Japanese Tales

by Royall Tyler

  “Who are you?” asked Yasumichi.

  “Someone who has lived here in this mansion for many years, sir,” the old man answered nervously. “My father lived here before me, sir, and by now I have many children and grandchildren. They get into a lot of mischief, I’m afraid, and I’m always after them to stop, but they never listen. And now, sir, you’re understandably fed up with us. I gather that you’re going to kill us all. But I just want you to know, sir, how sorry I am that this is our last night of life. Won’t you pardon us, one more time? If we ever make trouble again, then of course you must act as you think best. But the young ones, sir — I’m sure they’ll understand when I explain to them why you’re so upset. We’ll do everything we can to protect you from now on, if only you’ll forgive us, and we’ll be sure to let you know when anything good is going to happen!”

  The old man bowed again and Yasumichi awoke. When the sky had lightened, he got up and looked outside. Under the tangerine tree sat a hairless old fox which, at the sight of him, slunk under the house.

  The perplexed Yasumichi gave up his fox hunt. There was no more troublesome mischief, and every happy event around the house was announced by a fox’s sharp bark.

  81.

  THE LOVING FOX

  A man was once walking at twilight along Suzaku Avenue in Kyoto when he met an extraordinarily beautiful woman. She seemed happy enough to let him strike up a conversation with her, and from close up he found her even more alluring. Unable even to imagine letting the opportunity pass, he filled her ears with so many sweet nothings that he soon very nearly had what he burned for.

  The woman tried to hold him off. “Now that we’ve gotten this far,” she said, “I’d like so much to go all the way! But you see, if we do you’ll die.”

  Much too excited to listen, the man kept pressing himself on her until she gave in. “I really can’t refuse you,” she said, “since you insist so urgently. Very well then, I’ll do whatever you wish and die in your place. If you want to show me gratitude, copy the Lotus Sutra and dedicate it for me.”

  The man seemed not to take her seriously, and he finally consummated his desire. They lay in each other’s arms all night long, chatting like old lovers. At dawn the woman got up and asked the man for his fan. “I meant what I said, you know,” she told him, “I’m going to die instead of you. If you want proof, go into the palace grounds and look around the Butoku Hall. You’ll see.” Then she left.

  At daylight the man went to the Butoku Hall and found there a fox lying dead with his fan over its face. He was very sorry. Every seven days after that he finished a copy of the Lotus Sutra and dedicated it for the fox’s soul. On the night following the forty-ninth day he dreamed that she came to him, surrounded by angels, and told him that thanks to the power of the Teaching she was to be born into the Tōri Heaven.

  82.

  TOUCHED IN THE HEAD

  Kaya no Yoshifuji lived in the village of Ashimori in Bitchū province. He had made a fortune trading in imported Chinese coins.

  In the fall of 896, Yoshifuji’s wife went up to the Capital, leaving him all alone. He was far too randy a fellow to stand this for long. One evening at twilight, he was out for a stroll when he spotted a lovely young girl he had not seen before, and wanted her right away. She tried to run when he grabbed at her, but he caught her and asked who she was. Very sweetly, she answered, “Nobody.”

  “Come to my place,” said Yoshifuji.

  “Oh no, sir, I couldn’t!” She tried again to pull away.

  “Then where do you live? I’ll go home with you.”

  “Over there.” She set off with Yoshifuji beside her, keeping a good hold on her. It was not far, and the house was lovely. What a surprise to find a place like this so close by! Male and female servants clustered round to greet their mistress, and Yoshifuji realized that the girl was the daughter of the house.

  The two slept together that night, to Yoshifuji’s delight. The next morning a man whom Yoshifuji understood to be the girl’s father came in. “You were always meant to come here,” he said, “and now you must stay!” The girl was ever so nice to him, and he was so taken with her that he forgot all about his wife. As for his house and children, he never gave them a thought. He and the girl pledged each other eternal love.

