sink into the earth; and we leave them, cold and dignified, without returning their bows.
M. Sucre and Madame Prune can now make their minds easy, they will not be disturbed again.
XXXI.
_August 23rd_.
The prolonged stay of the _Triomphante_ in the dock, and the distance of our home from town, have been my pretext these last two or three days for not going up to Diou-djen-dji to see Chrysanthème.
It is dreary work though in these docks. With the early dawn a legion of little Japanese workmen invade us, bringing their dinners in baskets and gourds like the working-men in our arsenals, but with a needy, shabby appearance, and a ferreting, hurried manner which reminds one of rats. Silently they slip under the keel, at the bottom of the hold, in all the holes, sawing, nailing, repairing.
The heat is intense in this spot, overshadowed by the rocks and tangled masses of foliage.
At two o'clock, in the broad sunlight, we have a new and far prettier kind of invasion: that of the beetles and butterflies.
Butterflies as wonderful as those on the fans. Some all black, giddily dash up against us, so light and airy that they seem merely a pair of quivering wings fastened together without any body.
Yves astonished, gazes at them, saying in his boyish manner: "Oh, I saw such a big one just now, such a big one, it quite frightened me; I thought it was a bat attacking me."
A steersman who has captured a very curious specimen, carries it off carefully to press between the leaves of his signal-book, like a flower. Another sailor passing by, taking his small roast to the oven in a mess-bowl, looks at him funnily and says:
"You had much better give it to me. I'd cook it!"
XXXII.
_August 24th_.
It is nearly five days since I have abandoned my home and Chrysanthème.
Since yesterday we have had a storm of rain and wind--(a typhoon that has passed or is passing over us). We beat to quarters in the middle of the night to _lower the top-masts, strike the lower yards_, and take every precaution against bad weather. The butterflies no longer hover around us, but everything tosses and writhes overhead: on the steep slopes of the mountain, the trees shiver, the long grasses bend low as though in pain; terrible gusts rack them with a hissing sound; branches, bamboo leaves, and earth are showered down like rain upon us.
In this land of pretty little trifles, this violent tempest is out of all harmony; it seems as if its efforts were exaggerated and its music too loud.
Towards evening the big dark clouds roll by so rapidly, that the showers are of short duration and soon pass over. Then I attempt a walk on the mountain above us, in the wet verdure: little pathways lead up it, between thickets of camellias and bamboos.
Waiting till a shower is over, I take refuge in the courtyard of an old temple half-way up the hill, buried in a wood of centennial trees of gigantic branches; it is reached by granite steps, through strange gateways, as deeply furrowed as the old Celtic dolmens. The trees have also invaded this yard; the daylight is overcast with a greenish tint, and the drenching rain that pours down in torrents, is full of torn-up leaves and moss. Old granite monsters, of unknown shapes, are seated in the corners, and grimace with smiling ferocity; their faces are full of indefinable mystery that makes me shudder amid the moaning music of the wind, in the gloomy shadows of the clouds and branches.
They could not have resembled the Japanese of our day, the men who had thus conceived these ancient temples, who built them everywhere, and filled the country with them, even in its most solitary nooks.
* * * * *
An hour later, in the twilight of that stormy day, on the same mountain, I chanced upon a clump of trees somewhat similar to oaks in appearance; they, too, have been twisted by the tempest, and the tufts of undulating grass at their feet are laid low, tossed about in every direction. There, I suddenly have brought back to my mind, my first impression of a strong wind in the woods of Limoise, in the province of Saintonge, some twenty-eight years ago, in a month of March of my childhood.
That, the first storm of wind my eyes ever beheld sweeping over the landscape, blew in just the opposite quarter of the world,--and many years have rapidly passed over that memory,--since then the best part of my life has been spent.
I refer too often, I fancy, to my childhood; I am foolishly fond of it. But it seems to me that then only did I truly experience sensations or impressions; the smallest trifles I then saw or heard were full of deep and hidden meaning, recalling past images out of oblivion, and reawakening memories of prior existence; or else they were presentiments of existences to come, future incarnations in the land of dreams, expectations of wondrous marvels that life and the world held in store for me,--for later, no doubt, when I should be grown up. Well, I have grown up, and have found nothing that answered to my undefinable expectations; on the contrary, all has narrowed and darkened around me, my vague recollections of the past have become blurred, the horizons before me have slowly closed in and become full of a gray darkness. Soon will my time come to return to eternal rest, and I shall leave this world without having understood the mysterious wherefore of these mirages of my childhood; I shall bear away with me a lingering regret, of I know not what lost home that I have failed to find, of the unknown beings ardently longed for, whom, alas, I have never embraced.
XXXIII.
With many affectations, M. Sucre has dipped the tip of his delicate paint-brush in Indian ink and traced a couple of charming storks on a pretty sheet of rice-paper, offering them to me in the most gracious manner, as a souvenir of himself. They are here, in my cabin on board, and whenever I look at them, I can fancy I see M. Sucre tracing them in an airy manner, with elegant facility.
The saucer in which M. Sucre mixes his ink, is in itself a little gem. Chiselled out of a piece of jade, it represents a tiny lake with a carved border imitating rockwork. On this border is a little mama toad, also in jade, advancing as though to bathe in the little lake in which M. Sucre carefully keeps a few drops of very dark liquid. The mama toad has four little baby toads, equally 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 kind of 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, and it led to some gossip. Therefore, when Madame Prune was engaged with one visitor, if a new arrival made his appearance, the ingenious husband, to make him wait patiently, and to while away the time in the ante-room, immediately offered to paint him some storks in a variety of attitudes.
And this is how, 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.
XXXIV.
_Sunday, August 25th_.
At about six o'clock, while I was on duty, the _Triomphante_ left her prison walls between the mountains and came out of dock. After a great uproar of maneuvering we took up our old moorings in the roadstead, at the foot of the Diou-djen-dji hills. The weather was again calm and cloudless, the sky presenting a peculiar clearness as though it had been swept clean by the cyclone, an exceeding transparency bringing out the minutest details of the far 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 an immense flight of seabirds.