“Oki was standing on a low hill, his gaze held by the purple sunset. . . . A purple sunset was most unusual. There were subtle gradations of color from dark to light, as if blended by trailing a wide brush across wet rice paper. The softness of the purple implied the coming of spring. At one place the haze was pink. That seemed to be where the sun was setting.”

—Yasunari Kawabata, Beauty & Sadness, translated by Howard Hibbett, 1975.