Around us, a number of small country-houses, garden-walls, and high bamboo palisades shut off the view.  The green hill crushed us with its towering height; the heavy, dark clouds lowering over our heads seemed like a leaden canopy confining us in this unknown spot; it really seemed as if the complete absence of perspective inclined one all the better to notice the details of this tiny corner, muddy and wet, of homely Japan, now lying before our eyes.  The earth was very red.  The grasses and wild flowers bordering the pathway were strange to me; nevertheless, the palings were covered with convolvuli like our own, and I recognized china asters, zinnias, and other familiar flowers in the gardens.  The atmosphere seemed laden with a curiously complicated odor, something besides the perfume of the plants and soil, arising no doubt from the human dwelling-places—­a mingled odor, I fancied, of dried fish and incense.  Not a creature was to be seen; of the inhabitants, of their homes and life, there was not a vestige, and I might have imagined myself anywhere in the world.

My djin had fastened his little cart under a tree, and together we climbed the steep path on the slippery red soil.

“We are going to the Garden of Flowers, are we not?” I inquired, desirous to ascertain whether I had been understood.

“Yes, yes,” replied the djin, “it is up there, and quite near.”

The road turned, steep banks hemming it in and darkening it.  On one side it skirted the mountain, all covered with a tangle of wet ferns; on the other appeared a large wooden house almost devoid of openings and of evil aspect; it was there that my djin halted.

What, was that sinister-looking house the Garden of Flowers?  He assured me that it was, and seemed very sure of the fact.  We knocked at a large door which opened immediately, slipping back in its groove.  Then two funny little women appeared, oldish-looking, but with evident pretensions to youth:  exact types of the figures painted on vases, with their tiny hands and feet.

On catching sight of me they threw themselves on all fours, their faces touching the floor.  Good gracious!  What can be the matter?  I asked myself.  Nothing at all, it was only the ceremonious salute, to which I am as yet unaccustomed.  They arose, and proceeded to take off my boots (one never keeps on one’s shoes in a Japanese house), wiping the bottoms of my trousers, and feeling my shoulders to see whether I am wet.

What always strikes one on first entering a Japanese dwelling is the extreme cleanliness, the white and chilling bareness of the rooms.

Over the most irreproachable mattings, without a crease, a line, or a stain, I was led upstairs to the first story and ushered into a large, empty room—­absolutely empty!  The paper walls were mounted on sliding panels, which, fitting into each other, can be made to disappear—­and all one side of the apartment opened like a veranda, giving a view of the green country and the gray sky beyond.  By way of a chair, they gave me a square cushion 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), awaited my orders, in attitudes expressive of the profoundest humility.