Did Kiku, so learned on all subjects, know of any land where the snow lay for half the year?
Oh, certainly Kiku did, and she told about it.
Describing her future husband and his relations she had been vague and uninteresting, lacking, as she did, the gifts of perception and narration. But now, plunging into the empire of pure lies, she spoke with an assurance that made her words sound like gospel.
Such a country existed; as a matter of fact, she had it all in a book somewhere, but she did not need the book, as she never forgot anything. It lay in the sea beyond Nankin two hundred and sixty-seven ri beyond, and the snow lay there half a year, sometimes more.
“Is it a country where blue flowers grow, and roses—sometimes?” said Campanula.
“Just so, sometimes;” and Kiku, searching in the capacious bag of her ignorance, began to produce old broken-up facts that had been lying there like rubbish in the basket of a chiffonier.
The sea all round that place was frozen most of the year, and the sun shone once a month or so.
Then she painted a graphic picture of this desolate land which she declared to be divided into four parts, Unster, Munster, Rinster and Comit; and Campanula sat listening and receiving it all as truth.
Liars, somehow, are always sure of an audience; you and I, who speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, languish in conversation and are not heard, whilst your mendacity-monger holds the floor and absorbs the interest.
So Kiku San went on spinning her tale, and Campanula San sat opposite to her and listened, shivering at the dismal pictures being raised before her.