seem always
too thrilling, too great for the subject; seem to embellish it unduly. I
feel as if I were acting, for my own benefit, some wretchedly trivial and
third-rate comedy; and whenever I try to consider my home in a serious
spirit, the scoffing figure of M. Kangourou rises before me--the
matrimonial agent, to whom I am indebted for my happiness.

CHAPTER IX

MY PLAYTHING

July 12th

Yves visits us whenever he is free, in the evening at five o'clock, after
his duties on board are fulfilled.

He is our only European visitor, and, with the exception of a few
civilities and cups of tea, exchanged with our neighbors, we lead a very
retired life. Only in the evenings, winding our way through the steep,
narrow streets and carrying our lanterns at the end of short sticks, we
go down to Nagasaki in search of amusement at the theatres, at the
tea-houses, or in the bazaars.

Yves treats my wife as if she were a plaything, and continually assures
me that she is charming.

I find her as exasperating as the cicalas on my roof; and when I am alone
at home, side by side with this little creature twanging the strings of
her long-necked guitar, facing this marvellous panorama of pagodas and
mountains, I am overcome by sadness almost to tears.

CHAPTER X

NOCTURNAL TERRORS

July 13th.

Last night, as we reposed under the Japanese roof of Diou-djen-dji--the
thin old wooden roof scorched by a hundred years of sunshine, vibrating
at the least sound, like the stretched-out parchment of a tomtom--in the
silence which prevails at two o'clock in the morning, we heard overhead a
sound like a regular wild huntsman's chase passing at full gallop.

"Nidzoumi!" ("The mice!") said Chrysantheme.

Suddenly the word brings back to my mind yet another phrase, spoken in a
very different language, in a country far away from here: "Setchan!" a
word heard elsewhere, a word that has likewise been whispered in my ear
by a woman's voice, under similar circumstances, in a moment of nocturnal
terror--"Setchan!" It was during one of our first nights at Stamboul
spent under the mysterious roof of Eyoub, when danger surrounded us on
all sides; a noise on the steps of the black staircase had made us
tremble, and she also, my dear little Turkish companion, had said to me
in her beloved language, "Setchan!" ("the mice!").

At that fond recollection, a thrill of sweet memories coursed through my
veins; it was as if I had been startle