iridescent streams the white-hot slag pours out.

Beyond the gate the filth begins again.
A beggar rots and grovels, clutching at my skirt with
leprous hands. A woman sits sorting hog-bristles;
she coughs and sobs.

The stench is sickening.

_To-morrow!_ did they say?

Hanyang


Spring

The toilet pots are very loud today.
It is spring and the warmth is highly favorable to fermentation.
Some odors are unbelievable.

At the corner of my street is an especially fragrant
reservoir. It is three feet in diameter, set flush
with the earth, and well filled.
Above it squats a venerable Chinaman with a face such
as Confucius must have worn.
His silk skirt is gathered daintily about his waist, and
his rounded rear is suspended in mid-air over the
broken pottery rim.
He gazes at me contemplatively as I pass with eyes in
which the philosophy of the ages has its dwelling.