Madame Chrysantheme by Pierre Loti
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Pierre Loti >> Madame Chrysantheme
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_"Anata bakari!"_ ("Thou alone!" that is to say: "There is no one like
you in the world, all the rest are mere rubbish!")
Madame Prune says nothing, but I can see that she does not think the
less; her languishing attitudes, her hand that at each moment gently
touches mine, confirm the suspicions that her look of dismay a few
moments ago awoke within me: evidently my physical charms speak to her
imagination, which in spite of years has remained full of romance! I
shall leave with the regret of having understood her too late!!
If the ladies are satisfied with my sketch, I am far from being so. I
have put everything in its place most exactly, but as a whole, it has
an ordinary, indifferent, French look which does not suit. The
sentiment is not given, and I almost wonder whether I should not have
done better in falsifying the perspective,--Japanese style--and
exaggerating to the very utmost the already abnormal outlines of what
I see before me. And then the pictured dwelling lacks the fragile look
and its sonority, that reminds one of a dry violin. In the penciled
delineation of the woodwork, the minute delicacy with which it is
wrought is wanting; neither have I been able to render the extreme
antiquity, the perfect cleanliness, nor the vibrating song of the
cicalas that seems to have been stored away within it, in its
parched-up fibers, during some hundreds of summers. It does not either
convey the impression this place gives of being in a far-off suburb,
perched aloft among trees, above the drollest of towns. No, all this
cannot be drawn, cannot be expressed, but remains undemonstrable,
undefinable.
Having sent out our invitations, we shall in spite of everything, give
our tea-party this evening,--a parting tea, therefore, in which we
will display as much pomp as possible. It is, moreover, rather my
custom to wind up my exotic existences with a fete; in other countries
I have done the same.
Besides our usual set, we shall have my mother-in-law, my relatives,
and all the mousmes of the neighborhood. But, by an extra Japanese
refinement, we shall not admit a single European friend,--not even the
_amazingly tall_ one. Yves alone shall be admitted, and even he shall
be hidden away in a corner behind some flowers and works of art.
In the last glimmer of twilight, by the first twinkling star, the
ladies, with many charming curtseys, make their appearance. Our house
is soon full of the little crouching women, with their tiny slit eyes
vaguely smiling; their beautifully dressed hair shining like polished
ebony; their fragile bodies lost in the many folds or the exaggerated
wide garments, that gape as if ready to drop from their little
tapering backs and reveal the exquisite napes of their little necks.
Chrysantheme, with somewhat a melancholy air; my mother-in-law
Renoncule, with many affected graces, busy themselves in the midst of
the different groups, where ere long the miniature pipes are lighted.
Soon there arises a murmuring sound of discreet laughter, expressing
nothing, but having a pretty exotic ring about it, and then begins a
harmony of _pan! pan! pan!_ sharp, rapid taps against the edges of the
finely lacquered smoking-boxes. Pickled and spiced fruits are handed
round on trays of quaint and varied shapes. Then transparent china
tea-cups, no larger than half an egg-shell, make their appearance, and
the ladies are offered a few drops of sugarless tea, poured out of toy
kettles, or a sip of _saki_--(a spirit made from rice which it is the
custom to serve hot, in elegantly shaped vases, long-necked like a
heron's throat).
Several mousmes execute, one after the other, improvizations on the
_chamecen_. Others sing in sharp high voices hopping about
continually, like cicalas in delirium.
Madame Prune, no longer able to make a mystery of the long-pent up
feelings that agitate her, pays me the most marked and tender
attentions, and begs my acceptance of a quantity of little souvenirs:
an image, a little vase, a little porcelain goddess of the Moon in
Satsuma ware, a marvelously grotesque ivory figure;--I tremblingly
follow her into the dark corners whither she calls me to give me these
presents in a _tete-a-tete_.
At about nine o'clock, with a silken rustling, arrive the three
guechas in vogue in Nagasaki: Mdlles. Purete, Orange, and Printemps,
whom I have hired at four dollars a head,--an enormous price in this
country.
These three guechas are indeed the very same little creatures I heard
singing on the rainy day of my arrival, through the thin paneling of
the _Garden of Flowers_. But as I have now become thoroughly
_Japanized_, to-day they appear to me more diminutive, less
outlandish, and in no way mysterious. I treat them rather as dancers
that I have hired, and the idea that I had ever thought of marrying
one of them now makes me shrug my shoulders,--as it formerly did M.
Kangourou.
