{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_55473/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_55473","id":"gutenberg_55473","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55473","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Japan -- Social life and customs -- Fiction","Short stories"],"text":"KOTT\u014c\n\nBEING JAPANESE CURIOS, WITH\n\nSUNDRY COBWEBS\n\nCOLLECTED BY\n\nLAFCADIO HEARN\n\nLecturer on Literature in the Imperial University of T\u014dky\u014d, Japan\n\nWITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY\n\nGENJIRO YETO\n\nNew York\n\nTHE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n\nLONDON: MACMILLAN & CO. LTD.\n\n1903\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nTO\n\nSIR EDWIN ARNOLD\n\nIN\n\nGRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE\n\nOF\n\nKIND WORDS\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nContents\n\n    Old Stories:\n\n       I. The Legend of Yurei-Daki\n      II. In a Cup of Tea\n     III. Common Sense\n      IV. Ikiry\u014d\n       V. Shiry\u014d\n      VI. The Story of O-Kam\u00e9\n     VII. Story of a Fly\n    VIII. Story of a Pheasant\n      IX. The Story of Ch\u016bgor\u014d\n\n    A Woman's Diary\n    Heik\u00e9-gani\n    Fireflies\n    A Drop of Dew\n    Gaki\n    A Matter of Custom\n    Revery\n    Pathological\n    In the Dead of the Night\n    Kusa-Hibari\n    The Eater of Dreams\n\n\n\n\nOld Stories\n\n_The following nine tales have been selected from the\n\"Shin-Chomon-Sh\u016b\" \"Hyaku Monogatari,\" \"Uji-J\u016bi-Monogatari-Sh\u014d,\" and\nother old Japanese books, to illustrate some strange beliefs. They are\nonly Curios._\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nThe Legend of Yurei-Daki\n\n\nNear the village of Kurosaka, in the province of H\u014dki, there is\na waterfall called Yurei-Daki, or The Cascade of Ghosts. Why it\nis so called I do not know. Near the foot of the fall there is a\nsmall Shint\u014d shrine of the god of the locality, whom the people\nname Taki-Daimy\u014djin; and in front of the shrine is a little wooden\nmoney-box--_saisen-bako_--to receive the offerings of believers. And\nthere is a story about that money-box.\n\n*\n\nOne icy winter's evening, thirty-five years ago, the women and girls\nemployed at a certain _asa-toriba_, or hemp-factory, in Kurosaka,\ngathered around the big brazier in the spinning-room after their\nday's work had been done. Then they amused themselves by telling\nghost-stories. By the time that a dozen stories had been told, most\nof the gathering felt uncomfortable; and a girl cried out, just to\nheighten the pleasure of fear, \"Only think of going this night, all\nby one's self, to the Yurei-Daki!\" The suggestion provoked a general\nscream, followed by nervous bursts of laughter.... \"I'll give all the\nhemp I spun to-day,\" mockingly said one of the party, \"to the person\nwho goes!\" \"So will I,\" exclaimed another. \"And I,\" said a third. \"All\nof us,\" affirmed a fourth.... Then from among the spinners stood up\none Yasumoto O-Katsu, the wife of a carpenter;--she had her only son,\na boy of two years old, snugly wrapped up and asleep upon her back.\n\"Listen,\" said O-Katsu; \"if you will all really agree to make over to\nme all the hemp spun to-day, I will go to the Yurei-Daki.\" Her proposal\nwas received with cries of astonishment and of defiance. But after\nhaving been several times repeated, it was seriously taken. Each of\nthe spinners in turn agreed to give up her share of the day's work to\nO-Katsu, providing that O-Katsu should go to the Yurei-Daki. \"But how\nare we to know if she really goes there?\" a sharp voice asked. \"Why,\nlet her bring back the money-box of the god,\" answered an old woman\nwhom the spinners called Obaa-San, the Grandmother; \"that will be proof\nenough.\" \"I'll bring it,\" cried O-Katsu. And out she darted into the\nstreet, with her sleeping boy upon her back.\n\n*\n\nThe night, was frosty, but clear. Down the empty street O-Katsu\nhurried; and she saw that all the house fronts were tightly closed,\nbecause of the piercing cold. Out of the village, and along the\nhigh road she ran--_pich\u00e0-pich\u00e0_--with the great silence of frozen\nrice-fields on either hand, and only the stars to light her. Half\nan hour she followed the open road; then she turned down a narrower\nway, winding under cliffs. Darker and rougher the path became as she\nproceeded; but she knew it well, and she soon heard the dull roar of\nthe water. A few minutes more, and the way widened into a glen,--and\nthe dull roar suddenly became a loud clamor,--and before her she\nsaw, looming against a mass of blackness, the long glimmering of the\nfall. Dimly she perceived the shrine,--the money-box. She rushed\nforward,--put out her hand....\n\n\"_Oi!_ O-Katsu-San!\"[1] suddenly called a warning voice above the crash\nof the water.\n\nO-Katsu stood motionless,--stupefied by terror.\n\n\"_Oi!_ O-Katsu-San!\" again pealed the voice,--this time with more of\nmenace in its tone.\n\nBut O-Katsu was really a bold woman. At once recovering from her\nstupefaction, she snatched up the money-box and ran. She neither\nheard nor saw anything more to alarm her until she reached the\nhighroad, where she stopped a moment to take breath. Then she ran on\nsteadily,--_pich\u00e0-pich\u00e0_,--till she got to Kurosaka, and thumped at the\ndoor of the _asa-toriba_.\n\n*\n\nHow the women and the girls cried out as she entered, panting, with the\nmoney-box of the god in her hand! Breathlessly they heard her story;\nsympathetically they screeched when she told them of the Voice that\nhad called her name, twice, out of the haunted water.... What a woman!\nBrave O-Katsu!--well had she earned the hemp!... \"But your boy must be\ncold, O-Katsu!\" cried the Obaa-San, \"let us have him here by the fire!\"\n\n\"He ought to be hungry,\" exclaimed the mother; \"I must give him his\nmilk presently.\"... \"Poor O-Katsu!\" said the Obaa-San, helping to\nremove the wraps in which the boy had been carried,--\"why, you are all\nwet behind!\" Then, with a husky scream, the helper vociferated, \"_Ar\u00e0!\nit is blood!_\"\n\nAnd out of the wrappings unfastened there fell to the floor a\nblood-soaked bundle of baby clothes that left exposed two very small\nbrown feet, and two very small brown hands--nothing more. The child's\nhead had been torn off!...\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Footnote 1: The exclamation _Oi!_ is used to call the attention of a\nperson: it is the Japanese equivalent for such English exclamations as\n\"Halloa!\" \"Ho, there!\" etc.]\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nIn a Cup of Tea\n\n\nHave you ever attempted to mount some old tower stairway, spiring up\nthrough darkness, and in the heart of that darkness found yourself\nat the cobwebbed edge of nothing? Or have you followed some coast\npath, cut along the face of a cliff, only to discover yourself, at\na turn, on the jagged verge of a break? The emotional worth of such\nexperience--from a literary point of view--is proved by the force\nof the sensations aroused, and by the vividness with which they are\nremembered.\n\nNow there have been curiously preserved, in old Japanese story-books,\ncertain fragments of fiction that produce an almost similar emotional\nexperience.... Perhaps the writer was lazy; perhaps he had a quarrel\nwith the publisher; perhaps he was suddenly called away from his little\ntable, and never came back; perhaps death stopped the writing-brush\nin the very middle of a sentence. But no mortal man can ever tell us\nexactly why these things were left unfinished.... I select a typical\nexample.\n\n*\n\nOn the fourth day of the first month of the third Tenwa,--that is to\nsay, about two hundred and twenty years ago,--the lord Nakagawa Sado,\nwhile on his way to make a New Year's visit, halted with his train\nat a tea-house in Hakusan, in the Hong\u014d district of Yedo. While the\nparty were resting there, one of the lord's attendants,--a _wakat\u014d_[1]\nnamed Sekinai,--feeling very thirsty, filled for himself a large\nwater-cup with tea. He was raising the cup to his lips when he suddenly\nperceived, in the transparent yellow infusion, the image or reflection\nof a face that was not his own. Startled, he looked around, but could\nsee no one near him. The face in the tea appeared, from the coiffure,\nto be the face of a young samurai: it was strangely distinct, and\nvery handsome,--delicate as the face of a girl. And it seemed the\nreflection of a living face; for the eyes and the lips were moving.\nBewildered by this mysterious apparition, Sekinai threw away the tea,\nand carefully examined the cup. It proved to be a very cheap water-cup,\nwith no artistic devices of any sort. He found and filled another cup;\nand again the face appeared in the tea. He then ordered fresh tea,\nand refilled the cup; and once more the strange face appeared,--this\ntime with a mocking smile. But Sekinai did not allow himself to be\nfrightened. \"Whoever you are,\" he muttered, \"you shall delude me no\nfurther!\"--then he swallowed the tea, face and all, and went his way,\nwondering whether he had swallowed a ghost.