CHAPTER LI
THE LAST DAY
September 17th
At the hour of siesta, a peremptory order arrives to start tomorrow for
China, for Tche-fou (a terrible place, in the gulf of Pekin). Yves comes
to wake me in my cabin to bring me the news.
"I must positively get leave to go on shore this evening," he says, while
I endeavor to shake myself awake, "if it is only to help you to dismantle
and pack up."
He gazes through my port-hole, raising his glance toward the green
summits, in the direction of Diou-djen-dji and our echoing old cottage,
hidden from us by a turn of the mountain.
It is very nice of him to wish to help me in my packing; but I think he
counts also upon saying farewell to his little Japanese friends up there,
and I really can not find fault with that.
He finishes his work, and does in fact obtain leave, without help from
me, to go on shore at five o'clock, after drill and manoeuvres.
As for myself I start at once, in a hired sampan. In the vast flood of
midday sunshine, to the quivering noise of the cicalas, I mount to Diou-
djen-dji.
The paths are solitary, the plants are drooping in the heat. Here,
however, is Madame Jonquille, taking the air in the bright, grasshoppers'
sunshine, sheltering her dainty figure and her charming face under an
enormous paper parasol, a huge circle, closely ribbed and fantastically
striped.
She recognizes me from afar, and, laughing as usual, runs to meet me.
I announce our departure, and a tearful pout suddenly contracts her
childish face. After all, does this news grieve her? Is she about to
shed tears over it? No! it turns to a fit of laughter, a little nervous
perhaps, but unexpected and disconcerting--dry and clear, pealing through
the silence and warmth of the narrow paths, like a cascade of little mock
pearls.
Ah, there indeed is a marriage-tie which will be broken without much
pain! But she fills me with impatience, poor empty-headed linnet, with
her laughter, and I turn my back upon her to continue my journey.
Above-stairs, Chrysantheme sleeps, stretched out on the floor; the house
is wide open, and the soft mountain breeze rustles gently through it.
That same evening we had intended to give a tea-party, and by my orders
flowers had already been placed in every nook and corner of the house.
There were lotus in our vases, beautifully colored lotus, the last of the
season, I verily believe. They must have been ordered from a special
gardener, out yonder near the Great Temple, and they will cost me dear.
With a few gentle taps of a fan I awake my surprised mousme; and, curious
to catch her first impressions, I announce my departure. She starts up,
rubs her eyelids with the backs of her little hands, looks at me, and
hangs her head: something like an expression of sadness passes in her
eyes.
This little sinking at the heart is for Yves, no doubt!
The news spreads through the house.
Mademoiselle Oyouki dashes upstairs, with half a tear in each of her
babyish eyes; kisses me with her full red lips, which always leave a wet
ring on my cheek; then quickly draws from her wide sleeve a square of
tissue-paper, wipes away her stealthy tears, blows her little nose, rolls
the bit of paper in a ball, and throws it into the street on the parasol
of a passer-by.
Then Madame Prune makes her appearance; in an agitated and discomposed
manner she successively adopts every attitude expressive of dismay. What
on earth is the matter with the old lady, and why does she keep getting
closer and closer to me, till she is almost in my way?
It is wonderful to think of all that I still have to do this last day,
and the endless drives I have to make to the old curiosity-shops, to my
tradespeople, and to the packers.
Nevertheless, before my rooms are dismantled, I intend making a sketch of
them, as I did formerly at Stamboul. It really seems to me as if all I
do here is a bitter parody of all I did over there.
This time, however, it is not that I care for this dwelling; it is only
because it is pretty and uncommon, and the sketch will be an interesting
souvenir.
I fetch, therefore, a leaf out of my album, and begin at once, seated on
the floor and leaning on my desk, ornamented with grasshoppers in relief,
while behind me, very, very close to me, the three women follow the
movements of my pencil with astonished attention. Japanese art being
entirely conventional, they have never before seen any one draw from
nature, and my style delights them. I may not perhaps possess the steady
and nimble touch of M. Sucre, as he groups his charming storks, but I am
master of a few notions of perspective which are wanting in him; and I
have been taught to draw things as I see them, without giving them an
ingeniously distorted and grimacing attitudes; and the three Japanese are
amazed at the air of reality displayed in my sketch.
