Nevertheless, to my taste, it is not yet enough so!
What then can have changed upon the earth? The
burning noon-days of summer, such as I can recall
in days gone by, were more brilliant, more full of
sunshine; Nature seemed to me in those days more powerful,
more terrible. One would say this was only a
pale copy of all that I knew in early years,—a
copy in which something is wanting. Sadly do I
ask myself,—Is the splendor of the summer
only this? was it only this? or is it the fault
of my eyes, and as time goes on shall I behold everything
around me paling still more?
Behind me a faint and melancholy strain of music,—melancholy
enough to make one shiver,—and shrill,
shrill as the song of the grasshoppers, began to make
itself heard, very softly at first, then growing louder
and rising in the silence of the noonday like the
diminutive wail of some poor Japanese soul in pain
and anguish; it was Chrysantheme and her guitar awaking
together.
It pleased me that the idea should have occurred to
her to greet me with music, instead of eagerly hastening
to wish me “Good morning.” (At no
time have I ever given myself the trouble to pretend
the slightest affection for her, and a certain coldness
even has grown up between us, especially when we are
alone.) But to-day I turn to her with a smile, and
wave my hand for her to continue. “Go on,
it amuses me to listen to your quaint little impromptu.”
It is singular that the music of this essentially
merry people should be so plaintive. But undoubtedly
that which Chrysantheme is playing at this moment is
worth listening to. Whence can it have come to
her? What unutterable dreams, forever hidden
from me, fly through her yellow head, when she plays
or sings in this manner?
Suddenly: Pan, pan, pan! Some one knocks
three times, with a harsh and bony finger against
one of the steps of our stairs, and in the aperture
of our doorway appears an idiot, clad in a suit of
gray tweed, who bows low. “Come in, come
in, M. Kangourou. How well you come, just in
the nick of time! I was actually becoming enthusiastic
over your country!”
It was a little washing bill, which M. Kangourou respectfully
wished to hand to me, with a profound bend of the
whole body, the correct pose of the hands on the knees,
and a long snake-like hiss.
Following the road which climbs past the front of
our dwelling, one passes a dozen or more old villas,
a few garden walls, and then there is nothing but
the lonely mountain side, with little paths winding
upwards towards the summit through plantations of tea,
bushes of camellias, underwood and rocks. The
mountains round Nagasaki are covered with cemeteries;
for centuries and centuries past it is up here they
have brought their dead.
