“A Haji!” I repeated.

“Yes, I was the Haji of an old willow.”

Ah! now I understood. Everything was explained. Certain trees in Japan are inhabited by Genii which are like our fairies, and are called Haji. Only we [22] have no more fairies, and Hajis still exist, because Japan is much younger than our countries. When a country grows old it loses all its fairies, magicians and incantations. But how could a Haji ever leave his woods, and his flowers, and become a match, with the risk of being destroyed to light the cigarette of a foreigner?

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Oh, I lived so happily for two hundred and fifty years on the mountain Karniyama in the province of Noto! Now they have cut down the woods up there.”

“Why?”

“Judging from the conversations I overheard, they needed the. . . Read More