Page:Four Japanese Tales.pdf/29

 I feel that neither your garden nor its story will disappoint me.”

We passed a veteran of the China-Japan war limping behind an ambulatory play-kitchen for children and calling the attention of the public to himself by blowing a military bugle. The searching Zaze of the poor and the poorest followed us on all sides, and every little while some one would answer my accidental glance with a bow.

“Mama ni naranu wa ukiyo no narai,” responded Kumamoto with an old Budhist proverb. “To be disappinteddisappointed [sic] is usual in this miserable world.” It seemed that he was not even aware of his words, uttered in Japanese, and then, lifting his head as he came out of his thoughts, he added in English:

“You are right, fulfilled desires usually disappoint. But my father was not disappointed in his garden and therefore gave it that name.”

Pushing aside the sliding screen of translucent paper, so as to light up the room, my friend Kumamoto said:

“If you please, sir, this is my garden.”

I half stifled a cry of wonder; for in truth before that time I had never seen a Japanese garden more beautiful than this one, which was the property of a young business-clerk with dark glasses. It was more of a charming laandscapelandscape [sic] than a garden a landscape from out of a fairy-toletale [sic], the like of which some one might be able to create in his imagination, but hardly would hope to find in reality, alive and green, as it now appeared before my eyes.

About in the centre there arose a shapely hillock, and on its slope a path wound its way upward among rocks, the natural shape of which a Japanese could appreciate better than a white person, and the arrangement of which gave the impression that they formed some sort of magical emblem. Upon the summit stood a little temple hoary with age, with a thatched roof so overgrown with moss that it looked as if it were covered with patina. Seldom had I seen pillars and beams more beautifully carved; the gable was a magnificent piece of Japanese art, and its dragons, enlivened by subdued colours, all but twisted and writhed in the sunlight. One could see into the shrine. It was disconcertingly empty, containing only a metal mirror, which was fastened upon two strings, probably strechedstretched [sic] from the floor clear to the ceiling. What symbol lay in this mirror, now so brilliant? That all our eyes see is but illusion?

My thoughts, however, roved from the temple to the oblong garden which surrondedsurrounded [sic] it. The surface of a little lake glistened