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A cold wind was blowing in from some aperture in the amado. This was unusual, for a Japanese house in its night attire is hermetically sealed. Suddenly Sadako appeared from the direction of the wind. Her hair was disheveled. She wore a dark cloak over her parti-coloured night kimono. "I have been to benjo," said Sadako nervously. "You have been out in the rain," contradicted her cousin.
Slowly and deliberately, Tanaka wiped first the knife and then his hands on the clothes of his victim. Then he felt his mouth and throat. "Sa! Shimatta! He turned towards the garden side, threw open the shoji and the amado. He ran across the snow-covered lawn; and from beyond the unearthly silence which followed his departure, come the distant sound of a splash in the river.
At night the perfume crept in to him through crannies of the close-shut amado and shoji, revivifying, to keen agony, his longing for his wife. There were moonlit nights he could not rest for it, but would rise, pacing the cold, wet pebbles of the garden, or wandering, like a distracted spirit that had lost its way, through the thoroughfares of the sleeping town.
It would be a difficult matter to push even one of these aside without waking the house. Yet, there were two things in her favor; the unusually heavy sleep of her companions and the fact that the amado had a starting point in their long grooves from a shallow closet very near her room.
There are no walls as we understand the term, the sides being composed, in winter, of amado, or sliding screens made of wood, and in summer of shoji, or oil-paper slides. This enables, in hot weather, the whole of the side of the house to be moved, and the air to be given free ingress and egress. Nor are these habitations divided off into permanent rooms, as in this and other European countries.
She believes this little bit of witchcraft will not only nullify the robber's spell, but also render it impossible for him even should he succeed in entering the house without being seen or heard to carry anything whatever away. But, unless very tired indeed, she will also see that the tarai is brought into the house before the amado are closed for the night.
She wished that the cricket were indeed outside, and could tell her of the first dawn-stirring. It was very close and dark in the little room. She had not lighted the andon after all. It could not be so dark outside. With very cautious fingers she began now to separate the shoji that opened on the garden side. A breath of exquisite night air rushed in to her from the lattices above the amado.
A little later, when the neighborhood reverberated to the slamming of amado and the sharp rattle of paper dusters against taut shoji panes; when fragrant faggot smoke went up from every cottage, and the street cries of itinerant venders signalled domestic buying for the day, Mata discovered the wild man in the garden, and roused her sleeping master with the news. "O Haiyo gozaimasu!" he called.
The front of the house is, as a rule, open to the street, but if the owners wish for privacy they slide a paper screen into position. At night wooden shutters, called amado, cover the screens. Each shutter is held in place by the next, and the last shutter is fastened by a wooden bolt. The Japanese are very fond of fresh air and sunshine.
DOÑA MATILDE. Que como una erupción volcánica.... DON EDUARDO. Pero Matilde, si su papá de usted.... DOÑA MATILDE. Calle usted; no me distraiga ... se apoderó de mi pobre corazón, que estaba indefenso ... que no había hasta entonces amado.... DON PEDRO. Si me dejarás meter baza....
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