Madame Chrysantheme by Pierre Loti

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"I beg you, mousme, 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 Chrysantheme 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. Chrysantheme, 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 Chrysantheme.

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 Chrysantheme 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 mousme, 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 Chrysantheme 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 Chrysantheme:

"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 Chrysantheme.

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
Chrysantheme.

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.

At eight o'clock, at nightfall, our maneuver being at an end, I
embarked with Yves on board a sampan; this time it is he who is
carrying me off and taking me back to my home.

On land, a delicious perfume of new-mown hay greets us, and the road
across the mountains lies bathed in glorious moonlight. We go straight
up to Diou-djen-dji to join Chrysantheme; I feel almost remorseful,
although I hardly show it, for my neglect of her.

Looking up, I recognize from afar my little house, perched on high. It
is wide open and lit up; I even hear the sound of guitar. Then I
perceive the gilt head of my Buddha between: the little bright flames
of its two hanging night lamps. Now Chrysantheme appears on the
verandah, looking out as if she expected us; and with her wonderful
bows of hair and long falling sleeves, her silhouette is thoroughly
Niponese.

As I enter, she comes forward to kiss me, in a graceful, though rather
hesitating manner, while Oyouki, more demonstrative, throws her arms
around me.

It is with a certain pleasure that I see once more this Japanese home,
which I wonder to find still mine when I had almost forgotten its
existence. Chrysantheme has put fresh flowers in our vases, spread out
her hair, donned her best clothes, and lighted our lamps to honor my
return. From the balcony she had watched the _Triomphante_ leave the
dock, and, in the expectation of our now prompt return, she had made
her preparations; then, to while away the time, she was studying a
duet on the guitar with Oyouki. Not a question or reproach did she
make. On the contrary:

"We quite understood," she said, "how impossible it was, in such
dreadful weather, to undertake so lengthy a crossing in a sampan."

She smiled like a pleased child, and I should be fastidious indeed if
I did not admit that to-night she is charming.

I announce my intention of starting off for a long stroll through
Nagasaki; we will take Oyouki-San and two little cousins who happen to
be there, as well as some other neighbors, if they wish to; we will
buy the funniest toys, eat all sorts of cakes, and amuse ourselves to
our hearts' content.

"How lucky we are to be here, just at the right moment," they exclaim,
jumping with joy. "How fortunate we are! This very evening there is to
be a pilgrimage to the great temple of the _Jumping Tortoise!_ The
whole town will be there; all our married friends have already
started, the whole set, X----, Y----, Z----, Touki-San, Campanule, and
Jonquille, with _the friend of amazing height_." And those two, poor
Chrysantheme and poor Oyouki, would have been obliged to stay at home
with heavy hearts, because we had not yet arrived, and because Madame
Prune had been seized with faintness and hysterics after her dinner.

Quickly the mousmes must deck themselves out. Chrysantheme is ready;
Oyouki hurries, changes her dress, and, putting on a mouse-colored
gray robe, begs me to arrange the bows of her fine sash--black satin
lined with yellow--sticking at the same time in her hair a silver
top-knot. We light our lanterns, swinging at the end of little sticks;
M. Sucre, overwhelming us with thanks for his daughter, accompanies us
on all fours to the door,--and we go off gayly through the clear and
balmy night.

Below, we find the town in all the animation of a great holiday. The
streets are thronged; the crowd passes by,--a laughing, capricious,
slow, unequal tide, flowing onwards, however, steadily in the same
direction, towards the same goal. There arises therefrom an immense
but light murmur in which dominate the sounds of laughter, and the
low-toned interchange of polite speeches. Then follow lanterns upon
lanterns. Never in my life have I seen so many, so variegated, so
complicated, and so extraordinary.

We follow, drifting with the surging crowd, borne along by it. There
are groups of women of every age, decked out in their smartest
clothes, crowds of mousmes with aigrettes of flowers in their hair, or
little silver top-knots like Oyouki,--pretty little physiognomies,
little narrow eyes peeping between slit lids like those of a new-born
kitten, fat pale little cheeks, round, puffed-out, half-opened lips.
They are pretty, nevertheless, these little Niponese, in their smiles
and childishness.

The men, on the other hand, wear many a pot hat, pompously added to
the long national robe, and giving thereby a finishing touch to their
cheerful ugliness, resembling nothing so much as dancing monkeys. They
carry boughs in their hands, whole shrubs, even, amidst the foliage of
which dangle all sorts of curious lanterns in the shape of imps and
birds.

As we advance in the direction of the temple, the streets become more
noisy and crowded. All along the houses are endless stalls raised on
trestles, displaying sweetmeats of every color, toys, branches of
flowers, nosegays, and masks. There are masks everywhere, boxes full
of them, carts full of them; the most popular being the one that
represents the livid and cunning muzzle, contracted as by a deathlike
grimace, the long straight ears, sharp-pointed teeth of the white fox,
sacred to the God of Rice. There are also others symbolic of gods or
monsters, livid, grimacing, convulsed, with wigs and beards of natural
hair. All manner of folk, even children, purchase these horrors, and
fasten them over their faces. Every sort of instrument is for sale,
amongst them many of those crystal trumpets which sound so
strangely,--this evening they are enormous, six feet long at
least,--and the noise they make is unlike anything ever heard before:
one would say gigantic turkeys gobbling amongst the crowd, and
striving to inspire fear.

In the religious amusements of this people it is not possible for us
to penetrate the mysteriously hidden meaning of things; we cannot
divine the boundary at which jesting stops and mystic fear steps in.
These customs, these symbols, these masks, all that tradition and
atavism have jumbled together in the Japanese brain, proceed from
sources utterly dark and unknown to us; even the oldest records fail
to explain them to us in anything but a superficial and cursory
manner, _simply because we have absolutely nothing in common with this
people_. We pass in the midst of their mirth and their laughter
without understanding the wherefore, so totally does it differ from
our own.

* * * * *

Chrysantheme with Yves, Oyouki with me, Fraise and Zinia, our cousins,
walking before us under our watchful eye, slowly move through the
crowd, holding each others' hands lest we should lose one another.

All along the streets leading to the temple, the wealthy inhabitants
have decorated the fronts of their houses with a quantity of vases and
nosegays. The peculiar shed-like buildings habitual in this country,
with their open platform frontage, are particularly well suited for
the display of choice objects; all the houses have been thrown open,
and the interiors are hung with draperies that hide the back of the
apartments. In front of these hangings and slightly standing back from
the movement of the passing crowd, the various exhibited articles are
methodically placed in a row, under the full glare of hanging lamps.
Hardly any flowers compose the nosegays, nothing but foliage,--some
rare and priceless, others chosen as if purposely from amongst the
commonest plants, arranged however with such taste as to make them
appear new and choice; ordinary lettuce leaves, tall cabbage stalks
are placed with exquisite artificial taste in vessels of marvelous
workmanship. All the vases are of bronze, but the designs are varied
according to each changing fancy: some complicated and twisted;
others, and by far the largest number, graceful and simple, but of a
simplicity so studied and exquisite that to our eyes they seem the
revelation of an unknown art, the subversion of all acquired notions
on form.

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