Japanese Ghost Stories

by Lafcadio Hearn

  ‘You mean,’ interrupted Ryōseki, ‘the stealing of the holy mamori, the Kai-On-Nyōrai. But you must not give yourself any concern about that. The image has been buried in a field; and it will be found there and returned to me during the eighth month of the coming year. So please do not be anxious about it.’

  More and more amazed, the old ninsomi ventured to observe:

  ‘I have studied the In-Yō,fn17 and the science of divination; and I make my living by telling people’s fortunes; but I cannot possibly understand how you know these things.’

  Ryōseki answered gravely:

  ‘Never mind how I happen to know them … I now want to speak to you about Hagiwara’s funeral. The House of Hagiwara has its own family-cemetery, of course; but to bury him there would not be proper. He must be buried beside O-Tsuyu, the Lady Iijima; for his karma-relation to her was a very deep one. And it is but right that you should erect a tomb for him at your own cost, because you have been indebted to him for many favors.’

  Thus it came to pass that Shinzaburō was buried beside O-Tsuyu, in the cemetery of Shin-Banzui-In, in Yanaka-no-Sasaki.

  Here ends the story of the Ghosts in the Romance of the Peony-Lantern.

  * * *

  My friend asked me whether the story had interested me; and I answered by telling him that I wanted to go to the cemetery of Shin-Banzui-In, so as to realize more definitely the local color of the author’s studies.

  ‘I shall go with you at once,’ he said. ‘But what did you think of the personages?’

  ‘To Western thinking,’ I made answer, ‘Shinzaburō is a despicable creature. I have been mentally comparing him with the true lovers of our old ballad-literature. They were only too glad to follow a dead sweetheart into the grave; and nevertheless, being Christians, they believed that they had only one human life to enjoy in this world. But Shinzaburō was a Buddhist – with a million lives behind him and a million lives before him; and he was too selfish to give up even one miserable existence for the sake of the girl that came back to him from the dead. Then he was even more cowardly than selfish. Although a samurai by birth and training, he had to beg a priest to save him from ghosts. In every way he proved himself contemptible; and O-Tsuyu did quite right in choking him to death.’

  ‘From the Japanese point of view, likewise,’ my friend responded, ‘Shinzaburō is rather contemptible. But the use of this weak character helped the author to develop incidents that could not otherwise, perhaps, have been so effectively managed. To my thinking, the only attractive character in the story is that of O-Yoné: type of the old-time loyal and loving servant – intelligent, shrewd, full of resource – faithful not only unto death, but beyond death … Well, let us go to Shin-Banzui-In.’

  We found the temple uninteresting, and the cemetery an abomination of desolation. Spaces once occupied by graves had been turned into potato-patches. Between were tombs leaning at all angles out of the perpendicular, tablets made illegible by scurf, empty pedestals, shattered water-tanks, and statues of Buddhas without heads or hands. Recent rains had soaked the black soil, leaving here and there small pools of slime about which swarms of tiny frogs were hopping. Everything – excepting the potato-patches – seemed to have been neglected for years. In a shed just within the gate, we observed a woman cooking; and my companion presumed to ask her if she knew anything about the tombs described in the Romance of the Peony-Lantern.

  ‘Ah! the tombs of O-Tsuyu and O-Yoné?’ she responded, smiling; ‘you will find them near the end of the first row at the back of the temple – next to the statue of Jizō.’11

  Surprises of this kind I had met with elsewhere in Japan.

  We picked our way between the rain-pools and between the green ridges of young potatoes – whose roots were doubtless feeding on the substance of many another O-Tsuyu and O-Yoné; and we reached at last two lichen-eaten tombs of which the inscriptions seemed almost obliterated. Beside the larger tomb was a statue of Jizō, with a broken nose.

  ‘The characters are not easy to make out,’ said my friend – ‘but wait!’ … He drew from his sleeve a sheet of soft white paper, laid it over the inscription, and began to rub the paper with a lump of clay. As he did so, the characters appeared in white on the blackened surface.

  ‘“Eleventh day, third month – Rat, Elder Brother, Fire – Sixth year of Horéki [A. D. 1756].” … This would seem to be the grave of some innkeeper of Nedzu, named Kichibei. Let us see what is on the other monument.’

