Lafcadio Hearn's Japan

by Hearn, Lafcadio; Richie, Donald;

  “My great mistake was in having introduced you to her; for it seems that she fell in love with you at once. I am afraid that you must have said something to encourage this affection—when you were in that little room together. At all events, I saw how she felt towards you; and then I became uneasy,—fearing that her father might come to hear of the matter, and lay the whole blame upon me. So—to be quite frank with you,—I decided that it would be better not to call upon you; and I purposely stayed away for a long time. But, only a few days ago, happening to visit Iijima’s house, I heard, to my great surprise, that his daughter had died, and that her servant O-Yoné had also died. Then, remembering all that had taken place, I knew that the young lady must have died of love for you. . . . [Laughing] Ah, you are really a sinful fellow! Yes, you are! [Laughing] Isn’t it a sin to have been born so handsome that the girls die for love of you? 2 … [Seriously] Well, we must leave the dead to the dead. It is no use to talk further about the matter;—all that you now can do for her is to repeat the Nembutsu 3 … Good-bye.”

  And the old man retired hastily,—anxious to avoid further converse about the painful event for which he felt himself to have been unwittingly responsible.

  III

  Shinzaburō long remained stupefied with grief by the news of O-Tsuyu’s death. But as soon as he found himself again able to think clearly, he inscribed the dead girl’s name upon a mortuary tablet, and placed the tablet in the Buddhist shrine of his house, and set offerings before it, and recited prayers. Every day thereafter he presented offerings, and repeated the Nembutsu; and the memory of O-Tsuyu was never absent from his thought.

  Nothing occurred to change the monotony of his solitude before the time of the Bon,—the great Festival of the Dead,—which begins upon the thirteenth day of the seventh month. Then he decorated his house, and prepared everything for the festival;—hanging out the lanterns that guide the returning spirits, and setting the food of ghosts on the shōryōdana, or Shelf of Souls. And on the first evening of the Bon, after sundown, he kindled a small lamp before the tablet of O-Tsuyu, and lighted the lanterns.

  The night was clear, with a great moon,—and windless, and very warm. Shinzaburō sought the coolness of his veranda. Clad only in a light summer-robe, he sat there thinking, dreaming, sorrowing;—sometimes fanning himself; sometimes making a little smoke to drive the mosquitoes away. Everything was quiet. It was a lonesome neighborhood, and there were few passers-by. He could hear only the soft rushing of a neighboring stream, and the shrilling of night-insects.

  But all at once this stillness was broken by a sound of women’s geta 4 approaching— kara-kon, kara-kon; —and the sound drew nearer and nearer, quickly, till it reached the live-hedge surrounding the garden. Then Shinzaburō, feeling curious, stood on tiptoe, so as to look over the hedge; and he saw two women passing. One, who was carrying a beautiful lantern decorated with peony-flowers, 5 appeared to be a servant;—the other was a slender girl of about seventeen, wearing a long-sleeved robe embroidered with designs of autumn-blossoms. Almost at the same instant both women turned their faces toward Shinzaburō;—and to his utter astonishment, he recognized O-Tsuyu and her servant O-Yoné.

  They stopped immediately; and the girl cried out,—

  “Oh, how strange! . . . Hagiwara Sama!”

  Shinzaburō simultaneously called to the maid:—

  “O-Yoné! Ah, you are O-Yoné!—I remember you very well.”

  “Hagiwara Sama!” exclaimed O-Yoné in a tone of supreme amazement. “Never could I have believed it possible! . . . Sir, we were told that you had died.”

  “How extraordinary!” cried Shinzaburō. “Why, I was told that both of you were dead!”

  “Ah, what a hateful story!” returned O-Yoné. “Why repeat such unlucky words? . . . Who told you?”

  “Please to come in,” said Shinzaburō;—“here we can talk better. The garden-gate is open.”

  So they entered, and exchanged greeting; and when Shinzaburō had made them comfortable, he said:—

  “I trust that you will pardon my discourtesy in not having called upon you for so long a time. But Shijō, the doctor, about a month ago, told me that you had both died.”

