njuring tricks. We only put there things without
any value, having a vague feeling that the cupboards themselves might
spirit them away.

The box in which Chrysantheme stores away her gewgaws and letters, is
one of the things that amuses me the most; it is of English origin, in
tin, and bears on its cover the colored representation of some
manufactory in the neighborhood of London. Of course, it is as an
exotic work of art, as a precious knick-knack, that Chrysantheme
prefers it to any of her other boxes in lacquer or inlaid work. It
contains all that a mousme requires for her correspondence: Indian
ink, a paintbrush, very thin gray tinted paper, cut up in long narrow
strips, and funnily shaped envelopes, into which these strips are
slipped (after having been folded up in some thirty folds); the
envelopes being ornamented with pictures of landscapes, fishes, crabs,
or birds.

On some old letters addressed to her, I can make out the two
characters that represent her name: "Kikou-San" (Chrysantheme,
Madame). And when I question her, she replies in Japanese, with an air
of importance:

"My dear creature, they are letters from my female friends."

Oh! those friends of Chrysantheme, what funny little faces they have!
That same box contains their portraits, their photographs stuck on
visiting cards, which are printed on the back with the name of Uyeno,
the fashionable photographer in Nagasaki,--little creatures fit only
to figure daintily on painted fans, and who have striven to assume a
dignified attitude when once their necks have been placed in the
head-rest and they have been told: "Now don't move!"

It would really amuse me to read her friends' letters,--and above all
my mousme's answers.

XXIX.

_August 10th_.

This evening it rained heavily, and the night was thick and black. At
about ten o'clock, on our return from one of the fashionable
tea-houses we constantly frequent, we arrived,--Yves, Chrysantheme and
myself,--at the certain familiar angle of the principal street, the
certain turn where we must take leave of the lights and noises of the
town, to clamber up the black steps and steep lanes which lead to our
home at Diou-djen-dji.

There, before beginning our ascension, we must first buy lanterns from
an old trades-woman called Madame Tres-Propre,[E] whose faithful
customers we are. It is amazing what a quantity of these paper
lanterns we consume. They are invariably decorated in the same way,