UNlVSRSITf OP 
 
 O' 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 *
 
 PAULOWNIA
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 SEVEN STORIES FROM CONTEM- 
 PORARY JAPANESE WRITERS 
 
 WITH A FOREWORD 
 By JOHN ERSKINE, Ph.D. 
 
 Professor oj English, Columbia University 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 
 1918
 
 Copyright, 1918, by 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY
 
 THIS BOOK Is DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 MY MOTHER 
 WITH 
 
 LOVE AND PIETY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 *- TAKASE BUNE 
 
 BY Mow OGWAI 3 
 
 HANAKO 
 
 BY MORI OGWAI 35 
 
 -^ THE PIER 
 
 BY MORI OGWAI 55 
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 BY NAGAI KAFU 71 
 
 UKIYOE 
 
 BY NAGAI KAFU 105 
 
 A DOMESTIC ANIMAL 
 
 BY SHIMAZAKI TOSON .... 117 
 
 v TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 BY SHIMAZAKI TOSON . . . .135
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 It is a pleasure to write a foreword 
 for my friend Mr. Taketomo's collec- 
 tion of Japanese tales. Our admiration 
 of Japanese art is now so deep and so 
 wide in Western countries that we are 
 sometimes startled to realize how little 
 we know of contemporary Japanese 
 writing which means, how little we 
 know of the inner life of Japan today. 
 While statesmen and diplomats agon- 
 ize, contriving elaborate machinery for 
 the restoration and the maintenance of 
 international goodwill, it is in the power 
 of any of us, by reading such books as 
 this, to become better acquainted in a 
 pleasant hour with our neighbor's mind; 
 ix
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 and upon acquaintance goodwill grows. 
 The service is perhaps beyond estimate 
 which Japanese literature may render 
 to us in the United States, by thus pre- 
 paring the seeds of friendship and of 
 justice between nations. 
 
 Whether Mr. Taketomo has made 
 faithful translations, I cannot say, since 
 I know nothing of the language and 
 very little of the literature from which 
 these pieces are drawn. But it is evi- 
 dent that these translations live, and 
 bring before us a world of people. We 
 observe that the persons in the stories 
 are like ourselves, or like the characters 
 who may very well, we believe, sur- 
 round us. Perhaps Mr. Taketomo has 
 chosen from authors under the influence 
 of Western literature, but in any case 
 true pictures of life in the East would 
 probably serve approximately to por-
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 tray us at home. The episode subtly 
 told in "Hanako," the extraordinary 
 truth in "Takase Bune," the story of 
 the man who killed his brother, are as 
 pictures of our world, seen through our 
 eyes; what strangeness there is, dwells 
 in the language. 
 
 The literary method of these sketches 
 suggests the art of the great Russian 
 or French story-tellers. Yet to call 
 these selections realistic is not to ac- 
 count for all of their quality. Perhaps 
 the Japanese writers imitated Western 
 realists, but there is something alien, 
 something which we are likely to call 
 Japanese, in their power to represent 
 life as it is, or as it seems to be. This 
 power springs from the imagination 
 rather than from a theory of art. The 
 truth of the scenes here recorded is 
 naive as well as poignant. Is it because 
 xi
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 the Oriental mind is new to us, and 
 seems therefore more acute, more sensi- 
 tive, simply because its approach is un- 
 familiar? Perhaps; but I think there is 
 something here which will not wear 
 threadbare on closer acquaintance as 
 imaginative power, such as all artists 
 long for, to feel and see vividly the 
 whole drama of our daily life. This 
 power comes from a way of living, 
 rather than from a way of writing. If 
 Japan can teach us this, we may well 
 spare an hour to learn from her. 
 
 JOHN EKSKINE. 
 
 Xll
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Here are seven stories by three con- 
 temporary authors of Japan. On trans- 
 planting them into the soil of the Eng- 
 lish language, I must make a brief ac- 
 count of each author. 
 
 Mr. Mori Ogwai, a surgeon-general 
 in the Japanese army, is also renowned 
 for his deep scholarship in literature and 
 for his own writings, which are of en- 
 during value. His translation of 
 Andersen's "Improvisatoren" was re- 
 garded as the best specimen of this kind 
 of literature, and is still widely read 
 among the young men of Japan. I do 
 not know how often I have read this 
 book ; on leaving the shores of my home 
 xiii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 country I did not forget to put it in my 
 trunk among a few classics of Japan, 
 for it was the book in which I was in- 
 troduced first to Italy and to Dante. 
 We owe to Mr. Mori two admirable 
 translations from American authors, 
 "Rip Van Winkle," by Washington 
 Irving, and one of those stories of early 
 California life, by Bret Harte. These 
 were collected in a book, with other 
 translated stories by Daudet, Tolstoi, 
 Turgeniev, Hacklaender, Stern and 
 Kirschner. Mr. Mori wrote many 
 books of criticism and translation, 
 among which his translations of 
 "Faust" and "Gotz," and his "Life of 
 Goethe" are monumental works. Be- 
 sides these he has written many original 
 poems, dramas and stories. The stories 
 included in this book are taken from 
 some of his latest works, 
 xiv
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 In my judgment, "Takase Bune" 
 seems to reveal most of his qualities and 
 merits. The subject was taken from 
 the life of the eighteenth century when 
 Japan was under the iron rule of the 
 so-called Shogunate. The two figures, 
 who are nothing but a humble criminal 
 and a guard, are reflections of the clear 
 minds of the age as well as of the spirit 
 of Japan, which partakes of centuries 
 of thought. The plot is extremely sim- 
 ple; the characters are only two, de- 
 picted with the writer's tranquil, digni- 
 fied and tempered words which some- 
 how reminded Japanese readers of 
 Flaubert or Merimee. 
 
 Mr. Mori may not regard the other 
 two stories as very important among 
 his works. But they were so fresh and 
 sweet to us that when we saw them in a 
 magazine we felt as if we were looking 
 
 XV
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 at the white roses in the morning dew. 
 It is the color of white that is charac- 
 teristic of his writings. His treatment 
 of Rodin may be a sort of tour de force > 
 but still it has a vivid description of the 
 character. I read it with a friend in the 
 palm room of a restaurant at the river- 
 side of Kyoto, with a glass of cralet and 
 a plate of fruits; we were delightfully 
 surprised when Rodin asked about the 
 mountain and the sea. There is a 
 glimpse of Hiroshige's print which is 
 seen often in some corner of a Euro- 
 pean parlor, but so faint that the old 
 blue color passes almost unnoticed in 
 the general tone of the marble white. 
 In "The Pier" you will find the same 
 reflection of the Japanese mind, under 
 a brighter sky, in the character of a 
 noble lady. How different she is from 
 all your ladies of society! I cannot 
 xvi
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 say which is better or which is happier, 
 but the innermost sentiment does not 
 seem to me to be different anywhere in 
 the world. It is wonderful to consider 
 the two, and to think of their difference 
 in manners and customs. Compared 
 with the hero of "Takase Bune," you 
 will find that the external development 
 of Japan, its wealth and social ranks, 
 has nothing to do with the moral sen- 
 timent of our people. That is what we 
 are somehow proud of, and somehow 
 ashamed of, at the same time. 
 
 If the general tone of Mr. Mori's 
 works is white, the color of Mr. Nagai 
 Kafu is peacock blue, or it may be well 
 to say, crimson. He is essentially a 
 colorist. His colors have become more 
 somber with his maturity till we have 
 such works as "The Bill-Collecting." 
 Here you will find a maidservant, who 
 xvii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 is compelled to work for the class most 
 humiliating at the present time in 
 Japan; we see the sensitive feeling of 
 her heart, like the "dewy lespedeza," as 
 it is called in Japan, and the overflow- 
 ing indignation of the writer at the 
 sham respectability of society. It is 
 written by the masterly hand of a social 
 satirist. Is this a "La Dame au 
 Camelia" who is speaking under the dis- 
 guise of a Japanese maid? No; Mr. 
 Nagai is a Japanese poet, all in all, but 
 his attitude toward the world, his taste, 
 and his early mode of writing often sug- 
 gested the decadent literati at the end 
 of the old feudal government. Spend- 
 ing most of his younger days in China, 
 America, and in France, this character 
 became submerged so deeply under the 
 surface of his writings that when his 
 two volumes of stories written in 
 xviii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 America and France were published, he 
 appeared as a new star in the literary 
 world of Japan. He watched the leaves 
 falling in the Central Park; he sighed 
 to see how soon the leaves of America 
 are on the ground, for he is a poet in the 
 real sense. How emotional he is before 
 a "thing of beauty" may be noticed in 
 his sketches of Ukiyoe, which I have 
 included in this book. 
 
 Mr. Shimazaki Toson was first 
 known as a lyric poet, and he was a 
 successful poet, too, for once there was 
 none in Japan who was a peer with Mr. 
 Shimazaki in the poetry of dolce stil 
 nuovo. "At last the new days have 
 come!" he wrote triumphantly in the 
 preface of the collection of his poems, 
 and it will be a long time before we 
 forget the strain of Nessun maggior 
 dolore which came, unconsciously, from 
 xix
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the mouth of our young poet. With 
 the Russo-Japanese war, the literature 
 of Japan changed its whole aspect. It 
 was called the "destruction of vision," 
 or the "age of disillusion," and was the 
 proclamation of naturalism. Since 
 then Mr. Shimazaki has taken himself 
 out of the poetical field and retired to 
 the mountain in his native province. 
 We did not hear from him again till 
 two or three years afterward, when he 
 returned to Tokyo with a novel. Then 
 he wrote several stories and novels, but 
 alas ! there was no more the poet of the 
 Alpine breeze. His novel was com- 
 pared with "Madame Bovary," and his 
 stories with Turgeniev and Maupas- 
 sant. But I think the critic who men- 
 tioned the pictures of Millet was most 
 clear-sighted, one who knew his ten- 
 dency, in reality. The two short stories 
 
 XX
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 which I include in this book will show 
 this. Intimacy was the paramount 
 thing he brought out in his writings. 
 Intimacy with nature and intimacy with 
 life, which he tried to clothe with plain 
 home-spun realism. But he did it so 
 skillfully that even amid the current of 
 crude naturalism he stood preeminently 
 as an artist. 
 
 These writers, I am glad to say, are 
 typical stylists of contemporary Jap- 
 anese literature. Their tendencies are 
 different, and tendencies of thought are 
 always moving. On reading these 
 stories some critics will say that there 
 is classicism in Mr. Mori, romanticism 
 in Mr. Nagai and naturalism in Mr. 
 Shimazaki. If you will put "Neo" be- 
 fore each "ism," it will be more accu- 
 rate. But what is the use? It is al- 
 ways difficult to decide what tendency 
 xxi
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 an author has shown in his works, and 
 it is often misleading to trace back the 
 lineage of the minds of the East no 
 matter what was their culture, and what 
 was their constitution of mind in the 
 much-questioned traditions of the West. 
 Walter Pater says that "in that House 
 Beautiful, which the creative minds of 
 all generations the artists and those 
 who have treated life in the spirit of 
 art are always building together, for 
 the refreshment of the human spirit, 
 these operations cease." If you find a 
 beauty in the lacquerware of Korin, or 
 in the black and white of Sesshu, here 
 you will also find some beauties which 
 are entirely proper to us Japanese, and 
 which also are tending to the deeper 
 current of humanity. 
 
 The title of the book, "Paulownia," 
 has a particular meaning to the Japan- 
 xxii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 ese mind. The word paulownia is the 
 name of a tree from which a lute of 
 peculiar charm is made, one which pro- 
 duces various sounds. In this book are 
 seven productions by three different 
 authors, all showing the melody of the 
 Japanese mind. 
 
 TORAO TAKETOMO. 
 
 xxiii
 
 TAKASE BUNE
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 By Mom OGWAI 
 
 TAKASE BUNE is a small junk 
 that goes up and down the river 
 Takase in Kyoto. During the Toku- 
 gawa period, when a criminal of Kyoto 
 was sentenced to banishment to a dis- 
 tant island, the relatives of the criminal 
 were called out to the prison house 
 where they were allowed to bid him 
 farewell. Then the criminal was taken 
 to Takase bune and was sent to Osaka. 
 The man who took charge of him was a 
 Doshin, or a private, who was under the 
 command of Machibugyo, the city mag- 
 istrate of Kyoto, and it was the custom 
 3
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 that this private permitted the chief 
 among the relatives to go on the junk 
 with the criminal. This was not openly 
 acknowledged by the government, but 
 was called "looking over with generous 
 eye," or the tacit toleration. 
 
 Though at that time the criminals 
 who were sentenced to a distant island 
 were considered as persons of great of- 
 fense, it was not that the majority of 
 them were condemned with such fero- 
 cious rascals as the incendiaries or the 
 murderers. Most of the criminals who 
 went on board Takase bune were peo- 
 ple who did unintentional crimes by so- 
 called misapprehension. As an exam- 
 ple, there was a kind of criminal who 
 committed suicide with his lover, but re- 
 mained alive after he killed his partner. 
 
 Taking such criminals on board, 
 Takase bune was rowed out when the 
 4
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 sunset bells began to ring from the 
 temples; it ran toward the east, facing 
 the dark houses of Kyoto on either 
 shore, and went down across the river 
 Kamo. In this junk, the criminal and 
 his relatives talked over their lives 
 through the night, always the repetition 
 of the same story of which the repent- 
 ance is of no avail. Listening beside 
 them, the private, who took the duty of 
 the guard, could know in detail the sad 
 circumstances of the relatives and the 
 family from which the criminal has 
 come out. This was the situation of 
 which the judges who listened to the 
 official statements or the court deliveries 
 on the white sands of the city govern- 
 ment, or read the written statements on 
 the desk of the office, could never 
 dream. 
 
 There were different characters 
 5
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 among the persons who took the duty of 
 the private ; some of them felt only an- 
 noyance and were so cold-hearted that 
 they almost wanted to cover their ears, 
 while some others were deeply moved 
 with the sorrows of other people which 
 touched their hearts, though they would 
 not show their sympathy, as they were 
 doing their official duty. Sometimes, 
 when a criminal and his relatives with 
 the most unhappy circumstances hap- 
 pened to be guarded hy the private of 
 especially tender and sympathetic 
 heart, this private could not help weep- 
 ing with them. 
 
 Therefore, the guarding of Takase 
 bune was considered and disliked as the 
 most unpleasant duty among the pri- 
 vates of the city government. 
 
 When was it? Perhaps it may have 
 6
 
 TAKASB BUNE 
 
 been during the age of Kwansei (1789- 
 1800), when Marquis Shirakawa Ra- 
 kuwo had ruling power at Edo. In a 
 spring evening when, as they say, the 
 cherry blossoms of the temple Chioin 
 fall in harmony with the sunset bells, a 
 strange criminal who had no similarity 
 to any that had been seen till that time 
 was taken to Takase bune. 
 
 His name was Kisuke, a man of 
 about thirty years of age, who had no 
 settled abode. As he had no relative to 
 be called to the prison house, he went 
 on the junk all alone. 
 
 Haneda Shobei, a private, who was 
 ordered to guard him and went on board 
 with him, had heard only that this 
 Kisuke was guilty of the crime of frat- 
 ricide. Now, while he was escorting 
 him from the prison house to the pier, 
 he looked at the appearance of this thin 
 7
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 pale-colored Kisuke, and found him 
 quite frank and obedient, respecting 
 Shobei as an officer of the government, 
 trying not to offend him in any point. 
 Moreover, these were not the flatteries 
 to authority under the pretention of the 
 mildness which were often perceived 
 among the criminals. 
 
