In this chap­ter titled The Red Lac­quer Music-Stand, the sto­ry opens with a boy awak­en­ing to the enchant­ment of dawn, over­whelmed by a sense of awe that seems to sat­u­rate the air around him. The moment feels both sacred and sur­re­al, as shift­ing sun­light slices through dark­ness with vivid pre­ci­sion. He watch­es as morn­ing light invades the still­ness with gold­en slash­es and vibrant red reflec­tions, like some­thing alive try­ing to claw its way into the wak­ing world. These move­ments are described with such inten­si­ty that they seem to embody more than just nature—they reflect the boy’s emo­tion­al state, charged with antic­i­pa­tion and won­der. This ear­ly scene cap­tures the pow­er of per­cep­tion in youth, where even famil­iar sur­round­ings trans­form into some­thing mag­i­cal under the right con­di­tions.

The boy’s qui­et ascent into the loft mir­rors an inward jour­ney toward clar­i­ty and devo­tion. Once inside, the dust in the air is illu­mi­nat­ed by sharp beams of gold and crim­son, cre­at­ing a sacred atmos­phere that ener­gizes rather than fright­ens him. He is “hot with joy,” not sim­ply because of the warmth of the light, but because he feels him­self part of some­thing vast and lumi­nous. With­in this space, dust motes seem to pulse like par­ti­cles of divine breath, infus­ing the air with life and move­ment. His fear dis­solves as the dark­ness lifts, and with it, an instinct awakens—a need to give thanks. What fol­lows is not a reli­gious cer­e­mo­ny in any for­mal sense, but a spon­ta­neous spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing shaped by beau­ty, rev­er­ence, and a long­ing to con­nect with some­thing eter­nal.

Dri­ven by this awak­en­ing, the boy begins search­ing for some­thing wor­thy of the moment, some­thing to act as a shrine. His hands move quick­ly, touch­ing every item in reach—a book, a vase, a box—each ulti­mate­ly deemed imper­fect. Every object seems to fall short, marred by scratch­es, dust, or age. His eager­ness is tem­pered by dis­ap­point­ment, reveal­ing an instinc­tive under­stand­ing that sacred acts require wor­thy ves­sels. Then, his gaze falls upon the red lac­quer music-stand. Smooth, unchipped, and gleam­ing with the deep glow of pol­ished fin­ish, it stands out not just as beau­ti­ful, but as com­plete. To the boy, it becomes an altar—both lit­er­al and symbolic—a cen­ter­piece for his expres­sion of grat­i­tude, devo­tion, and won­der.

What he places upon the stand reveals the spir­i­tu­al fab­ric of his soul. Tulip petals, mem­o­ries of warmth and col­or; bits of wood and string, tokens of the nat­ur­al world’s qui­et pow­er; and incense pastilles—burned not just for fra­grance, but for their sym­bol­ic ges­ture of ascent toward the divine. The act is deeply per­son­al and sur­pris­ing­ly lay­ered. It shows not only his youth­ful imag­i­na­tion but also a pro­found under­stand­ing that holi­ness is not found in grand struc­tures, but in sin­cer­i­ty. The blend­ing of elements—natural, hand­craft­ed, cultural—turns this soli­tary boy into a kind of spir­i­tu­al arti­san. Though no doc­trine guides him, his offer­ing becomes a litur­gy of instinct, shaped by feel­ing, mem­o­ry, and the beau­ty of small things.

As day breaks, his vig­il becomes a qui­et rite, and the red lac­quer music-stand takes on even greater mean­ing. Its sur­face reflects the shift­ing light, turn­ing from deep red to orange-gold, like a rel­ic wak­ing to the morn­ing. The boy’s body is tired, but his spir­it is focused, ener­gized by the seri­ous­ness of his com­mit­ment. This moment is not sim­ply play—it is trans­for­ma­tion. In his mind, the room has become a tem­ple, his act a solemn ges­ture, and the new day, a promise. Light touch­es every­thing dif­fer­ent­ly now, not just phys­i­cal­ly but symbolically—casting an entire­ly new mean­ing onto the famil­iar loft.

Cul­tur­al echoes enrich the scene with­out over­pow­er­ing it. The incense he burns, the qui­et he keeps, the rev­er­ence he holds for his altar—these ges­tures feel uni­ver­sal, but are col­ored by spe­cif­ic tex­tures and scents. Chi­nese pastilles release slow, curl­ing smoke, recall­ing tra­di­tions far old­er than the boy him­self. The “tar­nished Venice glass” of morn­ing implies not just age, but art—a flawed yet beau­ti­ful win­dow into some­thing high­er. These ref­er­ences deep­en the spir­i­tu­al ambi­gu­i­ty of the moment, sug­gest­ing that the sacred tran­scends any one cul­ture, faith, or geog­ra­phy. The boy’s con­nec­tion is not to a named god, but to the very idea of the divine, made real through his inten­tion and imag­i­na­tion.

By the chapter’s end, the act of worship—though qui­et and unseen—is com­plete. The boy has passed from dark­ness into light, from rest­less­ness into pur­pose. His offer­ing, small though it may seem, car­ries the weight of deep sin­cer­i­ty, bridg­ing the phys­i­cal and the spir­i­tu­al. In doing so, he enters a kind of inner adulthood—not defined by age, but by aware­ness. What he touched that morn­ing was more than light and lacquer—it was the frag­ile, glow­ing edge of tran­scen­dence. The red lac­quer music-stand, once ordi­nary, now stands as a sym­bol of how even the sim­plest things can car­ry great mean­ing when illu­mi­nat­ed by atten­tion, care, and rev­er­ence. Through this qui­et trans­for­ma­tion, the chap­ter becomes a reflec­tion on how the sacred reveals itself through pres­ence, through beau­ty, and through the instinct to give some­thing back.