Pierre Loti

“ Little Pierre is at Plouherzel, trying to play in front of his grandmother's door—quite lost as he looks at the motionless sheet of water before him, with the large beastlike shape which seems to be asleep in the centre, behind a veil of mist. There is free air and open sky here, to be sure, but the wind is keener than at Toulven, and the country more desolate; and children feel these things by instinct; in the presence of things forlorn, they have involuntary melancholies and silences—as birds have. ”

“ Suddenly from below, clac! clac! two dry hands are clapped together; it is Madame Prune’s warning to the Great Spirit. And immediately after her prayer breaks forth, soars upward in a shrill nasal falsetto, like a morning alarum when the hour for waking has come, the mechanical noise of a spring let go and running down.
“... The richest woman in the world! Cleansed from all my sins, O Ama-Terace-Omi-Kami! in the river of Kamo.”
And this extraordinary bleating, hardly human, scatters and changes my ideas, which were very nearly clear at the moment I awoke. ”

“ Before that, however, she will have risen at least three times to smoke: having yawned like a cat, stretched herself, twisted in every direction her little amber arms, and her graceful little hands, she sits up resolutely, with all the waking sighs and broken syllables of a child, pretty and fascinating enough; then she emerges from the gauze net, fills her little pipe, and breathes a few puffs of the bitter and unpleasant mixture.
Then comes tap, tap, tap, tap, against the box to shake out the ashes. In the silence of the night it makes quite a terrible noise, which wakes Madame Prune. ”

“ At eight o'clock, at nightfall, our maneuver being at an end, I embarked with Yves on board a sampan; this time it is he who is carrying me off and taking me back to my home.
On land, a delicious perfume of new-mown hay greets us, and the road across the mountains lies bathed in glorious moonlight. We go straight up to Diou-djen-dji to join Chrysanthème; I feel almost remorseful, although I hardly show it, for my neglect of her.
Looking up, I recognize from afar my little house, perched on high. It is wide open and lit up; I even hear the sound of guitar. ”

“ I fetch, therefore, a leaf out of my album, and begin at once, seated on the floor and leaning on my desk, ornamented with grasshoppers in relief, while behind me, very, very close to me, the three women follow the movements of my pencil with astonished attention. Japanese art being entirely conventional, they have never before seen any one draw from nature, and my style delights them. I may not perhaps possess the steady and nimble touch of M. Sucre, as he groups his charming storks, but I am master of a few notions of perspective which are wanting in him ”

“ It was three years since Jean Peyral had first set foot in this land of Africa, and since his arrival he had undergone an extraordinary transformation. He had passed through several phases of moral development. Environment, climate, nature, had gradually exercised all their enervating influence upon his youthful personality. Slowly he had felt himself gliding down unknown slopes—and to-day he was the lover of Fatou-gaye, a young negro girl of Khassonké race, who had cast upon him I know not what sensual and impure seduction, what talismanic enchantment. ”

“ At Paimpol Marie, with her son, has climbed into the diligence which moves off and is bearing them away. Through the door she watches her mother-in-law who has had the grace to accompany them from Plouherzel to see them off, but who has said good-bye briefly and coldly, a good-bye to chill the heart.
She watches her and is puzzled; for the old woman is running now, running after the diligence—and her face, too, is working; she seems to be making some kind of grimace. What can she want of them? And as she watches Marie becomes almost afraid. ”

“ By the side of the handsome spahi in his red jacket sat Fatou with her high headdress of amber and copper spangles.
Night had fallen, and in the lonely square the little negro girls continued to chase one another, flitting hither and thither in the dusk—one of them entirely nude—the other two looking like white bats with their long floating bou-bous.
The cold wind incited them to run; they were like kittens in our country, who feel an impulse to gambol wildly when the dry east wind is blowing, which brings us frost. ”

“ In the gardens and outbuildings of the temple the most inconceivable mountebanks have taken up their quarters, their black streamers, painted with white letters, looking like funereal trappings as they float in the wind from the top of their tall flagstaffs. Hither we turn out steps, as soon as our mousmés have ended their orisons and bestowed their alms.
In one of the booths a man stretched on a table, flat on his back, is alone on the stage; puppets of almost human size, with horribly grinning masks, spring out of his body; they speak, gesticulate, then fall back like empty rags ”

“ 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 the panting journey we made, the djin and I, one dragging the other, under the merciless downpour. ”

“ Still rather sleepy, drinking in chestfuls of the fresh, chill air, they stepped up, drawing their long sea-boots higher, and having to shut their eyes, dazzled at first by a light so pale, yet in such abundance.
Yann and Sylvestre took their breakfast of biscuits, which they had to break with a mallet, and began to munch noisily, laughing at their being so very hard. They had become quite merry again at the idea of going down to sleep, snugly and warmly in their berths; and clasping each other round the waist they danced up to the hatchway to an old song-tune. ”

“ Here is the well, surrounded by bamboos, where we are wont to make a nocturnal halt for Chrysantheme to take breath. Yves begs me to throw forward the red gleam of my lantern, in order to recognize the place, for it marks our halfway resting-place.
And at last, at last, here is our house! The door is closed, all is silent and dark. Our panels have been carefully shut by M. Sucre and Madame Prune; the rain streams down the wood of our old black walls. ”

“ He turned his eyes away, looking outside; his cheeks blazed red, a rush of blood burned all his face, and his quivering nostrils dilated with every breath, keeping time with the heavings of his chest, like a young bull's.
“The night of the ball,” she tried to continue, “when we were together, you bade me good-bye, not as a man speaks to an indifferent person. Monsieur Yann, have you no memory? What have I done to vex you?”
The nasty western breeze blowing in from the street ruffled his hair and the frills of Gaud's coiffe, and behind them a door was banged furiously. ”

