time as ash-tray and spittoon. (Madame Prune's
smoking-box downstairs, and every smoking-box in Japan, both of men
and women, is exactly the same, and contains precisely the same
objects, arranged in precisely the same manner; and wherever it may
be, whether in the house of the rich or the poor, it always lies
about somewhere on the floor.)

The word "pipe" is at once too trivial and too big to be applied to
this delicate silver tube, which is perfectly straight and at the end
of which, in a microscopic receptacle, is placed one pinch of golden
tobacco, chopped finer than silken thread.

Two puffs, or at most three; it lasts scarcely a few seconds, and the
pipe is finished. Then _pan, pan, pan, pan,_ the little tube is struck
smartly against the edge of the smoking-box to knock out the ashes,
which never will fall; and this tapping, heard everywhere, in every
house, at every hour of the day or night, quick and droll as the
scratching of a monkey, is in Japan one of the noises most
characteristic of human life.

"Anata nominase!" ("You must smoke too!") says Chrysantheme.

Having again filled the vexatious little pipe, she puts the silver
tube to my lips with a bow. Courtesy forbids my refusal; but I find it
detestably bitter.

Now, before laying myself down under the blue mosquito-net, I open two
of the panels in the room, one on the side of the silent and deserted
footpath, the other one on the garden side, overlooking the terraces,
so that the night air may breathe upon us, even at the risk of
bringing us the company of some belated cockchafer, or more giddy
moth.

Our wooden house, with its thin old walls, vibrates at night like a
great dry fiddle; the slightest noises grow great in it, become
disfigured and positively disquieting.

Beneath the verandah are hung two little AEolian harps, which at the
least ruffle of the breeze running through their blades of grass, emit
a gentle tinkling sound, like the harmonious murmur of a brook;
outside, to the very furthest limits of the distance, the cicalas
continue their great and everlasting concert; over our heads, on the
black roof, is heard passing like a witch's sabbath, the raging battle
to the death of cats, rats and owls.

Presently, when in the early dawn, a fresher breeze, mounting upwards
from the sea and the deep harbor, reaches us, Chrysantheme will slyly
get up and shut the panels I have opened.

Before that, however, she will have risen at least th