 Shobei thought it strange, and so, 
 after they went on board, he paid mi- 
 nute attention to the actions of Kisuke, 
 more than his duty required. 
 
 That day the wind ceased to blow in 
 the evening, and a thin cloud that cov- 
 ered over the whole face of the sky 
 blurred the outline of the moon; it was 
 an evening when the slow-approaching 
 warmth of summer was felt as if rising 
 like a haze, both from the earth on the 
 shore and the river-bed. After they 
 left the down-quarter of the city of Ky- 
 8
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 oto, and passed across the river Kamo, 
 the surroundings became so quiet that 
 they only heard the lappings of the 
 water cleaved by the prow. 
 
 Though the criminal was allowed to 
 sleep in the night boat, Kisuke did not 
 seem even to lie down, but kept silent, 
 looking at the moon whose light was 
 changing bright and dim, according to 
 the thickness of the cloud. His fore- 
 head was cloudless, and his eyes had a 
 faint brightness. 
 
 Though Shobei was not looking 
 straight at him, he was constantly keep- 
 ing his eyes on Kisuke, repeating: "This 
 is strange, this is strange," in his mind, 
 because the face of Kisuke looked so 
 completely happy that he seemed even 
 to begin to whistle or hum a song, as if 
 he was not afraid of annoying the 
 officer. 
 
 9
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 Shobei thought in himself. He could 
 not remember how often he had man- 
 aged this Takase bune ; but all the crim- 
 inals whom he had taken on the junk 
 had the same pitiful appearance that he 
 could hardly bear to see the sight. 
 Now, what is the matter with this man? 
 He looks as if he is on the picnic boat. 
 It is said that he killed his brother, and 
 no matter how hateful a man the brother 
 was, and what the circumstances of his 
 killing him, he must be feeling badly if 
 he has a human heart. This pale-col- 
 ored thin fellow is he such a peerless 
 villain who is entirely lacking in that 
 human sentiment? He does not seem 
 so. Is he, haply, insane? No, no, his 
 words and deportment do not show any 
 such self-contradiction. The more he 
 thought of the attitude of Kisuke, it be- 
 
 10
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 came more difficult for Shobei to under- 
 stand him. 
 
 Becoming impatient, Shobei ad- 
 dressed him at last : 
 
 "Kisuke, what are you thinking?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," replied Kisuke, who 
 looked around him and seemed to be 
 afraid that he had done something of- 
 fensive to the officer. With quick apol- 
 ogy he looked up to learn the humor of 
 Shobei. 
 
 Shobei felt that he must make him- 
 self clear and apologize for the sudden 
 question, which had no concern to his 
 official duty. So he said thus: 
 
 "Nay, I did not ask you with any 
 special meaning. In fact, I wanted to 
 ask you about your feeling in going to 
 the island. I have guarded a great 
 many people in this junk, and, though 
 they were men of various lives, all were 
 11
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 alike in lamenting their exile and wept 
 through the night with the relative who 
 looked after them and spent an evening 
 in this junk. But looking at your ap- 
 pearance, I think you do not worry 
 about going to the island. What are 
 you thinking of?" 
 
 Kisuke smiled, and said: 
 
 "I am so grateful for your kind 
 words. Indeed it must he a sad thing 
 for other people to go to the island; I 
 also sympathize with their feeling. But 
 that is only because they spent easy 
 lives in the world. No doubt that Ky- 
 oto is a splendid place. But even in 
 that splendid place there will never 
 again be such torment as I have experi- 
 enced there. The government was so 
 merciful that it saved my life and or- 
 dered me to be sent to the island. How- 
 ever sorrowful the island may be it can- 
 12
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 not be the place where demons live. I 
 never have had the place where I could 
 stay as my home. But this time the 
 government ordered me to make the 
 island my home, and allowed me to stay 
 there without worry, and this is the first 
 thing that I am so thankful for. More- 
 over, I never have fallen sick in spite 
 of this feeble constitution, so I think 
 I never will hurt my body by exerting 
 myself with any hard work in the island. 
 Then, as I was to be sent to the island, 
 I was given two hundred pennies which 
 I have here." 
 
 Thus speaking, Kisuke placed his 
 hand on his breast. It was the law at 
 that time that a person who was sen- 
 tenced to the banishment to the island 
 was to be given two hundred pieces of 
 copper. 
 
 Kisuke continued his words : "I have 
 13
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 to confess a shameful thing, that I never 
 have had the sum of two hundred pen- 
 nies thus in my breast. I sought to get 
 work everywhere, and worked very hard 
 as soon as I got it, and I had to deliver 
 all the money I earned to another man's 
 hand. I was pretty well off if I could 
 live from hand to mouth, but mostly I 
 paid my debts and borrowed again. 
 But since I was put into the prison 
 house I was fed without doing any 
 work. I cannot help but feel grate- 
 ful to the government for this single 
 fact. Besides, I was given this two 
 hundred pennies. If I could live on by 
 things which will be given by the gov- 
 ernment, I can keep these two hundred 
 pennies without spending any of them. 
 This is the first time that I ever pos- 
 sessed the money which need not be 
 spent. Though I do not know what 
 14
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 kind of work I can do there, until I land 
 on the island, I am looking forward 
 with pleasure to use these two hundred 
 pennies as a capital of the work which 
 I do in the island." 
 
 After he said this, Kisuke became 
 silent. 
 
 Though Shobei said, "H'm, is that 
 it?" he also became silent for a while 
 in deep meditation, for everything he 
 heard was quite far from his expecta- 
 tion. 
 
 Shobei was aged almost to the be- 
 ginning of the old age, and had already 
 four children by his wife, and, with his 
 old mother, his family consisted of 
 seven members. Generally he was liv- 
 ing such a frugal life that he was called 
 a miser, and he would not buy any 
 clothes except the night clothings and 
 those he wore at the office. Unfortu- 
 15
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 nately, however, he took his wife from 
 the family of a rich merchant. And, 
 though the wife had good intentions to 
 live upon his stipend, she could not be 
 economical enough to satisfy her hus- 
 band, because she had the habits of a 
 spoiled child in a wealthy family. Fre- 
 quently, when the figures were wrong at 
 the end of the month, his wife borrowed 
 the money, secretly, from her home ; for 
 she knew that her husband hates the 
 debt as the caterpillar. After all, this 
 thing could not be hidden from a hus- 
 band. Shobei, who was annoyed even 
 to receive the things from her home on 
 such days as the five festivals, or the 
 clothes on the celebration of his chil- 
 dren's coming of age, did not like to 
 hear that the cracks of his livelihood 
 were filled up from her home. This is 
 the reason that the storms blew, now 
 16
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 and then, in the home of Haneda, which 
 otherwise had nothing to disturb its 
 peace. 
 
 Listening, now, to the story of 
 Kisuke, Shobei compared the life of 
 Kisuke to his own. Kisuke said that 
 he had to deliver, from one hand to the 
 other, the money that he earned by his 
 work, which is really a sad and miser- 
 able condition. But, he reflected on his 
 life, how much distance there was be- 
 tween Kisuke and himself. Isn't he 
 also one who is living only by the sti- 
 pend from the government and deliv- 
 ering it from one hand to the other? 
 The difference between this and that is 
 only the difference of the reeds on the 
 abacus, and he had no savings to cor- 
 respond to the two hundred pennies 
 which were so precious to Kisuke. 
 
 Now, considering the difference of 
 17
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 the reeds, it was reasonable that Kisuke 
 was pleased with the coins of two hun- 
 dred pennies, regarding them as his sav- 
 ings. The feeling could be sympathized 
 with from Shobei's side, but no matter 
 how great the difference between the 
 reeds may be, there was a more won- 
 derful thing, which was the unselfish- 
 ness of Kisuke and his feeling of satis- 
 faction. 
 
 Kisuke suffered when he could not 
 find work in the world, and when he had 
 found it he worked hard and was easily 
 contented by only getting enough to 
 keep him from hunger. Since he was 
 taken to the prison house he was sur- 
 prised to see that the food, which was 
 so hard to get until that time, was given 
 without any labor, like the bestowment 
 from heaven, and he felt a satisfaction 
 which he never had experienced before. 
 18
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 Here, Shobei found a greater differ- 
 ence, beside that of the reeds, between 
 them. Though his livelihood, which he 
 was making by the stipend, became 
 sometimes short, generally the expen- 
 diture and the receipt were regular. It 
 was life to the full extent of his power 
 to comprehend it. Nevertheless he 
 never felt the satisfaction in it. Gen- 
 erally he felt his life neither fortunate 
 nor unfortunate. In the deeper part of 
 his mind, however, an apprehension was 
 always lurking which made him think 
 about what he should do if, while thus 
 living, he were fallen into a serious ill- 
 ness, or if he were suddenly dismissed 
 from the office, and this apprehension 
 appeared in the field of his conscious- 
 ness whenever he learned that his wife 
 had borrowed money from her home to 
 fill up the shortness of the expense. 
 19
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 Why had this difference come to his 
 attention? Looking from the outside, 
 he considered that it was only because 
 Kisuke had no dependents, while he, 
 Shobei, had some. But this is not true. 
 Supposing himself a single man, Shobei 
 did not think that he could feel like 
 Kisuke. He thought that the reason 
 must have a deeper cause. 
 
 Vaguely, Shobei tried to think of a 
 thing like the human life. When one 
 had an illness he thinks only, if this ill- 
 ness was not in him ! When he had not 
 his daily meal he thinks, if he could 
 only eat ! When he had no savings for 
 some unforeseen accident he would 
 think only of a small amount of money. 
 Even then, if he had some, could he not 
 have a little more ! Thus, from one de- 
 sire to another, man does not seem to 
 stop, no matter how far he goes. He 
 20
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 noticed that this Kisuke was the one 
 who showed him that he must stop and 
 look before him. 
 
 Shobei looked at Kisuke with re- 
 newed wonder and felt as if a halo was 
 shining over the head of Kisuke, who 
 was looking up to the sky. 
 
 Gazing at the face of Kisuke, Shobei 
 addressed him again, saying: 
 
 "Kisuke san." 
 
 This time he said "san" or Mr., but 
 the. appellation was not changed with 
 full consciousness. As soon as he heard 
 his voice, Shobei noticed that this was 
 not appropriate. But he could not take 
 back the word which was already 
 spoken. 
 
 Kisuke, who replied, "Yes, sir," 
 seemed to wonder that he was called 
 with "san," and looked timidly at 
 Shobei. 
 
 21
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 Bearing his awkwardness, Shobei 
 said: 
 
 "I may be too inquisitive. But I 
 have heard that you were sentenced to 
 be exiled to the island at present be- 
 cause you have killed a man. Will you 
 mind to tell me the story?" 
 
 Kisuke said, "Willingly, sir," with 
 the appearance as if to plead his guilt, 
 and began to tell the story in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "I really have no word of apology 
 for myself, as I did such a dreadful 
 thing under a great misapprehension. 
 Thinking over it later I myself cannot 
 understand why such a thing has hap- 
 pened. It was really done in a rapture. 
 I lost my parents by pestilence when I 
 was small, and was left alone with my 
 younger brother. At first the people in 
 our neighborhood pitied us and we grew 
 22
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 up, without being starved or frozen, by 
 doing some errands and such things for 
 our neighbors. Even after we grad- 
 ually aged, when we searched after 
 work, we helped each other, trying not 
 to be separated as long as possible. 
 
 "It was the autumn of the last year. 
 I and my brother were employed at a 
 weaving establishment at Nishijin do- 
 ing a work which is called Karabuki, or 
 the dryer. Meanwhile my brother has 
 fallen sick so that he could not work 
 any more. At that time we were living 
 in a place like a temporary barn at 
 Kitayama and were going to the weav- 
 er's by crossing the bridge on the Kam- 
 iya river. When, in the evening, I came 
 home with the food and the other things, 
 my brother was waiting for me and al- 
 ways said that he must not let me work 
 
 alone. 
 
 23
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 "One day I came home as usual, 
 without any anxiety, and I found my 
 brother lying on the bed with the face 
 downward, and there was blood all 
 around him. I was surprised, and 
 throwing off the bamboo sheath pack- 
 ages of food and other things I ap- 
 proached him, saying: 'What is the 
 matter ! What is the matter !' Then my 
 brother lifted up his death-pale face 
 which was dyed with blood from cheeks 
 to chin, and saw me, but could not 
 speak. Only a hissing sound came out 
 from the wound each time he breathed. 
 As I could not understand this at all, 
 I tried to go nearer to him, saying: 
 'Say, what is the matter with you? Did 
 you vomit the blood?' My brother 
 raised up his body a bit, sustained by 
 his right hand on the bed, and his left 
 hand was clutching firmly a spot under 
 24
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 the chin, from which a clump of the 
 dark blood was flowing between the 
 fingers. Speaking to me with his eyes, 
 not to come nearer, he opened his 
 mouth. At last he was able to speak 
 some words. 'Pardon, please,' he said, 
 'as I thought this an incurable disease 
 I decided to quicken my death to give 
 my brother a little of ease. I thought I 
 could die if I cut the wind-pipe, but 
 only the breath came out. I tried to 
 thrust deeper, deeper, and it slipped 
 aside. It seems that the blade was not 
 broken. I may be able to die if you take 
 this out. It is so hard to speak. Help 
 me, please. Take it out.' 
 
 "When my brother loosened the hand 
 the breath came out again from the 
 wound. My voice was choked so that I 
 could not speak, and silently I looked 
 at the throat of my brother. It seemed 
 25
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 to me that he had cut across the wind- 
 pipe, but as he could not die by that, he 
 had thrust the razor into the throat as 
 if to gouge it. I saw about two inches 
 of the razor's handle. Thus far I 
 looked, but did not know what to do. 
 I only gazed at the face of my brother. 
 My brother was also gazing at me. 
 
 " 'Wait,' I said at last, 'I will run 
 for a doctor.' Then my brother looked 
 into my face with resentful eyes, and, 
 clutching again the throat firmly with 
 his left hand, he said: 'What can the 
 doctor do? Ah! it is painful! Quick, 
 take it out. I entreat you.' Feeling at 
 a loss, I was still looking at the face of 
 my brother. It is strange that the eyes 
 speak in such a time. My brother's 
 eyes urged: 'Do it quick, quick,' gaz- 
 ing at me with such a resentful look. 
 
 "I felt that the inside of my head was 
 26
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 turning around like a wheel, but the 
 eyes of my brother did not cease that 
 dreadful urging. Moreover, the re- 
 sentfulness of his eyes grew sharper and 
 sharper, until they became such fierce 
 eyes as those that glare at the face of 
 an enemy. Looking at this, I felt that 
 I must do as he asked, and I said: 'It 
 cannot be helped. I will take it out.' 
 Instantly the expression of my broth- 
 er's eyes changed, and he looked so 
 serene and happy. I thought I must do 
 it in one movement, so I bent my body 
 forward just as I was kneeling. My 
 brother let go his right hand with which 
 he was sustaining himself, and helped 
 by the hand which had clutched the 
 throat. Firmly I caught the handle of 
 the razor and drew it out. 
 
 "Just at that moment I saw, opening 
 the front door which I closed from 
 27
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 the inside, an old woman entering 
 the house. She was the old woman 
 whom I employed to attend to my 
 brother while I am away, to help him to 
 drink medicine and to do other such 
 things. As it was already dark in the 
 house, I do not know how much she had 
 seen there. Crying, 'Alas !' she ran out, 
 leaving the door opened. 
 
