Shadowings Part 1

Shadowings.

by Lafcadio Hearn.

The Reconciliation[1]

[1] The original story is to be found in the curious volume ent.i.tled _Konseki-Monogatari_

THERE was a young Samurai of Kyoto who had been reduced to poverty by the ruin of his lord, and found himself obliged to leave his home, and to take service with the Governor of a distant province. Before quitting the capital, this Samurai divorced his wife,--a good and beautiful woman,--under the belief that he could better obtain promotion by another alliance. He then married the daughter of a family of some distinction, and took her with him to the district whither he had been called.

But it was in the time of the thoughtlessness of youth, and the sharp experience of want, that the Samurai could not understand the worth of the affection so lightly cast away. His second marriage did not prove a happy one; the character of his new wife was hard and selfish; and he soon found every cause to think with regret of Kyoto days. Then he discovered that he still loved his first wife--loved her more than he could ever love the second; and he began to feel how unjust and how thankless he had been. Gradually his repentance deepened into a remorse that left him no peace of mind. Memories of the woman he had wronged--her gentle speech, her smiles, her dainty, pretty ways, her faultless patience--continually haunted him. Sometimes in dreams he saw her at her loom, weaving as when she toiled night and day to help him during the years of their distress: more often he saw her kneeling alone in the desolate little room where he had left her, veiling her tears with her poor worn sleeve. Even in the hours of official duty, his thoughts would wander back to her: then he would ask himself how she was living, what she was doing. Something in his heart a.s.sured him that she could not accept another husband, and that she never would refuse to pardon him. And he secretly resolved to seek her out as soon as he could return to Kyoto,--then to beg her forgiveness, to take her back, to do everything that a man could do to make atonement. But the years went by.

At last the Governor's official term expired, and the Samurai was free.

"Now I will go back to my dear one," he vowed to himself. "Ah, what a cruelty,--what a folly to have divorced her!" He sent his second wife to her own people (she had given him no children); and hurrying to Kyoto, he went at once to seek his former companion,--not allowing himself even the time to change his travelling-garb.

When he reached the street where she used to live, it was late in the night,--the night of the tenth day of the ninth month;--and the city was silent as a cemetery. But a bright moon made everything visible; and he found the house without difficulty. It had a deserted look: tall weeds were growing on the roof. He knocked at the sliding-doors, and no one answered. Then, finding that the doors had not been fastened from within, he pushed them open, and entered. The front room was matless and empty: a chilly wind was blowing through crevices in the planking; and the moon shone through a ragged break in the wall of the alcove. Other rooms presented a like forlorn condition. The house, to all seeming, was unoccupied. Nevertheless, the Samurai determined to visit one other apartment at the further end of the dwelling,--a very small room that had been his wife's favorite resting-place. Approaching the sliding-screen that closed it, he was startled to perceive a glow within. He pushed the screen aside, and uttered a cry of joy; for he saw her there,--sewing by the light of a paper-lamp. Her eyes at the same instant met his own; and with a happy smile she greeted him,--asking only:--"When did you come back to Kyoto? How did you find your way here to me, through all those black rooms?" The years had not changed her.

Still she seemed as fair and young as in his fondest memory of her;--but sweeter than any memory there came to him the music of her voice, with its trembling of pleased wonder.

Then joyfully he took his place beside her, and told her all:--how deeply he repented his selfishness,--how wretched he had been without her,--how constantly he had regretted her,--how long he had hoped and planned to make amends;--caressing her the while, and asking her forgiveness over and over again. She answered him, with loving gentleness, according to his heart's desire,--entreating him to cease all self-reproach. It was wrong, she said, that he should have allowed himself to suffer on her account: she had always felt that she was not worthy to be his wife. She knew that he had separated from her, notwithstanding, only because of poverty; and while he lived with her, he had always been kind; and she had never ceased to pray for his happiness. But even if there had been a reason for speaking of amends, this honorable visit would be ample amends;--what greater happiness than thus to see him again, though it were only for a moment? "Only for a moment!" he answered, with a glad laugh,--"say, rather, for the time of seven existences! My loved one, unless you forbid, I am coming back to live with you always--always--always! Nothing shall ever separate us again. Now I have means and friends: we need not fear poverty. To-morrow my goods will be brought here; and my servants will come to wait upon you; and we shall make this house beautiful.... To-night," he added, apologetically, "I came thus late--without even changing my dress--only because of the longing I had to see you, and to tell you this." She seemed greatly pleased by these words; and in her turn she told him about all that had happened in Kyoto since the time of his departure,--excepting her own sorrows, of which she sweetly refused to speak. They chatted far into the night: then she conducted him to a warmer room, facing south,--a room that had been their bridal chamber in former time. "Have you no one in the house to help you?" he asked, as she began to prepare the couch for him. "No," she answered, laughing cheerfully: "I could not afford a servant;--so I have been living all alone." "You will have plenty of servants to-morrow," he said,--"good servants,--and everything else that you need." They lay down to rest,--not to sleep: they had too much to tell each other;--and they talked of the past and the present and the future, until the dawn was grey. Then, involuntarily, the Samurai closed his eyes, and slept.

