Chapters 52-54 Summary

The silk manufacturers of Lavilledieu cannot find enough eggs at the last minute to keep the silk mills operating. Joncour hires the unemployed mill workers to construct the estate park he has been planning for years. Men and women establish gardens, build fountains, construct mazes, and erect an aviary. Rumors fly about what Joncour did with the silkworm egg money. He is called alternately a hero for employing the townsfolk and a swindler for losing their investment. Joncour only ever said that the eggs hatched near the town of Cologne.

Four months after his return, Joncour tells the story of his love for Hara Kei's mistress to Baldabiou. Joncour admits that he has never even heard her voice and that it is painful to die of yearning for something he will never experience.

At the start of the next year (1866), Japan...