CHRYSANTHEME (continued 2)

Oh! those friends of Chrysanthème, what

It would really amuse me to read her friends' letters,—and above all my mousmé's answers.

XXIX.

August 10th.

This evening it rained heavily, and the night was thick and black. At about ten o'clock, on our return from one of the fashionable tea-houses we constantly frequent, we arrived,—Yves, Chrysanthème and myself,—at the certain familiar angle of the principal street, the certain turn where we must take leave of the lights and noises of the town, to clamber up the black steps and steep lanes which lead to our home at Diou-djen-dji.

There, before beginning our ascension, we must first buy lanterns from an old trades- [E] whose faithful customers we are. It is amazing what a quantity of these paper lanterns we consume. They are invariably decorated in the same way, with painted night-moths or bats; fastened to the ceiling at the further end of the shop, they hang in enormous clusters, and the old woman, seeing us arrive, gets upon a table to take them down. Gray or red are our usual choice; Madame Très-Propre knows our preferences and leaves the green or blue lanterns aside. But it is always hard work to unhook one, on account of the little short sticks by which they are held, and the strings by which they are tied getting entangled together. In an exaggerated pantomime, Madame Très-Propre expresses her despair at wasting so much of our valuable time: oh! if it only depended on her personal efforts! but ah, for the natural perversity of inanimate things which have no consideration for human dignity. With monkeyish antics, she even deems it her duty to threaten the lanterns and shake her fist at these inextricably tangled strings which have the presumption to delay us. It is all very well, but we know this maneuver by heart; and if the old lady loses patience, so do we. Chrysanthème, who is half asleep, is seized with a fit of kitten-like yawning

I have the same feeling, and am thoroughly annoyed.

To what purpose, good heavens, do I clamber up every evening to that suburb, when it offers me no attraction whatever?

The rain increases, what are we to do? Outside, djins pass rapidly by, calling out: "Take care!" splashing the foot-passengers and casting through the shower streams of light from their many-colored lanterns. Mousmés and elderly ladies pass by, tucked up, muddy, laughing nevertheless, under their paper umbrellas, exchanging greetings, clacking their wooden pattens on the stone pavement; the whole street is filled with the noise of the pattering feet and pattering rain.

As good luck will have it, at the same moment passes 415, our poor relative, who, seeing our distress, stops and promises to help us out of our difficulty; as soon as he has deposited on the quay an Englishman he is conveying, he will come to our aid and bring all that is necessary to relieve us from our lamentable situation.

[F] the woman who sells waffles; we always buy a provision from her, to refresh us on the way. A very lively young woman is this pastry-cook, and most anxious to make herself agreeable; she looks quite like a screen picture, behind her piled-up cakes, ornamented with little posies. We will take shelter under her roof while we wait; and, to avoid the drops that fall heavily from the water-spouts, wedge ourselves tightly against her display of white and pink sweetmeats, so artistically spread out on fresh and delicate branches of cypress.

Poor 415, what a providence he is to us! Already he re-appears, most excellent cousin, ever smiling, ever running, while the water streams down his handsome bare legs; he brings us two umbrellas, borrowed from a China merchant, who is also a distant relative of ours. Like me, Yves has till now never consented to use such a thing, but he now accepts one because it is droll: in paper, of course, with innumerable folds waxed and gummed, and the inevitable flight of storks forming a wreath all round.

Chrysanthème, yawning more and more in

"I beg you, mousmé, this evening to take the arm of Yves-San; I am sure that will suit us all three."

And there they go, she, tiny figure, hanging on to the big fellow, and so they climb up. I lead the way, carrying the lantern that lights our steps, and whose flame I protect as well as I can under my fantastic umbrella. On each side of the road is heard the roaring torrent of stormy waters rolling down from the mountain side. To-night the way seems long, difficult and slippery; a succession of interminable flights of steps, gardens and houses piled up one above another; waste lands, and trees which in the darkness shake their dripping foliage on our heads.

One would say that Nagasaki is ascending at the same time as ourselves; but yonder, and very far away, in a kind of vapory mist which seems luminous on the blackness of the sky; and from the town there rises a confused murmur of voices and rumbling of gongs and laughter.

The summer rain has not yet refreshed the atmosphere. On account of the stormy heat, the little suburban houses have been left open

A few houses are open, where amusements are still going on; here and there, from the somber gardens, the sound of a guitar reaches our ears, some dance giving in its weird rhythm a strange impression of sadness.

Here is the well, surrounded by bamboos, where we are wont to make a nocturnal halt for Chrysanthème 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 half-way resting place.

And at last, at last, here is our house! The door is closed, all is silent and black. Our panels have been carefully shut by M. Sucre and Madame Prune; the rain streams down the

In such weather it is impossible to allow Yves to return down hill, and wander along the shore in quest of a sampan. No, he shall not return on board to-night; we will put him up in our house. His little room has indeed been already provided for in the conditions of our lease, and notwithstanding his discreet refusal, we immediately set to work to make it. Let us go in, take off our boots, shake ourselves like so many cats that have been out in a shower, and step up to our apartment.

In front of Buddha, the little lamps are burning; in the middle of the room, the night-blue gauze is stretched. On entering, the first impression is a favorable one; our dwelling is pretty, this evening, the late hour and deep silence give it an air of mystery. And then also, in such weather, it is always pleasant to get home.

Come, let us at once prepare Yves' room. Chrysanthème, quite elated at the prospect of having her big friend near her, sets to work with a good will; moreover, the task is an easy one, we have only to slip three or four paper panels in their grooves, to make at once a separate room or compartment in the great box we live in. I had thought that these panels were entirely white; but no! on each of them is a

Yves is now in bed and sleeping under our roof.

Sleep has come to him sooner than to me to-night; for somehow I fancy I had seen long glances exchanged between him and Chrysanthème.

I have left this little creature in his hands like a toy, and I begin to fear lest I should have thrown some perturbation in his mind. I do not trouble my head about this little Japanese girl. But Yves,—it would be decidedly wrong on his part, and would greatly diminish my faith in him.

We hear the rain falling on our old roof; the cicalas are mute; odors of wet earth reach us from the gardens and the mountain. I feel terribly dreary in this room to-night; the noise of the little pipe irritates me more than usual, and as Chrysanthème crouches in front of her smoking-box, I suddenly discover in her an air of low breeding, in the very worst sense of the word.

XXX.

August 12th.

The Y—— and Sikou-San couple were divorced yesterday. The Charles N—— and Campanule household is getting on very badly. They have had some annoyance with those prying, grinding, insupportable little men, dressed up in suits of gray, who are called police agents and who by threatening their landlord, have had them turned out of their house—under the obsequious amiability of this people, there lurks a secret hatred towards us Europeans—they are therefore obliged to accept their mother-in-law's hospitality, a very painful position. And then Charles N—— fancies his wife is faithless. It is hardly possible, however, for us to deceive ourselves: these would-be maidens, to whom M. Kangourou has introduced us, are young people who have already had in their lives one, or perhaps more than one, adventure; it is therefore only natural that we should have our suspicions.

My household maintains a more dignified air, though it is none the less dreary. I had indeed thought of a divorce, but have really no good reason for offering Chrysanthème such a gratuitous affront; moreover there is another more imperative reason why I should remain quiet: I too have had difficulties with the civilian authorities.

Day before yesterday, M. Sucre quite upset, Madame Prune almost swooning, and Mdlle. Oyouki bathed in tears, stormed my rooms. The Niponese police agents had called and threatened them with the law for letting rooms outside of the European concession to a Frenchman morganatically married to a Japanese; and the terror of being prosecuted brought them to me, with a thousand apologies, but the humble request that I should leave.

The next day I therefore went off, accompanied by the wonderfully tall friend, who expresses himself better than I do in Japanese, to the register office, with the full intention of making a terrible row.

In the language of this exquisitely polite people, terms of abuse are totally wanting; when very angry, one is obliged to be satisfied with using the thou, mark of inferiority and the familiar conjugation, habitual towards those of low birth. Seating myself on the table used for weddings, in the midst of all the flurried little policemen, I open the conversation in the following terms:

"In order that thou shouldest leave me in peace in the suburb I am inhabiting, what bribe must I offer thee, set of little beings more contemptible than any mere street porter?"

Great and mute scandal, silent consternation, and low bows greet my words.

"Certainly," they at last reply, my honorable person shall not be molested, indeed they ask for nothing better. Only, in order to subscribe to the laws of the country, I ought to have come here and given my name and that of the young person that—with whom—

"Oh! that is going too far! I came here on purpose, contemptible creatures, not three weeks ago!"

Then taking up myself the civil register, and turning over the pages rapidly, I found my signature and beside it the little hieroglyphics drawn by Chrysanthème:

"There, set of idiots, look at that!"

Arrival of a very high functionary,—a ridiculous little old fellow in a black coat, who from his office has been listening to the row:

"What is the matter? What is it? What is

I politely state my case to this personage, who cannot make apologies and promises enough. The little agents prostrate themselves on all fours, sink into the earth; and we leave them, cold and dignified, without returning their bows.

