Page:Through the torii (IA throughtorii00noguiala).pdf/215

 stars; that dreamy sight I remember I saw through the mosquito net which slightly swung like a lantern hung under the eaves when cool breezes flow. I do not know how I had fallen in sleep or dream; I was awakened at late midnight by a strange voice of a new-born baby who, I was told then by my elder brother, had come as another member of the family only a little while before. I cannot forget even to-day that my new sister’s first cry, whether from pain or joy, which still echoes, I do think, on my heart, indeed continually during the last thirty years. It is not necessary to know how babies are born; there is one’s existence where his voice is. That is enough. Oh that first fresh voice or cry of my little sister! Let me have my own real Voice to prove my own existence; oh my voice like that I uttered at the first moment when I left my mother’s body.

People do not deny or approve, strange enough, on seeing the flowers blooming and falling, on seeing the clouds coming and passing. Rh