\n\n*\n\nLate in the evening of the same day, while on watch in the palace of\nthe lord Nakagawa, Sekinai was surprised by the soundless coming of\na stranger into the apartment. This stranger, a richly dressed young\nsamurai, seated himself directly in front of Sekinai, and, saluting the\n_wakat\u014d_ with a slight bow, observed:--\n\n\"I am Shikibu Heinai--met you to-day for the first time.... You do not\nseem to recognize me.\"\n\nHe spoke in a very low, but penetrating voice. And Sekinai was\nastonished to find before him the same sinister, handsome face of\nwhich he had seen, and swallowed, the apparition in a cup of tea. It\nwas smiling now, as the phantom had smiled; but the steady gaze of the\neyes, above the smiling lips, was at once a challenge and an insult.\n\n\"No, I do not recognize you,\" returned Sekinai, angry but cool;--\"and\nperhaps you will now be good enough to inform me how you obtained\nadmission to this house?\"\n\n[In feudal times the residence of a lord was strictly guarded at\nall hours; and no one could enter unannounced, except through some\nunpardonable negligence on the part of the armed watch.]\n\n\"Ah, you do not recognize me!\" exclaimed the visitor, in a tone of\nirony, drawing a little nearer as he spoke. \"No, you do not recognize\nme! Yet you took upon yourself this morning to do me a deadly\ninjury!...\"\n\nSekinai instantly seized the _tant\u014d_[2] at his girdle, and made a\nfierce thrust at the throat of the man. But the blade seemed to touch\nno substance. Simultaneously and soundlessly the intruder leaped\nsideward to the chamber-wall, _and through it!_... The wall showed no\ntrace of his exit. He had traversed it only as the light of a candle\npasses through lantern-paper.\n\n*\n\nWhen Sekinai made report of the incident, his recital astonished and\npuzzled the retainers. No stranger had been seen either to enter or\nto leave the palace at the hour of the occurrence; and no one in the\nservice of the lord Nakagawa had ever heard of the name \"Shikibu\nHeinai.\"\n\n*\n\nOn the following night Sekinai was off duty, and remained at home with\nhis parents. At a rather late hour he was informed that some strangers\nhad called at the house, and desired to speak with him for a moment.\nTaking his sword, he went to the entrance, and there found three armed\nmen,--apparently retainers,--waiting in front of the doorstep. The\nthree bowed respectfully to Sekinai; and one of them said:--\n\n\"Our names are Matsuoka Bung\u014d, Tsuchibashi Bung\u014d, and Okamura Heiroku.\nWe are retainers of the noble Shikibu Heinai. When our master last\nnight deigned to pay you a visit, you struck him with a sword. He was\nmuch will hurt, and has been obliged to go to the hot springs, where\nhis wound is now being treated. But on the sixteenth day of the coming\nmonth he will return; and he will then fitly repay you for the injury\ndone him....\"\n\nWithout waiting to hear more, Sekinai leaped out, sword in hand, and\nslashed right and left, at the strangers. But the three men sprang\nto the wall of the adjoining building, and flitted up the wall like\nshadows, and....\n\n[Illustration]\n\nHere the old narrative breaks off; the rest of the story existed only\nin some brain that has been dust for a century.\n\nI am able to imagine several possible endings; but none of them would\nsatisfy an Occidental imagination. I prefer to let the reader attempt\nto decide for himself the probable consequence of swallowing a Soul.\n\n[Footnote 1: The armed attendant of a _samurai_ was thus called. The\nrelation of the _wakat\u014d_ to the _samurai_ was that of squire to knight.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The shorter of the two swords carried by samurai. The\nlonger sword was called _katana_.]\n\n\n\n\nCommon Sense\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nOnce there lived upon the mountain called Atagoyama, near Kyoto, a\ncertain learned priest who devoted all his time to meditation and the\nstudy of the sacred books. The little temple in which he dwelt was far\nfrom any village; and he could not, in such a solitude, have obtained\nwithout help the common necessaries of life. But several devout country\npeople regularly contributed to his maintenance, bringing him each\nmonth supplies of vegetables and of rice.\n\nAmong these good folk there was a certain hunter, who sometimes visited\nthe mountain in search of game. One day, when this hunter had brought a\nbag of rice to the temple, the priest said to him:--\n\n\"Friend, I must tell you that wonderful things have happened here since\nthe last time I saw you. I do not certainly know why such things should\nhave happened in my unworthy presence. But you are aware that I have\nbeen meditating, and reciting the s\u00fbtras daily, for many years; and\nit is possible that what has been vouchsafed me is due to the merit\nobtained through these religious exercises. I am not sure of this. But\nI am sure that Fugen Bosatsu[1] comes nightly to this temple, riding\nupon his elephant.... Stay here with me this night, friend; then you\nwill be able to see and to worship the Buddha.\"\n\n\"To witness so holy a vision,\" the hunter replied, \"were a privilege\nindeed! Most gladly I shall stay, and worship with you.\"\n\nSo the hunter remained at the temple. But while the priest was engaged\nin his religious exercises, the hunter began to think about the\npromised miracle, and to doubt whether such a thing could be. And the\nmore he thought, the more he doubted. There was a little boy in the\ntemple,--an acolyte,--and the hunter found an opportunity to question\nthe boy.\n\n\"The priest told me,\" said the hunter, \"that Fugen Bosatsu comes to\nthis temple every night. Have you also seen Fugen Bosatsu?\"\n\n\"Six times, already,\" the acolyte replied, \"I have seen and reverently\nworshipped Fugen Bosatsu.\" This declaration only served to increase\nthe hunter's suspicions, though he did not in the least doubt the\ntruthfulness of the boy. He reflected, however, that he would probably\nbe able to see whatever the boy had seen; and he waited with eagerness\nfor the hour of the promised vision.\n\n*\n\nShortly before midnight the priest announced that it was time to\nprepare for the coming of Fugen Bosatsu. The doors of the little temple\nwere thrown open; and the priest knelt down at the threshold, with his\nface to the east. The acolyte knelt at his left hand, and the hunter\nrespectfully placed himself behind the priest.\n\nIt was the night of the twentieth of the ninth month,--a dreary,\ndark, and very windy night; and the three waited a long time for the\ncoming of Fugen Bosatsu. But at last a point of white light appeared,\nlike a star, in the direction of the east; and this light approached\nquickly,--growing larger and larger as it came, and illuminating all\nthe slope of the mountain. Presently the light took shape--the shape\nof a being divine, riding upon a snow-white elephant with six tusks.\nAnd, in another moment, the elephant with its shining rider arrived\nbefore the temple, and there stood towering, like a mountain of\nmoonlight,--wonderful and weird.\n\nThen the priest and the boy, prostrating themselves, began with\nexceeding fervour to repeat the holy invocation to Fugen Bosatsu. But\nsuddenly the hunter rose up behind them, bow in hand; and, bending his\nbow to the full, he sent a long arrow whizzing straight at the luminous\nBuddha, into whose breast it sank up to the very feathers. Immediately,\nwith a sound like a thunder-clap, the white light vanished, and the\nvision disappeared. Before the temple there was nothing but windy\ndarkness.\n\n\"O miserable man!\" cried out the priest, with tears of shame and\ndespair, \"O most wretched and wicked man! what have you done?--what\nhave you done?\"\n\nBut the hunter received the reproaches of the priest without any sign\nof compunction or of anger. Then he said, very gently:--\n\n\"Reverend sir, please try to calm yourself, and listen to me. You\nthought that you were able to see Fugen Bosatsu because of some merit\nobtained through your constant meditations and your recitation of the\ns\u00fbtras. But if that had been the case, the Buddha would have appeared\nto you only--not to me, nor even to the boy. I am an ignorant hunter,\nand my occupation is to kill;--and the taking of life is hateful to the\nBuddhas. How then should I be able to see Fugen Bosatsu? I have been\ntaught that the Buddhas are everywhere about us, and that we remain\nunable to see them because of our ignorance and our imperfections.\nYou--being a learned priest of pure life--might indeed acquire such\nenlightenment as would enable you to see the Buddhas; but how should\na man who kills animals for his livelihood find the power to see the\ndivine? Both I and this little boy could see all that you saw. And\nlet me now assure you, reverend sir, that what you saw was not Fugen\nBosatsu, but a goblinry intended to deceive you--perhaps even to\ndestroy you. I beg that you will try to control your feelings until\ndaybreak. Then I will prove to you the truth of what I have said.\"\n\nAt sunrise the hunter and the priest examined the spot where the vision\nhad been standing, and they discovered a thin trail of blood. And after\nhaving followed this trail to a hollow some hundred paces away, they\ncame upon the body of a great badger, transfixed by the hunter's arrow.\n\n*\n\nThe priest, although a learned and pious person, had easily been\ndeceived by a badger. But the hunter, an ignorant and irreligious man,\nwas gifted with strong common sense: and by mother-wit alone he was\nable at once to detect and to destroy a dangerous illusion.