I had a clear vision of the girl’s hair and dress, the horse and the cherry tree; but strangely enough, her face would not come to me, eagerly as my fancy travelled from one type to another. Suddenly Millais’ Ophelia came into the vision under the bride’s “shimada” coiffure. No good, I thought and let my vision crumble away. The same moment the bridal dress, hair, horse, and cherry tree and all disappeared from my mind’s setting; but Ophelia floating above the water with her hands clasped, remained behind mistily in my mind, lingering with a faintness, as of a cloud of smoke brushed with a palm fibre whisk, and producing a weird sensation as when looking at the fading tail of a shooting star.
“Well, goodbye Obasan.”
“Come again on your way back. Bad time we had with the rain. The road must be pretty bad about the ‘Seven Bends’.”
Gen-san began to move and his horse to trot as he said: “rather a job,” leaving behind the jingling of bells.
“Was that man from Nakoi?”
“Yes, he is Gembei of Nakoi.”
“Do I understand that that man crossed this mountain with a bride on the back of his horse, some time or other?”
“He passed here with the Jo-sama of Nakoi on the back of his horse, when the lady-bird went to her future husband’s house.—Time goes fast; it was five years ago.”
She is of a happy order, who laments the turning white of her hair only when she looks into the glass. Nearer an immortal, I thought, was my old woman who became conscious of the swiftness of fleeting time only by counting five years on her fingers. I observed to her:
“She must have been charming.—I wish I was here to see her.”