the sight of the mousko I am carrying.

CHAPTER XXXVII

COMPLICATIONS

At first it was only to Chrysantheme's guitar that I listened with
pleasure now I am beginning to like her singing also.

She has nothing of the theatrical, or the deep, assumed voice of the
virtuoso; on the contrary, her notes, always very high, are soft, thin,
and plaintive.

She often teaches Oyouki some romance, slow and dreamy, which she has
composed, or which comes back to her mind. Then they both astonish me,
for on their well-tuned guitars they will pick out accompaniments in
parts, and try again each time that the chords are not perfectly true to
their ear, without ever losing themselves in the confusion of these
dissonant harmonies, always weird and always melancholy.

Usually, while their music is going on, I am writing on the veranda, with
the superb panorama before me. I write, seated on a mat on the floor and
leaning upon a little Japanese desk, ornamented with swallows in relief;
my ink is Chinese, my inkstand, just like that of my landlord, is in
jade, with dear little frogs and toads carved on the rim. In short, I am
writing my memoirs,--exactly as M. Sucre does downstairs! Occasionally I
fancy I resemble him--a very disagreeable fancy.

My memoirs are composed of incongruous details, minute observations of
colors, shapes, scents, and sounds.

It is true that a complete imbroglio, worthy of a romance, seems ever
threatening to appear upon my monotonous horizon; a regular intrigue
seems ever ready to explode in the midst of this little world of mousmes
and grasshoppers: Chrysantheme in love with Yves; Yves with Chrysantheme;
Oyouki with me; I with no one. We might even find here, ready to hand,
the elements of a fratricidal drama, were we in any other country than
Japan; but we are in Japan, and under the narrowing and dwarfing
influence of the surroundings, which turn everything into ridicule,
nothing will come of it all.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE HEIGHT OF SOCIABILITY!

In this fine town of Nagasaki, about five or six o'clock in the evening,
one hour of the day is more comical than any other. At that moment every
human being is naked: children, young people, old people, old men, old
women--every one is seated in a tub of some sort, taking a bath. This
ceremony takes place no matter where, without the slightest screen, in
the gardens, the courtyards, in the shops, even upon the thresholds, in
order to give grea