M. Sucre and Madame Prune can now make their minds easy, they will not be disturbed again.

XXXI.

August 23rd.

The prolonged stay of the Triomphante in the dock, and the distance of our home from town, have been my pretext these last two or three days for not going up to Diou-djen-dji to see Chrysanthème.

It is dreary work though in these docks. With the early dawn a legion of little Japanese workmen invade us, bringing their dinners in baskets and gourds like the working-men in our arsenals, but with a needy, shabby appearance, and a ferreting, hurried manner which reminds one of rats. Silently they slip under the keel, at the bottom of the hold, in all the holes, sawing, nailing, repairing.

At two o'clock, in the broad sunlight, we have a new and far prettier kind of invasion: that of the beetles and butterflies.

Butterflies as wonderful as those on the fans. Some all black, giddily dash up against us, so light and airy that they seem merely a pair of quivering wings fastened together without any body.

Yves astonished, gazes at them, saying in his boyish manner: "Oh, I saw such a big one just now, such a big one, it quite frightened me; I thought it was a bat attacking me."

A steersman who has captured a very curious specimen, carries it off carefully to press between the leaves of his signal-book, like a flower. Another sailor passing by, taking his small roast to the oven in a mess-bowl, looks at him funnily and says:

"You had much better give it to me. I'd cook it!"

XXXII.

August 24th.

It is nearly five days since I have abandoned my home and Chrysanthème.

lower the top-masts, strike the lower yards, and take every precaution against bad weather. The butterflies no longer hover around us, but everything tosses and writhes overhead: on the steep slopes of the mountain, the trees shiver, the long grasses bend low as though in pain; terrible gusts rack them with a hissing sound; branches, bamboo leaves, and earth are showered down like rain upon us.

In this land of pretty little trifles, this violent tempest is out of all harmony; it seems as if its efforts were exaggerated and its music too loud.

Towards evening the big dark clouds roll by so rapidly, that the showers are of short duration and soon pass over. Then I attempt a walk on the mountain above us, in the wet verdure: little pathways lead up it, between thickets of camellias and bamboos.

Waiting till a shower is over, I take refuge in the courtyard of an old temple half-way up the hill, buried in a wood of centennial trees of gigantic branches; it is reached by granite steps, through strange gateways, as deeply furrowed

They could not have resembled the Japanese of our day, the men who had thus conceived these ancient temples, who built them everywhere, and filled the country with them, even in its most solitary nooks.

An hour later, in the twilight of that stormy day, on the same mountain, I chanced upon a clump of trees somewhat similar to oaks in appearance; they, too, have been twisted by the tempest, and the tufts of undulating grass at their feet are laid low, tossed about in every direction. There, I suddenly have brought back to my mind, my first impression of a strong wind in the woods of Limoise, in the province of Saintonge, some twenty-eight years ago, in a month of March of my childhood.

That, the first storm of wind my eyes ever beheld sweeping over the landscape, blew in

I refer too often, I fancy, to my childhood; I am foolishly fond of it. But it seems to me that then only did I truly experience sensations or impressions; the smallest trifles I then saw or heard were full of deep and hidden meaning, recalling past images out of oblivion, and reawakening memories of prior existence; or else they were presentiments of existences to come, future incarnations in the land of dreams, expectations of wondrous marvels that life and the world held in store for me,—for later, no doubt, when I should be grown up. Well, I have grown up, and have found nothing that answered to my undefinable expectations; on the contrary, all has narrowed and darkened around me, my vague recollections of the past have become blurred, the horizons before me have slowly closed in and become full of a gray darkness. Soon will my time come to return to eternal rest, and I shall leave this world without having understood the mysterious wherefore of these mirages of my childhood; I shall bear away with me a lingering regret, of I know not what lost home that I have failed to

XXXIII.

With many affectations, M. Sucre has dipped the tip of his delicate paint-brush in Indian ink and traced a couple of charming storks on a pretty sheet of rice-paper, offering them to me in the most gracious manner, as a souvenir of himself. They are here, in my cabin on board, and whenever I look at them, I can fancy I see M. Sucre tracing them in an airy manner, with elegant facility.

The saucer in which M. Sucre mixes his ink, is in itself a little gem. Chiselled out of a piece of jade, it represents a tiny lake with a carved border imitating rockwork. On this border is a little mama toad, also in jade, advancing as though to bathe in the little lake in which M. Sucre carefully keeps a few drops of very dark liquid. The mama toad has four little baby toads, equally in jade, one perched on her head, the other three playing about under her.

M. Sucre has painted many a stork in the course of his lifetime, and he really excels in

M. Kangourou relates, without seeing anything wrong in it whatever, that formerly this talent was of great service to M. Sucre. It appears that Madame Prune,—how shall I say such a thing, and who could guess it now, on beholding so devout and sedate an old lady, with eyebrows so scrupulously shaven!—however, it appears that Madame Prune used to receive a great many visits from gentlemen,—gentlemen who always came alone, and it led to some gossip. Therefore, when Madame Prune was engaged with one visitor, if a new arrival made his appearance, the ingenious husband, to make him wait patiently, and to while away the time in the ante-room, immediately offered to paint him some storks in a variety of attitudes.

And this is how, in Nagasaki, all the Japanese gentlemen of a certain age, have in their collections two or three of these little pic

XXXIV.

Sunday, August 25th.

At about six o'clock, while I was on duty, the Triomphante left her prison walls between the mountains and came out of dock. After a great uproar of maneuvering we took up our old moorings in the roadstead, at the foot of the Diou-djen-dji hills. The weather was again calm and cloudless, the sky presenting a peculiar clearness as though it had been swept clean by the cyclone, an exceeding transparency bringing out the minutest details of the far distance till then unseen; as if the terrible blast had blown away every vestige of the floating mists and left behind it nothing but void and boundless space. The coloring of woods and mountains stood out again in the resplendent verdancy of spring after the torrents of rain, like the wet colors of some freshly washed painting. The sampans and junks, which for the last three days had been lying under shelter, had now put out to sea, and the bay was covered with their white sails, which looked like an immense flight of seabirds.

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. Then I perceive the gilt head of my Buddha between: the little bright flames of its two hanging night lamps. Now Chrysanthème appears on the verandah, looking out as if she expected us; and with her wonderful bows of hair and long falling sleeves, her silhouette is thoroughly Niponese.

As I enter, she comes forward to kiss me, in a graceful, though rather hesitating manner, while Oyouki, more demonstrative, throws her arms around me.

It is with a certain pleasure that I see once more this Japanese home, which I wonder to find still mine when I had almost forgotten its existence. Chrysanthème has put fresh flowers in our vases, spread out her hair, donned her Triomphante leave the dock, and, in the expectation of our now prompt return, she had made her preparations; then, to while away the time, she was studying a duet on the guitar with Oyouki. Not a question or reproach did she make. On the contrary:

"We quite understood," she said, "how impossible it was, in such dreadful weather, to undertake so lengthy a crossing in a sampan."

She smiled like a pleased child, and I should be fastidious indeed if I did not admit that to-night she is charming.

I announce my intention of starting off for a long stroll through Nagasaki; we will take Oyouki-San and two little cousins who happen to be there, as well as some other neighbors, if they wish to; we will buy the funniest toys, eat all sorts of cakes, and amuse ourselves to our hearts' content.

"How lucky we are to be here, just at the right moment," they exclaim, jumping with joy. "How fortunate we are! This very evening there is to be a pilgrimage to the great temple of the Jumping Tortoise! The whole town will be there; all our married friends have already started, the whole set, X——, Y——, Z——, Touki-San, Campanule, and Jonquille, the friend of amazing height." And those two, poor Chrysanthème and poor Oyouki, would have been obliged to stay at home with heavy hearts, because we had not yet arrived, and because Madame Prune had been seized with faintness and hysterics after her dinner.

Quickly the mousmés must deck themselves out. Chrysanthème 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 top-knot. 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.

Below, we find the town in all the animation of a great holiday. The streets are thronged; the crowd passes by,—a laughing, capricious, slow, unequal tide, flowing onwards, however, steadily in the same direction, towards the same goal. There arises therefrom an immense but light murmur in which dominate the sounds of laughter, and the low-toned interchange of polite speeches. Then follow lanterns upon lanterns. Never in my life have I seen so

We follow, drifting with the surging crowd, borne along by it. There are groups of women of every age, decked out in their smartest clothes, crowds of mousmés with aigrettes of flowers in their hair, or little silver top-knots like Oyouki,—pretty little physiognomies, little narrow eyes peeping between slit lids like those of a new-born kitten, fat pale little cheeks, round, puffed-out, half-opened lips. They are pretty, nevertheless, these little Niponese, in their smiles and childishness.

The men, on the other hand, wear many a pot hat, pompously added to the long national robe, and giving thereby a finishing touch to their cheerful ugliness, resembling nothing so much as dancing monkeys. They carry boughs in their hands, whole shrubs, even, amidst the foliage of which dangle all sorts of curious lanterns in the shape of imps and birds.

