Long before we arrive at the commencement of the town proper we are made aware that the fête is in full swing by the sounds of gaiety, the blaze of lanterns which is reflected above the town as if there were a conflagration, and the softened, confused roar of the thronging multitudes in the streets.
We reach the end of the street at last, and Mousmé is almost torn from my arm by the crowd by which we are immediately absorbed.
Every one is gay and good-humoured. I tread upon some one’s heels, but he only smiles, and assures me that my “honourable feet” have not hurt his humble heel. My toes are trodden on in turn, Mousmé laughs, and even I, the injured party, do not remonstrate. Indeed, I almost say, “Gomen navai,” as though I were the offender and do murmur politely—“It is no matter”—that is all I reply to the polite speech with which the offender asks pardon.
Mousmé is used to this, and she pilots me amid this bewildering blaze of ambulatory lanterns, swaying recklessly on the ends of their quivering sticks.
The moving crowds of women and girls diffuse a subtle perfume from the flowers they wear in their dresses and hair. Mousmés in the brilliant colours of their gayest holiday attire jostle one another good-humouredly—laughing, thoughtless little souls. The men are seemingly suffering from a bad attack of “European fever,” as is indicated by the frequent presence of the top-hat or “bowler” above their amiable though unbeautiful faces, and the occasional presence of trousers beneath their skirt-like robes.
Alas! just as we near the temple, the pressure of the throng drives us into the proximity of my mother-in-law, and little Aki, who is carrying high above his queer shaven head, with its one tuft of hair or rather fringe—which is like nothing so much as the traditional chimney-sweep’s circular broom—a lantern, like the banner in “Excelsior,” “with a strange device”—a most quaintly hideous imp.
Mother-in-law is too busy protecting one of my “handsome presents,” a ruby-coloured silken obi, from contamination with the crowd, to notice us. But I quickly perceive that Aki’s narrow slots of eyes have spied us out, for the imp-like lantern sways violently upon its stick as he pushes his way through the dense crowd towards us.
We are so hedged in that escape is impossible even if we wished; but Mousmé has a penchant for this queer little brother with his intelligent monkey-face and ever-present smile.
She, too, has caught sight of the struggling Aki, who at times seems swallowed up in the crowd, as though never to reappear. But he does. And we can see him working an eel-like course towards the fluttering banner under which he doubtless noticed we were standing.