woodwork; almost an odor of wild beast. The mosquito curtain of dark
blue gauze ready hung for the night, falls from the ceiling with the
air of a mysterious velum. The gilded Buddha smiles eternally at the
night-lamps burning before him; some great moth, a constant frequenter
of the house, which during the day sleeps clinging to our ceiling,
flutters at this hour under the very nose of the god, turning and
flitting round the thin quivering flames. And, motionless on the wall,
its feelers spread out starwise, sleeps some great garden spider,
which one must not kill because it is night. "Hou!" says Chrysanthème
indignantly, pointing it out to me with leveled finger. "Quick! where
is the fan kept for the purpose, wherewith to hunt it out of doors?"

Around us reigns a silence which is almost painful after all the
joyous noises of the town, and all the laughter, now hushed, of our
band of mousmés,--a silence of the country, of some sleeping village.




XXVI.


The noise of the innumerable wooden panels which at the fall of night
are pulled and shut in every Japanese house, is one of the
peculiarities of the country which will remain longest imprinted on my
memory. From our neighbors' houses, floating to us over the green
gardens, these noises reach us one after the other, in series, more or
less deadened, more or less distant.

Just below us, those of Madame Prune move very badly, creak and make a