Page:Four Japanese Tales.pdf/53

 was no talking with him; in the end he was almost irritable and more inclined to be monosyllabic than was to my liking.

No sooner were we in his room than his mien changed altogether. “I was afraid that we should come home too late,” he began to explain, “and that there would be no more direct sunlight. I was very anxious that we should get here in time. That was why I hurried so impolitely. I beg your pardon a thousand times.”

I waived his apologies. “But why do we need sunlight?” I queried. I had the suspicion that he had been hurrying rather for his own satisfaction than for my sake.

“You will see in a minute.” He offered me a cushion, on which I seated myself, and after having clapped his hands three times he continued, “You are not mistaken if you think that I hurried partly for my own sake. Today I was relating the story of the temple dancer, so I wished to come in time to catch a glimpse of her phantom ” His eyes burned with a strange smoldering fire. “Without the sun it would be impossible,—without that sun which she worshipped with her dance as the Darling of the Gods ”

An aged woman, his servant, entered, knelt down and touched her forehead to the matted floor. He ordered tea and almost impatiently waved his hand to bid her leave us. “Fortunately, we still caught the sun and with it the best possible ending for my story. But we came just in the nick of time. In five minutes it would have been too late.”

Excusing himself, he hurried away and in a short time returned with an ancient mirror, the handle of which was green, as if mossgrown. “A strange shape,” I exclaimed, taking it into my hand. “The handle looks like live bamboo in this covering of patina. And look, here are wisps and leaflets of bamboo A beautiful piece of work, which does not suffer in the least from the patina. One could say that age instilled life into this mirror. Doubts assailed me as to whether such a green covering could have formed under water; I doubted it and began to suspect that this part of my host’s information was untrue or at least inaccurate. But at that instant I turned the mirror over and cried out in wonder. The back was altogether unsightly, devoid of ornaments, unpolished and even rough, as if corroded. “What a pity!” escaped me. “Probably the most beautiful part of it is lost for ever!”