Madame Chrysantheme Part 12

"Come, we must get up and go to Yves' rescue; he cannot be allowed to go on thumping in that manner. Let us take a lantern, and see what has happened."

It was indeed the mosquitoes. They are hovering in a thick cloud about him; those of the house and those of the garden all seem collected together, swarming and buzzing. Chrysantheme indignantly burns several at the flame of her lantern, and shows me others: "Hou!" covering the white paper walls.

He, tired out with his day's amus.e.m.e.nt, sleeps on; but his slumbers are restless, as can be easily imagined. Chrysantheme gives him a shake, wishing him to get up and share our blue mosquito net.

After a little pressing he does as he is bid and follows us, looking like an overgrown boy only half awake. I make no objection to this singular hospitality; after all, it looks so little like a bed, the matting we are to share, and we sleep in our clothes, as we always do according to the Niponese fashion. After all, on a journey in a railway, do not the most estimable ladies stretch themselves without demur by the side of gentlemen unknown to them?

I have however placed Chrysantheme's little wooden block in the center of the gauze tent, between our two pillows.

Then, without saying a word, in a dignified manner as though she were rectifying an error of etiquette that I had inadvertently committed, Chrysantheme takes up her piece of wood, putting in its place my snake-skin drum; I shall therefore be in the middle between the two.

It is really more correct, decidedly much more proper; Chrysantheme is evidently a very decorous young person.

Returning on board next morning, in the clear morning sun, we walk through pathways full of dew; accompanied by a band of funny little mousmes of six or eight years of age, who are going off to school.

Needless to say that the cicalas around us keep up their perpetual sonorous chirping. The mountain smells delicious. The atmosphere, the dawning day, the infantine grace of these little girls in their long frocks and shiny chignons, all is redundant with freshness and youth.

The flowers and gra.s.ses on which we tread sparkle with dewdrops, exhaling a perfume of freshness. What undying beauty there is, even in j.a.pan, in the first fresh morning hours in the country, and the dawning hours of life!

Besides, I am quite ready to admit the attractiveness of the little j.a.panese children; some of them are most fascinating. But how is it that their charm vanishes so rapidly and is so quickly replaced by the elderly grimace, the smiling ugliness, the monkeyish face?

x.x.xV.

My mother-in-law Madame Renoncule's small garden is, without exception, one of the most melancholy spots I have seen during all my peregrinations through the world.

Oh, the slow, enervating, dull hours spent in idle and diffuse conversation in the dimly lighted verandah! Oh, the horrid peppered jam in the microscopic pots! In the middle of the town, enclosed by four walls, is this park of five yards square, with little lakes, little mountains, and little rocks, where all wears an antiquated appearance, and everything is covered with a greenish moldiness from want of sun.

Nevertheless a true feeling for nature has inspired this tiny representation of a wild spot. The rocks are well placed, the dwarf cedars, no taller than cabbages, stretch their gnarled boughs over the valleys in the att.i.tude of giants wearied by the weight of centuries; and their look of _big trees_ perplexes one and falsifies the perspective. When from the dark recesses of the apartment one perceives at a certain distance this diminutive landscape dimly lighted up, the wonder is whether it is all artificial, or whether one is not oneself the victim of some morbid illusion; and if it is not indeed a real country view seen through a distorted vision out of focus, or through the wrong end of a telescope.

To any one familiar with j.a.panese life my mother-in-law's house in itself reveals a refined nature,--complete nudity, two or three screens placed here and there, a teapot, a vase full of lotus-flowers, and nothing more. Woodwork devoid of paint or varnish, but carved in most elaborate and capricious openwork, the whiteness of the pinewood being kept up by constant scrubbings of soap and water. The posts and beams of the framework are varied by the most fanciful taste: some are cut in precise geometrical forms; others artificially twisted, imitating trunks of old trees covered with tropical creepers.

Everywhere little hiding-places, little nooks, little closets concealed in the most ingenious and unexpected manner under the immaculate uniformity of the white paper panels.

I cannot help smiling when I think of some of the so-called _j.a.panese_ drawing-rooms, overcrowded with knick-knacks and curios and hung with coa.r.s.e gold embroideries on exported satins, of our Parisian fine ladies. I would advise those persons to come and look at the houses of people of taste out here; to visit the white solitudes of the palaces at Yeddo. In France we have works of art in order to enjoy them; here they possess them merely to ticket them and lock them up carefully in a kind of mysterious underground room shut in by iron gratings called a _G.o.doun_. On rare occasions, only to honor some visitor of distinction, do they open this impenetrable depositary. The true j.a.panese manner of understanding luxury consists in a scrupulous and indeed almost excessive cleanliness, white mats and white woodwork; an appearance of extreme simplicity, and an incredible nicety in the most infinitesimal details.

My mother-in-law seems to be really a very nice woman, and were it not for the insurmountable feeling of spleen the sight of her garden produces on me, I would often go and see her. She has nothing in common with the mammas of Jonquille, Campanule or Touki: she is vastly their superior; and then I can see that she has been very good-looking and stylish. Her past life puzzles me; but in my position as a son-in-law, good manners prevent my making further inquiries.

Some a.s.sert that she was formerly a celebrated guecha in Yeddo, who lost public favor by her folly in becoming a mother. This would account for her daughter's talent on the guitar; she had probably herself taught her the touch and style of the Conservatory.