  Yoshifuji’s household assumed, when he first disappeared, that he was just catting around as usual; but as the hours passed and he failed to return, they began to worry. “What a lunatic!” they grumbled. “We’ll have to look for him!” Servants sent in the middle of the night to comb the neighborhood turned up nothing. Yet Yoshifuji could not have gone far since he had been dressed only casually and all his clothes were still at home. By daybreak every likely place had been searched in vain. The household was at a loss. If he were young, he might have become a monk in a moment of folly, or even killed himself, but surely not at his age. It was very strange.

  Meanwhile Yoshifuji was comfortably installed in his new home and his lady was pregnant. After she had an easy delivery, the two grew closer than ever. Time flew by. Yoshifuji had not a care in the world.

  Back at his old home, they never found him. His brothers and his only son Tadasada, affluent men all, were very upset, and wanting at least to find his body they banded together, felled a tree, and carved an image of Eleven-Headed Kannon just Yoshifuji’s height. When the statue was done, they prostrated themselves before it and prayed to find the corpse. Be it noted, too, that from the day of Yoshifuji’s disappearance they had been calling the Buddha’s Name and reading sutras to guide Yoshifuji’s soul toward the next life.

  Suddenly a man with a stick arrived at Yoshifuji’s new house. While the whole household fled in terror, the man poked his stick into Yoshifuji’s back and drove him through a tight passageway to the outside.

  This was the thirteenth evening after Yoshifuji’s disappearance. The people at his old home were still shaking their heads over what had happened when a strangely dark, monkeylike creature crawled out from under the storehouse nearby. What could it be? Through the jabber of the excited onlookers came a voice saying, “It’s me!” It was Yoshifuji. Even Tadasada found it hard to believe, but there was no doubt about the voice. Tadasada jumped down from the veranda and brought his father up into the house.

  Yoshifuji explained how desperate he had been for a woman while his wife was gone and how he had married a fine gentleman’s daughter. Now he had a little boy. “He’s so pretty I carry him in my arms all the time!” Yoshifuji declared. “He’s my heir, you know. You’re only number two from now on, Tadasada. That’s because I think so much of his mother.”

  “Where is this little boy?” asked Tadasada.

  “Why, over there,” Yoshifuji answered, pointing at the storehouse.

  This was strange news. Yoshifuji looked terribly thin and sick, and he had on the same clothes as when he had vanished. A servant sent to look under the storehouse found lots of foxes, which fled in all directions. That was where Yoshifuji had been. Obviously a fox had tricked him. He had married the fox and was no longer in his right mind.

  A holy monk and a yin-yang diviner were called immediately to purify Yoshifuji, but after repeated ablutions he still was not the man he had once been. It was only later that he finally came back to himself, and he was horribly embarrassed. The thirteen days he had spent under the storehouse had seemed to him like thirteen years, and the few inches of clearance between the ground and the floor of the building had looked to him like a stately home. The foxes had done all this. The man with the stick was an emanation of the Kannon Yoshifuji’s brothers and son had carved.

  Yoshifuji lived on in good health another decade and died in his sixty-first year.

  83.

  YAM SOUP

  In his youth General Toshihito belonged to the regent’s household. One year, after the regent’s New Year banquet, he and the others who had served the banquet were allowed to eat up all the leavings. Sir Goi, a gentleman in the regent’s service, sat with the
m slurping leftover yam soup. Though the fifth rank (go-i) he bore was not much to boast of, Sir Goi thought it very fine. “Ah,” he sighed, smacking his lips, “I can never get enough of that stuff!”

  “Really?” said Toshihito. “You still haven’t had enough?”

  “No indeed!”

  “Then I’ll see that you get your fill.”

  “Thank you,” murmured Sir Goi.

  A few days later Toshihito appeared at Sir Goi’s lodging and invited him for a bath.

  Sir Goi accepted, “I am a bit itchy this evening,” he admitted. “But I’ve no conveyance.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Toshihito, “I’ve brought you a nag to ride.”

  “Wonderful, wonderful!” Sir Goi rose to go. He had on a tattered light-blue outfit with rents and gaps here and there, and not even proper underwear under his trousers. The end of his sharp nose was red, and the drop quivering there showed that he had not wiped it for some time. Though his sash dangled raggedly from under the back of his outer robe, he made no attempt to fix it. All in all he was quite a sight.

