Books: Madame Chrysantheme, v4

P >> Pierre Loti >> Madame Chrysantheme, v4

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3

This etext was produced by David Widger

[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 4.

CHAPTER XLVII

A MIDNIGHT ALARM

It is the middle of the night, perhaps about two o'clock in the morning.
Our lamps are burning somewhat dimly before our placid idols.
Chrysantheme wakes me suddenly, and I turn to look at her: she has raised
herself on one arm, and her face expresses the most intense terror; she
makes a sign, without daring to speak, that some one or something is
near, creeping up to us. What ill-timed visit is this? A feeling of
fear gains possession of me also. I have a rapid impression of some
great unknown danger, in this isolated spot, in this strange country of
which I do not even yet comprehend the inhabitants and the mysteries.
It must be something very frightful to hold her there, rooted to the
spot, half dead with fright, she who does comprehend all these things.

It seems to be outside; it is coming from the garden; with trembling hand
she indicates to me that it will come through the veranda, over Madame
Prune's roof. Certainly, I hear faint noises, and they do approach us.

I suggest to her

"Neko-San?" ("It is Messieurs the cats?")

"No!" she replies, still terrified, and in an alarmed tone.

"Bakemono-Sama?" ("Is it my lords the ghosts?") I have already the
Japanese habit of expressing myself with excessive politeness.

"No! 'Dorobo'!" ("Thieves!")

Thieves! Ah! this is better; I much prefer this to a visit such as I
have just been dreading in the sudden awakening from sleep: from ghosts
or spirits of the dead; thieves, that is to say, worthy fellows very much
alive, and having, undoubtedly, inasmuch as they are Japanese thieves,
faces of the most meritorious oddity. I am not in the least frightened,
now that I know precisely what to expect, and we will immediately set to
work to ascertain the truth, for something is certainly moving on Madame
Prune's roof; some one is walking upon it.

I open one of our wooden panels and look out.

I can see only a vast expanse, calm, peaceful, and exquisite under the
full brilliance of the moonlight; sleeping Japan, lulled by the sonorous
song of the grasshoppers, is charming indeed to-night, and the free, pure
air is delicious.

Chrysantheme, half hidden behind my shoulder, listens tremblingly,
peering forward to examine the gardens and the roofs with dilated eyes
like a frightened cat. No, nothing! not a thing moves. Here and there
are a few strangely substantial shadows, which at first glance were not
easy to explain, but which turn out to be real shadows, thrown by bits of
wall, by boughs of trees, and which preserve an extremely reassuring
stillness. Everything seems absolutely tranquil, and profound silence
reigns in the dreamy vagueness which moonlight sheds over all.

Nothing; nothing to be seen anywhere. It was Messieurs the cats after
all, or perhaps my ladies the owls; sounds increase in volume in the most
amazing manner at night, in this house of ours.

Let us close the panel again carefully, as a measure of prudence, and
then light a lantern and go downstairs to see whether there may be any
one hidden in corners, and whether the doors are tightly shut; in short,
to reassure Chrysantheme we will go the round of the house.

Behold us, then, on tiptoe, searching together every hole and corner of
the house, which, to judge by its foundations, must be very ancient,
notwithstanding the fragile appearance of its panels of white paper. It
contains the blackest of cavities, little vaulted cellars with worm-eaten
beams; cupboards for rice which smell of mould and decay; mysterious
hollows where lies accumulated the dust of centuries. In the middle of
the night, and during a hunt for thieves, this part of the house, as yet
unknown to me, has an ugly look.

Noiselessly we step across the apartment of our landlord and landlady.
Chrysantheme drags me by the hand, and I allow myself to be led. There
they are, sleeping in a row under their blue gauze tent, lighted by the
night-lamps burning before the altars of their ancestors. Ha! I observe
that they are arranged in an order which might give rise to gossip.
First comes Mademoiselle Oyouki, very taking in her attitude of rest!
Then Madame Prune, who sleeps with her mouth wide open, showing her rows
of blackened teeth; from her throat arises an intermittent sound like the
grunting of a sow. Oh! poor Madame Prune! how hideous she is!! Next,
M. Sucre, a mere mummy for the time being. And finally, at his side,
last of the row, is their servant, Mademoiselle Dede!

The gauze hanging over them throws reflections as of the sea upon them;
one might suppose them victims drowned in an aquarium. And withal the
sacred lamps, the altar crowded with strange Shintoist symbols, give a
mock religious air to this family tableau.

'Honi soit qui mal y pense', but why is not that maidservant rather laid
by the side of her mistresses? Now, when we on the floor above offer our
hospitality to Yves, we are careful to place ourselves under our
mosquito-net in a more correct style!

One corner, which as a last resort we inspect, inspires me with a certain
amount of apprehension. It is a low, mysterious loft, against the door
of which is stuck, as a thing no longer wanted, a very old, pious image
Kwanon with the thousand arms, and Kwanon with the horses' head, seated
among clouds and flames, both horrible to behold with their spectral
grins.

We open the door, and Chrysantheme starts back uttering a fearful cry. I
should have thought the robbers were there, had I not seen a little gray
creature, rapid and noiseless, rush by her and disappear; a young rat
that had been eating rice on the top of a shelf, and, in its alarm, had
dashed in her face.

CHAPTER XLVIII

UNUSUAL HOSPITALITY

September 16th.

Yves has let fall his silver whistle in the ocean, the whistle so
absolutely indispensable for the manoeuvres; and we search the town all
day long, followed by Chrysantheme and Mesdemoiselles La Neige and La
Lune, her sisters, in the endeavor to find another.

It is, however, very difficult to find such a thing in Nagasaki; above
all, very difficult to explain in Japanese what is a sailor's whistle of
the traditional shape, curved, and with a little ball at the end to
modulate the trills and the various sounds of official orders. For three
hours we are sent from shop to shop; at each one they pretend to
understand perfectly what is wanted and trace on tissue-paper, with a
paint-brush, the addresses of the shops where we shall without fail meet
with what we require. Away we go, full of hope, only to encounter some
fresh mystification, till our breathless djins get quite bewildered.

They understand admirably that we want a thing that will make a noise,
music, in short; thereupon they offer us instruments of every, and of the
most unexpected, shape--squeakers for Punch-and-Judy voices, dog-
whistles, trumpets. Each time it is something more and more absurd, so
that at last we are overcome with uncontrollable fits of laughter. Last
of all, an aged Japanese optician, who assumes a most knowing air, a look
of sublime wisdom, goes off to forage in his back shop, and brings to
light a steam fog-horn, a relict from some wrecked steamer.

After dinner, the chief event of the evening is a deluge of rain, which
takes us by surprise as we leave the teahouses, on our return from our
fashionable stroll. It so happened that we were a large party, having
with us several mousme guests, and from the moment that the rain began to
fall from the skies, as if out of a watering-pot turned upside down, the
band became disorganized. The mousmes run off, with bird-like cries, and
take refuge under doorways, in the shops, under the hoods of the djins.

Then, before long-when the shops shut up in haste, when the emptied
streets are flooded, and almost black, and the paper lanterns, piteous
objects, wet through and extinguished--I find myself, I know not how it
happens, flattened against a wall, under the projecting eaves, alone in
the company of Mademoiselle Fraise, my cousin, who is crying bitterly
because her fine robe is wet through. And in the noise of the rain,
which is still falling, and splashing everything with the spouts and
gutters, which in the darkness plaintively murmur like running streams,
the town appears to me suddenly an abode of the gloomiest sadness.

The shower is soon over, and the mousmes come out of their holes like so
many mice; they look for one another, call one another, and their little
voices take the singular, melancholy, dragging inflections they assume
whenever they have to call from afar.

"Hi! Mademoiselle Lu-u-u-u-une!"

"Hi! Madame Jonqui-i-i-i-ille!"

They shout from one to another their outlandish names, prolonging them
indefinitely in the now silent night, in the reverberations of the damp
air after the great summer rain.

At length they are all collected and united again, these tiny personages
with narrow eyes and no brains, and we return to Diou-djen-dji all wet
through.

For the third time, we have Yves sleeping beside us under our blue tent.

There is a great noise shortly after midnight in the apartment beneath
us: our landlord's family have returned from a pilgrimage to a far-
distant temple of the Goddess of Grace. (Although Madame Prune is a
Shintoist, she reveres this deity, who, scandal says, watched over her
youth.) A moment after, Mademoiselle Oyouki bursts into our room like a
rocket, bringing, on a charming little tray, sweetmeats which have been
blessed and bought at the gates of the temple yonder, on purpose for us,
and which we must positively eat at once, before the virtue is gone out
of them. Hardly rousing ourselves, we absorb these little edibles
flavored with sugar and pepper, and return a great many sleepy thanks.

Yves sleeps quietly on this occasion, without dealing any blows to the
floor or the panels with either fists or feet. He has hung his watch on
one of the hands of our gilded idol in order to be more sure of seeing
the hour at any time of the night, by the light of the sacred lamps. He
gets up betimes in the morning, asking: "Well, did I behave properly?"
and dresses in haste, preoccupied about duty and the roll-call.

Outside, no doubt, it is daylight already: through the tiny holes which
time has pierced in our wooden panels, threads of morning light penetrate
our chamber, and in the atmosphere of our room where night still lingers,
they trace vague white rays. Soon, when the sun shall have risen, these
rays will lengthen and become beautifully golden. The cocks and the
cicalas make themselves heard, and now Madame Prune will begin her mystic
drone.

Nevertheless, out of politeness for Yves-San, Chrysantheme lights a
lantern and escorts him to the foot of the dark staircase. I even fancy
that, on parting, I hear a kiss exchanged. In Japan this is of no
consequence, I know; it is very usual, and quite admissible; no matter
where one goes, in houses one enters for the first time, one is quite at
liberty to kiss any mousme who may be present, without any notice being
taken of it. But with regard to Chrysantheme, Yves is in a delicate
position, and he ought to understand it better. I begin to feel uneasy
about the hours they have so often spent together alone; and I make up my
mind that this very day I will not play the spy upon them, but speak
frankly to Yves, and make a clean breast of it.

Suddenly from below, clac! clac! two dry hands are clapped together; it
is Madame Prune's warning to the Great Spirit. And immediately after her
prayer breaks forth, soars upward in a shrill nasal falsetto, like a
morning alarum when the hour for waking has come, the mechanical noise of
a spring let go and running down.

" . . .The richest woman in the world! Cleansed from all my sins,
O Ama-Terace-Omi-Kami! in the river of Kamo."

And this extraordinary bleating, hardly human, scatters and changes my
ideas, which were very nearly clear at the moment I awoke.

CHAPTER XLIX

RUMORS OF DEPARTURE

September 15th.

Rumor of departure is in the air. Since yesterday there has been vague
talk of our being sent to China, to the Gulf of Pekin; one of those
rumors which spread, no one knows how, from one end of the ship to the
other, two or three days before the official orders arrive, and which
usually turn out tolerably correct. What will the last act of my little
Japanese comedy be? the denouement, the separation? Will there be any
touch of sadness on the part of my mousme, or on my own, just a
tightening of the heartstrings at the moment of our final farewell?
At this moment I can imagine nothing of the sort. And then the adieus
of Yves and Chrysantheme, what will they be? This question preoccupies
me more than all.

Nothing very definite has been learned as yet, but it is certain that,
one way or another, our stay in Japan is drawing to a close. It is this,
perhaps, which disposes me this evening to look more kindly on my
surroundings. It is about six o'clock, after a day spent on duty, when
I reach Diou-djen-dji. The evening sun, low in the sky, on the point of
setting, pours into my room, and floods it with rays of red gold,
lighting up the Buddhas and the great sheaves of quaintly arranged
flowers in the antique vases. Here are assembled five or six little
dolls, my neighbors, amusing themselves by dancing to the sound of
Chrysantheme's guitar. And this evening I experienced a real charm in
feeling that this dwelling and the woman who leads the dance are mine.
On the whole, I have perhaps been unjust to this country; it seems to me
that my eyes are at last opened to see it in its true light, that all my
senses are undergoing a strange and abrupt transition. I suddenly have a
better perception and appreciation of all the infinity of dainty trifles
among which I live; of the fragile and studied grace of their forms, the
oddity of their drawings, the refined choice of their colors.

I stretch myself upon the white mats; Chrysantheme, always eagerly
attentive, brings me my pillow of serpent's-skin; and the smiling
mousmes, with the interrupted rhythm of a while ago still running in
their heads, move around me with measured steps.

Their immaculate socks with the separate great toes make no noise;
nothing is heard, as they glide by, but a 'froufrou' of silken stuffs.
I find them all pleasant to look upon; their dollish air pleases me now,
and I fancy I have discovered what it is that gives it to them: it is not
only their round, inexpressive faces with eyebrows far removed from the
eyelids, but the excessive amplitude of their dress. With those huge
sleeves, it might be supposed they have neither back nor shoulders; their
delicate figures are lost in these wide robes, which float around what
might be little marionettes without bodies at all, and which would slip
to the ground of themselves were they not kept together midway, about
where a waist should be, by the wide silken sashes--a very different
comprehension of the art of dressing to ours, which endeavors as much as
possible to bring into relief the curves, real or false, of the figure.

And then, how much I admire the flowers in our vases, arranged by
Chrysantheme, with her Japanese taste lotus-flowers, great, sacred
flowers of a tender, veined rose color, the milky rose-tint seen on
porcelain; they resemble, when in full bloom, great water-lilies, and
when only in bud might be taken for long pale tulips. Their soft but
rather cloying scent is added to that other indefinable odor of mousmes,
of yellow race, of Japan, which is always and everywhere in the air.
The late flowers of September, at this season very rare and expensive,
grow on longer stems than the summer blooms; Chrysantheme has left them
in their large aquatic leaves of a melancholy seaweed-green, and mingled
with them tall, slight rushes. I look at them, and recall with some
irony those great round bunches in the shape of cauliflowers, which our
florists sell in France, wrapped in white lace-paper!

Still no letters from Europe, from any one. How things change, become
effaced and forgotten! Here am I, accommodating myself to this finical
Japan and dwindling down to its affected mannerism; I feel that my
thoughts run in smaller grooves, my tastes incline to smaller things-
things which suggest nothing greater than a smile. I am becoming used to
tiny and ingenious furniture, to doll-like desks, to miniature bowls with
which to play at dinner, to the immaculate monotony of the mats, to the
finely finished simplicity of the white woodwork. I am even losing my
Western prejudices; all my preconceived ideas are this evening
evaporating and vanishing; crossing the garden I have courteously saluted
M. Sucre, who was watering his dwarf shrubs and his deformed flowers; and
Madame Prune appears to me a highly respectable old lady, in whose past
there is nothing to criticise.

We shall take no walk to-night; my only wish is to remain stretched out
where I am, listening to the music of my mousme's 'chamecen'.

Till now I have always used the word guitar, to avoid exotic terms, for
the abuse of which I have been so reproached. But neither the word
guitar nor mandolin suffices to designate this slender instrument with
its long neck, the high notes of which are shriller than the voice of the
grasshopper; and henceforth, I will write 'chamecen'.

I will also call my mousme Kikou, Kikou-San; this name suits her better
than Chrysantheme, which, though translating the sense exactly, does not
preserve the strange-sounding euphony of the original.

I therefore say to Kikou, my wife:

"Play, play on for me; I shall remain here all the evening and listen to
you."

Astonished to find me in so amiable a mood, she requires pressing a
little, and with almost a bitter curve of triumph and disdain upon her
lips, she seats herself in the attitude of an idol, raises her long,
dark-colored sleeves, and begins. The first hesitating notes are
murmured faintly and mingle with the music of the insects humming
outside, in the quiet air of the warm and golden twilight. First she
plays slowly, a confused medley of fragments which she does not seem to
remember perfectly, of which one waits for the finish and waits in vain;
while the other girls giggle, inattentive, and regretful of their
interrupted dance. She herself is absent, sulky, as if she were only
performing a duty.

Then by degrees, little by little, the music becomes more animated, and
the mousmes begin to listen. Now, tremblingly, it grows into a feverish
rapidity, and her gaze has no longer the vacant stare of a doll. Then
the music changes again; in it there is the sighing of the wind, the
hideous laughter of ghouls; tears, heartrending plaints, and her dilated
pupils seem to be directed inwardly in settled gaze on some indescribable
Japanesery within her own soul.

I listen, lying there with eyes half shut, looking out between my
drooping eyelids, which are gradually lowering, in involuntary heaviness,
upon the enormous red sun dying away over Nagasaki. I have a somewhat
melancholy feeling that my past life and all other places in the world
are receding from my view and fading away. At this moment of nightfall
I feel almost at home in this corner of Japan, amidst the gardens of this
suburb. I never have had such an impression before.

CHAPTER L

A DOLLS' DUET

September 16th.

Seven o'clock in the evening. We shall not go down into Nagasaki
tonight; but, like good Japanese citizens, remain in our lofty suburb.

In undress uniform we shall go, Yves and I, in a neighborly way, as far
as the fencing-gallery, which is only two steps away, just above our
villa, and almost abutting on our fresh and scented garden.

The gallery is closed already, and a little mousko, seated at the door,
explains, with many low bows, that we come too late, all the amateurs are
gone; we must come again tomorrow.

The evening is so mild and fine that we remain out of doors, following,
without any definite purpose, the pathway which rises ever higher and
higher, and loses itself at length in the solitary regions of the
mountain among the upper peaks.

For an hour at least we wander on--an unintended walk--and finally find
ourselves at a great height commanding an endless perspective lighted by
the last gleams of daylight; we are in a desolate and mournful spot, in
the midst of the little Buddhist cemeteries, which are scattered over the
country in every direction.

We meet a few belated laborers, who are returning from the fields with
bundles of tea upon their shoulders. These peasants have a half-savage
air. They are half naked, too, or clothed only in long robes of blue
cotton; as they pass, they salute us with humble bows.

No trees in this elevated region. Fields of tea alternate with tombs:
old granite statues which represent Buddha in his lotus, or else old
monumental stones on which gleam remains of inscriptions in golden
letters. Rocks, brushwood, uncultivated spaces, surround us on all
sides.

We meet no more passers-by, and the light is failing. We will halt for a
moment, and then it will be time to turn our steps homeward.

But, close to the spot where we stand, a box of white wood provided with
handles, a sort of sedan-chair, rests on the freshly disturbed earth,
with its lotus of silvered paper, and the little incense-sticks, burning
yet, by its side; clearly some one has been buried here this very
evening.

I can not picture this personage to myself; the Japanese are so grotesque
in life that it is almost impossible to imagine them in the calm majesty
of death. Nevertheless, let us move farther on, we might disturb him; he
is too recently dead, his presence unnerves us. We will go and seat
ourselves on one of these other tombs, so unutterably ancient that there
can no longer be anything within it but dust. And there, seated in the
dying sunlight, while the valleys and plains of the earth below are
already lost in shadow, we will talk together.

I wish to speak to Yves about Chrysantheme; it is indeed somewhat in view
of this that I have persuaded him to sit down; but how to set about it
without hurting his feelings, and without making myself ridiculous,
I hardly know. However, the pure air playing round me up here, and the
magnificent landscape spread beneath my feet, impart a certain serenity
to my thoughts which makes me feel a contemptuous pity, both for my
suspicions and the cause of them.

We speak, first of all, of the order for departure, which may arrive at
any moment, for China or for France. Soon we shall have to leave this
easy and almost amusing life, this Japanese suburb where chance has
installed us, and our little house buried among flowers. Yves perhaps
will regret all this more than I. I know that well enough; for it is the
first time that any such interlude has broken the rude monotony of his
hard-worked career. Formerly, when in an inferior rank, he was hardly
more often on shore, in foreign countries, than the sea-gulls themselves;
while I, from the very beginning, have been spoiled by residence in all
sorts of charming spots, infinitely superior to this, in all sorts of
countries, and the remembrance still haunts me pleasurably.

In order to discover how the land lies, I risk the remark:

"You will perhaps be more sorry to leave little Chrysantheme than I."

Silence reigns between us.

After which I go on, and, burning my ships, I add:

"You know, after all, if you have such a fancy for her, I haven't really
married her; one can't really consider her my wife."

In great surprise he looks in my face.

"Not your wife, you say? But, by Jove, though, that's just it; she is
your wife."

There is no need of many words at any time between us two; I know exactly
now, by his tone, by his great good-humored smile, how the case stands;
I understand all that lies in the little phrase: "That's just it, she is
your wife." If she were not, well, then, he could not answer for what
might happen--notwithstanding any remorse he might have in the depths of
his heart, since he is no longer a bachelor and free as air, as in former
days. But he considers her my wife, and she is sacred. I have the
fullest faith in his word, and I experience a positive relief, a real
joy, at finding my stanch Yves of bygone days. How could I have so
succumbed to the demeaning influence of my surroundings as to suspect him
even, and to invent for myself such a mean, petty anxiety?

We never shall even mention that doll again.

We remain up there very late, talking of other things, gazing at the
immense depths below, at the valleys and mountains as they become, one by
one, indistinct and lost in the deepening darkness. Placed as we are at
an enormous height, in the wide, free atmosphere, we seem already to have
quitted this miniature country, already to be freed from the impression
of littleness which it has given us, and from the little links by which
it was beginning to bind--us to itself.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3