  With a fresh sheet of paper he presently brought out the text of a kaimyō, and read,

  ‘“En-myō-In, Hō-yō-I-tei-ken-shi, Hō-ni”: “Nun-of-the-Law, Illustrious, Pure-of-heart-and-will, Famed-in-the-Law – inhabiting the Mansion-of-the-Preaching-of-Wonder” … The grave of some Buddhist nun.’

  ‘What utter humbug!’ I exclaimed. ‘That woman was only making fun of us.’

  ‘Now,’ my friend protested, ‘you are unjust to the woman! You came here because you wanted a sensation; and she tried her very best to please you. You did not suppose that ghost-story was true, did you?’

  Ingwa-Banashi1

  The daimyō’s wife was dying, and knew that she was dying. She had not been able to leave her bed since the early autumn of the tenth Bunsei. It was now the fourth month of the twelfth Bunsei2 – the year 1829 by Western counting; and the cherry-trees were blossoming. She thought of the cherry-trees in her garden, and of the gladness of spring. She thought of her children. She thought of her husband’s various concubines – especially the Lady Yukiko, nineteen years old.

  ‘My dear wife,’ said the daimyō, ‘you have suffered very much for three long years. We have done all that we could to get you well – watching beside you night and day, praying for you, and often fasting for your sake. But in spite of our loving care, and in spite of the skill of our best physicians, it would now seem that the end of your life is not far off. Probably we shall sorrow more than you will sorrow because of your having to leave what the Buddha so truly termed “this burning-house of the world”. I shall order to be performed – no matter what the cost – every religious rite that can serve you in regard to your next rebirth; and all of us will pray without ceasing for you, that you may not have to wander in the Black Space, but may quickly enter Paradise, and attain to Buddhahood.’

  He spoke with the utmost tenderness, caressing her the while. Then, with eyelids closed, she answered him in a voice thin as the voice of an insect:

  ‘I am grateful – most grateful – for your kind words … Yes, it is true, as you say, that I have been sick for three long years, and that I have been treated with all possible care and affection … Why, indeed, should I turn away from the one true Path at the very moment of my death? … Perhaps to think of worldly matters at such a time is not right; but I have one last request to make – only one … Call here to me the Lady Yukiko; you know that I love her like a sister. I want to speak to her about the affairs of this household.’

  Yukiko came at the summons of the lord, and, in obedience to a sign from him, knelt down beside the couch. The daimyō’s wife opened her eyes, and looked at Yukiko, and spoke:

  ‘Ah, here is Yukiko! … I am so pleased to see you, Yukiko! … Come a little closer – so that you can hear me well: I am not able to speak loud … Yukiko, I am going to die. I hope that you will be faithful in all things to our dear lord; for I want you to take my place when I am gone … I hope that you will always be loved by him – yes, even a hundred times more than I have been – and that you will very soon be promoted to a higher rank, and become his honored wife … And I beg of you always to cherish our dear lord: never allow another woman to rob you of his affection … This is what I wanted to say to you, dear Yukiko … Have you been able to understand?’

  ‘Oh, my dear Lady,’ protested Yukiko, ‘do not, I entreat you, say such strange things to me! You well know that I am of poor and mean condition: how could I ever dare to aspire to become the wife of our lord!’

  ‘Nay, nay!�
� returned the wife, huskily – ‘this is not a time for words of ceremony: let us speak only the truth to each other. After my death, you will certainly be promoted to a higher place; and I now assure you again that I wish you to become the wife of our lord – yes, I wish this, Yukiko, even more than I wish to become a Buddha! … Ah, I had almost forgotten! – I want you to do something for me, Yukiko. You know that in the garden there is a yaë-zakura,fn1 which was brought here, the year before last, from Mount Yoshino in Yamato. I have been told that it is now in full bloom; and I wanted so much to see it in flower! In a little while I shall be dead; I must see that tree before I die. Now I wish you to carry me into the garden – at once, Yukiko – so that I can see it … Yes, upon your back, Yukiko; take me upon your back …’

  While thus asking, her voice had gradually become clear and strong – as if the intensity of the wish had given her new force: then she suddenly burst into tears. Yukiko knelt motionless, not knowing what to do; but the lord nodded assent.

  ‘It is her last wish in this world,’ he said. ‘She always loved cherry-flowers; and I know that she wanted very much to see that Yamato-tree in blossom. Come, my dear Yukiko, let her have her will.’

