Madame Chrysantheme by Pierre Loti

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The road turned, steep banks hemming it in and darkening it. On one
side, it skirted the mountain all covered with a tangle of wet ferns;
on the other appeared a large wooden house almost devoid of apertures
and of evil aspect; it was there that my djin halted.

What, that sinister-looking house was the _Garden of Flowers_? He
assured me that it was, and seemed very sure of the fact. We knocked
at a big door which opened immediately, slipping back in its groove.
Then two funny little women appeared, oldish-looking, but with evident
pretensions to youth: exact types of the figures painted on vases,
with their baby hands and feet.

On catching sight of me, they threw themselves on all fours, their
faces touching the floor. Good gracious! what can be the matter?
Nothing at all, it is only the ceremonious salute to which I am as yet
unaccustomed. They rise, and proceed to take off my boots (one never
keeps on one's shoes in a Japanese house), wiping the bottom of my
trousers and feeling my shoulders to see if I am wet.

What always strikes one on first entering a Japanese dwelling is the
extreme cleanliness, and white and chilling bareness of the rooms.

Over the most irreproachable mattings, without a crease, a line, or a
stain, I am led upstairs to the first story and ushered into a big
empty room, absolutely empty! The paper walls are mounted on sliding
panels, which fitting into each other, can be made to disappear
entirely,--and all one side of the apartment opens like a verandah on
to the green country and the gray sky beyond. By way of a chair, I am
given a square piece of black velvet, and behold me seated low, in the
middle of this large empty room, which by its very vastness is almost
chilly. The two little women (who are the servants of the house and my
very humble servants too), await my orders, in attitudes expressive of
the profoundest humility.

* * * * *

It seemed extraordinary that the quaint words, the curious phrases I
had learnt during our exile at the Pescadores Islands--by sheer dint
of dictionary and grammar book, without attaching the least sense to
them--should mean anything. But so it seemed, however, for I was at
once understood.

* * * * *

I wish in the first place to speak to one M. Kangourou, who is
interpreter, washerman, and matrimonial agent. Nothing could be
better: they know him and will go at once in search of him; and the
elder of the waiting-maids gets ready for the purpose her wooden clogs
and her paper umbrella.

Next I demand a well-served repast, composed of the greatest
delicacies of Japan. Better and better, they rush to the kitchen to
order it.

Finally, I beg they will give tea and rice to my djin, who is waiting
for me below;--I wish, in short, I wish many things, my dear little
dollies, which I will mention by degrees and with due deliberation,
when I shall have had time to assemble the necessary words. But, the
more I look at you the more uneasy I feel as to what my _fiancee_ of
to-morrow may be like. Almost pretty, I grant you, you are,--in virtue
of quaintness, delicate hands, miniature feet, but ugly after all, and
absurdly small. You look like ouistitis, like little china ornaments,
like I don't know what. I begin to understand that I have arrived at
this house at an ill-chosen moment. Something is going on which does
not concern me, and I feel that I am in the way.

From the beginning I might have guessed as much, notwithstanding the
excessive politeness of my welcome; for I remember now, that while
they were taking off my boots downstairs, I heard a murmuring chatter
overhead, then a noise of panels moved quickly along their grooves,
evidently to hide from me something I was not intended to see; they
were improvising for me the apartment in which I now am--just as in
menageries they make a separate compartment for some beasts when the
public is admitted.

Now I am left alone while my orders are being executed, and I listen
attentively, squatted like a Buddha on my black velvet cushion, in the
midst of the whiteness of the walls and mats.

Behind the paper partitions, worn-out voices, seemingly numerous, are
talking in low tones. Then rises the sound of a guitar, and the song
of a woman, plaintive and gentle in the echoing sonority of the bare
house, in the melancholy of the rainy weather.

What one can see through the wide-open verandah is very pretty, I will
admit; it resembles the landscape of a fairy tale. There are admirably
wooded mountains, climbing high into the dark and gloomy sky, and
hiding in it the peaks of their summits, and, perched up among the
clouds--a temple. The atmosphere has that absolute transparency, the
distance that clearness which follows a great downpour of rain; but a
thick pall, still heavy with moisture, remains suspended over all, and
on the foliage of the hanging woods still float great flakes of gray
fluff, which remain there, motionless. In the foreground, in front of
and below all this almost fantastic landscape, is a miniature garden
where two beautiful white cats are taking the air, amusing themselves
by pursuing each other through the paths of a Lilliputian labyrinth,
shaking from their paws the sand, which is still wet. The garden is as
conventional as possible: not a flower, but little rocks, little
lakes, dwarf trees cut in a grotesque fashion; all this is not
natural, but it is most ingeniously arranged, so green, so full of
fresh mosses!

