THE ARTIST-SHIGA NAOYA

Seibei's parents knew that he often went out to buy him self gourds. He got them for a few sen and soon had a sizable collection. When he came home, he would first bore a neat hole in the top of the gourd and extract the seeds. Next he applied tea-leaves to get rid of the unpleasant gourd smell. He then fetched the sake which he had saved up from the dregs in his father's cup and carefully polished the surface.

     Seibei was passionately interested in gourds. One day as he was strolling along the beach, absorbed in his favorite subject, he was startled by an unusual sight: he caught a glimpse of the bald, elongated head of an old man hurrying out of one of the huts by the beach. 'What a splendid gourd!' thought Seibei. The old man disappeared from sight, wagging his bald pine pate. Only then did Seibei realize his mistake and he stood there laughing loudly to himself. He laughed all the way home.
   
     Whenever he passed a grocery, a curio-shop, a confectioner's or in fact any place that sold gourds, he stood for minutes on end, his eyes glued to the window appraising the precious fruit.

     Seibie was twelve years old and still at primary school. After class, instead of playing with the other children, he usually wandered about the town looking for gourds. Then in the evening he would sit cross-legged in the corner of the living-room working on his newly-acquired fruit. When he had finished treating it, he poured in a little sake, inserted a cork stopper which he had fashioned himself, wrapped it in a towel, put this in a tin especially kept for the purpose and finally placed the whole thing in the charcoal legwarmer. Then he went to bed.

     As soon as he woke the next morning, he would open the tin and examine the gourd. The skin would be thoroughly damp from the overnight treatment. Seibei would gaze adoringly at his treasure before tying a string round the middle and hanging it in the sun to dry. Then he set out for school.

     Seibei lived in a harbor town. Although it was officially a city, one could walk from one end to the other in a matter of twenty minutes. Seibei was always wandering about the streets and had soon come to know every place that  sold gourds and to recognize almost every gourd on the market.

     He did not care much about the old, gnarled, peculiarly-formed gourds usually favored by collectors. The type that appealed to Seibei was even and symmetrical.

     That youngster of yours only seems to like the ordinary-looking ones,' said a friend of his father;s who had come to call. He pointed the boy, who was sitting in the corner busily polishing a plain, round gourd.

     'Fancy a lad spending his time playing around like that with gourds!' said his father giving Seibei a disgusted look.

     'See here, Seibei my lad,' said the friend, 'there's no use just collecting lots of those things. It's not the quantity that counts, you know. What you want to do is to find one or two really unusual ones.'

     'I prefer this kind,' said Seibei and let the matter drop. Seibei's father and his friend started talking about gourds.

     'Remember that Bakin gourd they had at the agricultural show last spring?' said the father. 'It was a real beauty, wasn't it?'

     'Yes, I remember. That big, long one.......'

     As Seibei listened to their conversation, he was laughing inwardly. The Bakin gourd had made quite a stir at the time, but when he had gone to see it (having no idea, of course, who Bakin might be) he had found it rather a stupid-looking object and had walked out of the show.

     'I didn't think so much of it,' interrupted Seibei, 'It's just a clumsy great thing.'

     His father opened his eyes wide in surprise and anger.
   
     'What's that?' he shouted. 'When you don't know what you're talking about, you'd better shut up!'

     Seibei did not say another word.

     One day when he was walking-along an unfamiliar back-street, he came upon an old woman with a fruit-stall. She was selling dried persimmons and oranges; on the shutters of the house behind the stall, she had hung a large cluster of of gourds.
   
     'Can I have a look?' said Seibei and immediately ran behind the stall and began examining the gourds. Suddenly he caught sight of one which was about five inches long and at first sight looked quite common place. Something about it made Seibei's heart beat  faster.

     'How much is this one?' he asked, panting out the words.

     'Well,' said the old woman, 'since you're just a lad, I'll let you have it for ten sen.'

     'In that case,' said Seibei urgently, 'please hold it for me, won't you? I'll right back with the money.'


     He dashed home and in no time at all was back at the stall. He bought the gourd and took it home.


     From that time on, he was never separated from his new gourd. He even took it along school and used to polish it under his deck in class-time. It was not long before he caught at this by one of the teachers, who was particularly incensed because it happened to take place in an ethics class.      


     The teacher came from another part of Japan and found it most offensive that children should indulge in such effeminate pastimes as collecting gourds. He never minded having his students sing Naniwabushi ballads, however raucously. Now, when he found Seibei silently polishing his gourd, his voice trembled with fury.

     'You're an idiot!' he shouted. 'There's absolutely no future for a boy like you.' Then and there he confiscated the gourd on which Seibei had spent so many long hours of work. Seibei stared straight ahead and did not cry.

     When he got home, Seibei's face was pale. Without a word, he put his feet on the warmer and sat looking blankly at the wall.

     After a while, the teacher arrived. As Seibei's father was not yet home from the carpenter's shop where he worked, the teacher directed his attack on Seibei's mother.

