In the fashionable tea-houses where we finish up our evenings, the little servant-girls now bow to us, on our arrival, with an air of re
spectful recognition, as belonging to the fast set of Nagasaki. There we carry on desultory conversations, full of misunderstandings and endless quid pro quo's of uncouth words,—in little gardens lighted up with lanterns, near ponds full of gold fish, with little bridges, little islets and little ruined towers. They hand us tea and white and pink-colored sweetmeats flavored with pepper that taste strange and unfamiliar, and beverages mixed with snow tasting of flowers or perfumes.
To give a faithful account of those evenings, would require a more affected style than our own; and some kind of graphic sign would have also to be expressly invented and scattered at haphazard amongst the words, indicating the moment at which the reader should laugh,—rather a forced laugh, perhaps, but amiable and gracious. The evening at an end; it is time to return up there.
Oh! that street, that road, that we must clamber up every evening, under the starlit sky, or the heavy thunder-clouds, dragging by the hand our drowsy mousmé in order to regain our home perched on high half-way up the hill, where our bed of matting awaits us.
The cleverest amongst us has been Louis de S——. Having formerly inhabited Japan, and made a marriage Japan fashion there, he is now satisfied to remain the friend of our wives, of whom he has become the Komodachi taksan takaï, the very tall friend (as they say on account of his excessive height and slenderness). Talking Japanese more freely than we can, he is their confidential adviser, disturbs or reconciles at will our households, and has infinite amusement at our expense.
This very tall friend of our wives enjoys all the fun that these little creatures can give him, without any of the worries of domestic life. With brother Yves, and little Oyouki (the daughter of Madame Prune, my landlady,) he makes up our incongruous party.
M. Sucre and Madame Prune, [D] my landlord and wife, two perfectly unique personages