Madame Chrysantheme — Complete

by Pierre Loti

---

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

MME. CHRYSANTHEME

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

BOOK 1.

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

CHAPTER I. THE MYSTERIOUS LAND

At dawn we beheld Japan.

Precisely at the foretold moment the mysterious land arose before us, afar off, like a black dot in the vast sea, which for so many days had been but a blank space.

At first we saw nothing by the rays of the rising sun but a series of tiny pink-tipped heights (the Fukai Islands). Soon, however, appeared all along the horizon, like a misty veil over the waters, Japan itself; and little by little, out of the dense shadow, arose the sharp, opaque outlines of the Nagasaki mountains.