 "When I drew out the razor I took 
 care to draw it quickly and straightly. 
 But the unsteadiness of my hand was 
 such that I cut some part which was not 
 cut before. As the blade was facing to 
 the outside, it may have been that a part 
 on that side was cut. With razor 
 clasped in my hand, vacantly I was 
 looking at the old woman, coming in 
 and running out. It was after she went 
 away that I was awakened to myself, 
 and looked at my brother, who was al- 
 28
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 ready dead. A great deal of blood was 
 flowing from the wound. Thus I re- 
 mained gazing, with the razor beside 
 me, at the face of my brother, dead with 
 half -opened eyes, until the senators of 
 the town came and took me to the office." 
 
 When he had said this, Kisuke, who 
 told his story looking up to Shobei's 
 face, dropped his eyes. 
 
 The story of Kisuke was quite log- 
 ical. It may be almost well to say that 
 it was too logical. This came about be- 
 cause he had reflected on the affair 
 many times during about half a year, 
 and because he had to rehearse it each 
 time when he was required at the city 
 office, or before the court of the gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Listening to him, Shobei felt as if he 
 was looking at the very scene. But, 
 when the story was half told, a doubt 
 29
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 was raised in his mind. Was this really 
 a fratricide? He could not answer the 
 question even when he heard all of the 
 story. The brother had asked him to 
 draw out the razor because he thought 
 that he would be able to die if it was 
 drawn. So he drew it and let him die, 
 which may be considered as a murder. 
 But it seemed to Shobei that the 
 brother had to die even if he was left 
 in that condition. The reason that he 
 wanted to die sooner was that he could 
 not bear the anguish. Kisuke could not 
 bear to see it, and, intending to save 
 him from that anguish, he cut short the 
 life of his brother. Is this a crime? 
 Undoubtedly, the fact that he killed him 
 is a crime. But the doubt came here, 
 where Shobei thought that it was done 
 to save anguish. He could not solve it 
 by any means. 
 
 30
 
 TAKASE BUNE 
 
 After much reflection, there came 
 \ 
 
 into Shobei's mind a desire to put the 
 burden upon someone who was supe- 
 rior to him; it was the desire to follow 
 authority. Shobei wished to make the 
 judgment of the Honorable Magis- 
 trate like his own. But even when he 
 desired this, there was something in his 
 mind which he could not understand, 
 but somehow he wanted to ask the 
 Honorable Magistrate about it. 
 
 In the gloomy night, that declined 
 hour after hour, Takase bune, loaded 
 with two silent men, glided along upon 
 the surface of the dark water. 
 
 31
 
 HANAKO
 
 HANAKO 
 
 By MORI OGWAI 
 
 \ UGUSTE RODIN came into the 
 * ** studio. 
 
 The spacious room was filled with 
 sunshine. This Hotel Biron was a lux- 
 urious building, originally erected by a 
 certain rich man, but later on it be- 
 came a convent of the school of the 
 Sacred Heart, and remained so, until a 
 short time ago. Perhaps in this very 
 room the nuns of the Sacre Coeur called 
 together the girls of the Faubourg 
 Saint Germain and taught them their 
 hymns. Just as the little birds cry out 
 on seeing from their nest the mother ap- 
 35
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 preaching, so the little girls, standing in 
 rows and opening their mouths, may 
 have sung. 
 
 Those cheerful voices no longer may 
 be heard. 
 
 But another sort of cheerfulness is 
 reigning in this room, a different life is 
 dominating. It is a voiceless life, but 
 though voiceless, it is magnificent, pul- 
 sating and cultured. 
 
 There were several lumps of gypsum 
 on each of several tables. The master 
 is accustomed to begin several works at 
 a time, and to work on them intermit- 
 tently, according to his mood, until 
 complete. As various plants bloom at 
 the same time, so certain of his works 
 grow, like things in nature, some rap- 
 idly, some slowly. This man has a tre- 
 mendous perception of form. His 
 works are growing before his hands 
 36
 
 HANARO 
 
 touch them. This man has a tre- 
 mendous power of concentration. The 
 moment he begins a work he is able 
 to assume the attitude of continu- 
 ing a work begun some hours be- 
 fore. 
 
 With bright face Rodin looked over 
 the numerous half-completed works; 
 that face with a broad forehead, a nose 
 that seemed to have a joint in the mid- 
 dle ; a white, ample beard that crowded 
 about the chin. 
 
 There were knocks at the door. 
 
 "Entrez." 
 
 A deep, powerful voice, unlike that 
 of an old man, vibrated through the air 
 of the room. The man who entered the 
 door was a lean fellow of about thirty 
 years of age, with dark brown hair, and 
 a Jewish cast of countenance. 
 
 He announced that he was bringing 
 37
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 Mademoiselle Hanako as he had prom- 
 ised. 
 
 Rodin did not change his appearance 
 either when he saw the man entering 
 or when he heard the words. 
 
 Once when a chieftain from Cam- 
 bodia was staying in Paris, Rodin saw 
 a dancer whom this chieftain had 
 brought, and he felt a kind of attrac- 
 tion for the flexible movements of her 
 long slender limbs. The dessins taken 
 in haste are still in his possession. 
 Rodin believing, as in that case, that 
 every person has something of beauty 
 a beauty to one who discovers the 
 point had heard that a Japanese girl 
 called Hanako, had been on the stage at 
 the Variete, for several days. Through 
 a mediator he asked the man who had 
 charge of Hanako to bring her to his 
 house. 
 
 38
 
 HANARO 
 
 The man who had come was the man- 
 ager, the impresario. 
 
 "Let her come hither," Rodin said. 
 
 It was not merely from lack of time 
 that he neglected to show him to a chair. 
 
 "I have brought an interpreter with 
 us," the man said, as if to learn his 
 humor. 
 
 "Who is he? Is he a Frenchman?" 
 
 "No, a Japanese who works at L'ln- 
 stitut Pasteur. He heard from Hanako 
 that she was called to you, and desired 
 to come as interpreter." 
 
 "All right. Let him enter also." 
 
 Instantly, two Japanese, a man and a 
 woman, entered the room. Both of 
 them looked peculiarly small. The 
 manager, who followed and closed the 
 door, was not a tall man, but the two 
 Japanese reached only to his ears. 
 
 Rodin's face wrinkled about the eyes, 
 39
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 the wrinkles which seem to be carved 
 at the inner corner, when he looks at 
 things intently. The wrinkles showed 
 at this time. His gaze moved from the 
 student to Hanako, and stayed there 
 for a while. The student saluted, and 
 grasped the right hand Rodin offered, 
 the hand on which each sinew stood on 
 the surface, the hand that had created 
 La Danaide, Le Bcdser, and Le Pen- 
 seur. And, taking out a card on which 
 Kubota, M. P., was written, he deliv- 
 ered it to Rodin. 
 
 Rodin glanced at the card, and 
 said : 
 
 "Are you working at L'lnstitut Pas- 
 teur?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Have you been there for some 
 time?" 
 
 "Avez-vous bien travailU?" 
 40
 
 HANAKO 
 
 Kubota was surprised. He had been 
 told that Rodin says this as a habit. 
 Now, these simple words were spoken 
 directly to him. 
 
 "Oui, beaucoup, monsieur!" 
 
 At the moment he said this, Kubota 
 felt as if he were swearing to be diligent 
 for life. 
 
 Kubota introduced Hanako. Rodin 
 looked down as if to comprehend her 
 with a glance of the eye, and he saw 
 the small, trim body of Hanako from 
 the unbecomingly dressed hair of Taka- 
 shimada, to the tips of her feet in white 
 Tabi and in Chiyoda sandals, and he 
 reached forth and took the tiny but ro- 
 bust hand. 
 
 Kubota could not but feel in his mind 
 
 a sort of humility. He wished that he 
 
 had a finer person to introduce to Rodin 
 
 as a Japanese woman. His feeling was 
 
 41
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 not unreasonable, for Hanako was not 
 a beauty. She had appeared in the 
 European cities as a Japanese actress, 
 but the Japanese themselves knew 
 nothing of such an actress. Of course, 
 Kubota also knew nothing about her. 
 Moreover, the actress was not a beauty. 
 It might be too severe to call her a serv- 
 ant. She did not seem to have worked 
 especially hard, for her hands and feet 
 were not hardened. But even at her 
 bloom of seventeen, her appearance 
 would hardly rank her as a chamber- 
 maid. In a word, she was not more 
 presentable than a nursery maid. 
 
 Unexpectedly, Rodin's face showed a 
 glow of satisfaction. He was pleased 
 with Hanako; healthy, with no sign of 
 indulgence in leisure; with firm, elastic 
 flesh, well-developed by proper exer- 
 cise characteristics that were vividly 
 42
 
 HANAKO 
 
 shown in the face, short from forehead 
 to chin, in the bare wrists and gloveless 
 hands, and in the thin skin which showed 
 not a particle of fat. 
 
 Hanako, who was already accus- 
 tomed to European manners, took the 
 hand of Rodin with an amiable smile on 
 her face. 
 
 Rodin offered chairs to both of them, 
 and said to the manager: 
 
 "Please wait for us a while in the 
 parlor.'* 
 
 After the manager was gone, they sat 
 down. 
 
 Offering the uncovered box of cigars 
 to Kubota, Rodin said to Hanako: 
 
 "Are there any mountains or sea at 
 Mademoiselle's home?'* 
 
 Hanako, as is common among the 
 women in such a profession, had a regu- 
 lar stereotyped story of her life, which 
 43
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 she told to persons whenever she was 
 questioned. Just as in the case of the 
 little girl in Zola's "Lourdes," who re- 
 lates the miracle of the recovery of her 
 injured feet in the train, her story be- 
 came, through frequent repetition, like 
 the composition of the routine story- 
 teller. Fortunately, the unexpected 
 question of Rodin upset this ready- 
 made plan. 
 
 "The mountain is at a distance. The 
 sea is close by." 
 
 The answer pleased Rodin. 
 
 "Did you ride on junks frequently?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Did you row yourself?" 
 
 "No, sir. I did not row as I was still 
 small. My father rowed." 
 
 A picture came into Rodin's imagi- 
 nation, and he became silent for a while. 
 Rodin is a man who is often silent. 
 44
 
 HANARO 
 
 Rodin said abruptly to Kubota: 
 
 "I presume Mademoiselle is ac- 
 quainted with my profession. Would 
 she be willing to remove her cloth- 
 ing?" 
 
 Kubota reflected a moment. Of 
 course he did not wish to be instru- 
 mental in causing a woman of his own 
 country to bare herself before another 
 man, but he did not object to daring it 
 for Rodin. There was no need on his 
 part for reflection; his hesitation was 
 due to the doubt as to what Hanako 
 would say. 
 
 "Anyway, I will speak to her." 
 
 "If you please." 
 
 Kubota addressed Hanako in this 
 manner. 
 
 "The master has something to con- 
 sult you about. I think you under- 
 stand that he is the peerless sculptor of 
 45
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 the world, and models the shape of the 
 human body. This is the point about 
 which he wishes to consult you. He 
 wishes to know if you will oblige him 
 by posing to him in the nude for a few 
 moments. What do you say? As you 
 see, he is an elderly man, not far from 
 seventy ; moreover, he is such a fine gen- 
 tleman. What do you think?" 
 
 Thus saying, Kubota looked atten- 
 tively into Hanako's face. He was 
 wondering whether she would be over- 
 come with shame, or affect airs, or 
 blame him. 
 
 "I will," she replied frankly and 
 naively. 
 
 "She consents," Kubota told Rodin. 
 
 Rodin's face shone with pleasure, and 
 rising up from the chair, he took out 
 paper and chalk, and said to Kubota as 
 he laid them on the table: 
 46
 
 HANARO 
 
 "Will you stay here?" 
 
 "The same thing is sometimes neces- 
 sary in my profession," said Kubota, 
 "but it might be unpleasant to Made- 
 moiselle." 
 
 "Then, will you wait there in the li- 
 brary? I shall be through within fif- 
 teen or twenty minutes. Light a cigar, 
 if you like." 
 
 "He says he will be through within 
 fifteen or twenty minutes." Saying 
 these words to Hanako, Kubota went 
 out through the door shown him. 
 
 The small chamber into which Ku- 
 bota stepped, had entrances on either 
 side, and only one window. Book- 
 cases were on the wall opposite the win- 
 dow, and on the other walls that con- 
 stituted its wings. 
 
 Kubota stood a while reading the 
 47
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 titles on the leather bindings of the 
 books. This was a collection which had 
 been assembled rather by chance than 
 by intention. Rodin was by nature a 
 book lover, and it is said that he was 
 always carrying a book in his hand even 
 in his young days of misery, when he 
 was roaming the streets of Brussels. 
 Among the old dusty books there must 
 be some of varied memories and 
 brought here with purpose. 
 
 As the ashes of his cigar were about 
 to fall, Kubota walked toward the 
 table and dropped the ashes in the re- 
 ceiver. 
 
 And, wondering what were the 
 books on the table, he took them up 
 to see. 
 
 On the furtherest edge of the table, 
 leaning against the window, was a book 
 which Kubota took to be the Bible, but, 
 48
 
 HANAKO 
 
 on opening it, he found that it was the 
 edition de poche of the "Divinna 
 Comedia." The book aslant was one 
 of the works of Baudelaire. 
 
 Without any idea of reading, he 
 opened the first page, on which there 
 was a treatise entitled "The Meta- 
 physics of the Toy," and, wondering 
 what was in it, he all at once began to 
 read. 
 
 The treatise opened with this mem- 
 ory, that when Baudelaire was a little 
 boy he was taken to a certain demoiselle 
 who had a room full of toys, and told 
 he might have his choice. After a child 
 has played with a toy for a while, he is 
 possessed to break it. He wonders 
 what there is beyond the thing. If it be 
 a moving toy, he wishes to search after 
 the origin of the impulse. Hence the 
 child goes from Physique to Meta- 
 49
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 physique, from science to metaphysics. 
 As it was only four or five pages, 
 Kubota, becoming interested, read 
 through to the end. 
 
 Then there was a knock; the door 
 opened and Rodin's white-haired head 
 peeped through. 
 
 "Pardon me. You must be tired." 
 "No, sir, I was reading Baudelaire." 
 Saying thus, Kubota entered the 
 studio. Hanako was already dressed. 
 Two esquisses were lying on the table. 
 
 "What of Baudelaire were you read- 
 ing?" 
 
 " 'The Metaphysics of the Toy.' " 
 "The same idea pertains to the human 
 body, that the form is not interesting 
 simply because it is a form. It is a 
 mirror of the soul. The inner flame, 
 showing transparently through the 
 form, alone is interesting." 
 50
 
 HANAKO 
 
 When Kubota looked timidly at the 
 esquisseSj Rodin said: 
 
 "They must be hard to understand, 
 as they are so rough." 
 
