Page:Through the torii (IA throughtorii00noguiala).pdf/166



should begin with the opening of the shoji here. I pushed them apart. I should see the lotus bud of Fuji, singing the “swan-like rhapsody of dying night,” from my garden, if it were a Japanese fiction written by a foreigner; I do not see it from here. Never mind! I can be pretty well off without seeing it this morning. Thank God, I have even a quite comfortable peace. So I opened my garden shoji. I went straight into dream from the reading of a book of poems by a certain lady, last night; during the whole night my mind was touched by the perfumes down a certain lane, now and then deliciously startled by a phantom that came back from a forgotten shade; and I am still dreaming this morning. I asked my servant to burn the incense which softly began to flap towards me as a tiny, pearl-winged butterfly tantalising many flowers. The incense tantalised my soul of fancy; my fancy grew irritated, and presently mad; it tried to chase it away again and again. May it not be the gray-robed ghost of something forgotten haunting my memory? Rh