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of splashing water on the windowpane. In the morning, he stands at the window and stares, his face ghostly white, the line between his brows a deep fold. There, the black stain, the impregnable darkness where the teahouse once stood. The new dirt has washed away.
    H E SITS AT HIS potter’s wheel, his unfinished bowl on a shelf behind him covered with a wet cloth. Don’t look yet. It’s not done and you’ll onlymake yourself upset. There is her painting desk. Small bits of color dot the wood where the brush inadvertently slipped off the paper.
    I think she’ll soon leave me, he says aloud, without thinking. He sits perfectly still, a clutch in his throat, held by the raw truth of this utterance. For how long he sits, he doesn’t know. She walks into the studio.
    I’m sorry, she says with a start and steps backward to the door. I didn’t know you were still in here.
    Don’t go, he says. I was just thinking about something, but I’d rather tell it to you.
    She nods uncertainly and sits at her desk, fumbling with her paintbrush. He grabs his Emerson book and reads from his notes in the margins.
    Here, what an amazing mind, he says. When this book is finally translated into Japanese, it will change everything. He says about experience that we live in a dream. In the murk. Sleep lingers all our lifetime about our eyes, as night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir tree. Put down your brush for a moment.
    She looks at him, surprised by his firm tone.
    He almost stops himself, aware of his desperate effort to engage her.
    The lords of life, the lords of life,—
    I saw them pass,
    In their own guise,
    Like and unlike,
    Portly and grim,
    Use and surprise,
    Surface and dream,
    Succession swift and spectral Wrong,
    Temperament without a tongue,
    And the inventor of the game
    Omnipresent without a name;—
    Some to see, some to be guessed,
    They marched from east to west:
    Little man, least of all,
    Among the legs of his guardians tall,
    Walked about with a puzzled look:—
    Him by the hand dear nature took;
    Dearest nature, strong and kind,
    Whispered, “Darling, never mind!
    Tomorrow they will wear another face,
    The founder thou! these are thy race.
    Please be quiet, she thinks, but what about that intriguing line, the one about the puzzled look, and the little man?
    Out the window, he sees a brown swallow fly from limb to limb, back and forth, as if caught in a wind current. He wants to throw himself into work and he longs for her to say something about the poem, something magnificent and worthy that will link them in this moment.
    Isn’t he wonderful, he says. How we live in a fog. What do you think it means?
    I don’t know, she says, staring at an oak leaf on the floor. It has as many colors in it as a field of wildflowers, she thinks.
    Don’t you think it means all we have is our own perspective? We are locked into these bodies, these histories with their circumscribed views. We can’t get out, can we? It’s like a prison. We need each other to get out.
    She wonders why he is speaking with such urgency. I’ve never thought of it as a prison, she says.
    No?
    No. But I guess it depends on one’s perspective.
    Maybe, he says.
    The long pause becomes awkward. His head bows with disappointment and his wheel begins to turn. The hum fills the room. She drops her gaze to the leaf, the veins, the lifeblood of the leaf.
    He reaches up to the shelf and pulls down his unfinished bowl. This gives him peace, he thinks, his hands immersed in clay. What did Emerson prescribe? Muscular activity? Yes, that’s it. To fill the hour and leave no crevice for repentance or approval. And so, if he could, he’d sculpt every hour of theday, and finding contentment, she could leave him, yes, she could, and perhaps he’d be so absorbed, he’d barely notice. A hiccup in an otherwise calm life. But there is a time when his hands fall silent to his side, his feet hurting too much, he must stop. She is lost in her painting. Who is she? He