e wish to be conducted. Oh! no, impossible, they
cannot be seen; they are resting or are in contemplation. "_Orimas!
Orimas!_" say they, clasping their hands and sketching a genuflection
or two to make us understand better. (They are at prayer! the most
profound prayer!)

We insist, speak more imperatively; even slip off our shoes like
people determined to take no refusal.

At last Matsou-San and Donata-San make their appearance from the
tranquil depths of their bonze-house. They are dressed in black crape
and their heads are shaved. Smiling, amiable, full of excuses, they
offer us their hands, and we follow with our feet bare like theirs to
the interior of their mysterious dwelling, through a series of empty
rooms spread with mats of the most unimpeachable whiteness. The
successive halls are separated one from the other only by bamboo
curtains of exquisite delicacy, caught back by tassels and cords of
red silk.

The whole wainscoting of the interior is of the same wood, of a pale
yellow color joinered with extreme nicety, without the least ornament,
the least carving; everything seems new and unused, as though it had
never been touched by human hand. At distant intervals in this studied
bareness, costly little stools, marvelously inlaid, uphold some
antique bronze monster or a vase of flowers; on the walls hang a few
masterly sketches, vaguely tinted in Indian ink, drawn upon strips of
gray paper most accurately cut but without the slightest attempt at a
frame; this is all: not a seat, not a cushion, not a scrap of
furniture. It is the very acme of studied simplicity, of elegance made
out of nothing, of the most immaculate and incredible cleanliness. And
while following the bonzes through this long suite of empty halls, we
are struck by their contrast with the overflow of knick-knacks
scattered about our rooms in France, and we take a sudden dislike to
the profusion and crowding delighted in at home.

The spot where this silent march of barefooted folk comes to an end,
the spot where we are to seat ourselves in the delightful coolness of
a semi-darkness, is an interior verandah opening upon an artificial
site; we might suppose it were the bottom of a well; it is a miniature
garden no bigger than the opening of an _oubliette_, overhung on all
sides by the crushing height of the mountain and receiving from on
high but the dim light of dream-land. Nevertheless here is simulated a
great natural ravine in all its wild