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[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]

MADAME CHRYSANTHEME

By PIERRE LOTI

With a Preface by ALBERT SOREL, of the French Academy

BOOK 1.

PIERRE LOTI

LOUIS-MARIE-JULIEN VIAUD, "Pierre Loti," was born in Rochefort, of an old
French-Protestant family, January 14, 1850. He was connected with the.
French Navy from 1867 to 1900, and is now a retired officer with full
captain's rank. Although of a most energetic character and a veteran of
various campaigns--Japan, Tonkin, Senegal, China (1900)--M. Viaud was so
timid as a young midshipman that his comrades named him "Loti," a small
Indian flower which seems ever discreetly to hide itself. This is,
perhaps, a pleasantry, as elsewhere there is a much more romantic
explanation of the word. Suffice it to say that Pierre Loti has been
always the nom de plume of M. Viaud.

Lod has no immediate literary ancestor and no pupil worthy of the name.
He indulges in a dainty pessimism and is most of all an impressionist,
not of the vogue of Zola--although he can be, on occasion, as brutally
plain as he--but more in the manner of Victor Hugo, his predecessor, or
Alphonse Daudet, his lifelong friend. In Loti's works, however,
pessimism is softened to a musical melancholy; the style is direct; the
vocabulary exquisite; the moral situations familiar; the characters not
complex. In short, his place is unique, apart from the normal lines of
novelistic development.

The vein of Loti is not absolutely new, but is certainly novel. In him
it first revealed itself in a receptive sympathy for the rare flood of
experiences that his naval life brought on him, experiences which had not
fallen to the lot of Bernardin de St. Pierre or Chateaubriand, both of
whom he resembles. But neither of those writers possessed Loti's
delicate sensitiveness to exotic nature as it is reflected in the foreign
mind and heart. Strange but real worlds he has conjured up for us in
most of his works and with means that are, as with all great artists,
extremely simple. He may be compared to Kipling and to Stevenson: to
Kipling, because he has done for the French seaman something that the
Englishman has done for "Tommy Atkins," although their methods are often
more opposed than similar; like Stevenson, he has gone searching for
romance in the ends of the earth; like Stevenson, too, he has put into
all of his works a style that is never less than dominant and often
irresistible. Charm, indeed, is the one fine quality that all his
critics, whether friendly or not, acknowledge, and it is one well able to
cover, if need be, a multitude of literary sins.

Pierre Loti was elected a member of the French Academy in 1891,
succeeding to the chair of Octave Feuillet. Some of his writings are:
'Aziyade,' written in 1879; the scene is laid in Constantinople. This
was followed by 'Rarahu,' a Polynesian idyl (1880; again published under
the title Le Mariage de Loti, 1882). 'Roman d'un Spahi (1881) deals with
Algiers. Taton-gaye is a true 'bete-humaine', sunk in moral slumber or
quivering with ferocious joys. It is in this book that Loti has eclipsed
Zola. One of his masterpieces is 'Mon Freye Yves' (ocean and Brittany),
together with 'Pecheur d'Islande' (1886); both translated into German by
Elizabeth, Queen of Roumania (Carmen Sylva). In 1884 was published 'Les
trois Dames de la Kasbah,' relating also to Algiers, and then came
'Madame Chrysantheme' (1887), crowned by the Academy. 'Japoneries
d'automne' (1889), Japanese scenes; then 'Au Maroc' (Morocco; 1890).
Partly autobiographical are 'Le Roman d'un Enfant' (1890) and 'Le Livre
de la Pitie et de la Mort' (1891). Then followed 'Fantomes d'Orient
(1892), L'Exilee (1893), Le Desert (Syria; 1895), Jerusalem, La Galilee
(Palestine; 1895), Pages choisies (1896), Ramuntcho (1897), Reflets sur
la Sombre Route' (1898), and finally 'Derniers Jours de Pekin' (1903).
Many exquisite pages are to be found in Loti's work. His composition is
now and then somewhat disconnected; the impressions are vague, almost
illusory, and the mirage is a little obscure, but the intense and abiding
charm of Nature remains. Loti has not again reached the level of Madame
Chrysantheme, and English critics at least will have to suspend their
judgment for a while. In any event, he has given to the world many great
books, and is shrined with the Forty "Immortals."

ALBERT SOREL
de l'Academie Francaise.

DEDICATION

To Madame la Duchesse de Richelieu

MADAME LA DUCHESSE,

Permit me to beg your acceptance of this work, as a respectful tribute of
my friendship.