 He continued after a moment: 
 
 "Mademoiselle has an exceedingly 
 beautiful body. She has not a particle 
 of fat. Each muscle rises on the sur- 
 face like the muscle of a fox terrier. As 
 the fibers are tight and thick, the size 
 of the joints is made the same as the 
 size of the limbs. They are so firm that 
 she could stand on one leg while the 
 other is stretched at a right angle, like a 
 tree that has its roots thrust deep in 
 the earth. This is different from the 
 Mediterranean type with broad shoul- 
 ders and loins, and does not resemble 
 the North European type with broad 
 loins, but narrow shoulders* It is the 
 beauty of strength." 
 51
 
 THE PIER
 
 THE PIER 
 By MORI OGWAI 
 
 pier is long leng - 
 The rails of four railroads cut 
 straight and obliquely the beams of the 
 iron bridge on which the long and short 
 cross-beams are like the bars of a xylo- 
 phone on which children play. Through 
 the cracks of the cross-beams, that al- 
 most catch the heels of shoes and 
 wooden clogs, here and there the black 
 waves are shown, reflected on the white 
 flashes of sunshine. 
 
 The sky has cleared into a deep blue. 
 On the inside of the train where she 
 was sitting with her husband starting 
 55
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 to-day, she did not think the wind was 
 blowing. 
 
 When leaving the jinrikisha, in which 
 she rode from the station of Yoko- 
 hama, and standing on this pier, she 
 found that the wind of the fifth of 
 March was still blowing as if to bite 
 the skin, fluttering the skirts of the 
 Azuma coat. 
 
 It is the Azuma coat in silver gray, 
 which she loosely wears on her body, 
 that carries the child of her husband, 
 who is starting to-day, this day which 
 is not far from the month of confine- 
 ment. 
 
 She came with her hair in Sokuhatsu. 
 Her boa is of white ostrich. Holding 
 the light green umbrella with tassels, 
 she walks along, surrounded by four or 
 five maidservants. 
 
 * 
 
 The pier is long long 
 56
 
 THE PIER 
 
 The big ships are anchoring on the 
 right and the left of the pier. Some are 
 painted in black, some in white. 
 
 The anchored ships are making a 
 fence for the wind. Every time she 
 leaves the place where there are ships, 
 a gust of wind blows and flutters the 
 skirts of her Azuma coat. 
 
 Two years ago, immediately after he 
 was graduated from the university of 
 literature, the count, her husband, had 
 married her. It was during the previ- 
 ous year that she gave birth to her first 
 child, a princess like a jewel. At the 
 end of the year the husband became a 
 Master of Ceremonies at the Court. 
 And, now, he is starting to London, 
 charged with his official duty. 
 
 In his newly made gray overcoat, 
 flinging the cane with crooked handle, 
 her husband is walking rapidly along 
 57
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 the pier. The viscount, who is going 
 with him, and whose height is taller by 
 a head than his, also walks rapidly be- 
 side him, clad in a suit of similar color. 
 
 The French ship, on which her hus- 
 band is about to go abroad, is anchor- 
 ing at the extreme end of the right side 
 of the pier. 
 
 A stool, like that which is used to 
 repair the wires of a trolley, is stationed 
 on the pier, and from it a gangplank is 
 laid across to the bulwark. 
 
 While walking slowly, she sees her 
 husband and the viscount, his compan- 
 ion, crossing the gangplank and enter- 
 ing the ship. 
 
 The group of people looking after 
 them are standing, here and there, on 
 the pier. Almost all of them are those 
 who came to bid adieu to her husband 
 and the viscount. Perhaps there are no 
 58
 
 THE PIER 
 
 other passengers on this ship about to 
 sail who are so important and are 
 looked at by so many people. 
 
 Some of them are going to the foot of 
 the stool on which the gangplank is laid, 
 and stop there to wait for their com- 
 panions. Some of them are standing at 
 the place, a bit before the stool, where 
 the blocks and ropes are laid down. 
 
 Among these people there must be 
 some who are intimately known to her 
 husband, and some who know him but 
 slightly. But, standing under this clear 
 sky, they all seem dejected; or is it only 
 her fancy? 
 
 The pier is long long 
 
 Following slowly after them, uncon- 
 sciously she looks off to her right where 
 there were many round windows on the 
 side of the ship. The faces and chests 
 of women are seen from one of those 
 59
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 round windows. Three of them are 
 from thirty to forty years of age; all 
 with white aprons on their chests. They 
 must be the waitresses of the ship. Sup- 
 posing them to be the waitresses who 
 wait on the passengers of the ship, on 
 which her husband is on board, she feels 
 envious of even those humble women. 
 
 There is also a woman at the bul- 
 wark, looking down on the pier, who 
 wears a big bonnet with white cloth and 
 carries a small leather bag in her hand. 
 Two big eyes, as if painted with shad- 
 ows, are shining on her wrinkled face 
 above the large nose, like a hook. She 
 looks like a Jewess. She also must be 
 a traveler who is going on this ship. 
 She is also envious of her. 
 
 The pier is long long 
 
 At last she arrives at the foot of the 
 gangplank. Cautiously she carries her 
 60
 
 THE PIER 
 
 body, which has the second infant of her 
 husband under the Azuma coat, and 
 descends on the deck of the big, black- 
 painted ship. She hands the umbrella 
 to a maidservant. 
 
 Led by the people who have come to 
 say farewell and were already on board, 
 she goes back along the bulwark toward 
 the prow. There are rooms for pas- 
 sengers at the end of the way, the num- 
 bers of which increase from twenty- 
 seven to twenty-nine. 
 
 The viscount is standing at the en- 
 trance and addresses her. 
 
 "This is the room, madam." 
 
 Peeping into the room she finds two 
 beds, under which the familiar packages 
 and trunks are deposited. Her hus- 
 band is standing before one of the beds. 
 
 "Look it through, madam. It is like 
 
 this.'* 
 
 61
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 This is the room; she must look 
 through it carefully. During the long, 
 long voyage of her husband, this is the 
 room where her dreams must come and 
 go. 
 
 A man, who looks like the captain, 
 comes, and, addressing her husband in 
 French, guides him to the saloon of the 
 ship. She follows her husband and the 
 viscount and enters the room. 
 
 This is a spacious and beautiful saloon. 
 Several tables are arranged, each bear- 
 ing a flower basket. . . . Gradually the 
 people who came to say farewell gather 
 into the room. 
 
 By the order of this man, who looks 
 like the captain, a waiter brings forth 
 many cups in the shape of morning- 
 glories, and, pouring champagne into 
 them, he distributes them among the 
 people. Another waiter brings cakes, 
 62
 
 THE PIER 
 
 like those which are brought with ice 
 cream, piled on a plate in the form of 
 the well crib, and distributes them 
 among the people. 
 
 The people who received the cups go 
 one after another, and stand before her 
 husband and the viscount, wishing them 
 a happy voyage, and drink from the 
 cups. 
 
 Sitting on a small chair beside the 
 table, she is waiting for the time when 
 the congratulations are at the end. 
 During his busy moments, now and 
 then, her husband lifts his eyes to her. 
 
 However, there is no more to be said 
 to her before many people. Also, there 
 is no more to be said to him, before 
 many people. 
 
 The bell rings. Having bidden fare- 
 well to her husband and to the viscount 
 the people are going out, one after an- 
 63
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 other. She also follows them, saluting 
 her husband and the viscount. 
 
 Again crossing the dangerous gang- 
 plank, she descends to the pier. She 
 received the light green umbrella from 
 the hand of her maidservant, and raises 
 it. 
 
 Her husband and the viscount are 
 standing on the bulwark, looking in 
 her direction. She is looking up at 
 them from under her umbrella. She 
 feels that her eyes, as she looks up, 
 are growing gradually larger and 
 larger. 
 
 Again the bell rings. A few French 
 sailors begin to untie the rope from the 
 gangplank. A Japanese laborer in 
 Hanten is standing on the stool like that 
 which is used in repairing the trolley, 
 preparing to draw down the gangplank. 
 Hanging on the rope of the wheel, 
 64
 
 THE PIER 
 
 pulled by the man in Hanten, the gang- 
 plank at last leaves the bulwark. 
 
 The noon-gun of the city of Yoko- 
 hama resounds. With this as a signal, 
 the ship, from the hold of which for 
 some time a noise has been issuing, si- 
 lently begins to move. 
 
 The elderly Europeans, who seem to 
 be a married couple, are standing at the 
 bulwark. They are talking about some- 
 thing of a jolly nature with a white- 
 haired old man who is standing on the 
 pier, with one of his feet placed on an 
 apparatus, to roll the ropes, which 
 looks like a big bobbin. They do not 
 seem to regret the parting. 
 
 It looks as if the ship is moving. It 
 looks as if the pier is moving. There 
 seems to be the distance of a Pallaraxe 
 between the place where her husband 
 and the viscount are standing and the 
 65
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 place where she is standing. She feels 
 her eyes growing larger and larger. 
 
 Some of the people who are looking 
 after them are running to the end of the 
 pier. She cannot do such an immodest 
 thing. Suddenly something white 
 waves at the bulwark. It was a hand- 
 kerchief waved by the hand of a woman 
 who wears a big bonnet decorated with 
 a white cloth. A tall man stands at the 
 end of the pier, in red waistcoat and 
 tan shoes. A white handkerchief 
 waves also from the hand of this man. 
 This also must be a parting in human 
 life. 
 
 These two persons set the fashion, 
 and the handkerchiefs are waved here 
 and there. White things are waving 
 also from the people who are looking 
 after the group surrounding the count. 
 She also grasps the batiste handkerchief 
 66
 
 THE PIER 
 
 which she has brought in her sleeve, 
 but she cannot do such an immodest 
 thing. 
 
 When the ship seemed to have left 
 the pier, it turned its prow a bit to the 
 right. The place where her husband 
 and the viscount were standing has dis- 
 appeared at last. 
 
 Still she can see a boy about fifteen 
 or sixteen, standing at the stern, in a 
 blue, cold-looking garment like a blouse. 
 What mother is waiting for him in 
 France? Or, has he no parents? What 
 is he looking at, standing by the rail at 
 the stern? 
 
 Slowly she turned her feet and 
 walked among the maidservants sur- 
 rounding her. 
 
 The pier is long long 
 
 At the place where the black-painted 
 ship was anchored, until a short time 
 67
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 ago, the water is glittering like the 
 scales of fish, as the small ripples are 
 reflecting the pale sunshine. 
 
 68
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 By NAGAI KAFU 
 
 T NSTANTLY after she got up from 
 -* the bed where she was sleeping 
 with Omatsu, her companion, Oyo put 
 on her narrow-sleeved Hanten as usual, 
 and, wrapping her head with a towel in 
 the manner of the "sister's cap," she 
 began to sweep the parlor. 
 
 Oyo is the maidservant in Kinugawa, 
 an assignation house. 
 
 As they had guests in the inner room 
 of Yojohan, who had been lodging 
 there since the evening before, Oyo 
 wiped up every place with the dust 
 cloth except that room, including the 
 71
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 railings and stairways of the first floor. 
 Coming down to the fireplace near the 
 counter she found the mistress, with 
 toothbrush in her mouth, already un- 
 covering the charcoal fire of the previ- 
 ous evening. In contrast to the dark, 
 humid interior where the odor of wine 
 seemed to drift from somewhere, the 
 winter sunshine glittering on the oppo- 
 site side of the street and through the 
 frosted-glass screen of the front lattice 
 gate, looked quite warm and cheerful. 
 As soon as the mistress saw Oyo, who 
 was bidding her "Good-morning," she 
 said all at once : 
 
 "Now, Oyo, I wish you would go 
 directly after breakfast, as the place is 
 far." 
 
 Being thus ordered, Oyo took up her 
 chopsticks for breakfast, eating before 
 Omatsu and Otetsu the cook. After 
 72
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 having finished her toilet and changed 
 her dress, and listening again to the in- 
 structions and messages from the mis- 
 tress, she started. It was almost seven 
 o'clock when she set out in the new 
 wooden clogs that were given her by the 
 regular geisha girls as a present at the 
 end of the last year, and she heard the 
 voice of the cook-supplier at the kitch- 
 en, the man who came to get the plates 
 and bowls. 
 
 Oyo went out by the familiar short- 
 cut through the lane between the 
 houses of the geisha girls. Coming out 
 into the open street of Ginza, which was 
 filled with sunshine, she looked around 
 her as though surprised at the new ap- 
 pearance of things. Her bosom pul- 
 sated to the sounds of trolleys passing 
 by, and she not only felt that she had 
 forgotten all the messages charged by 
 73
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 the mistress, but even the route which 
 she thought she had understood well 
 when she left home. She became con- 
 fused, so that the way seemed further 
 than she had supposed. 
 
 It had been five years since Oyo en- 
 tered service, in the autumn, at the age 
 of fourteen, at Kinugawa, the assigna- 
 tion house. She had been at Hakone 
 and at Enoshima, she knew Haneda 
 and the shrine of Narita, but it was 
 only as an attendant of the guests and 
 geisha girls in the great carousels of 
 many people that she went to these 
 places. Once, though she was a woman, 
 she had walked alone through the night 
 with two or three hundred yen in cash 
 in her sash. But it was not further 
 than a few blocks where she went to an 
 accustomed bank on behalf of the mis- 
 tress. It was only once or twice in a 
 74
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 year that she rode a really long distance 
 by trolley, to visit her home at Minami- 
 Senju for holiday. 
 
 To a woman of down-town who 
 knows nothing about the suburbs of To- 
 kyo, except Fukagawa, Shinagawa, and 
 Asakusa, even to hear the name of 
 Okubo in the uptown district where 
 Oyo was going to-day to collect the bill, 
 caused her to imagine a place where 
 foxes and badgers live. As she also 
 felt fearful that she might not be able 
 to return home that day if she did not 
 catch the trolley as soon as possible, she 
 hurried to the square of Owaricho, not 
 even stopping at the beautiful show 
 windows of Matsuya, and Mikamiya 
 and Tenshodo. 
 
 "Good-morning, Maid Oyo!" 
 Suddenly, being thus addressed from 
 the crowd which was waiting for the 
 75
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 trolley, Oyo turned back and saw an 
 employed girl of Tamaomiya, who had 
 her hair dressed in Hisashigami and 
 wore the half -coat of Koki silk. 
 
 "Kimi chan. Going to temple?" 
 
 As is a habit of woman, Oyo looked 
 at the hair and clothing of this geisha 
 girl, which was not particularly un- 
 usual. 
 
 "No. I have a patient at home," 
 Kimi chan, the employed girl, said 
 apologetically, as though answering the 
 question of the employer. "Where are 
 you going?" 
 
 "To the place called Okubo. I was 
 told to take the Shinjuku line. Is this 
 the place to wait for it?" 
 
 "Shinjuku. . . . Then it is on the 
 other side. You must take the car from 
 the other side of the street." 
 
