it: after all these little
dishes, which are a mere make-believe, a wooden bowl is brought in,
bound with copper--an enormous bowl, fit for Gargantua, and filled to
the very brim with rice, plainly cooked in water. Chrysantheme fills
another large bowl from it (sometimes twice, sometimes three times),
darkens its snowy whiteness with a black sauce flavored with fish, which
is contained in a delicately shaped blue cruet, mixes it all together,
carries the bowl to her lips, and crams down all the rice, shovelling it
with her two chop-sticks into her very throat. Next the little cups and
covers are picked up, as well as the tiniest crumb that may have fallen
upon the white mats, the irreproachable purity of which nothing is
allowed to tarnish. And so ends the dinner.

CHAPTER XXIII. A FANTASTIC FUNERAL

Below, in the town, a street-singer had established herself in a little
thoroughfare; people had gathered around her to listen to her singing,
and we three--that is, Yves, Chrysantheme, and I--who happened to be
passing, stopped also.

She was quite young, rather fat, and fairly pretty, and she strummed her
guitar and sang, rolling her eyes fiercely, like a virtuoso executing
feats of difficulty. She lowered her head, stuck her chin into her neck,
in order to draw deeper notes from the furthermost recesses of her body;
and succeeded in bringing forth a great, hoarse voice--a voice that
might have belonged to an aged frog, a ventriloquist's voice, coming
whence it would be impossible to say (this is the best stage manner, the
last touch of art, in the interpretation of tragic pieces).

Yves cast an indignant glance upon her.

"Good gracious," said he, "she has the voice of a----" (words failed
him, in his astonishment) "the voice of a--a monster!"

And he looked at me, almost frightened by this little being, and
desirous to know what I thought of it.

Yves was out of temper on this occasion, because I had induced him to
come out in a straw hat with a turned-up brim, which did not please him.

"That hat suits you remarkably well, Yves, I assure you," I said.

"Oh, indeed! You say so, you. For my part, I think it looks like a
magpie's nest!"

As a fortunate diversion from the singer and the hat, here comes a
cortege, advancing toward us from the end of the street, something
remarkably like a funeral. Bonzes march in front, dressed in robes
of black gauze, having much the appearance of Catholic priests; the
p