Madame Chrysanthème | Page 8

first landing, and how was I to find a
wife through such a deluge, in an unknown country?

No matter! I dressed myself and said to Yves, who smiled at my
obstinate determination in spite of unfavorable circumstances:
"Hail me a 'sampan,' brother, please."
Yves then, by a motion of his arm through the wind and rain,
summoned a kind of little, white, wooden sarcophagus which was
skipping near us on the waves, sculled by two yellow boys stark naked
in the rain. The craft approached us, I jumped into it, then through a
little trap-door shaped like a rat-trap that one of the scullers threw open
for me, I slipped in and stretched myself at full length on a mat in what
is called the "cabin" of a sampan.
There was just room enough for my body to lie in this floating coffin,
which was scrupulously clean, white with the whiteness of new deal
boards. I was well sheltered from the rain, that fell pattering on my lid,
and thus I started for the town, lying in this box, flat on my stomach,
rocked by one wave, roughly shaken by another, at moments almost
overturned; and through the half-opened door of my rat-trap I saw,
upside- down, the two little creatures to whom I had entrusted my fate,
children of eight or ten years of age at the most, who, with little
monkeyish faces, had, however, fully developed muscles, like
miniature men, and were already as skilful as regular old salts.
Suddenly they began to shout; no doubt we were approaching the
landing- place. And indeed, through my trap-door, which I had now
thrown wide open, I saw quite near to me the gray flagstones on the
quays. I got out of my sarcophagus and prepared to set foot on Japanese
soil for the first time in my life.
All was streaming around us, and the tiresome rain dashed into my
eyes.
Hardly had I landed, when there bounded toward me a dozen strange
beings, of what description it was almost impossible to distinguish
through the blinding rain--a species of human hedgehog, each dragging
some large black object; they came screaming around me and stopped
my progress. One of them opened and held over my head an enormous,

closely-ribbed umbrella, decorated on its transparent surface with
paintings of storks; and they all smiled at me in an engaging manner,
with an air of expectation.
I had been forewarned; these were only the djins who were touting for
the honor of my preference; nevertheless I was startled at this sudden
attack, this Japanese welcome on a first visit to land (the djins or
djin-richisans, are the runners who drag little carts, and are paid for
conveying people to and fro, being hired by the hour or the distance, as
cabs are hired in Europe).
Their legs were naked; to-day they were very wet, and their heads were
hidden under large, shady, conical hats. By way of waterproofs they
wore nothing less than mats of straw, with all the ends of the straws
turned outward, bristling like porcupines; they seemed clothed in a
thatched roof. They continued to smile, awaiting my choice.
Not having the honor of being acquainted with any of them in
particular, I chose at haphazard the djin with the umbrella and got into
his little cart, of which he carefully lowered the hood. He drew an
oilcloth apron over my knees, pulling it up to my face, and then
advancing, asked me, in Japanese, something which must have meant:
"Where to, sir?" To which I replied, in the same language, "To the
Garden of Flowers, my friend."
I said this in the three words I had, parrot-like, learned by heart,
astonished that such sounds could mean anything, astonished, too, at
their being understood. We started, he running at full speed, I dragged
along and jerked about in his light chariot, wrapped in oilcloth, shut up
as if in a box--both of us unceasingly drenched all the while, and
dashing all around us the water and mud of the sodden ground.
"To the Garden of Flowers," I had said, like a habitual frequenter of the
place, and quite surprised at hearing myself speak. But I was less
ignorant about Japan than might have been supposed. Many of my
friends, on their return home from that country, had told me about it,
and I knew a great deal; the Garden of Flowers is a tea-house, an
elegant rendezvous. There I should inquire for a certain Kangourou-San,

who is at the same time interpreter, laundryman, and confidential agent
for the intercourse of races. Perhaps this very evening, if all went well,
I should be introduced to the bride destined for me by mysterious fate.
This thought kept my mind on the alert during