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shores of the Sumida River, winding down like a road of glass. They had emerged into the famous district of Asakusa, where the great temple of Kwannon the Merciful attracts daily its thousands of worshippers. Here the water course is bounded by fashionable tea-houses, many stories high, and here the great arched bridges are always crowded. Leaving this busy heart of things, they sauntered northward, finding lonelier shores, and soon wide fields of green, until they reached a bank whereon grew a single leaning willow. The body of this tree, bending outward, sent its long, nerveless leaves in a perpetual green rain to the surface of the stream, where sudden swarms of minnows, like shivers in a glass, assailed the deceptive bait. The roots of the tree--great yellowish, twisted ropes of roots--clutched air, earth, and water in their convolutions. Among them the current, swifter here than in mid-stream, uttered at times a guttural, uncanny sound as of spectral laughter. Ume-ko stood, one slender arm about the trunk, looking out, with mournful eyes, upon the passing river show. On the farther bank grew a continuous wall of cherry trees in yellowing leaf, and above them glowed the first hint of the coming sunset. Rising against the sky a temple roof, tilted like the keel of a sunken vessel, cut sharp lines into the crimson light. Tatsu flung himself full length upon the bank. He patted the soil with its springing grasses, and felt his heart flow out in love to it. Then he reached up, caught at the drifting gauze of Ume's sleeve, and made as if to pull her down. Ume clasped the tree more tightly. "Tatsu," she said, "I implore you not to think always of me. Look, beloved, the thin white sails of the rice-boats pass, and, over yonder, children in scarlet petticoats dance beneath the trees." "I have eyes but for my wife," said wilful Tatsu. Ume-ko drew the sleeve away. She would not meet his smile. "Alas, shall I forever obscure beauty!" "There is no beauty now but in you! You are the sacred mirror which reflects for me all loveliness." "Dear lord, those words are almost blasphemy," said Ume, in a frightened whisper. "Look, now, beloved, the light of the sun sinks down. Soon the great moon will come to us." "What care I for a distant moon, oh, Dragon Maid," laughed Tatsu. Ume's outstretched arm fell heavily to her side. "Alas!" she said again. "From deepest happiness may come the deepest pain.
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