smiling, bending low with the most engaging bows. Under the mass of
these many-colored things, the deck presented the appearance of an
immense bazaar; the sailors, very much amused and full of fun, walked
among the heaped-up piles, taking the little women by the chin, buying
anything and everything; throwing broadcast their white dollars. But how
ugly, mean, and grotesque all those folk were! I began to feel
singularly uneasy and disenchanted regarding my possible marriage.

Yves and I were on duty till the next morning, and after the first
bustle, which always takes place on board when settling down in harbor--
boats to lower, booms to swing out, running rigging to make taut--we had
nothing more to do but look on. We said to each other: "Where are we in
reality?--In the United States?--In some English colony in Australia, or
in New Zealand?"

Consular residences, custom-house offices, manufactories; a dry dock in
which a Russian frigate was lying; on the heights the large European
concession, sprinkled with villas, and on the quays, American bars for
the sailors. Farther off, it is true, far away behind these commonplace
objects, in the very depths of the vast green valley, peered thousands
upon thousands of tiny black houses, a tangled mass of curious
appearance, from which here and there emerged some higher, dark red,
painted roofs, probably the true old Japanese Nagasaki, which still
exists. And in those quarters--who knows?--there may be, lurking behind
a paper screen, some affected, cat's-eyed little woman, whom perhaps in
two or three days (having no time to lose) I shall marry! But no, the
picture painted by my fancy has faded. I can no longer see this little
creature in my mind's eye; the sellers of the white mice have blurred her
image; I fear now, lest she should be like them.