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 most insignificant Japanese have this
appearance, by dint of whimsical elegance and ingenious arrangement.

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 in the immensity of the