I feel some hesitation in offering it, for its theme can not be deemed
altogether correct; but I have endeavored to make its expression, at
least, in harmony with good taste, and I trust that my endeavors have
been successful.

This record is the journal of a summer of my life, in which I have
changed nothing, not even the dates, thinking that in our efforts to
arrange matters we succeed often only in disarranging them. Although the
most important role may appear to devolve on Madame Chrysantheme, it is
very certain that the three principal points of interest are myself,
Japan, and the effect produced on me by that country.

Do you recollect a certain photograph--rather absurd, I must admit--
representing that great fellow Yves, a Japanese girl, and myself, grouped
as we were posed by a Nagasaki artist? You smiled when I assured you
that the carefully attired little damsel placed between us had been one
of our neighbors. Kindly receive my book with the same indulgent smile,
without seeking therein a meaning either good or bad, in the same spirit
in which you would receive some quaint bit of pottery, some grotesquely
carved ivory idol, or some fantastic trifle brought to you from this
singular fatherland of all fantasy.

Believe me, with the deepest respect,
Madame la Duchesse,
Your affectionate
PIERRE LOTI.

INTRODUCTION

We were at sea, about two o'clock in the morning, on a fine night, under
a starry sky.

Yves stood beside me on the bridge, and we talked of the country, unknown
to both, to which destiny was now carrying us. As we were to cast anchor
the next day, we enjoyed our anticipations, and made a thousand plans.

"For myself," I said, "I shall marry at once."

"Ah!" said Yves, with the indifferent air of one whom nothing can
surprise.

"Yes--I shall choose a little, creamy-skinned woman with black hair and
cat's eyes. She must be pretty and not much bigger than a doll. You
shall have a room in our house. It will be a little paper house, in a
green garden, deeply shaded. We shall live among flowers, everything
around us shall blossom, and each morning our dwelling shall be filled
with nosegays--nosegays such as you have never dreamed of."

Yves now began to take an interest in these plans for my future
household; indeed, he would have listened with as much confidence if I
had expressed the intention of taking temporary vows in some monastery of
this new country, or of marrying some island queen and shutting myself up
with her in a house built of jade, in the middle of an enchanted lake.

I had quite made up my mind to carry out the scheme I had unfolded to
him. Yes, led on by ennui and solitude, I had gradually arrived at
dreaming of and looking forward to such a marriage. And then, above all,
to live for awhile on land, in some shady nook, amid trees and flowers!
How tempting it sounded after the long months we had been wasting at the
Pescadores (hot and arid islands, devoid of freshness, woods, or
streamlets, full of faint odors of China and of death).

We had made great way in latitude since our vessel had quitted that
Chinese furnace, and the constellations in the sky had undergone a series
of rapid changes; the Southern Cross had disappeared at the same time as
the other austral stars; and the Great Bear, rising on the horizon, was
almost on as high a level as it is in the sky above France. The evening
breeze soothed and revived us, bringing back to us the memory of our
summer-night watches on the coast of Brittany.

What a distance we were, however, from those familiar coasts! What a
tremendous distance!

MME. CHRYSANTHEME

CHAPTER I

THE MYSTERIOUS LAND

At dawn we beheld Japan.

Precisely at the foretold moment the mysterious land arose before us,
afar off, like a black dot in the vast sea, which for so many days had
been but a blank space.

At first we saw nothing by the rays of the rising sun but a series of
tiny pink-tipped heights (the Fukai Islands). Soon, however, appeared
all along the horizon, like a misty veil over the waters, Japan itself;
and little by little, out of the dense shadow, arose the sharp, opaque
outlines of the Nagasaki mountains.

The wind was dead against us, and the strong breeze, which steadily
increased, seemed as if the country were blowing with all its might,
in a vain effort to drive us away from its shores. The sea, the rigging,
the vessel itself, all vibrated and quivered as if with emotion.

CHAPTER II

STRANGE SCENES

By three o'clock in the afternoon all these far-off objects were close to
us, so close that they overshadowed us with their rocky masses and deep
green thickets.

We entered a shady channel between two high ranges of mountains, oddly
symmetrical--like stage scenery, very pretty, though unlike nature. It
seemed as if Japan were opened to our view through an enchanted fissure,
allowing us to penetrate into her very heart.

