Chapter 8
Towards sunset, Chrysanthème, who has wearied me more than ever since the morning, and who doubtless has perceived it, pulls a very long face, declares herself ill, and begs leave to spend the night at her mother's, Madame Renoncule.
I agree to this with the best grace in the world; let her go, tiresome little mousmé! Oyouki will carry a message to her parents, who will shut up our rooms; we shall spend the evening, Yves and I, in roaming about as fancy takes us, without any mousmé dragging at our heels, and shall afterwards regain our own quarters on board the _Triomphante_, without having the trouble of climbing up that hill.
First of all, we make an attempt to dine together in some fashionable tea-house. Impossible, there is not a place to be had; all the absurd paper rooms, all the compartments contrived by so many ingenious dodges of slipping and sliding panels, all the nooks and corners in the little gardens are filled with Japanese men and women eating impossible and incredible little dishes! numberless young dandies are dining _tête-à-tête_ with the lady of their choice, and sounds of dancing girls and music issue from the private rooms.
The fact is, that to-day is the third and last day of the great pilgrimage to the temple of the _Jumping Tortoise_, of which we saw the commencement yesterday, and all Nagasaki is at this time given over to amusement.
At the tea-house of the _Indescribable Butterflies_, which is also full to overflowing, but where we are well-known, they have had the bright idea of throwing a temporary flooring over the little lake,--the pond where the gold-fish live, and it is here that our meal is served, in the pleasant freshness of the fountain which continues its murmur under our feet.
After dinner, we follow the faithful and ascend again to the temple.
Up there we find the same elfin revelry, the same masks, the same music. We seat ourselves, as before, under a gauze tent and sip odd little drinks tasting of flowers. But this evening we are alone, and the absence of the band of mousmés, whose familiar little faces formed a bond of union between this holiday-making people and ourselves, separates and isolates us more than usual from the profusion of oddities in the midst of which we seem to be lost. Beneath us, lies always the immense blue background: Nagasaki illumined by moonlight, and the expanse of silvered, glittering water, which seems like a vaporous vision suspended in mid-air. Behind us is the great open temple, where the bonzes officiate to the accompaniment of sacred bells and wooden clappers,--looking, from where we sit, more like puppets than anything else, some squatting in rows like peaceful mummies, others executing rhythmical marches before the golden background where stand the gods. We do not laugh to-night, and speak but little, more forcibly struck by the scene than we were on the first night; we only look on, trying to understand. Suddenly, Yves turning round, says:
"Hullo! brother, your mousmé!!"
Actually there she is, behind him; Chrysanthème almost on all fours, hidden between the paws of a great granite beast, half tiger, half dog, against which our fragile tent is leaning.
"She pulled my trousers with her nails, for all the world like a little cat," said Yves, still full of surprise, "positively like a cat!"
She remains bent double in the most humble form of salutation; she smiles timidly, afraid of being ill received, and the head of my little brother-in-law, Bambou, appears smiling too, just above her own. She has brought this little _mousko_[I] with her, perched astride on her back; he looks as absurd as ever, with his shaven head, his long frock and the great bows of his silken sash. There they both stand gazing at us, anxious to know how their joke will be taken.
[Footnote I: _Mousko_ is the masculine of _mousmé_, and signifies little boy. Excessive politeness makes it _mousko-san_ (Mr. little boy).]
For my part, I have not the least idea of giving them a cold reception; on the contrary, the meeting amuses me. It even strikes me that it is rather pretty of Chrysanthème to come round in this way, and to bring Bambou-San to the festival; though it savors somewhat of her low breeding, to tell the truth, to have tacked him on to her back, as the poorer Japanese women do with their little ones.
However, let her sit down between Yves and myself: and let them bring her those iced beans she loves so much; and we will take the jolly little _mousko_ on our knees and cram him with sugar and sweetness to his heart's content.
