stical to excess,
grotesquely lugubrious; everywhere we are surprised by
incomprehensible conceptions, which seem the work of distorted
imaginations.

In the fashionable tea-houses where we finish up our evenings, the
little servant-girls now bow to us, on our arrival, with an air of
respectful recognition, as belonging to the fast set of Nagasaki.
There we carry on desultory conversations, full of misunderstandings
and endless _quid pro quo's_ of uncouth words,--in little gardens
lighted up with lanterns, near ponds full of gold fish, with little
bridges, little islets and little ruined towers. They hand us tea and
white and pink-colored sweetmeats flavored with pepper that taste
strange and unfamiliar, and beverages mixed with snow tasting of
flowers or perfumes.

* * * * *

To give a faithful account of those evenings, would require a more
affected style than our own; and some kind of graphic sign would have
also to be expressly invented and scattered at haphazard amongst the
words, indicating the moment at which the reader should laugh,--rather
a forced laugh, perhaps, but amiable and gracious. The evening at an
end; it is time to return up there.

Oh! that street, that road, that we must clamber up every evening,
under the starlit sky, or the heavy thunder-clouds, dragging by the
hand our drowsy mousme in order to regain our home perched on high
half-way up the hill, where our bed of matting awaits us.

XIII.

The cleverest amongst us has been Louis de S----. Having formerly
inhabited Japan, and made a marriage Japan fashion there, he is now
satisfied to remain the friend of our wives, of whom he has become the
_Komodachi taksan takai, the very tall friend_ (as they say on account
of his excessive height and slenderness). Talking Japanese more freely
than we can, he is their confidential adviser, disturbs or reconciles
at will our households, and has infinite amusement at our expense.

This _very tall friend_ of our wives enjoys all the fun that these
little creatures can give him, without any of the worries of domestic
life. With brother Yves, and little Oyouki (the daughter of Madame
Prune, my landlady,) he makes up our incongruous party.

XIV.

M. Sucre and Madame Prune,[D] my landlord and wife, two perfectly
unique personages but recently escaped from the panel of some screen,
live below us on the ground floor; and very old they seem to have this
daugh