Nagasaki, as yet unseen, must be at the extremity of this long and
peculiar bay. All around us was exquisitely green. The strong sea-
breeze had suddenly fallen, and was succeeded by a calm; the atmosphere,
now very warm, was laden with the perfume of flowers. In the valley
resounded the ceaseless whirr of the cicalas, answering one another from
shore to shore; the mountains reechoed with innumerable sounds; the whole
country seemed to vibrate like crystal. We passed among myriads of
Japanese junks, gliding softly, wafted by imperceptible breezes on the
smooth water; their motion could hardly be heard, and their white sails,
stretched out on yards, fell languidly in a thousand horizontal folds
like window-blinds, their strangely contorted poops, rising up castle-
like in the air, reminding one of the towering ships of the Middle Ages.
In the midst of the verdure of this wall of mountains, they stood out
with a snowy whiteness.

What a country of verdure and shade is Japan; what an unlooked-for Eden!

Beyond us, at sea, it must have been full daylight; but here, in the
depths of the valley, we already felt the impression of evening; beneath
the summits in full sunlight, the base of the mountains and all the
thickly wooded parts near the water's edge were steeped in twilight.

The passing junks, gleaming white against the background of dark foliage,
were silently and dexterously manoeuvred by small, yellow, naked men,
with long hair piled up on their heads in feminine fashion. Gradually,
as we advanced farther up the green channel, the perfumes became more
penetrating, and the monotonous chirp of the cicalas swelled out like an
orchestral crescendo. Above us, against the luminous sky, sharply
delineated between the mountains, a kind of hawk hovered, screaming out,
with a deep, human voice, "Ha! Ha! Ha!" its melancholy call prolonged
by the echoes.

All this fresh and luxuriant nature was of a peculiar Japanese type,
which seemed to impress itself even on the mountain-tops, and produced
the effect of a too artificial prettiness. The trees were grouped in
clusters, with the pretentious grace shown on lacquered trays. Large
rocks sprang up in exaggerated shapes, side by side with rounded, lawn-
like hillocks; all the incongruous elements of landscape were grouped
together as if artificially created.

When we looked intently, here and there we saw, often built in
counterscarp on the very brink of an abyss, some old, tiny, mysterious
pagoda, half hidden in the foliage of the overhanging trees, bringing to
the minds of new arrivals, like ourselves, a sense of unfamiliarity and
strangeness, and the feeling that in this country the spirits, the sylvan
gods, the antique symbols, faithful guardians of the woods and forests,
were unknown and incomprehensible.

When Nagasaki appeared, the view was rather disappointing. Situated at
the foot of green overhanging mountains, it looked like any other
ordinary town. In front of it lay a tangled mass of vessels, flying all
the flags of the world; steamboats, just as in any other port, with dark
funnels and black smoke, and behind them quays covered with warehouses
and factories; nothing was wanting in the way of ordinary, trivial,
every-day objects.

Some time, when man shall have made all things alike, the earth will be a
dull, tedious dwelling-place, and we shall have even to give up
travelling and seeking for a change which can no longer be found.

About six o'clock we dropped anchor noisily amid the mass of vessels
already in the harbor, and were immediately invaded.

We were visited by a mercantile, bustling, comical Japan, which rushed
upon us in full boat-loads, in waves, like a rising sea. Little men and
little women came in a continuous, uninterrupted stream, but without
cries, without squabbles, noiselessly, each one making so smiling a bow
that it was impossible to be angry with them, so that by reflex action we
smiled and bowed also. They carried on their backs little baskets, tiny
boxes, receptacles of every shape, fitting into one another in the most
ingenious manner, each containing several others, and multiplying till
they filled up everything, in endless number. From these they drew forth
all manner of curious and unexpected things: folding screens, slippers,
soap, lanterns, sleeve-links, live cicalas chirping in little cages,
jewelry, tame white mice turning little cardboard mills, quaint
photographs, hot soups and stews in bowls, ready to be served out in
rations to the crew;--china, a legion of vases, teapots, cups, little
pots and plates. In one moment, all this was unpacked, spread out with
astounding rapidity and a certain talent for arrangement; each seller
squatting monkey-like, hands touching feet, behind his fancy ware--always
smiling, bending low with the most engaging bows. Under the mass of
these many-colored things, the deck presented the appearance of an
immense bazaar; the sailors, very much amused and full of fun, walked
among the heaped-up piles, taking the little women by the chin, buying
anything and everything; throwing broadcast their white dollars. But how
ugly, mean, and grotesque all those folk were! I began to feel
singularly uneasy and disenchanted regarding my possible marriage.