In the rain-soaked country below me, to the very furthest end of the
vast scene, reigns a great silence, an absolute calm. But the woman's
voice, behind the paper wall, continues to sing in a key of gentle
sadness, and the accompanying guitar has somber and even gloomy notes.

Stay though! Now the music is somewhat quicker--one might even suppose
they were dancing!

So much the worse! I shall try to look between the fragile divisions,
through a crack which has revealed itself to my notice.

What a singular spectacle it is; evidently the gilded youth of
Nagasaki holding a great clandestine orgy! In an apartment as bare as
my own, there are a dozen of them, seated in a circle on the ground,
attired in long blue cotton dresses with pagoda sleeves, long, sleek
and greasy hair surmounted by European pot hats; and beneath these,
yellow, worn out, bloodless, foolish faces. On the floor are a number
of little spirit-lamps, little pipes, little lacquer trays, little
tea-pots, little cups--all the accessories and all the remains of a
Japanese feast, resembling nothing so much as a doll's tea-party. In
the midst of this circle of dandies are three over-dressed women, one
might say three weird visions, robed in garments of pale and
undefinable colors, embroidered with golden monsters; and their great
chignons arranged with fantastic art, stuck full of pins and flowers.
Two are seated and turn their back to me: one is holding the guitar,
the other singing with that soft and pretty voice;--thus seen
furtively, from behind, their pose, their hair, the nape of the neck,
all is exquisite, and I tremble lest a movement should reveal to me
faces which might destroy the enchantment. The third one is on her
feet, dancing before this areopagus of idiots, with their lanky locks
and pot hats. What a shock when she turns round! She wears over her
face the horribly grinning, deathly mask of a specter or vampire. The
mask unfastened, falls. And behold! a darling little fairy of about
twelve or fifteen years of age, slim, and already a coquette, already
a woman,--dressed in a long robe of shaded dark blue china crape,
covered with embroidery representing bats--gray bats, black bats,
golden bats.

Suddenly there are steps on the stairs, the light footsteps of
barefooted women pattering over the white mats. No doubt the first
course of my lunch just about to be served. I quickly fall back, fixed
and motionless, upon my black velvet cushion. There are three of them
now, three waiting-maids who arrive in single file, with smiles and
curtsies. One offers me the spirit-lamp and the tea-pot, another
preserved fruits in delightful little plates, the third, absolutely
indefinable objects upon gems of little trays. And they grovel before
me on the floor, placing all this plaything of a meal at my feet.

At this moment, my impressions of Japan are charming enough; I feel
myself fairly launched upon this tiny, artificial, fictitious world,
which I felt I knew already from the paintings of lacquer and
porcelains. It is so exact a representation! The three little
squatting women, graceful and dainty, with their narrow slits of eyes,
their magnificent chignons in huge bows, smooth and shining as
boot-polish, and the little tea-service on the floor, the landscape
seen through the verandah, the pagoda perched among the clouds; and
over all the same affectation everywhere, in every detail. Even the
woman's melancholy voice, still to be heard behind the paper
partition, was so evidently the way they should sing, these musicians
I had so often seen painted in amazing colors on rice-paper, half
closing their dreamy eyes in the midst of impossibly large flowers.
Long before I came to it, I had perfectly pictured this Japan to
myself. Nevertheless in the reality it almost seems to be smaller,
more finicking than I had imagined it, and also much more mournful, no
doubt by reason of that great pall of black clouds hanging over us and
this incessant rain.

* * * * *

While awaiting M. Kangourou (who is dressing himself it appears, and
will be here shortly), it may be as well to begin lunch.

In the daintiest bowl imaginable, adorned with flights of storks, is
the most wildly impossible soup made of sea-weed. After which there
are little fish dried in sugar, crabs in sugar, beans in sugar, and
fruits in vinegar and pepper. All this is atrocious, but above all
unexpected and unimaginable. The little women make me eat, laughing
much, with that perpetual irritating laugh, which is the laugh
peculiar to Japan,--they make me eat, according to their fashion, with
dainty chop-sticks, fingered with mannered grace. I am becoming
accustomed to their faces. The whole effect is refined,--a refinement
so utterly different from our own, that at first sight I understand
nothing of it, although in the long run it may end by pleasing me.

