Madame Chrysantheme | Page 7

to assemble the necessary words. But, the more I look at you the more uneasy I feel as to what my fiancée of to-morrow may be like. Almost pretty, I grant you, you are,--in virtue of quaintness, delicate hands, miniature feet, but ugly after all, and absurdly small. You look like ouistitis, like little china ornaments, like I don't know what. I begin to understand that I have arrived at this house at an ill-chosen moment. Something is going on which does not concern me, and I feel that I am in the way.
From the beginning I might have guessed as much, notwithstanding the excessive politeness of my welcome; for I remember now, that while they were taking off my boots downstairs, I heard a murmuring chatter overhead, then a noise of panels moved quickly along their grooves, evidently to hide from me something I was not intended to see; they were improvising for me the apartment in which I now am--just as in menageries they make a separate compartment for some beasts when the public is admitted.
Now I am left alone while my orders are being executed, and I listen attentively, squatted like a Buddha on my black velvet cushion, in the midst of the whiteness of the walls and mats.
Behind the paper partitions, worn-out voices, seemingly numerous, are talking in low tones. Then rises the sound of a guitar, and the song of a woman, plaintive and gentle in the echoing sonority of the bare house, in the melancholy of the rainy weather.
What one can see through the wide-open verandah is very pretty, I will admit; it resembles the landscape of a fairy tale. There are admirably wooded mountains, climbing high into the dark and gloomy sky, and hiding in it the peaks of their summits, and, perched up among the clouds--a temple. The atmosphere has that absolute transparency, the distance that clearness which follows a great downpour of rain; but a thick pall, still heavy with moisture, remains suspended over all, and on the foliage of the hanging woods still float great flakes of gray fluff, which remain there, motionless. In the foreground, in front of and below all this almost fantastic landscape, is a miniature garden where two beautiful white cats are taking the air, amusing themselves by pursuing each other through the paths of a Lilliputian labyrinth, shaking from their paws the sand, which is still wet. The garden is as conventional as possible: not a flower, but little rocks, little lakes, dwarf trees cut in a grotesque fashion; all this is not natural, but it is most ingeniously arranged, so green, so full of fresh mosses!
In the rain-soaked country below me, to the very furthest end of the vast scene, reigns a great silence, an absolute calm. But the woman's voice, behind the paper wall, continues to sing in a key of gentle sadness, and the accompanying guitar has somber and even gloomy notes.
Stay though! Now the music is somewhat quicker--one might even suppose they were dancing!
So much the worse! I shall try to look between the fragile divisions, through a crack which has revealed itself to my notice.
What a singular spectacle it is; evidently the gilded youth of Nagasaki holding a great clandestine orgy! In an apartment as bare as my own, there are a dozen of them, seated in a circle on the ground, attired in long blue cotton dresses with pagoda sleeves, long, sleek and greasy hair surmounted by European pot hats; and beneath these, yellow, worn out, bloodless, foolish faces. On the floor are a number of little spirit-lamps, little pipes, little lacquer trays, little tea-pots, little cups--all the accessories and all the remains of a Japanese feast, resembling nothing so much as a doll's tea-party. In the midst of this circle of dandies are three over-dressed women, one might say three weird visions, robed in garments of pale and undefinable colors, embroidered with golden monsters; and their great chignons arranged with fantastic art, stuck full of pins and flowers. Two are seated and turn their back to me: one is holding the guitar, the other singing with that soft and pretty voice;--thus seen furtively, from behind, their pose, their hair, the nape of the neck, all is exquisite, and I tremble lest a movement should reveal to me faces which might destroy the enchantment. The third one is on her feet, dancing before this areopagus of idiots, with their lanky locks and pot hats. What a shock when she turns round! She wears over her face the horribly grinning, deathly mask of a specter or vampire. The mask unfastened, falls. And behold! a darling little fairy of about twelve or fifteen years of age, slim, and already a coquette, already a woman,--dressed in a long robe of shaded dark