[ "With the soft tuft of camel hair he blurred against the
peak pale, luminous vapor of new cloud ]
[ "He walked up and down, sometimes in the narrow room,
sometimes in the garden" ]
[ "'Come, Dragon Wife,' he said, 'come back to our little home'" ]
[ "Umè-ko leaned over instantly, staring down into the stream" ]
[ "Then a little hand, stealing from a nun's gray sleeve,
slipped into his" ]
THE DRAGON PAINTER
I
The old folks call it Yeddo. To the young, "Tokyo" has a pleasant, modern sound, and comes glibly. But whether young or old, those whose home it is know that the great flat city, troubled with green hills, cleft by a shining river, and veined in living canals, is the central spot of all the world.
Storms visit Tokyo,—with fury often, sometimes with destruction. Earthquakes cow it; snow falls upon its temple roofs, swings in wet, dazzling masses from the bamboo plumes, or balances in white strata along green-black pine branches. The summer sun scorches the face of Yeddo, and summer rain comes down in wide bands of light. With evening the mist creeps up, thrown over it like a covering, casting a spell of silence through which the yellow lanterns of the hurrying jinrikishas dance an elfish dance, and the voices of the singing-girls pierce like fine blades of sound.