Without speaking, without the slightest noise, she follows me as we
descend the staircase and cross the garden full of sunshine, where the
dwarf shrubs and the deformed flowers seem, like the rest of the
household, plunged in warm somnolence.

At the outer gate I stop for the last adieu: the little sad pout has
reappeared, more accentuated than ever, on Chrysantheme's face; it is the
right thing, it is correct, and I should feel offended now were it
absent.

Well, little mousme, let us part good friends; one last kiss even, if you
like. I took you to amuse me; you have not perhaps succeeded very well,
but after all you have done what you could: given me your little face,
your little curtseys, your little music; in short, you have been pleasant
enough in your Japanese way. And who knows, perchance I may yet think of
you sometimes when I recall this glorious summer, these pretty, quaint
gardens, and the ceaseless concert of the cicalas.

She prostrates herself on the threshold of the door, her forehead against
the ground, and remains in this attitude of superlatively polite salute
as long as I am in sight, while I go down the pathway by which I am to
disappear for ever.

As the distance between us increases, I turn once or twice to look at her
again; but it is a mere civility, and meant to return as it deserves her
grand final salutation.