Shank's Mare

  'Won't you stop here for the night, gentlemen?' he asked.

  'Well,' said Kita, 'my companion's taken rather sick so I think we had better.'

  'Please come in,' said the landlord, and he called to the maid to show them in.

  'You look very bad, Yaji,' said Kita. 'This must be a punishment on you for something you've done.'

  'I don't remember doing anything bad,' said Yaji. 'It must have been the rice this morning.'

  'You must have been eating something you're not accustomed to,' said the landlord.

  'You haven't got any pluck,' said Kita.

  He assisted Yaji into a room and the landlord brought in their baggage.

  'It seems rather serious,' he said. 'Have you tried any medicine? As it happens my wife has just sent for the doctor, as she is expecting a baby. She's been feeling unwell from yesterday, so I've just called him. Would you like to see him too?'

  'Yes,' said Yaji, 'if you don't mind calling him.'

  'Certainly, certainly,' said the landlord, and he went off to the kitchen.

  Meanwhile Yaji got worse.

  'How would it do to take something?' said Kita, —'some hot water, or tea, or sake?'

  'Don't talk nonsense,' said Yaji. 'How my stomach's rumbling! Where's the closet, Kita. Just ask.'

  'Where have you put it?' said Kita. 'Perhaps it's up your sleeve.'

  'Don't talk like a fool,' said Yaji. 'Fancy having the closet up your sleeve! I want you to look where it is.'

  'I see,' replied Kita. 'Well, I'll have a look. Oh, there it is, fallen down in front of the verandah.'

  'What are you jawing about!' groaned Yaji. 'Ugh, how it hurts!' He got up slowly and went off to do his business. Then a girl came from the kitchen and announced that the doctor had arrived.

  'Show him in,' said Kita.

  The doctor was evidently only the doctor's assistant, not the doctor himself. He was dressed in a dark brown cotton kimono with a crest and a black silk cloak.

  'What unseasonable weather we're having,' he said. 'Let me feel your pulse.'

  He seated himself beside Kita and began to feel his pulse.

  'It isn't me that's sick,' said Kita.

  'We can tell whether a person is ill or not,' said the doctor, 'by comparing their pulse with that of a healthy person. Just let me see.'

  He felt Kita's pulse for some time very gravely.

  'No, no,' he said at last. 'There's nothing the matter with you.'

  'No,' said Kita.

  'How is your appetite?' asked the doctor.

  'Well, this morning I had three goes of rice and three bowls of soup.'

  'Yes, yes,' said the doctor. 'I thought so. And you couldn't eat any more?'

  'No,' said Kita.

  'I thought I was right,' said the doctor. 'I thought from your pulse there was nothing wrong with you.'

  'Yes,' said Kita.

  'I'm right, ain't I?' said the doctor. 'The first thing in medicine is to feel the pulse. You needn't be anxious. Well, I must be going now.'

  'Please look at the patient before you go,' said Kita.

  'Oh yes,' said the doctor. 'That's right. I always forget to feel the patient's pulse when I am called in. It's a bad habit of mine. It's really not necessary but I may as well see him. Where is the patient?'

  'He's just gone to the closet,' said Kita. 'Here, Yaji, Yaji. The doctor's come. Come out quick.'

  'I can't come out,' said Yaji from inside the closet. 'Please tell the doctor to come here.'

  'Nonsense!' said Kita. 'Who ever heard of such a thing? What a rude thing to say!'

  'Well, I'll come out then,' said Yaji. He came out slowly and the doctor felt his pulse as if it was a matter of life and death.

  'Aha!' he said. 'You're suffering from dizziness. Your confinement must be close at hand.'

  'I don't remember becoming pregnant,' said Yaji.

  'Isn't it pregnancy?' asked the doctor. 'How strange! That's the fault of my master. He sent a man to call me from the Igagoya in Hirokōji and told me that a patient was going to be confined and that probably she was suffering from dizziness and I must give her some medicine. Aren't you the patient?'

  'I see, I see,' said Kita. 'There is a case of that here. But this gentleman is not suffering from it.'

  'Dear me!' said the doctor. 'That's my mistake. But if you would suffer from the same complaint then I could administer the same medicine. That would save a lot of trouble.'

  'That's so,' said Kita. 'Yaji, you'd better do as the doctor tells you and feel dizzy.'

  'What are you talking about?' said Yaji. 'Men don't get dizzy.'

