extreme cleanliness, the white and chilling bareness of the rooms.

Over the most irreproachable mattings, without a crease, a line, or a
stain, I was led upstairs to the first story and ushered into a large,
empty room--absolutely empty! The paper walls were mounted on sliding
panels, which, fitting into each other, can be made to disappear--and all
one side of the apartment opened like a veranda, giving a view of the
green country and the gray sky beyond. By way of a chair, they gave me a
square cushion of black velvet; and behold me seated low, in the middle
of this large, empty room, which by its very vastness is almost chilly.
The two little women (who are the servants of the house and my very
humble servants, too), awaited my orders, in attitudes expressive of the
profoundest humility.

It seemed extraordinary that the quaint words, the curious phrases I had
learned during our exile at the Pescadores Islands--by sheer dint of
dictionary and grammar, without attaching the least sense to them--should
mean anything. But so it seemed, however, for I was at once understood.

I wished in the first place to speak to one M. Kangourou, who is
interpreter, laundryman, and matrimonial agent. Nothing could be easier:
they knew him and were willing to go at once in search of him; and the
elder of the waiting-maids made ready for the purpose her wooden clogs
and her paper umbrella.

Next I demanded a well-served repast, composed of the greatest delicacies
of Japan. Better and better! they rushed to the kitchen to order it.

Finally, I beg they will give tea and rice to my djin, who is waiting for
me below; I wish,--in short, I wish many things, my dear little dolls,