Yves and I were on duty till the next morning, and after the first
bustle, which always takes place on board when settling down in harbor--
boats to lower, booms to swing out, running rigging to make taut--we had
nothing more to do but look on. We said to each other: "Where are we in
reality?--In the United States?--In some English colony in Australia, or
in New Zealand?"

Consular residences, custom-house offices, manufactories; a dry dock in
which a Russian frigate was lying; on the heights the large European
concession, sprinkled with villas, and on the quays, American bars for
the sailors. Farther off, it is true, far away behind these commonplace
objects, in the very depths of the vast green valley, peered thousands
upon thousands of tiny black houses, a tangled mass of curious
appearance, from which here and there emerged some higher, dark red,
painted roofs, probably the true old Japanese Nagasaki, which still
exists. And in those quarters--who knows?--there may be, lurking behind
a paper screen, some affected, cat's-eyed little woman, whom perhaps in
two or three days (having no time to lose) I shall marry! But no, the
picture painted by my fancy has faded. I can no longer see this little
creature in my mind's eye; the sellers of the white mice have blurred her
image; I fear now, lest she should be like them.

At nightfall the decks were suddenly cleared as by enchantment; in a
second they had shut up their boxes, folded their sliding screens and
their trick fans, and, humbly bowing to each of us, the little men and
little women disappeared.

Slowly, as the shades of night closed around us, mingling all things in
the bluish darkness, Japan became once more, little by little, a fairy-
like and enchanted country. The great mountains, now black, were
mirrored and doubled in the still water at their feet, reflecting therein
their sharply reversed outlines, and presenting the mirage of fearful
precipices, over which we seemed to hang. The stars also were reversed
in their order, making, in the depths of the imaginary abyss, a
sprinkling of tiny phosphorescent lights.

Then all Nagasaki became profusely illuminated, sparkling with multitudes
of lanterns: the smallest suburb, the smallest village was lighted up;
the tiniest but perched up among the trees, which in the daytime was
invisible, threw out its little glowworm glimmer. Soon there were
innumerable lights all over the country on all the shores of the bay,
from top to bottom of the mountains; myriads of glowing fires shone out
in the darkness, conveying the impression of a vast capital rising around
us in one bewildering amphitheatre. Beneath, in the silent waters,
another town, also illuminated, seemed to descend into the depths of the
abyss. The night was balmy, pure, delicious; the atmosphere laden with
the perfume of flowers came wafted to us from the mountains. From the
tea-houses and other nocturnal resorts, the sound of guitars reached our
ears, seeming in the distance the sweetest of music. And the whirr of
the cicalas--which, in Japan, is one of the continuous noises of life,
and which in a few days we shall no longer even be aware of, so
completely is it the background and foundation of all other terrestrial
sounds--was sonorous, incessant, softly monotonous, like the murmur of a
waterfall.

CHAPTER III

THE GARDEN OF FLOWERS

The next day the rain fell in torrents, merciless and unceasing, blinding
and drenching everything--a rain so dense that it was impossible to see
through it from one end of the vessel to the other. It seemed as if the
clouds of the whole world had amassed themselves in Nagasaki Bay, and
chosen this great green funnel to stream down. And so thickly did the
rain fall that it became almost as dark as night. Through a veil of
restless water, we still perceived the base of the mountains, but the
summits were lost to sight among the great dark masses overshadowing us.
Above us shreds of clouds, seemingly torn from the dark vault, draggled
across the trees, like gray rags-continually melting away in torrents of
water. The wind howled through the ravines with a deep tone. The whole
surface of the bay, bespattered by the rain, flogged by the gusts of wind
that blew from all quarters, splashed, moaned, and seethed in violent
agitation.

What depressing weather for a first landing, and how was I to find a wife
through such a deluge, in an unknown country?

No matter! I dressed myself and said to Yves, who smiled at my obstinate
determination in spite of unfavorable circumstances:

"Hail me a 'sampan,' brother, please."

Yves then, by a motion of his arm through the wind and rain, summoned a
kind of little, white, wooden sarcophagus which was skipping near us on
the waves, sculled by two yellow boys stark naked in the rain. The craft
approached us, I jumped into it, then through a little trap-door shaped
like a rat-trap that one of the scullers threw open for me, I slipped in
and stretched myself at full length on a mat in what is called the
"cabin" of a sampan.

