As, however, I had a feeling that I was a little responsible for what took place, in order not to cause them any disappointment I screwed my courage up again, rose and began to make a speech. Those who know me can fancy what this speech was like. It was in French, but I would take my oath that it was as hard to understand as Kawakami’s Japanese. However, I managed to ring the changes on the words “Japanese gratitude, Japanese pride,” and I did my best to paint in glowing colours Kawakami’s joy at having established a bond between the theatrical worlds of the two countries. My speech was only a bad imitation of what M. Sardou had said, and what I had vaguely understood of Kawakami’s views. I tried, in fact, to say what Kawakami would have said in my place and, with as much emphasis and big sincere words, I came to a close. Then before sitting down I asserted once more: “There, gentlemen, that is what he said.” My role of being an interpreter without understanding the language was finished. There was a storm of hurrahs and the ice was broken. The conversation became general, and the meeting ended in being a great success so far as Kawakami was concerned. It was Kawakami’s day. As for me, I was not in it. The result of this meeting was that Kawakami played Sardou’s _La Patrie_ in Japan, obtaining for this work a success as great as for the Shakespearean plays he likewise represents there, and whose parts he plays with such truth that he is called at home, “the Japanese Mark Antony.” He brought to the theatres of his native land certain modifications, which have radically changed their dramatic methods. It is customary in Japan to begin a play at nine or ten o’clock in the morning and to make it last at least until midnight. One lunches and dines at the theatre during the intervals, which, it is needless to say, are interminable. Kawakami changed that condition of things by beginning at half-past six or at seven o’clock in the evening and ending before midnight. And how do you suppose he managed to prevent people eating between the acts? for that was the most difficult innovation. He made the intervals so short that there was no time even to go to the refreshment-room. It was really an easy thing to compel the public to alter its habits. Instead of appealing to people’s reason, Kawakami simply made it impossible for them to continue doing what they had previously done. European theatres are now building in Japan, in order that actors from Europe may go there and produce their plays. The Nipponese public is learning to give them a more favourable reception. All that is due to Kawakami and to his sympathetic reception at the Society of Authors. I cannot refrain from congratulating myself on this, for, after all, it was I who “translated” the addresses and thus sealed in words this new _entente cordiale_. That brings to mind a little story.