 "Oh!" Oyo cried, with such a loud 
 76
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 voice that she surprised herself. And 
 as if she could not hear the formal salu- 
 tation of the employed girl, "Please 
 keep me in mind again . . ." she 
 crossed the square to the other side al- 
 most in rapture. Though it was a win- 
 ter morning her forehead perspired. 
 Having heaved a sigh of relief before 
 the glass door of the Cafe Lion, Oyo 
 turned back with a wonder-stricken 
 look to the other side of the street where 
 was the clock on the roof of the Hattori 
 clock store, thinking that it was a mar- 
 velous thing that she was not killed in 
 the midst of the square where so many 
 trolleys are crossing. By that time the 
 employed girl of Tama-omiya, almost 
 crushed among the crowds on the con- 
 ductor's platform, went away toward 
 the Mihara bridge, and though many al- 
 most empty cars followed it, the only 
 77
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 thing that passed the tracks where Oyo 
 was waiting was a lumbering horse 
 truck loaded with casks. The sidewalk 
 near to the Cafe Lion was so filled with 
 persons waiting for transfers that they 
 overflowed on to the street pavement. 
 Unconsciously, Oyo looked at the blue 
 sky of winter, calling to mind the clock 
 on the roof of Hattori's building, which 
 pointed to half-past eleven. She be- 
 came so impatient that she felt she 
 could not wait any longer. The com- 
 plaints of the persons who were wait- 
 ing for transfers, speaking in loud 
 voices, the breaking of the wires or the 
 stoppage of the electric current, dis- 
 turbed her as though it were the an- 
 nouncement of a fire burning her house. 
 Exhausted by waiting, Oyo, like the 
 others, leaned against the glass door of 
 the Cafe and hung her head. Suddenly 
 78
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 becoming conscious of a commotion, 
 Oyo also ran in order not to be too late 
 for the car, but, being only a helpless 
 woman, she could hardly approach the 
 first car. Even the next one she missed, 
 for a big man of dark complexion, 
 crossing in from the side, had pushed 
 her away when her foot was already on 
 the step. Moreover, her side lock of 
 Ichogaeshi was rubbed up by the sleeve 
 of the double manteau with great force. 
 
 "Now I won't mind what becomes of 
 me. I will wait even half a day, or a 
 day, as long as they want me to wait." 
 
 Oyo, who had already become des- 
 perate, purposely followed behind the 
 crowd, to take the next approaching 
 car. 
 
 When they came to Hibiya park, a 
 seat was left, so Oyo could at last rest 
 her tired back. Then the inside of the 
 79
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 car was calmer and the streets outside 
 opened out and became more quiet, and 
 in the warmth of the inside of the car, 
 with the sun shining on the back of her 
 neck and shoulders, she nodded involun- 
 tarily with the light jolting of the car. 
 The fatigue of the body, which has to 
 work every night until one o'clock at 
 the earliest, pressed on her eyelids all at 
 once. As Oyo is the favorite servant of 
 the mistress, raised by her from child- 
 hood, she must help her not only in the 
 parlor of the guests, but also as cham- 
 bermaid. To be made a companion in 
 the late drinking of the guest in her 
 busy time is bearable, but the most dis- 
 gusting thing is the troublesome task 
 of washing clean, in a hot-water cup, 
 the whole set of artificial teeth of a guest 
 nearly sixty years of age, every time 
 
 after his meal. 
 
 80
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 In a short time there were indi- 
 cations of the stopping of the car and 
 passengers coming and going, Oyo 
 awakened all at once, surprised, and 
 looked out of the window. She saw a 
 leafy tree, a high bank and a low bridge 
 on the waterless moat. The conduc- 
 tors, enough to frighten her, were as- 
 sembled in front of the new house at 
 the corner. Many empty cars were left 
 as if they were to be given away. With 
 this sight of unfamiliar streets, Oyo felt 
 unutterable helplessness. She became 
 anxious about the thing in her sash, 
 fearing that it had been stolen in her 
 absent-minded moments. Also she 
 doubted whether this was the place to 
 leave the car. Impatiently she moved 
 a bit from the end and said : 
 "Please, what is this place?" 
 The high-boned, flat-faced, slant- 
 81
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 eyed conductor, who seemed to perceive 
 the embarrassed figure of Oyo by a 
 glance, did not move from the plat- 
 form. Shrugging his shoulders, as if 
 cold, and turning his head to the other 
 side, he pulled the bell so that Oyo, who 
 had left her seat, was upset by the mov- 
 ing car and thrown with all the weight 
 of her body on the lap of a man look- 
 ing like a foreman of the laborers, who 
 was sitting near to the entrance. Feel- 
 ing abashed, Oyo tried to get up 
 quickly; she noticed that a big arm, as 
 heavy as iron, was laid on her back as if 
 to embrace her body; she struggled with 
 all her might. 
 
 "Ehelhelhe!" 
 
 With the vile, frightful laughter 
 there was a smell of wine. 
 
 "How can I stand it when I am held 
 fast by a girl!" 
 
 82
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 "What good luck to have!" chanted 
 one of the group that was sitting on the 
 other side, and they burst into laughter. 
 
 Oyo flushed like fire, and wished even 
 to jump out of the moving car. After 
 that she felt that all the eyes in the car 
 were looking constantly at her. Even 
 then, she had not gained her composure 
 after the fright of the moment when 
 she felt herself closely embraced by a 
 laborer. All at once Oyo became con- 
 scious that no one in the car was dressed 
 like her in Meisen silk, with folds laid 
 somewhat loose, gray Hawori with an 
 embroidered crest on it, and an apron 
 of Itob'ri neatly tied. All the other 
 women were in Hisashigami and in 
 close folds, and most of the men pas- 
 sengers were soldiers. Her helpless- 
 ness riding among these unknown peo- 
 ple became more keen. Just at the time 
 83
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 when she was about to ask the con- 
 ductor, who came to inspect the trans- 
 fer tickets, regarding the station before 
 Shinjuku, her embarrassment and 
 helplessness became all but overwhelm- 
 ing. 
 
 "This is the Awoyama line, Miss. If 
 you wish to go to Shinjuku, there is no 
 other way but to transfer at Awoyama 
 Itchome, and again at Shiocho." 
 Throwing the transfer ticket on the lap 
 of Oyo, the conductor hurried to fix the 
 dislocated pole. 
 
 As she had understood that she could 
 go all the way without transfering, Oyo, 
 on hearing that she had to transfer not 
 once but twice, felt as if she was thrown 
 at last into the labyrinthine jungle of 
 Yawata.
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 II 
 
 After going here and there, Oyo was 
 able at last to realize that Tenmacho 
 Nichome was the station before Shin- 
 juku. How far would the troubles of 
 the unknown route continue? Oyo re- 
 gretted that she had come, and thought 
 that she would never again go on an 
 errand to an unknown place, no matter 
 how she might be scolded. It is far bet- 
 ter to stay at home with the sweeping, 
 and to dry the bed-clothes or to wash 
 the Yukata to offer to the guests. In 
 this broad street, more bustling than she 
 could have expected, she could not tell 
 whether she had to turn to the right or 
 to the left. Nevertheless, as she could 
 not stand in the middle of the street, she 
 was thinking about paying her own 
 85
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 money secretly to ride in a Kuruma, 
 when she saw a Kurumaya from the 
 stand, and asked him how much she 
 would have to pay to ride to Okubo. 
 
 "Give me fifty sen." 
 
 "Don't fool me." 
 
 Being much provoked, Oyo did not 
 even turn to the Kurumaya, who called 
 out something to her from her back, and 
 walked aimlessly to a side street. See- 
 ing a little girl with tucks at her shoul- 
 ders in front of a tobacco shop, she 
 asked in an almost weeping tone: 
 
 "Please, my girl, will you kindly let 
 me know how to get to Yochomachi of 
 Okubo?" 
 
 "Yochomachi?" said the girl cheer- 
 fully, "Go straight this way, and going 
 down a slope you will find a policeman's 
 post. . . . You had better ask at the 
 policeman's post." 
 
 86
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 Oyo felt revived for the first time. 
 "Thank you ever so much." 
 Putting an overwhelming sentiment 
 of thanks into these simple words, Oyo 
 walked away, looking curiously at the 
 sights on both sides of the somewhat 
 narrow street. There was a European 
 building for moving pictures on one 
 side. From the lane near to the build- 
 ing a few geisha girls came out, laugh- 
 ing about something in loud voices. 
 Looking at them, Oyo wondered: 
 "Why are there geisha girls in such a 
 place?" Suddenly she heard a tremen- 
 dous noise. Before she could think 
 what was the matter, she saw many sol- 
 diers on horseback riding from the open 
 street to this narrow side street. There 
 was the gate of a temple at one side of 
 the beginning of the slope, and, taking 
 advantage of an open place, Oyo was 
 87
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 fortunate enough to get out of the way. 
 She saw six or seven men employed on 
 the telegraph wires, squatting on the 
 earth, eating their luncheon. A bam- 
 boo ladder was leaned against a wire 
 pole on the other side of the street. 
 
 "Hello! .The beauty!" 
 
 Their teasing started Oyo running 
 away in embarrassment. 
 
 "We are receiving an extraordinary 
 Benten." 
 
 "Hey, my girl! May I offer you a 
 glass?" 
 
 Some of them were looking intently 
 at the folds of her skirts. They could 
 not contain themselves any longer, when 
 a sudden wind had brushed aside the 
 skirts of her underclothes. All of them 
 burst in at once. 
 
 "Luck to see!" 
 
 "It is worth two yen at Sinjuku!" 
 88
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 "The red clothes are said to keep 
 long!" And they continued to say 
 things which were unbearable to hear. 
 But is not the procession of the soldiers 
 endless, stirring up the sand on all 
 sides? And how much Oyo wished to 
 escape ! 
 
 Oyo finally got away from the place 
 and went down the slope, almost run- 
 ning, when she suddenly stumbled on a 
 stone and hardly kept from falling. In 
 front of it she saw something that 
 looked like a squirming heap of rags, 
 which said: 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen, passing by, 
 please, a penny . . ." 
 
 Two or three leper beggars, at whom 
 one could not bear to look a second time, 
 were making bows on the sand of the 
 street. The town at the foot of the 
 slope was visible, with the dirty roofs 
 89
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 in confusion, at the bottom of the val- 
 ley-like lowland. Oyo wondered with- 
 out any reason whether the town over 
 yonder was the outcasts' quarter. 
 
 Going down the slope and turning to 
 the left as she was instructed by the girl 
 of the tobacco shop she easily found a 
 policeman's post. As a policeman who 
 looked good-natured was standing in 
 the middle of the street, she asked him 
 her route. 
 
 "What number of Yochomachi is it?" 
 
 "It is number sixty-two. The house 
 is Mr. Inuyama's." 
 
 "Number sixty-two then you have 
 to go straight along this way, and go up 
 the slope before a big wine-shop." 
 
 "I see." 
 
 "And let me see, is it the third side 
 street after you go straight up the 
 slope? . . . You turn there to the left, 
 90
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 where you will find number sixty-two." 
 
 "Much obliged to you." 
 
 Before she had gone less than half a 
 block, she found a wine-shop that looked 
 like the one she was told about, and 
 also a slope, so she thought rest of the 
 route was quite short. Feeling some- 
 what proud that she had come this far 
 alone without the Kuruma or without 
 going much out of the way, she forgot 
 a while even the fatigue of her legs, but 
 when she began to go up the slope, she 
 had to meet another unexpected trouble. 
 
 Though the down-town district had 
 had such continuous clear weather that 
 it was annoyed by the dust, the up-town 
 quarter of the city seemed to have had 
 rain the night before and the street, 
 which was not broad, was so deep in 
 mud that Oyo could not even find the 
 sidewalk. By the time she discovered 
 91
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 that the mud was melting frost, which 
 had not had time to dry, not only the 
 toes of her new wooden clogs, but also 
 her white socks newly washed, were all 
 splashed with mud. On one side of the 
 road was the bank covered with sepiaria 
 and on the other side was a cryptomeria 
 hedge, where, taking advantage of the 
 fact that there were no passers-by, Oyo 
 took out her pocket-papers and wiped, 
 she knew not how often, the mud from 
 the mat lining of her wooden clogs. As 
 she glanced up she thought the third 
 side street to which she had been di- 
 rected by the policeman might be the 
 corner she sought. 
 
 92
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 III 
 
 The mud of the melting frost became 
 harder and harder. A big, masterless 
 dog was roaming about with a menacing 
 look. The rasping sounds of a violin 
 were heard. The dreary sigh of the 
 wind came from the trees near by. Far 
 at the end of the side street the ground 
 seemed to slope again, and, though the 
 winter sunshine was falling gently on 
 the roofs of the new houses and on the 
 deep forest that covered the rears of all 
 the houses, either side of the road was 
 dark in shade, and all the houses were 
 surrounded with fences of four-inch 
 boards. Each had a small gate contain- 
 ing a slide-door, the faces of which 
 were smeared with mud that had not 
 been washed off, which seemed to 
 93
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 have been placed there in mischief 
 by the boys in the neighborhood. 
 
 The number and name of the house, 
 which Oyo found at last, after examin- 
 ing all the labels on the houses on both 
 sides, was on the support of the small 
 gate, where the mud was splashed thick- 
 est and dirtiest. 
 
 Inuyama Takemasa. . . . 
 
 Oyo looked at it again before she en- 
 tered the gate. The gentleman called 
 Mr. Inuyama was the most captious, 
 unsympathetic and unreasonable among 
 the numerous guests that came to 
 Kinugawa. No matter how busy they 
 were in attendance in the parlors, he 
 would not be satisfied if he could not call 
 up Oyo and all the other maids into his 
 room. If the mistress did not come to 
 salute him every time he came he would 
 be angry and say : "You insult me," or 
 94
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 "You treat me coldly." It was said that 
 he gave up his membership in the parlia- 
 ment as it did not suit his dignity. His 
 profession at present was that of a poli- 
 tician. He was fond of geishas as 
 young as babies, and if the girls did not 
 obey his will, he was so furious that no- 
 body could touch him, and Oyo not only 
 despised him more than any of the other 
 guests, but also was afraid, without any 
 reason, of his forbidding appearance 
 and loud voice. He always wore Euro- 
 pean clothes and used to come in a 
 Kuruma pulled by two drawers, saying 
 that the lower class of people ride in 
 the trolley. Once in a certain conver- 
 sation, when the mistress had said to 
 him that "in these days not only the 
 expenses of your pleasure and the tips 
 for geisha become dearer, but even your 
 
 95
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 expense for Kuruma must be very con- 
 siderable," he laughed : 
 
 "Mistress, the money is earned to 
 spend. Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha !" 
 
 But these prosperous days were no 
 longer. When it was hardly December 
 
 of that year, Mr. Inuyama suddenly 
 
 
 
 stopped coming, and in spite of many 
 letters he would not respond to the bill 
 of two hundred yen of that month and 
 the fifty-yen balance of the previous 
 month. Kinugawa was obliged to talk 
 it over with a geisha who first brought 
 Mr. Inuyama after their meeting at a 
 certain Matsumotoro, but, it was almost 
 clear that she could not shake her sleeve 
 when she had none, and so January 
 passed in this way, and now it was Feb- 
 ruary. The mistress sent Oyo to the 
 mansion of Mr. Inuyama to recon- 
 
 noiter. 
 
 96
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 Oyo had known numerous cases of 
 this kind, not only of men like Mr. Inu- 
 yama, but also of many other guesfs. 
 She thought this nothing more than the 
 bad ways of people. She thought only 
 that they will be enjoying themselves at 
 some other house, if they do not come 
 to hers, then, it will be good of them if 
 they will be more considerate and pay 
 the bill. The reason Oyo looked again 
 at the label on the gate was the fact that 
 the gate of his mansion was so dirty. 
 But, to enter the gate was better than 
 the annoyance of walking around aim- 
 lessly any longer in the frost-melting 
 road, so she looked around from the 
 porch with its dirty and broken paper- 
 screen, wondering which was the serv- 
 ants' entrance. 
 
