hes, and the mousmes rise to
depart.

They light, at the end of short sticks, a quantity of red, gray, or blue
lanterns, and after a series of endless bows and curtseys, the guests
disperse in the darkness of the lanes and trees.

We also go down to the town, Yves, Chrysantheme, Oyouki and I--in order
to conduct my mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, and my youthful aunt, Madame
Nenufar, to their house.

We wish to take one last stroll together in our old familiar
pleasure-haunts, to drink one more iced sherbet at the house of the
Indescribable Butterflies, buy one more lantern at Madame Tres-Propre's,
and eat some parting waffles at Madame L'Heure's!

I try to be affected, moved, by this leave-taking, but without success.
In regard to Japan, as with the little men and women who inhabit it,
there is something decidedly wanting; pleasant enough as a mere pastime,
it begets no feeling of attachment.

On our return, when I am once more with Yves and the two mousmes climbing
up the road to Diou-djen-dji, which I shall probably never see again, a
vague feeling of melancholy pervades my last stroll.

It is, however, but the melancholy inseparable from all things that are
about to end without possibility of return.

Moreover, this calm and splendid summer is also drawing to a close for
us-since to-morrow we shall go forth to meet the autumn, in Northern
China. I am beginning, alas! to count the youthful summers I may still
hope for; I feel more gloomy each time another fades away, and flies to
rejoin the others already disappeared in the dark and bottomless abyss,
where all past things lie buried.

At midnight we return home, and my removal begins; while on board the
"amazingly tall friend" kindly takes my watch.

It is a nocturnal, rapid, stealthy removal--"doyobo (thieves) fashion,"
remarks Yves, who in visiting the mousmes has picked up a smattering of
the Nipponese language.

Messieurs the packers have, at my request, sent in the evening several
charming little boxes, with compartments and false bottoms, and several
paper bags (in the untearable Japanese paper), which close of themselves
and are fastened by strings, also in paper, arranged beforehand in the
most ingenious manner--quite the cleverest and most handy thing of its
kind; for little useful trifles these people are unrivalled.

It is a real treat to pack them, and everybody lends a helping
hand--Yves, Chrysantheme, Madame Prune, her daughter, and M. Sucre