Madame Chrysantheme Part 9

This is the moment at which I must rise, descend hurriedly to the sea by gra.s.sy footpaths all wet with dew, and so regain my ship.

Alas! in the days gone by, it was the cry of the muezzin which used to awaken me in the dark winter mornings, in far-away night-shrouded Stamboul.

XXVIII

Chrysantheme has brought but few things with her, knowing that our married life would be of short duration.

She has placed her dresses and her fine sashes in little closed recesses, hidden in one of the walls of our apartment (the north wall, the only one of the four which will not take to pieces.) The doors of these niches are white paper panels; the standing shelves and inside part.i.tions, consisting of light woodwork, are put together in too finical a manner, too ingenious a way, giving rise to suspicions of secret drawers and conjuring tricks. We only put there things without any value, having a vague feeling that the cupboards themselves might spirit them away.

The box in which Chrysantheme stores away her gewgaws and letters, is one of the things that amuses me the most; it is of English origin, in tin, and bears on its cover the colored representation of some manufactory in the neighborhood of London. Of course, it is as an exotic work of art, as a precious knick-knack, that Chrysantheme prefers it to any of her other boxes in lacquer or inlaid work. It contains all that a mousme requires for her correspondence: Indian ink, a paintbrush, very thin gray tinted paper, cut up in long narrow strips, and funnily shaped envelopes, into which these strips are slipped (after having been folded up in some thirty folds); the envelopes being ornamented with pictures of landscapes, fishes, crabs, or birds.

On some old letters addressed to her, I can make out the two characters that represent her name: "Kikou-San" (Chrysantheme, Madame). And when I question her, she replies in j.a.panese, with an air of importance:

"My dear creature, they are letters from my female friends."

Oh! those friends of Chrysantheme, what funny little faces they have!

That same box contains their portraits, their photographs stuck on visiting cards, which are printed on the back with the name of Uyeno, the fashionable photographer in Nagasaki,--little creatures fit only to figure daintily on painted fans, and who have striven to a.s.sume a dignified att.i.tude when once their necks have been placed in the head-rest and they have been told: "Now don't move!"

It would really amuse me to read her friends' letters,--and above all my mousme's answers.

XXIX.

_August 10th_.

This evening it rained heavily, and the night was thick and black. At about ten o'clock, on our return from one of the fashionable tea-houses we constantly frequent, we arrived,--Yves, Chrysantheme and myself,--at the certain familiar angle of the princ.i.p.al street, the certain turn where we must take leave of the lights and noises of the town, to clamber up the black steps and steep lanes which lead to our home at Diou-djen-dji.

There, before beginning our ascension, we must first buy lanterns from an old trades-woman called Madame Tres-Propre,[E] whose faithful customers we are. It is amazing what a quant.i.ty of these paper lanterns we consume. They are invariably decorated in the same way, with painted night-moths or bats; fastened to the ceiling at the further end of the shop, they hang in enormous cl.u.s.ters, and the old woman, seeing us arrive, gets upon a table to take them down. Gray or red are our usual choice; Madame Tres-Propre knows our preferences and leaves the green or blue lanterns aside. But it is always hard work to unhook one, on account of the little short sticks by which they are held, and the strings by which they are tied getting entangled together. In an exaggerated pantomime, Madame Tres-Propre expresses her despair at wasting so much of our valuable time: oh! if it only depended on her personal efforts! but ah, for the natural perversity of inanimate things which have no consideration for human dignity.

With monkeyish antics, she even deems it her duty to threaten the lanterns and shake her fist at these inextricably tangled strings which have the presumption to delay us. It is all very well, but we know this maneuver by heart; and if the old lady loses patience, so do we. Chrysantheme, who is half asleep, is seized with a fit of kitten-like yawning which she does not even trouble to hide behind her hand, and which appears to be endless. She pulls a very long face, at the thought of the steep hill we must struggle up to-night through the pelting rain.

[Footnote E: In j.a.panese: _O Se-San_.]

I have the same feeling, and am thoroughly annoyed.

To what purpose, good heavens, do I clamber up every evening to that suburb, when it offers me no attraction whatever?

The rain increases, what are we to do? Outside, djins pa.s.s rapidly by, calling out: "Take care!" splashing the foot-pa.s.sengers and casting through the shower streams of light from their many-colored lanterns.

Mousmes and elderly ladies pa.s.s by, tucked up, muddy, laughing nevertheless, under their paper umbrellas, exchanging greetings, clacking their wooden pattens on the stone pavement; the whole street is filled with the noise of the pattering feet and pattering rain.

As good luck will have it, at the same moment pa.s.ses 415, our poor relative, who, seeing our distress, stops and promises to help us out of our difficulty; as soon as he has deposited on the quay an Englishman he is conveying, he will come to our aid and bring all that is necessary to relieve us from our lamentable situation.

At last our lantern is unhooked, lighted, and paid for. There is another shop opposite, where we stop every evening; it is Madame L'Heure's,[F] the woman who sells waffles; we always buy a provision from her, to refresh us on the way. A very lively young woman is this pastry-cook, and most anxious to make herself agreeable; she looks quite like a screen picture, behind her piled-up cakes, ornamented with little posies. We will take shelter under her roof while we wait; and, to avoid the drops that fall heavily from the water-spouts, wedge ourselves tightly against her display of white and pink sweetmeats, so artistically spread out on fresh and delicate branches of cypress.

[Footnote F: In j.a.panese: _Toki-San_.]

Poor 415, what a providence he is to us! Already he re-appears, most excellent cousin, ever smiling, ever running, while the water streams down his handsome bare legs; he brings us two umbrellas, borrowed from a China merchant, who is also a distant relative of ours. Like me, Yves has till now never consented to use such a thing, but he now accepts one because it is droll: in paper, of course, with innumerable folds waxed and gummed, and the inevitable flight of storks forming a wreath all round.

Chrysantheme, yawning more and more in her kitten-like fashion, becomes coaxing in order to be helped along, and tries to take my arm:

"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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 sh.o.r.e 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 att.i.tudes consecrated by j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan!

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 j.a.panese 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.

x.x.x.

_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.