  The incongruous pair rode eastward toward the Kamo River. Sir Goi did not have a single miserable boy with him, but Toshihito had three: one to carry his weapons, one to lead his horse, and one to do whatever else was needed. They had crossed the river and were nearing the foot of the pass over into Ōmi when Sir Goi finally asked where they were going. Toshihito assured him that they had not far to go and kept repeating these assurances as they passed Yamashina.

  “What’s going on?” Sir Goi insisted, baffled. “You keep telling me it’s just ahead and here we are past Yamashina!”

  “Just a little further! It’s on just a little!” answered Toshihito as they crossed the pass.

  Sir Goi had once been to see a monk whom Toshihito knew out that way, at Miidera, and he thought perhaps they were to have their bath there. But it was crazy to come so far for a bath, and besides, they were nowhere near a bath anyway. “Where is this bath of yours?” Sir Goi demanded to know.

  “To tell the truth,” Toshihito confessed, “I’m taking you up to the Japan Sea coast, to Tsuruga.”

  “You’re mad! If you’d told me from the start I’d at least have taken some men with me!”

  “You’ve as good as a thousand men,” laughed Toshihito, “as long as you have me!”

  On the shore of Lake Biwa Toshihito spied a fox. “There’s my messenger!” he cried and gave chase. The fox ran hard, but Toshihito got it cornered, then dove at it and caught its hind legs. His horse did not look like much but it was a remarkable animal. It had not taken long to catch that fox.

  Toshihito held the fox dangling in front of him, and Sir Goi managed to catch up in time to hear him say, “Fox, you’re going up to Toshihito’s house in Tsuruga tonight and you’re going to say: ‘The master is bringing a surprise guest home from the Capital. He wants his men to meet him at ten tomorrow morning at Takashima. They’re to bring two saddled horses.’ If you don’t deliver that message, you’ll be sorry. You’ve got magic powers, I know, and you’d better get yourself there right away!” Then Toshihito let the fox go.

  “What an odd messenger!” remarked Sir Goi.

  “Just you watch,” Toshihito said. “He’ll go.”

  Sure enough, the fox ran straight off, glancing back again and again. “There he goes!” cried Toshihito, and the fox vanished as he spoke.

  They stopped that night on the road and set off again first thing the next morning. At ten they saw thirty riders approaching. Sir Goi was worried, but Toshihito assured him they were his men. For Sir Goi, it was all a mystery.

  The riders dismounted before them. “You see?” they said to each other. “Our master’s really coming!”

  Toshihito grinned and asked how they had found out.

  “In a very strange way, sir,” the senior retainer answered.

  “Did you bring the horses?”

  “Yes, sir, both of them.”

  Since the men had food, Toshihito and Sir Goi dismounted too and ate. The senior retainer told them about the previous evening.

  “Around eight o’clock, sir, Her Ladyship felt a sharp pain in her chest. She was very agitated and wanted to call a healer. Then she suddenly said, ‘Don’t worry, madam, I’m just a fox. I met His Lordship today on the shore of Lake Biwa, on his way from Kyoto. I tried to run away but he caught me and said to tell you he’ll be here tomorrow with a guest. He wants his men to meet him with two saddled horses at ten tomorrow morning at Takashima. He threatened me if I didn’t get here before the day was over. I hope the men will leave right away! If they’re late, I’ll suffer for it.’ She was terribly upset, sir, but once she had given the message she came back to herself. We left right away and came as fast as we could.”

  Toshihito smiled and glanced at Sir Goi, who was feeling terribly confused. Then they hurried on and arrived at dusk. The household was amazed. Sir Goi got off his horse and had a look at the house. It was very nice. Toshihito had already given him a good robe to wear over his thin clothing, but still he was awfully hungry and cold. Now there was a big warm fire, and soft mats to sit on. When refreshments were served, Sir Goi felt entirely comfortable. Then he was brought three pale-yellow silk robes, luxuriously padded, and asked solicitously whether he had not been cold on the road. He was fairly swept away.