  “So it was he who told you?” exclaimed O-Yoné. “It was very wicked of him to say such a thing. Well, it was also Shijō who told us that you were dead. I think that he wanted to deceive you,—which was not a difficult thing to do, because you are so confiding and trustful. Possibly my mistress betrayed her liking for you in some words which found their way to her father’s ears; and, in that case, O-Kuni— the new wife—might have planned to make the doctor tell you that we were dead, so as to bring about a separation. Anyhow, when my mistress heard that you had died, she wanted to cut off her hair immediately, and to become a nun. But I was able to prevent her from cutting off her hair; and I persuaded her at last to become a nun only in her heart. Afterwards her father wished her to marry a certain young man; and she refused. Then there was a great deal of trouble,—chiefly caused by O-Kuni;—and we went away from the villa, and found a very small house in Yanaka-no-Sasaki. There we are now just barely able to live, by doing a little private work. . . . My mistress has been constantly repeating the Nembutsu for your sake. To-day, being the first day of the Bon, we went to visit the temples; and we were on our way home—thus late—when this strange meeting happened.”

  “Oh, how extraordinary!” cried Shinzaburō. “Can it be true?—or is it only a dream? Here I, too, have been constantly reciting the Nembutsu before a tablet with her name upon it! Look!” And he showed them O-Tsuyu’s tablet in its place upon the Shelf of Souls.

  “We are more than grateful for your kind remembrance,” returned O-Yoné, smiling. . . . “Now as for my mistress,”—she continued, turning towards O-Tsuyu, who had all the while remained demure and silent, half hiding her face with her sleeve,—“as for my mistress, she actually says that she would not mind being disowned by her father for the time of seven existences, 6 or even being killed by him, for your sake! . . . Come! will you not allow her to stay here to-night?”

  Shinzaburō turned pale for joy. He answered in a voice trembling with emotion:—

  “Please remain; but do not speak loud—because there is a troublesome fellow living close by,—a ninsomi 7 called Hakuōdō Yusai, who tells people’s fortunes by looking at their faces. He is inclined to be curious; and it is better that he should not know.”

  The two women remained that night in the house of the young samurai, and returned to their own home a little before daybreak. And after that night they came every night for seven nights,— whether the weather were foul or fair,—always at the same hour. And Shinzaburō became more and more attached to the girl; and the twain were fettered, each to each, by that bond of illusion which is stronger than bands of iron.

  IV

  Now there was a man called Tomozō, who lived in a small cottage adjoining Shinzaburō’s residence. Tomozō and his wife O-Miné were both employed by Shinzaburō as servants. Both seemed to be devoted to their young master; and by his help they were able to live in comparative comfort.

  One night, at a very late hour, Tomozō heard the voice of a woman in his master’s apartment; and this made him uneasy. He feared that Shinzaburō, being very gentle and affectionate, might be made the dupe of some cunning wanton,—in which event the domestics would be the first to suffer. He therefore resolved to watch; and on the following night he stole on tiptoe to Shinzaburō’s dwelling, and looked through a chink in one of the sliding shutters. By the glow of a night-lantern within the sleeping-room, he was able to perceive that his master and a strange woman were talking together under the mosquito-net. At first he could not see the woman distinctly. Her back was turned to him;—he only observed that she was very slim, and that she appeared to be very young,—judging from the fashion of her dress and hair. 8 Putting his ear to the chink, he could hear the conversation plainly. The woman said:—

  “And if I should be disowned by my fa
ther, would you then let me come and live with you?”

  Shinzaburō answered:—

  “Most assuredly I would—nay, I should be glad of the chance. But there is no reason to fear that you will ever be disowned by your father; for you are his only daughter, and he loves you very much. What I do fear is that some day we shall be cruelly separated.”

  She responded softly:—

  “Never, never could I even think of accepting any other man for my husband. Even if our secret were to become known, and my father were to kill me for what I have done, still—after death itself— I could never cease to think of you. And I am now quite sure that you yourself would not be able to live very long without me.” . . . Then clinging closely to him, with her lips at his neck, she caressed him; and he returned her caresses.

  Tomozō wondered as he listened,—because the language of the woman was not the language of a common woman, but the language of a lady of rank. 9 Then he determined at all hazards to get one glimpse of her face; and he crept round the house, backwards and forwards, peering through every crack and chink. And at last he was able to see;—but therewith an icy trembling seized him; and the hair of his head stood up.

