"Again you amaze me. You really are Japanese."
"I like the poetry."
"Then you know, Tam, our poets excel in feeling. We've always celebrated emotion over logic." He smiled. "Which one said, 'Love is the passion in the heart of man—those who will not listen to reason'?"
"What does reason have to do with love?" She took a glass. "Didn't Shakespeare say 'love and reason keep little company together'?"
"My turn. That's from Midsummer Night's Dream, which was . . . sixteenth century. You're pulling out the moderns on me." He laughed with delight. "You know, in Heian times, eight hundred years ago here in Kyoto, I'd be expected to make a linked verse about the night now." He looked out the doorway, then back. "How about . . .
The moon in veil,
Perfumed with night,
Who can deny love
At a time like this?"
Then his visage quickened, another mood switch. His eyes mellowed as he turned and carefully lifted the bud from the vase behind him. It was a camellia, purest white. He held it before him as he turned back, its long stem still dripping.