45

Refreshments were brought from the nun's rooms. Sprigs of ivy and maple had been laid out tastefully on the lid of the box, and on the paper beneath (one may imagine that he was hungry) he caught a glimpse, in the bright moonlight, of a poem in a shaky old hand:

“Autumn has come, the leaves of the ivy change;

And bright as of old, the moon of memories.”

The hand was an old-fashioned one, but it made him feel somehow inadequate. He softly intoned a poem of his own, though not as if by way of answer:

“The village still calls itself Uji, and here in my rooms

The moon streams in upon another face.” *

It would seem that Jiju~ took the poem to the nun.

{A Boat upon the Waters}