As we advance in the direction of the temple, the streets become more noisy and crowded. All along the houses are endless stalls raised on trestles, displaying sweetmeats of every color, toys, branches of flowers, nosegays, and masks. There are masks everywhere, boxes full of them, carts full of them; the most popular being the one that represents the livid

In the religious amusements of this people it is not possible for us to penetrate the mysteriously hidden meaning of things; we cannot divine the boundary at which jesting stops and mystic fear steps in. These customs, these symbols, these masks, all that tradition and atavism have jumbled together in the Japanese brain, proceed from sources utterly dark and unknown to us; even the oldest records fail to explain them to us in anything but a superficial and cursory manner, simply because we have absolutely nothing in common with this people. We pass in the midst of their mirth and their

Chrysanthème with Yves, Oyouki with me, Fraise and Zinia, our cousins, walking before us under our watchful eye, slowly move through the crowd, holding each others' hands lest we should lose one another.

All along the streets leading to the temple, the wealthy inhabitants have decorated the fronts of their houses with a quantity of vases and nosegays. The peculiar shed-like buildings habitual in this country, with their open platform frontage, are particularly well suited for the display of choice objects; all the houses have been thrown open, and the interiors are hung with draperies that hide the back of the apartments. In front of these hangings and slightly standing back from the movement of the passing crowd, the various exhibited articles are methodically placed in a row, under the full glare of hanging lamps. Hardly any flowers compose the nosegays, nothing but foliage,—some rare and priceless, others chosen as if purposely from amongst the commonest plants, arranged however with such taste as to make them appear new and choice; ordinary lettuce leaves, tall cabbage stalks are placed with exquisite artificial taste in vessels of mar

On turning a corner of a street, by good luck we meet our married comrades of the Triomphante and Jonquille, Touki-San and Campanule! Bows and curtsies are exchanged by the mousmés, reciprocal manifestations of joy at meeting; then, forming a compact band, we are carried off by the ever-increasing crowd and continue our progress in the direction of the temple.

The streets gradually ascend (the temples are always built on a height); and by degrees as we mount up, there is added to the brilliant fairyland of lanterns and costumes, yet another, ethereally blue in the haze of distance; all Nagasaki, its pagodas, its mountains, its still waters full of the rays of moonlight, seem to rise up with us into the air. Slowly, step by step, one may say it springs up around, enveloping in one great shimmering veil all the fore

No doubt we are getting near, for here are the religious steps, porticos and monsters hewn out of enormous blocks of granite. We now have to climb a series of steps, almost earned by the surging crowd ascending with us.

The temple court-yard; we have arrived.

This is the last and most astonishing scene in the evening's fairy-tale,—a luminous and weird scene with fantastic distances lighted up by the moon and the gigantic trees, the sacred cryptomerias, stretching forth their dark somber boughs like a vast dome.

Here we are all seated with our mousmés, beneath the light awning wreathed in flowers, of one of the many little tea-houses improvised in this courtyard. We are on a terrace at the top of the great steps, up which the crowd continues to flock; we are at the foot of a portico which stands up erect with the rigid massiveness of a colossus against the dark night sky; at the foot also of a monster, who stares down upon us, with his big stony eyes, his cruel grimace and smile.

This portico and the monster are the two great overwhelming masses in the foreground of the incredible scene before us; they stand

Around us the long crystal trumpets keep up their gobble. Groups of polite and frivolous persons pass and repass like fantastic shadows: childish bands of small-eyed mousmés with smile so candidly meaningless and chignons shining through their bright silver flowers; ugly men waving at the end of long branches their eternal lanterns shaped like birds, gods or insects.

Behind us, in the lit-up and wide-open temple, the bonzes sit, immovable embodiments of doctrine, in the glittering sanctuary inhabited by divinities, chimeras and symbols. The crowd, monotonously droning its mingled prayers and laughter, presses around them, sowing its alms broadcast; with a continuous jingle, the money rolls on the ground into the precincts reserved

We, however, feel thoroughly at sea in the midst of this festivity; we look on, we laugh like the rest, we make foolish and senseless remarks in a language insufficiently learned, and which this evening, I know not why, we can hardly understand. Notwithstanding the night breeze, we find it very hot under our awning, and we absorb quantities of funny-looking water-ices, served in cups, which taste like scented frost, or rather like flowers steeped in snow. Our mousmés order for themselves great bowls of candied beans mixed with hail,—real hail-stones such as we would pick up after a hail-storm in March.

Glou! glou! glou! the crystal trumpets slowly repeat their notes, the powerful sonority of which has a labored and smothered sound, as though they came from under water; they mingle with the jingling of rattles and the noise of castanets. We also have the impression of being carried away in the irresistible swing of this incomprehensible gayety, composed in proportions we can scarcely measure, of elements mystic, puerile and even ghastly. A sort of religious terror is diffused

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; with a sudden spring, they start up again, change their costumes, change their faces, tearing about in one continual frenzy. Suddenly three, even four appear at the same time; they are nothing more than the four limbs of the outstretched man, whose legs and arms, raised on high, are each one dressed up, and capped with a wig under which peers a mask; between these phantoms tremendous fighting and battling take place, and many a

great salamander of Japan, an animal rare in this country, and quite unknown elsewhere, a great cold mass; sluggish and benumbed, looking like some antediluvian experiment, forgotten in the inner seas of this archipelago.

Next comes the trained elephant, the terror of our mousmés, the equilibrists, the menagerie.

It is one o'clock in the morning before we are back at Diou-djen-dji.

We first get Yves to bed in the little paper room he has already once occupied. Then we go to bed ourselves, after the inevitable preparations, the smoking of the little pipe, and the pan! pan! pan! pan! on the edge of the box.

Suddenly Yves begins to move restlessly in his sleep, to toss about, giving great kicks on the wall, and making a frightful noise.

What can be the matter? I at once imagine that he must be dreaming of the old hag and her wolfish shadow. Chrysanthème raises herself on her elbow and listens, with astonishment depicted on her face.

Ah! happy thought! she has discovered what is tormenting him:

"Ka!" (mosquitoes) she says.

And, to impress the more forcibly her meaning on my mind, she pinches my arm so hard

"Oh! stop, Chrysanthème, this pantomime is too expressive, and indeed useless! I know the word Ka, and had quite understood, I assure you."

It is done so drolly and so quickly, with such a pretty pout, that in truth I cannot think of being angry, although I shall certainly have to-morrow a blue mark on my arm; about that there is no doubt.

"Come, we must get up and go to Yves' rescue; he cannot be allowed to go on thumping in that manner. Let us take a lantern, and see what has happened."

It was indeed the mosquitoes. They are hovering in a thick cloud about him; those of the house and those of the garden all seem collected together, swarming and buzzing. Chrysanthème indignantly burns several at the flame of her lantern, and shows me others: "Hou!" covering the white paper walls.

He, tired out with his day's amusement, sleeps on; but his slumbers are restless, as can be easily imagined. Chrysanthème gives him a shake, wishing him to get up and share our blue mosquito net.

I have however placed Chrysanthème's little wooden block in the center of the gauze tent, between our two pillows.

Then, without saying a word, in a dignified manner as though she were rectifying an error of etiquette that I had inadvertently committed, Chrysanthème takes up her piece of wood, putting in its place my snake-skin drum; I shall therefore be in the middle between the two. It is really more correct, decidedly much more proper; Chrysanthème is evidently a very decorous young person.

Returning on board next morning, in the clear morning sun, we walk through pathways full of dew; accompanied by a band of funny little mousmés of six or eight years of age, who are going off to school.

Needless to say that the cicalas around us

Besides, I am quite ready to admit the attractiveness of the little Japanese children; some of them are most fascinating. But how is it that their charm vanishes so rapidly and is so quickly replaced by the elderly grimace, the smiling ugliness, the monkeyish face?

XXXV.

My mother-in-law Madame Renoncule's small garden is, without exception, one of the most melancholy spots I have seen during all my peregrinations through the world.

Oh, the slow, enervating, dull hours spent in idle and diffuse conversation in the dimly lighted verandah! Oh, the horrid peppered

Nevertheless a true feeling for nature has inspired this tiny representation of a wild spot. The rocks are well placed, the dwarf cedars, no taller than cabbages, stretch their gnarled boughs over the valleys in the attitude of giants wearied by the weight of centuries; and their look of big trees perplexes one and falsifies the perspective. When from the dark recesses of the apartment one perceives at a certain distance this diminutive landscape dimly lighted up, the wonder is whether it is all artificial, or whether one is not oneself the victim of some morbid illusion; and if it is not indeed a real country view seen through a distorted vision out of focus, or through the wrong end of a telescope.

