Page:Four Japanese Tales.pdf/40



With a sudden swerve the path lept above five terraces of innundatedinundated [sic] paddy fields, similar to looking-glasses of strange shapes with their green borders like bronze frames covered with patina. My companion let down his kimono, tucked up during the ascent, and smiled, for it did not escape him that I was concentrating my attention on the words of a song upon the lips of peasant-women near by, dressed in dark blue, close-fitting trousers and wading in a field where they were transplanting seedling rice-plants in straight rows at uniform distances.

“If you had European clothes on they would have stopped their singing long ago«, he said, »Unfortunately they are not singing anything of special interest, characteristic of this part of the country. You can hear this song all over Japan. It is playful.« And word by word, so that I might better catch the meaning, he repeated its words:

“Who never was bewitched by the smile of a woman is a wooden Buddha, a metal Buddha, a stone Buddha,« he then added in English to make sure; for as an electrical engineer who had studied in Tokyo he of course knew English far better than I his language.

Involuntarily I laughed; although I did not say a single word, he read my thought. »Don’t you believe it! Now they are dressed for work and muddy up to the elbows and knees. Distastefully muddy. And the perfume enveloping them does not stimulate you to imagine their possible transformation into delicate and charming specimens of womanhood. But if you saw them washed and dressed for some