exactly the same as this.”
As he said this, the naval officer looked round at the sea of people and the chrysanthemums surrounding the table where they stood; then suddenly, as a cynical smile seemed to move like a little wave in the depths of his eyes, he put down his ice-cream spoon and added as if half to himself,
“Not only Paris. Balls are just the same everywhere.”
An hour later, Akiko and the French naval officer stood arm in arm on a balcony off the ballroom under the starlight with many other Japanese and foreigners.
Out beyond the balcony railing the pines that covered the extensive garden stood hushed with their branches interwoven, and here and there among their twigs shone the lights of little red paper lanterns.
In the bottom of the chilly air the fragrance of the moss and fallen leaves rising from the garden below seemed to set adrift faintly the breath of lonely autumn. And in the ballroom behind them, that same sea of lace and flowers went on ceaselessly moving under the curtains of purple silk crape with the sixteen petaled chrysanthemums dyed into them. And still up over the sea of people, the whirlwind of high-pitched orchestra music mercilessly goaded them on.
Of course from the balcony, too, lively talk and laughter stirred the night air ceaselessly. More, when beautiful fireworks shot up into the sky over the pines, a sound almost like a shout came from the throats of the people on the balcony. Standing in their midst, Akiko had been exchanging light chitchat with some young lady friends of hers near them. But she finally bethought herself, and turning to the French naval officer, found him with his arm still supporting hers, gazing silently into the starry sky up over the garden. It seemed to her somehow that he was experiencing a touch of homesickness. So looking furtively up into his face, she said half teasingly,
“You’re thinking of your own country, aren’t you?”
Then the naval officer, with a smile in his eyes as always, looked round at her quietly. And instead of saying “Non,” he shook his head like a child.
“But you seem to be musing on something.”
“Guess what.”
Just then among the people on the veranda arose again for a time a noise like a wind. As if by agreement, Akiko and the naval officer stopped talking and looked up into the night sky that pressed down heavily on the pines of the garden. There a red and blue firework, throwing its spider legs out against the darkness, was just on the verge of dying away. To Akiko, for some reason or other, that firework was so beautiful that it almost made her sad. “I was thinking of the fireworks. The fireworks, like our lives,” said the French naval officer, looking gently down into Akiko’s face and speaking as if teaching her.
II
It was autumn in the seventh year of Taishō (1918). The Akiko of that time, on her way back to her villa at Kamakura, met by chance on the train a young novelist with whom she was slightly acquainted. The young man put a bunch of chrysanthemums which he was taking to a friend in Kamakura up into the rack. Then Akiko, who was now the elderly Madame H⸺, told him that there was a story of which she was always reminded whenever she saw chrysanthemums and recounted to him in detail her reminiscences of the ball at the Rokumeikan. He could not but feel a deep interest when he heard such reminiscences from the mouth of the woman herself.
When the story was over, he casually asked,
“Madame, do you not know the name of that French naval officer?”
Then old Madame H⸺ gave him an unexpected answer.
“Of course I do. His name was Julian Viaud.”
“Then it was Loti, wasn’t it? It was Pierre Loti, who wrote Madame Chrysantheme, wasn’t it?”
The young man felt an agreeable excitement. But old Madame H⸺ simply looked into his face wonderingly and murmured over and over,
“No, his name wasn’t Loti. It was Julian Viaud.”
Tu Tzuchun
Part I
It was the close of a spring day, and the sun was setting. A young man was standing in front of the western city-gate of Loyang, the capital, during the Tang dynasty in China. He was looking up absentmindedly into the sky. His name was Tu Tzuchun, and he was the son of a very rich man; but now he was living poorly and miserably, for all his fortune had been wasted away.
At that time Loyang was considered the most prosperous city in the world. Therefore it was crowded with all kinds of traffic, and its streets were always full of people. Under the oily glow of the setting sun, which was reflected fully from the city-gate, the silk-gauze hats of ancient lords, the gold earrings of Turkish ladies, and the many-coloured decorative reins on the heads of white horses made a very beautiful picture as they streamed by incessantly.
Tu Tzuchun, however, stood leaning against the gate walls, and gazed absently at the setting sun. Above, the silvery circle of a new moon could be already seen shining white and ghostly through the evening haze.
“It grows dark, and I am hungry. No one will give me a bed. … Perhaps it will be better to drown myself in some river and end the life I am leading,” thought Tu Tzuchun, and, just as he was turning this idea over in his mind, there suddenly appeared from somewhere an old man with one squint eye, who stopped in front of him. The setting sun, falling aslant on the body of the latter, cast a long shadow upon the gate. For a moment he looked intently at Tu Tzuchun, and then said abruptly:
“What are you thinking about?”
“I?” said Tu Tzuchun, looking up, “I am thinking of what I shall do, for I cannot find a place to lay my head or pass the