Suddenly there enters, like a night butterfly awakened in broad
daylight, like a rare and surprising moth, the dancing-girl from the
other compartment, the child who wore the horrible mask. No doubt she
wishes to have a look at me. She rolls her eyes like a timid kitten,
and then all at once tamed, nestles against me, with a coaxing air of
childishness, which is a delightfully transparent assumption. She is
slim, elegant, delicate, and smells sweet; drolly painted, white as
plaster, with a little circle of rouge marked very precisely in the
middle of each cheek, the mouth reddened, and a touch of gilding
outlining the under lip. As they could not whiten the back of the neck
on account of all the delicate little curls of hair growing there,
they had, in their love of exactitude, stopped the white plaster in a
straight line, which might have been cut with a knife, and in
consequence at the nape appears a square of natural skin of a deep
yellow.

An imperious note sounds on the guitar, evidently a summons! Crac!
Away she goes, the little fairy, to rejoice the drivelling fools on
the other side of the screens.

Supposing I marry this one, without seeking any further. I should
respect her as a child committed to my care; I should take her for
what she is: a fantastic and charming plaything. What an amusing
little household I should set up! Really short of marrying a china
ornament, I should find it difficult to choose better.

At this moment enters M. Kangourou, clad in a suit of gray tweed,
which might have come from _La Belle Jardiniere_ or the _Pont Neuf_,
with a pot hat and white thread gloves. His countenance is at once
foolish and cunning; he has hardly a nose, hardly any eyes. He makes a
real Japanese salutation: an abrupt dip, the hands placed flat on the
knees, the body making a right angle to the legs, as if the fellow
were breaking in two; a little snake-like hissing (produced by sucking
the saliva between the teeth, and which is the expression _nec plus
ultra_ of obsequious politeness in this country). "You speak French,
M. Kangourou?"

"_ sir" (renewed bows).

He makes one for each word I utter, as if he were a mechanical toy
pulled by a string; when he is seated before me on the ground, he
limits himself to a duck of the head--always accompanied by the same
hissing noise of the saliva.

"A cup of tea, M. Kangourou?"

Fresh salute and an extra affected gesticulation with the hands, as if
to say, "I should hardly dare. It is too great a condescension on your
part. However, anything to oblige you."

* * * * *

He guesses at the first words what I require from him.

"Of course," he replies, "we will see about it at once; in a week's
time, as it happens, a family from Simonosaki, in which there are two
charming daughters, will be here."

"What! in a week! You don't know me, M. Kangourou! No, no, either now,
to-morrow, or not at all."

Again a hissing bow, and Kangourou-San catching my agitation, begins
to pass in feverish review, all the young persons at his disposal in
Nagasaki.

"Let us see--there was Mdlle. OEillet. What a pity that I had not
spoken a few days sooner! So pretty! So clever at playing the guitar.
It is an irreparable misfortune; she was engaged only yesterday by a
Russian officer."

"Ah! Mdlle. Abricot!--Would she suit me, Mdlle. Abricot? She is the
daughter of a wealthy China merchant in the Decima Bazaar, a person of
the highest merit; but she would be very dear: her parents, who think
a great deal of her, will not let her go under a hundred yen[A] a
month. She is very accomplished, thoroughly understands commercial
writings, and has at her finger ends more than two thousand characters
of learned writing. In a poetical competition she gained the first
prize with a sonnet composed in praise of _'the blossoms of the
black-thorn hedges seen in the dew of early morning.'_ Only, she is
not very pretty: one of her eyes is smaller than the other, and she
has a hole in her cheek, resulting from an illness of her childhood."

[Footnote A: A yen is equal to four shillings.]

"Oh no! on no account that one! Let us seek amongst a less
distinguished class of young persons, but without scars. And how about
those on the other side of the screen, in those fine gold-embroidered
dresses? For instance, the dancer with the specter mask, M. Kangourou?
or again she who sings in so dulcet a strain and has such a charming
nape to her neck?"

He does not, at first, understand my drift; then when he gathers my
meaning, he shakes his head almost in a joking way, and says:

"No, sir, no! Those are only _Guechas_,[B] sir--_Guechas!_"

[Footnote B: _Guechas_ are professional dancers and singers trained at
the Yeddo Conservatory.]

