elegant rendezvous. There, I would inquire for a certain
Kangourou-San, who is at the same time interpreter, washerman, and
confidential agent for the intercourse of races. Perhaps this very
evening, if all went well, I should be introduced to the bride
destined to me by mysterious fate. This thought kept my mind on the
alert during the panting journey we have been making, the djin and
myself, one dragging the other, under the merciless downpour.

* * * * *

Oh, what a curious Japan I saw that day, through the gaping of my
oil-cloth coverings! from under the dripping hood of my little cart! A
sullen, muddy, half-drowned Japan. All these houses, men or beasts,
hitherto only known to me by drawings; all these, that I had beheld
painted on blue or pink backgrounds of fans or vases, now appeared to
me in their hard reality, under a dark sky, with umbrellas and wooden
shoes, with tucked-up skirts and pitiful aspect.

At moments the rain fell so heavily that I tightly closed up every
chink and crevice, and the noise and shaking benumbed me, so that I
completely forgot in what country I was. In the hood of the cart were
holes, through which little streams ran down my back. Then,
remembering that I was going for the first time in my life through the
very heart of Nagasaki, I cast an inquiring look outside, at the risk
of receiving a douche: we were trotting along through a mean, narrow
little back street (there are thousands like it, a perfect labyrinth
of them) the rain falling in cascades from the tops of the roofs on
the gleaming flagstones below, rendering everything indistinct and
vague through the misty atmosphere. At times we passed by a lady,
struggling with her skirts, unsteadily tripping along in her high