At length it is finished, and the tattooers, falling back with an air
of satisfaction to contemplate their work, declare it will be lovely.

I dress myself quickly to go on shore, and take advantage of my last
hours in Japan.

The heat is fearful to-day: the powerful September sun falls with a
certain melancholy upon the yellowing leaves; it is a day of clear
burning heat after an almost chilly morning.

Like yesterday, it is during the drowsy noon that I ascend to my lofty
suburb, by deserted pathways filled only with light and silence.

I noiselessly open the door of my dwelling, and enter cautiously on
tiptoe, for fear of Madame Prune.

At the foot of the staircase, upon the white mats, by the side of the
little clogs and little sandals which are always lying about the
vestibule, there is a great array of luggage ready for departure,
which I recognize at a glance,--pretty dark-colored dresses, familiar
to my sight, carefully folded and wrapped in blue towels tied at the
four corners. I even fancy I feel a little sad when I catch sight of a
corner of the famous box of letters and souvenirs peeping out of one
of these bundles, in which ray portrait by Uyeno now reposes among
divers photographs of mousmés. A sort of long-necked mandolin, also
ready for departure, lies on the top of the pile in its case of
figured silk. It resembles the flitting of some gypsy, or rather it
reminds me of an engraving in a book of fables I owned in my
childhood: the whole thing is exactly like the slender wardrobe and
the long guitar which the Cicala who had sung all the summer, carried