Books: Madame Chrysantheme, v2

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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

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER XII

HAPPY FAMILIES!

July 18th.

By this time, four officers of my ship are married like myself, and
inhabiting the slopes of the same suburb. This arrangement is quite an
ordinary occurrence, and is brought about without difficulties, mystery,
or danger, through the offices of the same M. Kangourou.

As a matter of course, we are on visiting terms with all these ladies.

First, there is our very merry neighbor Madame Campanule, who is little
Charles N-----'s wife; then Madame Jonquille, who is even merrier than
Campanule, like a young bird, and the daintiest fairy of them all; she
has married X-----, a fair northerner who adores her; they are a lover-
like and inseparable pair, the only one that will probably weep when the
hour of parting comes. Then Sikou-San with Doctor Y-----; and lastly the
midshipman Z------ with the tiny Madame Touki-San, no taller than a boot:
thirteen years old at the outside, and already a regular woman, full of
her own importance, a petulant little gossip. In my childhood I was
sometimes taken to the Learned Animals Theatre, and I remember a certain
Madame de Pompadour, a principal role, filled by a gayly dressed old
monkey; Touki-San reminds me of her.

In the evening, all these folk usually come and fetch us for a long
processional walk with lighted lanterns. My wife, more serious, more
melancholy, perhaps even more refined, and belonging, I fancy, to a
higher class, tries when these friends come to us to play the part of the
lady of the house. It is comical to see the entry of these ill-matched
pairs, partners for a day, the ladies, with their disjointed bows,
falling on all fours before Chrysantheme, the queen of the establishment.
When we are all assembled, we set out, arm in arm, one behind another,
and always carrying at the end of our short sticks little white or red
paper lanterns; it is a pretty custom.

We are obliged to scramble down the kind of street, or rather goat's-
path, which leads to the Japanese Nagasaki--with the prospect, alas!
of having to climb up again at night; clamber up all the steps, all the
slippery slopes, stumble over all the stones, before we shall be able to
get home, go to bed, and sleep. We make our descent in the darkness,
under the branches, under the foliage, among dark gardens and venerable
little houses that throw but a faint glimmer on the road; and when the
moon is absent or clouded over, our lanterns are by no means unnecessary.

When at last we reach the bottom, suddenly, without transition, we find
ourselves in the very heart of Nagasaki and its busy throng in a long
illuminated street, where vociferating djins hurry along and thousands of
paper lanterns swing and gleam in the wind. It is life and animation,
after the peace of our silent suburb.

Here, decorum requires that we should separate from our wives. All five
take hold of each others' hands, like a batch of little girls out
walking. We follow them with an air of indifference. Seen from behind,
our dolls are really very dainty, with their back hair so tidily
arranged, their tortoiseshell pins so coquettishly placed. They shuffle
along, their high wooden clogs making an ugly sound, striving to walk
with their toes turned in, according to the height of fashion and
elegance. At every minute they burst out laughing.

Yes, seen from behind, they are very pretty; they have, like all Japanese
women, the most lovely turn of the head. Moreover, they are very funny,
thus drawn up in line. In speaking of them, we say: "Our little trained
dogs," and in truth they are singularly like them.

This great Nagasaki is the same from one end to another, with its
numberless petroleum lamps burning, its many-colored lanterns flickering,
and innumerable panting djins. Always the same narrow streets, lined on
each side with the same low houses, built of paper and wood. Always the
same shops, without glass windows, open to all the winds, equally
rudimentary, whatever may be sold or made in them; whether they display
the finest gold lacquer ware, the most marvellous china jars, or old
worn-out pots and pans, dried fish, and ragged frippery. All the
salesmen are seated on the ground in the midst of their valuable or
trumpery merchandise, their legs bared nearly to the waist.

And all kinds of queer little trades are carried on under the public
gaze, by strangely primitive means, by workmen of the most ingenious
type.

Oh, what wonderful goods are exposed for sale in those streets! What
whimsical extravagance in those bazaars!

No horses, no carriages are ever seen in the town; nothing but people on
foot, or the comical little carts dragged along by the runners. Some few
Europeans straggling hither and thither, wanderers from the ships in
harbor; some Japanese (fortunately as yet but few) dressed up in coats;
other natives who content themselves with adding to their national
costume the pot-hat, from which their long, sleek locks hang down; and
all around, eager haggling, bargaining, and laughter.

