When she waited on me at supper, she begged me to put up with the room I was in, which was, she said, one of family use, as the other rooms were undusted, no guests coming these days. When she finished making my bed she spoke humanly, wishing me “a good night of rest,” before she left my room. My ears followed her footsteps along the long wriggling sort of passage until they finally died out far away. Then stillness fell and the whole place seemed to have become deserted by all things human.
Only once before in all my life, I went through an experience like this. Long ago I crossed Boshu from Tateyama to the Pacific sea coast, and went on foot from Kazusa to Choshi along the sea shore. On the way I stopped overnight at a place. At a place, and I cannot say less vaguely as the name of the locality and of the inn where I lodged had both long since been forgotten. It is not even clear that it was really an inn where I passed the night. The house was very large but inhabited by only two women. I asked them if they would let me stop overnight. The older of the two said “yes” and the younger said: “This way please.” I followed the latter past many spacious but deserted and neglected rooms, and was finally shown up the innermost semi-two-storey flat. I mounted three staircases and was about to enter my room, when a gust of evening wind made a bunch of bamboos, growing bendingly under the eve, rustle against my head and shoulders, somehow chilling me to the bones. The wooden flooring of the verandah, I stepped upon, was almost crumbling with age. I remarked, then, the sprouts would pierce through the flooring and take possession of the room next spring. The young woman said nothing but went away grinning.
That night, the rustling of bamboos robbed me of all my sleep. I slid open the front paper screen and found myself looking over, in the clear Summer moonlight, a grass-grown garden, which had no boundary hedge or fence, but stretched into a weedy elevation, beyond which the great ocean roared with its tumbling breakers, menacing the world of man. I passed the whole night nervously awake, imprisoning myself in an apology of a mosquito net. My lot that night might be, I thought, a page from some weird story book.
I had never since felt as I did then, until my first night at Nakoi.
I was lying on my back in my bed, and my eyes accidentally caught sight of some Chinese writing mounted in a vermilion frame, hung high up a wall. It consisted of seven big characters which said: “Shadow of bamboos sweeping no dust rises.” It was signed “Daitetsu.” Then my fancy travelled for a while into the realm of autographs. A Jakuchu in the picture hanging niche next entered my eyes. It was a picture of a crane standing on one foot, a production of a bold sweep of brush, that pleased me marvellously. In a little while I fell asleep and was soon lost in dreamland.
The Maiden of Nagara appeared before me, in a long-sleeved bridal gown, crossing a mountain on a pony. The Sasabe Otoko and the Sasada Otoko suddenly slipped into the scene, and began struggling to carry away the maiden. Thereupon the girl changed as suddenly into Ophelia, mounting a branch of willow tree, and then floating down a stream. She was singing sweetly. Eager to rescue her, I reached a long pole and ran along Mukojima with it. She showed no sign of struggle, but was smiling and singing as the tide carried her down, down to where I knew not. I hallooed and hallooed to her, with the pole on my shoulder.
My hallooing awoke me. I was wet with perspiration. What a curious mixture of the poetical and vulgar, I thought. Priest Ta Hui in the Sung days of China, who claimed to be able to have everything his way after he had attained his Buddhistic emancipation, complained that he was nevertheless vulnerable to unworthy thoughts that cropped up in his dreams. He is said to have suffered long and greatly from this failing. I thought that was quite natural. It would do little credit to anyone making art one’s life to dream a not more beautiful dream. One such as I dreamed would in greater part make neither a picture nor poetry worthy of the name. Thinking thus, I turned my body over in bed and saw the moon shining on the paper screen, casting on it the shadow of some branches of tree. The night looked almost bright.
Possibly just a fancy; but I thought I heard someone singing or rather chanting softly. I pricked my ears to know if it was a song that had escaped from dreamland into this world of reality, or a real voice flowing into dreams? I was sure there was someone singing. The voice was indisputably thin and low; but faint as it was, it was pulsating the Spring night, which was on the verge of