  'Well, well,' said the doctor, 'perhaps it would be better for you to have another kind of illness. That will give me more practice. What do you say you're suffering from?'

  'I've been suffering from grinding pains in the stomach for some time,' said Yaji.

  'Probably only inside the stomach,' said the doctor.

  'Yes, only in my stomach as you say,' replied Yaji. 'Not outside.'

  'Ah, I thought so, I thought so,' said the doctor. 'Here,'— he called to the maid—'tell my man to bring my medicine-box in, will you?'

  The maid went out but soon returned to say that she could not see the doctor's man.

  'No wonder you couldn't see him,' said the doctor. 'I didn't bring him. I brought the chest in myself.' He opened a cloth he had brought and took out his medicine-chest.

  'What a duck of a spoon you've got,' said the maid as she looked in the chest.

  'That's because he's a quack doctor,' said Kita. 'Ducks always quack. But why have you got pictures on. the medicines instead of names? What's the reason of that?'

  'Ahem!' said the doctor. 'That's rather an embarrassing question, but I may tell you that from the time I was born I have never received any instruction in letters.'

  'Then you can't read?' asked Kita.

  'No,' said the doctor, 'I can't read at all. So I have the names of the medicines done in pictures.'

  'That's interesting,' said Kita. 'What does that picture of the Dōjō temple stand for?

  'That stands for cinnamon,' said the doctor.

  'And this picture of Emma stands for rhubarb, I suppose. What's the meaning of the dog on fire?'

  'That's dried orange peel.'

  'And that picture of the woman in childbirth and somebody making water by her?'

  'That's jasmine root, of course.'

  'And that seal with the hair on it?'

  'That's lizard tail.'

  'And the devil breaking wind?'

  'That's aegle.'

  'Ha-ha-ha!' laughed Kita. 'How funny! But what about

  the medicine?'

  'You must boil the medicine as usual,' said the doctor, 'and add a slice of ginger to it.'

  'Wouldn't horseradish do?' suggested Kita.

  'Don't be a fool,' said Yaji.

  Just then they heard sounds from the kitchen as of people rushing about and the voice of the landlord calling, 'Here, Nabé, Nabé, send someone for the midwife. Here, heat some water, quick, quick. Have you got some hayamé?

  In the midst of all these noises Yaji went on groaning.

  'How is it, Yaji?' asked Kita.

  'This won't do,' said the doctor. 'You mustn't come near the patient.'

  As he drove Kita away there came from the kitchen the old midwife that had been summoned for the landlord's wife. The maid, all in a fluster, dragged her to where Yaji lay groaning under the bedding.

  'Eh?' said the old woman. 'You mustn't give way. Sit up, sit up.' She dragged Yaji up and in doing so accidentally scratched his face and made him yell. 'You must be patient,' she went on. 'Here, where's the mat. Somebody bring the mat.'

  'Oh, oh, oh!' groaned Yaji.

  'There, there,' said the old woman. This midwife was in fact a little blind and moreover so agitated that she had mistaken Yaji for a woman in labour. She now began to hold him up.

  'Here,' she called. 'Somebody come and help me. Quick, quick.' />
  Kita, who was enjoying the old woman's mistake, kept a straight face and began to help her to hold Yaji up.

  'What are you doing, Kita?' said Yaji. 'Oh, how it hurts.'

  'You mustn't be so timid,' said the old woman. 'You must try and bear it.'

  'How do you think I'm going to bear it?' said Yaji. 'I'm off to the closet. Let go.'

  'No, no,' said the old woman. 'You mustn't move.'

  'But if I don't it will all come out here,' said Yaji.

  'Well, let it,' said the midwife. 'There, there, it's head's coming out.'

  'Oh, oh!' yelled Yaji. 'That's not a child. Let go. Oh, oh, oh!'

  He began to struggle, and as the old woman held him tight, he finally lost his temper and give her a box on the ear. This astonished the old woman, but she still kept her arms locked round him, as she thought the patient was delirious.

  Meanwhile from the kitchen came the cry of a newly born infant. Apparently the goodwife of the house had given birth to the child.

  'There,' said the midwife. 'It's born. Why, it isn't here. Where can it be?'

  The midwife letting go of him to look for the baby, Yaji immediately rushed away to the closet, while the landlord came out of the kitchen.

  'Here, granny, granny,' he cried. 'I sent for you a long time ago. The baby's born now. Quick, quick.'

