Chapter XIV

M. Sucre and Madame Prune,[D] my landlord and wife, two perfectly unique personages but recently escaped from the panel of some screen, live below us on the ground floor; and very old they seem to have this daughter of fifteen, Oyouki, who is Chrysanthème's inseparable friend.

[Footnote D: In Japanese: _Sato-san_ and _Oumé-San_.]

Both of them are entirely absorbed in the practices of Shintoist devotion: perpetually on their knees before their family altar, perpetually occupied in murmuring their lengthy orisons to the Spirits, and clapping their hands from time to time to recall around them the inattentive essences floating in the atmosphere;--in their spare moments they cultivate in little pots of gayly-painted earthenware, dwarf shrubs and unheard-of flowers which smell deliciously in the evening.

M. Sucre is taciturn, dislikes society, looks like a mummy in his blue cotton dress. He writes a great deal, (his memoirs, I fancy) with a paint-brush held in his finger-tips, on long strips of rice-paper of a faint gray tint.

Madame Prune is eagerly attentive, obsequious and rapacious; her eye-brows are closely shaven, her teeth carefully lacquered with black as befits a lady of gentility, and at all and no matter what hours, she appears on all fours at the entrance of our apartment, to offer us her services.

As to Oyouki, she rushes upon us ten times a day,--whether we are sleeping, or dressing,--like a whirlwind on a visit, flashing upon us, a very gust of dainty youthfulness and droll gayety,--a living peal of laughter. She is round of figure, round of face; half baby, half girl; and so affectionate that she bestows kisses on the slightest occasion with her great puffy lips,--a little moist, it is true, like a child's, but nevertheless very fresh and very red.