With little shrieks of admiration, they point out to one another the
different things, as little by little their shape and form are outlined
in black on my paper. Chrysantheme gazes at me with a new kind of
interest "Anata itchiban!" she says (literally "Thou first!" meaning:
"You are really quite wonderful!")
Mademoiselle Oyouki is carried away by her admiration, and exclaims, in a
burst of enthusiasm:
"Anata bakari!" ("Thou alone!" that is to say: "There is no one like you
in the world, all the rest are mere rubbish!")
Madame Prune says nothing, but I can see that she does not think the
less; her languishing attitudes, her hand that at each moment gently
touches mine, confirm the suspicions that her look of dismay a few
moments ago awoke within me: evidently my physical charms speak to her
imagination, which in spite of years has remained full of romance!
I shall leave with the regret of having understood her too late!
Although the ladies are satisfied with my sketch, I am far from being so.
I have put everything in its place most exactly, but as a whole, it has
an ordinary, indifferent, French look which does not suit. The sentiment
is not given, and I almost wonder whether I should not have done better
to falsify the perspective--Japanese style--exaggerating to the very
utmost the already abnormal outlines of what I see before me. And then
the pictured dwelling lacks the fragile look and its sonority, that
reminds one of a dry violin. In the pencilled delineation of the
woodwork, the minute delicacy with which it is wrought is wanting;
neither have I been able to give an idea of the extreme antiquity, the
perfect cleanliness, nor the vibrating song of the cicalas that seems to
have been stored away within it, in its parched-up fibres, during
hundreds of summers. It does not convey, either, the impression this
place gives of being in a far-off suburb, perched aloft among trees,
above the drollest of towns. No, all this can not be drawn, can not be
expressed, but remains undemonstrable, indefinable.
Having sent out our invitations, we shall, in spite of everything, give
our tea-party this evening--a parting tea, therefore, in which we shall
display as much pomp as possible. It is, moreover, rather my custom to
wind up my exotic experiences with a fete; in other countries I have done
the same.
Besides our usual set, we shall have my mother-in-law, my relatives, and
all the mousmes of the neighborhood. But, by an extra Japanese
refinement, we shall not admit a single European friend--not even the
"amazingly tall" one. Yves alone shall be admitted, and even he shall be
hidden away in a corner behind some flowers and works of art.
In the last glimmer of twilight, by the light of the first twinkling
star, the ladies, with many charming curtseys, make their appearance.
Our house is soon full of the little crouching women, with their tiny
slit eyes vaguely smiling; their beautifully dressed hair shining like
polished ebony; their fragile bodies lost in the many folds of the
exaggerated, wide garments, that gape as if ready to drop from their
little tapering backs and reveal the exquisite napes of their little
necks.
Chrysantheme, with somewhat a melancholy air, and my mother-in-law,
Madame Renoncule, with many affected graces busy themselves in the midst
of the different groups, where ere long the miniature pipes are lighted.
Soon there arises a murmuring sound of discreet laughter, expressing
nothing, but having a pretty exotic ring about it, and then begins a
harmony of tap! tap! tap!--sharp, rapid taps against the edges of the
finely lacquered smoking-boxes. Pickled and spiced fruits are handed
round on trays of quaint and varied shapes. Then transparent china
teacups, no larger than half an egg-shell, make their appearance, and the
ladies are offered a few drops of sugarless tea, poured out of toy
kettles, or a sip of 'saki'--(a spirit made from rice which it is the
custom to serve hot, in elegantly shaped vases, long-necked like a
heron's throat).
Several mousmes execute, one after another, improvisations on the
'chamecen'. Others sing in sharp, high voices, hopping about
continually, like cicalas in delirium.
