eally excels in reproducing groups and duets, if one may so express it,
of this bird. Few Japanese possess the art of interpreting this subject
in a manner at once so rapid and so tasteful; first he draws the two
beaks, then the four claws, then the backs, the feathers, dash, dash,
dash--with a dozen strokes of his clever brush, held in his daintily
posed hand, it is done, and always perfectly well done!

M. Kangourou relates, without seeing anything wrong in it whatever, that
formerly this talent was of great service to M. Sucre. It appears that
Madame Prune--how shall I say such a thing, and, who could guess it now,
on beholding so devout and sedate an old lady, with eyebrows so
scrupulously shaven?--however, it appears that Madame Prune used to
receive a great many visits from gentlemen--gentlemen who always came
alone--which led to some gossip. Therefore, when Madame Prune was engaged
with one visitor, if a new arrival made his appearance, the ingenious
husband, to induce him to wait patiently, and to wile away the time in
the anteroom, immediately offered to paint him some storks in a variety
of attitudes.

And this is why, in Nagasaki, all the Japanese gentlemen of a certain age
have in their collections two or three of these little pictures, for
which they are indebted to the delicate and original talent of M. Sucre!

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Ah! the natural perversity of inanimate things
Found nothing that answered to my indefinable expectations
Habit turns into a makeshift of attachment
I know not what lost home that I have failed to find
When the inattentive spirits are not listening

MADAME CHRYSANTHEME

By PIERRE LOTI

BOOK 3.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE FEAST OF THE TEMPLE

Sunday, August 25th.

About six o'clock, while I was on duty, the 'Triomphante' abandoned her
prison walls between the mountains and came out of dock. After much
manoeuvring we took up our old moorings in the harbor, at the foot of the
Diou-djen-dji hills. The weather was again calm and cloudless, the sky
presenting a peculiar clarity, as if it had been swept by a cyclone, an
exceeding transparency bringing out the minutest details in the distance
till then unseen; as if the terrible blast had blown away every vestige
of the floating mists and left behind it nothing but void and boundless
space. The coloring of woods and mountains stood out again in the
resplendent verdancy of spri