  As a nurse turns her back to a child, that the child may cling to it, Yukiko offered her shoulders to the wife, and said:

  ‘Lady, I am ready: please tell me how I best can help you.’

  ‘Why, this way!’ – responded the dying woman, lifting herself with an almost superhuman effort by clinging to Yukiko’s shoulders. But as she stood erect, she quickly slipped her thin hands down over the shoulders, under the robe, and clutched the breasts of the girl, and burst into a wicked laugh.

  ‘I have my wish!’ she cried – ‘I have my wish for the cherry-bloomfn2 – but not the cherry-bloom of the garden! … I could not die before I got my wish. Now I have it! – oh, what a delight!’ And with these words she fell forward upon the crouching girl, and died.

  The attendants at once attempted to lift the body from Yukiko’s shoulders, and to lay it upon the bed. But – strange to say! – this seemingly easy thing could not be done. The cold hands had attached themselves in some unaccountable way to the breasts of the girl – appeared to have grown into the quick flesh. Yukiko became senseless with fear and pain.

  Physicians were called. They could not understand what had taken place. By no ordinary methods could the hands of the dead woman be unfastened from the body of her victim; they so clung that any effort to remove them brought blood. This was not because the fingers held: it was because the flesh of the palms had united itself in some inexplicable manner to the flesh of the breasts!

  At that time the most skilful physician in Yedo was a foreigner – a Dutch surgeon. It was decided to summon him. After a careful examination he said that he could not understand the case, and that for the immediate relief of Yukiko there was nothing to be done except to cut the hands from the corpse. He declared that it would be dangerous to attempt to detach them from the breasts. His advice was accepted; and the hands were amputated at the wrists. But they remained clinging to the breasts; and there they soon darkened and dried up – like the hands of a person long dead.

  Yet this was only the beginning of the horror.

  Withered and bloodless though they seemed, those hands were not dead. At intervals they would stir – stealthily, like great grey spiders. And nightly thereafter – beginning always at the Hour of the Oxfn3 – they would clutch and compress and torture. Only at the Hour of the Tiger the pain would cease.

  Yukiko cut off her hair, and became a mendicant-nun – taking the religious name of Dassetsu. She had an ihai (mortuary tablet) made, bearing the kaimyō4 of her dead mistress – ‘Myō-Kō-In-Den Chizan-Ryō-Fu Daishi’; and this she carried about with her in all her wanderings; and every day before it she humbly besought the dead for pardon, and performed a Buddhist service in order that the jealous spirit might find rest. But the evil karma that had rendered such an affliction possible could not soon be exhausted. Every night at the Hour of the Ox, the hands never failed to torture her, during more than seventeen years – according to the testimony of those persons to whom she last told her story, when she stopped for one evening at the house of Noguchi Dengozayémon, in the village of Tanaka in the district of Kawachi in the province of Shimotsuké. This was in the third year of Kōkwa3 (1846). Thereafter nothing more was ever heard of her.

  Story of a Tengu

  In the days of the Emperor Go-Reizei,1 there was a holy priest living in the temple of Saito, on the mountain called Hiyei-Zan, near Kyōto. One summer day this good priest, after a visit to the city, was returning to his temple by way of Kita-no-Ōji, when he saw some boys ill-treating a kite. They had caught the bird in a snare, and were beating it with sticks. ‘Oh, the poor creature!’ compassionately exclaimed the priest; ‘why do you torment it so, children?’ One of the boys made answer: ‘We want to kill it to get the feathers.’ Moved by pity, the priest persuaded the boys to let him have the kite in exchange for a fan that he was carrying; and he set the bird free. It had not been seriously hurt, and was able to fly away.

