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and mothers, they probably did did not have such vivid memories themselves. Eguchi remembered well, and sometimes spoke of the flowers to his wife. She apparently did not feel as far from the daughters, now that they were married, as did Eguchi. She was still close to them, and need not dwell so on memories of flowers seen with them. And there were flowers from trips when she had not been along.
    Far back in the eyes on which the girl's had rested, he let the images of flowers come up and fade away, fade away and come up. And feelings returned of the days when, his daughters married, he had been drawn to other young girls. It seemed to him that the girl tonight was one of them. He released her arm, but it lay quiet over his eyes. Only his youngest daughter had been on a farewell trip he had taken with her a fortnight before she was married. The image of the camellia was specially strong. The marriage of his youngest daughter had been the most painful, Two youths had been in competition for her, and in the course of the competition she had lost her virginity. The trip had been a change of scenery, to revive her spirits.
    Camellias are said to be bad luck because the flowers drop whole from the stem, like severed heads. But the double blossoms on this great tree, which was four hundred years old and bloomed in five different colours, fell petal by petal. Hence it was called the 'petal dropping' camellia.
    "When they were thickest… " said the young wife of the priest to Eguchi "… we gather up five or six baskets a day."
    The massing of flowers on the great camellia was less beautiful in the full sunlight, he was told, than with the sunlight behind it. Eguchi and his youngest daughter were sitting on the western veranda, and the sun was sinking behind the three. They were looking into the sun. But the thick leaves and the clusters of flowers did not let the sunlight through. It sank into the camellia, as if the evening sun itself were hanging on the edges of the shadow. The Camellia Temple was in a noisy, vulgar part of the city, and there was nothing to see in the garden besides the camellia. Eguchi's eyes were filled with it, and he did not hear the noise of the city.
    "It is in fine bloom." he said to his daughter.
    "Sometimes when you get up in the morning there are so many petals that you can't see the ground…" said the young wife, leaving Eguchi and his daughter.
    Were there five colours on the one tree? He could see red camellias and white, and camellias with crinkled petals. But Eguchi was not particularly interested in verifying the number of colours. He was quite caught up in the tree itself. It was remarkable that a tree four hundred years old could produce such a richness of blossoms. The whole of the evening light was sucked into the camellia, so that the inside of the tree must be warm with it. Although he could feel no wind, a branch at the edge would rustle from time to time.
    It did not seem that his youngest daughter was as lost in the famous tree as Eguchi himself. There was no strength in her eyes. Perhaps she was less gazing at the tree than looking into herself. She was his favourite among his daughters, and she had the willfulness of a youngest child, even more so now that her sisters were married. The older girls had asked their mother, with some jealousy if Eguchi did not mean to keep the youngest at home and bring a bridegroom into the family of her. His wife had passed the remark on to him. His youngest daughter had grown up a bright and lively girl. It seemed to him unwise for her to have so many men friends, and them again she was liveliest when she was surrounded by men. But that there were among them all two whom she liked was clear to her parents, and especially to her mother, who saw a good deal of them. One of them had taken her virginity. For a time she was silent and moody even in the security of the house, and she seemed impatient and irritable when, for instance, she was changing