hideous noise in their worn-out grooves.

Ours are somewhat noisy too, for the old house is full of echoes, and
there are at least twenty to run over long slides in order to close in
completely the kind of open hall in which we live. Generally it is
Chrysanthème who undertakes this piece of household work, and a great
deal of trouble it gives her, for she often pinches her fingers in the
singular awkwardness of her too tiny hands, which have never been
accustomed to do any work.

Then comes her toilette for the night. With a certain grace she lets
fall the day-dress, and slips on a more simple one of blue cotton,
which has the same pagoda sleeves, the same shape all but the train,
and which she fastens round her waist by a sash of muslin of the same
color.

The high head-dress remains untouched, it is needless to say; all but
the pins which are taken out and laid beside her in a lacquer box.

Then there is the little silver pipe that must absolutely be smoked
before going to sleep; this is one of the customs which most provokes
me, but has to be borne.

Chrysanthème, like a gypsy, squats before a particular square box,
made of red wood, which contains a little tobacco jar, a little
porcelain stove full of hot embers, and finally a little bamboo pot
serving at the same time as ash-tray and spittoon. (Madame Prune's
smoking-box downstairs, and every smoking-box in Japan, both of men
and women, is exactly the same, and contains precisely the same
objects, arranged in precisely the same manner; and wherever it may