It would really amuse me to read her friends' letters,--and above all
my mousmé's answers.




XXIX.

_August 10th_.


This evening it rained heavily, and the night was thick and black. At
about ten o'clock, on our return from one of the fashionable
tea-houses we constantly frequent, we arrived,--Yves, Chrysanthème and
myself,--at the certain familiar angle of the principal street, the
certain turn where we must take leave of the lights and noises of the
town, to clamber up the black steps and steep lanes which lead to our
home at Diou-djen-dji.

There, before beginning our ascension, we must first buy lanterns from
an old trades-woman called Madame Très-Propre,[E] whose faithful
customers we are. It is amazing what a quantity of these paper
lanterns we consume. They are invariably decorated in the same way,
with painted night-moths or bats; fastened to the ceiling at the
further end of the shop, they hang in enormous clusters, and the old
woman, seeing us arrive, gets upon a table to take them down. Gray or
red are our usual choice; Madame Très-Propre knows our preferences and
leaves the green or blue lanterns aside. But it is always hard work to
unhook one, on account of the little short sticks by which they are