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Footnote 1: Samantabhadra Bodhisattva.]\n\n\n\n\nIkiry\u014d[1]\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nFormerly, in the quarter of Reiganjima, in Yedo, there was a great\nporcelain shop called the Setomonodana, kept by a rich man named Kihei.\nKihei had in his employ, for many years, a head clerk named Rokubei.\nUnder Rokubei's care the business prospered;--and at last it grew so\nlarge that Rokubei found himself unable to manage it without help.\nHe therefore asked and obtained permission to hire an experienced\nassistant; and he then engaged one of his own nephews,--a young man\nabout twenty-two years old, who had learned the porcelain trade in\nOsaka.\n\nThe nephew proved a very capable assistant,--shrewder in business\nthan his experienced uncle. His enterprise extended the trade of the\nhouse, and Kihei was greatly pleased. But about seven months after his\nengagement, the young man became very ill, and seemed likely to die.\nThe best physicians in Yedo were summoned to attend him; but none of\nthem could understand the nature of his sickness. They prescribed no\nmedicine, and expressed the opinion that such a sickness could only\nhave been caused by some secret grief.\n\nRokubei imagined that it might be a case of lovesickness. He therefore\nsaid to his nephew:--\n\n\"I have been thinking that, as you are still very young, you might have\nformed some secret attachment which is making you unhappy,--perhaps\neven making you ill. If this be the truth, you certainly ought to\ntell me all about your troubles. Here I stand to you in the place of\na father, as you are far away from your parents; and if you have any\nanxiety or sorrow, I am ready to do for you whatever a father should\ndo. If money can help you, do not be ashamed to tell me, even though\nthe amount be large. I think that I could assist you; and I am sure\nthat Kihei would be glad to do anything to make you happy and well.\"\n\nThe sick youth appeared to be embarrassed by these kindly assurances;\nand for some little time he remained silent. At last he answered:--\n\n\"Never in this world can I forget those generous words. But I have no\nsecret attachment--no longing for any woman. This sickness of mine is\nnot a sickness that doctors can cure; and money could not help me in\nthe least. The truth is, that I have been so persecuted in this house\nthat I scarcely care to live. Everywhere--by day and by night, whether\nin the shop or in my room, whether alone or in company--I have been\nunceasingly followed and tormented by the Shadow of a woman. And it is\nlong, long since I have been able to get even one night's rest. For so\nsoon as I close my eyes, the Shadow of the woman takes me by the throat\nand strives to strangle me. So I cannot sleep....\"\n\n\"And why did you not tell me this before?\" asked Rokubei.\n\n\"Because I thought,\" the nephew answered, \"that it would be of no use\nto tell you. The Shadow is not the ghost of a dead person. It is made\nby the hatred of a living person--a person whom you very well know.\"\n\n\"What person?\" questioned Rokubei, in great astonishment.[2]\n\n\"The mistress of this house,\" whispered the youth,--\"the wife of Kihei\nSama.... She wishes to kill me.\"\n\n*\n\nRokubei was bewildered by this confession. He doubted nothing of\nwhat his nephew had said; but he could not imagine a reason for the\nhaunting. An _ikiry\u014d_ might be caused by disappointed love, or by\nviolent hate,--without the knowledge of the person from whom it had\nemanated. To suppose any love in this case was impossible;--the wife\nof Kihei was considerably more than fifty years of age. But, on the\nother hand, what could the young clerk have done to provoke hatred,--a\nhatred capable of producing an ikiry\u014d? He had been irreproachably well\nconducted, unfailingly courteous, and earnestly devoted to his duties.\nThe mystery troubled Rokubei; but, after careful reflection, he decided\nto tell everything to Kihei, and to request an investigation.\n\nKihei was astounded; but in the time of forty years he had never had\nthe least reason to doubt the word of Rokubei. He therefore summoned\nhis wife at once, and carefully questioned her, telling her, at the\nsame time, what the sick clerk had said. At first she turned pale, and\nwept; but, after some hesitation, she answered frankly:--\n\n\"I suppose that what the new clerk has said about the _ikiry\u014d_ is\ntrue,--though I really tried never to betray, by word or look, the\ndislike which I could not help feeling for him. You know that he is\nvery skilful in commerce,--very shrewd in everything that he does.\nAnd you have given him much authority in this house--power over the\napprentices and the servants. But our only son, who should inherit this\nbusiness, is very simple-hearted and easily deceived; and I have long\nbeen thinking that your clever new clerk might so delude our boy as to\nget possession of all this property. Indeed, I am certain that your\nclerk could at any time, without the least difficulty, and without the\nleast risk to himself, ruin our business and ruin our son. And with\nthis certainty in my mind, I cannot help fearing and hating the man. I\nhave often and often wished that he were dead; I have even wished that\nit were in my own power to kill him. ... Yes, I know that it is wrong\nto hate any one in such a way; but I could not check the feeling. Night\nand day I have been wishing evil to that clerk. So I cannot doubt that\nhe has really seen the thing of which he spoke to Rokubei.\"\n\n\"How absurd of you,\" exclaimed Kihei, \"to torment yourself thus! Up\nto the present time that clerk has done no single thing for which he\ncould be blamed; and you have caused him to suffer cruelly.... Now if I\nshould send him away, with his uncle, to another town, to establish a\nbranch business, could you not endeavour to think more kindly of him?\"\n\n\"If I do not see his face or hear his voice,\" the wife answered,--\"if\nyou will only send him away from this house,--then I think that I shall\nbe able to conquer my hatred of him.\"\n\n\"Try to do so,\" said Kihei;--\"for, if you continue to hate him as you\nhave been hating him, he will certainly die, and you will then be\nguilty of having caused the death of a man who has done us nothing but\ngood. He has been, in every way, a most excellent servant.\"\n\nThen Kihei quickly made arrangements for the establishment of a branch\nhouse in another city; and he sent Rokubei there with the clerk, to\ntake charge. And thereafter the _ikiry\u014d_ ceased to torment the young\nman, who soon recovered his health.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Literally, \"living spirit,\"--that is to say, the ghost of\na person still alive. An _ikiry\u014d_ may detach itself from the body under\nthe influence of anger, and proceed to haunt and torment the individual\nby whom the anger was caused.]\n\n[Footnote 2: An _ikiry\u014d_ is seen only by the person haunted.--For\nanother illustration of this curious belief, see the paper entitled\n\"The Stone Buddha\" in my _Out of the East_, p. 171.]\n\n\n\n\nShiry\u014d[1]\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nOn the death of Nomoto Yajiy\u00e9mon, a daikwan[2] in the province of\nEchizen, his clerks entered into a conspiracy to defraud the family of\ntheir late master. Under pretext of paying some of the daikwan's debts,\nthey took possession of all the money, valuables, and furniture in his\nhouse; and they furthermore prepared a false report to make it appear\nthat he had unlawfully contracted obligations exceeding the worth of\nhis estate. This false report they sent to the Saish\u014d,[3] and the\nSaish\u014d thereupon issued a decree banishing the widow and the children\nof Nomoto from the province of Echizen. For in those times the family\nof a daikwan were held in part responsible, even after his death, for\nany malfeasance proved against him.\n\nBut at the moment when the order of banishment was officially announced\nto the widow of Nomoto, a strange thing happened to a maid-servant in\nthe house. She was seized with convulsions and shudderings, like a\nperson possessed; and when the convulsions passed, she rose up, and\ncried out to the officers of the Saish\u014d, and to the clerks of her late\nmaster:--\n\n\"Now listen to me! It is not a girl who is speaking to you; it is\nI,--Yajiy\u00e9mon, Nomoto Yajiy\u00e9mon,--returned to you from the dead. In\ngrief and great anger do I return--grief and anger caused me by those\nin whom I vainly put my trust!... O you infamous and ungrateful clerks!\nhow could you so forget the favours bestowed upon you, as thus to ruin\nmy property, and to disgrace my name?... Here, now, in my presence, let\nthe accounts of my office and of my house be made; and let a servant\nbe sent for the books of the Metsuk\u00e9,[4] so that the estimates may be\ncompared!\"\n\nAs the maid uttered these words, all present were filled with\nastonishment; for her voice and her manner were the voice and the\nmanner of Nomoto Yajiy\u00e9mon. The guilty clerks turned pale. But the\nrepresentatives of the Saish\u014d at once commanded that the desire\nexpressed by the girl should be fully granted. All the account-books\nof the office were promptly placed before her,--and the books of the\nMetsuk\u00e9 were brought in; and she began the reckoning. Without making\na single error, she went through all the accounts, writing down the\ntotals and correcting every false entry. And her writing, as she wrote,\nwas seen to be the very writing of Nomoto Yajiy\u00e9mon.