Supposing an earthquake occurred, convulsing the earth. Suppose that awakening to the fact that motion is against one’s nature, one strives to recover one’s former repose; but carried by the force of lost balance, one keeps on in motion, in spite of oneself, and wants in desperation to be now agitated with a vengeance. Suppose one is capable of an expression reflecting such a state of things, then it was precisely such an expression that I saw in the woman before me.
Thus it was that behind her look of contempt, I could see a flicker of yearning, and the gleam of a careful mind from under a mocking air. She looked as if she thought nothing of a hundred men, when she let loose her wit and rode on her high spirits. There was no unity of expression. I might have said, light and darkness of mind were living under the same roof, quarreling. The fact that there was no unity in her expression was evidence, as I took it, that there was no unity in her mind. That there was no unity in her mind must be the consequence of there being no unity in the world in which she had lived. Hers was the face of one struggling to overcome the unhappiness that was weighing down upon her. She must be a woman standing under a star of ill-luck.
“Thank you.” Repeating the words, I lightly bowed to her.
“Your room is dusted. Go back and you will see. I will come to you later.”
No sooner had she said this than she nimbly turned round and lightly hurried away along the passage. She had her hair done up in the “butterfly” style. I could espy her fair neck under the black hair. Quite striking was her black satin obi, wound round her shapely waist. Perhaps the satin lined only one side of the sash, I reflected as I stood watching her.
IV
With absolutely no thought of any kind in my head, I returned to my room, and found it dusted clean and tidied up carefully. Then I recalled last night’s apparition, and felt an irresistible curiosity to look into the closet. I went up to it and opened the paper screen. I found inside an undersized chest of drawers, with a woman’s obi draping down its side, suggesting that somebody had carried away in haste some clothes on the cabinet. One end of the obi was in a layer of folded kimono of feminine colour. Some books on shelves occupied one corner of the closet, one of the Zen31 priest Haku-un’s works, and the classical Isemono-gatari, standing out conspicuously among them.
Giving myself no reason, I resumed my seat on the cushion at the low teak wood table, which served as my desk. On the table was my sketch book, carefully placed in the centre, with a pencil between its leaves. I took up the book, wondering how the things I wrote in dreams would look in the morning.
“Kaidono tsuyuo furu-u-ya monogurui.”
Somebody wrote this under it: “Kaidono tsuyuo furu-u-ya asa-garasu.”32 Scribbled in pencil, the style of writing was not as clear as it might be; I thought it too stiff for a woman’s hand but too flaccid for a man’s. Anyway, it was another surprise to me. I went on reading the next piece:
“Hanano kage onnano kageno oborokana.”33
This had under it: “Hanano kage, onnano kageo kasanekeri.”34 The third piece:
“Shoichi-i onnami bakete oborozuki,” was revised beneath into: “On-zoshi onnani bakete oborozuki.”35 Were they meant to be imitations, or corrections, or a vindication? Was the party a fool, or was it an attempt to fool? I gave a puzzling shake to my head.
“Later,” she said, I told myself. She might put in her appearance, when the meal was brought in, and I might get some light, then. What time could it be? I looked at my watch, and it was past eleven o’clock. Such a long sleep I had, I thought. To do with only two meals would at this rate be good for my stomach!
I pushed open a paper screen on the right side of my room, and looked out for a sign of last night’s fantasy. What I took for an aronia was indeed a tree of that name in blossom; but the garden was smaller than I fancied. The whole place was grown over with dark-green moss, apparently so nice to walk on, and almost burying five or six stepping stones. On the left a red-barked pine tree, growing out from between rocks, some way up the slope of a mountain, stood slantingly overhanging. A little behind the aronia was a thicket and still further beyond, a grove of tall bamboos, scraping the sunny Spring sky. View to the right was shut out by a ridge of roof; but judging from topography, I should say the ground descended in a slow gradient towards the bathhouse.
The mountain had at its foot a hillock and the hillock was surrounded by a belt of level land, about half a mile wide. This belt glided on the outer side into the bottom of the sea, and rose sharply again forty miles away, forming the
