These menus vary according to the inspiration which may have seized Madame Prune. But one thing never varies, either in our household or in any other, neither in the north nor in the south of the Empire, and that is the dessert and the manner of eating it: after all these little dishes, which are a mere make-believe, is brought in a wooden bowl, bound with copper,--an enormous bowl, fit for Gargantua, and filled to the very brim with rice, plainly cooked in water. Chrysanthème fills another large bowl from it (sometimes twice, sometimes three times), darkens its snowy whiteness with a black sauce flavored with fish which is contained in a delicately shaped blue cruet, mixes it all together, carries the bowl to her lips, and crams down all the rice, shoveling it with her two chopsticks into her very throat. Next the little cups and covers are picked up, as well as the tiniest crumb that may have fallen upon the white mats, the irreproachable purity of which nothing is allowed to tarnish. And so ends the dinner. XXIII. _August 2nd_. Down below in the town, a street singer had established herself in a little thoroughfare; people had collected around her to listen to her singing, and we three--that is, Yves, Chrysanthème and I--who chanced to be passing, stopped like others. Quite young, rather fat, fairly pretty, she strummed her guitar and sang, rolling her eyes fiercely, like a virtuoso executing feats of difficulty. She lowered her head, stuck her chin into her neck, in order to draw deeper notes from the furthermost recesses of her body; and succeeded in bringing forth a great hoarse voice,--a voice that might have belonged to an aged frog, a ventriloquist's voice, coming from whence it would be impossible to say (this is the best stage manner, the final word of art, for the interpretation of tragic pieces). Yves cast an indignant glance upon her: "Good gracious," said he, "it's the voice of a--" (words failed him, in his astonishment) "it's the voice of a--a monster!" And he looked at me, almost frightened by this little being, and anxious to know what I thought of it. My poor Yves was out of temper on this occasion, because I had induced him to come out in a straw hat with a turned-up brim, which did not please him. "It suits you remarkably well, Yves, I assure you." "Oh, indeed! You say so, you. For my part, I think it looks like a magpie's nest!"