nothing but little folding-screens, little curiously shaped stools
bearing vases full of nosegays, and at the further end of the
apartment, in a nook forming an altar, a large gilded Buddha sits
enthroned in a lotus.

The house is just as I had fancied it should be in the many dreams of
Japan I had made before my arrival, during my long night watches:
perched on high, in a peaceful suburb, in the midst of green
gardens;--made up of paper panels, and taken to pieces according to
one's fancy, like a child's toy. Whole families of cicalas chirp day
and night under our old resounding roof. From our verandah, we have a
bewildering bird's-eye view of Nagasaki, of its streets, its junks and
its great pagodas, which, at certain hours, is lit up at our feet like
some fairylike scene.




VII.


As a mere outline, little Chrysanthème has been seen everywhere and by
everybody. Whoever has looked at one of those paintings on china or on
silk that now fill our bazaars, knows by heart the pretty stiff
head-dress, the leaning figure, ever ready to try some new gracious
salutation, the scarf fastened behind in an enormous bow, the large
falling sleeves, the dress slightly clinging about the ankles with a
little crooked train like a lizard's tail.

But her face, no, every one has not seen it; there is something