When he awoke, the daylight was streaming through the c.h.i.n.ks of the sliding-shutters; and he found himself, to his utter amazement, lying upon the naked boards of a mouldering floor.... Had he only dreamed a dream? No: she was there;--she slept.... He bent above her,--and looked,--and shrieked;--for the sleeper had no face!... Before him, wrapped in its grave-sheet only, lay the corpse of a woman,--a corpse so wasted that little remained save the bones, and the long black tangled hair.

Slowly,--as he stood shuddering and sickening in the sun,--the icy horror yielded to a despair so intolerable, a pain so atrocious, that he clutched at the mocking shadow of a doubt. Feigning ignorance of the neighborhood, he ventured to ask his way to the house in which his wife had lived.

"There is no one in that house," said the person questioned. "It used to belong to the wife of a Samurai who left the city several years ago. He divorced her in order to marry another woman before he went away; and she fretted a great deal, and so became sick. She had no relatives in Kyoto, and n.o.body to care for her; and she died in the autumn of the same year,--on the tenth day of the ninth month...."

A Legend of Fugen-Bosatsu[2]

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[2] From the old story-book, _Jikkun-sho_

THERE was once a very pious and learned priest, called Shoku Shonin, who lived in the province of Harima. For many years he meditated daily upon the chapter of Fugen-Bosatsu [the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra] in the Sutra of the Lotos of the Good Law; and he used to pray, every morning and evening, that he might at some time be permitted to behold Fugen-Bosatsu as a living presence, and in the form described in the holy text.[3]

[3] The priest's desire was probably inspired by the promises recorded in the chapter ent.i.tled "The Encouragement of Samantabhadra" (see Kern's translation of the Saddharma Pundarika in the _Sacred Books of the East_,--pp.

433-434):--"Then the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Samantabhadra said to the Lord: ... 'When a preacher who applies himself to this Dharmaparyaya shall take a walk, then, O Lord, will I mount a white elephant with six tusks, and betake myself to the place where that preacher is walking, in order to protect this Dharmaparyaya. And when that preacher, applying himself to this Dharmaparyaya, forgets, be it but a single word or syllable, then will I mount the white elephant with six tusks, and show my face to that preacher, and repeat this entire Dharmaparyaya."--But these promises refer to "the end of time."

One evening, while he was reciting the Sutra, drowsiness overcame him; and he fell asleep leaning upon his _kyosoku_.[4] Then he dreamed; and in his dream a voice told him that, in order to see Fugen-Bosatsu, he must go to the house of a certain courtesan, known as the "Yujo-no-Choja,"[5] who lived in the town of Kanzaki. Immediately upon awakening he resolved to go to Kanzaki;--and, making all possible haste, he reached the town by the evening of the next day.

[4] The _Kyosoku_ is a kind of padded arm-rest, or arm-stool, upon which the priest leans one arm while reading. The use of such an arm-rest is not confined, however, to the Buddhist clergy.

[5] A yujo, in old days, was a singing-girl as well as a courtesan. The term "Yujo-no-Choja," in this case, would mean simply "the first (or best) of yujo."

When he entered the house of the _yujo_, he found many persons already there a.s.sembled--mostly young men of the capital, who had been attracted to Kanzaki by the fame of the woman's beauty. They were feasting and drinking; and the _yujo_ was playing a small hand-drum (_tsuzumi_), which she used very skilfully, and singing a song. The song which she sang was an old j.a.panese song about a famous shrine in the town of Murozumi; and the words were these:--

_Within the sacred water-tank[6] of Murozumi in Suwo, Even though no wind be blowing, The surface of the water is always rippling._

[6] _Mitarai_. _Mitarai_ (or _mitarashi_) is the name especially given to the water-tanks, or water-fonts--of stone or bronze--placed before Shinto shrines in order that the worshipper may purify his lips and hands before making prayer. Buddhist tanks are not so named.

The sweetness of the voice filled everybody with surprise and delight.