In the bazaars every evening our mousmes make endless purchases; like
spoiled children they buy everything they fancy: toys, pins, ribbons,
flowers. And then they prettily offer one another presents, with
childish little smiles. For instance, Campanule buys for Chrysantheme an
ingeniously contrived lantern on which, set in motion by some invisible
machinery, Chinese shadows dance in a ring round the flame. In return,
Chrysantheme gives Campanule a magic fan, with paintings that change at
will from butterflies fluttering around cherry-blossoms to outlandish
monsters pursuing each other across black clouds. Touki offers Sikou a
cardboard mask representing the bloated countenance of Dai-Cok, god of
wealth; and Sikou replies with a present of a long crystal trumpet, by
means of which are produced the most extraordinary sounds, like a turkey
gobbling. Everything is uncouth, fantastical to excess, grotesquely
lugubrious; everywhere we are surprised by incomprehensible conceptions,
which seem the work of distorted imaginations.

In the fashionable tea-houses, where we finish our evenings, the little
serving-maids now bow to us, on our arrival, with an air of respectful
recognition, as belonging to the fast set of Nagasaki. There we carry on
desultory conversations, full of misunderstandings and endless 'quid pro
quo' of uncouth words, in little gardens lighted up with lanterns, near
ponds full of goldfish, with little bridges, little islets, and little
ruined towers. They hand us tea and white and pink-colored sweetmeats
flavored with pepper that taste strange and unfamiliar, and beverages
mixed with snow tasting of flowers or perfumes.

To give a faithful account of those evenings would require a more
affected style than our own; and some kind of graphic sign would have
also to be expressly invented and scattered at haphazard among the words,
indicating the moment when the reader should laugh--rather a forced
laugh, perhaps, but amiable and gracious. The evening at an end, it is
time to return up there.

Oh! that street, that road, that we must clamber up every evening, under
the starlit sky or the heavy thunder-clouds, dragging by the hands our
drowsy mousmes in order to regain our homes perched on high halfway up
the hill, where our bed of matting awaits us.

CHAPTER XIII

OUR "VERY TALL FRIEND"

The cleverest among us has been Louis de S-------. Having formerly
inhabited Japan, and made a marriage Japanese fashion there, he is now
satisfied to remain the friend of our wives, of whom he has become the
'Komodachi taksan takai' ("the very tall friend," as they say, on account
of his excessive height and slenderness). Speaking Japanese more readily
than we, he is their confidential adviser, disturbs or reconciles our
households at will, and has infinite amusement at our expense.

This "very tall friend" of our wives enjoys all the fun that these little
creatures can give him, without any of the worries of domestic life.
With brother Yves, and little Oyouki (the daughter of Madame Prune, my
landlady), he makes up our incongruous party.

CHAPTER XIV

OUR PIOUS HOSTS

M. Sucre and Madame Prune, my landlord and his wife, two perfectly
unique personages recently escaped from the panel of some screen, live
below us on the ground floor; and very old they seem to have this
daughter of fifteen, Oyouki, who is Chrysantheme's inseparable friend.

Both of them are entirely absorbed in the practices of Shinto religion:
perpetually on their knees before their family altar, perpetually
occupied in murmuring their lengthy orisons to the spirits, and clapping
their hands from time to time to recall around them the inattentive
essences floating in the atmosphere. In their spare moments they
cultivate, in little pots of gayly painted earthenware, dwarf shrubs and
unheard-of flowers which are delightfully fragrant in the evening.

M. Sucre is taciturn, dislikes society, and looks like a mummy in his
blue cotton dress. He writes a great deal (his memoirs, I fancy), with a
paint-brush held in his fingertips, on long strips of rice-paper of a
faint gray tint.

Madame Prune is eagerly attentive, obsequious, and rapacious; her
eyebrows are closely shaven, her teeth carefully lacquered with black,
as befits a lady of gentility, and at all and no matter what hours, she
appears on all fours at the entrance of our apartment, to offer us her
services.

As to Oyouki, she rushes upon us ten times a day--whether we are sleeping
or dressing--like a whirlwind on a visit, flashing upon us, a very gust
of dainty youthfulness and droll gayety--a living peal of laughter. She
is round of figure, round of face; half baby, half girl; and so
affectionate that she bestows kisses on the slightest occasion with her
great puffy lips--a little moist, it is true, like a child's, but
nevertheless very fresh and very red.

