Cahier de courriers

Dispatch Notebook

CAHIERS DE LA QUINZAINE

appearing twenty times a year

PARIS

8, rue de la Sorbonne, ground floor

The Cahiers de la Quinzaine have published:

The Liebknecht Affair, dossiers and documents, first cahier of the first series, out of print

Lionel Landry. --- Dispatch from China, fifth cahier of the second series, out of print

Andre Bourgeois. --- Four Days at Montceau, ninth cahier of the second series, out of print

Felicien Challaye. --- Dispatch from Indo-China, seventh cahier of the third series

Bernard Lazare. --- The Oppression of the Jews in Eastern Europe, the Jews in Romania, eighth cahier

Tolstoy. --- An Unpublished Letter, addressed to Romain Rolland

IMPRESSIONS OF JAPANESE LIFE

May 1902

My dear Peguy,

I send you the article on Japan. I title it Impressions of Japanese Life. I mean by this that certain remarks are personal impressions rather than objectively certain truths. It is a point of view on Japan: many of those who know Japan see it this way; but not all; --- for example on the meaning of religious life in Japan opinions and impressions are very diverse.

Felicien Challaye

IMPRESSIONS OF JAPANESE LIFE

Three months of travel in Japan: it is as if one had lived, during a hundred too-rapid days, a coherent succession of strange and charming dreams. A land of Utopia, where, in a society very different from the one we socialists wish to create, many of the intimate wishes of our hearts find themselves realized: that is the general impression that Japan has left me. When one has been there, one keeps one’s whole life some regret at being there no longer. In some the nostalgia is such that they decide to change their existence, to return. I do not believe one can escape this seduction, when one has seen Japan as it should be seen.

One must see Japan in a Japanese spirit, in a spirit of simplicity. The bourgeois spirit, the spirit of worldly vanity, the need for luxury or even comfort, form an insurmountable obstacle to understanding Japanese things and souls. Most travelers rich enough to go to Japan are not worthy of understanding it: their European life has placed in them too many needs and prejudices that limit their action and constrict their thought.

One must adopt another method of life to acquire a somewhat delicate understanding of the true Japan. One learns enough Japanese to be able to travel without a guide in the interior of the country; one stays everywhere in native inns; one lives exactly the daily life of all Japanese.

The first characteristic of Japanese life, the one that astonishes most, is its extreme simplicity. Simplicity of dwelling, first. The house is of wood. One removes one’s shoes before entering. One arrives at a sort of corridor-balcony, which goes around the house. Inside the corridor the rooms open: what strikes one in a Japanese room is its absolute nudity; there is nothing, not a piece of furniture: neither table, nor chair, nor armchair, nor bed, nor wardrobe. On the ground, mats, of a sparkling cleanliness; all around, mobile partitions, made of paper supported by a wooden lattice, sliding in grooves. In the back of the room only, a sort of alcove, the tokonoma, contains, on a step of polished wood, one or two works of art: a vase, a box, an inkwell, or a statuette, in wood, lacquer, porcelain, ivory, or bronze. In the vase is a Japanese bouquet, made of a few flowering branches, of unequal length and different curvature, arranged according to the rules of a special aesthetic formulated in the sixteenth century. On the wall of the tokonoma hangs a long painting on silk or paper, framed in a band of fabric, a kakemono. One changes from time to time these works of art; one changes the kakemono, choosing, among the paintings the family possesses, the one that best suits the season, the weather, the color of the day, the particular moral nuance that events project upon the sentimental life of the inhabitants of the house. This simplicity of these almost empty rooms is profoundly artistic. Nowhere in the world is William Morris’s golden rule better applied: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

In the Japanese room, where ordinarily only a few objects of beauty are found, furniture appears only during the time it is useful. A guest arrives: quickly a cushion is installed on which he will kneel to rest; before him, if it is cold, a brazier containing warm ash is placed. When the time of the meal comes, a small lacquered table, a few centimeters high, is brought to each person, on which are found a great number of plates and bowls, in porcelain or lacquer, with lids; on these plates or in these bowls there are seaweed soups, raw fish with ginger sauce, roasted fish, boiled fish, a sort of macaroni covered with eel fillets, eggs, beans, bamboo roots. Finally, when it is time to sleep, thick covers serving as a bed are spread on the floor. In the morning, the servant clears the room of these useless furnishings. The Japanese is the cleanest people in the world.

