use in profusion to make their hair glisten, is also strong in the room.

Mademoiselle Orange, the youngest geisha, tiny and dainty, her lips
outlined with gilt paint, executes some delightful steps, donning the
most extraordinary wigs and masks of wood or cardboard. She has masks
imitating old, noble ladies which are valuable works of art, signed by
well-known artists. She has also magnificent long robes, fashioned in
the old style, with trains trimmed at the bottom with thick pads, in
order to give to the movements of the costume something rigid and
unnatural which, however, is becoming.

Now the soft balmy breezes blow through the room, from one veranda to the
other, making the flames of the lamps flicker. They scatter the lotus
flowers faded by the artificial heat, which, falling in pieces from every
vase, sprinkle the guests with their pollen and large pink petals,
looking like bits of broken, opal-colored glass.

The sensational piece, reserved for the end, is a trio on the 'chamecen',
long and monotonous, that the geishas perform as a rapid pizzicato on the
highest strings, very sharply struck. It sounds like the very
quintessence, the paraphrase, the exasperation, if I may so call it,
of the eternal buzz of insects, which issues from the trees, old roofs,
old walls, from everything in fact, and which is the foundation of all
Japanese sounds.

Half-past ten! The programme has been carried out, and the reception is
over. A last general tap! tap! tap! the little pipes are stowed away in
their chased sheaths, tied up in the sashes, and the mousmes rise to
depart.