Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/178

174 to put them in,” said the boy. “You must look at them where they are.” Presently the blind was pulled right aside and a girl appeared at the window, craning out toward the nearest boughs of the shrubbery. She had pulled her mantle over her head, but her hair hung loose beneath it, and very lovely hair it was too, but rather untidy-looking, and the Captain thought it must be a long time since she had combed it. Her thick, very dark eyebrows gave her face a rather forbidding air. Her other features were by no means bad. But when she smiled her white teeth gleamed and flashed in a manner that rather disgusted him, for there was something wild and barbaric about it.

“What a sad case!” thought the Captain. “If only she took an ordinary amount of trouble with herself she really would not be bad-looking.” Even as she was he did not find her altogether unattractive; for there was about her a strange kind of vehemence, a liveliness of expression, a brilliance of complexion and coloring that could not fail to make some impression on him. With her clothes in themselves there was nothing wrong. She wore a robe of soft, glossy silk, with a spinner’s jacket, and white trousers. In order to get a good view of the caterpillars she leaned right out of the window, crying, “Aren’t they clever! They’ve come here in order to be out of the sun. Boy, you might just bring me that one there. I should like to have a better look at him. Be sure not to let him fall.” Upon which the boy at once bumped into something and the caterpillar fell with a thud upon the ground. She then handed him a white fan with some Chinese characters written upon it in black ink, saying, “Pick him up quickly and carry him in on this.”

It was only now that she caught sight of the Captain, who was still loitering at the wicker gate. To see anyone there was a considerable surprise, for the young men of the neighborhood had long ago decided that she was what they called “a disastrous character,” and it was seldom indeed that anyone came that way. The little boy, too, had become aware of the visitor’s presence and cried out in astonishment, “Look, there’s a gentleman standing at the wicker gate. I can’t make out what he is doing. He seems to be staring at us.” One of the maids now came along and began to scold her. “Fie upon