Madame Chrysantheme -- Complete

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Nagasaki Harbor, all the ships are adorned w

he crevices in the stone wall, dwelt many a big, ugly, black spider always on the alert, peeping out of his nook ready to pounce upon any giddy fly or wandering centipede. One of my amusements consisted in tickling the spiders gently, very gently, with a blade of grass or a cherry-stalk in their webs. Mystified, they would rush out, fancying they had to deal with some sort of prey, while I would rapidly draw back my hand in disgust. Well, last year, on that fourteenth of July, as I recalled my days of Latin themes and translations, now forever flown, and this game of boyish days, I actually recognized the very same spiders (or at least the

conversation, in music, even in painting; a landscape painter, for instance, when he has finished a picture of mountains and crags, will not hesitate to draw, in the very middle of the sky, a circle, or a lozenge, or some kind of

nce between that day of July last year, so peacefully spent amid surroundings familiar to me fr

full speed-Yves, Chrysantheme, and myself-in Indian file, each in a little jolting cart, to the farther en

o give access to a whole regiment; they are as grand and imposing as any work of

nd. As we ascended, we passed under enormous monastic porticoes, also in granite of rude and primitive style. In truth, these steps

rmous gray steps, only we three are to be seen; on all that granite there are but th

horse in jade. Then, without pausing at the sanctuary, we turned to the left, and entered a shady garden, which formed a t

at a table, under a black linen tent decorated with large white letters (

st as if there were a little pout in the very sound-a pretty, taking little pout, such as they put on, and also as if a little pert

, and a miniature lake close by, the chosen residence of a few toads, has given it its attractive denomination. Lucky toads, who crawl and croak on the finest of moss, in the midst of tiny artifici

te zone. We can see, at our feet, the deep roadstead, foreshortened and slanting, diminished in appearance till it looks like a sombre rent in the mass of large green mountains; and farther still, quite low on the black and stagnant waters, are the men-of-war, the steamboats and the junks, with flags flying from every mast. Against the

d, who are practising with bows and arrows, we are today the on

Chrysantheme also wishes to exert her skill; for a

athers-and she takes aim with a serious air. The mark is a circle, traced in the middle of a p

droit markswoman, and we admir

tips of her little fingers the sailor's broad hands, placing them on the bow and the string in order to teach him the proper manner. Never have they seemed to get on so

uddenly startles us; a unique, powerful, terrible sound, which is prolonged in infinite metall

ass that is sounding!" It is the monstrous gong of a monastery, situated in a suburb beneath us. It is powerful indeed, "the Japanese brass"! When th

ow; her loose-hanging sleeves caught up to her shoulders, showing the graceful bare arms polished like amber and very much the same

up with flags, and squibs are being fired off in honor of France. Long lines of djins pass by, dragging, as fast as their naked legs can carry them, the crew of the 'Triomphante,' who are shouting and fanning themselves. The Marseillaise is hear

ow Yves, struggling with a whole band of tiny little 'mousmes' of twelve or fifteen years of age, who barely reached up to his waist, and were pulling him by the sleeves, eager to lead him astray. Asto

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