 On the right hand, beyond the bam- 
 boo fence, was visible the roof of a one- 
 97
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 storied house looking cold under the 
 garden trees. She got a glimpse of an 
 old red blanket and a dirty cotton gown 
 hung on a clothes-pole, through the 
 crevices of the bamboo fence. On the 
 left hand, further on, were one-storied 
 houses with lattice gates, and another 
 that looked like a rented house. Be- 
 side the wheel-well, where the plum- 
 blossoms showed their buds, a fish- 
 monger was cutting a salted salmon. 
 Two maidservants in careless Hisashi- 
 gami, who carried babies under quilted 
 gowns and wore European aprons 
 which had become gray, seemed to be at 
 the height of their silly conversation 
 with the fishmonger. As soon as they 
 caught sight of Oyo, whose appearance 
 was quite different, they sharpened their 
 eyes, and, seeming rather to fear her, 
 looked her over attentively from top to 
 98
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 toe. The road from the well to the serv- 
 ants' entrance was spread with straw 
 bags of charcoal, and the muddy water 
 of the melting frost ran into the feet of 
 people walking on them. Being in much 
 perplexity Oyo could not move a step, 
 and bending her waist, said: 
 
 "I beg your pardon." 
 
 Both of the maidservants stood won- 
 der-stricken with open mouths. 
 
 "Is this Mr. Inuyama's house?" 
 
 Suddenly one of the maidservants be- 
 gan to grow uneasy, and, perceiving her 
 manner, Oyo said: 
 
 "I came with a message from Kyo- 
 bashi. Is the master at home?" 
 
 "He is absent." 
 
 Then the baby on her back began to 
 cry. 
 
 Oyo, as she was ordered by the mis- 
 tress, remembered how to proceed when 
 99
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 she was told the master was absent, 
 namely, to call madam to the servants' 
 entrance and leave the word that she was 
 the messenger from Mizuta, which was 
 the name of her mistress. However, as 
 Oyo was only eighteen or nineteen, she 
 felt somewhat timid and stood on the 
 walk, forgetting even that the water of 
 the melting frost was overflowing on her 
 polished wooden clogs. The baby on 
 the back of the maidservant cried more 
 and more. 
 
 "Chiyo! Chiyo!" Suddenly, a voice 
 of woman, close to her ears, aroused her. 
 
 Being astonished, Oyo turned and 
 saw at the broken paper-screens of the 
 servants' entrance not farther than six 
 inches, the big face of woman, like a 
 horse, with the eyes widely separated 
 from each other. The careless Hisa- 
 shigami could not be beaten by the maid- 
 100
 
 THE BILL-COLLECTING 
 
 servants. She was a big, clumsy 
 madam in a dirty and creased Hifu. 
 
 Just then, the fishermonger came to 
 offer three slices of the salted salmon to 
 madam. Madam continued talking 
 with the fishermonger, and Oyo, at last 
 somewhat aroused and feeling at the 
 same time a sense of deep disappoint- 
 ment, went out from the gate as if to 
 escape. For she felt that her troubles 
 in coming so far had been all in vain. 
 She was exceedingly sorry for her mis- 
 tress, as she had been entirely deceived 
 by this humbug. 
 
 When Oyo rode again in the trolley 
 she felt, at first, the fatigue of the vain 
 effort and at the same time the fact that 
 she was unbearably hungry, but being 
 unable to do anything about it, she ar- 
 rived at Ginza. The sun was already 
 declining. Calling to her mind the 
 101
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 clockstand of Hattori, which she saw 
 when she was waiting for the car that 
 morning, she looked up, and lo! was it 
 not already near to four o'clock! Oyo 
 felt her heart sinking with melancholy, 
 picturing in her mind the flash of her 
 mistress' eye, who never would say to 
 her: "How early you are!" when she 
 returned from the far-away errand. 
 The electric lights were already lit in the 
 shops. . . . 
 
 102
 
 UKIYOE
 
 UKIYOE 
 By NAGAI KAFU 
 
 [The following sketches were written 
 on seeing a collection of famous prints, 
 which were exhibited at the Imperial 
 Museum during the month of April in 
 the forty-fourth year of Meiji (1911) ]. 
 
 THE WOMAN OF UTAMARO 
 
 TT7HAT a languid sweetness! 
 What a dreamy pensiveness! 
 The Woman of Utamaro almost swoon- 
 ing, tortured, benumbed by that fulness 
 of pleasure which stirs all the sensibili- 
 ties of a body called woman! O, the 
 Woman of Utamaro! 
 105
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 Your body is only of soft, soft skin, 
 of smooth, smooth flesh. Is your soul 
 melted and your bone lost? When you 
 are sitting, you twist your body and 
 bend your neck ; you are always leaning 
 against a pillar, a railing or a chamber 
 window, sitting with upraised knee to 
 attract attention to the roundness of the 
 thigh bigger than the waist, and expos- 
 ing with such indifference the fair white- 
 ness of the calf. 
 
 When you are standing you are won- 
 derfully tall. The long sleeves! The 
 trailing skirts! Though the dress you 
 wear is, sometimes, a thin, transparent 
 gauze, through which your arms, your 
 bosom, and even the crimson crape on 
 your waist are seen, still you hardly 
 seem able to support its weight, and I 
 fear lest you fall. 
 
 Though your hair is always dressed so 
 106
 
 UKIYOE 
 
 faultlessly that there is not a single 
 stray lock, you never try to adjust your 
 loosened sash. Are not the folds of your 
 undergarments open and your dress al- 
 most slipping down from your shoul- 
 ders? What are you looking at when 
 you stretch your long neck as you lift 
 up your face? Is it the landscape, the 
 ferryboat on the Sumida river, or do you 
 hear the bustling sounds of Ryogoku? 
 Nay, nay, your small, slender eyes must 
 be following after the shadows of the 
 dream that will never come to an end. 
 No wonder that you cover your mouth 
 with one of your sleeves whenever you 
 have to speak, as if to say: "I cannot 
 speak so shameful a thing." No won- 
 der that you hesitate, touching the long 
 hairpin with your slender fingers. 
 
 You seem to avoid the sunshine be- 
 cause it is too bright, and the blue color 
 107
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 of the sky because it is too deep. O, 
 the goddess of pleasure of the land of 
 Shamisen, for whom even the blowing 
 wind seems to soften when he observes 
 your too delicate figure! Standing in 
 the twilight of fear and shame and se- 
 crecy, the passive Woman of Utamaro 
 is lamenting the once tempting pleas- 
 ure, the lingering dream. 
 
 THE FLOWEB VIEWING 
 
 The shade of a huge cherry tree 
 blooming in the fullest flower. An af- 
 ternoon of a beautiful spring day. A 
 sudden gale of wind scatters the snow 
 of the falling flowers without reserve or 
 compunction. Alas! Alas! It is as 
 though we behold all the sorrows of the 
 world before our eyes. Lifting her long 
 sleeves of Furisode, a little princess of 
 108
 
 UKIYOE 
 
 about fourteen or fifteen years is turn- 
 ing her face aslant with her black hair 
 that seems overweighted with orna- 
 ments; from right and left, the court 
 ladies in Maruwage, in their bloom of 
 middle age, are covering the princess 
 surprised by the wind with their sleeves 
 of Uchikake as a fence, shaking off the 
 snow of the falling flowers. To-day will 
 be the last of the flower-viewing for 
 this year. Leaving the poem in lam- 
 entation of the spring, now, let us 
 go! 
 
 A pretty attendant maid of about 
 seventeen or eighteen years is trying to 
 fasten on a branch of the cherry tree, a 
 Tanzaku, on which the poem of parting 
 with spring is written by the princess. 
 But the cherry branch is higher than 
 the height of a plump maiden at seven- 
 teen or eighteen. How can she reach it, 
 109
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 though she stretch herself so? . . . One 
 of the attendant maids is on a cask of 
 the sweet wine, on which is written Dai 
 kanai, or Great Luck. The other is on 
 the shoulder of a beautiful lad, who 
 looks almost like a girl. 
 
 At last the maid on the cask seems 
 able to fasten the Tanzaku on the 
 branch. The wind of the falling flowers 
 blows her skirts and sleeves like pen- 
 nants. Squatting on the earth, one of 
 the attendant maids is holding the 
 rather small cask lest it fall, but her 
 heavy sleeves are being blown by the 
 violent wind ; the maid on the cask seems 
 about to lose her balance. 
 
 As her white legs are nearly peep- 
 ing forth from the flowing linings of the 
 fluttering skirts, she catches in one hand 
 the branch and in the other she holds 
 her skirts, bending her slender body and 
 110
 
 UKIYOE 
 
 passing the toes of her feet firmly bent 
 inward, she struggles to jump down 
 quickly from her dangerous position. 
 
 But see! The more fortunate one is 
 the attendant maid, on the shoulder of 
 the beautiful lad. The attendant lad, 
 who has been raised up to be a toy of 
 women in the innermost chamber of the 
 palace where there is no one but women, 
 is holding the attendant maid's waist 
 firmly in his two hands as high as his 
 pliant shoulders; his face is downcast, 
 aslant. How lovely is his mouth, tight- 
 ened at the corners, showing the full 
 force of his exertion in his features, 
 more delicate than those of a woman. 
 The rapture of heart and the pulsation 
 of the bosom of the lifted maid is shown 
 in the entanglement of her sleeves and 
 skirts, and the long knotted thongs 
 tossed by the wind. In spite of her en- 
 Ill
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 deavor, with both hands holding the 
 Tanzaku, she does not seem able to 
 fasten it on the branch. 
 
 O, the calm inner garden in the 
 spring, the blowing storm, the scatter- 
 ing cherry blossoms, the princess sur- 
 prised by the wind! The attendant 
 maid on the cask! The beautiful lad 
 lifting up the maid! Ah! The sym- 
 pJionia of the delightful curves and the 
 faded colors, all revealed by the print of 
 Toyokuni the first! The dream of the 
 pleasure of the days that are no more ! 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 The bed chamber of women. 
 
 Making the narrow room appear nar- 
 rower in the short night near to the 
 dawn, the bamboo, painted on the six- 
 fold screen, outspread, conceals the 
 112
 
 UKIYOE 
 
 Ando-light, which is as motionless as 
 though it were tired. 
 
 The hanging Komon garments are 
 flowing comfortably in the softness of a 
 thing called silk, in the stifling warmth 
 of the closed chamber. 
 
 From the faded color of the red silk, 
 stealthily rises the odor of the skin and 
 the remnant of the perfumes from pow- 
 dered necks. Pleasantly they evapo- 
 rate and drift through the darkness of 
 the chamber where there is no man. 
 Without even adjusting the loosened 
 night dress, the pliant half bodies of two 
 women slip out from the turned-back 
 bedclothes of crimson crepe that look 
 like pomegranates, bursting by ripened 
 maturity, breathing flames. 
 
 "Come, get up. The cuckoo bird is 
 cooing." 
 
 "What a gloomy sound. Will you 
 113
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 lift up the lamp-wick? I feel I am still 
 dreaming." 
 
 By the light of Ando trimmed, Ihe 
 sound of the bird of night which is not 
 a dream, has ceased, and from the Toko- 
 noma, the place for decoration, the pe- 
 ony flowers in a bronze vase show their 
 gorgeous petals, almost terrifying in 
 their bloom. At the bedside is a picture 
 of love in an uncovered book of ro- 
 mance, left as it was the evening before 
 when she was reading it. Already come 
 the sounds of a drum from the shrine 
 of Seishoko near by ! 
 
 No matter how the night of May hur- 
 ries to the dawn, in comfortable sleep 
 in bed where the mind loosens like a 
 thong, in the bed-chamber of women 
 without man, the day breaks not yet. 
 
 "Lo, the Ando ! The oil is gone." 
 
 114
 
 A DOMESTIC ANIMAL
 
 A DOMESTIC ANIMAL 
 By SHIMAZAKI TOSON 
 
 HER first misfortune was at her 
 birth; she came into the world 
 with short gray hair, overhanging ears, 
 and fox-like eyes. Every animal which 
 is called by favor domestic has a cer- 
 tain quality which attracts to itself the 
 friendly feeling of man. But she did 
 not have it. Nothing in her counte- 
 nance seemed to be favored by man. 
 She was entirely lacking in the usual 
 qualifications of a domestic animal. 
 Naturally she was deserted. 
 
 However, she was also a dog, an ani- 
 mal which cannot live by itself. She 
 117
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 could not leave the hereditary habitat to 
 be fed by people and then go back to 
 the wild native place of her remote an- 
 cestors. She began to search after a 
 suitable human house. 
 
 This troublesome being strayed to the 
 estate of Kin san, a planter, when the 
 building of the new wood-roofed rent 
 house was just finished. The house was 
 built along the village road of Okubo, 
 located in such a manner as to enable 
 one to go to the main street through 
 the back yard. The floor was high and 
 the ground was dry. Moreover, there 
 was a narrow, dark, unoccupied space 
 at the foot of the fence between this 
 house and the next, so that she could 
 promptly hide herself in an emergency. 
 She lost no time in occupying this un- 
 derground refuge. 
 
 The urgent necessity was to get the 
 118
 
 A DOMESTIC ANIMAL 
 
 food. There were two more rent houses 
 on this estate, which made four with the 
 farm-like main house where Kin san's 
 family lived. These houses stood each 
 against the other, and trees with grace- 
 ful branches were between them. Her 
 sharp nose taught her first the direction 
 toward the kitchen. As she was hun- 
 gry, there was no time for choice. 
 Peeled skins of fruits, cold, evil-smell- 
 ing soup, corrupt remnants of dishes 
 she ate everything she could get. If 
 these were not enough to satisfy her, she 
 smelt around even the dust heap, and 
 hunted as far as she could hunt. Some 
 dirty socks were soaked in the wash-tub 
 beside the well. Gladly, she drank the 
 water from the tub. 
 
 There was an old Mokusei in the 
 garden. She decided to make of their 
 shade her resting place; stretching 
 119
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 out her four legs on the ground, which 
 was warmed by the sunshine through the 
 leaves, she sighed or scratched the itchy 
 spots. When it was evening she entered 
 her underground retreat and lay down 
 on the charcoal bags which were under 
 the floor above. A large wash-tub she 
 also tried. Sometimes she crept as far 
 as the passage under the kitchen floor, 
 and slept on the charcoals in the warm 
 charcoal box. Thus she began her 
 life. 
 
 Kin san's family, at this time, kept a 
 piebald dog of brown and white, whose 
 name was Pochi. This lively Pochi was 
 the only being who welcomed her. 
 Pochi seemed to have a sociable nature ; 
 he approached her politely scratching 
 the ground. She made her return greet- 
 ing by shaking her dirty tail. 
 
 But Kin san and the others who lived 
 120
 
 A DOMESTIC ANIMAL 
 
 on his estate did not receive her as 
 Pochi did. "Isn't it a great loss to be 
 ugly, even among the animals," re- 
 marked one. "I might keep her, if she 
 were a bit better,'* said another. All 
 this was meaningless to her, and she was 
 called Pup by these people who did not 
 know. Each of the four houses had an 
 "aunt," which was the name given to 
 the hostess of the family. Not only 
 these aunts, but also their children, 
 laughed at and hated her and burst out 
 railingly, calling her "Pup, pup." As 
 for the "uncles," they were more dread- 
 ful. The least relaxing of her vigilance 
 caused them to chase her. Many things 
 were thrown at her, stones, clumps of 
 clay, the iron firestick. Once a big club 
 of the door guard was flung after her, 
 and made a wound on her hind leg. 
 Gradually, she understood the human 
 121
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 mind. The significant twist of the 
 mouth, a gesture as if to pick up some- 
 thing, the shrugging of shoulders and 
 the bitten lips all sentiments expressed 
 against her showed to her the deep 
 enmity of the hunter. One day she was 
 almost driven to bay in Kin san's 
 kitchen. Nobody knows how she was 
 able to find the means of escape ! Peo- 
 ple were crying: "Bring the rope the 
 rope, the rope!'* She was desperate, 
 and, running through the garden, where 
 were the dwarf trees, she went toward 
 the hot-house ; turning around the barn, 
 she escaped to the fields, where were the 
 flowers to be sold on fete days. 
 