\n\nNow this re\u00ebxamination of the accounts not only proved that there had\nbeen no indebtedness, but also showed that there had been a surplus\nin the office treasury at the time of the daikwan's death. Thus the\nvillany of the clerks became manifest.\n\nAnd when all the accounts had been made up, the girl said, speaking in\nthe very voice of Nomoto Yajiy\u00e9mon:--\n\n\"Now everything is finished; and I can do nothing further in the\nmatter. So I shall go back to the place from which I came.\"\n\nThen she lay down, and instantly fell asleep; and she slept like a\ndead person during two days and two nights. [For great weariness and\ndeep sleep fall upon the possessed, when the possessing spirit passes\nfrom them.] When she again awoke, her voice and her manner were the\nvoice and the manner of a young girl; and neither at that time, nor\nat any time after, could she remember what had happened while she was\npossessed by the ghost or Nomoto Yajiy\u00e9mon.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nA report of this event was promptly sent to the Saish\u014d; and the Saish\u014d,\nin consequence, not only revoked the order of banishment, but made\nlarge gifts to the family of the daikwan. Later on, various posthumous\nhonours were conferred upon Nomoto Yajiy\u00e9mon; and for many subsequent\nyears his house was favoured by the Government, so that it prospered\ngreatly. But the clerks received the punishment which they deserved.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The term _shiry\u014d_, \"dead ghost,\"--that is to say, the\nghost of a dead person,--is used in contradistinction to the term\n_ikiry\u014d_, signifying the apparition of a living person. _Y\u016brei_ is a\nmore generic name for ghosts of any sort.]\n\n[Footnote 2: A _daikwan_ was a district governor under the direct\ncontrol of the Sh\u014dgunate. His functions were both civil and judicial.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The _Saish\u014d_ was a high official of the Sh\u014dgunate, with\nduties corresponding to those of a prime minister.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The _Metsuk\u00e9_ was a government official, charged with the\nduty of keeping watch over the conduct of local governors or district\njudges, and of inspecting their accounts.]\n\n\n\n\nThe Story of O-Kam\u00e9\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nO-Kam\u00e9, daughter of the rich Gony\u00e9mon of Nagoshi, in the province of\nTosa, was very fond of her husband, Hachiy\u00e9mon. She was twenty-two, and\nHachiy\u00e9mon twenty-five. She was so fond of him that people imagined her\nto be jealous. But he never gave her the least cause for jealousy; and\nit is certain that no single unkind word was ever spoken between them.\n\nUnfortunately the health of O-Kam\u00e9 was feeble. Within less than two\nyears after her marriage she was attacked by a disease, then prevalent\nin Tosa, and the best doctors were not able to cure her. Persons seized\nby this malady could not eat or drink; they remained constantly drowsy\nand languid, and troubled by strange fancies. And, in spite of constant\ncare, O-Kam\u00e9 grew weaker and weaker, day by day, until it became\nevident, even to herself, that she was going to die. Then she called\nher husband, and said to him:--\n\n\"I cannot tell you how good you have been to me during this miserable\nsickness of mine. Surely no one could have been more kind. But that\nonly makes it all the harder for me to leave you now.... Think! I am\nnot yet even twenty-five,--and I have the best husband in all this\nworld,--and yet I must die!... Oh, no, no! it is useless to talk to me\nabout hope; the best Chinese doctors could do nothing for me. I did\nthink to live a few months longer; but when I saw my face this morning\nin the mirror, I knew that I must die to-day,--yes, this very day. And\nthere is something that I want to beg you to do for me--if you wish me\nto die quite happy.\"\n\n\"Only tell me what it is,\" Hachiy\u00e9mon answered; \"and if it be in my\npower to do, I shall be more than glad to do it.\"\n\n\"No, no--you will not be glad to do it,\" she returned: \"you are still\nso young! It is difficult--very, very difficult--even to ask you to do\nsuch a thing; yet the wish for it is like a fire burning in my breast.\nI must speak it before I die.... My dear, you know that sooner or\nlater, after I am dead, they will want you to take another wife. Will\nyou promise me--can you promise me--not to marry again?...\"\n\n\"Only that!\" Hachiy\u00e9mon exclaimed. \"Why, if that be all that you wanted\nto ask for, your wish is very easily granted. With all my heart I\npromise you that no one shall ever take your place.\"\n\n\"_Aa! ur\u00e9shiya!_\" cried O-Kam\u00e9, half-rising from her couch;--\"oh, how\nhappy you have made me!\"\n\nAnd she fell back dead.\n\n*\n\nNow the health of Hachiy\u00e9mon appeared to fail after the death of\nO-Kam\u00e9. At first the change in his aspect was attributed to natural\ngrief, and the villagers only said, \"How fond of her he must have\nbeen!\" But, as the months went by, he grew paler and weaker, until\nat last he became so thin and wan that he looked more like a ghost\nthan a man. Then people began to suspect that sorrow alone could not\nexplain this sudden decline of a man so young. The doctors said that\nHachiy\u00e9mon was not suffering from any known form of disease: they\ncould not account for his condition; but they suggested that it might\nhave been caused by some very unusual trouble of mind. Hachiy\u00e9mon's\nparents questioned him in vain;--he had no cause for sorrow, he said,\nother than what they already knew. They counselled him to remarry; but\nhe protested that nothing could ever induce him to break his promise to\nthe dead.\n\n*\n\nThereafter Hachiy\u00e9mon continued to grow visibly weaker, day by day;\nand his family despaired of his life. But one day his mother, who\nfelt sure that he had been concealing something from her, adjured him\nso earnestly to tell her the real cause of his decline, and wept so\nbitterly before him, that he was not able to resist her entreaties.\n\n\"Mother,\" he said, \"it is very difficult to speak about this matter,\neither to you or to any one; and, perhaps, when I have told you\neverything, you will not be able to believe me. But the truth is that\nO-Kam\u00e9 can find no rest in the other world, and that the Buddhist\nservices repeated for her have been said in vain. Perhaps she will\nnever be able to rest unless I go with her on the long black journey.\nFor every night she returns, and lies down by my side. Every night,\nsince the day of her funeral, she has come back. And sometimes I\ndoubt if she be really dead; for she looks and acts just as when she\nlived,--except that she talks to me only in whispers. And she always\nbids me tell no one that she comes. It may be that she wants me to die;\nand I should not care to live for my own sake only. But it is true,\nas you have said, that my body really belongs to my parents, and that\nI owe to them the first duty. So now, mother, I tell you the whole\ntruth.... Yes: every night she comes, just as I am about to sleep; and\nshe remains until dawn. As soon as she hears the temple-bell, she goes\naway.\"\n\n*\n\nWhen the mother of Hachiy\u00e9mon had heard these things, she was greatly\nalarmed; and, hastening at once to the parish-temple, she told the\npriest all that her son had confessed, and begged for ghostly help. The\npriest, who was a man of great age and experience, listened without\nsurprise to the recital, and then said to her:--\n\n\"It is not the first time that I have known such a thing to happen;\nand I think that I shall be able to save your son. But he is really\nin great danger. I have seen the shadow of death upon his face; and,\nif O-Kam\u00e9 return but once again, he will never behold another sunrise.\nWhatever can be done for him must be done quickly. Say nothing of the\nmatter to your son; but assemble the members of both families as soon\nas possible, and tell them to come to the temple without delay. For\nyour son's sake it will be necessary to open the grave of O-Kam\u00e9.\"\n\n*\n\nSo the relatives assembled at the temple; and when the priest had\nobtained their consent to the opening of the sepulchre, he led the way\nto the cemetery. Then, under his direction, the tombstone of O-Kam\u00e9\nwas shifted, the grave opened, and the coffin raised. And when the\ncoffin-lid had been removed, all present were startled; for O-Kam\u00e9 sat\nbefore them with a smile upon her face, seeming as comely as before the\ntime of her sickness; and there was not any sign of death upon her. But\nwhen the priest told his assistants to lift the dead woman out of the\ncoffin, the astonishment changed to fear; for the corpse was blood-warm\nto the touch, and still flexible as in life, notwithstanding the\nsquatting posture in which it had remained so long.[1]\n\nIt was borne to the mortuary chapel; and there the priest, with a\nwriting-brush, traced upon the brow and breast and limbs of the body\nthe Sanscrit characters (_Bonji_) of certain holy talismanic words.