o the street.

As to being late, that they certainly are, by a good hour already, and
night is falling, and the boat which should take us back to dine on
board will be gone. Probably we shall have to sup, Japanese fashion
to-night, heaven only knows where. The people of this country have no
sense of punctuality, or of the value of time.

Therefore I continue to inspect the minute and comical details of my
dwelling. Here, instead of handles such as we should have put to pull
these movable partitions, they have made little oval holes, just the
shape of a finger-end, and into which one is evidently to put one's
thumb. These little holes have a bronze ornamentation, and on looking
closely, one sees that the bronze is curiously chased: here is a lady
fanning herself; there, in the next hole, is represented a branch of
cherry in full blossom. What eccentricity there is in the taste of
this people! To bestow assiduous labor on such miniature work, and
then to hide it at the bottom of a hole to put one's finger in,
looking like a mere spot in the middle of a great white panel; to
accumulate so much patient and delicate workmanship on almost
imperceptible accessories, and all to produce an effect which is
absolutely _nil_, an effect of the most utter bareness and nudity.

Yves still continues to gaze forth, like Sister Anne. From the side on
which he leans, my verandah overlooks a street, or rather a road
bordered with houses, which climbs higher and higher, and loses itself
almost immediately in the verdure of the mountain, in the fields of
tea, the underwood and the cemeteries. As for myself, this delay
finishes by irritating me for good and all, and I turn my glances to
the opposite side: the other front of my house, also a verandah, opens
first of all upon a garden; then upon a marvelous panorama of woods
and mountains, with all the venerable Japanese quarters of Nagasaki
lying confusedly like a black ant-heap, six hundred feet below us.
This evening, in a dull twilight, notwithstanding that it is a
twilight of July, these things are melancholy. There are great clouds
heavy with rain and showers, ready to fall, traveling across the sky.
No, I cannot feel at home, in this strange dwelling I have chosen; I
feel sensations of extreme solitude and strangeness; the mere prospect
of passing the night in it gives me a shudder of horror.

"Ah! at last, brother," said Yves, "I believe,--yes, I really believe
she is coming at last