"It gives me great pleasure to hear them," I answered. "We have no such cicadæ in the West."
"Human life is compared to the life of a semi," said Orito,—"utsuzemi no yo. Brief as the song of the semi all human joy is, and youth. Men come for a season and go, as do the semi."
"There are no semi now," said Yasukochi; "perhaps the teacher thinks it is sad."
"I do not think it sad," observed Noguchi. "They hinder us from study. I hate the sound they make. When we hear that sound in summer, and are tired, it adds fatigue to fatigue so that we fall asleep. If we try to read or write, or even think, when we hear that sound we have no more courage to do anything. Then we wish that all those insects were dead."
"Perhaps you like the dragon-flies," I suggested. "They are flashing all around us; but they make no sound."
"Every Japanese likes dragon-flies," said Ivumashiro. "Japan, you know, is called Akitsusu, which means the Country of the Dragon-fly."
We talked about different kinds of dragon-flies; and they told me of one I had never seen,—the Shōro-tombo, or "Ghost dragon-fly," said to have some strange relation to the dead. Also they spoke of the Yamma—a very large kind of dragon-fly, and related that in certain old songs the samurai were called Yamma, because the long hair of a young warrior used to be tied up into a knot in the shape of a dragon-fly.
A bugle sounded; and the voice of the military officer rang out,—
"AtsumarÉ!" (fall in!) But the young men lingered an instant to ask,—
"Well, what shall it be, teacher?—that which is most difficult to understand?"