     'This sort of thing is the responsibility of the family', he said in a stern voice. 'It is the duty of you parents to see that such things don't happen.' In an agony of embarrassment, Seibei's mother muttered some apology.

     Meanwhile, Seibei was trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible in the corner. Terrified, he glanced up at his vindictive teacher and at the wall directly behind; where a whole row of fully-prepared gourds was hanging. What would happen if the teacher caught sight of them?

     trembling inside, he waited for the worst, but at length the man exhausted his rhetoric and stamped angrily out of the house. Seibei heaved a sigh of relief.

     Seibei's mother was sobbing softly. In a querulous whine, she began to scold him, and in the midst of this, Seibei's father returned from his shop. As soon as he heard what had happened, he grabbed his son by the collar and gave him a sound beating. 'You're no good!' he bawled at him. "You'll never get anywhere in the world, the way you're carrying on. I've a good mind to throw you out into the street where you belong!' The gourds on the wall caught his attention. Without a word, he fetched his hammer and systematical smashed them to pieces, one after another. Seibei turned pale but said nothing.

     The next day the teacher gave Seibei's confiscated gourd to an old porter who worked in the school. 'Here, take this', he said, as if handing over some unclean object. The porter took the gourd home with him and hung it on the wall of his small, sooty room.

     About two months later, the porter, finding himself even more hard-pressed for money than usual, decided to take the gourd to local curio-shop to see if he could get a few coppers for it. The curio-dealer examined the gourds carefully, then assuming an uninterested tone handed it back to the porter, saying, 'I might give you fix yen for it.'

     The porter was astounded, but being quite an astute old man, replied coolly, 'I certainly wouldn't part with it for that.' The dealer immediately raised his offer to ten yen, but the porter was still adamant.

     In the end the curio-dealer had to pay fifty yen for the gourd. The porter left the shop, delighted at his luck. It wasn't often that the teachers gave one a free gift equivalent to a year's wages! He was so clever as not to mention the matter to anyone, and neither Seibei nor the teacher ever heard what had happened to the gourd. Yes, the porter was clever, but he was not clever enough: little did he imagine that this same gourd would be passed on by the curio-dealer to a wealthy collector in the district for 600 yen.

     Seibei is now engrossed in his pictures. He no longer feels any bitterness either towards the teacher, or towards his father who smashed all his precious gourds to pieces.

     Yet gradually his father has begun to scold him for painting pictures.
     

THE WRITING ON THE IMAGE - WILLIAM MORRIS

     This is a tale of sorcery; so although you hear of its happening in the old historic town of Rome, you will hardly look for any mention of it in her city annals, where the true is sifted from the false.
   
     In the heart of the town, says our story, there once stood an image, cut in hard corneal wood, on whose outstretched hand were carried the word Per cute hic-Strike here! For more than two hundred years the image stood through storm and sunshine in the busy square, pointing its finger with that strange bidding to every passer-by; but while many a man paused to marvel, no one, in all those years, had guessed the secret of the letters.

     At the length came a man who read the simple words alright. He was a Scholar, from the island of Sicily, whose life of toilsome study had furnished his mind with boundless magic lore, but had brought him little to relieve the pinch of poverty. From the moment that his eyes first rested on the image, Rome and the other famous cities he had seen on his travels held, to his thinking, no greater wonder than his uncouth little wooden figure. Day after day he turned his steps to the square, and prowled around the statue in search of a clue to its mystery, for well he knew from his studies that it was the work of a cunning magician.

     "He was a crafty master who raised this monument," he murmured to himself as he stood before the image one midday. "There is black magic here, I'll be bound."

     He glanced behind him, and, making sure that no one was near enough to notice his movements, he went down to the place where lay the shadow of the pointing finger. With his knife he scratched a little circle to mark the exact spot upon the paving stones. Then he returned to his lodgings, and waited as patiently as he could until night fell and the streets were deserted.

     At midnight he crept quietly from the house, with lantern, pick-axe and spade in hand, and a stout leathern sack on his shoulders. Through the slumbering town he stole back to the square and finding the mark which he had made in the morning, he set to work with his tools, broke through the pavement, and before long he had dug a great deep hole in then ground. At length his spade struck against something hard, that clanged harshly to his blow. Raising his lantern, the Saholar peered into the hole, and saw that he had come upon a plate as thick as a man's wrist, and green with rust. It was found to be large copper plate, on which were wonderful carvings of flowering trees, and beasts, and strange figures of evil. Plain warning was given by these unholy symbols that he who raised the plate would be inter meddling with works of the black art. But our ready Scholar scented treasures underneath, and dazzled by the prospect of wealth, he was ready to risk body and soul alike.

     "The old sorcerer,' he said to himself, "has buried vast of riches for the first man who has wit enough to understand the writing on the image; therefore the prize hidden below his copper plate is rightly mine. I followed this bidding, and struck deep in the ground where the outstretched finger pointed at noonday, an why should I now shrink from hazard? My eternal welfare is of less concern to me tonight than this chance of winning a princedom."