To any one familiar with Japanese life my mother-in-law's house in itself reveals a refined nature,—complete nudity, two or three screens placed here and there, a teapot, a vase full of lotus-flowers, and nothing more. Woodwork devoid of paint or varnish, but carved in most

I cannot help smiling when I think of some of the so-called Japanese drawing-rooms, overcrowded with knick-knacks and curios and hung with coarse gold embroideries on exported satins, of our Parisian fine ladies. I would advise those persons to come and look at the houses of people of taste out here; to visit the white solitudes of the palaces at Yeddo. In France we have works of art in order to enjoy them; here they possess them merely to ticket them and lock them up carefully in a kind of mysterious underground room shut in by iron gratings called a godoun. On rare occasions, only to honor some visitor of distinction, do they open this impenetrable depositary. The true Japanese manner of understanding luxury consists in a scrupulous and indeed almost excessive cleanliness, white mats and white wood

My mother-in-law seems to be really a very nice woman, and were it not for the insurmountable feeling of spleen the sight of her garden produces on me, I would often go and see her. She has nothing in common with the mammas of Jonquille, Campanule or Touki: she is vastly their superior; and then I can see that she has been very good-looking and stylish. Her past life puzzles me; but in my position as a son-in-law, good manners prevent my making further inquiries.

Some assert that she was formerly a celebrated guécha in Yeddo, who lost public favor by her folly in becoming a mother. This would account for her daughter's talent on the guitar; she had probably herself taught her the touch and style of the Conservatory.

Since the birth of Chrysanthème (her eldest child and first cause of this loss of favor), my mother-in-law, an expansive although distinguished nature, has fallen seven times into the same fatal error, and I have two little sisters-in-law: Mdlle. La Neige, [G] and Mdlle. La [H] as well as five little brothers-in-law: Cerisier, Pigeon, Liseron, Or, and Bambou.

Little Bambou is four years old,—a yellow baby, fat and round all over, with fine bright eyes; coaxing and jolly, sleeping whenever he is not laughing. Of all my Niponese family, Bambou is the one I love the most.

XXXVI.

Tuesday, August 27th.

We have spent the day,—Yves, Chrysanthème, Oyouki and myself,—wandering through dark and dusty nooks, dragged hither and thither by four quick-footed djins, in search of antiquities in the bric-à-brac shops.

Towards sunset, Chrysanthème, who has wearied me more than ever since the morning, and who doubtless has perceived it, pulls a very long face, declares herself ill, and begs leave to spend the night at her mother's, Madame Renoncule.

I agree to this with the best grace in the world; let her go, tiresome little mousmé! Oyouki will carry a message to her parents, who will shut up our rooms; we shall spend the Triomphante, without having the trouble of climbing up that hill.

First of all, we make an attempt to dine together in some fashionable tea-house. Impossible, there is not a place to be had; all the absurd paper rooms, all the compartments contrived by so many ingenious dodges of slipping and sliding panels, all the nooks and corners in the little gardens are filled with Japanese men and women eating impossible and incredible little dishes! numberless young dandies are dining tête-à-tête with the lady of their choice, and sounds of dancing girls and music issue from the private rooms.

The fact is, that to-day is the third and last day of the great pilgrimage to the temple of the Jumping Tortoise, of which we saw the commencement yesterday, and all Nagasaki is at this time given over to amusement.

At the tea-house of the Indescribable Butterflies, which is also full to overflowing, but where we are well-known, they have had the bright idea of throwing a temporary flooring over the little lake,—the pond where the gold-fish live, and it is here that our meal is served,

After dinner, we follow the faithful and ascend again to the temple.

Up there we find the same elfin revelry, the same masks, the same music. We seat ourselves, as before, under a gauze tent and sip odd little drinks tasting of flowers. But this evening we are alone, and the absence of the band of mousmés, whose familiar little faces formed a bond of union between this holiday-making people and ourselves, separates and isolates us more than usual from the profusion of oddities in the midst of which we seem to be lost. Beneath us, lies always the immense blue background: Nagasaki illumined by moonlight, and the expanse of silvered, glittering water, which seems like a vaporous vision suspended in mid-air. Behind us is the great open temple, where the bonzes officiate to the accompaniment of sacred bells and wooden clappers,—looking, from where we sit, more like puppets than anything else, some squatting in rows like peaceful mummies, others executing rhythmical marches before the golden background where stand the gods. We do not laugh to-night, and speak but little, more forcibly struck by the scene than we were on the

"Hullo! brother, your mousmé!!"

Actually there she is, behind him; Chrysanthème almost on all fours, hidden between the paws of a great granite beast, half tiger, half dog, against which our fragile tent is leaning.

"She pulled my trousers with her nails, for all the world like a little cat," said Yves, still full of surprise, "positively like a cat!"

She remains bent double in the most humble form of salutation; she smiles timidly, afraid of being ill received, and the head of my little brother-in-law, Bambou, appears smiling too, just above her own. She has brought this little mousko [I] with her, perched astride on her back; he looks as absurd as ever, with his shaven head, his long frock and the great bows of his silken sash. There they both stand gazing at us, anxious to know how their joke will be taken.

For my part, I have not the least idea of giving them a cold reception; on the contrary, the meeting amuses me. It even strikes me that it is rather pretty of Chrysanthème to come round in this way, and to bring Bambou-

However, let her sit down between Yves and myself: and let them bring her those iced beans she loves so much; and we will take the jolly little mousko on our knees and cram him with sugar and sweetness to his heart's content.

The evening over, when we begin to think of leaving, and of going down again, Chrysanthème replaces her little Bambou astride upon her back, and sets forth, bending forward under his weight and painfully dragging her Cinderella slippers over the granite steps and flagstones. Yes, decidedly low this conduct! but low in the best sense of the word: nothing in it displeases me; I even consider Chrysanthème's affection for Bambou-San engaging and attractive in its simplicity.

One cannot deny this merit to the Japanese,—a great love for little children, and a talent for amusing them, for making them laugh, inventing comical toys for them, making the morning of their life happy; for a specialty in dressing them, arranging their heads, and giving to the whole little personage the most diverting appearance possible. It is the only thing I

On our way we meet our married friends of the Triomphante, who, much surprised at seeing me with this mousko, chaffingly exclaim:

"What! a son already?"

Down in the town, we make a point of bidding good-by to Chrysanthème at the turning of the street where her mother lives. She smiles undecided, declares herself well again, and begs to return to our house on the heights. This did not precisely enter into my plans, I confess. However, it would look very ungracious to refuse.

So be it! But we must carry the mousko home to his mamma, and then begin, by the flickering light of a new lantern bought afresh from Madame Très-Propre, our weary homeward ascent.

Here, however, we find ourselves in another predicament: this ridiculous little Bambou insists upon coming with us! No, he will take no denial, we must take him with us. This is out of all reason, quite impossible!

However, it will not do to make him cry, on the night of a great festival too, poor little mousko. So we must send a message to Madame Renoncule, that she may not be uneasy about

And here am I, who did not wish to return this way to-night, dragging a mousmé by the hand, actually carrying an extra burden in the shape of a mousko on my back. What an irony of fate!

As I had expected, all our shutters and doors are closed, bolted and barred; no one expects us, and we have to make a prodigious noise at the door. Chrysanthème sets to work and calls with all her might:

"Ho! Oumé-San-an-an-an!" (In English: "Hi! Madame Pru-u-u-u-une!")

These intonations in her little voice are unknown to me; her longdrawn call in the echoing darkness of midnight has so strange an accent, something so unexpected and wild, that it impresses me with a dismal feeling of far-off exile.

At last Madame Prune appears to open the door to us, only half awake and much astonished; by way of a night-cap she wears a monstrous cotton turban, on the blue ground of which a few white storks are playfully disporting themselves. Holding in the tips of her mousko I am carrying.

XXXVII

At first it was only to Chrysanthème's guitar that I listened with pleasure: now I am beginning to like her singing also.

She has nothing of the theatrical, or the deep assumed voice of the virtuoso; on the contrary, her notes, always very high, are soft, thin, and plaintive.

She will often teach Oyouki some romance, slow and dreamy, which she has composed, or which comes back to her mind. Then they both astonish me, for on their well-tuned guitars they will search out accompaniments in parts, and try again each time that the chords are not perfectly true to their ear, without ever losing themselves in the confusion of these dissonant harmonies, always weird and always melancholy.

Generally, while their music is going on, I am writing in the verandah, with the superb

My memoirs,—composed of incongruous details, minute observations of colors, shapes, scents, and sounds.

It is true that a complete imbroglio, worthy of a romance, seems ever threatening to appear upon my monotonous horizon; a regular intrigue seems ever ready to explode in the midst of this little world of mousmés and grasshoppers: Chrysanthème in love with Yves; Yves with Chrysanthème; Oyouki with me; I with no one. We might even find here, ready to hand, the elements of a fratricidal drama, were we in any other country than Japan; but we are in Japan, and under the narrowing and dwarfing influence of the surroundings, which turn everything into ridicule, nothing will come of it all.

