They arose, and proceeded to take off my boots (one never keeps on one's shoes in a Japanese house), wiping the bottoms of my trousers, and feeling my shoulders to see whether I am wet.
What always strikes one on first entering a Japanese dwelling is the extreme cleanliness, the white and chilling bareness of the rooms.
Over the most irreproachable mattings, without a crease, a line, or a stain, I was led upstairs to the first story and ushered into a large, empty room--absolutely empty! The paper walls were mounted on sliding panels, which, fitting into each other, can be made to disappear--and all one side of the apartment opened like a veranda, giving a view of the green country and the gray sky beyond.

By way of a chair, they gave me a square cushion of black velvet; and behold me seated low, in the middle of this large, empty room, which by its very vastness is almost chilly.

The two little women (who are the servants of the house and my very humble servants, too), awaited my orders, in attitudes expressive of the profoundest humility.
It seemed extraordinary that the quaint words, the curious phrases I had learned during our exile at the Pescadores Islands--by sheer dint of dictionary and grammar, without attaching the least sense to them--should mean anything.

But so it seemed, however, for I was at once understood.
I wished in the first place to speak to one M.Kangourou, who is interpreter, laundryman, and matrimonial agent.

Nothing could be easier: they knew him and were willing to go at once in search of him; and the elder of the waiting-maids made ready for the purpose her wooden clogs and her paper umbrella.
Next I demanded a well-served repast, composed of the greatest delicacies of Japan.