* * * * *
The evening over, when we begin to think of leaving, and of going down again, Chrysanthème replaces her little Bambou astride upon her back, and sets forth, bending forward under his weight and painfully dragging her Cinderella slippers over the granite steps and flagstones. Yes, decidedly low this conduct! but low in the best sense of the word: nothing in it displeases me; I even consider Chrysanthème's affection for Bambou-San engaging and attractive in its simplicity.
One cannot deny this merit to the Japanese,--a great love for little children, and a talent for amusing them, for making them laugh, inventing comical toys for them, making the morning of their life happy; for a specialty in dressing them, arranging their heads, and giving to the whole little personage the most diverting appearance possible. It is the only thing I really like about this country: the babies and the manner in which they are understood.
* * * * *
On our way we meet our married friends of the _Triomphante_, who, much surprised at seeing me with this _mousko_, chaffingly exclaim:
"What! a son already?"
Down in the town, we make a point of bidding good-by to Chrysanthème at the turning of the street where her mother lives. She smiles undecided, declares herself well again, and begs to return to our house on the heights. This did not precisely enter into my plans, I confess. However, it would look very ungracious to refuse.
So be it! But we must carry the _mousko_ home to his mamma, and then begin, by the flickering light of a new lantern bought afresh from Madame Très-Propre, our weary homeward ascent.
Here, however, we find ourselves in another predicament: this ridiculous little Bambou insists upon coming with us! No, he will take no denial, we must take him with us. This is out of all reason, quite impossible!
However, it will not do to make him cry, on the night of a great festival too, poor little _mousko_. So we must send a message to Madame Renoncule, that she may not be uneasy about him, and as there will soon not be a living creature on the footpaths of Diou-djen-dji to laugh at us, we will take it in turn, Yves and I, to carry him on our back, all the way up that climb in the darkness.
* * * * *
And here am I, who did not wish to return this way to-night, dragging a mousmé by the hand, actually carrying an extra burden in the shape of a _mousko_ on my back. What an irony of fate!
As I had expected, all our shutters and doors are closed, bolted and barred; no one expects us, and we have to make a prodigious noise at the door. Chrysanthème sets to work and calls with all her might:
"Ho! Oumé-San-an-an-an!" (In English: "Hi! Madame Pru-u-u-u-une!")
These intonations in her little voice are unknown to me; her longdrawn call in the echoing darkness of midnight has so strange an accent, something so unexpected and wild, that it impresses me with a dismal feeling of far-off exile.
At last Madame Prune appears to open the door to us, only half awake and much astonished; by way of a night-cap she wears a monstrous cotton turban, on the blue ground of which a few white storks are playfully disporting themselves. Holding in the tips of her fingers with an affectation of graceful fright, the long stalk of her beflowered lantern, she gazes intently into our faces, one after another, to assure herself of our identity; but the poor old lady cannot get over the _mousko_ I am carrying.
XXXVII
At first it was only to Chrysanthème's guitar that I listened with pleasure: now I am beginning to like her singing also.
She has nothing of the theatrical, or the deep assumed voice of the virtuoso; on the contrary, her notes, always very high, are soft, thin, and plaintive.
She will often teach Oyouki some romance, slow and dreamy, which she has composed, or which comes back to her mind. Then they both astonish me, for on their well-tuned guitars they will search out accompaniments in parts, and try again each time that the chords are not perfectly true to their ear, without ever losing themselves in the confusion of these dissonant harmonies, always weird and always melancholy.
Generally, while their music is going on, I am writing in the verandah, with the superb stretched out in front of me. I write, seated on a mat on the floor and leaning upon a little Japanese desk, ornamented with swallows in relief; my ink is Chinese, my ink-stand, just like that of my landlord, is in jade, with dear little frogs and toads carved on the rim. In short, I am writing my memoirs,--exactly as M. Sucre does downstairs! Occasionally I fancy I resemble him--a very disagreeable fancy.
My memoirs,--composed of incongruous details, minute observations of colors, shapes, scents, and sounds.