     So, boldly, he put his hand in the ring, and gave it a strong pull, fancying that it would need his utmost strength to lift the heavy copper plate. To his surprise it was easily raised, and behind it was disclosed a winding staircase down which the fresh night-wind rushed with a long drawn moan. There was no further need of his lantern, for the stairs were lighted by many curiously wrought lamps, whose rays too fell on walls that were covered with painting of priests, warriors, kings and fair queens.

     "This fine entrance gives promise of riches greater even than I dared hope for", cried the Scholar; and with beating heart he started to run down the steps. At the foot of the staircase hing a curtain embroidered with gold letters, which, with all his learning, the Sicilian could not decipher. He swept aside the curtain, and stepped forward only to fall back a pace or two as he caught sight of men within. It was a richly decorated hall in which he found himself; at the upper end of it ran a dais, and there (did his eyes deceive him, he wondered) sat a royal party at table. His courage failed in the presence of these figures, and he tried to flee, when, to his dismay, a gust of wind swept down the staircase, and blew out every lamp past which it swirled. More afraid to grope his way to the outer air with these people at his back than to meet them face to face, the Scholar again raised the curtain, and entered the hall. His approach caused no stir upon the dais; no finger moved, not an eyelid was raised. Creeping cautiously forward, he was astonished to find that the motionless figures were the bodies of men who had long been dead, but so cleverly had each been preserved that even yet it bore the exact semblance of life.

     In the center of the group sat a king whose grey beard fell long and thick over his robes of gold. Beside him was the queen, in a handsomely embroidered gown of green, a golden mantle hung on her shoulders, while her necklet and girdle were studded with glittering jewels. On either side of the royal pair stood lords-in-waiting. In the background the Scholar saw a bodyguard of armed men squires in attendance and minstrels too. Above the king's head a golden lamp, and through its rich fretwork blazed an enormous carbuncle that filled the whole hall with ruddy light. Last of all, the intruder noticed that a few paces from the dais was placed the statue of an archer, bow in hand, with his arrow pointed against the carbuncle stone.

     Awe and amazement help the Scholar in check for a time. He wandered amongst this marvels, content only to admire. But his purpose in coming was recalled by the thought that night time was fast passing, and before long men would be astir in the city overhead.

     "I must make haste to gather the treasures that lie here", said he. "Dead men can do me no injury though I strip them of their riches."

     He drew from off his shoulders the leather bag, patched and old, that was to bear away his plunder, and seizing a golden goblet on which the hand of the mute king rested, he flung his booty into the gaping mouth of the wallet. In spite of his reassuring murmurs that the dead made easy prey, he almost expected the king to rise and avenge the theft; but the figure sat rigid, its eyes fixed in a passionless gaze.

     Gaining heart, the Scholar untied the chain gems from the queen's neck and stowed it in his bag along with two regal crown's the jeweled shoes and girdles, and other priceless ornaments. By the time that he had satisfied his greed, the sack was packed so full that he fairly staggered beneath its weight. Just as he was turning towards the door his eyes fell on a gem of surpassing splendor. It was a great emerald set by itself in the centre of the floor.

     "That green stone is worth a kingdom; I'll have it too!" he claimed; and down he knelt to pick it from its setting. But, try as he might, he could not dislodge it. Impatiently he flung aside his heavy sack, and strove with both hands to wrench up the stone. While his fingers were thus busy he happened to glance across the hall. What was it now that made him relax his hold upon the emerald and spring to his feet with a hoarse shriek of terror? He saw the image of the archer draw the bowstring, still pointing the arrow straight at the carbuncle that glowed in the swinging lamp. In wildest alarm the Scholar snatched up his wallet, and made ready to dash towards the curtained entrance. Too late! The arrow whizzed through the air, struck the brilliant red stone, and instantly the light of the carbuncle failed. Blackest darkness covered the hall from dais to doorway.

     It was long before the Scholar, stunned by fright, recovered courage enough to rise from the spot where he had fallen. At length he ventured to grope his way around the walls, hoping, even in the unearthly darkness, to find the opening to the staircase. He sought in vain. The wrenching of the green stone had made the arrow speed from the hand of the bowman and strike out the light of the glowing carbuncle, and by a like cunning contrivance the passage to the outer world was closed for ever when the covetous hand of the intruder had grasped the enticing emerald. Imprisoned in the dungeon of riches, the Scholar met slow death by starvation; the treasures that elsewhere would have bought countless comforts were of no avail to him who has thus wittingly risked his life in the magic hall.

     On the night of his unhappy venture, just before day break, a terrible thunderstorm swept across Rome. A stroke of lighting destroyed the cornel wood image whose finger had pointed the Scholar to his doom. The same thunderbolt flung back the copper plate over the mouth of the passage and the heavy rain that followed thunder, washed into the hole the soil which the adventurer had flung aside in his digging. Next morning men stood and gazed at the charred wooden image, but none wondered at the broken pavement, which seemed to be likewise only the result of the storm. As to the Scholar's disappearance to was too poor and friendless a stranger to be missed.