CHAPTER XV

Our dwelling is open all the night through, and the lamps burning before
the gilded Buddha bring us the company of the insect inhabitants of every
garden in the neighborhood. Moths, mosquitoes, cicalas, and other
extraordinary insects of which I don't even know the names--all this
company assembles around us.

It is extremely funny, when some unexpected grasshopper, some free-and-
easy beetle presents itself without invitation or excuse, scampering over
our white mats, to see the manner in which Chrysantheme indicates it to
my righteous vengeance--merely pointing her finger at it, without another
word than "Hou!" said with bent head, a particular pout, and a
scandalised air.

There is a fan kept expressly for the purpose of blowing them out of
doors again.

CHAPTER XVI

SLEEPING JAPAN

Here I must own that my story must appear to the reader to drag a little.

Lacking exciting intrigues and tragic adventures, I wish I knew how to
infuse into it a little of the sweet perfumes of the gardens which
surround me, something of the gentle warmth of the sunshine, of the shade
of these graceful trees. Love being wanting, I should like it to breathe
of the restful tranquillity of this faraway spot. Then, too, I should
like it to reecho the sound of Chrysantheme's guitar, in which I begin to
find a certain charm, for want of something better, in the silence of the
lovely summer evenings.

All through these moonlit nights of July, the weather has been calm,
luminous, and magnificent. Ah, what glorious clear nights! What
exquisite roseate tints beneath that wonderful moon, what mystery of blue
shadows in the thick tangle of trees! And, from the heights where stood
our veranda, how prettily the town lay sleeping at our feet!

After all, I do not positively detest this little Chrysantheme, and when
there is no repugnance on either side, habit turns into a makeshift of
attachment.

CHAPTER XVII

THE SONG OF THE CICALA

Forever, throughout everything, rises day and night from the whole
country the song of the cicalas, ceaseless, strident, and insistent.
It is everywhere, and never-ending, at no matter what hour of the burning
day, or what hour of the refreshing night. From the harbor, as we
approached our anchorage, we had heard it at the same time from both
shores, from both walls of green mountains. It is wearisome and
haunting; it seems to be the manifestation, the noise expressive of the
kind of life peculiar to this region of the world. It is the voice of
summer in these islands; it is the song of unconscious rejoicing, always
content with itself and always appearing to inflate, to rise, in a
greater and greater exultation at the sheer happiness of living.

It is to me the noise characteristic of this country--this, and the cry
of the falcon, which had in like manner greeted our entry into Japan.
Over the valleys and the deep bay sail these birds, uttering, from time
to time, their three cries, "Ha! ha! ha!" in a key of sadness that seems
the extreme of painful astonishment. And the mountains around reecho
their cry.

CHAPTER XVIII

MY FRIEND AND MY DOLL

Chrysantheme, Yves, and little Oyouki have struck up a friendship so
intimate that it amuses me. I even think that in my home life this
intimacy is what affords me the greatest entertainment. They form a
contrast which gives rise to the most absurd jokes, and unexpected
situations. He brings into this fragile little paper house his nautical
freedom and ease of manner, and his Breton accent; and these tiny
mousmes, with affected manners and bird-like voices, small as they are,
rule the big fellow as they please; make him eat with chop-sticks; teach
him Japanese pigeon-vole, cheat him, and quarrel, and almost die of
laughter over it all.

Certainly he and Chrysantheme take a pleasure in each other's society.
But I remain serenely undisturbed, and can not imagine that this little
doll, with whom I play at married life, could possibly occasion any
serious trouble between this "brother" and me.

CHAPTER XIX

MY JAPANESE RELATIVES

Japanese relatives, very numerous and conspicuous, are a great source of
amusement to those of my brother officers who visit me in my villa on the
hill--most especially to 'komodachi taksan takai' ("the tall friend").

I have a charming mother-in-law--quite a woman of the world--tiny sisters
-in-law, little cousins, and aunts who are still quite young.

I have even a poor second cousin, who is a djin. There was some
hesitation in owning this latter to me; but, behold! during the ceremony
of introduction, we exchanged a smile of recognition. It was Number 415!

Over this poor Number 415 my friends on board crack no end of jokes--one
in particular, who, less than any one has the right to make them, little
Charles N-----, for his mother-in-law was once a concierge, or something
of the kind, at the gateway of a pagoda.