\nAnd he performed a S\u00e9gaki-service for the spirit of O-Kam\u00e9, before\nsuffering her corpse to be restored to the ground.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nShe never again visited her husband; and Hachiy\u00e9mon gradually recovered\nhis health and strength. But whether he always kept his promise, the\nJapanese story-teller does not say.\n\n[Footnote 1: The Japanese dead are placed in a sitting posture in the\ncoffin,--which is almost square in form.]\n\n\n\n\nStory of a Fly\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAbout two hundred years ago, there lived in Kyoto a merchant named\nKazariya Ky\u016bbei. His shop was in the street called Teramachid\u014dri, a\nlittle south of the Shimabara thoroughfare. He had a maid-servant named\nTama,--a native of the province of Wakasa.\n\nTama was kindly treated by Ky\u016bbei and his wife, and appeared to be\nsincerely attached to them. But she never cared to dress nicely, like\nother girls; and whenever she had a holiday she would go out in her\nworking-dress, notwithstanding that she had been given several pretty\nrobes. After she had been in the service of Ky\u016bbei for about five\nyears, he one day asked her why she never took any pains to look neat.\n\nTama blushed at the reproach implied by this question, and answered\nrespectfully:--\n\n\"When my parents died, I was a very little girl; and, as they had no\nother child, it became my duty to have the Buddhist services performed\non their behalf. At that time I could not obtain the means to do so;\nbut I resolved to have their _ihai_ [mortuary tablets] placed in the\ntemple called J\u014drakuji, and to have the rites performed, so soon as I\ncould earn the money required. And in order to fulfil this resolve I\nhave tried to be saving of my money and my clothes;--perhaps I have\nbeen too saving, as you have found me negligent of my person. But I\nhave already been able to put by about one hundred _momm\u00e9_ of silver\nfor the purpose which I have mentioned; and hereafter I will try to\nappear before you looking neat. So I beg that you will kindly excuse my\npast negligence and rudeness.\"\n\nKy\u016bbei was touched by this simple confession; and he spoke to the\ngirl kindly,--assuring her that she might consider herself at liberty\nthenceforth to dress as she pleased, and commending her filial piety.\n\n*\n\nSoon after this conversation, the maid Tama was able to have the\ntablets of her parents placed in the temple J\u014drakuji, and to have the\nappropriate services performed. Of the money which she had saved she\nthus expended seventy _momm\u00e9_; and the remaining thirty _momm\u00e9_ she\nasked her mistress to keep for her.\n\nBut early in the following winter Tama was suddenly taken ill; and\nafter a brief sickness she died, on the eleventh day of the first month\nof the fifteenth year of Genroku [1702]. Ky\u016bbei and his wife were much\ngrieved by her death.\n\n*\n\nNow, about ten days later, a very large fly came into the house, and\nbegan to fly round and round the head of Ky\u016bbei. This surprised Ky\u016bbei,\nbecause no flies of any kind appear, as a rule, during the Period of\nGreatest Cold, and the larger kinds of flies are seldom seen except in\nthe warm season. The fly annoyed Ky\u016bbei so persistently that he took\nthe trouble to catch it, and put it out of the house,--being careful\nthe while to injure it in no way; for he was a devout Buddhist. It soon\ncame back again, and was again caught and thrown out; but it entered\na third time. Ky\u016bbei's wife thought this a strange thing. \"I wonder,\"\nshe said, \"if it is Tama.\" [For the dead--particularly those who pass\nto the state of Gaki--sometimes return in the form of insects.] Ky\u016bbei\nlaughed, and made answer, \"Perhaps we can find out by marking it.\" He\ncaught the fly, and slightly nicked the tips of its wings with a pair\nof scissors,--after which he carried it to a considerable distance from\nthe house and let it go.\n\nNext day it returned. Ky\u016bbei still doubted whether its return had any\nghostly significance. He caught it again, painted its wings and body\nwith beni (rouge), carried it away from the house to a much greater\ndistance than before, and set it free. But, two days later, it came\nback, all red; and Ky\u016bbei ceased to doubt.\n\n\"I think it is Tama,\" he said. \"She wants something;--but what does she\nwant?\"\n\nThe wife responded:--\n\n\"I have still thirty _momm\u00e9_ of her savings. Perhaps she wants us to\npay that money to the temple, for a Buddhist service on behalf of her\nspirit. Tama was always very anxious about her next birth.\"\n\nAs she spoke, the fly fell from the paper window on which it had been\nresting. Ky\u016bbei picked it up, and found that it was dead.\n\n*\n\nThereupon the husband and wife resolved to go to the temple at once,\nand to pay the girl's money to the priests. They put the body of the\nfly into a little box, and took it along with them.\n\nJiku Sh\u014dnin, the chief priest of the temple, on hearing the story of\nthe fly, decided that Ky\u016bbei and his wife had acted rightly in the\nmatter. Then Jiku Sh\u014dnin performed a _S\u00e9gaki_ service on behalf of the\nspirit of Tama; and over the body of the fly were recited the eight\nrolls of the s\u00fbtra _My\u014dten_. And the box containing the body of the fly\nwas buried in the grounds of the temple; and above the place a _sotoba_\nwas set up, appropriately inscribed.\n\n\n\n\nStory of a Pheasant\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nIn the Toyama district of the province of Bish\u016b, there formerly lived a\nyoung farmer and his wife. Their farm was situated in a lonely place,\namong the hills.\n\nOne night the wife dreamed that her father-in-law, who had died some\nyears before, came to her and said, \"_To-morrow I shall be in great\ndanger: try to save me if you can!_\" In the morning she told this to\nher husband; and they talked about the dream. Both imagined that the\ndead man wanted something; but neither could imagine what the words of\nthe vision signified.\n\nAfter breakfast, the husband went to the fields; but the wife remained\nat her loom. Presently she was startled by a great shouting outside.\nShe went to the door, and saw the Jit\u014d[1] of the district, with a\nhunting party, approaching the farm. While she stood watching them, a\npheasant ran by her into the house; and she suddenly remembered her\ndream. \"Perhaps it is my father-in-law,\" she thought to herself;--\"I\nmust try to save it!\" Then, hurrying in after the bird,--a fine male\npheasant,--she caught it without any difficulty, put it into the empty\nrice-pot, and covered the pot with the lid.\n\nA moment later some of the Jit\u014d's followers entered, and asked her\nwhether she had seen a pheasant. She answered boldly that she had not;\nbut one of the hunters declared that he had seen the bird run into\nthe house. So the party searched for it, peeping into every nook and\ncorner; but nobody thought of looking into the rice-pot. After looking\neverywhere else to no purpose, the men decided that the bird must have\nescaped through some hole; and they went away.\n\n*\n\nWhen the farmer came home his wife told him about the pheasant, which\nshe had left in the rice-pot, so that he might see it. \"When I caught\nit,\" she said, \"it did not struggle in the least; and it remained very\nquiet in the pot. I really think that it is father-in-law.\" The farmer\nwent to the pot, lifted the lid, and took out the bird. It remained\nstill in his hands, as if tame, and looked at him as if accustomed to\nhis presence. One of its eyes was blind. \"Father was blind of one eye,\"\nthe farmer said,--\"the right eye; and the right eye of this bird is\nblind. Really, I think it is father. See! it looks at us just as father\nused to do!... Poor father must have thought to himself, '_Now that I\nam a bird, better to give my body to my children for food than to let\nthe hunters have it._'... And that explains your dream of last night,\"\nhe added,--turning to his wife with an evil smile as he wrung the\npheasant's neck.\n\nAt the sight of that brutal act, the woman screamed, and cried out:--\n\n\"Oh, you wicked man! Oh, you devil! Only a man with the heart of a\ndevil could do what you have done!... And I would rather die than\ncontinue to be the wife of such a man!\"\n\nAnd she sprang to the door, without waiting even to put on her sandals.\nHe caught her sleeve as she leaped; but she broke away from him, and\nran out, sobbing as she ran. And she ceased not to run, barefooted,\ntill she reached the town, when she hastened directly to the residence\nof the Jit\u014d. Then, with many tears, she told the Jit\u014d everything: her\ndream of the night before the hunting, and how she had hidden the\npheasant in order to save it, and how her husband had mocked her, and\nhad killed it.\n\nThe Jit\u014d spoke to her kindly, and gave orders that she should be well\ncared for; but he commanded his officers to seize her husband.