CHAPTER XXVI
A QUIET SMOKE
The sound of the innumerable wooden panels, which at nightfall are pulled
and shut in every Japanese house, is one of the peculiarities of the
country which will remain longest imprinted on my memory. From our
neighbor's houses these noises reach us one after the other, floating to
us over the green gardens, more or less deadened, more or less distant.
Just below us, Madame Prune's panels move very badly, creak and make a
hideous noise in their wornout grooves.
Ours are somewhat noisy too, for the old house is full of echoes, and
there are at least twenty screens to run over long slides in order to
close in completely the kind of open hall in which we live. Usually, it
is Chrysantheme who undertakes this piece of household work, and a great
deal of trouble it gives her, for she often pinches her fingers in the
singular awkwardness of her too tiny hands, which never have been
accustomed to do any work.
Then comes her toilette for the night. With a certain grace she lets
fall the day-dress, and slips on a more simple one of blue cotton, which
has the same pagoda sleeves, the same shape all but the train, and which
she fastens round her waist with a sash of muslin of the same color.
The high head-dress remains untouched, it is needless to say--that is,
all but the pins, which are taken out and laid beside her in a lacquer
box.
Then there is the little silver pipe that must absolutely be smoked
before going to sleep; this is one of the customs which most provoke me,
but it has to be borne.
Chrysantheme squats like a gipsy before a certain square box, made of red
wood, which contains a little tobacco-jar, a little porcelain stove full
of hot embers, and finally a little bamboo pot serving at the same time
as ash-tray and cuspidor. (Madame Prune's smoking-box downstairs, and
every smoking-box in Japan, is exactly the same, and contains precisely
the same objects, arranged in precisely the same manner; and wherever it
may be, whether in the house of the rich or the poor, it always lies
about somewhere on the floor.)
The word "pipe" is at once too trivial and too big to be applied to this
delicate silver tube, which is perfectly straight and at the end of
which, in a microscopic receptacle, is placed one pinch of golden
tobacco, chopped finer than silken thread.
Two puffs, or at most three; it lasts scarcely a few seconds, and the
pipe is finished. Then tap, tap, tap, tap, the little tube is struck
smartly against the edge of the smoking-box to knock out the ashes, which
never will fall; and this tapping, heard everywhere, in every house, at
every hour of the day or night, quick and droll as the scratchings of a
monkey, is in Japan one of the noises most characteristic of human life.
"Anata nominase!" ("You must smoke too!") says Chrysantheme.
Having again filled the tiresome little pipe, she puts the silver tube to
my lips with a bow. Courtesy forbids my refusal; but I find it
detestably bitter.
Before laying myself down under the blue mosquito-net, I open two of the
panels in the room, one on the side of the silent and deserted footpath,
the other on the garden side, overlooking the terraces, so that the night
air may breathe upon us, even at the risk of bringing the company of some
belated cockchafer, or more giddy moth.
Our wooden house, with its thin old walls, vibrates at night like a great
dry violin, and the slightest noises have a startling resonance.
Beneath the veranda are hung two little AEolian harps, which, at the
least ruffle of the breeze running through their blades of grass, emit a
gentle tinkling sound, like the harmonious murmur of a brook; outside, to
the very farthest limits of the distance, the cicalas continue their
sonorous and never-ending concert; over our heads, on the black roof, is
heard passing, like a witch's sabbath, the raging battle, to the death,
of cats, rats, and owls.
Presently, when in the early dawn a fresher breeze, mounting upward from
the sea and the deep harbor, reaches us, Chrysantheme rises and slyly
shuts the panels I have opened.
Before that, however, she will have risen at least three times to smoke:
having yawned like a cat, stretched herself, twisted in every direction
her little amber arms, and her graceful little hands, she sits up
resolutely, with all the waking sighs and broken syllables of a child,
pretty and fascinating enough; then she emerges from the gauze net, fills
her little pipe, and breathes a few puffs of the bitter and unpleasant
mixture.
Then comes tap, tap, tap, tap, against the box to shake out the ashes.
In the silence of the night it makes quite a terrible noise, which wakes
Madame Prune. This is fatal. Madame Prune is at once seized also with a
longing to smoke which may not be denied; then, to the noise from above,
comes an answering tap, tap, tap, tap, from below, exactly like it,
exasperating and inevitable as an echo.