It is true that a complete imbroglio, worthy of a romance, seems ever threatening to appear upon my monotonous horizon; a regular intrigue seems ever ready to explode in the midst of this little world of mousmés and grasshoppers: Chrysanthème in love with Yves; Yves with Chrysanthème; Oyouki with me; I with no one. We might even find here, ready to hand, the elements of a fratricidal drama, were we in any other country than Japan; but we are in Japan, and under the narrowing and dwarfing influence of the surroundings, which turn everything into ridicule, nothing will come of it all.
XXXVIII.
There is, in this good town of Nagasaki, towards five or six o'clock in the evening, one hour of the day more comical than any other. At this moment every living being is naked: children, young people, old people, old men, old women, every one is seated in a tub of some sort, taking a bath. This takes place no matter where, without the slightest screen, in the gardens, the courtyards, in the shops, even upon the thresholds, in order to give greater facility for conversation among the neighbors from one side of the street to the other. In this situation visitors are received; and the bather, without any hesitation, leaves his tub, holding in his hand his little towel (invariably blue), to offer the caller a seat, and to exchange with him some amiable remarks. Nevertheless, neither the mousmés nor the old ladies gain anything by appearing in this primeval costume. A Japanese woman, deprived of her long dress and her huge sash with its pretentious bows, is nothing but a diminutive yellow being, with crooked legs and flat, unshapely bust; she has no longer a remnant of her artificial little charms, which have completely disappeared in company with her costume.
There is yet another hour, at once joyous and melancholy, a little later when twilight falls, when the sky seems one vast veil of yellow, against which stand the clear-cut outlines of jagged mountains and lofty, fantastic pagodas. It is the hour at which, in the labyrinth of little gray streets down below, the sacred lamps begin to twinkle in the ever-open houses, in front of the ancestors' altars and the familiar Buddhas; while outside, darkness creeps over all, and the thousand and one indentations and peaks of the old roofs are depicted, as if in black festoons, on the clear golden sky. At this moment, there suddenly passes over merry, laughing Japan a somber shadow, strange, weird, a breath of antiquity, of savagery, of something indefinable, which casts a gloom of sadness. And then the only gayety that remains is the gayety of the population of young children, of little mouskos and little mousmés, who spread themselves like a wave through the streets filled with shadow, as they swarm out from schools and workshops. On the dark background of all these wooden buildings, the little blue and scarlet dresses stand out in startling contrast,--drolly bedizened, drolly draped; and the fine loops of the sashes, the flowers, the silver or gold top-knots stuck in these baby chignons, add to the vivid effect.
They amuse themselves, they chase each other, their great pagoda sleeves fly widely open, and these tiny little mousmés of ten, of five years old, or even younger still, have lofty head-dresses and imposing bows of hair arranged on their little heads, like grown-up women. Oh! what loves of supremely absurd dolls at this hour of twilight gambol through the streets, in their long frocks, blowing their crystal trumpets, or running with all their might to start their fanciful kites. This juvenile world of Japan--ludicrous by birth, and fated to become more so as the years roll on--starts in life with singular amusements, with strange cries and shouts; its playthings are somewhat ghastly, and would frighten the children of other countries; even the kites have great squinting eyes and vampire shapes.
And every evening, in the little dark streets, bursts forth this overflow of joyousness, fresh, childish, but withal grotesque to excess. It would be difficult to have any idea of the incredible things which, carried by the wind, float in the evening air.
XXXIX.
Little Chrysanthème is always arrayed in dark colors, a sign here of aristocratic distinction. While her friends Oyouki-San, Madame Touki and others delight in loud-striped stuffs, and stick gorgeous ornaments in their chignons, she always wears navy-blue or neutral gray, fastened round her waist with great black sashes brocaded in tender shades, and puts nothing in her hair but amber-colored tortoise-shell pins. If she were of noble descent she would wear embroidered on her dress in the middle of the back a little white circle looking like a postmark with some design in the center of it--the leaf of a tree generally; and this would be her coat of arms. There is really nothing wanting but this little heraldic blazon on the back to give her the appearance of a lady of the highest position.