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nNext day the farmer was brought up for judgment; and, after he had\nbeen made to confess the truth concerning the killing of the pheasant,\nsentence was pronounced. The Jit\u014d said to him:--\n\n\"Only a person of evil heart could have acted as you have acted; and\nthe presence of so perverse a being is a misfortune to the community\nin which he happens to reside. The people under Our jurisdiction are\npeople who respect the sentiment of filial piety; and among them you\ncannot be suffered to live.\"\n\nSo the farmer was banished from the district, and forbidden ever\nto return to it on pain of death. But to the woman the Jit\u014d made a\ndonation of land; and at a later time he caused her to be provided with\na good husband.\n\n[Footnote 1: The lord of the district, who acted both as governor and\nmagistrate.]\n\n\n\n\nThe Story of Ch\u016bgor\u014d\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAlong time ago there lived, in the Koishi-kawa quarter of Yedo, a\n_hatamoto_ named Suzuki, whose yashiki was situated on the bank of the\nYedogawa, not far from the bridge called Naka-no-hashi. And among the\nretainers of this Suzuki there was an _ashigaru_[1] named Ch\u016bgor\u014d.\nCh\u016bgor\u014d was a handsome lad, very amiable and clever, and much liked by\nhis comrades.\n\nFor several years Ch\u016bgor\u014d remained in the service of Suzuki, conducting\nhimself so well that no fault was found with him. But at last the\nother _ashigaru_ discovered that Ch\u016bgor\u014d was in the habit of leaving\nthe yashiki every night, by way of the garden, and staying out until\na little before dawn. At first they said nothing to him about this\nstrange behaviour; for his absences did not interfere with any regular\nduty, and were supposed to be caused by some love-affair. But after a\ntime he began to look pale and weak; and his comrades, suspecting some\nserious folly, decided to interfere. Therefore, one evening, just as he\nwas about to steal away from the house, an elderly retainer called him\naside, and said:--\n\n\"Ch\u016bgor\u014d, my lad, we know that you go out every night and stay away\nuntil early morning; and we have observed that you are looking unwell.\nWe fear that you are keeping bad company, and injuring your health. And\nunless you can give a good reason for your conduct, we shall think that\nit is our duty to report this matter to the Chief Officer. In any case,\nsince we are your comrades and friends, it is but right that we should\nknow why you go out at night, contrary to the custom of this house.\"\n\nCh\u016bgor\u014d appeared to be very much embarrassed and alarmed by these\nwords. But after a short silence he passed into the garden, followed by\nhis comrade. When the two found themselves well out of hearing of the\nrest, Ch\u016bgor\u014d stopped, and said:--\n\n\"I will now tell you everything; but I must entreat you to keep my\nsecret. If you repeat what I tell you, some great misfortune may\nbefall me.\n\n\"It was in the early part of last spring--about five months ago--that\nI first began to go out at night, on account of a love-affair. One\nevening, when I was returning to the yashiki after a visit to my\nparents, I saw a woman standing by the riverside, not far from the main\ngateway. She was dressed like a person of high rank; and I thought\nit strange that a woman so finely dressed should be standing there\nalone at such an hour. But I did not think that I had any right to\nquestion her; and I was about to pass her by, without speaking, when\nshe stepped forward and pulled me by the sleeve. Then I saw that she\nwas very young and handsome. 'Will you not walk with me as far as the\nbridge?' she said; 'I have something to tell you.' Her voice was very\nsoft and pleasant; and she smiled as she spoke; and her smile was hard\nto resist. So I walked with her toward the bridge; and on the way she\ntold me that she had often seen me going in and out of the yashiki,\nand had taken a fancy to me. 'I wish to have you for my husband,'\nshe said;--'if you can like me, we shall be able to make each other\nvery happy.' I did not know how to answer her; but I thought her very\ncharming. As we neared the bridge, she pulled my sleeve again, and led\nme down the bank to the very edge of the river. 'Come in with me,' she\nwhispered, and pulled me toward the water. It is deep there, as you\nknow; and I became all at once afraid of her, and tried to turn back.\nShe smiled, and caught me by the wrist, and said, 'Oh, you must never\nbe afraid with me!' And, somehow, at the touch of her hand, I became\nmore helpless than a child. I felt like a person in a dream who tries\nto run, and cannot move hand or foot. Into the deep water she stepped,\nand drew me with her; and I neither saw nor heard nor felt anything\nmore until I found myself walking beside her through what seemed to be\na great palace, full of light. I was neither wet nor cold: everything\naround me was dry and warm and beautiful. I could not understand where\nI was, nor how I had come there. The woman led me by the hand: we\npassed through room after room,--through ever so many rooms, all empty,\nbut very fine,--until we entered into a guest-room of a thousand mats.\nBefore a great alcove, at the farther end, lights were burning, and\ncushions laid as for a feast; but I saw no guests. She led me to the\nplace of honour, by the alcove, and seated herself in front of me, and\nsaid: 'This is my home: do you think that you could be happy with me\nhere?' As she asked the question she smiled; and I thought that her\nsmile was more beautiful than anything else in the world; and out of\nmy heart I answered, 'Yes....' In the same moment I remembered the\nstory of Urashima; and I imagined that she might be the daughter of a\ngod; but I feared to ask her any questions.... Presently maid-servants\ncame in, bearing rice-wine and many dishes, which they set before\nus. Then she who sat before me said: 'To-night shall be our bridal\nnight, because you like me; and this is our wedding-feast.' We pledged\nourselves to each other for the time of seven existences; and after the\nbanquet we were conducted to a bridal chamber, which had been prepared\nfor us.\n\n\"It was yet early in the morning when she awoke me, and said: 'My dear\none, you are now indeed my husband. But for reasons which I cannot tell\nyou, and which you must not ask, it is necessary that our marriage\nremain secret. To keep you here until daybreak would cost both of us\nour lives. Therefore do not, I beg of you, feel displeased because I\nmust now send you back to the house of your lord. You can come to me\nto-night again, and every night hereafter, at the same hour that we\nfirst met. Wait always for me by the bridge; and you will not have to\nwait long. But remember, above all things, that our marriage must be a\nsecret, and that, if you talk about it, we shall probably be separated\nforever.'\n\n\"I promised to obey her in all things,--remembering the fate of\nUrashima,--and she conducted me through many rooms, all empty and\nbeautiful, to the entrance. There she again took me by the wrist, and\neverything suddenly became dark, and I knew nothing more until I found\nmyself standing alone on the river bank, close to the Naka-no-hashi.\nWhen I got back to the yashiki, the temple bells had not yet begun to\nring.\n\n\"In the evening I went again to the bridge, at the hour she had named,\nand I found her waiting for me. She took me with her, as before, into\nthe deep water, and into the wonderful place where we had passed our\nbridal night. And every night, since then, I have met and parted from\nher in the same way. To-night she will certainly be waiting for me, and\nI would rather die than disappoint her: therefore I must go.... But let\nme again entreat you, my friend, never to speak to any one about what I\nhave told you.\"\n\n*\n\nThe elder _ashigaru_ was surprised and alarmed by this story. He felt\nthat Ch\u016bgor\u014d had told him the truth; and the truth suggested unpleasant\npossibilities. Probably the whole experience was an illusion, and\nan illusion produced by some evil power for a malevolent end.\nNevertheless, if really bewitched, the lad was rather to be pitied than\nblamed; and any forcible interference would be likely to result in\nmischief. So the _ashigaru_ answered kindly:--\n\n\"I shall never speak of what you have told me--never, at least, while\nyou remain alive and well. Go and meet the woman; but--beware of her! I\nfear that you are being deceived by some wicked spirit.\"\n\nCh\u016bgor\u014d only smiled at the old man's warning, and hastened away.\nSeveral hours later he reentered the yashiki, with a strangely dejected\nlook. \"Did you meet her?\" whispered his comrade. \"No,\" replied Ch\u016bgor\u014d;\n\"she was not there. For the first time, she was not there. I think that\nshe will never meet me again. I did wrong to tell you;--I was very\nfoolish to break my promise....\" The other vainly tried to console\nhim. Ch\u016bgor\u014d lay down, and spoke no word more. He was trembling from\nhead to foot, as if he had caught a chill.\n\n*\n\nWhen the temple bells announced the hour of dawn, Ch\u016bgor\u014d tried to get\nup, and fell back senseless. He was evidently sick,--deathly sick. A\nChinese physician was summoned.\n\n\"Why, the man has no blood!\" exclaimed the doctor, after a careful\nexamination;--\"there is nothing but water in his veins! It will be very\ndifficult to save him.... What maleficence is this?\"\n\n*\n\nEverything was done that could be done to save Ch\u016bgor\u014d's life--but in\nvain. He died as the sun went down. Then his comrade related the whole\nstory.