The excessive heat caused by the respiration of the mousmes and the
burning lamps, brings out the perfume of the lotus, which fills the
heavy-laden atmosphere; and the scent of the camelia-oil the ladies
use in profusion to make their hair glisten, is also strong in the
room.
Mdlle. Orange, the youngest guecha, tiny and dainty, her lips outlined
with gilt paint, executes some delightful steps, donning the most
extraordinary wigs and masks in wood or cardboard. She has masks
imitating old noble ladies which are valuable works of art, signed by
well-known artists. She has also magnificent long robes, fashioned in
the old style, and trains trimmed at the bottom with thick pads, in
order to give to the movements of the costume something rigid and
unnatural which, however, is becoming.
Now the soft balmy breezes blow through the room, from one verandah to
the other, making the flames of the lamps flicker. They scatter the
lotus flowers faded by the artificial heat, which, falling in pieces
from every vase, sprinkle the guests with their pollen and large pink
petals, looking like bits of broken opal-colored glass.
The sensational piece, reserved for the end, is a trio on the
_chamecen_, long and monotonous, that the guechas perform as a rapid
_pizzicato_ on the highest strings, very sharply struck. It sounds
like the very quintescence, the paraphrase, the exasperation if I may
so call it, of the eternal buzz of insects, which issues from the
trees, old roofs, old walls, from everything in fact, and which is the
ground-work of all Japanese sounds.
Half-past ten! The program has been carried out, and the reception is
over. A last general _pan! pan! pan!_ the little pipes are stowed away
into their chased sheaths, tied up in the sashes, and the mousmes rise
to depart.
They light, at the end of short sticks, a quantity of red, gray or
blue lanterns, and after a series of endless bows and curtseys, the
guests disperse themselves in the darkness of the lanes and trees.
We also go down to the town,--Yves, Chrysantheme, Oyouki, and
myself,--in order to conduct my mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, and
youthful aunt, Madame Nenufar, to their house.
We want to take one last stroll together in our old familiar pleasure
haunts, drink one more iced sherbet at the house of the _Indescribable
Butterflies_, buy one more lantern at Madame Tres-Propre's, and eat
some parting waffles at Madame L'Heure's!
I try to be affected, moved, by this leave-taking, but without
success. In this Japan, as with the little men and women who inhabit
it, there is something decidedly wanting; pleasant enough as a mere
pastime, it begets no feeling of attachment.
On our return, when I am once more with Yves and the two mousmes
climbing up the road to Diou-djen-dji, which I shall probably never
see again, a vague feeling of melancholy pervades my last stroll.
It is, however, but the melancholy inseparable from all things that
are about to end without possibility of return.
Moreover, this calm and splendid summer is also drawing to a close for
us,--since to-morrow we shall go forth to meet the autumn, in Northern
China. I am beginning, alas! to count the youthful summers I may still
hope for; I feel more gloomy each time another fades away, and flies
to rejoin the others already disappeared in the dark and bottomless
abyss, where all past things lie buried.
At midnight we return home, and my removal begins; while on board the
_amazingly tall friend_ kindly takes my watch.
It is a nocturnal, rapid, stealthy removal,--_"dorobo_ (thieves)
fashion" remarks Yves, who in frequenting the mousmes has picked up a
smattering of the Niponese language.
Messrs, the packers have, at my request, sent in the evening several
charming little boxes, with compartments and false bottoms, and
several paper bags (in the untearable Japanese paper), which close of
themselves and are fastened by strings, also in paper, arranged
beforehand in the most ingenious manner,--quite the cleverest and most
handy thing of its kind; for little useful trifles these people are
unrivaled.
It is a real treat to pack them, and everybody lends a helping
hand,--Yves, Chrysantheme, Madame Prune, her daughter, and M. Sucre.
By the glimmer of the reception-lamps, which are still burning, every
one wraps, rolls, and ties up expeditiously, for it is already late.
Although Oyouki has a heavy heart, she cannot prevent herself from
indulging in a few bursts of childish laughter while she works.
Madame Prune, bathed in tears, no longer restrains her feelings; poor
lady, I really very much regret....
Chrysantheme is absent-minded and silent.
But what a fearful amount of luggage! Eighteen cases or parcels,
containing Buddhas, chimeras, and vases, without mentioning the last
lotus that I carry away tied up in a pink cluster.
All this is piled up in the djins' carts, hired at sunset, which are
waiting at the door, while their runners lie asleep on the grass.