  He dragged the old woman off into the kitchen, where could be heard cries of, 'What a fine boy! The finest boy ever born in the three countries. Congratulations! Congratulations!'

  At receiving these congratulations the landlord was all over smiles. 'I'm sorry you've been disturbed,' he apologised to the guests. 'Happily my wife's had an easy birth.'

  Just then Yaji came out of the closet. 'Congratulations,' he said. 'I also have had an easy delivery. I feel as if I had never had anything the matter with me at all.'

  'You are also to be congratulated,' said the landlord.

  Then sake was served in honour of the event and there was great talking and laughing over the midwife's mistake.

  BOOK SIX

  FIRST PART

  HE proverb says that shame is thrown aside when one travels, and names and addresses are left scrawled on every railing. Yet it is a consolation when one is travelling to meet people from one's own province, even although they have the word 'deaf' written on their hats. Naturally one is curious about the people who are travelling the same roads, and those whose fates are linked together at the public inns do not always have their marriages written in the book of Izumo. They are not tied by convention as when they live in the same row of houses, but can open their hearts to each other and talk till they are tired. On the road, also, one has no trouble from bill-collectors at the end of the month, nor is there any rice-box on the shoulder for the rats to get at. The Edo man can make acquaintance with the Satsuma sweet-potato, and the flower-like Kyōto woman can scratch her head with the skewer from the dumpling. If you are running away for the sake of the fire of love in your heart, you can go as if you were taking part in a picnic, enjoying all the delights of the road. You can sit down in the shadow of the trees and open your little tub of sake, and you can watch the pilgrims going by ringing their bells. Truly travelling means cleaning the life of care. With your straw sandals and your leggings you can wander wherever you like and enjoy the indescribable pleasures of sea and sky.

  Here we have Yajirobei and Kitahachi, from Hatchō-bōri, Kanda, in the eastern capital, two lazy vagabonds, who have been wandering round the shrines of Isé and are now going along the shady Nara highway, hastening to the capital. Now they have reached Kyō Bridge at Fushimi. The sun is sinking in the west and the travellers are pressing onward, while the boatmen call noisily to those who are going down the river to Osaka.

  'Come along,' they cry,'The boat's starting now. All aboard for the Hakkenya in Ōsaka. '

  'Aha!' said Yaji. 'This will be the night-boat down the River Yodo. I'll tell you what, Kita. We were going to see Kyōto first, but what do you think of going to Osaka first after all?'

  'All right,' said Kita. He called to the boatman to know whether it was a public boat.

  'Yes, yes,' said the boatman. 'Come on board quick, please. We're just going to start. Hi, you mustn't come on board with your sandals on. Don't you know that?'

  'Who are you talking to?' said Kita. 'Impudent fellow!'

  'I'll tie our two bundles together, Kita,' said Yaji.

  'Here, boatman,'called Kita,'where do we sit?'

  'Squeeze in by the side of that priest,' answered the boatman.

  'Excuse me,'said Kita, and they squeezed in with the rest of the passengers.

  'It's very crowded to-night,'said one of the passengers. 'Here, boatman, haven't you got any cushions?'

  'Take them from over there,'replied the boatman. 'Are you all ready? Please sit down while I put the cover on.'

  'Change, change,' called a hawker. 'Do you want any change?'

  'Sugar-cakes, sugar-cakes,' called another.

  'Hot sake, hot sake,' called another. 'Finest flavour. '

  Meanwhile the boatmen had spread a rush mat over the top of the boat and had got out the sweeps.

  The wind has changed. Let's hoist the sail

  And it will waft us o'er.

  My tired body longs for rest,

  So I will toil no more.

  'Halloa!' they cried. 'Look how the sky has changed. We're going to have rain. '

  'Ah, boatmen,' cried a passenger. 'You must have been to Chujō Island and not purified yourselves properly. That's why it looks like rain. Ha-ha-ha!'

  'I hope you're all sitting comfortable,' said one of the passengers. 'You'll be stiff later on if you don't.'

  'Move up a bit,' said a Kyōto man. 'You're sitting on my supper.'

  'Dear me,' said an Osaka man. 'How very awkward of me. By the way, as we're all travelling together, I hope we shall become better acquainted.'

  'Yes, yes,' said the Kyōto man. 'What part of Osaka do you come from?'

  'I come from Dotombōri.'

