Il l'a vue. Il sourit dans la barbe du masque, Et son pas plus hâtif fait reluire au soleil Les deux antennes d'or qui tremblent à son casque. "Lightly touching her _biva_ with heedless finger, she has perceived, through the finely woven bamboo screen, the conqueror, lovingly thought of, approach over the dazzling level of the beach. "It is he. With his swords at his side he advances, holding up his fan. The red girdle and the scarlet tassel appear in sharply cut relief against the dark armour; and upon his shoulder glitters a crest of Hizen or of Tokungawa. "This handsome warrior sheathed with his scales and plates of metal, under his bronze, his silk and glimmering lacquer, seems a crustacean, gigantic, black and vermilion. "He has caught sight of her. Under the beaver of the war mask he smiles, and his quickened step makes to glitter in the sun the two antennæ of gold that quiver upon his helmet." The comparison of a warrior in full armour to a gigantic crab or lobster, especially lobster, is not exactly new. Victor Hugo has used it before in French literature, just as Carlyle has used it in English literature; indeed the image could not fail to occur to the artist in any country where the study of armour has been carried on. But here the poet does not speak of any particular creature; he uses only the generic term, crustacean, the vagueness of which makes the comparison much more effective. I think you can see the whole picture at once. It is a Japanese colour-print,--some ancient interior, lighted by the sun of a great summer day; and a woman looking through a bamboo blind toward the seashore, where she sees a warrior approaching. He divines that he is seen; but if he smiles, it is only because the smile is hidden by his iron mask. The only sign of any sentiment on his part is that he walks a little quicker. Still more amazing is a companion picture, containing only a solitary figure: LE DAIMIO (Matin de bataille) Sous le noir fouet de guerre à quadruple pompon, L'étalon belliqueux en hennissant se cabre, Et fait bruire, avec de cliquetis de sabre, La cuirasse de bronze aux lames du jupon. Le Chef vêtu d'airain, de laque et de crépon, Otant le masque à poils de son visage glabre, Regarde le volcan sur un ciel de cinabre Dresser la neige où rit l'aurore du Nippon. Mais il a vu, vers l'Est éclaboussé d'or, l'astre, Glorieux d'éclairer ce matin de désastre, Poindre, orbe éblouissant, au-dessus de la mer; Et pour couvrir ses yeux dont pas un cil ne bouge, Il ouvre d'un seul coup son éventail de fer, Où dans le satin blanc se lève un Soleil rouge. "Under the black war whip with its quadruple pompon the fierce stallion, whinnying, curvets, and makes the rider's bronze cuirass ring against the plates of his shirt of mail, with a sound like the clashing of sword blades.