Madame Prune, no longer able to make a mystery of the long-pent up
feelings that agitate her, pays me the most marked and tender attentions,
and begs my acceptance of a quantity of little souvenirs: an image,
a little vase, a little porcelain goddess of the moon in Satsuma ware,
a marvellously grotesque ivory figure;--I tremblingly follow her into
the dark corners whither she calls me to give me these presents in tete-
a-tete.
About nine o'clock, with a silken rustling, arrive the three geishas in
vogue in Nagasaki: Mesdemoiselles Purete, Orange, and Printemps, whom I
have hired at four dollars each--an enormous price in this country.
These three geishas are indeed the very same little creatures I heard
singing on the rainy day of my arrival, through the thin panelling of the
Garden of Flowers. But as I have now become thoroughly Japanized, today
they appear to me more diminutive, less outlandish, and in no way
mysterious. I treat them rather as dancers that I have hired, and the
idea that I ever had thought of marrying one of them now makes me shrug
my shoulders--as it formerly made M. Kangourou.
The excessive heat caused by the respiration of the mousmes and the
burning lamps, brings out the perfume of the lotus, which fills the
heavy-laden atmosphere; and the scent of camellia-oil, which the ladies
use in profusion to make their hair glisten, is also strong in the room.
Mademoiselle Orange, the youngest geisha, tiny and dainty, her lips
outlined with gilt paint, executes some delightful steps, donning the
most extraordinary wigs and masks of wood or cardboard. She has masks
imitating old, noble ladies which are valuable works of art, signed by
well-known artists. She has also magnificent long robes, fashioned in
the old style, with trains trimmed at the bottom with thick pads, in
order to give to the movements of the costume something rigid and
unnatural which, however, is becoming.
Now the soft balmy breezes blow through the room, from one veranda to the
other, making the flames of the lamps flicker. They scatter the lotus
flowers faded by the artificial heat, which, falling in pieces from every
vase, sprinkle the guests with their pollen and large pink petals,
looking like bits of broken, opal-colored glass.
The sensational piece, reserved for the end, is a trio on the 'chamecen',
long and monotonous, that the geishas perform as a rapid pizzicato on the
highest strings, very sharply struck. It sounds like the very
quintessence, the paraphrase, the exasperation, if I may so call it,
of the eternal buzz of insects, which issues from the trees, old roofs,
old walls, from everything in fact, and which is the foundation of all
Japanese sounds.
Half-past ten! The programme has been carried out, and the reception is
over. A last general tap! tap! tap! the little pipes are stowed away in
their chased sheaths, tied up in the sashes, and the mousmes rise to
depart.
They light, at the end of short sticks, a quantity of red, gray, or blue
lanterns, and after a series of endless bows and curtseys, the guests
disperse in the darkness of the lanes and trees.
We also go down to the town, Yves, Chrysantheme, Oyouki and I--in order
to conduct my mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, and my youthful aunt, Madame
Nenufar, to their house.
We wish to take one last stroll together in our old familiar pleasure-
haunts, to drink one more iced sherbet at the house of the Indescribable
Butterflies, buy one more lantern at Madame Tres-Propre's, and eat some
parting waffles at Madame L'Heure's!
I try to be affected, moved, by this leave-taking, but without success.
In regard to Japan, as with the little men and women who inhabit it,
there is something decidedly wanting; pleasant enough as a mere pastime,
it begets no feeling of attachment.
On our return, when I am once more with Yves and the two mousmes climbing
up the road to Diou-djen-dji, which I shall probably never see again, a
vague feeling of melancholy pervades my last stroll.
It is, however, but the melancholy inseparable from all things that are
about to end without possibility of return.
Moreover, this calm and splendid summer is also drawing to a close for
us--since to-morrow we shall go forth to meet the autumn, in Northern
China. I am beginning, alas! to count the youthful summers I may still
hope for; I feel more gloomy each time another fades away, and flies to
rejoin the others already disappeared in the dark and bottomless abyss,
where all past things lie buried.
