MADAME CHRYSANTHEME

By PIERRE LOTI



BOOK 2.


CHAPTER XII

HAPPY FAMILIES!

July 18th.

By this time, four officers of my ship are married like myself, and
inhabiting the slopes of the same suburb. This arrangement is quite an
ordinary occurrence, and is brought about without difficulties, mystery,
or danger, through the offices of the same M. Kangourou.

As a matter of course, we are on visiting terms with all these ladies.

First, there is our very merry neighbor Madame Campanule, who is little
Charles N-----'s wife; then Madame Jonquille, who is even merrier than
Campanule, like a young bird, and the daintiest fairy of them all; she
has married X-----, a fair northerner who adores her; they are a lover-
like and inseparable pair, the only one that will probably weep when the
hour of parting comes. Then Sikou-San with Doctor Y-----; and lastly the
midshipman Z------ with the tiny Madame Touki-San, no taller than a boot:
thirteen years old at the outside, and already a regular woman, full of