m me something I was not intended to see; they
were improvising for me the apartment in which I now am--just as in
menageries they make a separate compartment for some beasts when the
public is admitted.

Now I am left alone while my orders are being executed, and I listen
attentively, squatted like a Buddha on my black velvet cushion, in the
midst of the whiteness of the walls and mats.

Behind the paper partitions, worn-out voices, seemingly numerous, are
talking in low tones. Then rises the sound of a guitar, and the song
of a woman, plaintive and gentle in the echoing sonority of the bare
house, in the melancholy of the rainy weather.

What one can see through the wide-open verandah is very pretty, I will
admit; it resembles the landscape of a fairy tale. There are admirably
wooded mountains, climbing high into the dark and gloomy sky, and
hiding in it the peaks of their summits, and, perched up among the
clouds--a temple. The atmosphere has that absolute transparency, the
distance that clearness which follows a great downpour of rain; but a
thick pall, still heavy with moisture, remains suspended over all, and
on the foliage of the hanging woods still float great flakes of gray
fluff, which remain there, motionless. In the foreground, in front of
and below all this almost fantastic landscape, is a miniature garden
where two beautiful white cats are taking the air, amusing themselves
by pursuing each other through the paths of a Lilliputian labyrinth,
shaking from their paws the sand, which is still wet. The garden is as
conventional as possible: not a flower, but little rocks, little
lakes, dwarf trees cut in a grotesque fashion; all this is not
natural, but it is most ingeniously arranged, so green, so full of
fresh mosses!

In the rain-soaked country below me, to the very furthest 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 somber 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 grou