Madame Chrysantheme | Page 8

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 blue china crape, covered with embroidery representing
bats--gray bats, black bats, golden bats.
Suddenly there are steps on the stairs, the light footsteps of barefooted
women pattering over the white mats. No doubt the first course of my
lunch just about to be served. I quickly fall back, fixed and motionless,
upon my black velvet cushion. There are three of them now, three
waiting-maids who arrive in single file, with smiles and curtsies. One
offers me the spirit-lamp and the tea-pot, another preserved fruits in
delightful little plates, the third, absolutely indefinable objects upon
gems of little trays. And they grovel before me on the floor, placing all
this plaything of a meal at my feet.
At this moment, my impressions of Japan are charming enough; I feel
myself fairly launched upon this tiny, artificial, fictitious world, which
I felt I knew already from the paintings of lacquer and porcelains. It is
so exact a representation! The three little squatting women, graceful
and dainty, with their narrow slits of eyes, their magnificent chignons
in huge bows, smooth and shining as boot-polish, and the little
tea-service on the floor, the landscape seen through the verandah, the
pagoda perched among the clouds; and over all the same affectation

everywhere, in every detail. Even the woman's melancholy voice, still
to be heard behind the paper partition, was so evidently the way they
should sing, these musicians I had so often seen painted in amazing
colors on rice-paper, half closing their dreamy eyes in the midst of
impossibly large flowers. Long before I came to it, I had perfectly
pictured this Japan to myself. Nevertheless in the reality it almost
seems to be smaller, more finicking than I had imagined it, and also
much more mournful, no doubt by reason of that great pall of black
clouds hanging over us and this incessant rain.
* * * * *
While awaiting M. Kangourou (who is dressing himself it appears, and
will be here shortly), it may be as well to begin lunch.
In the daintiest bowl imaginable, adorned with flights of storks, is the
most wildly impossible soup made of sea-weed. After which there are
little fish dried in sugar, crabs in sugar, beans in sugar, and fruits in
vinegar and pepper. All this is atrocious, but above all unexpected and
unimaginable. The little women make me eat, laughing much, with that
perpetual irritating laugh, which is the laugh peculiar to Japan,--they
make me eat, according to their fashion, with dainty chop-sticks,
fingered with mannered grace. I am becoming accustomed to their
faces. The whole effect is refined,--a refinement so utterly different
from our own, that at first sight I understand nothing of it, although in
the long run it may end by pleasing me.
Suddenly there enters, like a night butterfly awakened in broad daylight,
like a rare and surprising moth, the dancing-girl from the other
compartment, the child who wore the horrible mask. No doubt she
wishes to have a look at me. She rolls her eyes like a timid kitten, and
then all at once tamed, nestles against me, with a coaxing air of
childishness, which is a delightfully transparent assumption. She is slim,
elegant, delicate, and smells sweet; drolly painted, white as plaster,
with a little circle of rouge marked very precisely in the middle of each
cheek, the mouth reddened, and a touch of gilding outlining the under
lip. As they could not whiten the back of the neck on account of all the
delicate little curls of hair growing there, they had, in their love of

exactitude, stopped the white plaster in a straight line, which might
have been cut with a knife, and in consequence at the nape appears a
square of natural skin of a deep yellow.
An imperious note sounds on the guitar, evidently a summons! Crac!
Away she goes, the little fairy, to rejoice the drivelling fools on the
other side of the screens.
Supposing I marry this one, without seeking any further. I should
respect her as a child committed to my care; I should take her for what
she is: a fantastic and charming plaything. What an amusing little
household I should