Page:Four Japanese Tales.pdf/22

 smile in which there were more tears than in the most desperate weeping, more pain than in a breaking heart.

Thus the Painter of Camellias returned in triumph there whence he had departed in disgrace a few years before. The good will of the sovereign was his, learned critics were finding ever new charms and virtues in his work, and his admirers worshipped him. He talked about his principles, and the court listened to him with interest; he began the work entrusted to him, and the critics nodded their heads approvingly when they saw that he was beginning to paint in a style which was to eclipse the Korean and Chinese masters on their own field. The work progressed slowly, but that did not decrease the fame and favor he enjoyed at the court; and in the midst of feasts and festivals grew ever dimmer the memory of Tsubaki-San, whom he had left behind far away in the heart of the mountains. The painting progressed slowly, but all the more rapidly there grew within him a sort of anxiety when he was alone with his work, vainly waiting for the moment which would make him forget the whole world and live and breathe only in his idea, in his art. And as the weeks lengthened into months, the Painter of Camellias who no longer painted camellias became more and more discontented with himself and with everything else; at first he cursed all those years in which he had painted nothing but camellias, and then himself for ever having set out upon these new paths, which really were very old; gladly he would have stopped his work, obliterated it all, and begun anew as he had learned to create in banishment, but his name and honor were engaged, and he felt that he never would have the strenghstrength [sic] to finish this painting against his convictions, against his past, against his art, against his love, against himself. He still kept up the appearance of pride and self-confidence; but in private and in solitude he grew faint-hearted, he hardly could support his heavy head, and his eyes imagined the delicacy and beauty of her whom alone he loved and to whom he had been unfaithful, not only for the smiles of other women but still more through having enstranged himself from his own self and from his camellias. His heart ever more passionately called Tsubaki-San, but his brush was afraid to attempt even a stroke in his former style. He wished to paint his camellias, but felt that without Tsubaki-San he would fail, and that he could not survive his failure. Only one thing saved him from despair: the profound, though unwarranted belief that Tsubaki-San would come to liberate him, he knew not how and when, but he was sure that only she could save him from disgrace, and that she would

At last when he was already contemplating suicide, so as to es-