There was complete wretchedness, frightful wretchedness, irreparable wretchedness. And yet our little lad sang while he trotted behind our carriage, just as his father whistled as he swept the snow. Is not misery the school, the sadly sovereign school, of philosophy? XVIII HOW I DISCOVERED HANAKO Everything that comes from Japan has always interested me intensely. Consequently it is easy to understand with what pleasure I came into relationship with Sada Yacco, and why I did not hesitate to assume financial responsibility for her performances when she decided to come to Europe with her whole company. Sada Yacco had brought with her a troupe of thirty people. These thirty cost me more than ninety of another nationality would have done; for apart from everything that I was obliged to do to entertain them, I had constantly to go down on my knees to secure permission to attach to each train that carried them an enormous car laden with Japanese delicacies, rice, salted fish, mushrooms and preserved turnips--delicacies were necessary to support the existence of my thirty Japanese, including Sada Yacco herself. During one whole season I paid the railway companies 375,000 francs for transportation, but that cost me much less than to pay all the debts I should have been obliged to assume from Lisbon to St. Petersburg if I had decided to send my Japanese home. I tried for a long time to get my money back by transporting my Nipponese and their viands up and down the earth, but, weary of the struggle, I finally assembled another troupe, which was as good as the first one and which was willing to travel without a cargo of rice and salted fish. “Business is business” I am well aware. I decided, therefore, to endure bravely the losses I had incurred, and I was thinking of quite another subject when fortune appeared to smile on me again. In London there was a Japanese troupe looking for an engagement. The actors came to see me. They made some ridiculous claims and I sent them away. But as they did not find an engagement, we came to an understanding, and I found an impresario for them, who took them to Copenhagen. I went to Denmark, too, and I expected to look after the affairs of these Japanese and attend to my own business as well. When they arrived at Copenhagen I saw the whole troupe for the first time. They all came to greet me at my hotel and played some piece or other of their own invention.