i no
Nagaki omoi wa
Wasureji wo,
Hito no kokoro ni
Aki ya tatsuramu._

The long thoughts
Of the spring days
Will never be forgotten
Even when autumn comes
To the hearts of the people.

The low-flying clouds of hallucination had fallen so close to Asako's
brain, that her thoughts seemed to be caught up into the dizzy
whirlwind and to be skimming around and round the world at the speed
of an express aeroplane. Like a clock whose regulation is out of
order, the hour-hand of her life seemed to be racing the minute-hand,
and the minute-hand to be covering the face of the dial in sixty
seconds or less, returning incessantly to the same well-known figures,
pausing awhile, then jerking away again at an insane rate. From time
to time the haze over the mind began to clear; and Asako seemed to
look down upon the scene around her from a great height. There was a
long room, so long that she could not see the end of it, and rows of
narrow beds, and nurses, dressed in white with high caps like bishops'
mitres, who appeared and disappeared. Sometimes they would speak to
her and she would answer. But she did not know what they said, nor
what she said to them.

A gentle Japanese lady with a very long, pock-marked face, sat on her
bed and talked to her in English. Asako noticed that the nurses
and doctors were most deferential to this lady; and that, after her
departure, she was treated much more kindly than before. A name kept
peeping out of her memory, like a shy lizard out of its hole; but
the moment her brain tried to grab at it, it slipped back again into
oblivion.

Two English ladies called together, one older and one younger. They
talked about Geoffrey. Geoffrey was one of the roman figures on the
clock dial of her mind. They said good things about Geoffrey; but she
could not remember what they were.

One day, the Japanese lady with the marked face and one of the nurses
helped her to get out of bed. Her legs were trembling, and her
feet were sorely plagued by pins and needles; but she held together
somehow. Together they dressed her. The lady wrapped a big fur cloak
round her; and with a supporter on either side she was led into the
open air, where a beautiful motor-car was waiting. There was a crowd
gathered round it. But the police kept them back. As Asako stepped in,
she heard the click of cameras.

"Asa Chan," said the lady, "don't you remember me? I am Countess
Saito."

Of course, Asako reme