At that fond recollection, a thrill of sweet memories coursed through my veins; it was as if I had been startled out of a long ten years’ sleep; I looked down upon the doll beside me with a sort of hatred, wondering why I was there, and I arose, with almost a feeling of remorse, to escape from that blue gauze net.

I stepped out upon the veranda, and there I paused, gazing into the depths of the starlit night.  Beneath me Nagasaki lay asleep, wrapped in a soft, light slumber, hushed by the murmuring sound of a thousand insects in the moonlight, and fairy-like with its roseate hues.  Then, turning my head, I saw behind me the gilded idol with our lamps burning in front of it; the idol smiling the impassive smile of Buddha; and its presence seemed to cast around it something, I know not what, strange and incomprehensible.  Never until now had I slept under the eye of such a god.

In the midst of the calm and silence of the night, I strove to recall my poignant impressions of Stamboul; but, alas, I strove in vain, they would not return to me in this strange, far-off world.  Through the transparent blue gauze appeared my little Japanese, as she lay in her sombre night-robe with all the fantastic grace of her country, the nape of her neck resting on its wooden block, and her hair arranged in large, shiny bows.  Her amber-tinted arms, pretty and delicate, emerged, bare up to the shoulders, from her wide sleeves.

“What can those mice on the roof have done to him?” thought Chrysantheme.  Of course she could not understand.  In a coaxing manner, like a playful kitten, she glanced at me with her half-closed eyes, inquiring why I did not come back to sleep—­and I returned to my place by her side.

CHAPTER XI

A GAME OF ARCHERY

July 14th.

This is the National Fete day of France.  In Nagasaki Harbor, all the ships are adorned with flags, and salutes are fired in our honor.

Alas!  All day long, I can not help thinking of that last fourteenth of July, spent in the deep calm and quiet of my old home, the door shut against all intruders, while the gay crowd roared outside; there I had remained till evening, seated on a bench, shaded by an arbor covered with honeysuckle, where, in the bygone days of my childhood’s summers, I used to settle myself with my copybooks and pretend to learn my lessons.  Oh, those days when I was supposed to learn my lessons!  How my thoughts used to rove—­what voyages, what distant lands, what tropical forests did I not behold in my dreams!  At that time, near the garden-bench, in some of the 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,