In Praise of Shadows

by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

there was a high, dark, darkness that seemed to hang from the ceiling, and a shadowy candle light that looked like it might fall from the ceiling. The light was unable to penetrate the thickness of the lamp, and it was rebounding as if it had hit a black wall. Have you ever seen this kind of "darkness illuminated by a lamp"? It seemed to me to be a substance different from the darkness of the nighttime streets, and to be filled with fine ash-like particles, each one of which had a rainbow of colors. I clenched my eyelids without remembering them, wondering if they would creep into my eyes. But if the old days of palaces and brothels, where high ceilings and wide corridors were used to divide large rooms of tatami mattresses, it was common to have high ceilings and wide corridors, then the interior of the rooms would be filled with This is the kind of darkness that has always been hanging in the air like a narrow mist.