At midnight we return home, and my removal begins; while on board the
"amazingly tall friend" kindly takes my watch.
It is a nocturnal, rapid, stealthy removal--"doyobo (thieves) fashion,"
remarks Yves, who in visiting the mousmes has picked up a smattering of
the Nipponese language.
Messieurs the packers have, at my request, sent in the evening several
charming little boxes, with compartments and false bottoms, and several
paper bags (in the untearable Japanese paper), which close of themselves
and are fastened by strings, also in paper, arranged beforehand in the
most ingenious manner--quite the cleverest and most handy thing of its
kind; for little useful trifles these people are unrivalled.
It is a real treat to pack them, and everybody lends a helping hand--
Yves, Chrysantheme, Madame Prune, her daughter, and M. Sucre. By the
glimmer of the reception-lamps, which are still burning, every one wraps,
rolls, and ties up expeditiously, for it is already late.
Although Oyouki has a heavy heart, she can not prevent herself from
indulging in a few bursts of childish laughter while she works.
Madame Prune, bathed in tears, no longer restrains her feelings; poor old
lady, I really very much regret . . . .
Chrysantheme is absent-minded and silent.
But what a fearful amount of luggage! Eighteen cases or parcels,
containing Buddhas, chimeras, and vases, without mentioning the last
lotus that I carry away tied up in a pink cluster.
All this is piled up in the djins' carts, hired at sunset, which are
waiting at the door, while their runners lie asleep on the grass.
A starlit and exquisite night. We start off with lighted lanterns,
followed by the three sorrowful ladies who accompany us, and by abrupt
slopes, dangerous in the darkness, we descend toward the sea.
The djins, stiffening their muscular legs, hold back with all their might
the heavily loaded little cars which would run down by themselves if let
alone, and that so rapidly that they would rush into empty space with my
most valuable chattels. Chrysantheme walks by my side, and expresses, in
a soft and winning manner, her regret that the "wonderfully tall friend"
did not offer to replace me for the whole of my night-watch, as that
would have allowed me to spend this last night, even till morning, under
our roof.
"Listen!" she says, "come back to-morrow in the daytime, before getting
under way, to bid one good-by; I shall not return to my mother until
evening; you will find me still up there."
And I promise.
They stop at a certain turn, whence we have a bird's-eye view of the
whole harbor. The black, stagnant waters reflect innumerable distant
fires, and the ships--tiny, immovable objects, which, seen from our point
of view, take the shape of fish, seem also to slumber,--little objects
which serve to bear us elsewhere, to go far away, and to forget.
The three ladies are about to turn back home, for the night is already
far advanced and, farther down, the cosmopolitan quarters near the quays
are not safe at this unusual hour.
The moment has therefore come for Yves--who will not land again--to make
his last tragic farewells to his friends the little mousmes.
I am very curious to see the parting between Yves and Chrysantheme;
I listen with all my ears, I look with all my eyes, but it takes place in
the simplest and quietest fashion: none of that heartbreaking which will
be inevitable between Madame Prune and myself; I even notice in my mousme
an indifference, an unconcern which puzzles me; I positively am at a loss
to understand what it all means.
And I muse as I continue to descend toward the sea. "Her appearance of
sadness was not, therefore, on Yves's account. On whose, then?" and the
phrase runs through my head:
"Come back to-morrow before setting sail, to bid me goodby; I shall not
return to my mother until evening; you will find me still up there."
Japan is indeed most delightful this evening, so fresh and so sweet; and
little Chrysantheme was very charming just now, as she silently walked
beside me through the darkness of the lane.
It is about two o'clock when we reach the 'Triomphante' in a hired
sampan, where I have heaped up all my cases till there is danger of
sinking. The "very tall friend" gives over to me the watch that I must
keep till four o'clock; and the sailors on duty, but half awake, make a
chain in the darkness, to haul on board all my fragile luggage.
