Introduction
praying-mantis hid himself, only to surprise her one day by strutting out like an actor. Indeed this dark musty room was her sanctuary, and here she watched the rotation of the seasons. In autumn:
Ten red dragon-flies
Blown by the wind,
Draw a turning wheel
Within my garden hedge.
From this narrow window, Akiko watched intently the moving world and fleeting time, and they seemed to come to a momentary arrest.
“By the time I was seventeen, I had read practically all the important standard works and acquired a certain critical judgment. When I think back on those days, I wonder how I managed to read so much.”
When she finally exhausted her great grandmother’s library, she wrote:
“My brother in Tokyo sent me new books, and I borrowed some from my friends, too.”
By new books Akiko meant current literature, both in form and content modeled after the Western prototype. She was also exposed to the translations of French and English writers.
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