I now opened the window in the left flank. A natural hollow, a couple of yards, both ways, in a big rock, had turned into a pool of water, one does not know how long since, and was reflecting calmly in it a wild cherry tree in bloom, while a bunch or two of giant-leaved creeping bamboos decked a corner of the rock. Yonder a hedge of what looked like boxthorns fenced in the garden. A road from the beach sloping upward, for climbing the hill, seemed to pass outside the hedge, and passers talking could be heard now again. Off the other edge of the road, orange trees covered the ground that fell Southward, the declivity ending in a great bamboo jungle, that flared white. I learned for the first time, then, that the bamboo leaves shine like silver, when looked at from a distance. Above the jungle, the hill on the other side abounded in pine trees, and five or six stone steps were clearly visible between their red trunks. Probably a temple stood on the hill.
I went out into the verandah and found that it turned square with its railing. An upstairs room across an inner court in the front section of the building filled up space, which should, as I judged from its bearings, give a view of the sea. It was jolly that leaning against the railing, I was upstairs as high. The bath tank being situated in the basement, and from the standpoint of taking a bath I might be said to be living on the third floor.
The house is quite large; but the living quarters and kitchen apart, shutters were down in nearly all the rooms, except the upstairs one in the front section, another next to mine by turning to the right along the verandah, and my own, of course. Evidently I was the only guest stopping there. The rain-doors were all closed; but judging from the look of things I might wager pretty safely that once they opened those doors they would not go to the trouble of shutting them again, even at night. One might even suspect they did not bother themselves about locking the entrance door. I should say, an ideal place for an unhuman sojourn.
It was almost noon by my watch, and I was beginning to feel somewhat empty. But there was no sign of any tiffin forthcoming. Imagining myself a wanderer in the familiar line of poetry, “Void the mountain, not a soul seen,” I thought I might do without a meal or so cheerfully. I felt too lazy to paint. As for the poetry, I have been living it, and it appeared to me decidedly unwise to try to compose one. I have brought with me a few books tied into my tripod; but even that I felt in no mood to untie and read. Lying with the shadow of flowers on the verandah, with my back basking in warm sunshine of Spring, I was in the height of worldly delectation. I shall fall off if I thought and a motion was dangerous. If I could help it, I did not want even to breathe, I felt like remaining immobile for a fortnight or so, like a plant growing out of the floor matting.
Presently I heard somebody walking along the passage, and then coming upstairs. As the footsteps neared, I judged there were two. No sooner had they stopped outside my room than one of them went back the way he or she came, without a word. The karakami opened and I expected to greet her of this morning. I felt as if I had missed something, when I saw that it was only the young maid of last night.
“Sorry, Danna-sama, we kept you waiting.” So saying the girl placed a portable dinner table before me, with not a word of reference to the missing breakfast. On the table was a dish of broiled fish with something green, and a lacquered bowl, which, on taking off the cover, revealed a clear soup with some young ferns and some red and white shrimps. The colours of shrimps, were so lovely that I kept looking at them a while.
“You don’t like that, Danna-sama,” asks the girl.
“Yes, I am going to take it,” I said; but in my mind I was loath to eat so charming a thing. I remembered reading in a book, that taking some salad into his dish, and looking at, Turner said to one sitting next to him at dinner, that its colour was refreshing and was the one he used. I wished very much that I could have let Turner see the shrimps and the ferns. In my opinion, there is nothing beautiful in colour in Western dishes, excepting perhaps salad and radishes. I cannot, of course, say anything from the nutritious point of view, but I must say that theirs is very uncivilized from the artist’s point of view. On the contrary the Japanese dishes are all superbly beautiful, be it the soup, the pastry or the sliced raw fish. You may come away without taking a single chopstickful of things set before you, but you may consider yourself fully repaid for having been at a teahouse, from the point of view of having feasted your eyes.
“There is a young lady, here?” I
