We must therefore open all the closed doors, put on our boots, and go down into the garden to draw water.

As Chrysantheme would die of fright all alone in the dark, in the midst of the trees and buzzing of insects, I am obliged to accompany her to the well.  For this expedition we require a light, and must seek among the quantity of lanterns purchased at Madame Tres-Propre’s booth, which have been thrown night after night into the bottom of one of our little paper closets; but alas, all the candles are burned down!  I thought as much!  Well, we must resolutely take the first lantern to hand, and stick a fresh candle on the iron point at the bottom; Chrysantheme puts forth all her strength, the candle splits, breaks; the mousme pricks her fingers, pouts and whimpers.  Such is the inevitable scene that takes place every evening, and delays our retiring to rest under the dark-blue gauze net for a good quarter of an hour; while the cicalas on the roof seem to mock us with their ceaseless song.

All this, which I should find amusing in any one else,—­any one I loved—­irritates me in her.

CHAPTER XLIV

TENDER MINISTRATIONS

September 11th.

A week has passed very quietly, during which I have written nothing.

By degrees I am becoming accustomed to my Japanese household, to the strangeness of the language, costumes, and faces.  For the last three weeks no letters have arrived from Europe; they have no doubt miscarried, and their absence contributes, as is usually the case, to throw a veil of oblivion over the past.

Every day, therefore, I climb up to my villa, sometimes by beautiful starlit nights, sometimes through downpours of rain.  Every morning as the sound of Madame Prune’s chanted prayer rises through the reverberating air, I awake and go down toward the sea, by grassy pathways full of dew.

The chief occupation in Japan seems to be a perpetual hunt after curios.  We sit down on the mattings, in the antique-sellers’ little booths, taking a cup of tea with the salesmen, and rummage with our own hands in the cupboards and chests, where many a fantastic piece of old rubbish is huddled away.  The bargaining, much discussed, is laughingly carried on for several days, as if we were trying to play off some excellent little practical joke upon each other.

I really make a sad abuse of the adjective little; I am quite aware of it, but how can I do otherwise?  In describing this country, the temptation is great to use it ten times in every written line.  Little, finical; affected,—­all Japan is contained, both physically and morally, in these three words.

My purchases are accumulating in my little wood and paper house; but how much more Japanese it really was, in its bare emptiness, such as M. Sucre and Madame Prune had conceived it.  There are now many lamps of sacred symbolism hanging from the ceiling; many stools and many vases, as many gods and goddesses as in a pagoda.