of which lies Nagasaki.

Our way, too, lies downwards, but on an opposite slope by steep paths
leading to the sea.

And when I find myself once more on board, when the scene enacted on
the hill up above recurs to my mind, it seems to me that my betrothal
is a joke, and my new family a set of puppets.




V.


_July 10th, 1885_.

It is three days now since my marriage was an accomplished fact.

In the lower part of the town, in the middle of one of the new
cosmopolitan districts, in the ugly pretentious building which is a
kind of register office, the deed has been signed and countersigned,
with marvelous hieroglyphics, in a large book, in the presence of
those ridiculous little creatures, formerly silken-robed _Samouraï_,
but now called policemen, and dressed up in tight jackets and Russian
caps.

The ceremony took place in the full heat of mid-day; Chrysanthème and
her mother arrived there together, and I went alone. We seemed to have
met for the purpose of ratifying some discreditable contract, and the