We must therefore open all the closed doors, put on
our boots, and go down into the garden to draw water.
As Chrysantheme would die of fright all alone in the
dark, in the midst of the trees and buzzing of insects,
I am obliged to accompany her to the well. For
this expedition we require a light, and must seek among
the quantity of lanterns purchased at Madame Tres-Propre’s
booth, which have been thrown night after night into
the bottom of one of our little paper closets; but
alas, all the candles are burned down! I thought
as much! Well, we must resolutely take the first
lantern to hand, and stick a fresh candle on the iron
point at the bottom; Chrysantheme puts forth all her
strength, the candle splits, breaks; the mousme pricks
her fingers, pouts and whimpers. Such is the
inevitable scene that takes place every evening, and
delays our retiring to rest under the dark-blue gauze
net for a good quarter of an hour; while the cicalas
on the roof seem to mock us with their ceaseless song.
All this, which I should find amusing in any one else,—any
one I loved—irritates me in her.
TENDER MINISTRATIONS
September 11th.
A week has passed very quietly, during which I have
written nothing.
By degrees I am becoming accustomed to my Japanese
household, to the strangeness of the language, costumes,
and faces. For the last three weeks no letters
have arrived from Europe; they have no doubt miscarried,
and their absence contributes, as is usually the case,
to throw a veil of oblivion over the past.
Every day, therefore, I climb up to my villa, sometimes
by beautiful starlit nights, sometimes through downpours
of rain. Every morning as the sound of Madame
Prune’s chanted prayer rises through the reverberating
air, I awake and go down toward the sea, by grassy
pathways full of dew.
The chief occupation in Japan seems to be a perpetual
hunt after curios. We sit down on the mattings,
in the antique-sellers’ little booths, taking
a cup of tea with the salesmen, and rummage with our
own hands in the cupboards and chests, where many
a fantastic piece of old rubbish is huddled away.
The bargaining, much discussed, is laughingly carried
on for several days, as if we were trying to play
off some excellent little practical joke upon each
other.
I really make a sad abuse of the adjective little;
I am quite aware of it, but how can I do otherwise?
In describing this country, the temptation is great
to use it ten times in every written line. Little,
finical; affected,—all Japan is contained,
both physically and morally, in these three words.
My purchases are accumulating in my little wood and
paper house; but how much more Japanese it really
was, in its bare emptiness, such as M. Sucre and Madame
Prune had conceived it. There are now many lamps
of sacred symbolism hanging from the ceiling; many
stools and many vases, as many gods and goddesses
as in a pagoda.