 "Gone, at last !" said one of the uncles. 
 "Isn't she a troublesome thing?" replied 
 Kin san, who laughed like a good-na- 
 tured man. 
 
 It was not only once or twice that she 
 122
 
 A DOMESTIC ANIMAL 
 
 met such hard experiences. But she was 
 not a dog to be crushed down by this 
 kind of hardship. She would hunt 
 around for food with calm composure, 
 with the appearance of saying: "This 
 is my own territory." Boldly she 
 stepped into the new kitchen of the rent 
 house, or went up to the veranda with 
 her dirty feet. She bit off the laces from 
 the garden slippers, and played with the 
 washed things of the aunts, smearing 
 them with mud and dust. She had no 
 regard for the human children. This 
 family had a girl named Ko chan, who 
 liked to come out to play in the yard, in 
 big wooden clogs trailing on the ground. 
 She chased this girl for fun. Some- 
 times, Ko chan would bring out a piece 
 of tasty-looking cake and show it to her. 
 "Look here! Look here, Pup!" 
 Instantly she jumped at Ko chan. 
 123
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 "Oh, Pup is wicked, mamma!" 
 
 This was always Ko chan's cry for 
 help. Then the aunt came hastily and 
 called Ko chan. 
 
 "Run away, Ko chan! quick! Why 
 do you wear such big clogs?" By this 
 time poor Ko chan had nothing left. 
 She had taken the cake from the crying 
 Ko chan, thus securing the sweets which 
 are eaten by man. At such time, she 
 usually licked the top of her nose with 
 her red tongue. 
 
 Nevertheless, there was no intention 
 of good or evil in her actions. These 
 words she heard from the uncles and 
 aunts of the estate, but nothing about 
 them was known to her. She had no 
 understanding of the etiquette and civil- 
 ity created by man. She was only a 
 dog. Whether her action was impolite 
 or not, that was not a question. She 
 124
 
 A DOMESTIC ANIMAL 
 
 was only a poor animal, acting accord- 
 ing to its nature. 
 
 The cold, scanty, miserable winter 
 passed while she suffered this "better go 
 away" treatment. It was a wonder that 
 she did not die from hunger. The beg- 
 ging priest who used to come to Okubo 
 every morning said that even he did not 
 get much. As to the humble woman 
 who took a child with her, she was re- 
 fused mostly by "no business," or 
 "nothing doing." Even human beings 
 were in a sad state. How, then, could 
 they spare to this ignorant and useless 
 animal, this embarrassing dog, a bowl- 
 ful of their cold rice? She roamed on 
 the snow in the far-off places, and ate 
 everything, even the skins of the orange. 
 
 Meanwhile, the spring has come. And 
 at the time when the frost began to melt 
 she seemed to be quite grown up. All 
 125
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 the dogs, from Kin san's Pochi to Kuro 
 of the bathing house, Aka of the timber- 
 dealer's, and the fearful big dog which 
 was kept at the neighboring planter's, 
 gathered around her. Wherever she 
 goes, she is followed by two or three 
 dogs. So a comfortable place like that 
 shade of Mokusei was overflowing with 
 deep groans of dogs that sounded as if 
 they wished to whisper or to flatter. 
 
 An aunt who came to the well-side 
 with a hand-pail in her hand, saw this 
 sight. 
 
 "My!" she said. "Pup was a female 
 dog! I never noticed that !" 
 
 And the aunt of the new rent house, 
 who happened to be there, also said : 
 
 "Neither did I !" 
 
 And the two aunts laughed, greatly 
 amused. 
 
 She ought to be banished. Such was 
 126
 
 A DOMESTIC ANIMAL 
 
 the argument which was raised in the 
 estate of Kin san. Among the members 
 of the four families, however, the argu- 
 ments raged between two parties, the 
 uncles and the aunts. According to the 
 point of view which was insisted upon 
 by the aunts, it was now different. She 
 was not in the condition she was for- 
 merly, and it would be too pitiful if she 
 were to have a baby. As is expected of 
 those with experience, the aunts were 
 sympathetic, comparing her with them- 
 selves. That may be so, but how awful 
 it would be if she gave birth to chil- 
 dren ! This was the opinion held by the 
 uncles. Indeed, there was nobody who 
 was not anxious about her future. 
 
 She did not know anything about this. 
 
 Another day, a carriage stopped at 
 the door of Kin san. There was some- 
 thing like a lidless box on this carriage, 
 127
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 which was covered with a dirty straw 
 mat. Her quick nose smelt out what 
 was in the carriage. 
 
 Following after a policeman in uni- 
 form came a dubious looking man, who 
 entered the house. But she was not 
 roaming in such a dangerous place. 
 Pochi, Kuro and the other dogs began 
 to cry all at once. Now, uncles, aunts, 
 and all people of the village came 
 out. 
 
 "Dog hunter, mammal" 
 
 Ko chan hid herself behind her mother. 
 
 People ran around the garden. Kin 
 san's daughter, whose daily duty it was 
 to water the flowers, ran out to the street 
 with a dipper in her hand. A middle- 
 school boy, who was painting a water- 
 color picture, followed them, flinging 
 away his tripod. 
 
 "Thither she escaped, hither she rani" 
 128
 
 A DOMESTIC ANIMAL 
 
 The confusion itself was very extraor- 
 dinary. 
 
 "Surely, Pup is killed," Ko chan 
 said, trembling. 
 
 At last, she has escaped. A man with 
 big oak club in his hand, shook his head 
 to his companion. "No use, no use," the 
 policeman said and laughed when he 
 went out the gate. With disappointed 
 looks the two men drew away the empty 
 carriage. 
 
 Anyway she had .escaped with her life. 
 And, by and by, her bosom became 
 larger. Her eyes began to be shaded 
 with the restless color. Now she must 
 guard not only herself, but also her 
 children within her womb. Thus the 
 pleasant shade of Mokusei was no more 
 the place for security. Even when she 
 was comfortably lying on the moist 
 earth, breathing out her agony for a 
 129
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 while, she stood up as soon as she saw the 
 shadow of a man. She could not be neg- 
 ligent even for a moment. To her eyes, 
 there was nothing as merciless and cruel 
 as the human being. 
 
 But, in spite of her fear, she could not 
 leave the human house. How at ease 
 she would be if, like other animals, she 
 could go to a distant forest and give 
 birth amid the green trees and grasses ! 
 Thus it might seem to the looker-on, 
 but it was not so with her, she was 
 unable to change her inherited na- 
 ture. 
 
 It was just at the beginning of June 
 that she finished her duty of mother- 
 hood. Four puppies appeared in the 
 hot-house of Kin san. Two of them 
 were beautiful piebald puppies of 
 brown and white like that of Pochi, one 
 was entirely black, and the other was of 
 130
 
 A DOMESTIC ANIMAL 
 
 ambiguous gray, very much like her- 
 self! 
 
 Ah, it was in the morning of her 
 motherhood that she first saw the smiles 
 of human beings. It was also in that 
 morning of her motherhood that she 
 first had nourishing food since her 
 birth. 
 
 "Pup come, come." 
 
 Opening the paper screen of the 
 kitchen, the aunt at Kin san's began to 
 call her, as she has called her since that 
 day. 
 
 131
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 BY SHIMAZAKI TOSON 
 
 AS my wife is hard of hearing, she 
 cannot understand what I say un- 
 less I speak close to her ear, in rather a 
 loud voice. 
 
 Though the time to go on board the 
 ship was approaching, she was still lean- 
 ing on the window at the first floor of 
 the inn, and would not even prepare to 
 start. Vacantly she was contemplating 
 the sight of the dark green sea, the sea- 
 mews flying in groups, and the Suru- 
 gamaru, the regular liner, which was 
 about to start for Hakodate, ready to 
 take us two on board. At such times, 
 135
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 she is always weeping, calling to her 
 mind our departed son. This I no- 
 ticed by the sight of her back. I stroked 
 her on the shoulder and urged her to 
 start. 
 
 "Come. Get ready, get ready!" 
 The day was perfect for a voyage. It 
 was the time when the regular steam- 
 ship lines were interrupted by the rumor 
 that the Russian ships from Vladivos- 
 tock, which not long before had passed 
 through Tsugaru Strait, were appearing 
 now and then along the Pacific coast. 
 During five or six days only was this 
 line between Awomori and Hakodate 
 in operation. As it was disappointing 
 to my wife and myself to go home after 
 having come so far, and as the Russian 
 ships were said to be cruising on the 
 open sea in the vicinity of Oshima and 
 the Izu Islands the very night before 
 136
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 we had heard that the fleet of the enemy 
 was sunk, the announcement of which 
 some of the newspapers printed in an 
 extra we left the inn, not worrying 
 about the ships, trusting somewhat to 
 the truth of the statements in the ex- 
 tra. 
 
 There were soldiers in the streets in 
 sober khaki-colored summer uniform, 
 watching us hurrying toward the pier. 
 As my wife was walking in meditation, 
 her slowness somewhat irritated me. 
 She suddenly stopped and this is what 
 she said: 
 
 "Ah! Ah! If only Ryunosuke were 
 living I would bring him with us to a 
 place like this and give him pleasure." 
 
 She sighed. Ryunosuke was the 
 name of our son. I did not know what 
 to do and, putting my mouth close to 
 her ear, as if to scold her, I said: 
 137
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 "You will try me if you keep con- 
 stantly calling him to mind !" 
 
 Instantly, my wife flushed. 
 
 "Oh! You are so cruel! I am liv- 
 ing only because of the consolation of 
 his memory. If you wish me not to 
 speak of him, bid me die." 
 
 My wife is tiresome, for she is just 
 a baby, and I am only a nurse who is 
 taking care of this infant of forty years, 
 
 "Tut! tut! How could you say such 
 a thing in the street ? Look, everybody 
 is turning and laughing at us." 
 
 I spoke thus, but the words were not 
 heard by my wife. Ah ! 
 
 Nothing is so hard to foresee as hu- 
 man life. We never expected such a 
 sad end to our son, nor did we ever 
 dream of going together for this jour- 
 ney. It was caused by chance. The 
 138
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 daily accidents, who can understand 
 them? It was unforeseen that we 
 should pass a night at this far eastern 
 port of Oshu. It was unforeseen that 
 we should go aboard this ship. Above 
 all, it was unforeseen that we should be 
 crossing Tsugaru Strait. 
 
 It was not long before the boat 
 started. She left the shore with the 
 brave shouts of the boatmen, in the 
 Nanbu accent. The sailors of the ship 
 were leaning on the bulwark, looking 
 down at the approaching boats filled 
 with passengers. Unfortunately, the 
 first and the second classes were both 
 full on that day. Although I was some- 
 what fearful, on account of traveling 
 with my wife, to take the third class and 
 be treated like cargo, I concluded from 
 experience that nothing is better than 
 the deck in such fine weather. In- 
 139
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 stantly upon our arrival on the 
 steamer, we took our places at the 
 prow. 
 
 Meanwhile, upon the stroke of the 
 bell announcing ten o'clock, the noisy 
 sounds of the weighing anchor were 
 heard. The steam whistle was blown 
 as if to bid farewell, and it resounded 
 through the sky overhanging the har- 
 bor. The ship began to sail. 
 
 The deck where we took our place 
 was near to the mast, larger than one 
 could reach around. When the cool 
 wind blew from the southwest, sending 
 the gay sunshine with the breezes, I 
 felt at last somewhat revived. We 
 spread the mat under the canvas shades 
 and rested ourselves, leaning on some 
 of the cargo. After a while I wanted to 
 have a smoke, but, searching around my 
 waist, I found there was no tobacco 
 140
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 pouch. Then, gazing at my face, my 
 wife said: 
 
 "You see? Surely you have left it 
 again at the inn," and she smiled. 
 
 This was quite a surprise to me. I 
 thought I was very composed, But, al- 
 though I was constantly scolding my 
 wife to brace her up, it was proved by 
 this oversight that my own dejection 
 was more than that of hers. "Now, 
 then," I thought, "I myself must be 
 somewhat queer," and I suddenly felt 
 dispirited. The more I tried not to be 
 overcome, the more my brain was op- 
 pressed with deep chagrin. No doubt I 
 was becoming an idiot. 
 
 The ship sailed out from the gulf of 
 Awomori, leaving behind the lighthouse 
 of Hiradate, white in the distance; the 
 sun was mounting higher in tKe sky. 
 The dark blue waves of the Japan cur- 
 141
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 rent rolled in from the Sea of Japan, 
 broke resoundingly against the side of 
 the ship, and sparkled in the sunshine. 
 In the lazy hours of the voyage, people 
 came and went on the deck, pausing to 
 admire the view. I also leaned on the 
 bulwark and listened to the sounds of 
 the summer tides, filling my mind with 
 the voice of the late July sea. Sud- 
 denly, my thoughts were possessed by 
 my son. Bitter recollections gushed up 
 in my heart. It may sound strange, 
 coming from a parent's lips, but, al- 
 though he was only a boy when he died, 
 he was clever enough to understand the 
 joy and sorrow of life; my Ryunosuke 
 was not a boy to be beaten by his fel- 
 low students in any of his studies. 
 
 Observing the world, I notice that 
 the present age, lacking in faith, does 
 not keep the young mind in quietude. 
 142
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 Such was the short life of my son. Such 
 an insatiable spirit as his could not help 
 investigating the meaning of life, from 
 exploring all its works, its glories, and 
 its decadences. Leaving the curious 
 multitudes, who looked upon him as a 
 great fool in his misconceptions, how 
 did he feel when he retired from this 
 life, silently, with unutterable sorrow in 
 his mind? 
 
 The desperation of thought if the 
 word could be applied also to the life 
 of this youth this was certainly the 
 transient but brave span of Ryunosuke. 
 Pity that he was not a sage! He dis- 
 covered that his learning made him ig- 
 norant. Alas! my son quit his studies 
 and his studies quit him. At last he 
 went to Nikkwo, and died by throwing 
 himself into the fall of Kegon. I shall 
 never forget that day when my son came 
 143
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 home quite unexpectedly, and bade us 
 farewell without telling us his intention, 
 nor that evening when I gave him my 
 last reproof. The next morning, and 
 the second morning there has been 
 grief in every morning since that time. 
 My wife became crazed, weeping and 
 crying. 
 
 "It is your fault that you gave him 
 such a reproof! Give me back my son 
 alive, now, at once!" 
 
 It was inevitable. We were com- 
 pelled to constrain her by force; we 
 wrapped her in quilts, holding her; we 
 scolded and cajoled her. But the 
 strength of the crazed woman was al- 
 most more than ours. I myself did not 
 eat nor sleep regularly for seven days. 
 Indeed, the condition of my wife at that 
 time was such that it would not have 
 been impossible for her to have followed 
 144
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 our son, to have thrown herself into the 
 waterfall of Nikkwo mountain. When 
 she became a bit calmer I thought of a 
 plan, which was this journey. I hoped 
 that her distressed mind might be cured 
 by seeing some of the famous places. 
 As she had exquisite taste, in spite of 
 her appearance, I thought I might be 
 able to buy some Obi, or sashes, if 
 she cared for them. Inducing her 
 to see the modern fashions, hoping 
 to quiet her, we started out on this 
 journey. 
 
