As a matter of fact, Mr. Gennosuké was immensely satisfied with his calligraphy, and was waiting for compliments.
"But this, this is beautifully written. It is worthy of Kobo Daishi!" said the younger man, naming a famous scholar priest of the Middle Ages. He was admiring a scroll on which four characters were written in a perpendicular row. They signified, "From the midst of tranquillity I survey the world."
"No," said the artist; "you see the ten (point) there is wrong. It is ill-formed. It should be written thus."
Shaking back his kimono sleeve—he wore a sea-blue cotton kimono, as befitted his years—and with a little flourish of his wrist, like a golfer about to make his stroke, he traced off the new version of the character on the white paper.
Perched on his veranda, with his head on one side he looked very like the marabout stork, as you may see him at the Zoo, that raffish bird with the folds in his neck, the stained glaucous complexion, the bald head and the brown human eye. He had the same look of respectable rascality. The younger Fujinami showed signs of becoming exactly like him, although the parentage was by adoption only. He was not yet so bald. His black hair was patched with grey in a piebald design. The skin of the throat was at present merely loose, it did not yet hang in bags.
"And this Asa San?" remarked the elder after a pause; "what is to be thought of her? Last night I became drunk, as my habit is, and I could not see those people well."
"She is not loud-voiced and bold like foreign women. Indeed, her voice and her eyes are soft. Her heart is very good, I think. She is timid, and in everything she puts her husband first. She does not understand the world at all; and she knows nothing about money. Indeed, she is like a perfect Japanese wife."
"Hm! A good thing, and the husband?"
"He is a soldier, an honourable man. He seemed foolish, or else he is very cunning. The English people are like that. They say a thing. Of course, you think it is a lie. But no, it is the truth; and so they deceive."
"Ma, mendo-kusai (indeed, smelly-troublesome!) And why has this foreigner come to Japan?"