  'All the people who live in Dotombōri can sing,' said the Kyōto man. 'Won't you oblige us with a song?'

  'Ah, that's a good idea,' said a Nagasaki man. 'I think we each ought to do something to keep us from going to sleep in the boat. I'm a Nagasaki man, I am, so I'll give you a piece from the play called "How the Hair-pins were broken by the Pumpkin Pillow of Nomokawa Island. " '

  'That's a good piece,' said another man. 'I come from Echigo myself, so if the gentleman from Nagasaki does that, I'll give you something from Okesa and Matsuzaka. '

  'That would be interesting,' said Kita. 'Please begin, Master Nagasaki. '

  'All right,' said the Nagasaki man,'this is what I'll give you. ' Earnestly clapping his hands the while, he sang: —

  Oh leave not one

  Who loves you true,

  Nor shake off her

  Who dotes on you.

  To catch a frog,

  In his hop-hop-hop,

  Over his head

  A tub you pop.

  Or if a tub

  Is of no avail,

  You still can secure him

  Under a pail.

  'Bravo! Bravo!' cried all the passengers.

  'Now I'll sing one,' said the Echigo man. 'But you must all say "Tokoton, Tokoton" as the chorus. '

  'All right,' said the Nagasaki man. 'We understand. '

  Then all the passengers began to clap their hands and to chant 'Tokoton, tokoton' in chorus.

  And how d'you do this morning,

  Mrs. Chō, Mrs. Chō?

  How d'you do this morning,

  Mrs. Chō?

  (Chorus) Tokoton! Tokoton!

  Here's a comb that's made of horn,

  Mrs. Chō, Mrs. Chō,

  That I brought from Niigata,

  Mrs. Chō.

  (Chorus) Tokoton! Tokoton!

  I bought it for my true love,

  Mrs. Chō, Mrs. Chō.

  And six hundred cash it cost me,
r />   Mrs. Chō.

  (Chorus)Tokoton! Tokoton!

  'Ha-ha-ha!' laughed Yaji. 'That's good.'

  'Now it's the turn of the Edo gentleman to do something,' said the Kyōto man.

  'I can't sing anything without an accompaniment,' said Yaji,'and we haven't got any musical instruments here.'

  'Well, you can give us an imitation of someone,' said the Kyōto man. 'Imitate some Edo actor.'

  'I can imitate twenty or thirty of them,' said Yaji. 'Which one shall I do? Gennosuké or Mitsugoro? No, I'll do Kōraiya. But I'm afraid you won't be able to understand Edo talk and it won't be interesting.'

  'No, no,' said the Osaka man. 'That will be all right. Just try.'

  'Without boasting,' said Yaji,'I may say that I'm the best imitator in Edo. I'll do anyone you like to mention.'

  'Anyone we like to introduce, eh?' said the Kyōto man. 'Very well, I'll play the accompaniment on my mouth.' He began to imitate the sound of a samisen.

  'You must suppose this is a well-known theatre in Edo,' said Yaji,'and that I am Kōjirō Matsumoto.'

  'Bravo, Matsumoto,' cried all the passengers.

  'The roll is mine,' chanted Yaji. 'I have succeeded in obtaining it Now I shall be able to make progress. For this success I am truly thankful.'

  'That's no good,' said the Kyōto man. 'I only came back from Edo the other day after living there five or six years. Matsumoto doesn't speak like that.'

  'Let me try to imitate him,' said the Osaka man.

  'No good at all,' went on the Kyōto man. 'Who are you going to imitate?'

  'The same actor,' said the Osaka man. This Osaka man had been in Edo and he gave a very successful imitation of the actor.

  'Bravo Matsumoto!' cried all the passengers.

  'That was good,' said the Kyōto man. 'Master Osaka has done it very well. Yours was no good at all,' he added turning to Yaji.

  'Of course not,' said Yaji. 'I was imitating his understudy, Dōshiro, who comes from Shinshō.'

  'What a lie!' said the Kyōto man. 'Ha-ha-ha!'

  Then all the people in the boat began to laugh at Yaji, who was so disconcerted that he did not know what to say.

  By this time the boat had passed Yodo.

  'By the way, Kita,' said Yaji,'I forgot to relieve myself before I got on the boat. You know I get so nervous in a boat that it always make me feel that way. What a nuisance it is! Here, boatman. Just put in to the shore for a minute.'