have reached our destination he says "Goodnight," just touches
Chrysantheme's hand, and descending once more by the slope which leads to
the quays and the shipping, he crosses the roadstead in a sampan, to get
on board the 'Triomphante.'

Meantime, we, with the aid of a sort of secret key, open the door of our
garden, where Madame Prune's pots of flowers, ranged in the darkness,
send forth delicious odors in the night air. We cross the garden by
moonlight or starlight, and mount to our own rooms.

If it is very late--a frequent occurrence--we find all our wooden panels
drawn and tightly shut by the careful M. Sucre (as a precaution against
thieves), and our apartment is as close and as private as if it were a
real European house.

In this dwelling, when every chink is thus closed, a strange odor mingles
with the musk and the lotus--an odor essential to Japan, to the yellow
race, belonging to the soil or emanating from the venerable woodwork;
almost an odor of wild beasts. The mosquito-curtain of dark-blue gauze,
ready hung for the night, falls from the ceiling with the air of a
mysterious vellum. The gilded Buddha smiles eternally at the night-lamps
burning before him; some great moth, a constant frequenter of the house,
which during the day sleeps clinging to our ceiling, flutters at this
hour under the very nose of the god, turning and flitting round the thin,
quivering flames. And, motionless on the wall, its feelers spread out
star-like, sleeps some great garden spider, which one must not kill
because it is night. "Hou!" says Chrysantheme, indignantly, pointing it
out to me with levelled finger. Quick! where is the fan kept for the
purpose, wherewith to hunt it out of doors?

Around us reigns a silence which is almost oppressive after all the
joyous noises of the town, and all the laughter, now hushed, of our band
of mousmes--a silence of the country, of some sleeping village.

CHAPTER XXVI

A QUIET SMOKE

The sound of the innumerable wooden panels, which at nightfall are pulled
and shut in every Japanese house, is one of the peculiarities of the
country which will remain longest imprinted on my memory. From our
neighbor's houses these noises reach us one after the other, floating to
us over the green gardens, more or less deadened, more or less distant.

Just below us, Madame Prune's panels move very badly, creak and make a
hideous noise in their wornout grooves.

Ours are somewhat noisy too, for th