Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/179

Rh you,” she said, “I shall go straight to your father and tell him you’re busy with your nasty insects again, and leaning right out of the window where anyone can see you.” But the girl continued to fiddle about with the hairy caterpillars on the bushes near the window. The maid, who had a horror of such creatures, was far too frightened to come any closer, but called again, “Madam, go in this instant. You can be seen!” “Well, what if I can be seen? I am not doing anything to be ashamed of.” “I’m not joking, I assure you,” said the maid indignantly. “There’s a fine gentleman standing right there at the gate. Go away from the window at once!” “Kerao,” said the girl at last, “just go to the gate and see if there is still someone there.” He ran a little distance toward the gate and presently called out, “It’s quite true, there is somebody.” Upon which she gathered several caterpillars in her sleeve and stepped back into the interior of the house.

For a moment he saw her at full length. She was rather tall. Her hair floated out behind her as she moved. It was very thick, but the ends were somewhat wispy, no doubt through lack of trimming. But with a little more looking after it would have made (he thought) a fine crop of hair. Certainly she was no great beauty, but if she dressed and behaved like other people she would, he was sure, be capable of cutting quite a decent figure in society. What a pity it was! Where had she picked up the distressing opinions that forced her to make such a melancholy spectacle of herself?

He felt that he must at any rate let her know that he had seen her; and using the juice of a flower stem as ink he wrote the following poem on a piece of thickly folded paper: “Forgive me that at your wicker gate so long I stand. But from the caterpillar’s bushy brows I cannot take my eyes.” He tapped with his fan, and at once one of the little boys ran out to ask what he wanted. “Take this to your mistress,” he said. But it was intercepted by the maid, to whom the little boy explained that the poem came from the fine gentleman who had been standing about near the gate. “Woe upon us all,” cried the maid, “this is the handwriting of Captain So-and-So, that is in the Horse Guard. And to think that he has been watching you mess about with your nauseous worms!” And she went on for some time