He says good-night somewhat reluctantly after all; and when we have watched him go away down the path, over the edges of which our poor rain-beaten tea-roses are straggling, with his big hat, paper umbrella on which a grinning and intelligent-looking red dragon is fearlessly daubed, and an orange paper lantern with bars and lozenges of vermilion, which the rising wind threatens every moment to overturn or extinguish, we go in.
Oka’s wife is playing her samisen in the basement, its twanging strains ascending to us through the thin floor. She is singing now in a shrill, squeaky voice, perhaps to amuse Oka, or to lull one of the numerous little Okas to sleep. The song goes on to some accompaniment which is too irregular to be anything save an improvisation, all the time Mousmé is taking a few of the most valuable and elaborate pins out of her hair, preparatory to sleep. My toilet is a simple one compared to that of Mousmé, which indeed is so elaborate that I have frequently caught myself idly wondering why she ever gets up or goes to bed to go through such a process. There are her garments to be carefully stowed away in her little cupboards, curiously contrived behind the panelling. The proper folding of her obi is in itself a matter of some considerable importance, to judge from the serious, rapt expression of her face. Then there are the wonderful pins with which her pretty head, set so well on her sloping shoulders, is adorned.
There is no light to put out, because I always keep the lamp with its glowworm flame burning throughout the night. It permits, for one thing, Mousmé properly to arrange her head in the little hollow of her camphor-wood pillow; for another, it allows me to watch her fall asleep, and the antics of the moths outside our slate-blue gauze mosquito curtain when I cannot sleep myself.
To-night, however, I am lulled to rest by the sheer monotony of Oka’s wife’s song; and the last thing I remember is the twang, twing, twang of her samisen, which is quite loud now, I have my ear so close to the floor.
CHAPTER TEN