There is, in this good town of Nagasaki, towards five or six o'clock in the evening, one hour of the day more comical than any other. At this moment every living being is naked: children, young people, old people, old men, old women, every one is seated in a tub of some sort, taking a bath. This takes place no matter where, without the slightest screen, in the gardens, the courtyards, in the shops, even upon the thresholds, in order to give greater facility for conversation among the neighbors from one side of the street to the other. In this situation visitors are received; and the bather, without any hesitation, leaves his tub, holding in his hand his little towel (invariably blue), to offer the caller a seat, and to exchange with him some amiable remarks. Nevertheless, neither the mousmés nor the old ladies gain anything by appearing in this primeval costume. A Japanese woman, deprived of her long dress and her huge sash with its pretentious bows, is nothing but a diminutive yellow being, with crooked legs and flat, unshapely bust; she has no longer a remnant of her artificial little charms, which

There is yet another hour, at once joyous and melancholy, a little later when twilight falls, when the sky seems one vast veil of yellow, against which stand the clear-cut outlines of jagged mountains and lofty, fantastic pagodas. It is the hour at which, in the labyrinth of little gray streets down below, the sacred lamps begin to twinkle in the ever-open houses, in front of the ancestors' altars and the familiar Buddhas; while outside, darkness creeps over all, and the thousand and one indentations and peaks of the old roofs are depicted, as if in black festoons, on the clear golden sky. At this moment, there suddenly passes over merry, laughing Japan a somber shadow, strange, weird, a breath of antiquity, of savagery, of something indefinable, which casts a gloom of sadness. And then the only gayety that remains is the gayety of the population of young children, of little mouskos and little mousmés, who spread themselves like a wave through the streets filled with shadow, as they swarm out from schools and workshops. On the dark background of all these wooden buildings, the little blue and scarlet dresses stand out in startling contrast,—drolly bedizened, drolly draped;

They amuse themselves, they chase each other, their great pagoda sleeves fly widely open, and these tiny little mousmés of ten, of five years old, or even younger still, have lofty head-dresses and imposing bows of hair arranged on their little heads, like grown-up women. Oh! what loves of supremely absurd dolls at this hour of twilight gambol through the streets, in their long frocks, blowing their crystal trumpets, or running with all their might to start their fanciful kites. This juvenile world of Japan—ludicrous by birth, and fated to become more so as the years roll on—starts in life with singular amusements, with strange cries and shouts; its playthings are somewhat ghastly, and would frighten the children of other countries; even the kites have great squinting eyes and vampire shapes.

And every evening, in the little dark streets, bursts forth this overflow of joyousness, fresh, childish, but withal grotesque to excess. It would be difficult to have any idea of the incredible things which, carried by the wind, float in the evening air.

Little Chrysanthème is always arrayed in dark colors, a sign here of aristocratic distinction. While her friends Oyouki-San, Madame Touki and others delight in loud-striped stuffs, and stick gorgeous ornaments in their chignons, she always wears navy-blue or neutral gray, fastened round her waist with great black sashes brocaded in tender shades, and puts nothing in her hair but amber-colored tortoise-shell pins. If she were of noble descent she would wear embroidered on her dress in the middle of the back a little white circle looking like a postmark with some design in the center of it—the leaf of a tree generally; and this would be her coat of arms. There is really nothing wanting but this little heraldic blazon on the back to give her the appearance of a lady of the highest position.

In Japan the smart dresses of bright colors shaded in clouds, embroidered with monsters of gold or silver, are reserved by the great ladies for home use on state occasions; or else they are used on the stage for the dancers and the courtesans.

The very smartest people in Japan blow their noses in this manner.

XL.

September 2nd.

Chance has favored us with a friendship as singular as it is rare: that of the head bonzes of the temple of the Jumping Tortoise, where we had witnessed last month such a surprising pilgrimage.

The approach to this place is as solitary now as it was thronged and bustling on the evenings of the festival; and in broad daylight one is

In a side temple near the entrance is enthroned a colossal Buddha seated in his lotus—a gilded idol some forty-five or sixty feet high, mounted on an enormous pedestal of bronze.

At length appears the last doorway with the two traditional giants, guardians of the sacred court, which stand the one on the right hand, the other on the left, shut up like wild beasts each one in a cage of iron. They are in attitudes of fury, with fists upraised as if to strike, and features atrociously fierce and distorted. Their bodies are covered all over with bullets of crumbled paper which have been aimed at them through the bars, and which have stuck to

Passing between these alarming scarecrows one reaches the innermost court. The residence of our friends is on the right, the great hall of the pagoda is before us.

In this paved court are bronze torch-holders as high as turrets. Here too stand, and have stood for centuries, cyca palms with fresh green plumes, their numerous stalks curving with a heavy symmetry, like the branches of massive candelabra. The temple, which is open along its entire length, is dark and mysterious, with touches of gilding in distant corners melting away into the gloom. In the very remotest part are seated idols, and from outside one can vaguely see their clasped hands and air of rapt mysticism; in front are the altars, loaded with marvelous vases in metal-work, whence spring graceful clusters of gold and silver lotus. From the very entrance one is greeted by the sweet odor of the incense-sticks unceasingly burnt by the priests before the gods.

To penetrate into the dwelling of our friends the bonzes, which is situated on the right hand

A monster of the fish tribe, but having claws and horns, is hung over their door by iron chains; at the least breath of wind he swings creakingly. We pass beneath him and enter the first immense and lofty hall, dimly lighted, in the corners of which gleam gilded idols, bells and incomprehensible objects of religious use.

Quaint little creatures, choir boys or pupils, come forward with a doubtful welcome to ask what is wanted.

"Matsou-San!! Donata-San!!" they repeat, much astonished, when they understand to whom we wish to be conducted. Oh! no, impossible, they cannot be seen; they are resting or are in contemplation. "Orimas! Orimas!" say they, clasping their hands and sketching a genuflection or two to make us understand better. (They are at prayer! the most profound prayer!)

We insist, speak more imperatively; even slip off our shoes like people determined to take no refusal.

At last Matsou-San and Donata-San make their appearance from the tranquil depths of their bonze-house. They are dressed in black crape and their heads are shaved. Smiling, amiable, full of excuses, they offer us their

The whole wainscoting of the interior is of the same wood, of a pale yellow color joinered with extreme nicety, without the least ornament, the least carving; everything seems new and unused, as though it had never been touched by human hand. At distant intervals in this studied bareness, costly little stools, marvelously inlaid, uphold some antique bronze monster or a vase of flowers; on the walls hang a few masterly sketches, vaguely tinted in Indian ink, drawn upon strips of gray paper most accurately cut but without the slightest attempt at a frame; this is all: not a seat, not a cushion, not a scrap of furniture. It is the very acme of studied simplicity, of elegance made out of nothing, of the most immaculate and incredible cleanliness. And while following the bonzes through this long suite of empty halls, we are struck by their contrast with the overflow of knick-knacks scattered about our rooms in France, and we take a sudden dislike

The spot where this silent march of barefooted folk comes to an end, the spot where we are to seat ourselves in the delightful coolness of a semi-darkness, is an interior verandah opening upon an artificial site; we might suppose it were the bottom of a well; it is a miniature garden no bigger than the opening of an oubliette, overhung on all sides by the crushing height of the mountain and receiving from on high but the dim light of dream-land. Nevertheless here is simulated a great natural ravine in all its wild grandeur: here are caverns, abrupt rocks, a torrent, a cascade, islands. The trees, dwarfed by a Japanese process of which we have not the secret, have tiny little leaves on their decrepit and knotty branches. A pervading hue of the mossy green of antiquity harmonizes all this medley, which is undoubtedly centuries old.

Families of gold-fish swim round and round in the clear water, and tiny tortoises (jumpers probably) sleep upon the granite islands which are of the same color as their own gray shell.

There are even blue dragon-flies which have ventured to descend, heaven knows from whence, and alight with quivering wings upon the miniature water-lilies.

We talk first of one thing and then another. To the tranquil music of their little cascade, I launch out before them with phrases of the most erudite Japanese, I try the effect of a few tenses of verbs: desideratives, concessives, hypothetics in ba. Whilst they chat they dispatch the affairs of the church, the order of services sealed with complicated seals for inferior pagodas situated in the neighborhood; or trace little prayers with a cunning paint-brush as medical remedies to be swallowed as pills by invalids at a distance. With their white and dimpled hands they play with a fan as cleverly as any woman, and when we have tasted different native drinks flavored with essences of flowers, they bring up as a finish a battle of Bénédictine or Chartreuse, for they appreciate the liqueurs composed by their Western colleagues.

When they come on board to return our visits, they by no means disdain to fasten their great round spectacles on their flat noses in order to inspect the profane drawings in our Vie Parisienne for instance. And it is even with a certain complacency that they let their fingers linger upon the pictures which represent the ladies.

The religious ceremonies in their great temple are magnificent, and to one of these we are now invited. At the sound of the gong they make their entrance before the idols with a stately ritual; twenty or thirty priests officiate in gala costumes, with genuflections, clapping of hands and movements to and fro, which look like the figures of some mystic quadrille.

But for all that, let the sanctuary be ever so immense and imposing in its somber gloom, the idols ever so superb, all seems in Japan but a mere semblance of grandeur. A hopeless pettiness, an irresistible feeling of the ludicrous, lies at the bottom of all things.

And then the congregation is not conducive to thoughtful contemplation, for among it we generally discover some acquaintance: my mother-in-law, or a cousin, or the woman from the china-shop who sold us a vase only yesterday. Charming little mousmés, monkeyish-looking old ladies enter with their smoking-boxes, their gayly-daubed parasols, their curtsies, their little cries and exclamations; prattling, complimenting each other, full of

XLI.