I found everywhere in Japan, in village inns as in the houses of former lords, the same kind of dwelling, furnishing, food. The simplicity of this life is truly egalitarian. Differences of fortune or situation are indicated only by the larger or smaller dimensions of the house and garden, by the higher or lower value of the works of art.

The same simplicity that characterizes the Japanese house also distinguishes the Japanese costume. It is the kimono, the long robe with pagoda sleeves, that a crepe sash ties around the waist. No garment could be better adapted to all the details of Japanese life; none is more elegant, none drapes the human body better. Compared to it, our European costume is at once ugly, constraining, absurd. The Japanese women also wear the kimono, but with a very wide silk sash forming behind the back a sort of cushion. Fashion is a detestable capitalist institution, for its sole object is to symbolize the distinction of classes.

When the curiosity that addresses itself first to exterior things is satisfied, it turns to persons, more mysterious. Here is the first remark that imposes itself upon the traveler: the Japanese are the gayest people in the world. First promenade. It is the Japanese pleasure par excellence. To promenade in the Japanese manner is to have pass before oneself, to enjoy them, changing tableaux; it is to attach oneself to the things and beings among which one passes, to the crowd, to the houses, to the temples, to the forests, to the animals, to the flowers, to the stones, to the clouds; it is to savor the too brief charm of an aspect of the universe that one will never see again; it is to find pleasure in the contemplation of all the real, to accept it and to will it, to love it.

The gaiety of the Japanese manifests itself above all during popular festivals, which are very frequent. The most popular festivals, the true national festivals, are celebrated on the occasion of the appearance of certain flowers: a very significant little fact, revealing to the depths the Japanese soul. One goes in joyous troops, as early as February, to admire the flowers of the plum trees; one goes to see the cherry trees blossom at the beginning of April, the azaleas and wisterias at the beginning of May, the lotuses in August; in autumn it is the reddened leaves of the maples one goes to contemplate; the first week of November is that of chrysanthemums.

Perhaps each of us should try to develop in himself and, by example, around him, the Japanese qualities that will characterize the men of the Future City, the spirit of simplicity, the spirit of fraternal cordiality, the feeling for nature, and the love of beauty. Society would be immediately a little better, if each of us lived from now on as if the perfect society, the just society, were already realized.

Felicien Challaye

RUSSIA SEEN FROM THE VISTULA

In 1895, I was a student at the University of Berlin. I decided to take advantage of the Easter holidays to visit Prussian Poland. The Polish question was then especially interesting and provoked lively polemics in Germany.

The first city I visited was Posen. It is a sad, dirty city. But the interest of Posen consists neither in its monuments nor in its streets; it is entirely in the struggle between the two nationalities that divide its inhabitants, in the moral struggle that recalls itself to you at every step. There are two museums, one German and the other Polish, just as there are two theaters, one Polish and the other German.

After having strolled for several days, I arrived one evening in the small town of Kruswicze. In this region of Cujavy, the representatives of injured right far outnumber those of triumphant civilization. The next day I wanted to make the tour of Lake Goplo. The son of my host, a boy of about fourteen, offered to serve as my guide.

Toward three o’clock in the afternoon, we had arrived at the Russo-German frontier, marked by a post and a sort of beaten-earth path. A Russian soldier, covered in a gray coat, did not take long to emerge from behind the nearest mound. He invited us to pass through Russian territory, which we had to cross for only a few minutes. We believed him. But scarcely had we crossed the frontier when he seized my companion by the collar, saying he was a Pole and that he was keeping him prisoner. I offered him a two-mark coin, but he demanded kopecks, which I did not have. Then I told my companion to run, while I would converse with the soldier. However the latter was on guard; he cocked his rifle, and as soon as the boy began to run, he took aim. Two horsemen, hidden behind a nearby mound, came running, placed us between them, and there we were, led as prisoners across brownish fields to a black wooden barracks.

