If the ladies are satisfied with my sketch, I am far from being so.  I have put everything in its place most exactly, but as a whole, it has an ordinary, indifferent, French look which does not suit.  The sentiment is not given, and I almost wonder whether I should not have done better in falsifying the perspective,—­Japanese style—­and exaggerating to the very utmost the already abnormal outlines of what I see before me.  And then the pictured dwelling lacks the fragile look and its sonority, that reminds one of a dry violin.  In the penciled delineation of the woodwork, the minute delicacy with which it is wrought is wanting; neither have I been able to render the extreme antiquity, the perfect cleanliness, nor the vibrating song of the cicalas that seems to have been stored away within it, in its parched-up fibers, during some hundreds of summers.  It does not either convey the impression this place gives of being in a far-off suburb, perched aloft among trees, above the drollest of towns.  No, all this cannot be drawn, cannot be expressed, but remains undemonstrable, undefinable.

Having sent out our invitations, we shall in spite of everything, give our tea-party this evening,—­a parting tea, therefore, in which we will display as much pomp as possible.  It is, moreover, rather my custom to wind up my exotic existences with a fete; in other countries I have done the same.

Besides our usual set, we shall have my mother-in-law, my relatives, and all the mousmes of the neighborhood.  But, by an extra Japanese refinement, we shall not admit a single European friend,—­not even the amazingly tall one.  Yves alone shall be admitted, and even he shall be hidden away in a corner behind some flowers and works of art.

In the last glimmer of twilight, by the first twinkling star, the ladies, with many charming curtseys, make their appearance.  Our house is soon full of the little crouching women, with their tiny slit eyes vaguely smiling; their beautifully dressed hair shining like polished ebony; their fragile bodies lost in the many folds or the exaggerated wide garments, that gape as if ready to drop from their little tapering backs and reveal the exquisite napes of their little necks.

Chrysantheme, with somewhat a melancholy air; my mother-in-law Renoncule, with many affected graces, busy themselves in the midst of the different groups, where ere long the miniature pipes are lighted.  Soon there arises a murmuring sound of discreet laughter, expressing nothing, but having a pretty exotic ring about it, and then begins a harmony of pan! pan! pan! sharp, rapid taps against the edges of the finely lacquered smoking-boxes.  Pickled and spiced fruits are handed round on trays of quaint and varied shapes.  Then transparent china tea-cups, no larger than half an egg-shell, make their appearance, and the ladies are offered a few drops of sugarless tea, poured out of toy kettles, or a sip of saki—­(a spirit made from rice which it is the custom to serve hot, in elegantly shaped vases, long-necked like a heron’s throat).