What wild notion could have taken possession of me, to settle myself in surroundings so foreign and unknown, breathing of isolation and sadness?  The waiting unnerves me, and I beguile the time by examining all the little details of the building.  The woodwork of the ceiling is complicated and ingenious.  On the partitions of white paper which form the walls, are scattered tiny, microscopic, blue-feathered tortoises.

“They are late,” said Yves, who is still looking out into the street.

As to being late, that they certainly are, by a good hour already, and night is falling, and the boat which should take us back to dine on board will be gone.  Probably we shall have to sup Japanese fashion tonight, heaven only knows where.  The people of this country have no sense of punctuality, or of the value of time.

Therefore I continue to inspect the minute and comical details of my dwelling.  Here, instead of handles such as we should have made to pull these movable partitions, they have made little oval-holes, just the shape of a finger-end, into which one is evidently to put one’s thumb.  These little holes have a bronze ornamentation, and, on looking closely, one sees that the bronze is curiously chased:  here is a lady fanning herself; there, in the next hole, is represented a branch of cherry in full blossom.  What eccentricity there is in the taste of this people!  To bestow assiduous labor on such miniature work, and then to hide it at the bottom of a hole to put one’s finger in, looking like a mere spot in the middle of a great white panel; to accumulate so much patient and delicate workmanship on almost imperceptible accessories, and all to produce an effect which is absolutely nil, an effect of the most complete bareness and nudity.

Yves still continues to gaze forth, like Sister Anne.  From the side on which he leans, my veranda overlooks a street, or rather a road bordered with houses, which climbs higher and higher, and loses itself almost immediately in the verdure of the mountain, in the fields of tea, the underwood and the cemeteries.  As for myself, this delay finally irritates me thoroughly, and I turn my glances to the opposite side.  The other end of my house, also a veranda, opens first of all upon a garden; then upon a marvellous panorama of woods and mountains, with all the venerable Japanese quarters of Nagasaki lying confusedly like a black ant-heap, six hundred feet below us.  This evening, in a dull twilight, notwithstanding that it is a twilight of July, these things are melancholy.  Great clouds heavy with rain and showers, ready to fall, are travelling across the sky.  No, I can not feel at home in this strange dwelling I have chosen; I feel sensations of extreme solitude and strangeness; the mere prospect of passing the night in it gives me a shudder of horror.

“Ah! at last, brother,” said Yves, “I believe—­yes, I really believe she is coming at last.”