24 Shadowings 



the persons, therein depicted, would separate 

 themselves from the paper or the silk upon which 

 they had been painted, and would perform vari- 

 ous acts ; so that they became, by their own 

 will, really alive. We shall not now repeat any 

 of the stories of this class which have been known 

 to everybody from ancient times. But even in 

 modern times the fame of the pictures painted 

 by Hishigawa Kichibei ' Hishigawa's Portraits ' 

 has become widespread in the land." 



He then proceeds to relate the following story 

 about one of the so-called portraits : 



There was a young scholar of Kyoto whose 

 name was Tokkei. He used to live in the street 

 called Muromachi. One evening, while on his 

 way home after a visit, his attention was attracted 

 by an old single -leaf screen (tsuitate), exposed 

 for sale before the shop of a dealer in second- 

 hand goods. It was only a paper-covered screen ; 

 but there was painted upon it the full-length 

 figure of a girl which caught the young man's 

 fancy. The price asked was very small : Tokkei 

 bought the screen, and took it home with him. 



When he looked again at the screen, in the 

 solitude of his own room, the picture seemed to 



