ke herself, in the sunshine. Behind this youthful figure and
this flowering shrub all was blackness. Upon the pretty red and blue
parasol great white letters formed this inscription, much used among the
mousmes, and which I have learned to recognize: 'Stop! clouds, to see her
pass!' And it was really worth the trouble to stop and look at this
exquisite little person, of a type so ideally Japanese.

However, it will not do to stop too long and be ensnared--it would only
be another delusion. A doll like the rest, evidently, an ornament for a
china shelf, and nothing more. While I gaze at her, I say to myself that
Chrysantheme, appearing in this same place, with this dress, this play of
light, and this aureole of sunshine, would produce just as delightful an
effect.

For Chrysantheme is pretty, there can be no doubt about it. Yesterday
evening, in fact, I positively admired her. It was quite night; we were
returning with the usual escort of little married couples like ourselves,
from the inevitable tour of the tea-houses and bazaars. While the other
mousmes walked along hand in hand, adorned with new silver topknots which
they had succeeded in having presented to them, and amusing themselves
with playthings, she, pleading fatigue, followed, half reclining, in a
djin carriage. We had placed beside her great bunches of flowers destined
to fill our vases, late iris and long-stemmed lotus, the last of the
season, already smelling of autumn. And it was really very pretty to see
this Japanese girl in her little car, lying carelessly among all these
water-flowers, lighted by gleams of ever-changing colors, as they chanced
from the lanterns we met or passed. If, on the evening of my arrival in
Japan, any one had pointed her out to me, and said: "That shall be your
mousme," there can not be a doubt I should have been charmed. In reality,
however, I am not charmed; it is only Chrysantheme, always Chrysantheme,
nothing but Chrysantheme: a mere plaything to laugh at, a little creature
of finical forms and thoughts, with whom the agency of M. Kangourou has
supplied me.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE CATS AND THE DOLLS

The water used for drinking in our house, for making tea, and for lesser
washing purposes, is kept in large white china tubs, decorated with
paintings representing blue fish borne along by a swift current through
distorted rushes. In order to keep them cool, the tubs are kept out of
doors on Madame Prune's roof, at a pla