“Studying?” asked a woman’s voice outside my door. On returning to my room, I took out one of the books I had brought, tied to my tripod, and was reading it.
“Go right ahead, Sensei, don’t mind me,” said the voice before I gave any answer, and its owner walked right into my room with no conventionality whatever.
A shapely neck, looking all the more fair because of the subdued colour of the part of kimono protecting its lower half, it was this charming contrast that struck my eye, as the woman sat before me.
“A foreign book? Full of hardy, knotty problems, I suppose, Sensei?”
“No, not quite.”
“Then, what is it all about?”
“Well, to be honest, I do not know well enough to tell you.”
“Ho, ho, ho, and yet you are studying?”
“I am not studying. I put it on the desk, open it at random, and just skim the open page. That is all.”
“Does that sort of thing interest you?”