Over the most irreproachable mattings, without a crease, a line, or a stain, I am led upstairs to the first story and ushered into a big empty room, absolutely empty!  The paper walls are mounted on sliding panels, which fitting into each other, can be made to disappear entirely,—­and all one side of the apartment opens like a verandah on to the green country and the gray sky beyond.  By way of a chair, I am given a square piece of black velvet, and behold me seated low, in the middle of this large empty room, which by its very vastness is almost chilly.  The two little women (who are the servants of the house and my very humble servants too), await my orders, in attitudes expressive of the profoundest humility.

* * * * *

It seemed extraordinary that the quaint words, the curious phrases I had learnt during our exile at the Pescadores Islands—­by sheer dint of dictionary and grammar book, without attaching the least sense to them—­should mean anything.  But so it seemed, however, for I was at once understood.

* * * * *

I wish in the first place to speak to one M. Kangourou, who is interpreter, washerman, and matrimonial agent.  Nothing could be better:  they know him and will go at once in search of him; and the elder of the waiting-maids gets ready for the purpose her wooden clogs and her paper umbrella.

Next I demand a well-served repast, composed of the greatest delicacies of Japan.  Better and better, they rush to the kitchen to order it.

Finally, I beg they will give tea and rice to my djin, who is waiting for me below;—­I wish, in short, I wish many things, my dear little dollies, which I will mention by degrees and with due deliberation, when I shall have had time to assemble the necessary words.  But, the more I look at you the more uneasy I feel as to what my fiancee of to-morrow may be like.  Almost pretty, I grant you, you are,—­in virtue of quaintness, delicate hands, miniature feet, but ugly after all, and absurdly small.  You look like ouistitis, like little china ornaments, like I don’t know what.  I begin to understand that I have arrived at this house at an ill-chosen moment.  Something is going on which does not concern me, and I feel that I am in the way.

From the beginning I might have guessed as much, notwithstanding the excessive politeness of my welcome; for I remember now, that while they were taking off my boots downstairs, I heard a murmuring chatter overhead, then a noise of panels moved quickly along their grooves, evidently to hide from me something I was not intended to see; they were improvising for me the apartment in which I now am—­just as in menageries they make a separate compartment for some beasts when the public is admitted.

Now I am left alone while my orders are being executed, and I listen attentively, squatted like a Buddha on my black velvet cushion, in the midst of the whiteness of the walls and mats.