  Happy at having performed this Buddhist act of merit, the priest then resumed his walk. He had not proceeded very far when he saw a strange monk come out of a bamboo-grove by the road-side, and hasten towards him. The monk respectfully saluted him, and said: ‘Sir, through your compassionate kindness my life has been saved; and I now desire to express my gratitude in a fitting manner.’ Astonished at hearing himself thus addressed, the priest replied: ‘Really, I cannot remember to have ever seen you before: please tell me who you are.’ ‘It is not wonderful that you cannot recognize me in this form,’ returned the monk: ‘I am the kite that those cruel boys were tormenting at Kita-no-Ōji. You saved my life; and there is nothing in this world more precious than life. So I now wish to return your kindness in some way or other. If there be anything that you would like to have, or to know, or to see – anything that I can do for you, in short – please to tell me; for as I happen to possess, in a small degree, the Six Supernatural Powers, I am able to gratify almost any wish that you can express.’ On hearing these words, the priest knew that he was speaking with a Tengu;2 and he frankly made answer: ‘My friend, I have long ceased to care for the things of this world: I am now seventy years of age; neither fame nor pleasure has any attraction for me. I feel anxious only about my future birth; but as that is a matter in which no one can help me, it were useless to ask about it. Really, I can think of but one thing worth wishing for. It has been my life-long regret that I was not in India in the time of the Lord Buddha, and could not attend the great assembly on the holy mountain Gridhrakûta.3 Never a day passes in which this regret does not come to me, in the hour of morning or of evening prayer. Ah, my friend! if it were possible to conquer Time and Space, like the Bodhisattvas, so that I could look upon that marvellous assembly, how happy should I be!’ – ‘Why,’ the Tengu exclaimed, ‘that pious wish of yours can easily be satisfied. I perfectly well remember the assembly on the Vulture Peak;4 and I can cause everything that happened there to reappear before you, exactly as it occurred. It is our greatest delight to represent such holy matters … Come this way with me!’

  And the priest suffered himself to be led to a place among pines, on the slope of a hill. ‘Now,’ said the Tengu, ‘you have only to wait here for awhile, with your eyes shut. Do not open them until you hear the voice of the Buddha preaching the Law. Then you can look. But when you see the appearance of the Buddha, you must not allow your devout feelings to influence you in any way; you must not bow down, nor pray, nor utter any such exclamation as, “Even so, Lord!” or “O thou Blessed One!” You must not speak at all. Should you make even the least sign of reverence, something very unfortunate might happen to me.’ The priest gladly promised to follow these injunctions; and the Tengu hurried away as if to prepare the spectacle.

  The day waned and passed, and the darkness came; but the old priest waited patiently beneath a tree, kee
ping his eyes closed. At last a voice suddenly resounded above him – a wonderful voice, deep and clear like the pealing of a mighty bell – the voice of the Buddha Sâkyamuni proclaiming the Perfect Way. Then the priest, opening his eyes in a great radiance, perceived that all things had been changed: the place was indeed the Vulture Peak – the holy Indian mountain Gridhrakûta; and the time was the time of the Sûtra of the Lotos of the Good Law. Now there were no pines about him, but strange shining trees made of the Seven Precious Substances, with foliage and fruit of gems; and the ground was covered with Mandârava and Manjûshaka flowers5 showered from heaven; and the night was filled with fragrance and splendour and the sweetness of the great Voice. And in mid-air, shining as a moon above the world, the priest beheld the Blessed One seated upon the Lion-throne, with Samantabhadra at his right hand, and Mañjusrî at his left – and before them assembled – immeasurably spreading into Space, like a flood of stars – the hosts of the Mahâttvas and the Bodhisattvas with their countless following: ‘gods, demons, Nâgas, goblins, men, and beings not human.’ Sâriputra he saw, and Kâsyapa, and nanda, with all the disciples of the Tathâgata – and the Kings of the Devas – and the Kings of the Four Directions, like pillars of fire – and the great Dragon-Kings – and the Gandharvas and Garudas – and the Gods of the Sun and the Moon and the Wind – and the shining myriads of Brahma’s heaven. And incomparably further than even the measureless circling of the glory of these, he saw – made visible by a single ray of light that shot from the forehead of the Blessed One to pierce beyond uttermost Time – the eighteen hundred thousand Buddha-fields of the Eastern Quarter with all their habitants – and the beings in each of the Six States of Existence – and even the shapes of the Buddhas extinct, that had entered into Nirvana. These, and all the gods, and all the demons, he saw bow down before the Lion-throne; and he heard that multitude incalculable of beings praising the Sutra of the Lotos of the Good Law – like the roar of a sea before the Lord. Then forgetting utterly his pledge – foolishly dreaming that he stood in the very presence of the very Buddha – he cast himself down in worship with tears of love and thanksgiving; crying out with a loud voice, ‘O thou Blessed One!’ …