\n\n\"Ah! I might have suspected as much!\" exclaimed the doctor.... \"No\npower could have saved him. He was not the first whom she destroyed.\"\n\n\"Who is she?--or what is she?\" the _ashigaru_ asked,--\"a Fox-Woman?\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\"No; she has been haunting this river from ancient time. She loves the\nblood of the young....\"\n\n\"A Serpent-Woman?--A Dragon-Woman?\"\n\n\"No, no! If you were to see her under that bridge by daylight, she\nwould appear to you a very loathsome creature.\"\n\n\"But what kind of a creature?\"\n\n\"Simply a Frog,--a great and ugly Frog!\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Footnote 1: The _ashigaru_ were the lowest class of retainers in\nmilitary service.]\n\n\n\nA Woman's Diary\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nRecently there was put into my hands a somewhat remarkable\nmanuscript,--seventeen long narrow sheets of soft paper, pierced with a\nsilken string, and covered with fine Japanese characters. It was a kind\nof diary, containing the history of a woman's married life, recorded by\nherself. The writer was dead; and the diary had been found in a small\nwork-box (_haribako_) which had belonged to her.\n\nThe friend who lent me the manuscript gave me leave to translate as\nmuch of it as I might think worth publishing. I have gladly availed\nmyself of this unique opportunity to present in English the thoughts\nand feelings, joys and sorrows, of a simple woman of the people--just\nas she herself recorded them in the frankest possible way, never\ndreaming that any foreign eye would read her humble and touching memoir.\n\nBut out of respect to her gentle ghost, I have tried to use the\nmanuscript in such a way only as could not cause her the least pain\nif she were yet in the body, and able to read me. Some parts I have\nomitted, because I thought them sacred. Also I have left out a few\ndetails relating to customs or to local beliefs that the Western\nreader could scarcely understand, even with the aid of notes. And the\nnames, of course, have been changed. Otherwise I have followed the\ntext as closely as I could,--making no changes of phrase except when\nthe Japanese original could not be adequately interpreted by a literal\nrendering.\n\nIn addition to the facts stated or suggested in the diary itself, I\ncould learn but very little of the writer's personal history. She was\na woman of the poorest class; and from her own narrative it appears\nthat she remained unmarried until she was nearly thirty. A younger\nsister had been married several years previously; and the diary does\nnot explain this departure from custom. A small photograph found with\nthe manuscript shows that its author never could have been called\ngood-looking; but the face has a certain pleasing expression of shy\ngentleness. Her husband was a _kozukai_,[1] employed in one of the\ngreat public offices, chiefly for night duty, at a salary of ten yen\nper month. In order to help him to meet the expenses of housekeeping,\nshe made cigarettes for a tobacco dealer.\n\nThe manuscript shows that she must have been at school for some years:\nshe could write the _kana_ very nicely, but she had not learned\nmany Chinese characters,--so that her work resembles the work of a\nschoolgirl. But it is written without mistakes, and skilfully. The\ndialect is of T\u014dky\u014d,--the common speech of the city people,--full of\nidiomatic expressions, but entirely free from coarseness.\n\nSome one might naturally ask why this poor woman, so much occupied with\nthe constant struggle for mere existence, should have taken the pains\nto write down what she probably never intended to be read. I would\nremind such a questioner of the old Japanese teaching that literary\ncomposition is the best medicine for sorrow; and I would remind him\nalso of the fact that, even among the poorest classes, poems are still\ncomposed upon all occasions of joy or pain. The latter part of the\ndiary was written in lonely hours of illness; and I suppose that she\nthen wrote chiefly in order to keep her thoughts composed at a time\nwhen solitude had become dangerous for her. A little before her death,\nher mind gave way; and these final pages probably represent the last\nbrave struggle of the spirit against the hopeless weakness of the flesh.\n\nI found that the manuscript was inscribed, on the outside sheet, with\nthe title, _Mukashi-hanashi_: \"A Story of Old Times.\" According to\ncircumstances, the word _mukashi_ may signify either \"long ago,\" in\nreference to past centuries, or \"old times,\" in reference to one's own\npast life. The latter is the obvious meaning in the present case.\n\n_Mukashi-Banashi_\n\nOn the evening of the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month of the\ntwenty-eighth year of Meiji [1895]? man of the opposite house came and\nasked:--\n\n\"As for the eldest daughter of this family, is it agreeable that she be\ndisposed of in marriage?\"\n\nThen the answer was given:--\n\n\"Even though the matter were agreeable [_to our wishes_], no\npreparation for such an event has yet been made.\"[2]\n\nThe man of the opposite house said:--\n\n\"But as no preparation is needed in this case, will you not honourably\ngive her to the person for whom I speak? He is said to be a very steady\nman; and he is thirty-eight years of age. As I thought your eldest girl\nto be about twenty-six, I proposed her to him....\"\n\n\"No,--she is twenty-nine years old,\" was answered.\n\n\"Ah!... That being the case, I must again speak to the other party; and\nI shall honourably consult with you after I have seen him.\"\n\nSo saying, the man went away.\n\nNext evening the man came again,--this time with the wife of\nOkada-Shi[3] [_a friend of the family_],--and said:--\n\n\"The other party is satisfied;--so, if you are willing, the match can\nbe made.\"\n\nFather replied:--\n\n\"As the two are, both of them, _shichi-s\u00e9ki-kin_ [\"seven-red-metal\"],[4]\nthey should have the same nature;--so I think that no harm can come\nof it.\"\n\nThe match-maker asked:--\n\n\"Then how would it be to arrange for the _miai_[5] [\"see-meeting\"]\nto-morrow?\"\n\nFather said:--\n\n\"I suppose that everything really depends upon the _En_\n[_karma-relation formed in previous states of existence_]....\nWell, then, I beg that you will honourably meet us to-morrow evening at\nthe house of Okada.\"\n\nThus the betrothal promise was given on both sides.\n\n*\n\nThe person of the opposite house wanted me to go with him next evening\nto Okada's; but I said that I wished to go with my mother only, as from\nthe time of taking such a first step one could not either retreat or\nadvance. When I went with mother to the house, we were welcomed in with\nthe words, \"_Kochira \u0113_!\" Then [my future husband and I] greeted each\nother for the first time. But somehow I felt so much ashamed that I\ncould not look at him.\n\nThen Okada-Shi said to Namiki-Shi [_the proposed husband_]: \"Now that\nyou have nobody to consult with at home, would it not be well for you\nto snatch your luck where you find it, as the proverb says,--_'Zen wa\nisog\u00e9'_?\"\n\nThe answer was made:--\n\n\"As for me, I am well satisfied; but I do not know what the feeling may\nbe on the other side.\"\n\n\"If it be honourably deigned to take me as it is honourably known that\nI am ...\"[6] I said.\n\nThe match-maker said:--\n\n\"The matter being so, what would be a good day for the wedding?\"\n\n[Namaki-Shi answered:--]\n\n\"Though I can be at home to-morrow, perhaps the first day of the tenth\nmonth would be a better day.\"\n\nBut Okada-Shi at once said:--\n\n\"As there is cause for anxiety about the house being unoccupied while\nNamiki-Shi is absent [_on night-duty_], to-morrow would perhaps be the\nbetter day--would it not?\"\n\nThough at first that seemed to me much too soon, I presently remembered\nthat the next day was a _Taian-nichi_[7] [perfectly fortunate day]: so\nI gave my consent; and we went home.\n\nWhen I told father, he was not pleased. He said that it was too soon,\nand that a delay of at least three or four days ought to have been\nallowed. Also he said that the direction [_h\u014dgaku_][8] was not lucky,\nand that other conditions were not favourable.\n\nI said:--\n\n\"But I have already promised; and I cannot now ask to have the day\nchanged. Indeed it would be a great pity if a thief were to enter\nthe house in [his] absence. As for the matter of the direction being\nunlucky, even though I should have to die on that account, I would\nnot complain; for I should die in my own husband's house.. .. And\nto-morrow,\" I added, \"I shall be too busy to call on Goto [_her\nbrother-in-law_]: so I must go there now.\" I went to Goto's; but, when\nI saw him, I felt afraid to say exactly what I had come to say. I\nsuggested it only by telling him:--\n\n\"To-morrow I have to go to a strange house.\"\n\nGoto immediately asked:--\n\n\"As an honourable daughter-in-law [_bride_]?\"\n\nAfter hesitating, I answered at last:--\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What kind of a person?\" Goto asked.\n\nI answered:--\n\n\"If I had felt myself able to look at him long enough to form any\nopinion, I would not have put mother to the trouble of going with me.\"\n\n\"_An\u00e9-San_ [Elder Sister]!