Besides, the greatest difficulty lay in the choice of the face. Nami-san, with her usual expression of a discordant mixture of derision, impetuosity and soft heart, would never do, I thought. The face must bear no trace of mental or physical agony; but one with effulgent light-heartedness would be worse. Perhaps I had better borrow another woman’s face; but the racking of my head revealed to me none to fit my imaginary picture, so that I felt that it must be Nami-san, after all. Yet there was something lacking in her to suit my purpose, and the tantalising part of it was how to make up for that something, it being impossible to work my whilom fancy into it to fill up what was lacking. How would it do to give the face a touch of jealousy? But that would make it look too uneasy. How about hatred, then? That would again be too strong. Anger? No, it would spoil the whole effect. Resentment for some particular cause is sometimes poetical and acceptable; but as an every day feeling, it is too commonplace.
I thought and thought and thought, and it suddenly flashed upon me that what was missing from Nami-san was pity and compassion. Compassion is a feeling unknown to the gods, and yet is one that makes man as near gods as possible. This was one sentiment which I had never yet seen reflected in Nami-san, and I was convinced that my picture would become an accomplished fact, the moment I saw it aroused by some impulse or other and flashed across her handsome face. For the moment, however, I had absolutely no idea as to when or if ever, I should have the good fortune to see it in her.
A bantering sort of smile and a knitted brow bespeaking an eager desire to get the better of you are the ever constant features of her face and nothing can be done with them only. Hark! A rustling sound as of somebody wading through dry leaves came, and the mental plan of my picture, two-thirds of which I had finished forming went to pieces. Looking up, I saw a man in tight sleeved kimono, loaded with some faggots on his back, coming through the creeping bamboo growths towards the Kaikanji, apparently from the neighbouring hill.
“Fine weather, Sir,” said the man to me, taking off a towel from his head. He made a bow, and as he did so, a flash from a sharpened hatchet, stuck in his belt, caught my eyes. He was a sturdily built men of about forty, with a face I remembered seeing somewhere. He spoke to me familiarly:
“Danna paints, too?” I had my colour-box open by me.
“Yes, I have come out here, thinking I might make a picture of this pond. This is a very lonely place; nobody comes round.”
“Yes, it is very much in the mountain.... Danna, you had a time of it in rain, on that pass. I am sure, it was a bad toiling along you had that time.”
“Eh? why, yes, you are the mago-san I saw, then?”
“Yes. I gather faggots as you see and take them down to the town to sell.” Gembey took his load down from his back and sat on it. His hand brought out a tobacco pouch, a very ancient affair, that refused to tell whether it was of leather or of imitation leather. I gave him a lighted match and said:
“It must be a great job for you to cross a place like that, every day?”