Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/207

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MY JAPANESE WIFE.
193

are the wonderful pins with which her pretty head, set so well on her sloping shoulders, is adorned.

There is no light to put out, because I always keep the lamp with its glowworm flame burning throughout the night. It permits, for one thing, Mousmé properly to arrange her head in the little hollow of her camphor-wood pillow; for another, it allows me to watch her fall asleep, and the antics of the moths outside our slate-blue gauze mosquito curtain when I cannot sleep myself.

To-night, however, I am lulled to rest by the sheer monotony of Oka’s wife’s song; and the last thing I remember is the twang, twing, twang of her samisen, which is quite loud now, I have my ear so close to the floor.