fresh mosses!

In the rain-soaked country below me, to the very farthest end of the
vast scene, reigns a great silence, an absolute calm. But the woman's
voice, behind the paper wall, continues to sing in a key of gentle
sadness, and the accompanying guitar has sombre and even gloomy notes.

Stay, though! Now the music is somewhat quicker--one might even suppose
they were dancing!

So much the worse! I shall try to look between the fragile divisions,
through a crack which has revealed itself to my notice.

What a singular spectacle it is; evidently the gilded youth of Nagasaki
holding a great clandestine orgy! In an apartment as bare as my own,
there are a dozen of them, seated in a circle on the ground, attired in
long blue cotton dresses with pagoda sleeves, long, sleek, and greasy
hair surmounted by European pot-hats; and beneath these, yellow,
worn-out, bloodless, foolish faces. On the floor are a number of little
spirit-lamps, little pipes, little lacquer trays, little teapots,
little cups-all the accessories and all the remains of a Japanese feast,
resembling nothing so much as a doll's tea-party. In the midst of this
circle of dandies are three overdressed women, one might say three weird
visions, robed in garments of pale and indefinable colors, embroidered
with golden monsters; their great coiffures are arranged with fantastic
art, stuck full of pins and flowers. Two are seated with their backs
turned to me: one is holding the guitar, the other singing with that
soft, pretty voice; thus seen furtively, from behind, their pose, their
hair, the nape of their necks, all is exquisite, and I tremble lest a
movement should reveal to me faces which might destroy the enchantment.
The third girl is on her feet, dancing before this areopagus of idiots,
with their lanky locks and pot-hats. What a shock when she turns round!
She wears over her face the horribly grinning, death-like mask of a
spectre or a vampire. The mask unfastened, falls. And behold! a darling
little fairy of about twelve or fifteen years of age, slim, and already
a coquette, already a woman--dressed in a long robe of shaded dark-blue
china crape, covered with embroidery representing bats-gray bats, black
bats, golden bats.

Suddenly there are steps on the stairs, the light foot steps of
barefooted women pattering over the white mats. No doubt the first
course of my luncheon is just about to be served. I fall back quickly,
fixed and motionless, upo