I, however, who have a great respect for strength and agility, much
appreciate this new relative of mine. His legs are undoubtedly the best
in all Nagasaki, and whenever I am in haste, I always beg Madame Prune to
send down to the djin-stand and engage my cousin.

CHAPTER XX

A DEAD FAIRY

Today I arrived unexpectedly at Diou-djen-dji, in the midst of burning
noonday heat. At the foot of the stairs lay Chrysantheme's wooden shoes
and her sandals of varnished leather.

In our rooms, upstairs, all was open to the air; bamboo blinds hung on
the sunny side, and through their transparency came warm air and golden
threads of light. Today the flowers Chrysantheme had placed in the
bronze vases were lotus, and as I entered, my eyes fell upon their wide
rosy cups.

According to her usual custom, Chrysantheme was lying flat on the floor
enjoying her daily siesta.

What a singular originality these bouquets of Chrysantheme always have:
a something, difficult to define, a Japanese slightness, an artificial
grace which we never should succeed in imparting to them.

She was sleeping, face down, upon the mats, her high headdress and
tortoise-shell pins standing out boldly from the rest of the horizontal
figure. The train of her tunic appeared to prolong her delicate little
body, like the tail of a bird; her arms were stretched crosswise, the
sleeves spread out like wings, and her long guitar lay beside her.

She looked like a dead fairy; still more did she resemble some great blue
dragon-fly, which, having alighted on that spot, some unkind hand had
pinned to the floor.

Madame Prune, who had come upstairs after me, always officious and eager,
manifested by her gestures her sentiments of indignation on beholding the
careless reception accorded by Chrysantheme to her lord and master, and
advanced to wake her.

"Pray do nothing of the kind, my good Madame Prune; you don't know how
much I prefer her like that!" I had left my shoes below, according to
custom, beside the little shoes and sandals; and I entered on the tips of
my toes, very, very, softly to sit awhile on the veranda.

What a pity this little Chrysantheme can not always be asleep; she is
really extremely decorative seen in this manner--and like this, at least,
she does not bore me. Who knows what may be passing in that little head
and heart! If I only had the means of finding out! But strange to say,
since we have kept house together, instead of advancing in my study of
the Japanese language, I have neglected it, so much have I felt the
impossibility of ever interesting myself in the subject.

Seated upon my veranda, my eyes wandered over the temples and cemeteries
spread at my feet, over the woods and the green mountains, over Nagasaki
lying bathed in the sunlight. The cicalas were chirping their loudest,
the strident noise trembling feverishly in the hot air. All was calm,
full of light and full of heat.

Nevertheless, to my taste, it is not yet enough so! What, then, can have
changed upon the earth? The burning noondays of summer, such as I can
recall in days gone by, were more brilliant, more full of sunshine;
Nature seemed to me in those days more powerful, more terrible. One
would say this was only a pale copy of all that I knew in early years--
a copy in which something is wanting. Sadly do I ask myself--Is the
splendor of the summer only this? Was it only this? or is it the fault
of my eyes, and as time goes on shall I behold everything around me
fading still more?

Behind me comes a faint and melancholy strain of music--melancholy enough
to make one shiver--and shrill, shrill as the song of the grasshoppers,
it began to make itself heard, very softly at first, then growing louder
and rising in the silence of the noonday like the diminutive wail of some
poor Japanese soul in pain and anguish; it was Chrysantheme and her
guitar awaking together.

It pleased me that the idea should have occurred to her to greet me with
music, instead of eagerly hastening to wish me good-morning. At no time
have I ever given myself the trouble to pretend the slightest affection
for her, and a certain coldness even has grown up between us, especially
when we are alone. But to-day I turn to her with a smile, and wave my
hand for her to continue. "Go on, it amuses me to listen to your quaint
little impromptu." It is singular that the music of this essentially
merry people should be so plaintive. But undoubtedly that which
Chrysantheme is playing at this moment is worth listening to. Whence can
it have come to her? What unutterable dreams, forever hidden from me,
surge beneath her ivory brow, when she plays or sings in this manner?

Suddenly I hear some one tapping three times, with a harsh and bony
finger, against one of the steps of our stairs, and in our doorway
appears an idiot, clad in a suit of gray tweed, who bows low. "Come in,
come in, Monsieur Kangourou. You come just in the nick of time! I was
actually becoming enthusiastic over your country!"

