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 correct. What will the
last act of my little Japanese comedy be like? the dénouement, the
separation? Will there be any touch of sadness on the part of my
mousmé, or on my own, just a tightening of the heart-strings at the
moment of our final farewell? At this moment I can imagine nothing of
the sort. And then the adieux of Yves and Chrysanthème, what will they
be? This question preoccupies me more than all.

There is nothing very precise as yet, but it is certain that one way