ll the teeth showing. Taking it out of
a pretty little lacquered box, she held it up in the air and blinked her
eyes, looking through it at the sky--a bright summer sky--as one does to
examine the quality of a precious stone.

"Here is," she said, "an object of great value that you should offer to
your little wife."

My mousme, very much taken by it, admired the clearness of the comb and
its graceful shape.

The lacquered box, however, pleased me more. On the cover was a
wonderful painting in gold on gold, representing a field of rice, seen
very close, on a windy day; a tangle of ears and grass beaten down and
twisted by a terrible squall; here and there, between the distorted
stalks, the muddy earth of the rice-swamp was visible; there were even
little pools of water, produced by bits of the transparent lacquer on
which tiny particles of gold seemed to float about like chaff in a thick
liquid; two or three insects, which required a microscope to be well
seen, were clinging in a terrified manner to the rushes, and the whole
picture was no larger than a woman's hand.

As for Madame Prune's comb, I confess it left me indifferent, and I
turned a deaf ear, thinking it very insignificant and expensive. Then
Chrysantheme answered, mournfully:

"No, thank you, I don't want it; take it away, dear Madame Prune."

And at the same time she heaved a deep sigh, full of meaning, which
plainly said:

"He is not so fond of me as all that.--Useless to bother him."

I immediately made the wished-for purchase.

Later when Chrysantheme will have become an old monkey like Madame
Prune, with her black teeth and long orisons, she, in her turn, will
retail that comb to some fine lady of a fresh generation.

On another occasion the sun had given me a headache; I lay on the
floor resting my head on my snake-skin pillow. My eyes were dim; and
everything appeared to turn around: the open veranda, the big expanse
of luminous evening sky, and a variety of kites hovering against its
background. I felt myself vibrating painfully to the rhythmical sound of
the cicalas which filled the atmosphere.

She, crouching by my side, strove to relieve me by a Japanese process,
pressing with all her might on my temples with her little thumbs and
turning them rapidly around, as if she were boring a hole with a gimlet.
She had become quite hot and red over this hard work, which procured me
real comfort, something similar to the dreamy intoxication of o