September 3rd.

Chrysanthème, for the first time, paid me a visit on board ship to-day, chaperoned by Madame Prune, and followed by my youngest sister-in-law, Mdlle. La Neige. These ladies had the tranquil manners of the highest gentility.

In my cabin is a great Buddha on his throne, and before him a lacquer tray, on which my faithful sailor servant places any small change he may find lying loose in the pockets of my clothes. Madame Prune, whose mind is much swayed by mysticism, at once supposed herself before a regular altar; in the gravest manner possible she addressed a brief prayer to the god; then, drawing out her purse (which, according to custom, was attached to her sash behind her back, along with her little pipe and tobacco-pouch), placed a pious offering in the tray, while executing a low curtsey.

They remained on their best behavior all through the visit. But when the moment of

XLII.

September 4th.

I met yesterday, in an old and ruined quarter of the town, a perfectly exquisite mousmé, charmingly dressed; a fresh note of color against the dark background of decayed buildings.

It was quite at the farthest end of Nagasaki, in the most ancient part of the town. In this region are trees centuries old, ancient 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 paving-stones. This deserted quarter is traversed by a narrow torrent running in a deep

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 priests, guardians of tombs or sanctuaries, taking their siesta under their dark-blue gauze nets.

All at once this little mousmé 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 light, 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 dress 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 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 Stop! clouds, to see her pass by. 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 take-in. 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 Chrysanthème, appearing in this same place, with this dress, this play of light, and this aureole of sunshine, would produce just as delightful an effect.

For Chrysanthème is pretty, there can be no doubt about it. Yesterday evening, in fact, I positively admired her. It was quite night; we were returning with the usual escort of little married couples like our own, from the inevitable tour of the tea-houses and bazaars. While the other mousmés walked along hand in hand, adorned with new silver top-knots which they had succeeded in having presented to them, and amusing themselves with playthings, she, pleading fatigue, followed, half reclining, in a djin carriage. We had placed beside her great bunches of flowers destined to fill our vases, late iris and long-stemmed lotus, the last of the season, already smelling

XLIII.

In our house, the water used for drinking, making tea, and lesser washing purposes, is kept in large white china tubs, decorated with paintings representing blue fish borne along by a swift current through distorted rushes. In order to keep them cool, the tubs are placed out of doors on Madame Prune's roof, at a place where we can, from the top of our projecting balcony, easily reach them by stretching out the arm. A real godsend for all the thirsty cats

I had thought it my duty to warn Yves the first time he wished to drink this water.

"Oh!" he replied, rather surprised, "cats do you say? they are not dirty!"

On this point Chrysanthème and I agree with him: we do not consider cats as unclean animals, and we do not object to drink after them.

Yves considers Chrysanthème much in the same light. "She is not dirty, either," he says; and he willingly drinks after her, out of the same cup, putting her in the same category with the cats.

Well, these china tubs are one of the daily preoccupations of our household: in the evening, when we return from our walk, after the clamber up which makes us thirsty, and Madame L'Heure's waffles, which we have been eating to beguile the way, we always find them empty. It seems impossible for Madame Prune, or Mdlle. Oyouki, or their young servant Mdlle. Dédé, [J] to have forethought

We must therefore open all the closed doors, put on our boots, and go down into the garden to draw water.

As Chrysanthème would die of fright all alone in the dark, in the midst of the trees and buzzing of the 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 Très-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 burnt 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; Chrysanthème puts forth all her strength, the candle splits, breaks; the mousmé 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

XLIV.

September 11th.

A week has passed by peacefully enough, during which I have written down nothing.

Little by little 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 faithfully climb up to my villa, sometimes by beautiful star-lit nights, sometimes through stormy downpours of rain. Every morning as the sound of Madame Prune's chanted prayer rises through the reverberating air, I awake and go down towards the sea, by the grassy pathways full of dew.

The chief occupation of this Japanese country, seems to be a perpetual hunt after curios. We sit down on the mattings, in the antique-sellers' little booths, take a cup of tea with the salesmen, and rummage with our own hands in the cupboards and chests, where many a fan

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 up there, 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 a religious shape hanging from the ceiling; many stools and many vases, as many gods and goddesses as in a pagoda.

There is even a little Shintoist altar, before which Madame Prune has not been able to restrain her feelings, and before which she has fallen down and chanted her prayers in her bleating old nanny-goat voice:

"Wash me clean from all my impurity, oh Ama-Térace-Omi-Kami, as one washes away uncleanness in the river of Kamo."

Alas for poor Ama-Térace-Omi-Kami to

Chrysanthème, who is a Buddhist, prays sometimes in the evening before lying down; although overcome with sleep, she prays clapping her hands before the largest of our gilded idols. But she smiles with a childish disrespect for her Buddha, directly her prayer is ended. I know that she has also a certain veneration for her Ottokés (the Spirits of her ancestors), whose rather sumptuous altar is set up at her mother's, Madame Renoncule's. She asks for their blessings, for fortune and wisdom.

Who can make out her ideas about the gods, or about death? Does she possess a soul? Does she think she has one? Her religion is an obscure chaos of theogonies as old as the world, treasured up out of respect for ancient customs; and of more recent ideas about the blessed final annihilation, imported from India at the epoch of our middle ages by saintly Chinese missionaries. The bonzes themselves are puzzled; what a muddle, therefore, must not all this become, when jumbled together in the childish brain of a sleepy mousmé?

Two very insignificant episodes have somewhat attached me to her—(bonds of this kind

Madame Prune one day brought forth a relic of her gay youth, a tortoiseshell comb of rare transparency, one of those combs that it is good style to place on the summit of the head, lightly poised, scarcely stuck at all in the air, with all the teeth showing. Taking it out of a pretty little lacquered box, she held it up in the air and blinked her eyes, looking through it at the sky—a bright summer sky—as one does to examine the quality of a precious stone.

"Here is," she said, "an object of great value that you should offer to your little wife."

My mousmé, very much taken by it, admired the clearness of the comb and its graceful shape.

The lacquered box, however, pleased me most. On the cover was a wonderful painting in gold on gold, representing a field of rice, seen very close, on a windy day: a tangle of ears and grass beaten down and twisted by a terrible squall; here and there, between the distorted stalks, the muddy earth of the rice-swamp was visible; there were even little pools of water, produced by bits of the transparent lacquer on which tiny particles of gold seemed to float about like chaff in a thick liquid; two or three insects, which required a microscope to

As for Madame Prune's comb, I confess it left me indifferent, and I turned a deaf ear, thinking it very insignificant and expensive. Then Chrysanthème answered mournfully:

"No, thank you, I don't want it; take it away, dear Madame Prune."

And at the same time she heaved a deep sigh, full of meaning, which plainly said:

"He is not so fond of me as all that.—Useless to bother him."

I immediately made the wished-for purchase.

Later on, when Chrysanthème will have become an old monkey like Madame Prune, with her black teeth and long orisons, she, in her turn, will retail that comb to some fine lady of a fresh generation.

On another occasion the sun had given me a headache; I lay on the floor resting my head on my snake-skin pillow. My eyes were dim, and everything appeared to turn round: the open verandah, the big expanse of luminous evening sky, and a variety of kites hovering against its background; I felt myself vibrating painfully to the rhythmical sound of the cicalas which filled the atmosphere.

She, crouching down by my side, strove to

Then, anxious and fearful lest I should have an attack of fever, she rolled into a pellet and thrust into my mouth a very efficacious prayer written on rice-paper, which she carefully kept in the lining of one of her sleeves.

Well, I swallowed that prayer without a smile, anxious not to hurt her feelings or shake her funny little faith.

XLV.

To-day, Yves, my mousmé and myself went to the best photographer in Nagasaki, to be taken in a group together.

We shall send the photograph to France. Yves already smiles as he thinks of his wife's astonishment when she sees Chrysanthème's little face between us two, and he wonders what explanation he will give her.

"

There are, in Japan, photographers in the style of our own, with this one difference, that they are Japanese, and inhabit Japanese houses. The one we design to honor to-day carries on his profession in the suburbs, in that ancient quarter of big trees and gloomy pagodas where, the other day, I met the pretty little mousmé. His signboard, written in several languages, is stuck up against a wall on the edge of the little torrent which, rushing down from the green mountain above, is crossed by many a curved bridge of old granite and lined on either side by light bamboos or oleanders in full bloom.

It is astonishing and puzzling to find a photographer perched there, in the very heart of old Japan.

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 tatooed, carefully combed in sleek bands and shiny chignons, are chatting together, 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. But the

The people who are being taken at this moment are two ladies of quality, evidently mother and daughter, who are sitting together for a cabinet-sized portrait, with accessories of Louis XV. time. A strange group this, the first great ladies of this country I have seen so near, with their long aristocratic faces, dull, lifeless, almost gray by dint of rice-powder, and their mouths painted heart-shape in vivid carmine. Withal an undeniable look of good breeding that strongly impresses us, notwithstanding the intrinsic differences of races and acquired notions.

