Kotmasu got up and opened the door of grey paper leading on to the verandah, which had black and vermilion storks in flight across its two long panels.
We stepped out.
I for the first time; for Kotmasu I cannot answer. The sounds of the music became clearer, because the others had also slid back their paper doors, perhaps so that the sweet-scented air of the garden might enter, or a whiff of fresh night-wind from off the mountain come in to cool the breathless geishas.
The garden of a thousand lights, with its fountain of doll-like dimensions, in the lower and larger basin of which swim gold, silver and copper-hued fish, lies just beneath our verandah, and, after an artificial plateau, runs away down-hill into the darkness, following each side of the narrow, flower-edged path.
The paper lanterns with painted, bulg-