 Alas, my son! After he had passed 
 through the bitterest sufferings, at the 
 moment he came to think about 9eath, 
 even he could hardly have dreamed of 
 his father becoming an idiot, and his 
 mother a lunatic, weeping during the 
 day, thinking during the night, and 
 roaming thus far to the northern sea. 
 145
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 I, who am speaking this, am only a 
 man who has spent a most ordinary but 
 peaceful and quiet life in the country. 
 How could I foresee that this peaceful 
 life would change abruptly in its forty- 
 third year? Seeking relief, we felt like 
 wandering pilgrims. Inhaling the sea 
 air of July, two fools were listening to 
 the dreamy sounds of the waves, medi- 
 tating upon the death of their only 
 child. 
 
 Strange imaginings came into my 
 mind. If the dead body should float up 
 from the basin of that waterfall, ancl be 
 borne away by the current, where would 
 it go? Nowhere but into this ocean! 
 Yes, yes, this restless place of wind and 
 wave ; this must be the grave of my son ! 
 Here Ryunosuke must be sleeping for 
 ever and ever . . . thus, in fancy, I was 
 indulging my thoughts when the bell of 
 146
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 twelve o'clock resounded through the 
 ship. 
 
 For lunch, a Bento in a square lunch- 
 eon-box, was distributed to each of the 
 passengers. We could not eat ours on 
 account of the boiled cuttle-fish. But 
 two young men, who came with their 
 own luncheons, took their seat close to 
 us, and began to eat with gusto. One 
 of them looked as though he were ac- 
 customed to labor. He reminded me of 
 "Ankosan," the young men who are 
 said, after indulgence in wine and 
 women, to draw the snow-sledges at 
 such a place as Goryokaku. 
 
 The other boy looked two or three 
 years younger than his friend, and 
 seemed just about the age of my son. 
 Apparently, he was a student, as was 
 shown by his naive appearance. And 
 then, the youthfulness of the expres- 
 147
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 sion about his eyes when he looked at 
 the sea through his spectacles, was sin- 
 gularly like that of Ryunosuke. There 
 is such a thing as the "haunting resem- 
 blance of the stranger." However, I 
 was quite surprised in my own mind, 
 wondering whether it was possible for 
 anyone else to see such a resemblance. 
 How I gazed, rubbing my eyes, at the 
 silhouette of the student ! 
 
 As for my wife, I looked at her and 
 saw she entertained the same feeling. 
 When we looked at each other, we un- 
 derstood our mutual thought without a 
 word. Ah! it is unreasonable that I 
 should meet my dead son on this ship, 
 and it was a trick of my imagination 
 that caused me to think that only if I 
 should address him, he would speak to 
 me saying: "Father! Father!" anoT, tak- 
 ing my hand, would complain of the 
 148
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 mysteries and fears and agonies of the 
 other world. "Surely he is my son, my 
 Ryunosuke." Such an absurd thought 
 could only spring from the foolish heart 
 of a parent. I do not know how often 
 I repeated "Ryunosuke! Ryunosuke!" 
 in my mind. I was tempted to cry out 
 in a loud voice, and was astonished at 
 my own absurdity. 
 
 At last I addressed the young man. 
 
 "Pardon me. Where do you come 
 from?" 
 
 "I?" the student smiled. "I came 
 from Goshu." 
 
 ' ' Goshu ? Then you came from a long 
 way off!" 
 
 "Yes. I have an uncle in Sendai, 
 and came up to ask his assistance, but 
 as I found him absent, being called out 
 for war . . . Anyway, I am going up 
 to Hokkaido to try to find some work 
 149
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 there. I have been told that there is 
 profitable employment at Sapporo. If 
 I cannot find work in Sapporo, I may 
 go even to Asahigawa." 
 
 "Is that so? Young men ought to be 
 that way. You do not need to worry. 
 You will find plenty of work, if only 
 you have a mind to do it." 
 
 Thus, comforting him, I recognized 
 the simple, cheerful, and yet manly tem- 
 perament of this student. Now and 
 then the older companion glanced 
 stealthily toward us with distrustful 
 looks. I could not understand why this 
 student had such a companion. I in- 
 quired of him, and was told that they 
 became comrades by chance. They 
 seemed not especially friends nor men 
 from the same district; in other words, 
 they were only fellow wanderers. 
 
 My wife took out some apples from 
 150
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 her package. These were bought the 
 evening before, at Awomori, from a bas- 
 ket when we were surrounded by the 
 women who sell fruits., Ryunosuke was 
 fond of things with a delicate flavor, 
 which my wife seemed to remember. 
 As if to give them to her son, she se- 
 lected the alluring yellow apples from 
 the green ones and recommendecl them 
 to the two young men. I told the 
 younger one in detail of the loss of my 
 son and the reason of starting on this 
 journey with my wife, who cannot hear 
 well, and added: 
 
 "This also must be the work of fate, 
 to meet you in this place. Please 
 take one of them. Don't be cere- 
 monious." 
 
 "Come, they are so kind. Let us ac- 
 cept them," said the companion, as he 
 pushed forth impudently. 
 151
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 "Please do so," I urged them, offer- 
 ing my knife. 
 
 My wife was leaning on me like a 
 child, and gazing at the hands of the 
 student paring the apple. Tears of 
 memory seemed to flow ceaselessly 
 down her cheeks. Forgetting every- 
 thing, even our bodies, we longed for the 
 recalled face of our son whom we never 
 expected to see in this world. 
 
 The student and his companion bit 
 the apples like hungry animals, so that 
 even the crunching sounded delicious, 
 and ate them heartily with vigor and ap- 
 petite. 
 
 "Sweet! Isn't it?" Whispering to 
 his companion, the student smelfed the 
 flavor of the apple, squinting his 
 eyes. 
 
 "Sweet!" The companion also tasted 
 his eagerly. 
 
 152
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 By the time the one o'clock bell had 
 rung, all of the passengers were tired 
 of their journey; some of them were ly- 
 ing down with their packages as pil- 
 lows, some were sleeping on the deck 
 with their mouths open like fishes. The 
 reports of the Russo-Japanese War, 
 which were much discussed about the 
 mast, had entirely ceased. There was 
 nobody on this ship who did not desire 
 speedily to reach Hakodate. The only 
 passengers who wished to continue the 
 journey as long as possible in this way 
 were ourselves; that was because we 
 knew there were only three hours more 
 to be with this young man, and be re- 
 minded of Ryunosuke. After parting 
 from him here, we were not sure that we 
 should ever meet him again; nay, not 
 only should we never see again our son, 
 but we should probably never again in 
 153
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 our lives see the face that resembled his. 
 
 "You are gazing at something, aren't 
 you?" 
 
 The student stepped out and patted 
 the shoulder of his companion. The 
 companion turned to him. 
 
 "Look at that smoke.'* 
 
 "Smoke?" 
 
 "It is strange that smoke appears in 
 this direction." 
 
 "Let me see ! Where no, there is no 
 smoke, nothing like it." 
 
 "Why, can't you see it?" 
 
 Wondering at the conversation of 
 these two men, I also left the side of 
 the mast. Far off to the east of the 
 Strait the dark "Father Tide" on 
 which groups of cuttle-fish are accus- 
 tomed to ride down, that Kurile tide 
 dipping the horizon, shone white and 
 yellow, under the rays of the sun. 
 154
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 Groups of clouds were floating in the 
 sky. The excessive heat of a mid-sum- 
 mer noon on the thirtieth of July, 
 seemed to burn the sea. The sky above 
 the horizon was a dark gray, mingled 
 with purple. The air was hazy, but 
 nothing like smoke was to be seen. Be- 
 fore I realized it, the captain, who, for 
 some time had been reading "The Law 
 of General Average," went up to the 
 bridge, and was eagerly looking through 
 the marine glass. 
 
 Suddenly, we felt uneasy. The ship 
 had probably sailed at a fair speed 
 since leaving Awomori. When she was 
 sailing at full speed toward Cape Oma, 
 which was on her starboard side, the 
 cloud of smoke was seen exactly in that 
 direction. After twenty minutes, a sec- 
 ond smoke appeared, then a third. The 
 Vladivostock fleet, which was said to 
 155
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 have appeared along the coast of the 
 Pacific Ocean, was slowly sailing from 
 Cape Oma to Cape Tatsuhi. Ap- 
 proaching nearer, the ships became 
 more distinct. When the three gray 
 ships of the enemy, of portentous ap- 
 pearance, were seen approaching our 
 defenseless vessel, sailors and passen- 
 gers all stood up. The battle formation 
 of the enemy was in single line. First 
 came the Rossia, then the Gron- 
 boi with the Riurick a little behind 
 them. 
 
 Joyful or sad memories or imaginings 
 were all blotted out by this unexpected 
 view. Nobody remained in the dark 
 cabin. Forgetting the vertigo, the nau- 
 sea, and the sufferings of fatigue, the 
 hundred and fifty passengers came out 
 at once on deck. All those who have 
 been standing at the stern passed 
 156
 
 TSUGAEU STRAIT 
 
 through the kitchen and pressed toward 
 the prow. 
 
 "Go down! Go down! Go down if 
 you want to save your life!" 
 
 But the cries and scoldings of the sail- 
 ors could not control the confusion of 
 the excited men, screaming women and 
 children. The dreadful sound oF the 
 engine gave an added touch of gloom. 
 As the enemy were known to be such 
 vicious fighters that they sank even the 
 sailing boat Seishomaru and robbed it 
 of the money and cargo, all on board 
 felt that there was no time for delay. 
 They bared their feet, and tucked up 
 their skirts, in order to be as prepared as 
 possible. 
 
 "I will take charge of your 
 wife." 
 
 The words of the student were Hardly 
 heard. Having already lost her color, 
 157
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 my wife stood shuddering, close to the 
 student. 
 
 Death we were face to face with 
 that force ! A group of sailors took off 
 the duck rain-covers from the lifeboats 
 to prepare them for lowering at any mo- 
 ment. As it was the captain's hope to 
 be within the limit of the protection of 
 the fort, if only the ship could run one 
 hour more at full speed, the ship dashed 
 along with all possible speed, nay, even 
 with a desperate force rather than 
 speed. 
 
 In this dangerous situation there ap- 
 peared, suddenly, from the direction of 
 Hakodate, our fleet running in the same 
 direction as the Russian ships. The 
 enemy also saw this fleet and, seeming 
 to hesitate, stopped their advance. The 
 fact is that it was the time when they 
 took the last resolution to pass the 
 158
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 Tsugaru Strait again. Sending up vol- 
 umes of black smoke, they began all at 
 once to flee like a flock of birds. With 
 the exclamation of "Banzai! Banzai!" 
 all the people on the deck shook their 
 hats toward our fleet. 
 
 "Now, we are safe!" 
 
 Turning back to my wife, I sighed 
 with relief. 
 
 "Safe!" I repeated. My wife was 
 still leaning on the shoulder of the stu- 
 dent. 
 
 As my wife and I, turning again to 
 the thought of our son, settled down to 
 spend the few remaining hours in con- 
 versation with the student, the mount 
 Gagyu appeared to our view. We 
 caught sight of the red cliff jutting into 
 the sea, the rugged precipice from 
 whose surface the reflection of the sun 
 shone white on the sky of the port of 
 159
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 Hakodate. A sea-gull flew near to the 
 bulwark as if to congratulate us on our 
 safe arrival. 
 
 We arrived at the entrance of the 
 port at the appointed hour, four o'clock. 
 Ah! How great the joy of the people 
 when they saw the streets of Hakodate 
 from the deck! The gray roofs of 
 planed board on the slope of the moun- 
 tain ; the new ridge poles soaring among 
 the houses built in Nanbu style of stone 
 and sand; the landscape covered with 
 the green leaves of Matsubuna and 
 Itaya, from the high tower of the tem- 
 ple shining in sunlight to the custom 
 house, hospital, and the buildings of 
 many schools. This prospect of the port 
 of New Japan extended before our 
 eyes, exciting our interest. 
 
 The enormous group of people, gath- 
 ered on the seashore, raised a wilcl shout 
 160
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 of joy to welcome the safe arrival of the 
 liner. The Surugamaru also made the 
 air resound with whistles! Passing 
 through the many sailing ships, steam- 
 boats, cargo-boats, sampans and light- 
 ers, the Surugamaru approached the 
 pier, looking like a scared water-bird/ 
 who had barely escaped from peril, ana 
 was hurrying to the shore, crying out to 
 her friends. When the ship stopped, 
 and seemed to sigh with relief, the waves 
 lapped about her with whisperings. 
 
 Then the passengers jumped into the 
 sampans and hastened to land on the 
 pier. What a sight of madness! Per- 
 sons landing, persons waiting to receive 
 them, parents embracing their children, 
 sisters their sisters, caressing and em- 
 bracing! All the women wept for joy, 
 which stirred the emotion of all onlook- 
 ers. 
 
 161
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 At last the time came to part with the 
 student. Full of regret, I was standing 
 vacantly in the crowd, and forgot not 
 only the clamoring hotel-runners, but 
 everything, even to the package I 
 placed on the ground and the bag I was 
 carrying, wishing only to continue 
 speaking with this young man. How I 
 was moved at this unexpected intimacy 
 and this parting, thinking over the 
 events of the day's voyage! 
 
 Becoming conscious of the disappear- 
 ance of his companion, we turned back 
 and saw his arm firmly taken by a big 
 policeman. 
 
 "There! pickpocket!" said those who 
 gathered around us. 
 
 "Look! What are you thinking 
 about? Don't you know you have been 
 robbed?" 
 
 Being addressed by the policeman, I 
 162
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 was aware for the first time tHat the 
 package I had placed on the ground 
 was gone. 
 
 "What! Impudent!" exclaimed the 
 student excitedly. "I am not such a 
 man as to commit lawlessness!" 
 
 "Don't be excited. Where did you 
 come from? I myself did not see you 
 break the law. But you are the com- 
 panion of the man who did it, aren't 
 you?" 
 
 As the policeman said this, I told him 
 every fact I knew, and defended the 
 student from the imputation of being a 
 suspicious character. The policeman 
 nodded at each of my words and, after 
 he inquired of the student how he be- 
 came a companion of such a scoundrel 
 as the pickpocket, he made more inquir- 
 ies and admonitions, and also advised 
 me to appear against the thief in court. 
 163
 
 PAULOWNIA 
 
 "Wait a bit. I want to keep your 
 name and address." 
 
 The policeman took out his note-book 
 and gazed at the face of the student. 
 
 "What is your address?" 
 
 "Kusatsu town, Awata district, Omi 
 county." 
 
 "Your name?" 
 
 "Nishihara Yasutaro." 
 
 "Your age?" 
 
 "Nineteen." 
 
 After this catechism, the student 
 bade farewell to my wife and me, and 
 started again on his wanderings. I 
 looked at the appearance of his back as 
 he disappeared, and could not help be- 
 ing again reminded of my departed 
 Ryunosuke. My wife, weeping and 
 scarcely able to stand, looked after him, 
 leaning on my shoulder. Gazing this 
 way and that, we continued to look un- 
 164
 
 TSUGARU STRAIT 
 
 til the straw summer hat, the student- 
 like figure in the white cloth of Kasuri, 
 disappeared amid the crowd, and at last 
 faded away. 
 
 THE END
 
 lit*