Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan.pdf/172

156 moods of dejection. He still continued to visit her window after he had come from the mountain, and would throw his prettiest flowers into her room. He did this every day, but his bouquets piled themselves one upon another unheeded.

Two months passed by, and Adani began to wonder why Araginu was so slow in finishing her tapestry. He visited her uncle, the hermit, and asked him to make enquiries. The old man also wondered why she had not finished her work after weaving for more than half a year, and so he determined to go and see for himself what had happened.

But the astonishment of the hermit was still greater when he entered the maiden’s room. He found no Araginu. She was nowhere to be seen. Cobwebs hung across the ceiling, and the once beautiful tapestry lay across the floor. The colours were changed from purple to black, and where she had last been weaving, it looked as if it had been saturated with mud.

Through a chink in the window a fine thread led into the open air. The hermit, guided by it, went out of the cottage, and found that it was endless, and led towards the mountain. He followed it, and climbed the mountain. Arriving at the shrine of the Goddess, he found little torn pieces of the maiden’s dress lying here and there upon the ground.

The thin thread extended onwards to the back of the hill, which faced to the north. As the sunshine never shone there, the scene was a dreary one, for there were no flowers to be seen and no songs of birds to