In Japan the smart dresses of bright colors shaded in clouds, embroidered with monsters of gold or silver, are reserved by the great ladies for home use on state occasions; or else they are used on the stage for the dancers and the courtesans.
Like all Japanese women, Chrysanthème carries a quantity of things in her long sleeves, in which pockets are cunningly hidden. There she keeps letters, various notes written on delicate sheets of rice-paper, prayer amulets drawn up by the bonzes; and above all a number of squares of a silky paper which she puts to the most unexpected uses,--to dry a tea-cup, to hold the damp stalk of a flower, or to blow her quaint little nose, when the necessity presents itself. After the operation she at once crumples up the piece of paper, rolls it into a ball, and throws it out of the window with disgust.
The very smartest people in Japan blow their noses in this manner.
XL.
_September 2nd_.
Chance has favored us with a friendship as singular as it is rare: that of the head bonzes of the temple of the _Jumping Tortoise_, where we had witnessed last month such a surprising pilgrimage.
The approach to this place is as solitary now as it was thronged and bustling on the evenings of the festival; and in broad daylight one is surprised at the deathlike decay of the religious surroundings which at night had seemed so full of life. Not a creature to be seen on the time-worn granite steps; not a creature beneath the vast sumptuous porticoes; the colors, the gold-work are dim with dust. To reach the temple one must cross several deserted courtyards terraced on the mountain side, pass through several solemn gateways, and up and up endless stairs, rising far above the town and the noises of humanity into a sacred region filled with innumerable tombs. On all the pavements, in all the walls, lichen and stonecrop; and over all the gray tint of extreme age spreads everywhere like a fall of ashes.
In a side temple near the entrance is enthroned a colossal Buddha seated in his lotus--a gilded idol some forty-five or sixty feet high, mounted on an enormous pedestal of bronze.
At length appears the last doorway with the two traditional giants, guardians of the sacred court, which stand the one on the right hand, the other on the left, shut up like wild beasts each one in a cage of iron. They are in attitudes of fury, with fists upraised as if to strike, and features atrociously fierce and distorted. Their bodies are covered all over with bullets of crumbled paper which have been aimed at them through the bars, and which have stuck to their monstrous limbs like a white leprosy: this is the manner in which the faithful strive to appease them, by conveying to them their prayers written upon delicate leaflets by the pious bonzes.
Passing between these alarming scarecrows one reaches the innermost court. The residence of our friends is on the right, the great hall of the pagoda is before us.
In this paved court are bronze torch-holders as high as turrets. Here too stand, and have stood for centuries, cyca palms with fresh green plumes, their numerous stalks curving with a heavy symmetry, like the branches of massive candelabra. The temple, which is open along its entire length, is dark and mysterious, with touches of gilding in distant corners melting away into the gloom. In the very remotest part are seated idols, and from outside one can vaguely see their clasped hands and air of rapt mysticism; in front are the altars, loaded with marvelous vases in metal-work, whence spring graceful clusters of gold and silver lotus. From the very entrance one is greeted by the sweet odor of the incense-sticks unceasingly burnt by the priests before the gods.
To penetrate into the dwelling of our friends the bonzes, which is situated on the right hand side as you enter, is by no means an easy matter.
A monster of the fish tribe, but having claws and horns, is hung over their door by iron chains; at the least breath of wind he swings creakingly. We pass beneath him and enter the first immense and lofty hall, dimly lighted, in the corners of which gleam gilded idols, bells and incomprehensible objects of religious use.
Quaint little creatures, choir boys or pupils, come forward with a doubtful welcome to ask what is wanted.
"_Matsou-San!! Donata-San!!_" they repeat, much astonished, when they understand to whom we wish to be conducted. Oh! no, impossible, they cannot be seen; they are resting or are in contemplation. "_Orimas! Orimas!_" say they, clasping their hands and sketching a genuflection or two to make us understand better. (They are at prayer! the most profound prayer!)
We insist, speak more imperatively; even slip off our shoes like people determined to take no refusal.