Since the birth of Chrysantheme (her eldest child and first cause of this loss of favor), my mother-in-law, an expansive although distinguished nature, has fallen seven times into the same fatal error, and I have two little sisters-in-law: Mdlle. La Neige,[G] and Mdlle. La Lune,[H] as well as five little brothers-in-law: Cerisier, Pigeon, Liseron, Or, and Bambou.

[Footnote G: In j.a.panese: _Oyouki-San_ (like Madame Prune's daughter).]

[Footnote H: In j.a.panese: _Tsouki-San_.]

Little Bambou is four years old,--a yellow baby, fat and round all over, with fine bright eyes; coaxing and jolly, sleeping whenever he is not laughing. Of all my Niponese family, Bambou is the one I love the most.

x.x.xVI.

_Tuesday, August 27th_.

We have spent the day,--Yves, Chrysantheme, Oyouki and myself,--wandering through dark and dusty nooks, dragged hither and thither by four quick-footed djins, in search of antiquities in the bric-a-brac shops.

Towards sunset, Chrysantheme, who has wearied me more than ever since the morning, and who doubtless has perceived it, pulls a very long face, declares herself ill, and begs leave to spend the night at her mother's, Madame Renoncule.

I agree to this with the best grace in the world; let her go, tiresome little mousme! Oyouki will carry a message to her parents, who will shut up our rooms; we shall spend the evening, Yves and I, in roaming about as fancy takes us, without any mousme dragging at our heels, and shall afterwards regain our own quarters on board the _Triomphante_, without having the trouble of climbing up that hill.

First of all, we make an attempt to dine together in some fashionable tea-house. Impossible, there is not a place to be had; all the absurd paper rooms, all the compartments contrived by so many ingenious dodges of slipping and sliding panels, all the nooks and corners in the little gardens are filled with j.a.panese men and women eating impossible and incredible little dishes! numberless young dandies are dining _tete-a-tete_ with the lady of their choice, and sounds of dancing girls and music issue from the private rooms.

The fact is, that to-day is the third and last day of the great pilgrimage to the temple of the _Jumping Tortoise_, of which we saw the commencement yesterday, and all Nagasaki is at this time given over to amus.e.m.e.nt.

At the tea-house of the _Indescribable b.u.t.terflies_, which is also full to overflowing, but where we are well-known, they have had the bright idea of throwing a temporary flooring over the little lake,--the pond where the gold-fish live, and it is here that our meal is served, in the pleasant freshness of the fountain which continues its murmur under our feet.

After dinner, we follow the faithful and ascend again to the temple.

Up there we find the same elfin revelry, the same masks, the same music. We seat ourselves, as before, under a gauze tent and sip odd little drinks tasting of flowers. But this evening we are alone, and the absence of the band of mousmes, whose familiar little faces formed a bond of union between this holiday-making people and ourselves, separates and isolates us more than usual from the profusion of oddities in the midst of which we seem to be lost. Beneath us, lies always the immense blue background: Nagasaki illumined by moonlight, and the expanse of silvered, glittering water, which seems like a vaporous vision suspended in mid-air. Behind us is the great open temple, where the bonzes officiate to the accompaniment of sacred bells and wooden clappers,--looking, from where we sit, more like puppets than anything else, some squatting in rows like peaceful mummies, others executing rhythmical marches before the golden background where stand the G.o.ds. We do not laugh to-night, and speak but little, more forcibly struck by the scene than we were on the first night; we only look on, trying to understand. Suddenly, Yves turning round, says:

"Hullo! brother, your mousme!!"

Actually there she is, behind him; Chrysantheme almost on all fours, hidden between the paws of a great granite beast, half tiger, half dog, against which our fragile tent is leaning.

"She pulled my trousers with her nails, for all the world like a little cat," said Yves, still full of surprise, "positively like a cat!"

She remains bent double in the most humble form of salutation; she smiles timidly, afraid of being ill received, and the head of my little brother-in-law, Bambou, appears smiling too, just above her own. She has brought this little _mousko_[I] with her, perched astride on her back; he looks as absurd as ever, with his shaven head, his long frock and the great bows of his silken sash. There they both stand gazing at us, anxious to know how their joke will be taken.

[Footnote I: _Mousko_ is the masculine of _mousme_, and signifies little boy. Excessive politeness makes it _mousko-san_ (Mr. little boy).]

For my part, I have not the least idea of giving them a cold reception; on the contrary, the meeting amuses me. It even strikes me that it is rather pretty of Chrysantheme to come round in this way, and to bring Bambou-San to the festival; though it savors somewhat of her low breeding, to tell the truth, to have tacked him on to her back, as the poorer j.a.panese women do with their little ones.

However, let her sit down between Yves and myself: and let them bring her those iced beans she loves so much; and we will take the jolly little _mousko_ on our knees and cram him with sugar and sweetness to his heart's content.

The evening over, when we begin to think of leaving, and of going down again, Chrysantheme replaces her little Bambou astride upon her back, and sets forth, bending forward under his weight and painfully dragging her Cinderella slippers over the granite steps and flagstones. Yes, decidedly low this conduct! but low in the best sense of the word: nothing in it displeases me; I even consider Chrysantheme's affection for Bambou-San engaging and attractive in its simplicity.

One cannot deny this merit to the j.a.panese,--a great love for little children, and a talent for amusing them, for making them laugh, inventing comical toys for them, making the morning of their life happy; for a specialty in dressing them, arranging their heads, and giving to the whole little personage the most diverting appearance possible. It is the only thing I really like about this country: the babies and the manner in which they are understood.

On our way we meet our married friends of the _Triomphante_, who, much surprised at seeing me with this _mousko_, chaffingly exclaim:

"What! a son already?"