Page:Through the torii (IA throughtorii00noguiala).pdf/89

might be myself a bit of a savage in my heart, the lover of tropical unmorality; to be unmoral is at least comfortable. I found many women in the car, who strangely enough, looked equally young, wild and curious like a pussy; I suddenly thought myself to be a foreigner, to whom the Japanese women ever appear as girls. It may be true that they never grow old and ugly. There sat right before me a really pretty girl, who might not be over seventeen; her ivory-skinned cheeks glowed within like a pearl under the already hot sunlight She wore a cotton cloth, of course, of one thickness, with a large design which was a creation of old Japan, when people were gay and free; she looked like one who has just stepped out of an old colour-print, massive in colour, weary in tone. She had such a beautiful eye, clear like a sea, determined, not a bit afraid; on the contrary, even wishing to be loved by a Western-sea man. She might be a Madam Chrysanthemum in Loti’s story; like her she was, I fancied, charmingly barbarous. This Madam Chrysanthemum had a little cotton handkerchief under her bosom, which she took