M. Kangourou brought a little laundry bill, which he wished respectfully
to hand to me, with a profound bend of the whole body, the correct pose
of the hands on the knees, and a long, snake-like hiss.

CHAPTER XXI

ANCIENT TOMBS

Pursuing the path that winds past our, dwelling, one passes a dozen or
more old villas, a few garden-walls, and then sees nothing but the lonely
mountain-side, with little paths winding upward toward the summit through
plantations of tea, bushes of camellias, underbrush, and rocks. The
mountains round Nagasaki are covered with cemeteries; for centuries and
centuries they have brought their dead up here.

But there is neither sadness nor horror in these Japanese sepulchres; it
seems as if, among this frivolous and childish people, death itself could
not be taken seriously. The monuments are either granite Buddhas, seated
on lotus, or upright tombstones with inscriptions in gold. They are
grouped together in little enclosures in the midst of the woods, or on
natural terraces delightfully situated, and are usually reached by long
stairways of stone carpeted with moss. Sometimes these pass under one of
the sacred gateways, of which the shape, always the same, rude and
simple, is a smaller reproduction of those in the temples.

Above us, the tombs of our mountain are of an antiquity so hoary that
they no longer alarm any one, even at night. It is a region of forsaken
cemeteries. The dead hidden away there have long since become one with
the earth around them; and these thousands of little gray stones, these
multitudes of ancient little Buddhas, eaten away by lichens, seem to be
now no more than a proof of a series of existences, long anterior to our
own, and lost forever and altogether in the mysterious depths of ages.

CHAPTER XXII

DAINTY DISHES FOR A DOLL

The meals that Chrysantheme enjoys are something almost indescribable.

She begins in the morning, when she wakes, with two little green wild
plums pickled in vinegar and rolled in powdered sugar. A cup of tea
completes this almost traditional breakfast of Japan, the very same that
Madame Prune is eating downstairs, the same that is served in the inns to
travellers.

At intervals during the day the meals are continued by two little dinners
of the drollest description. They are brought up on a tray of red
lacquer, in microscopic cups with covers, from Madame Prune's apartment,
where they are cooked: a hashed sparrow, a stuffed prawn, seaweed with a
sauce, a salted sweetmeat, a sugared chili! Chrysantheme tastes a little
of all, with dainty pecks and the aid of her little chopsticks, raising
the tips of her fingers with affected grace. At every dish she makes a
face, leaves three parts of it, and dries her finger-tips after it in
apparent disgust.

These menus vary according to the inspiration that may have seized Madame
Prune. But one thing never varies, either in our household or in any
other, neither in the north nor in the south of the Empire, and that is
the dessert and the manner of eating it: after all these little dishes,
which are a mere make-believe, a wooden bowl is brought in, bound with
copper--an enormous bowl, fit for Gargantua, and filled to the very brim
with rice, plainly cooked in water. Chrysantheme fills another large
bowl from it (sometimes twice, sometimes three times), darkens its snowy
whiteness with a black sauce flavored with fish, which is contained in a
delicately shaped blue cruet, mixes it all together, carries the bowl to
her lips, and crams down all the rice, shovelling it with her two chop-
sticks into her very throat. Next the little cups and covers are picked
up, as well as the tiniest crumb that may have fallen upon the white
mats, the irreproachable purity of which nothing is allowed to tarnish.
And so ends the dinner.

CHAPTER XXIII

A FANTASTIC FUNERAL

Below, in the town, a street-singer had established herself in a little
thoroughfare; people had gathered around her to listen to her singing,
and we three--that is, Yves, Chrysantheme, and I--who happened to be
passing, stopped also.

She was quite young, rather fat, and fairly pretty, and she strummed her
guitar and sang, rolling her eyes fiercely, like a virtuoso executing
feats of difficulty. She lowered her head, stuck her chin into her neck,
in order to draw deeper notes from the furthermost recesses of her body;
and succeeded in bringing forth a great, hoarse voice--a voice that might
have belonged to an aged frog, a ventriloquist's voice, coming whence it
would be impossible to say (this is the best stage manner, the last touch
of art, in the interpretation of tragic pieces).

Yves cast an indignant glance upon her.

"Good gracious," said he, "she has the voice of a----" (words failed him,
in his astonishment) "the voice of a--a monster!"

And he looked at me, almost frightened by this little being, and desirous
to know what I thought of it.

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