A starlit and exquisite night. We start off with lighted lanterns,
followed by the three sorrowful ladies who accompany us, and by abrupt
slopes, dangerous in the darkness, we descend towards the sea.
The djins, stiffening their muscular legs, hold back with all their
might the heavily loaded little cars which would run down by
themselves if let alone, and that so rapidly, that they would rush
into empty space with my most valuable chattels. Chrysantheme walks by
my side, and expresses, in a soft and winning manner, her regret that
the _wonderfully tall friend_ did not offer to replace me for the
whole of my night-watch, as that would have allowed me to spend this
last night, even till morning, under our roof.
"Listen," she says, "come back to-morrow in the daytime, before
getting under way, to bid me good-by; I shall only return to my mother
in the evening; you will find me still up there."
And I promise.
They stop at a certain turn, from whence we have a bird's-eye view of
the whole roadstead; the black stagnant waters reflect innumerable
distant fires, and the ships--tiny immovable little objects, which
seen from our point of view take the shape of fish, seem also to
slumber,--little objects which serve to bear us _elsewhere_, to go far
away, and to forget.
The three ladies are going to turn back home, for the night is
already far advanced, and lower down, the cosmopolitan quarters near
the quays are not safe at this unusual hour.
The moment has therefore come for Yves--who will not land again--to
make his last tragic farewells to his friends the little mousmes.
Now I am very curious to see the parting between Yves and
Chrysantheme; I listen with all my ears, I look with all my eyes, it
takes place in the simplest and quietest fashion: none of that
heartbreaking which will be inevitable between Madame Prune and
myself; I even notice in my mousme an indifference, an unconcern which
puzzles me; I positively am at a loss to understand what it all means.
And I muse to myself as I continue to descend towards the sea. "Her
appearance of sadness was not, therefore, on Yves' account. On whose,
then?" and the phrase runs through my head:
"Come back to-morrow before setting sail, to bid me good-by; I shall
only return to my mother in the evening; you will find me still up
there."
Japan is indeed most delightful this evening, so fresh and so sweet;
and little Chrysantheme was very charming just now, as she silently
walked beside me through the darkness of the lane.
It is about two o'clock when we reach the _Triomphante_ in a hired
sampan, where I have heaped up all my cases till there is danger of
sinking. The _very tall friend_ gives over to me the watch that I must
keep till four o'clock; and the sailors on duty, but half awake, make
a chain in the darkness, to haul on board all my fragile luggage.
LII.
_September 18th_.
I had planned to sleep late this morning, in order to make up for my
lost sleep of last night.
But behold, at eight o'clock, three persons of the most singular
appearance, led by M. Kangourou, present themselves with endless bows
at the door of my cabin. They are dressed in long robes bedizened with
dark patterns; they have the flowing locks, high foreheads and pallid
countenances of persons too exclusively devoted to the fine arts; and,
perched on the top of their chignons, they wear sailor hats of English
shape stuck jauntily on one side. Under their arms, they carry
portfolios filled with sketches; in their hands, boxes of
water-colors, pencils, and, tied together like fasces, a bundle of
fine stylets the sharp points of which glitter ostensibly.
At the first glance, even in the bewilderment of waking, I gather from
their appearance what their errand is, and guessing with what visitors
I have to deal, I say:--"Come in, Messieurs the tattooers!"
These are the specialists most in renown in Nagasaki; I had engaged
them two days ago, not knowing that we were about to leave, and since
they are come I will not turn them away.
My friendly and intimate relations with primitive man, in Oceania and
elsewhere, have imbued me with a deplorable taste for tattoo work; and
I had wished to carry away on me, as a curiosity, an ornament, a
specimen of the work of the Japanese tattooers, who have a delicacy of
finish which is unequaled.
From their albums spread out upon my table I make my choice. There are
some remarkably odd designs amongst them, appropriate to the different
parts of the human body: emblems for the arms and legs, sprays of
roses for the shoulders, great grinning faces for the middle of the
back. There are even, to suit the taste of their clients who belong to
foreign navies, trophies of arms, American and French flags entwined,
a "God Save the Queen" amid encircling stars, and figures of women
taken from Grevin's sketches in the _Journal Amusant_.
My choice rests upon a singular blue and pink dragon a couple of
inches long, which will have a fine effect upon my chest on the side
opposite the heart.
Then follows an hour and a half of irritation and positive pain.