"Well, but why not a _Guecha_? What odds can it be to me, whether they
are _Guechas_ or not?" Later on, no doubt, when I understand Japanese
affairs better, I shall appreciate myself the enormity of my proposal:
one would really suppose I had talked of marrying the devil.

At this point M. Kangourou suddenly calls to mind one Mdlle. Jasmin.
Heavens! how was it he did not think of her at once; she is absolutely
and exactly what I want; he will go to-morrow or this very evening, to
make the necessary overtures to the parents of this young person who
live a long way off, on the opposite hill, in the suburb of
Diou-djen-dji. She is a very pretty girl of about fifteen. She can
probably be engaged for about eighteen or twenty dollars a month, on
condition of presenting her with a few dresses of the best fashion,
and of lodging her in a pleasant and well-situated house,--all of
which a man of gallantry like myself could not fail to do.

Well, let us fix upon Mdlle. Jasmin then,--and now we must part; time
presses. M. Kangourou will come on board to-morrow to communicate to
me the result of his first proceedings and to arrange with me for the
interview. For the present he refuses to accept any remuneration; but
I am to give him my washing, and to procure him the custom of my
brother officers of the _Triomphante_. It is all settled. Profound
bows,--they put on my boots again at the door. My djin, profiting by
the interpreter kind fortune has placed in his way, begs to be
recommended to me for future custom; his stand is on the quay; his
number is 415, inscribed in French characters on the lantern of his
vehicle (we have a number 415 on board, one Le Goelec, gunner, who
serves the left of one of my guns; happy thought, I shall remember
this); his price is sixpence the journey, or five pence an hour, for
his customers. Capital; he shall have my custom, that is promised. And
now, let us be off. The waiting-maids, who have escorted me to the
door, fall on all fours as a final salute, and remain prostrate on the
threshold--as long as I am still in sight down the dark pathway, where
the rain trickles off the great over-arching bracken upon my head.

IV.

Three days have passed. Night is closing, in an apartment which has
been mine since yesterday. Yves and I, on the first floor, move
restlessly over the white mats, striding up and down the great bare
room, of which the thin, dry flooring cracks beneath our footsteps; we
are both of us rather irritated by prolonged expectation. Yves, whose
impatience shows itself the most freely, from time to time takes a
look out of the window. As for myself, a chill suddenly seizes me, at
the idea that I have chosen, and purpose to inhabit this lonely house,
lost in the midst of the suburb of a totally strange town, perched
high on the mountain and almost opening upon the woods.

What wild notion can have taken possession of me, to settle myself in
surroundings so utterly foreign and unknown, breathing of isolation
and sadness? The waiting unnerves me, and I beguile the time by
examining all the little details of the building. The woodwork of the
ceiling is complicated and ingenious. On the partitions of white paper
which form the walls, are scattered tiny, microscopic, blue-feathered
tortoises.

"They are late," said Yves, who is still looking out into the street.

As to being late, that they certainly are, by a good hour already, and
night is falling, and the boat which should take us back to dine on
board will be gone. Probably we shall have to sup, Japanese fashion
to-night, heaven only knows where. The people of this country have no
sense of punctuality, or of the value of time.

Therefore I continue to inspect the minute and comical details of my
dwelling. Here, instead of handles such as we should have put to pull
these movable partitions, they have made little oval holes, just the
shape of a finger-end, and into which one is evidently to put one's
thumb. These little holes have a bronze ornamentation, and on looking
closely, one sees that the bronze is curiously chased: here is a lady
fanning herself; there, in the next hole, is represented a branch of
cherry in full blossom. What eccentricity there is in the taste of
this people! To bestow assiduous labor on such miniature work, and
then to hide it at the bottom of a hole to put one's finger in,
looking like a mere spot in the middle of a great white panel; to
accumulate so much patient and delicate workmanship on almost
imperceptible accessories, and all to produce an effect which is
absolutely _nil_, an effect of the most utter bareness and nudity.

