WIFE.
That is a small thing to ask. But since the master is away, you cannot lodge in this house.
PRIEST.
Then I will wait here till he comes back.
WIFE.
That must be as you please. I will go to the corner and watch for him. When he comes I will tell him you are here.
(Enter TSUNEYO from the wing, making the gesture of one who shakes snow from his clothes.)
TSUNEYO.
Ah! How the snow falls! Long ago when I was in the World[76] I loved to see it:
“Hither and thither the snow blew like feathers plucked from a goose;
Long, long I watched it fall, till it dressed me in a white coat.”
So I sang; and the snow that falls now is the same that I saw then.
But I indeed am frost-white[77] that watch it!
Oh how shall this thin dress of Kefu-cloth[78]
Chase from my bones the winter of to-day,
Oh pitiless day of snow!