Yves is now in bed and sleeping under our roof.
Sleep has come to him sooner than to me to-night;
for somehow I fancy
I had seen long glances exchanged between him and
Chrysantheme.
I have left this little creature in his hands like
a toy, and I begin to fear lest I should have thrown
some perturbation in his mind. I do not trouble
my head about this little Japanese girl. But Yves,—it
would be decidedly wrong on his part, and would greatly
diminish my faith in him.
We hear the rain falling on our old roof; the cicalas
are mute; odors of wet earth reach us from the gardens
and the mountain. I feel terribly dreary in this
room to-night; the noise of the little pipe irritates
me more than usual, and as Chrysantheme crouches in
front of her smoking-box, I suddenly discover in her
an air of low breeding, in the very worst sense of
the word.
I should hate her, my mousme, if she were to entice
Yves into committing a fault,—a fault which
I should perhaps never be able to forgive.
August 12th.
The Y—— and Sikou-San couple were
divorced yesterday. The Charles N——
and Campanule household is getting on very badly.
They have had some annoyance with those prying, grinding,
insupportable little men, dressed up in suits of gray,
who are called police agents and who by threatening
their landlord, have had them turned out of their
house—under the obsequious amiability of
this people, there lurks a secret hatred towards us
Europeans—they are therefore obliged to
accept their mother-in-law’s hospitality, a very
painful position. And then Charles N——
fancies his wife is faithless. It is hardly possible,
however, for us to deceive ourselves: these would-be
maidens, to whom M. Kangourou has introduced us, are
young people who have already had in their lives one,
or perhaps more than one, adventure; it is therefore
only natural that we should have our suspicions.
The Z—— and Touki-San couple jog
on, quarreling all the time.
My household maintains a more dignified air, though
it is none the less dreary. I had indeed thought
of a divorce, but have really no good reason for offering
Chrysantheme such a gratuitous affront; moreover there
is another more imperative reason why I should remain
quiet: I too have had difficulties with the civilian
authorities.
Day before yesterday, M. Sucre quite upset, Madame
Prune almost swooning, and Mdlle. Oyouki bathed
in tears, stormed my rooms. The Niponese police
agents had called and threatened them with the law
for letting rooms outside of the European concession
to a Frenchman morganatically married to a Japanese;
and the terror of being prosecuted brought them to
me, with a thousand apologies, but the humble request
that I should leave.
The next day I therefore went off, accompanied by
the wonderfully tall friend, who expresses
himself better than I do in Japanese, to the register
office, with the full intention of making a terrible
row.