They scanned Chrysanthème with an obvious look of scorn, although her costume was as ladylike as their own. For my part, I could not take my eyes off these two creatures; they captivated me like incomprehensible things that one had never seen before. Their fragile bodies, outlandishly graceful in posture, are lost in stiff materials and redundant sashes, of which the ends droop like tired wings. They make me think, I know not why, of great rare insects; the extraordinary patterns on their garments have something of the dark motley of

Then we have to let several English sailors pass before us, decked out in their white drill clothes, fresh, fat and pink like little sugar figures, who attitudinize in a sheepish manner round the shafts of the columns.

At last it is our turn; Chrysanthème slowly settles herself in a very affected style, turning in the points of her toes as much as possible, according to the fashion.

And on the negative we are shown we look like a supremely ridiculous little family drawn up in a line by a common photographer at a fair.

XLVI.

September 13th.

This evening Yves is off duty three hours earlier than myself; from time to time this is

From the deck I can see him through the glasses, climbing up the green mountain path; he walks with a brisk, rapid step, almost running; what a hurry he seems in to rejoin little Chrysanthème.

When I arrive, at about nine o'clock, I find him seated on the floor, in the middle of my rooms, with naked torso (this is here a sufficiently proper costume for private life, I admit). Around him are grouped Chrysanthème, Oyouki, and Mdlle. Dédé the maid, all eagerly rubbing his back with little blue towels decorated with storks and humorous subjects.

Good heavens, what can he have been doing to be so hot, and have put himself in such a state?

He tells me that near our house, a little higher up the mountain, he has discovered a fencing gallery: that till nightfall he had been engaged in a fencing bout against Japanese, who fought with two-handed swords, springing like cats, as is the custom of their country. With his French method of fencing he had given them a thorough good drubbing. Upon which, with many a low bow, they had shown

Ah, very well. Nevertheless this did not quite explain to me.

He is delighted with his evening; intends to go and amuse himself every day by beating them; he even thinks of taking pupils.

Once his back dried, they all together, the three mousmés and himself, play at Japanese "pigeon vole." Really I could not wish for anything more innocent, or more correct in every respect.

Charles N—— and Madame Jonquille his wife, arrived unexpectedly at about ten o'clock. (They were wandering about in the dark shrubberies in our neighborhood, and, seeing our lights, came up to us.)

They intend to finish the evening at the tea-house "of the Toads," and they try to induce us to go and drink some iced sherbets with them. It is at least an hour's walk from here, on the other side of the town, half way up the hill, in the gardens of the large pagoda dedicated to Osueva; but they stick to their idea, pretending that in this clear night and bright moonlight, we shall have a lovely view from the terrace of the temple.

We hire five djins and five cars down below, in the principal street, in front of Madame Très-Propre's shop, who, for this late expedition, chooses for us her largest round lanterns,—big, red balloons, decorated with star-fish, seaweed, and green sharks.

It is nearly eleven o'clock when we make our start. In the central quarters the virtuous Niponese are already closing their little booths, putting out their lamps, shutting the wooden framework, drawing their paper panels.

Further on, in the old-fashioned suburban streets, all is shut up long ago, and our carts roll on through the black night. We cry out to our djins: "Ayakou! ayakou!" ("Quick! quick!") and they run as hard as they can, uttering little shrieks, like some merry animal full of wild gayety. We rush like a whirlwind through the darkness, all five in Indian file, dashing and jolting over the old uneven flagstones, dimly lighted up by our red balloons fluttering at the end of their bamboo stems. From time to time some Niponese, night-capped in his blue kerchief, opens a window to see who these noisy madcaps can be, dashing by so rapidly and so late. Or else some faint

At last we arrive at the foot of Osueva's temple, and, leaving our djins with our little gigs, we clamber up the gigantic steps, completely deserted at this hour of the night.

Chrysanthème, who always likes to play the part of a tired little girl, of a spoilt and pouting child, ascends slowly between Yves and myself, clinging to our arms.

Jonquille, on the contrary, skips up like a bird, amusing herself by counting the endless steps:

"Hitôts'! F'tâts'! Mits'! Yôts'!" ("One! two! three! four!") she exclaims, springing up by a series of little light bounds.

"Itsôôts! Moûts'! Nanâts! Yâts! Kokonôts!" ("Five! six! seven! eight! nine!")

She lays a great stress on the accentuations, as though to make the numbers sound even more droll.

A little silver aigrette glitters in her beautiful black chignon; her delicate and graceful figure seems strangely fantastic, and the darkness that envelops us conceals the fact that her face is almost ugly, and almost without eyes.

This evening Chrysanthème and Jonquille really look like little fairies; at certain moments

The granite stairs, immense, deserted, uniformly gray under the nocturnal sky, seem to vanish into the empty space above us, and when we turn round, to disappear in the depths beneath, to fall with the dizzy rapidity of a dream into the abyss below. On the sloping steps the black shadows of the gateways through which we must pass stretch out inordinately; and the shadows, which seem to be broken at each projecting step, bear on all their extent the regular creases of a fan. The porticos stand up separately, rising one above the other; their wonderful shapes are at once remarkably simple and studiously affected; their outlines stand out sharp and distinct, having nevertheless the vague appearance of all very large objects in the pale moonlight. The curved architraves rise up at each extremity like two menacing horns, pointing upwards towards the far-off blue canopy of sky bespangled with stars, as thought they would communicate to the gods the knowledge they have acquired in the depths of their foundations from the earth, full of sepulchers and death, which surrounds them.

We are, indeed, a very small group, lost now

A deep silence reigns in the precincts of the temple, the sound of the insects even is hushed as we ascend higher. A sort of reverence, a kind of religious fear steals over us, and, at the same moment, a delicious coolness suddenly pervades the air, and passes over us.

On entering the courtyard above, we feel a little daunted. Here we find the horse in jade, and the china turrets. The enclosing walls make it the more gloomy, and our arrival seems to disturb I know not what mysterious council held between the spirits of the air and the visible symbols that are there, chimeras and monsters lit up by the blue rays of the moon.

We turn to the left, and go through the terraced gardens, to reach the tea-house "of the Toads," which this evening is our goal; we find it shut up—expected as much—closed and dark, at this hour! We drum all together on the door; in the most coaxing tones we call by name the waiting-maids we know so well: Mdlle. Transparente, Mdlle. Etoile, Mdlle. Roséematinale, and Mdlle. Marguerite-reine. Not an

In front of the little archery-house, our mousmés suddenly start on one side, terrified, and declaring that there is a dead body on the ground. Yes, indeed, someone is lying there. We cautiously examine the place by the light of our red balloons, carefully held out at arm's length for fear of this dead man; it is only the marksman, he who on the 14th of July chose such magnificent arrows for Chrysanthème; and he sleeps, good man, with his chignon somewhat dishevelled, a sound sleep, which it would be cruel to disturb.

Let us go to the end of the terrace, contemplate the roadstead at our feet, and then return home. To-night the harbor looks only like a dark and sinister rent, which the moonbeams cannot fathom,—a yawning crevasse opening into the very bowels of the earth, at the bottom of which lie faint and small glimmers, an assembly of glow-worms in a ditch—the lights of the different vessels lying at anchor.

XLVII.

It is the middle of the night, somewhere about two in the morning. Our night-lamps does comprehend all these things.

It would seem to be outside: it is coming from the garden; with trembling hand she indicates to me that it will come through the verandah, over Madame Prune's roof. Certainly, I can hear faint noises, and they do approach nearer.

I suggest to her:

"Neko-San?" ("It is Messrs. the cats?")

"No!" she replies, still terrified and in an alarming tone.

"Bakémono-Sama?" ("Is it my lords the ghosts?") I have already the Japanese habit of expressing myself with excessive politeness.

'No!!" "Dorobo!!"("Thieves!!")

I open one of our wooden panels and look out.

I can see only a vast expanse, calm, peaceful, and exquisite under the full brilliancy of the moonlight; sleeping Japan lulled by the sonorous song of the grasshoppers is charming indeed to-night, and the free pure air is delicious to breathe.

Chrysanthème, half hidden behind my shoulder, listens tremblingly, peering forward to examine the gardens and the roofs with dilated eyes like a frightened cat. No, nothing! not a thing moves. Here and there are a few strangely substantial shadows, which at the first glance were not easy to explain, but which turn out to be real shadows, thrown by bits of wall, by boughs of trees, and which preserve an

Nothing; nothing to be seen anywhere. It was Messrs, the cats after all, or perhaps my ladies the owls; sounds increase in volume in the most amazing manner at night, in this house of ours.

Let us close the panel again carefully, as a measure of prudence, and then light a lantern and go downstairs to see if there may be any one hidden in corners, and if the doors are tightly shut: in short, to reassure Chrysanthème we will go the round of the house.

Behold us then, on tip-toe, searching together every hole and corner of the house, which, to judge by its foundations, must be very ancient, notwithstanding the fragile appearance of its panels of white paper. It contains the blackest of cavities, little vaulted cellars with worm-eaten beams; cupboards for rice which smell of mould and decay; mysterious hollows where lies accumulated the dust of centuries. In the middle of the night, and during a hunt for thieves, this part of the house, as yet unknown to me, has an ugly look.

