Madame Chrysantheme -- Complete

y 1

of the same suburb. This arrangement is quite an ordinary occurrence, and is brought abo

we are on visiting term

e a lover-like and inseparable pair, the only one that will probably weep when the hour of parting comes. Then Sikou-San with Doctor Y---; and lastly the midshipman Z---with the tiny Madame Touki-San, no taller than a boot: thirteen years old at the outside, and already

s when these friends come to us to play the part of the lady of the house. It is comical to see the entry of these ill-matched pairs, partners for a day, the ladies, with their disjointed bows, falling on all fours before C

the steps, all the slippery slopes, stumble over all the stones, before we shall be able to get home, go to bed, and sleep. We make our descent in the darkness, under the branches, under t

saki and its busy throng in a long illuminated street, where vociferating djins hurry along and thousands o

indifference. Seen from behind, our dolls are really very dainty, with their back hair so tidily arranged, their tortoiseshell pins so coquettishly placed. They shuffle along, t

lovely turn of the head. Moreover, they are very funny, thus drawn up in line. In speaki

the same low houses, built of paper and wood. Always the same shops, without glass windows, open to all the winds, equally rudimentary, whatever may be sold or made in them; whether they display the finest gold lacquer ware, th

d on under the public gaze, by strangely primit

for sale in those streets! What whi

aggling hither and thither, wanderers from the ships in harbor; some Japanese (fortunately as yet but few) dressed up in coats; other natives who content thems

ible machinery, Chinese shadows dance in a ring round the flame. In return, Chrysantheme gives Campanule a magic fan, with paintings that change at will from butterflies fluttering around cherry-blossoms to outlandish monsters pursuing each other across black clouds. Touki offers Sikou a cardboard mask representing the bloated countenance of D

carry on desultory conversations, full of misunderstandings and endless 'quid pro quo' of uncouth words, in little gardens lighted up with lanterns, near ponds full of goldfish, with little bridges, little

would have also to be expressly invented and scattered at haphazard among the words, indicating the moment when the reader

ky or the heavy thunder-clouds, dragging by the hands our drowsy mousmes in order to r