What a pity this little Chrysantheme can not always be asleep; she is
really extremely decorative seen in this manner--and like this, at least,
she does not bore me. Who knows what may be passing in that little head
and heart! If I only had the means of finding out! But strange to say,
since we have kept house together, instead of advancing in my study of
the Japanese language, I have neglected it, so much have I felt the
impossibility of ever interesting myself in the subject.

Seated upon my veranda, my eyes wandered over the temples and cemeteries
spread at my feet, over the woods and the green mountains, over Nagasaki
lying bathed in the sunlight. The cicalas were chirping their loudest,
the strident noise trembling feverishly in the hot air. All was calm,
full of light and full of heat.

Nevertheless, to my taste, it is not yet enough so! What, then, can have
changed upon the earth? The burning noondays of summer, such as I can
recall in days gone by, were more brilliant, more full of sunshine;
Nature seemed to me in those days more powerful, more terrible. One would
say this was only a pale copy of all that I knew in early years--a copy
in which something is wanting. Sadly do I ask myself--Is the splendor of
the summer only this? Was it only this? or is it the fault of my eyes,
and as time goes on shall I behold everything around me fading still
more?

Behind me comes a faint and melancholy strain of music--melancholy enough
to make one shiver--and shrill, shrill as the song of the grasshoppers,
it began to make itself heard, very softly at first, then growing louder
and rising in the silence of the noonday like the diminutive wail of some
poor Japanese soul in pain and anguish; it was Chrysantheme and her
guitar awaking together.

It pleased me that the idea should have occurred to her to greet me with
music, instead of eagerly hastening to wish me good-morning. At no time
have I ever given myself the trouble to pretend the slightest affection
for her, and a certain coldness even has grown up between us, especially
when we are alone. But to-day I turn to her with a smile, and wave my
hand for her to continue. "Go on, it amuses me to listen to your quaint
little impromptu." It is singular that the music of this essentially
merry people should be so plaintive. But undoubtedly that which
Chrysantheme is playing at this moment is worth listening to. Whence can
it have come to her? What unutterable dreams, fore