ountry. Grant
that I may become as holy as yourself, and drive from my mind all dark
thoughts. I am a coward and a sinner; purge me from my cowardice and
sinfulness, even as the north wind drives the dust into the sea. Wash
me clean from all my iniquities, as one washes away uncleanness in the
river of Kamo. Make me the richest woman in the world. I believe in
your glory, which shall be spread over the whole earth, and illuminate
it forever for my happiness. Grant me the continued good health of my
family, and above all, my own, who, oh Ama-Terace-Omi-Kami, do worship
and adore you, and only you, etc., etc."

Here follow all the Emperors, all the Spirits, and the interminable
list of the ancestors.

In her trembling old woman's falsetto, Madame Prune sings out all
this, without omitting anything, at a pace which almost takes away her
breath.

And very strange it is to hear: at length it seems hardly a human
voice; it sounds like a series of magic formulas, unwinding themselves
from an inexhaustible roller, and escaping to take flight through the
air. By its very weirdness, and by the persistency of its incantation,
it ends by producing in my scarcely awakened brain, an almost
religious impression.

Every day I wake to the sound of this Shintoist litany chanted beneath
me, vibrating through the exquisite clearness of the summer
mornings,--while our night-lamps burn low before the smiling Buddha,
while the eternal sun, scarcely risen, already sends through the
cracks of our wooden panels its bright rays, which dart like golden
arrows through our darkened dwelling and our blue gauze tent.

This is the moment at which I must rise, descend hurriedly to the sea
by grassy footpaths all wet with dew, and so regain my ship.

Alas! in the days gone by, it was the cry of the muezzin which used to
awaken me in the dark winter mornings, in far-away night-shrouded
Stamboul.

XXVIII

Chrysantheme has brought but few things with her, knowing that our
married life would be of short duration.

She has placed her dresses and her fine sashes in little closed
recesses, hidden in one of the walls of our apartment (the north wall,
the only one of the four which will not take to pieces.) The doors of
these niches are white paper panels; the standing shelves and inside
partitions, consisting of light woodwork, are put together in too
finical a manner, too ingenious a way, giving rise to suspicions of
secret drawers and co