Stretched out on my bunk and delivered over to the tender mercies of
these personages, I stiffen myself and submit to the million
imperceptible pricks they inflict. When by chance a little blood
flows, confusing the outline by a stream of red, one of the artists
hastens to staunch it with his lips, and I make no objections, knowing
that this is the Japanese manner, the method used by their doctors for
the wounds of both man and beast.
A piece of work as minute and fine as that of an engraver upon stone
is slowly executed on my person; and their lean hands harrow and worry
me with automatic precision.
At length it is finished, and the tattooers, falling back with an air
of satisfaction to contemplate their work, declare it will be lovely.
I dress myself quickly to go on shore, and take advantage of my last
hours in Japan.
The heat is fearful to-day: the powerful September sun falls with a
certain melancholy upon the yellowing leaves; it is a day of clear
burning heat after an almost chilly morning.
Like yesterday, it is during the drowsy noon that I ascend to my lofty
suburb, by deserted pathways filled only with light and silence.
I noiselessly open the door of my dwelling, and enter cautiously on
tiptoe, for fear of Madame Prune.
At the foot of the staircase, upon the white mats, by the side of the
little clogs and little sandals which are always lying about the
vestibule, there is a great array of luggage ready for departure,
which I recognize at a glance,--pretty dark-colored dresses, familiar
to my sight, carefully folded and wrapped in blue towels tied at the
four corners. I even fancy I feel a little sad when I catch sight of a
corner of the famous box of letters and souvenirs peeping out of one
of these bundles, in which ray portrait by Uyeno now reposes among
divers photographs of mousmes. A sort of long-necked mandolin, also
ready for departure, lies on the top of the pile in its case of
figured silk. It resembles the flitting of some gypsy, or rather it
reminds me of an engraving in a book of fables I owned in my
childhood: the whole thing is exactly like the slender wardrobe and
the long guitar which the Cicala who had sung all the summer, carried
upon her back when she knocked at the door of her neighbor the ant.
Poor little gypsy!
I mount the stairs on tiptoe, and stop at the sound of singing that I
hear up in my room.
It is undoubtedly Chrysantheme's voice and the song is a cheerful one!
This chills me and changes the current of my thoughts. I am almost
sorry I have taken the trouble to come.
Mingled with the song is a noise I cannot understand: _dzinn! dzinn!_
a clear metallic ring as of coins being flung vigorously on the floor.
I am well aware that this vibrating house exaggerates every sound
during the silence of night; but all the same, I am puzzled to know
what my mousme can be doing. _Dzinn! dzinn!_ is she amusing herself
with quoits, or the _jeu du crapaud_, or pitch and toss?
Nothing of the kind; I fancy I have guessed, and I continue my upward
progress still more gently, on all fours, with the precautions of a
Red Indian, to give myself for the last time the pleasure of
surprising her.
She has not heard me come in. In our great white room, emptied and
swept out, where the clear sunshine pours in, and the soft wind, and
the yellowed leaves of the garden; she is sitting all alone, her back
turned to the door: she is dressed for walking, ready to go to her
mother's, her rose-colored parasol beside her.
On the floor are spread out all the fine silver dollars which,
according to our agreement, I had given her the evening before. With
the competent dexterity of an old money-changer she fingers them,
turns them over, throws them on the floor, and armed with a little
mallet _ad hoc,_ rings them vigorously against her ear, singing the
while I know not what little pensive bird-like song which I daresay
she improvises as she goes along.
Well, after all, it is even more completely Japanese than I could
possibly have imagined it--this last scene of my married life! I feel
inclined to laugh. How simple I have been, to allow myself to be taken
in by the few clever words she whispered yesterday, as she walked
beside me, by a tolerably pretty little phrase embellished as it was
by the silence of two o'clock in the morning, and all the wonderful
enchantments of night.
Ah! not more for Yves than for me, not more for me than for Yves, has
any feeling passed through that little brain, that little heart.
When I have looked at her long enough, I call:--
"Hi! Chrysantheme!"
She turns confused, and reddening even to her ears at having been
caught at this work.
She is quite wrong, however, to be so much troubled, for I am, on the
contrary, delighted. The fear that I might be leaving her in some
sadness had almost given me a pang, and I infinitely prefer that this
marriage should end as it had begun, in a joke.
"That is a good idea of yours," I say; "a precaution which should
always be taken in this country of yours, where so many evil-minded
people are clever in forging money. Make haste and get through it
before I start, and if any false pieces have found their way into the
number, I will willingly replace them."