There was no officer in the barracks; it was a non-commissioned officer who received us. The soldiers of the post immediately surrounded us. All were very dirty, and most bore smallpox marks. The non-commissioned officer took our watches, knives, and handkerchiefs; each object fell to a soldier. They showed us two crudely colored pictures, one representing a combat against the Turks and the other the head of Nicholas I. The non-commissioned officer stretched out on his bed and, for an hour, played the accordion in our honor. We spent the whole night sitting on a bunk, without having been given anything to eat.

The next morning, at five o’clock, we were told we would be taken before an officer. Four soldiers accompanied us, bayonets fixed. We marched a good hour through plowed fields. There was no officer at the new barracks either. Our cortege was augmented by three peasants and two women who had been arrested during the night trying to cross the frontier without passports. These poor people wanted to emigrate to America and had been unable to obtain the necessary authorization. They carried all their possessions in bundles on their backs and had a tired and sadly resigned air.

We continued to march. After two hours, we arrived at a large barracks. We were first made to enter a dormitory. The soldiers soon amused themselves by spitting on one of the arrested peasants. The poor man wiped his face with the back of his sleeve, without saying a word; his wife wept beside him. I did not hide my indignation.

Finally a soldier came to fetch us to lead us before the officer. The captain stopped me at the first words and strictly forbade us to speak. He merely had us completely stripped and had our clothes searched by his orderly. Then he sat down and wrote a long report. I learned later that we were considered spies, especially because of my map.

Always without addressing us, the officer handed us back to the four soldiers, and we began to march again, without knowing where we were going.

Having eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, we were also beginning to be terribly hungry. At noon, we arrived in a large village, “Brunislaw.” We were led immediately to the natchelnik. He was a small man in uniform, his hair close-cropped, seated before a pile of papers. On the wall hung a painting representing the somber face of Nicholas I. He pulled out my student card and said to me: “Ah! you are a student; we do not like students!” Then the small man rose, looked me in the eyes and said abruptly: “You are an anarchist!” I merely shrugged my shoulders. He then triumphantly pulled from my inexhaustible wallet a visiting card, scribbled with questions and answers for a parlor game. “What is this?” he said, trying to decipher the penciled words. “It is very serious!”

He then permitted me to write, in German, an account of our arrest. He was as gentle and polite as he had been brusque until then. He even pushed his amiability so far as to offer me a cigarette and explained that he would have us conducted to the frontier.

We were taken to Nieszawa, where we passed immediately before the judge. He told us that we were well and truly sentenced “administratively” to six years of exile, but that an order had come to keep us a few days for additional information. He politely and coldly refused us permission to write to our families.

We thus had our special cell, which constituted an immense advantage. Indeed, after our liberation, I was able to visit the other cells, and I was indignant at what I saw. They are made for twenty or twenty-five detainees, and up to forty prisoners are crammed in, men and women together. The wretches do not always have room to lie down full length at night, and several are forced to sleep crouched on the floor filled with spittle and filth.

We received fifteen kopecks per day, which had to suffice for our food. Our ordinary consisted, morning and evening, of a cup of tea and bread, at noon a plate of soup or potatoes.

One evening, a pregnant woman arrived in the prison with a small convoy of prisoners. As soon as she appeared in the courtyard, the wardens hurled vulgar words and infamous jeers. Then, as she would not wash the ordure tub, she was struck by one of the jailers. The night that followed, she gave birth to a stillborn child.

On the ninth day, we were called before the judge. For the first time, he had us seated and even offered me a cigarette. He announced that a telegram from Warsaw ordered our release. The scribe who spoke German added this sententious phrase: “With us justice is slow, but it is sure.” The first part of this juridical dogma is incontestable; I remain skeptical as to the second.

Edmond Bernus

DISPATCH FROM FINLAND

The French newspapers all spoke, in the last days of April, of disturbances that took place in Finland, particularly in Helsingfors on April 17 and 18. These demonstrations constitute the latest chapter --- the latest to date --- of the struggle sustained by Finland against Russian despotism.

I was an eyewitness to a part of the events; I informed myself for the rest from reliable persons.

The “disturbances” --- more exactly the demonstrations --- were provoked by the application of the military law decreed in July 1901 by the tsar, in violation of the Finnish constitution. This law suppressed the Finnish troops with the exception of the dragoon regiment and the guard battalion. Finnish recruits thus have only feeble chances of serving in the sole remaining corps; most must expect to be assigned to Russian troops.

Jean Deck