They were on their best behavior throughout 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.
AN ORIENTAL VISION
September 4th.
Yesterday I encountered, in an ancient and ruined
quarter of the town, a perfectly exquisite mousme,
charmingly dressed; a fresh touch of color against
the sombre background of decayed buildings.
I met her at the farthest end of Nagasaki, in the
most ancient part of the town. In this region
are trees centuries old, antique 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 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
few priests, guardians of tombs or sanctuaries, taking
their siesta under dark-blue gauze nets.
Suddenly 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 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 robe 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-tree 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!’ 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 delusion. 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.
