t its
background; I felt myself vibrating painfully to the rhythmical sound
of the cicalas which filled the atmosphere.

She, crouching down by my side, strove to relieve me by a Japanese
process, pressing with all her might on my temples with her little
thumbs and turning them rapidly round, as though she were boring a
hole with a gimlet. She had become quite hot and red over this hard
work, which procured me real comfort, something similar to the dreamy
intoxication of opium.

Then, anxious and fearful lest I should have an attack of fever, she
rolled into a pellet and thrust into my mouth a very efficacious
prayer written on rice-paper, which she carefully kept in the lining
of one of her sleeves.

Well, I swallowed that prayer without a smile, anxious not to hurt her
feelings or shake her funny little faith.

XLV.

To-day, Yves, my mousme and myself went to the best photographer in
Nagasaki, to be taken in a group together.

We shall send the photograph to France. Yves already smiles as he
thinks of his wife's astonishment when she sees Chrysantheme's little
face between us two, and he wonders what explanation he will give her.

"Well, I will just say it is one of your friends, that's all!"

There are, in Japan, photographers in the style of our own, with this
one difference, that they are Japanese, and inhabit Japanese houses.
The one we design to honor to-day carries on his profession in the
suburbs, in that ancient quarter of big trees and gloomy pagodas
where, the other day, I met the pretty little mousme. His signboard,
written in several languages, is stuck up against a wall on the edge
of the little torrent which, rushing down from the green mountain
above, is crossed by many a curved bridge of old granite and lined on
either side by light bamboos or oleanders in full bloom.

It is astonishing and puzzling to find a photographer perched there,
in the very heart of old Japan.

We have come at the wrong moment; there is a file of people at the
door. Long rows of djins' cars are stationed there, awaiting the
customers they have brought, who will all have their turn before us.
The runners, naked and tatooed, carefully combed in sleek bands and
shiny chignons, are chatting together, smoking little pipes, or
bathing their muscular legs in the fresh water of the torrent.

The courtyard is irreproachably Japanese, with its lanterns and dwarf
trees. But the studio where one sits might be in Paris