  After everyone had eaten and settled down, Toshihito’s father-in-law came in. “What a way to arrive!” he complained. “The messenger you sent was insane, and your wife was very ill. You’re mad!”

  Toshihito laughed. “I just wanted to see what would happen,” he answered. “The fox did come, didn’t he!”

  “Mad!” the father-in-law repeated with a chuckle. “Is this the gentleman you brought with you?”

  “Yes. He says he’s never had his fill of yam soup, so I’ve brought him here to make sure he gets it.”

  “Imagine never having gotten enough of a simple thing like that!” joked the father-in-law.

  “He told me we were just going to take a bath!” chimed in Sir Goi lightly.

  They chatted on till at last Toshihito’s father-in-law retired for the night.

  Sir Goi went to the room where he gathered he was to sleep, and found laid out for him a night robe several inches thick with padding. His own thin garment was pitiful by comparison, and in any case something else seemed to be living in it because he got itchy spots every time he wore it. So he took it off and put the night robe on over the three pale-yellow ones. Never having known such comfort, he felt as though he were floating.

  Soon he was sweating. All at once someone moved beside him. Who could it be?

  “I was asked to rub your feet, sir,” said a young woman’s voice.

  She seemed very nice, and he cuddled her against him to keep off any draft.

  Suddenly a voice outside shouted, “Listen, you peasants! Each of you, tomorrow morning at six, bring in a yam five feet long and three inches thick!” The order sounded absurd. Sir Goi just snuggled into bed.

  At dawn he heard a commotion in the yard, and when he finally got up and opened the shutters, he saw four or five large mats laid outside. He could not imagine what they were for. Meanwhile a peasant came in with what looked like a log over his shoulder and laid it on the ground. Another peasant right behind him brought the same, and then another. The things were three inches thick, all right, and by ten o’clock they were piled as high as the roof. Every peasant around had brought in his yam. Sir Goi’s mind reeled.

  Next, men marched in shouldering half a dozen huge cauldrons good for hundreds of gallons each. They drove stakes into the ground and set the cauldrons up in a row. Once more Sir Goi’s mind was boggled. Then came a crowd of pretty girls, all in white silk and carrying freshly made wooden buckets. They emptied their buckets into the cauldrons. Were they going to heat bath water? No, Sir Goi noticed that the buckets held not water but sweetvine syrup. A dozen young men picked up long knives and set to work peeling and slicing the yams. Sir
Goi grasped that they were making yam soup, but he did not want any. In fact, he did not like the thought of yam soup at all.

  The yam soup was boiling merrily away and the cooks reported it was ready. “Serve it up then!” cried Toshihito. With a monstrous metal ladle they sloshed a gallon or two into a huge bowl and with a “Please, sir,” offered it to Sir Goi.

  He could not even get through his first serving and confessed he had had enough. Everyone laughed. “Thanks to you, sir,” they said, “we’ve all had lots of yam soup!”

  Just then Toshihito spotted a fox peering at them round a corner. “Look!” he exclaimed. “There’s my messenger! Feed him!” So they fed the fox yam soup too, and he ate up all he got.

  All in all, Toshihito carried through his prank in a wonderfully open-hearted way. A month or so later Sir Goi left again for the Capital, burdened this time with robes for both daily and formal wear, with leather chests full of bolts of cotton and silk, and, needless to say, with the beautiful bedclothes he had slept in the first night. All this was already loaded onto his saddled horse when Toshihito saw him off.

  Toshihito did not have much rank, but it just shows how well a man can do anyway when he is well established and liked in his own locality.

  84.

  THE EVICTION

  The Minister Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki, a man of extraordinary intelligence and learning, was expert even in yin-yang lore. Having no house of his own, he located a ruinous old mansion that stood near the crossing of Fifth and Horikawa avenues in Kyoto and bought the place, even though no one would live in it because it was well known to be haunted. Then, over his relatives’ strenuous objections, he prepared to move in on an astrologically suitable day.

  The right day turned out to be the twentieth of the sixth moon. Kiyoyuki began his move in an unusual way by setting out in his carriage about six in the evening, taking only a straw mat with him.