one bearing aloft its proud
head and haughtily raising its leg, the other scratching itself. Oh
these storks! how sick one gets of them, at the end of a month spent
in Japan!

Yves is now in bed and sleeping under our roof.

Sleep has come to him sooner than to me to-night; for somehow I fancy
I had seen long glances exchanged between him and Chrysantheme.

I have left this little creature in his hands like a toy, and I begin
to fear lest I should have thrown some perturbation in his mind. I do
not trouble my head about this little Japanese girl. But Yves,--it
would be decidedly wrong on his part, and would greatly diminish my
faith in him.

We hear the rain falling on our old roof; the cicalas are mute; odors
of wet earth reach us from the gardens and the mountain. I feel
terribly dreary in this room to-night; the noise of the little pipe
irritates me more than usual, and as Chrysantheme crouches in front of
her smoking-box, I suddenly discover in her an air of low breeding, in
the very worst sense of the word.

I should hate her, my mousme, if she were to entice Yves into
committing a fault,--a fault which I should perhaps never be able to
forgive.

XXX.

_August 12th_.

The Y---- and Sikou-San couple were divorced yesterday. The Charles
N---- and Campanule household is getting on very badly. They have had
some annoyance with those prying, grinding, insupportable little men,
dressed up in suits of gray, who are called police agents and who by
threatening their landlord, have had them turned out of their
house--under the obsequious amiability of this people, there lurks a
secret hatred towards us Europeans--they are therefore obliged to
accept their mother-in-law's hospitality, a very painful position. And
then Charles N---- fancies his wife is faithless. It is hardly
possible, however, for us to deceive ourselves: these would-be
maidens, to whom M. Kangourou has introduced us, are young people who
have already had in their lives one, or perhaps more than one,
adventure; it is therefore only natural that we should have our
suspicions.

The Z---- and Touki-San couple jog on, quarreling all the time.

My household maintains a more dignified air, though it is none the
less dreary. I had indeed thought of a divorce, but have really no
good reason for offering Chrysantheme such a gratuitous affront;
moreover there is another more imperative reason why I should remain
quiet: I too have had difficultie