e
and incomprehensible. Never until now had I slept under the eye of such
a god.

In the midst of the calm and silence of the night, I strove to recall
my poignant impressions of Stamboul; but, alas, I strove in vain, they
would not return to me in this strange, far-off world. Through the
transparent blue gauze appeared my little Japanese, as she lay in her
sombre night-robe with all the fantastic grace of her country, the nape
of her neck resting on its wooden block, and her hair arranged in large,
shiny bows. Her amber-tinted arms, pretty and delicate, emerged, bare up
to the shoulders, from her wide sleeves.

"What can those mice on the roof have done to him?" thought
Chrysantheme. Of course she could not understand. In a coaxing manner,
like a playful kitten, she glanced at me with her half-closed eyes,
inquiring why I did not come back to sleep--and I returned to my place
by her side.

CHAPTER XI. A GAME OF ARCHERY

July 14th.

This is the National Fete day of France. In Nagasaki Harbor, all the
ships are adorned with flags, and salutes are fired in our honor.

Alas! All day long, I can not help thinking of that last fourteenth of
July, spent in the deep calm and quiet of my old home, the door shut
against all intruders, while the gay crowd roared outside; there I had
remained till evening, seated on a bench, shaded by an arbor covered
with honeysuckle, where, in the bygone days of my childhood's summers, I
used to settle myself with my copybooks and pretend to learn my lessons.
Oh, those days when I was supposed to learn my lessons! How my thoughts
used to rove--what voyages, what distant lands, what tropical forests
did I not behold in my dreams! At that time, near the garden-bench, in
some of the crevices in the stone wall, dwelt many a big, ugly, black
spider always on the alert, peeping out of his nook ready to pounce upon
any giddy fly or wandering centipede. One of my amusements consisted
in tickling the spiders gently, very gently, with a blade of grass or
a cherry-stalk in their webs. Mystified, they would rush out, fancying
they had to deal with some sort of prey, while I would rapidly draw back
my hand in disgust. Well, last year, on that fourteenth of July, as I
recalled my days of Latin themes and translations, now forever flown,
and this game of boyish days, I actually recognized the very same
spiders (or at least their daughters), lying in wait in the very same
places. Gazing at them, a