w, at the valleys and mountains as they become, one
by one, indistinct and lost in the deepening darkness. Placed as we are
at an enormous height, in the wide, free atmosphere, we seem already
to have quitted this miniature country, already to be freed from the
impression of littleness which it has given us, and from the little
links by which it was beginning to bind--us to itself.

Seen from such heights as these, all the countries of the globe bear a
strong resemblance to one another; they lose the imprint made upon them
by man, and by races; by all the atoms swarming on the surface.

As of old, in the Breton marshes, in the woods of Toulven, or at sea
in the night-watches, we talk of all those things to which thoughts
naturally revert in darkness; of ghosts, of spirits, of eternity, of the
great hereafter, of chaos--and we entirely forget little Chrysantheme!

When we arrive at Diou-djen-dji in the starry night, the music of
her 'chamecen', heard from afar, recalls to us her existence; she is
studying some vocal duet with Mademoiselle Oyouki, her pupil.

I feel myself in very good humor this evening, and, relieved from my
absurd suspicions about my poor Yves, am quite disposed to enjoy without
reserve my last days in Japan, and to derive therefrom all the amusement
possible.

Let us then repose ourselves on the dazzling white mats, and listen to
the singular duet sung by those two mousmes: a strange musical
medley, slow and mournful, beginning with two or three high notes, and
descending at each couplet, in an almost imperceptible manner, into
actual solemnity. The song keeps its dragging slowness; but the
accompaniment, becoming more and more accentuated, is like the impetuous
sound of a far-off hurricane. At the end, when these girlish
voices, usually so soft, give out their hoarse and guttural notes,
Chrysantheme's hands fly wildly and convulsively over the quivering
strings. Both of them lower their heads, pout their underlips in the
effort to bring out these astonishingly deep notes. And at these
moments their little narrow eyes open, and seem to reveal an unexpected
something, almost a soul, under these trappings of marionettes.

But it is a soul which more than ever appears to me of a different
species from my own; I feel my thoughts to be as far removed from theirs
as from the flitting conceptions of a bird, or the dreams of a monkey;
I feel there is between them and myself a great gulf, mysterious and