There was just room enough for my body to lie in this floating coffin,
which was scrupulously clean, white with the whiteness of new deal
boards. I was well sheltered from the rain, that fell pattering on my
lid, and thus I started for the town, lying in this box, flat on my
stomach, rocked by one wave, roughly shaken by another, at moments almost
overturned; and through the half-opened door of my rattrap I saw, upside-
down, the two little creatures to whom I had entrusted my fate, children
of eight or ten years of age at the most, who, with little monkeyish
faces, had, however, fully developed muscles, like miniature men, and
were already as skilful as regular old salts.

Suddenly they began to shout; no doubt we were approaching the landing-
place. And indeed, through my trap-door, which I had now thrown wide
open, I saw quite near to me the gray flagstones on the quays. I got out
of my sarcophagus and prepared to set foot on Japanese soil for the first
time in my life.

All was streaming around us, and the tiresome rain dashed into my eyes.

Hardly had I landed, when there bounded toward me a dozen strange beings,
of what description it was almost impossible to distinguish through the
blinding rain--a species of human hedgehog, each dragging some large
black object; they came screaming around me and stopped my progress. One
of them opened and held over my head an enormous, closely-ribbed
umbrella, decorated on its transparent surface with paintings of storks;
and they all smiled at me in an engaging manner, with an air of
expectation.

I had been forewarned; these were only the djins who were touting for the
honor of my preference; nevertheless I was startled at this sudden
attack, this Japanese welcome on a first visit to land (the djins or
djin-richisans, are the runners who drag little carts, and are paid for
conveying people to and fro, being hired by the hour or the distance, as
cabs are hired in Europe).

Their legs were naked; to-day they were very wet, and their heads were
hidden under large, shady, conical hats. By way of waterproofs they wore
nothing less than mats of straw, with all the ends of the straws turned
outward, bristling like porcupines; they seemed clothed in a thatched
roof. They continued to smile, awaiting my choice.

Not having the honor of being acquainted with any of them in particular,
I chose at haphazard the djin with the umbrella and got into his little
cart, of which he carefully lowered the hood. He drew an oilcloth apron
over my knees, pulling it up to my face, and then advancing, asked me, in
Japanese, something which must have meant: "Where to, sir?" To which I
replied, in the same language, "To the Garden of Flowers, my friend."

I said this in the three words I had, parrot-like, learned by heart,
astonished that such sounds could mean anything, astonished, too, at
their being understood. We started, he running at full speed, I dragged
along and jerked about in his light chariot, wrapped in oilcloth, shut up
as if in a box--both of us unceasingly drenched all the while, and
dashing all around us the water and mud of the sodden ground.

"To the Garden of Flowers," I had said, like a habitual frequenter of the
place, and quite surprised at hearing myself speak. But I was less
ignorant about Japan than might have been supposed. Many of my friends,
on their return home from that country, had told me about it, and I knew
a great deal; the Garden of Flowers is a tea-house, an elegant
rendezvous. There I should inquire for a certain Kangourou-San, who is
at the same time interpreter, laundryman, and confidential agent for the
intercourse of races. Perhaps this very evening, if all went well, I
should be introduced to the bride destined for me by mysterious fate.
This thought kept my mind on the alert during the panting journey we
made, the djin and I, one dragging the other, under the merciless
downpour.

Oh, what a curious Japan I saw that day, through the gaping of my
oilcloth coverings, from under the dripping hood of my little cart! A
sullen, muddy, half-drowned Japan. All these houses, men, and beasts,
hitherto known to me only in drawings; all these, that I had beheld
painted on blue or pink backgrounds of fans or vases, now appeared to me
in their hard reality, under a dark sky, with umbrellas and wooden shoes,
with tucked-up skirts and pitiful aspect.

At times the rain fell so heavily that I closed up tightly every chink
and crevice, and the noise and shaking benumbed me, so that I completely
forgot in what country I was. In the hood of the cart were holes,
through which little streams ran down my back. Then, remembering that I
was going for the first time in my life through the very heart of
Nagasaki, I cast an inquiring look outside, at the risk of receiving a
drenching: we were trotting along through a mean, narrow, little back
street (there are thousands like it, a labyrinth of them), the rain
falling in cascades from the tops of the roofs on the gleaming flagstones
below, rendering everything indistinct and vague through the misty
atmosphere. At times we passed a woman struggling with her skirts,
unsteadily tripping along in her high wooden shoes, looking exactly like
the figures painted on screens, cowering under a gaudily daubed paper
umbrella. Again, we passed a pagoda, where an old granite monster,
squatting in the water, seemed to make a hideous, ferocious grimace at
me.

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