Madame Chrysantheme

Pierre Loti's Madame Chrysantheme is a charming story, a real life tale of love between the Frenchman Pierre Loti and a geisha. At times the story is happy, at other times it is sad. The setting is a summer in Nagasaki almost a century ago. Loti, as a young naval officer on station in harbor, had sufficient time on his hands to establish a home ashore with fragile and beautiful Madame Chrysantheme. In these days of fast jet travel such romances are scarcely possible for travelers, yet the a...