can tell by his name, he is not a Frenchman either by birth or blood, but a Spaniard, or rather a Spanish Creole, born in Cuba.  Heredia knows Japan only through pictures, armour, objects of art in museums, paintings and carvings.  Remembering this, I think that you will find that he does wonderfully well.  It is true that he puts a woman in one of his pictures, but I think that his management of his subject is very much nearer the truth than that of almost any writer who has attempted to describe old Japan.  And you must understand that the following sonnet is essentially intended to be a picture—­to produce upon the mind exactly the same effect that a picture does, with the addition of such life as poetry can give.

LE SAMOURAI

  D’un doigt distrait frolant la sonore biva,
  A travers les bambous tresses en fine latte,
  Elle a vu, par la plage eblouissante et plate,
  S’avancer le vainqueur que son amour reva.

  C’est lui.  Sabres au flanc, l’eventail haut, il va. 
  La cordeliere rouge et le gland ecarlate
  Coupent l’armure sombre, et, sur l’epaule, eclate
  Le blazon de Hizen ou de Tokungawa.

  Ce beau guerrier vetu de lames et de plaques,
  Sous le bronze, la soie et les brillantes laques,
  Semble un crustace noir, gigantesque et vermeil.

  Il l’a vue.  Il sourit dans la barbe du masque,
  Et son pas plus hatif fait reluire au soleil
  Les deux antennes d’or qui tremblent a 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 antennae 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: