As of the set days when certain
things are observed, among which fall the first of the fourth month
(but that would disclose another involvement), another when flat cakes
are partaken of without due caution, another when rounder cakes are
even more incautiously consumed, and that most brightly-illuminated of
all when it is permissible to embrace maidens openly, and if
discreetly accomplished with no overhanging fear of ensuing forms of
law, beneath the emblem of a suspended branch, in memory of the wisdom
of certain venerable sages who were doubtless expert in the practice.
As of the inconvenient custom when two persons are walking together
that they should arrange themselves side by side, to the obvious
discomfort of others, the sweeping away of all opportunities for
agreeable politeness, and the utter disregard of the time-honoured
example of the sagacious water-fowl. As of the inconsistency of
refusing, even with contempt, to receive our most intimate form of
regard and use this person's lip-cloth after a feast, yet the mulish
eagerness in that same youth to drink from a cup previously used by a
lesser one. As of the precision (which still remains a cloud of
doubt,) with which creatures so intractable as the bull are
successfully trained to roar aloud at certain gong-strokes of the day
as an agreed signal. As of the streets in movement, the lights at
evening, and the voices of those unseen. As of these and as of other
matters, so multitudinous that they crowd about this person's mind
like the assembling swallows, circling above the deserted millet
fields before they turn their beaks to the sea, and dropping his brush
(perchance with an acquiescent sigh), he, also, kow-tows submissively
to a blind but appointed destiny, and prepares to seek a passage from
an alien land of sojourning.
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