It parted the grey multitude like a pillar of light.  It tottered forward slowly, for it was lifted above the crowd on a pair of black-lacquered clogs as high as stilts, dangerous and difficult to manipulate.  On each side were two little figures, similarly painted, similarly bedizened, similarly expressionless, children of nine or ten years only, the komuro, the little waiting-women.  They served to support the reigning beauty and at the same time to display her long embroidered sleeves, outstretched on either side like wings.

The brilliant figure and her two attendants moved forward under the shade of a huge ceremonial umbrella of yellow oiled paper, which looked like a membrane or like old vellum, and upon which were written in Chinese characters the personal name of the lady chosen for the honour and the name of the house in which she was an inmate.  The shaft of this umbrella, some eight or nine feet long, was carried by a sinister being, clothed in the blue livery of the Japanese artisan, a kind of tabard with close-fitting trousers.  He kept twisting the umbrella-shaft all the time with a gyrating movement to and fro, which imparted to the disc of the umbrella the hesitation of a wave.  He followed the Queen with a strange slow stride.  For long seconds he would pause with one foot held aloft in the attitude of a high-stepping horse, which distorted his dwarfish body into a diabolic convulsion, like Durer’s angel of horror.  He seemed a familiar spirit, a mocking devil, the wicked Spielmann of the “Miracle” play, whose harsh laughter echoes through the empty room when the last cup is emptied, the last shilling gone, and the dreamer awakes from his dream.

Behind him followed five or six men carrying large oval lanterns, also inscribed with the name of the house; and after them came a representative collection of the officials of the proud establishment, a few foxy old women and a crowd of swaggering men, spotty and vicious-looking.  The Orian (Chief Courtesan) reached the cross-roads.  There, as if moved by machinery or magnetism, she slowly turned to the left.  She made her way towards one of a row of small, old-fashioned native houses, on the road down which the Barringtons had come.  Here the umbrella was lowered.  The beauty bowed her monumental head to pass under the low doorway, and settled herself on a pile of cushions prepared to receive her.

Almost at once the popular interest was diverted to the appearance of another procession, precisely similar, which was debouching from the opposite road.  The new Orian garbed in blue, with a sash of gold and a design of cherry-blossom, supported by her two little attendants, wobbled towards another of the little houses.  On her disappearing a third procession came into sight.

“Ah!” sighed Asako, “what lovely kimonos!  Where do they get them from?”

“I don’t know,” said Yae, “some of them are quite old.  They come out fresh year after year for a different girl.”