The verandah led to one of the best rooms of the house, where a bed-room lantern shed an elfish light upon the paper doors. It was generally used by the master and mistress for their living room, fitted as it was, with the family mortuary shrine, a large sized brazier, a tea cupboard, and other articles of household paraphernalia. To-night, Tsuya, the young mistress, had evidently taken it for herself and gone to bed there.
“Ah, how warm and snug it must be in that room there!” As the thought flashed through his mind, suddenly he seemed to find himself face to face with the miseries of his own wretched self, of the life meted out to a man in menial servitude; his eyes, aglow with envy, lingered on the soft glow on the paper.
He had now for a full year nursed a deep love for Tsuya whose feeling toward him was as tender and enduring. However madly they might love one another, his master’s daughter was out of his reach. Had he been born to a family of name and means, he would claim this beautiful Tsuya as his own. It was his wont thus to lament his own misfortunes in life.
It must have been close upon midnight. The cold air relentlessly oozed its way into the house. While at a pause in the verandah hall, Shinsuké shivered as he had to feel the cold draughts coming in between the sliding doors. Out of the warm depths of his bosom, he pulled out his hand to take the lantern and relieve his right hand, which was now chilled to the aching point, and on which he kept blowing his warm breath. He could feel his thighs so bare and chilly in their touch against each other, as if they were not his own. His shivers, however, may not have been accountable by the cold only.
“Is that you. Shin don?” hailed Tsuya, just as he was going past outside the sleeping room. She either awoke just then, or had been awake throughout. Then, she apparently opened the shade over the globe-shaped lantern to turn it toward the hall, for the glow on the paper outside was thrown into a brighter light.
“Yes, it is myself. The master’s late, and I thought I should go around to make sure about the doors.”
“You’re ready to turn in, now?”
“No, I shall just stay up all night until the Master comes home.”
As he spoke those words, he lowered himself on his knees outside the room, placing his hands down, correctly putting himself in an attitude of respect due to the daughter of the family. Almost at the same instant, the screen doors were pushed back, opening about a foot wide.
“It is cold out there; come in and shut the doors behind.” Combing back her stray hair, she sat up amidst the silk quilts, her long-lashed eyes fixed, in open adoration, on the face of the man, which, even in a subdued light, appeared so white and handsome.