me, vibrating through the exquisite clearness of the summer
mornings,--while our night-lamps burn low before the smiling Buddha,
while the eternal sun, scarcely risen, already sends through the
cracks of our wooden panels its bright rays, which dart like golden
arrows through our darkened dwelling and our blue gauze tent.

This is the moment at which I must rise, descend hurriedly to the sea
by grassy footpaths all wet with dew, and so regain my ship.

Alas! in the days gone by, it was the cry of the muezzin which used to
awaken me in the dark winter mornings, in far-away night-shrouded
Stamboul.





XXVIII


Chrysanthème has brought but few things with her, knowing that our
married life would be of short duration.

She has placed her dresses and her fine sashes in little closed
recesses, hidden in one of the walls of our apartment (the north wall,
the only one of the four which will not take to pieces.) The doors of
these niches are white paper panels; the standing shelves and inside
partitions, consisting of light woodwork, are put together in too
finical a manner, too ingenious a way, giving rise to suspicions of
secret drawers and conjuring tricks. We only put there things without