n my black velvet cushion. There are three of
them now, three waiting-maids who arrive in single file, with smiles
and curtseys. One offers me the spirit-lamp and the teapot; another,
preserved fruits in delightful little plates; the third, absolutely
indefinable objects upon gems of little trays. And they grovel before me
on the floor, placing all this plaything of a meal at my feet.

At this moment, my impressions of Japan are charming enough; I feel
myself fairly launched upon this tiny, artificial, fictitious
world, which I felt I knew already from the paintings on lacquer and
porcelains. It is so exact a representation! The three little squatting
women, graceful and dainty, with their narrow slits of eyes, their
magnificent coiffures in huge bows, smooth and shining as shoe-polish,
and the little tea-service on the floor, the landscape seen through
the veranda, the pagoda perched among the clouds; and over all the same
affectation everywhere, in every detail. Even the woman's melancholy
voice, still to be heard behind the paper partition, was evidently the
proper way for them to sing--these musicians I had so often seen painted
in amazing colors on rice-paper, half closing their dreamy eyes among
impossibly large flowers. Long before I arrived there, I had perfectly
pictured Japan to myself. Nevertheless, in the reality it almost seems
to be smaller, more finicking than I had imagined it, and also much more
mournful, no doubt by reason of that great pall of black clouds hanging
over us, and this incessant rain.

While awaiting M. Kangourou (who is dressing himself, it appears, and
will be here shortly), it may be as well to begin luncheon.

In the daintiest bowl imaginable, adorned with flights of storks, is
the most wildly impossible soup made of seaweed. After which there are
little fish dried in sugar, crabs in sugar, beans in sugar, and fruits
in vinegar and pepper. All this is atrocious, but above all unexpected
and unimaginable. The little women make me eat, laughing much, with that
perpetual, irritating laugh which is peculiar to Japan--they make me
eat, according to their fashion, with dainty chop-sticks, fingered
with affected grace. I am becoming accustomed to their faces. The whole
effect is refined--a refinement so entirely different from our own that
at first sight I understand nothing of it, although in the long run it
may end by pleasing me.

Suddenly enters, like a night butterfly awakened in bro