They remained on their best behavior all through the
visit. But when the moment of departure came,
Chrysantheme, who would not go away without seeing
Yves, asked for him with a thinly-veiled persistency
which was remarkable. Yves, for whom I then sent,
made himself particularly charming to her, so much
so, that this time I felt a shade of more serious
annoyance; I even asked myself whether the laughably
pitiable ending, which I had hitherto vaguely foreseen,
might not, after all, soon break upon us.
September 4th.
I met yesterday, in an old and ruined quarter of the
town, a perfectly exquisite mousme, charmingly dressed;
a fresh note of color against the dark background
of decayed buildings.
It was quite at the farthest end of Nagasaki, in the
most ancient part of the town. In this region
are trees centuries old, ancient temples of Buddha,
of Amiddah, of Benten, or Kwanon, with steep and pompous
roofs; monsters carved in granite sit there in courtyards
silent as the grave, where the grass grows between
the paving-stones. This deserted quarter is traversed
by a narrow torrent running in a deep channel, across
which are thrown little curved bridges with granite
balustrades eaten away by lichen. All the objects
there wear the strange grimace, the quaint arrangement
familiar to us in the most antique Japanese drawings.
I walked through it all at the burning hour of midday,
and saw not a soul, unless indeed, through the open
windows of the bonze-houses, I caught sight of some
priests, guardians of tombs or sanctuaries, taking
their siesta under their dark-blue gauze nets.
All at once this little mousme appeared, a little
above me, just at the point of the arch of one of
these bridges carpeted with gray moss; she was in
full light, in full sunshine, and stood out in brilliant
clearness, like a fairy vision, against the background
of old black temples and deep shadows. She was
holding her dress together with one hand, gathering
it close round her ankles to give herself an air of
greater slimness. Over her quaint little head,
her round umbrella with its thousand ribs threw a
great halo of blue and red, edged with black, and
an oleander full of flowers growing among the stones
of the bridge spread its glory beside her, bathed,
like herself, in the sunshine. Behind this youthful
figure and this flowering shrub all was blackness.
Upon the pretty red and blue parasol great white letters
formed this inscription, much used among the mousmes,
and which I have learned to recognize: Stop!
clouds, to see her pass by. And it was really
worth the trouble to stop and look at this exquisite
little person, of a type so ideally Japanese.
However, it will not do to stop too long and be ensnared,—it
would only be another take-in. A doll like the
rest, evidently, an ornament for a china shelf, and
nothing more. While I gaze at her, I say to myself
that Chrysantheme, appearing in this same place, with
this dress, this play of light, and this aureole of
sunshine, would produce just as delightful an effect.