Noiselessly we step across the apartment of our landlord and landlady. Chrysanthème

The gauze hanging over them throws reflections as of the sea upon them; one might suppose them victims drowned in an aquarium. And withal the sacred lamps, the altar crowded with strange Shintoist symbols, give a mock religious air to this family picture.

Honi soit qui mal y pense, but why is not that servant-girl rather laid by the side of her mistresses? Now, when we on the floor above offer our hospitality to Yves, we are careful to place ourselves under our mosquito-net in a more correct style.

One corner, which as a last resort we inspect, inspires me with a certain amount of apprehenKwanon with the thousand arms, and Kwanon with the horses' head, seated among clouds and flames, and horrible both of them to behold, with their spectral grin.

We open the door, and Chrysanthème starts back uttering a fearful cry. I should have thought the robbers were there, had I not seen a little grey creature, rapid and noiseless, rush by her and disappear; a young rat that had been eating rice on the top of a shelf, and, in its alarm, had dashed in her face.

XLVIII

September 14th.

Yves has dropped his silver whistle in the sea, the whistle so absolutely indispensable for the maneuvers; and we search the town through all day long, followed by Chrysanthème and Mdlles. La Neige and La Lune, her sisters, in the endeavor to procure another.

It is, however, very difficult to find such a thing in Nagasaki; above all, very difficult to explain in Japanese what is a sailor's whistle of the traditional shape, curved and with a little

They understand admirably that we want a thing that will make a noise, music in short; thereupon they offer us instruments of every and the most unexpected shape,—squeakers for Punch-and-Judy voices, dog-whistles, trumpets. Each time it is something more and more absurd, so that at last we are overcome with uncontrollable fits of laughter. Last of all, an aged Japanese optician, who assumes a most knowing air, a look of sublime wisdom, goes off to forage in his back shop, and brings to light a steam fog-horn, a relic from some wrecked steamer.

After dinner, the chief event of the evening is a deluge of rain which takes us by surprise as we leave the tea-houses, on our return from our fashionable stroll. It so happened that we were a large party, having with us several mousmé guests, and from the moment that the

Then, before long,—when the shops shut up in haste, when the emptied streets are flooded, and almost black, and the paper lanterns, piteous objects, wet through and extinguished,—I find myself, I know not how it happens, flattened against a wall, under the projecting eaves, alone in the company of Mdlle. Fraise, my cousin, who is crying bitterly because her fine dress is wet through. And in the noise of the rain, which is still falling and splashing everything; with the spouts and gutters, which in the darkness plaintively murmur like running streams, the town appears to me suddenly an abode of the gloomiest sadness.

The shower is soon over, and the mousmés come out of their holes like so many mice; they look for each other, call each other, and their little voices take the singular melancholy, dragging inflections they assume whenever they have to call from afar.

"Hi! Mdlle. Lu-u-u-u une!!"

"Hi! Madame Jonqui-i-i-i ille!!"

They shout from one to the other their outlandish names, prolonging them indefinitely in

At length they are all collected and united again, these tiny personages with narrow eyes and no brains, and we return to Diou-djen-dji all wet through.

For the third time, we have Yves sleeping beside us under our blue tent.

There is a great row soon after midnight in the apartment beneath us: our landlord's family returning from a pilgrimage to a far-distant temple of the Goddess of Grace. (Although Madame Prune is a Shintoist, she reveres this deity, who, scandal says, watched over her youth.) A moment after, Mdlle. Oyouki bursts into our room like a rocket, bringing, on a charming little tray, sweetmeats which have been blessed and bought at the gates of the temple yonder, on purpose for us, and which we must positively eat at once, before the virtue is gone out of them. Scarcely rousing ourselves, we absorb these little edibles flavored with sugar and pepper, and return a great many sleepy thanks.

Yves sleeps quietly on this occasion, without dealing any blows to the floor or the panels either with fists or feet. He has hung his watch on one of the hands of our gilded idol in order to be more sure of seeing the hour at any

Outside, no doubt, it is daylight already: through the tiny holes which time has pierced in our wooden panels, threads of morning light penetrate our chamber, and in the atmosphere of our room where night still lingers, they trace vague white rays. Soon, when the sun shall have risen, these rays will lengthen and become beautifully golden. The cocks and the cicalas make themselves heard, and now Madame Prune will begin her mystic drone.

Nevertheless, out of politeness for Yves-San, Chrysanthème lights a lantern and escorts him to the foot of the dark staircase. I even fancy that, on parting, I hear a kiss exchanged. In Japan this is of no consequence, that I know; it is very usual, and quite admissible; no matter where one goes, in houses one enters for the first time, one is quite at liberty to kiss any mousmé who may be present, without any notice being taken of it. But with regard to Chrysanthème, Yves is in a delicate position, and he ought to understand it better. I begin to feel uneasy about the hours they have so often spent together alone; and I make up my mind, that

All at once from below, clac! clac! two dry hands clapped together; it is Madame Prune's warning to the Great Spirit. And immediately after her prayer breaks forth, soars upwards in a shrill nasal falsetto, like a morning alarm 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-Térace-Omi-Kami, in the river of Kamo."

And this extraordinary bleating, scarcely human, scatters and changes my ideas, which were very nearly clear at the moment I awoke.

XLIX.

September 15th.

There is a rumor of departure in the air. Since yesterday there has been vague talk of our being sent to China, to the gulf of Pekin; one of those rumors which spread, no one knows how, from one end of the ship to the other, two or three days before the official orders arrive, and which generally turn out tolerably

There is nothing very precise as yet, but it is certain that one way or another, our stay in Japan is coming to an end. It is this perhaps which disposes me this evening, to throw a more friendly glance on my surroundings. It is about six o'clock, after a day spent on duty, when I reach Diou-djen-dji. The evening sun, low in the sky, on the point of setting, pours into my room, and floods it with rays of red gold, lighting up the Buddhas and the great sheaves of quaintly arranged flowers in the antique vases. Here are assembled five or six little dolls, my neighbors, amusing themselves by dancing to the sound of Chrysanthème's guitar. And this evening I experience a real charm in feeling that this dwelling and the woman who leads the dance, are mine. On the whole I have perhaps been unjust to this country; it seems to me that my eyes are at last opened to see it in its true

I stretch myself upon the white mats; Chrysanthème, always eagerly attentive, brings me my pillow of serpent's skin; and the smiling mousmés, with the interrupted rhythm of a while ago still running in their heads, move round me with measured steps.

Their irreproachable socks with the separate great toes, make no noise; nothing is heard, as they glide by, but a froufrou of silken stuffs. I find them all pleasant to look upon; their dollish air has the gift of pleasing me now, and I fancy I have discovered what it is that gives it to them: it is not only their round inexpressive faces with eyebrows far removed from the eyelids, but the excessive amplitude of their dress. With those huge sleeves, it might be supposed they have neither back nor shoulders; their delicate figures are lost in these wide robes, which float around what might be little marionnettes without bodies at all, and which would slip to the ground of themselves were they not kept together midway, about where a waist

And then, how much I admire the flowers arranged by Chrysanthème in our vases, with her Japanese taste: lotus flowers, great sacred flowers of a tender, veined rose-color, the milky rose-color seen on porcelain; they resemble, when in full bloom, great water-lilies, and when only in bud, might be taken for long pale tulips. Their soft but rather cloying scent is added to that other indefinable odor of mousmés, of yellow race, of Japan, which is always and everywhere in the air. The late flowers of September, at this season very rare and expensive, grow on longer stems than the summer blooms; Chrysanthème has left them their immense aquatic leaves of a melancholy seaweed-green, and mingled with them tall slight rushes. I look at them, and recall with some irony those great round bunches in the shape of cauliflowers, which our florists sell in France, wrapt in their white lace-paper.

Still no letters from Europe, from any one. How things change, become effaced and forgotten. Here I am accommodating myself to this finical Japan and dwindling down to its

We shall take no walk to-night; my only wish is to remain stretched out where I am, listening to the music of my mousmé's chamécen.

Till now, I have always used the word guitar, to avoid exotic terms, for the abuse of which I have been so reproached. But neither the word guitar nor mandolin suffices to designate this slender instrument with its long neck, the high notes of which are shriller than the voice of the grasshopper; henceforth, I will write chamécen.

I will also call my mousmé Kikou, Kikou-San; this name suits her better than Chrysanthème,

I therefore say to Kikou, my wife:

"Play, play on for me; I shall remain here all the evening and listen to you."

Astonished to find me in so amiable a mood, she requires pressing a little, and with almost a bitter curve of triumph and disdain about her lips, she seats herself in the attitude of an idol, raises her long, dark-colored sleeves, and begins. The first hesitating notes are murmured faintly and mingle with the music of the insects humming outside, in the quiet air of the warm and golden twilight. First she plays slowly, a confused medley of fragments which she does not seem to remember perfectly, of which one waits for the finish and waits in vain; while the other girls giggle, inattentive, and regretful of their interrupted dance. She herself is absent, sulky, as though she were performing a duty only.