beauty and sadness, yasunari kawabata

""The picture was in a simple frame of unpainted wood. Its dominant tone was green, but she had boldly dashed on a variety of colors to suit her whim. The whole surface was seething and undulating."

"Mr. Oki, this is realistic for me. It's a tea field at Uji."

"He crouched to peer at it. "It's a tea field that looks like surging waves—a tea field swelling with youth. At first I wondered if it symbolized a heart bursting into flames."

"That makes me so happy! To have you see it that way ...""

"First he saw one of her nipples. It was a pink nipple, almost transparently pink. Some Japanese women have fair skin glowing with femininity, perhaps even finer and more lustrous than the faintly pink gleaming skin of young girls in the West. And the nipples of some Japanese girls are an incomparably delicate shade of pink. Keiko's complexion was not quite so fair, but the pink of her nipple seemed freshly washed and moist. It was like a flower bud against her creamy breast. It had no ugly little wrinkles or granular texture, and was just the right modest size to suckle on lovingly."




"Still, her kimono and obi seemed brand-new. "I prefer quiet colors for summer, like this obi," she said.

"I painted the design myself." She was following close behind him as he made his way toward the baggage area.

Taichiro turned to look.

"What do you think it is?" she asked.

"Let's see—water? A stream?"

"It's a rainbow! A colorless rainbow ... just curved lines in light and dark ink. Nobody would recognize it, but I'm supposed to be wrapped in a summer rainbow — in the mountains at dusk.""

«"Can you hear anything?"

"Of course. Something like—

و و

"Like what?"

"I wonder. Like a bee hovering in a flower. or

maybe a butterfly."

"It's because I'm touching them."

"Do you enjoy touching a woman's ears?"

His hands froze.

"Do you?" she repeated softly.

"I've never seen such beautiful ones," he said at last.

"I like to clean out people's ears for them," said Keiko. "Odd, isn't it? I've become quite an expert.

Shall I do it for you some time?"

Taichiro did not answer.

"There isn't a breath of air," she went on.

"No, only a sunlit world."

"T'll always remember being in your arms in front of an old tomb on a morning like this. It seems strange for a tomb to create a memory.

و و

"But they're built for memories, aren't they?"»