At last Matsou-San and Donata-San make their appearance from the tranquil depths of their bonze-house. They are dressed in black crape and their heads are shaved. Smiling, amiable, full of excuses, they offer us their hands, and we follow with our feet bare like theirs to the interior of their mysterious dwelling, through a series of empty rooms spread with mats of the most unimpeachable whiteness. The successive halls are separated one from the other only by bamboo curtains of exquisite delicacy, caught back by tassels and cords of red silk.
The whole wainscoting of the interior is of the same wood, of a pale yellow color joinered with extreme nicety, without the least ornament, the least carving; everything seems new and unused, as though it had never been touched by human hand. At distant intervals in this studied bareness, costly little stools, marvelously inlaid, uphold some antique bronze monster or a vase of flowers; on the walls hang a few masterly sketches, vaguely tinted in Indian ink, drawn upon strips of gray paper most accurately cut but without the slightest attempt at a frame; this is all: not a seat, not a cushion, not a scrap of furniture. It is the very acme of studied simplicity, of elegance made out of nothing, of the most immaculate and incredible cleanliness. And while following the bonzes through this long suite of empty halls, we are struck by their contrast with the overflow of knick-knacks scattered about our rooms in France, and we take a sudden dislike to the profusion and crowding delighted in at home.
The spot where this silent march of barefooted folk comes to an end, the spot where we are to seat ourselves in the delightful coolness of a semi-darkness, is an interior verandah opening upon an artificial site; we might suppose it were the bottom of a well; it is a miniature garden no bigger than the opening of an _oubliette_, overhung on all sides by the crushing height of the mountain and receiving from on high but the dim light of dream-land. Nevertheless here is simulated a great natural ravine in all its wild grandeur: here are caverns, abrupt rocks, a torrent, a cascade, islands. The trees, dwarfed by a Japanese process of which we have not the secret, have tiny little leaves on their decrepit and knotty branches. A pervading hue of the mossy green of antiquity harmonizes all this medley, which is undoubtedly centuries old.
Families of gold-fish swim round and round in the clear water, and tiny tortoises (_jumpers_ probably) sleep upon the granite islands which are of the same color as their own gray shell.
There are even blue dragon-flies which have ventured to descend, heaven knows from whence, and alight with quivering wings upon the miniature water-lilies.
Our friends the bonzes, notwithstanding an unctuousness of manner thoroughly ecclesiastical, are very ready to laugh,--a simple, pleased, childish laughter; plump, chubby, shaven and shorn, they dearly love our French liqueurs and know how to take a joke.
We talk first of one thing and then another. To the tranquil music of their little cascade, I launch out before them with phrases of the most erudite Japanese, I try the effect of a few tenses of verbs: _desideratives, concessives, hypothetics in ba_. Whilst they chat they dispatch the affairs of the church, the order of services sealed with complicated seals for inferior pagodas situated in the neighborhood; or trace little prayers with a cunning paint-brush as medical remedies to be swallowed as pills by invalids at a distance. With their white and dimpled hands they play with a fan as cleverly as any woman, and when we have tasted different native drinks flavored with essences of flowers, they bring up as a finish a battle of _Bénédictine_ or _Chartreuse_, for they appreciate the liqueurs composed by their Western colleagues.
When they come on board to return our visits, they by no means disdain to fasten their great round spectacles on their flat noses in order to inspect the profane drawings in our illustrated papers, the _Vie Parisienne_ for instance. And it is even with a certain complacency that they let their fingers linger upon the pictures which represent the ladies.
The religious ceremonies in their great temple are magnificent, and to one of these we are now invited. At the sound of the gong they make their entrance before the idols with a stately ritual; twenty or thirty priests officiate in gala costumes, with genuflections, clapping of hands and movements to and fro, which look like the figures of some mystic quadrille.
But for all that, let the sanctuary be ever so immense and imposing in its somber gloom, the idols ever so superb, all seems in Japan but a mere semblance of grandeur. A hopeless pettiness, an irresistible feeling of the ludicrous, lies at the bottom of all things.