11

One very hot summer day Genji went out to cool himself beside a lotus pond, now in full bloom. “That there should be so very many tears” :+ it was the phrase that first came into his mind. He sat as if in a trance until twilight. What a useless pursuit it was, listening all by himself to these clamorous evening cicadas and gazing at the wild carnations in the evening light.

“I can but pass a summer's day in weeping.

Is that your pretext, O insects, for weeping too?”

Presently it was dark, and great swarms of fireflies were wheeling about. “Fireflies before the pavilion of evening” —this time it was a Chinese verse# that came to him.

“The firefly knows that night has come, and I—

My thoughts do not distinguish night from day.”