“ At the door of the garden is a renewal of the same salutations and curtseys, and then the two groups of women separate, their bedaubed paper lanterns fade away trembling in the distance, balanced at the extremity of flexible canes which they hold in their fingertips as one would hold a fishing-rod in the dark to catch night-birds. The procession of the unfortunate Mademoiselle Jasmin mounts upward toward the mountain, while that of Mademoiselle Chrysantheme winds downward by a narrow old street, half- stairway, half-goat-path, which leads to the town. ”

“ At last my vehicle stops, and my djin, with many smiles and precautions lest any fresh rivers should stream down my back, lowers the hood of the cart; there is a break in the storm, and the rain has ceased. I had not yet seen his face; by exception to the general rule, he is good-looking;—a young man of about thirty years of age, of intelligent and strong appearance, and an open countenance. Who could have foreseen that a few days later this very djin.—But no, I will not anticipate, and run the risk of throwing beforehand any discredit on Chrysanthème. ”

“ PIERRE LOTI LOUIS-MARIE-JULIEN VIAUD, "Pierre Loti," was born in Rochefort, of an old French-Protestant family, January 14, 1850. He was connected with the. French Navy from 1867 to 1900, and is now a retired officer with full captain's rank. Although of a most energetic character and a veteran of various campaigns—Japan, Tonkin, Senegal, China (1900) —M. Viaud was so timid as a young midshipman that his comrades named him "Loti," a small Indian flower which seems ever discreetly to hide itself. This is, perhaps, a pleasantry, as elsewhere there is a much more romantic explanation of the word. ”

“ With eyes heavy with sleep, he read it in their dark nook below deck, lit by the yellow beam of the small lamp; at the first moment he became stunned and giddy, like one dazed out of fair understanding. Very proud and reticent in all things concerning the feelings was Yann, and he hid the letter in his blue jersey, next his breast, without saying anything, as sailors do. But he did not feel the courage to sit down with the others to supper, and disdaining even to explain why, he threw himself into his berth and fell asleep. Soon he dreamed of Sylvestre dead, and of his funeral going by. ”

“ They gave her an order to go and take, as the heiress, the thirty francs that came from the sale of Sylvestre's bag; and then the letters, the certificates, and the box containing the military medal.
She took the whole parcel awkwardly with open fingers, unable to find pockets to put them in.
She went straight through Paimpol, looking at no one, her body bent slightly like one about to fall, with a rushing of blood in her ears; pressing and hurrying along like some poor old machine, which could not be wound up, at a great pressure, for the last time, without fear of breaking its springs. ”

“ Great baobabs grow here and there on the desolate dunes; flights of fish-eagles and vultures swoop through the air overhead.
Fatou-gaye is here provisionally installed in a mulatto hut. She declares that she will never return to St Louis. There her plans end. She does not know what is to become of her, and Jean is equally ignorant. He has racked his brains in vain, poor fellow, without hitting upon the vestige of a plan. And he has no more money!...
It is morning; the mailboat on which the spahis are to embark sails in a few hours. ”

“ I don't mind a bit being the wife of a fisherman, and yet, if I liked, I need but choose among all the young men of Paimpol; but I do love you, because, notwithstanding all, I believe you to be better than others. I'm tolerably well-to-do, and I know I am pretty; although I have lived in towns, I am sure that I am not a spoiled girl, as I never have done anything wrong; then, if I love you so, why shouldn't you take me?”
But all this never would be said except in dreams; it was too late! Yann would not hear her. ”

“ Quickly the mousmes must deck themselves out. Chrysantheme is ready; Oyouki hurries, changes her dress, and, putting on a mouse-colored gray robe, begs me to arrange the bows of her fine sash-black satin lined with yellow-sticking at the same time in her hair a silver topknot. We light our lanterns, swinging at the end of little sticks; M. Sucre, overwhelming us with thanks for his daughter, accompanies us on all fours to the door, and we go off gayly through the clear and balmy night. ”

“ We have come at the wrong moment; there is a file of people at the door. Long rows of djins' cars are stationed there, awaiting the customers they have brought, who will all have their turn before us. The runners, naked and tattooed, their hair carefully combed in sleek bands and shiny chignons, are chatting, smoking little pipes, or bathing their muscular legs in the fresh water of the torrent.
The courtyard is irreproachably Japanese, with its lanterns and dwarf trees. ”

“ He finishes his work, and does in fact obtain leave, without help from me, to go on shore at five o’clock, after drill and manoeuvres.
As for myself I start at once, in a hired sampan. In the vast flood of midday sunshine, to the quivering noise of the cicalas, I mount to Diou-djen-dji.
The paths are solitary, the plants are drooping in the heat. Here, however, is Madame Jonquille, taking the air in the bright, grasshoppers’ sunshine, sheltering her dainty figure and her charming face under an enormous paper parasol, a huge circle, closely ribbed and fantastically striped. ”

“ After a little pressing he does as he is bid and follows us, looking like an overgrown boy only half awake. I make no objection to this singular hospitality; after all, it looks so little like a bed, the matting we are to share, and we sleep in our clothes, as we always do, according to the Nipponese fashion. After all, on a journey in a railway, do not the most estimable ladies stretch themselves without demur by the side of gentlemen unknown to them?
I have, however, placed Chrysantheme’s little wooden block in the centre of the gauze tent, between our two pillows. ”