town below.

Goro ("Nakodo"=matchmaker) shows his new Japanese house to an American
lieutenant, Linkerton, who has purchased it in Japanese fashion for 999
years, with the right of giving monthly notice.--He is waiting for his
bride Cho-Cho-San, named Butterfly, whom he is about to wed under the
same queer conditions for one hundred yens (a yen about four shillings).

Butterfly's maid Suzuki and his two servants are presented to him, but
he is impatient to embrace his sweetheart, with whom he is very much in
love.

{514}

Sharpless, the American Consul, who tells him much good of the little
bride, warns him, not to bruise the wings of the delicate butterfly,
but Linkerton only laughs at his remonstrances.

At last Butterfly appears with her companions. At her bidding, they
all shut their umbrellas and kneel to their friend's future husband, of
whom the girl is very proud.

Questioned by the Consul about her family, she tells him, that they are
of good origin, but that, her father having died, she had to support
herself and her mother as Geisha. She is but fifteen and very sweet
and tender hearted.--

When the procession of her relations come up, they all do obeisance to
Linkerton. They are all jealous of Butterfly's good luck and prophesy
an evil end, but the girl perfectly trusts and believes in her lover
and even confides to him, that she has left her own gods, to pray
henceforth to the God of her husband.

When the latter begins to show her their house, she produces from her
sleeve her few precious belongings; these are some silken scarfs, a
little brooch, a looking glass and a fan; also a long knife, which she
at once hides in a corner of the house. Goro tells Linkerton, that it
is the weapon, with which her father performed "Harakiri" (killed
himself). The last things she shows her lover are some little figures,
"the Ottoken", which represent the souls of her ancestors.--

{515}

When the whole assembly is ready, they are married by the commissary.

Linkerton treats his relations to champagne, but soon the festival is
interrupted by the dismal howls of Butterfly's uncle, the Bonze, who
climbs the hill and tells the relations, that the wretched bride has
denied her faith, and has been to the mission-house, to adopt her
husband's religion.

All turn from her with horror and curse her. But Linkerton consoles
his weeping wife and the act closes with a charming love duet.

The second act shows But