Yves still continues to gaze forth, like Sister Anne. From the side on
which he leans, my verandah overlooks a street, or rather a road
bordered with houses, which climbs higher and higher, and loses itself
almost immediately in the verdure of the mountain, in the fields of
tea, the underwood and the cemeteries. As for myself, this delay
finishes by irritating me for good and all, and I turn my glances to
the opposite side: the other front of my house, also a verandah, opens
first of all upon a garden; then upon a marvelous panorama of woods
and mountains, with all the venerable Japanese quarters of Nagasaki
lying confusedly like a black ant-heap, six hundred feet below us.
This evening, in a dull twilight, notwithstanding that it is a
twilight of July, these things are melancholy. There are great clouds
heavy with rain and showers, ready to fall, traveling across the sky.
No, I cannot feel at home, in this strange dwelling I have chosen; I
feel sensations of extreme solitude and strangeness; the mere prospect
of passing the night in it gives me a shudder of horror.

"Ah! at last, brother," said Yves, "I believe,--yes, I really believe
she is coming at last."

I look over his shoulder, and I see--a back view of a little doll the
finishing touches to whose toilette are being put in the solitary
street; a last maternal glance given to the enormous bows of the sash,
the folds at the waist. Her dress is of pearl-gray silk, her _obi_
(sash) of mauve satin; a sprig of silver flowers trembles in her black
hair; a parting ray of sunlight touches the little figure; five or six
persons accompany her. Yes! it is undoubtedly Mdlle. Jasmin; they are
bringing me my _fiancee_!

I rush to the ground floor inhabited by old Madame Prune my landlady,
and her aged husband; they are absorbed in prayer before the altar of
their ancestors.

"Here they are, Madame Prune," I cry in Japanese; "here they are!
Bring at once the tea, the lamp, the embers, the little pipes for the
ladies, the little bamboo pots for spittoons! Bring us as quickly as
possible all the accessories for my reception!"

I hear the front door open, and hasten upstairs again. Wooden clogs
are deposited on the floor, the staircase creaks gently under the
little bare feet. Yves and I look at each other, with a longing to
laugh.

An old lady enters,--two old ladies,--three old ladies, emerging from
the doorway one after another with jerking and mechanical
salutations, which we return as best we can, fully conscious of our
inferiority in this particular style. Then come persons of
intermediate age,--then quite young ones, a dozen at least, friends,
neighbors, the whole quarter in fact. And the whole company, on
arriving, becomes confusedly engaged in reciprocal salutations: I
salute you,--- you salute me,--I salute you again, and you return
it,--and I re-salute you again, and I express that I shall never,
never be able to return it according to your high merit,--and I bang
my forehead against the ground, and you stick your nose between the
planks of the flooring, and there they are, on all fours one before
the other; it is a polite dispute, all anxious to yield precedence as
to sitting down, or passing first, and compliments without end are
murmured in low tones, with faces against the floor.

They seat themselves at last, smiling, in a ceremonious circle; we two
remaining standing, our eyes fixed on the staircase. And at length
emerges, in due turn, the little aigrette of silver flowers, the ebony
chignon, the gray silk robe and mauve sash of Mdlle. Jasmin, my
fiancee!

Heavens! why, I know her already! Long before setting foot in Japan, I
had met with her, on every fan, on every tea-cup--with her silly air,
her puffy little visage, her tiny eyes, mere gimlet-holes above those
expanses of impossible pink and white which are her cheeks.

She is young, that is all I can say in her favor; she is even so young
that I should almost scruple to accept her. The wish to laugh quits me
suddenly, and instead, a profound chill fastens on my heart. What!
share even an hour of my life with that little doll? Never!

The next question is, how to get out of it?

She advances smiling, with an air of repressed triumph, and behind her
looms M. Kangourou, in his suit of gray tweed. Fresh salutes, and
behold her on all fours, she too, before my landlady and before my
neighbors. Yves, the big Yves, who is not going to be married, stands
behind me, with a comical grimace, hardly repressing his
laughter,--while to give myself time to collect my ideas, I offer tea
in little cups, little spittoons and embers to the company.

Nevertheless, my discomfited air does not escape my visitors. M.
Kangourou anxiously inquires:

"How do I like her?" And I reply in a low voice, but with great
resolution:

"Not at all! I won't have that one. Never!"

I believe that this remark was almost understood in the circle around
me. Consternation was depicted on every face, the jaws dropped, the
pipes went out. And now I address my reproaches to Kangourou: "Why had
he brought her to me in such pomp, before friends and neighbors of
both sexes, instead of showing her to me discreetly as if by chance,
as I had wished? What an affront he will compel me now to put upon all
these polite persons!"

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