My heart, why so softly quiet?
The past is far back, I forget good or bad.
At thirty I am getting old.
But Spring is lingering.
Strolling about I adapt myself to things around.
At other times I drink full of sweet fragrance.
I read and reread the lines, pleased that they gave expression, rather well, to my feelings as I lay among the vermilion flowers, in sweet oblivion to the cares and worries of the world. Just then, came “hem,” the sound of somebody clearing the throat, and it took me by surprise, as I least expected any living soul in my fairyland. I turned round and saw a man coming out of the wood screening the brow of the mountain yonder. He was wearing a felt hat, which shaded his eyes, that I imagined to be looking restlessly about. His indifferent kimono and bare feet almost forced a conclusion that he must be of the fraternity, the members of which are popularly known as tramps. I thought, he might be going down the craggy path I had come up; but no, he retraced his footsteps towards the wood. He did not re-enter the wood, but returned towards the path. In short, he was going backwards and forwards, as if in a walk; but his general appearance told against the latter theory. He was shaking his head now and again, and seemed to be thinking something, now halting, now looking round. Possibly he was expecting somebody, it occurred to me; how should I know?
I could not remove my eyes from the suspicious-looking man, although he aroused no sense of fear or alarm in me. Nor was I seized with any idea of making a picture of him. Nevertheless my eyes were glued to him, in spite of myself. As I was following his every movement, another figure came into the corner of my eye, as the man came to a halt. The two seemed to recognise each other, and my field of vision narrowed as they walked up toward each other, until it became a single point. They stood face to face with a verdant mountain rising on one side, and the out-stretching sea on the other.
One of the pair was, of course, the tramp, and the other a woman. It was Nami-san!
So soon as I recognised Nami-san, I remembered the dagger I saw in her hand that morning. It was possible, even, probable, that she had it with her now, as she stood before the ungainly man. The thought chilled me, unhuman as I was.
The two stood perfectly still, maintaining the same posture as when they first faced each other. They might be talking but I could not hear a word. Presently the man dropped his head forward and Nami-san turned her face toward the mountain. A warbler was singing in that direction, and she seemed to be listening, for all I saw. A few moments later the man straightened himself up, now carrying his head erect, and made a motion as if to walk away. The same moment Nami-san changed her pose and turned her face towards the sea. Something was just visible in the voluminous folds of her obi, it might be the dagger. The man pulled himself up proudly and started to go. Nami-san followed him two or three steps. The man stopped. Did she, perchance, ask him to? In the same moment he turned round, Nami-san thrust her hand into her obi. Mercy! But it was not the dagger it took out, but a purse, the dangling string of which swung gently to and fro in the breeze as the fair hand held it out to the man. One foot planted firmly on the ground and the other a little forward, the upper half of her body slightly thrown backward, and the purple of the purse making a strong contrast with the well shaped hand, the picture was truly worth preserving. But the vision evaporated the moment the man took the purse and disappeared into the wood.
Nami-san gave not a look back to the vanishing man; but she turned right round and walked briskly toward where I lay buried in the flowering quince. “Sensei! Sensei!” She called twice, as soon as she came right in front of me. Wondering when she detected me, I responded:
“What is it, O-Nami-san?”
I held up my head above the quince; my hat had dropped among the grass.
“What can you be doing there, Sensei?”
“I was lying asleep, after a little poetising.”
“Now, now, no story-telling, Sensei. You must have seen the show just now?”
“Yes, I took the liberty to see just a little bit of it.”
“Ho, ho, ho. Not just a little bit of it, but you should have seen a good deal of it.”
“To tell the truth, I saw a good deal of it.”
“There you are! Just come out of there, Sensei. Come out of the quince, Sensei.”
I meekly obeyed the order.
“Have you got anything more to do in the quince bed?”
“No, nothing more. I was thinking of going home.”
“Well, then, we will go home together, Sensei.”
I again demonstrated my docility, by going back among the quince, by picking up my hat, by gathering up my kits, and then walking homeward with Nami-san.
“Have you painted anything, Sensei?”
“No, I gave it up.”
“You have not painted a single picture since you came to us?”
“No, but don’t you see, O-Nami-san, I fled from Tokyo, and having come to a place like this, I must have everything ‘go as you like.’ ”
“Speaking of ‘go as you like,’ Sensei, life would not be worth living, unless you had it that way, wherever you happen to be. For my part, I am so unconcerned about things that I do not feel ashamed to have a scene like that seen by others.”
“No, I do not think you need be ashamed.”
“Perhaps, you are right, Sensei; but who do you think that man was?”
“Well, I should imagine he is not a very rich man.”
“Ho, ho, ho, you say right, Sensei.