As the priest, who had taken a place apart, listened and wondered, the girl suddenly fixed her eyes upon him; and in the same instant he saw her form change into the form of Fugen-Bosatsu, emitting from her brow a beam of light that seemed to pierce beyond the limits of the universe, and riding a snow-white elephant with six tusks. And still she sang--but the song also was now transformed; and the words came thus to the ears of the priest:--

_On the Vast Sea of Cessation, Though the Winds of the Six Desires and of the Five Corruptions never blow, Yet the surface of that deep is always covered With the billowings of Attainment to the Reality-in-Itself._

Dazzled by the divine ray, the priest closed his eyes: but through their lids he still distinctly saw the vision. When he opened them again, it was gone: he saw only the girl with her hand-drum, and heard only the song about the water of Murozumi. But he found that as often as he shut his eyes he could see Fugen-Bosatsu on the six-tusked elephant, and could hear the mystic Song of the Sea of Cessation. The other persons present saw only the _yujo_: they had not beheld the manifestation.

Then the singer suddenly disappeared from the banquet-room--none could say when or how. From that moment the revelry ceased; and gloom took the place of joy. After having waited and sought for the girl to no purpose, the company dispersed in great sorrow. Last of all, the priest departed, bewildered by the emotions of the evening. But scarcely had he pa.s.sed beyond the gate, when the _yujo_ appeared before him, and said:--"Friend, do not speak yet to any one of what you have seen this night." And with these words she vanished away,--leaving the air filled with a delicious fragrance.

The monk by whom the foregoing legend was recorded, comments upon it thus:--The condition of a _yujo_ is low and miserable, since she is condemned to serve the l.u.s.ts of men. Who therefore could imagine that such a woman might be the _nirmanakaya_, or incarnation, of a Bodhisattva. But we must remember that the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas may appear in this world in countless different forms; choosing, for the purpose of their divine compa.s.sion, even the most humble or contemptible shapes when such shapes can serve them to lead men into the true path, and to save them from the perils of illusion.

The Screen-Maiden[7]

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[7] Related in the _Otogi-Hyaku-Monogatari_

SAYS the old j.a.panese author, Hakubai-En Rosui:--[8]

"In Chinese and in j.a.panese books there are related many stories,--both of ancient and of modern times,--about pictures that were so beautiful as to exercise a magical influence upon the beholder. And concerning such beautiful pictures,--whether pictures of flowers or of birds or of people, painted by famous artists,--it is further told that the shapes of the creatures or the persons, therein depicted, would separate themselves from the paper or the silk upon which they had been painted, and would perform various acts;--so that they became, by their own will, really alive. We shall not now repeat any of the stories of this cla.s.s which have been known to everybody from ancient times. But even in modern times the fame of the pictures painted by Hishigawa Kichibei--'Hishigawa's Portraits'--has become widespread in the land."

[8] He died in the eighteenth year of Kyoho (1733). The painter to whom he refers--better known to collectors as Hishigawa Kichibei Moron.o.bu--flourished during the latter part of the seventeenth century. Beginning his career as a dyer's apprentice, he won his reputation as an artist about 1680, when he may be said to have founded the _Ukiyo-ye_ school of ill.u.s.tration. Hishigawa was especially a delineator of what are called _furyu_, ("elegant manners"),--the aspects of life among the upper cla.s.ses of society.

He then proceeds to relate the following story about one of the so-called portraits:--

There was a young scholar of Kyoto whose name was Tokkei. He used to live in the street called Muromachi. One evening, while on his way home after a visit, his attention was attracted by an old single-leaf screen (_tsuitate_), exposed for sale before the shop of a dealer in second-hand goods. It was only a paper-covered screen; but there was painted upon it the full-length figure of a girl which caught the young man's fancy. The price asked was very small: Tokkei bought the screen, and took it home with him.

When he looked again at the screen, in the solitude of his own room, the picture seemed to him much more beautiful than before. Apparently it was a real likeness,--the portrait of a girl fifteen or sixteen years old; and every little detail in the painting of the hair, eyes, eyelashes, mouth, had been executed with a delicacy and a truth beyond praise. The _manajiri_[9] seemed "like a lotos-blossom courting favor"; the lips were "like the smile of a red flower"; the whole young face was inexpressibly sweet. If the real girl so portrayed had been equally lovely, no man could have looked upon her without losing his heart. And Tokkei believed that she must have been thus lovely;--for the figure seemed alive,--ready to reply to anybody who might speak to it.

[9] Also written _mejiri_,--the exterior canthus of the eye. The j.a.panese (like the old Greek and the old Arabian poets) have many curious dainty words and similes to express particular beauties of the hair, eyes, eyelids, lips, fingers, etc.