DEDICATION

To Madame la Duchesse de Richelieu
madame la Duchesse,

Permit me to beg your acceptance of this work, as a respectful tribute of my friendship.

I feel some hesitation in offering it, for its theme can not be deemed altogether correct; but I have endeavored to make its expression, at least, in harmony with good taste, and I trust that my endeavors have been successful.

This record is the journal of a summer of my life, in which I have changed nothing, not even the dates, thinking that in our efforts to arrange matters we succeed often only in disarranging them.  Although the most important role may appear to devolve on Madame Chrysantheme, it is very certain that the three principal points of interest are myself, Japan, and the effect produced on me by that country.

Do you recollect a certain photograph—­rather absurd, I must admit—­representing that great fellow Yves, a Japanese girl, and myself, grouped as we were posed by a Nagasaki artist?  You smiled when I assured you that the carefully attired little damsel placed between us had been one of our neighbors.  Kindly receive my book with the same indulgent smile, without seeking therein a meaning either good or bad, in the same spirit in which you would receive some quaint bit of pottery, some grotesquely carved ivory idol, or some fantastic trifle brought to you from this singular fatherland of all fantasy.

   Believe me, with the deepest respect,
     Madame la Duchesse,
        Your affectionate
               Pierre Loti.

INTRODUCTION

We were at sea, about two o’clock in the morning, on a fine night, under a starry sky.

Yves stood beside me on the bridge, and we talked of the country, unknown to both, to which destiny was now carrying us.  As we were to cast anchor the next day, we enjoyed our anticipations, and made a thousand plans.

“For myself,” I said, “I shall marry at once.”

“Ah!” said Yves, with the indifferent air of one whom nothing can surprise.

“Yes—­I shall choose a little, creamy-skinned woman with black hair and cat’s eyes.  She must be pretty and not much bigger than a doll.  You shall have a room in our house.  It will be a little paper house, in a green garden, deeply shaded.  We shall live among flowers, everything around us shall blossom, and each morning our dwelling shall be filled with nosegays—­nosegays such as you have never dreamed of.”

Yves now began to take an interest in these plans for my future household; indeed, he would have listened with as much confidence if I had expressed the intention of taking temporary vows in some monastery of this new country, or of marrying some island queen and shutting myself up with her in a house built of jade, in the middle of an enchanted lake.