TWO FAIR ARISTOCRATS

Today, Yves, my mousme and I went to the best photographer in Nagasaki,
to be taken in a group. We shall send the picture to France. Yves
laughs as he thinks of his wife's astonishment when she sees
Chrysantheme's little face between us, and he wonders how he shall
explain it to her.

"I shall just say it is one of your friends, that's all!" he says to me.

In Japan there are many photographers like our own, with this difference,
that they are Japanese, and inhabit Japanese houses. The one we intend
to honor to-day carries on his business in the suburbs, in that ancient
quarter of big trees and gloomy pagodas where, the other day, I met the
pretty little mousme. His signboard, written in several languages, is
posted against a wall on the edge of the little torrent which, rushing
down from the green mountain above, is crossed by many a curved bridge of
old granite and lined on either side with light bamboos or oleanders in
full bloom.

It is astonishing and puzzling to find a photographer perched there, in
the very heart of old Japan.

We have come at the wrong moment; there is a file of people at the door.
Long rows of djins' cars are stationed there, awaiting the customers they
have brought, who will all have their turn before us. The runners, naked
and tattooed, their hair carefully combed in sleek bands and shiny
chignons, are chatting, smoking little pipes, or bathing their muscular
legs in the fresh water of the torrent.