ou!" ("Quick! quick!")and they run as hard as they
can, uttering little shrieks, like merry animals full of wild gayety.
We rush like a whirlwind through the darkness, all five in Indian file,
dashing and jolting over the old, uneven flagstones, dimly lighted up by
our red balloons fluttering at the end of their bamboo stems. From time
to time some Japanese, night-capped in his blue kerchief, opens a window
to see who these noisy madcaps can be, dashing by so rapidly and so
late. Or else some faint glimmer, thrown by us on our passage, discovers
the hideous smile of a large stone animal seated at the gate of a
pagoda.

At last we arrive at the foot of Osueva's temple, and, leaving our
djins with our little gigs, we clamber up the gigantic steps, completely
deserted at this hour of the night.

Chrysantheme, who always likes to play the part of a tired little girl,
of a spoiled and pouting child, ascends slowly between Yves and myself,
clinging to our arms.

Jonquille, on the contrary, skips up like a bird, amusing herself by
counting the endless steps.

She lays a great stress on the accentuations, as if to make the numbers
sound even more droll.

A little silver aigrette glitters in her beautiful black coiffure; her
delicate and graceful figure seems strangely fantastic, and the darkness
that envelops us conceals the fact that her face is quite ugly, and
almost without eyes.

This evening Chrysantheme and Jonquille really look like little fairies;
at certain moments the most insignificant Japanese have this appearance,
by dint of whimsical elegance and ingenious arrangement.

The granite stairs, imposing, deserted, uniformly gray under the
nocturnal sky, appear to vanish into the empty space above us, and,
when we turn round, to disappear in the depths beneath, to fall into the
abyss with the dizzy rapidity of a dream. On the sloping steps the
black shadows of the gateways through which we must pass stretch
out indefinitely; and the shadows, which seem to be broken at each
projecting step, look like the regular creases of a fan. The porticoes
stand up separately, rising one above another; their wonderful shapes
are at once remarkably simple and studiously affected; their outlines
stand out sharp and distinct, having nevertheless the vague appearance
of all very large objects in the pale moonlight. The curved architraves
rise at each extremity like two menacing horns, pointing upward toward
the far-off blue cano