cicalas make themselves heard, and now Madame Prune will begin her mystic
drone.

Nevertheless, out of politeness for Yves-San, Chrysantheme lights a
lantern and escorts him to the foot of the dark staircase. I even fancy
that, on parting, I hear a kiss exchanged. In Japan this is of no
consequence, I know; it is very usual, and quite admissible; no matter
where one goes, in houses one enters for the first time, one is quite at
liberty to kiss any mousme who may be present, without any notice being
taken of it. But with regard to Chrysantheme, Yves is in a delicate
position, and he ought to understand it better. I begin to feel uneasy
about the hours they have so often spent together alone; and I make up my
mind that this very day I will not play the spy upon them, but speak
frankly to Yves, and make a clean breast of it.

Suddenly from below, clac! clac! two dry hands are clapped together; it
is Madame Prune's warning to the Great Spirit. And immediately after her
prayer breaks forth, soars upward in a shrill nasal falsetto, like a
morning alarum when the hour for waking has come, the mechanical noise of
a spring let go and running down.

".....The richest woman in the world! Cleansed from all my sins,
O Ama-Terace-Omi-Kami! in the river of Kamo."

And this extraordinary bleating, hardly human, scatters and changes my
ideas, which were very nearly clear at the moment I awoke.