g, 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.

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

I wished in the first place to speak to one M. Kangourou, who is
interpreter, laundryman, and matrimonial agent. Nothing could be easier:
they knew him and were willing to go at once in search of him; and the
elder of the waiting-maids made ready for the purpose her wooden clogs
and her paper umbrella.

Next I demanded a well-served repast, composed of the greatest
delicacies of Japan. Better and better! they rushed 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
dolls, 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 un