However, she refuses to continue before me, and I expected as much; to
do so would have been contrary to all her notions of politeness,
hereditary and acquired, all her conventionality, all her
_Japanesery_. With a disdainful little foot, clothed as usual in
exquisite socks with a special hood for the great toe, she pushes away
the piles of white dollars and scatters them on the mats.
"We have hired a large covered sampan," she says to change the
conversation, "and we are all going together,--Campanule, Jonquille,
Touki, all your mousmes--to watch your vessel set sail. Pray sit down
and stay a few minutes."
"No, I really cannot stay. I have several things to do in the town,
d'you see, and the order was given for every one to be on board by
three o'clock in time for muster before starting. Moreover, I would
rather escape, as you can imagine, while Madame Prune is still
enjoying her siesta; I should be afraid of being drawn into some
corner, or of provoking some heartrending parting scene."
Chrysantheme bows her head and says no more, but seeing that I am
really going, rises to escort me.
Without speaking, without the slightest noise, she follows me as we
descend the staircase and cross the garden full of sunshine, where the
dwarf shrubs and the deformed flowers seem, like the rest of the
household, plunged in warm somnolence.
At the outer gate I stop for the last adieu: the little sad pout has
reappeared, more accentuated than ever on Chrysantheme's face; it is
the right thing, it is correct, and I should feel offended now were it
absent.
Well, little mousme, let us part good friends; one last kiss even, if
you like. I took you to amuse me; you have not perhaps succeeded very
well, but after all you have done what you could: given me your little
face, your little curtseys, your little music; in short, you have
been pleasant enough in your Japanese way. And who knows, perchance I
may yet think of you sometimes when I recall this glorious summer,
these pretty quaint gardens, and the ceaseless concert of the cicales.
She prostrates herself on the threshold of the door, her forehead
against the ground, and remains in this attitude of superlatively
polite salute as long as I am in sight, while I go down the pathway by
which I am to disappear for ever.
As the distance between us increases, I turn once or twice to look at
her again; but it is a mere civility, and meant to return as it
deserves her grand final salutation.
LIII.
On entering the town, at the turn of the principal street, I have the
good luck to meet No. 415, my poor relation. I was just at that moment
in want of a speedy djin, and I at once get into his vehicle; besides,
it will be an alleviation to my feelings, in this hour of departure,
to take my last drive in company with a member of my family.
Unaccustomed as I was to be out of doors during the hours of siesta,
I had never yet seen the streets of the town thus overwhelmed by the
sunshine, thus deserted in the silence and solitary brilliancy
peculiar to all hot countries.
In front of all the shops hang white shades, adorned here and there
with slight designs in black, in the quaintness of which lurks I know
not what,--something mysterious: dragons, emblems, symbolical figures
The sky is too glaring; the light crude, implacable; never has this
old town of Nagasaki appeared to me so old, so worm-eaten, so bald,
notwithstanding all its veneer of new papers and gaudy paintings.
These little wooden houses, of such marvelous cleanly whiteness
inside, are black outside, time-worn, disjointed and _grimacing_. When
one looks closely, this grimace is to be found everywhere: in the
hideous masks laughing in the shop fronts of the innumerable
curio-shops; in the grotesque figures, the playthings, the idols,
cruel, suspicious mad;--it is even found in the buildings: in the
friezes of the religious porticos, in the roofs of the thousand
pagodas; of which the angles and gable-ends writhe and twist like the
yet dangerous remains of ancient and malignant beasts.
And the disturbing intensity of expression reigning over inanimate
nature, contrasts with the almost absolute blank of the human
countenance, with the smiling foolishness of the simple little folk
who meet one's gaze, as they patiently carry on their minute trades in
the gloom of their tiny open-fronted houses. Workmen squatted on their
heels, carving with their imperceptible tools, the droll or odiously
obscene ivory ornaments, marvelous cabinet curiosities which have made
Japan so famous with the European amateurs who have never seen it.
Unconscious artists tracing with steady hand on a background of
lacquer or of porcelain traditional designs learnt by heart, or
transmitted to their brains by a process of heredity through thousands
of years; automatic painters, whose storks are similar to those of M.
Sucre, with the inevitable little rocks, or little butterflies
eternally the same. The least of these illuminators, with his
insignificant eyeless face, possesses at his fingers' ends the maximum
of dexterity in this art of decoration, light and wittily incongruous,
which threatens to invade us in France, in this epoch of imitative
decadence, and which has become the great resource of our
manufacturers of cheap "_objects of art_."
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