the
floor or the panels with either fists or feet. He has hung his watch on
one of the hands of our gilded idol in order to be more sure of seeing
the hour at any time of the night, by the light of the sacred lamps. He
gets up betimes in the morning, asking: "Well, did I behave properly?"
and dresses in haste, preoccupied about duty and the roll-call.
Outside, no doubt, it is daylight already: through the tiny holes
which time has pierced in our wooden panels, threads of morning light
penetrate our chamber, and in the atmosphere of our room where night
still lingers, they trace vague white rays. Soon, when the sun shall
have risen, these rays will lengthen and become beautifully golden. The
cocks and the 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.
CHAPTER XLIX. RUMORS OF DEPARTURE
September 15th.
Rumor of departure is in the air. Since yesterday there has been vague
talk of our being sent to China, to the Gulf of Pekin; one of those
rumors which spread, no one knows how, from one end of the ship to the
other, two or three days before the official orders arrive, and which
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