  For the face was the face of a woman long dead,—and the fingers caressing were fingers of naked bone,—and of the body below the waist there was not anything: it melted off into thinnest trailing shadow. Where the eyes of the lover deluded saw youth and grace and beauty, there appeared to the eyes of the watcher horror only, and the emptiness of death. Simultaneously another woman’s figure, and a weirder, rose up from within the chamber, and swiftly made toward the watcher, as if discerning his presence. Then, in uttermost terror, he fled to the dwelling of Hakuōdō Yusai, and, knocking frantically at the doors, succeeded in arousing him.

  V

  Hakuōdō Yusai, the ninsomi, was a very old man; but in his time he had traveled much, and he had heard and seen so many things that he could not be easily surprised. Yet the story of the terrified Tomozō both alarmed and amazed him. He had read in ancient Chinese books of love between the living and the dead; but he had never believed it possible. Now, however, he felt convinced that the statement of Tomozō was not a falsehood, and that something very strange was really going on in the house of Hagiwara. Should the truth prove to be what Tomozō imagined, then the young samurai was a doomed man.

  “If the woman be a ghost,”—said Yusai to the frightened servant,“—if the woman be a ghost, your master must die very soon,— unless something extraordinary can be done to save him. And if the woman be a ghost, the signs of death will appear upon his face. For the spirit of the living is yōki, and pure;—the spirit of the dead is inki, and unclean: the one is Positive, the other Negative. He whose bride is a ghost cannot live. Even though in his blood there existed the force of a life of one hundred years, that force must quickly perish. . . . Still, I shall do all that I can to save Hagiwara Sama. And in the meantime, Tomozō, say nothing to any other person,—not even to your wife,— about this matter. At sunrise I shall call upon your master.”

  VI

  When questioned next morning by Yusai, Shinzaburō at first attempted to deny that any women had been visiting the house; but finding this artless policy of no avail, and perceiving that the old man’s purpose was altogether unselfish, he was finally persuaded to acknowledge what had really occurred, and to give his reasons for wishing to keep the matter a secret. As for the lady Iijima, he intended, he said, to make her his wife as soon as possible.

  “Oh, madness!” cried Yusai,—losing all patience in the intensity of his alarm. “Know, sir, that the people who have been coming here, night after night, are dead! Some frightful delusion is upon you! . . . Why, the simple fact that you long supposed O-Tsuyu to be dead, and repeated the Nembutsu for her, and made offerings before her tablet, is itself the proof! . . . The lips of the dead have touched you!—the hands of the dead have caressed you! . . . Even at this moment I see in your face the signs of death—and you will not believe! . . . Listen to me now, sir,—I beg of you,—if you wish to save yourself: otherwise you have less than twenty days to live. They told you—those people—that they were residing in the district of Shitaya, in Yanaka-no-Sasaki. Did you ever visit them at that place? No!—of course you did not! Then go to-day,—as soon as you can,—to Yanaka-no-Sasaki, and try to find their home! . . .”

  And having uttered this counsel with the most vehement earnestness, Hakuōdō Yusai abruptly took his departure.

  Shinzaburō, startled though not convinced, resolved after a moment’s reflection to follow the advice of the ninsomi, and to go to Shitaya. It was yet early in the morning when he reached the quarter of Yanaka-no-Sasaki, and began his search for the dwelling of O-Tsuyu. He went through every street and side-street, read all the names inscribed at the various entrances, and made inquiries whenever an opportunity presented itself. But he could not find anything resembling the little house mentioned by O-Yoné; and none of the people whom he questioned knew of any house in the quarter inhabited by two single women. Feeling at last certain that further research would be useless, he turned homeward by the shortest way, which happened to lead through the grounds of the temple Shin-Banzui-In.

  Suddenly his attention was attracted by two new tombs, placed side by side, at the rear of the temple. One was a common tomb, such as might have been erected for a person of humble rank: the other was a large and handsome monument; and hanging before it was a beautiful peony-lantern, which had probably been left there at the time of the Festival of the Dead. Shinzaburō remembered that the peony-lantern carried by O-Yoné was exactly similar; and the coincidence impressed him as strange. He looked again at the tombs; but the tombs explained nothing. Neither bore any personal name,— only the Buddhist kaimyō, or posthumous appellation. Then he determined to seek information at the temple. An acolyte stated, in reply to his questions, that the large tomb had been recently erected for the daughter of Iijima Heizayémon, the hatamoto of Ushigomé; and that the small tomb next to it was that of her servant O-Yoné, who had died of grief soon after the young lady’s funeral.

  Immediately to Shinzaburō’s memory there recurred, with another and sinister meaning, the words of O-Yoné:— “We went away, and found a very small house in Yanaka-no-Sasaki. There we are now just barely able to live—by doing a little private work. . . .” Here was indeed the very small house,—and in Yanaka-no-Sasaki. But the little private work . . . ?

  Terror-stricken, the samurai hastened with all speed to the house of Yusai, and begged for his counsel and assistance. But Yusai declared himself unable to be of any aid in such a case. All that he could do was to send Shinzaburō to the high-priest Ryōseki, of Shin-Banzui-In, with a letter praying for immediate religious help.

  VII

  The high-priest Ryōseki was a learned and a holy man. By spiritual vision he was able to know the secret of any sorrow, and the nature of the karma that had caused it. He heard unmoved the story of Shinzaburō, and said to him:—

  “A very great danger now threatens you, because of an error committed in one of your former states of existence. The karma that binds you to the dead is very strong; but if I tried to explain its character, you would not be able to understand. I shall therefore tell you only this,—that the dead person has no desire to injure you out of hate, feels no enmity towards you: she is influenced, on the contrary, by the most passionate affection for you. Probably the girl has been in love with you from a time long preceding your present life,—from a time of not less than three or four past existences; and it would seem that, although necessarily changing her form and condition at each succeeding birth, she has not been able to cease from following after you. Therefore it will not be an easy thing to escape from her influence. . . . But now I am going to lend you this powerful mamori . 10 It is a pure gold image of that Buddha called the Sea-Sounding Tathâgata— Kai-On Nyōrai, —because his preaching of the Law sounds through the world like the sound of the sea. And this little image is especi
ally a shiryō-yoké, 11 —which protects the living from the dead. This you must wear, in its covering, next to your body,— under the girdle. . . . Besides, I shall presently perform in the temple, a segaki service 12 for the repose of the troubled spirit. . . . And here is a holy sutra, called Ubō-Darani-Kyō, or “Treasure-Raining Sutra:” 13 you must be careful to recite it every night in your house—without fail. . . . Furthermore I shall give you this package of o-fuda; 14 —you must paste one of them over every opening of your house,—no matter how small. If you do this, the power of the holy texts will prevent the dead from entering. But—whatever may happen—do not fail to recite the sutra.”

  Shinzaburō humbly thanked the high-priest; and then, taking with him the image, the sutra, and the bundle of sacred texts, he made all haste to reach his home before the hour of sunset.

  VIII

  With Yusai’s advice and help, Shinzaburō was able before dark to fix the holy texts over all the apertures of his dwelling. Then the ninsomi returned to his own house,—leaving the youth alone.

  Night came, warm and clear. Shinzaburō made fast the doors, bound the precious amulet about his waist, entered his mosquito-net, and by the glow of a night-lantern began to recite the Ubō-Darani-Kyō . For a long time he chanted the words, comprehending little of their meaning;—then he tried to obtain some rest. But his mind was still too much disturbed by the strange events of the day. Midnight passed; and no sleep came to him. At last he heard the boom of the great temple-bell of Dentsu-In announcing the eighth hour. 15

  It ceased; and Shinzaburō suddenly heard the sound of geta approaching from the old direction,—but this time more slowly: karan-koron, karan-koron! At once a cold sweat broke over his forehead. Opening the sutra hastily, with trembling hand, he began again to recite it aloud. The steps came nearer and nearer,—reached the live hedge,—stopped! Then, strange to say, Shinzaburō felt unable to remain under his mosquito-net: something stronger even than his fear impelled him to look; and, instead of continuing to recite the Ubō-Darani-Kyō, he foolishly approached the shutters, and through a chink peered out into the night. Before the house he saw O-Tsuyu standing, and O-Yoné with the peony-lantern; and both of them were gazing at the Buddhist texts pasted above the entrance. Never before—not even in what time she lived—had O-Tsuyu appeared so beautiful; and Shinzaburō felt his heart drawn towards her with a power almost resistless. But the terror of death and the terror of the unknown restrained; and there went on within him such a struggle between his love and his fear that he became as one suffering in the body the pains of the Shō-netsu hell. 16