\" he exclaimed,--\"then what was the use of\ngoing to see him at all?... But,\" he added, in a more pleasant tone,\n\"let me wish you luck.\"\n\n\"Anyhow,\" I said, \"to-morrow it will be.\"\n\nAnd I returned home.\n\n*\n\nNow the appointed day having come--the twenty-eighth day of the ninth\nmonth--I had so much to do that I did not know how I should ever be\nable to get ready. And as it had been raining for several days, the\nroadway was very bad, which made matters worse for me--though, luckily,\nno rain fell on that day. I had to buy some little things; and I could\nnot well ask mother to do anything for me,--much as I wished for her\nhelp,--because her feet had become very weak by reason of her great\nage. So I got up very early and went out alone, and did the best I\ncould: nevertheless, it was two o'clock in the afternoon before I got\neverything ready.\n\nThen I had to go to the hair-dresser's to have my hair dressed, and to\ngo to the bath-house--all of which took time. And when I came back to\ndress, I found that no message had yet been received from Namiki-Shi;\nand I began to feel a little anxious. Just after we had finished\nsupper, the message came. I had scarcely time to say good-by to all:\nthen I went out,--leaving my home behind forever,--and walked with\nmother to the house of Okada-Shi.\n\nThere I had to part even from mother; and the wife of Okada-Shi taking\ncharge of me, I accompanied her to the house of Namaki-Shi in Funamachi.\n\nThe wedding ceremony of the _sansan-kudo-no-sakazuki_[9] having been\nperformed without any difficulty, and the time of the _o-hiraki_\n[\"honourable-blossoming\"][10] having come more quickly than I had\nexpected, the guests all returned home.\n\nSo we two were left, for the first time, each alone with the\nother--sitting face to face: my heart beat wildly;[11] and I felt\nabashed in such a way as could not be expressed by means of ink and\npaper.\n\nIndeed, what I felt can be imagined only by one who remembers\nleaving her parents' home for the first time, to become a bride,--a\ndaughter-in-law in a strange house.\n\n*\n\nAfterward, at the hour of meals, I felt very much distressed\n[_embarrassed_]....\n\n*\n\nTwo or three days later, the father of my husband's former wife [_who\nwas dead_] visited me, and said:--\n\n\"Namiki-Shi is really a good man,--a moral, steady man; but as he is\nalso very particular about small matters and inclined to find fault,\nyou had better always be careful to try to please him.\"\n\nNow as I had been carefully watching my husband's ways from the\nbeginning, I knew that he was really a very strict man, and I resolved\nso to conduct myself in all matters as never to cross his will.\n\n*\n\nThe fifth day of the tenth month was the day for our _satoga\u00ebri_,[12]\nand for the first time we went out together, calling at Goto's on the\nway. After we left Goto's, the weather suddenly became bad, and it\nbegan to rain. Then we borrowed a paper umbrella, which we used as\nan _aigasa_[13]; and though I was very uneasy lest any of my former\nneighbours should see us walking thus together, we luckily reached my\nparents' house, and made our visit of duty, without any trouble at all.\nWhile we were in the house, the rain fortunately stopped.\n\n*\n\nOn the ninth day of the same month I went with him to the theatre for\nthe first time. We visited the Engiza at Akasaka, and saw a performance\nby the Yamaguchi company.\n\n*\n\nOn the eighth day of the eleventh month, we made a visit to\nAsakusa-temple,[14] and also went to the [Shinto temple of the]\nO-Tori-Sama.\n\n--During this last month of the year I made new spring robes for my\nhusband and myself: then I learned for the first time how pleasant such\nwork was, and I felt very happy.\n\n*\n\nOn the twenty-fifth day we visited the temple of Ten-jin-Sama,[15] and\nwalked about the grounds there.\n\n*\n\nOn the eleventh day of the first month of the twenty-ninth year [1896],\ncalled at Okada's.\n\n*\n\nOn the twelfth day we paid a visit to Goto's, and had a pleasant time\nthere.\n\nOn the ninth day of the second month we went to the Mizaki theatre to\nsee the play _Imos\u00e9-Yama_. On our way to the theatre we met Goto-Shi\nunexpectedly; and he went with us. But unluckily it began to rain as we\nwere returning home, and we found the roads very muddy.\n\nOn the twenty-second day of the same month [we had our] photograph\ntaken at Amano's.\n\n*\n\nOn the twenty-fifth day of the third month we went to the Haruki\ntheatre, and saw the play _Uguisuzuka_.--During the month it was\nagreed that all of us [_kindred, friends, and parents_] should make up\na party, and enjoy our _hanami_[16] together; but this could not be\nmanaged.\n\n*\n\nOn the tenth day of the fourth month, at nine o'clock in the morning,\nwe two went out for a walk. We first visited the Sh\u014dkonsha [_Shint\u014d\nshrine_] at Kudan: thence we walked to Uy\u00e9no [park]; and from there we\nwent to Asakusa, and visited the Kwannon temple; and we also prayed at\nthe Monz\u00e9ki [_Higashi Hongwanji_]. Thence we had intended to go round\nto Asakusa-Okuyama; but we thought that it would be better to have\ndinner first--so we went to an eating-house. While we were dining, we\nheard such a noise of shouting and screaming that we thought there was\na great quarrel outside. But the trouble was really caused by a fire\nin one of the _mis\u00e9mono_ [\"shows\"]. The fire spread quickly, even while\nwe were looking at it; and nearly all the show-buildings in that street\nwere burnt up.... We left the eating-house soon after, and walked about\nthe Asakusa grounds, looking at things.\n\n[_Here follows, in the original Ms., the text of a little poem,\ncomposed by the writer herself_:--]\n\n    Imado no watashi nit\u00e9,\n    Aimita koto mo naki hito ni,\n    Fushigi ni Mim\u00e9guri-Inari,\n    Kaku mo f\u016bfu ni naru nomika.\n    Hajim\u00e9 no omoi ni hikika\u00ebt\u00e9,\n    Itsushika-kokoro mo Sumidagawa.\n    Tsugai hanar\u00e9nu miyakodori,\n    Hito mo urayam\u00e9ba wagami mo mata,\n    Sakimidar\u00e9taru dot\u00e9 no hana yori mo,\n    Hana ni mo mashita sono hito to\n    Shirahig\u00e9-Yashiro ni naru mad\u00e9 mo.\n    So\u00eftog\u00e9tashi to inorinenji!\n\n[_Freely translated._][17]\n\n_Having been taken across the Imado-Ferry, I strangely met at [the\ntemple of] Mim\u00e9guri-Inari with a person whom I had never seen before.\nBecause of this meeting our relation is now even more than the relation\nof husband and wife. And my first anxious doubt, \"For how long--?\"\nhaving passed away, my mind has become [clear] as the Sumida River.\nIndeed we are now like a pair of Miyako-birds [always together]; and\nI even think that I deserve to be envied. [To see the flowers we went\nout; but] more than the pleasure of viewing a whole shore in blossom\nis the pleasure that I now desire,--always to dwell with this person,\ndearer to me than any flower, until we enter the Shirahig\u00e9-Yashiro.\nThat we may so remain together, I supplicate the Gods!_\n\n... Then we crossed the Azuma bridge on our homeward way; and we\nwent by steamer to the kaich\u014d [festival] of the temple of the\nSoga-Ky\u014ddai,[18] and prayed that love and concord should continue\nalways between ourselves and our brothers and sisters. It was after\nseven o'clock that evening when we got home.\n\n--On the twenty-fifth day of the same month we went to the\nRokumono-no-Yos\u00e9.[19]\n\n***\n\nOn the second day of the fifth month we visited [the gardens at] \u014ckubo\nto see the azaleas in blossom. On the sixth day of the same month we\nwent to see a display of fireworks at the Sh\u014dkonsha.\n\n--So far we had never had any words between us nor any\ndisagreement;[20] and I had ceased to feel bashful when we went out\nvisiting or sight-seeing. Now each of us seemed to think only of how\nto please the other; and I felt sure that nothing would ever separate\nus.... May our relation always be thus happy!\n\nThe eighteenth day of the sixth month, being the festival of the\nSuga-jinja,[21] we were invited to my father's house. But as the\nhair-dresser did not come to dress my hair at the proper time, I was\nmuch annoyed. However, I went with O-Tori-San [_a younger sister_] to\nfather's. Presently O-K\u014d-San [_a married sister_] also came;--and we\nhad a pleasant time. In the evening Goto-Shi [_husband of O-K\u014d_] joined\nus; and, last of all, came my husband, for whom I had been waiting with\nanxious impatience. And there was one thing that made me very glad.\nOften when he and I were to go out together, I had proposed that we\nshould put on the new spring robes which I had made; but he had as\noften refused,--preferring to wear his old _kimono_. Now, however, he\nwore the new one,--having felt obliged to put it on because of father's\ninvitation.... All of us being thus happily assembled, the party became\nmore and more enjoyable; and when we had at last to say good-by, we\nonly regretted the shortness of the summer night.\n\nThese are the poems which we composed that evening:--\n\n      Futa-f\u016bfu\n    Sor\u014dt\u00e9 iw\u014d,\n      Ujigami no\n    Matsuri mo ky\u014d wa\n    Nigiwai ni k\u00e9ri.\n    --_By Namiki (the husband)_.\n\n_Two wedded couples having gone together to worship at the temple, the\nparish-festival to-day has been merrier than ever before._\n\n      Ujigami no\n    Matsuri m\u00e9d\u00e9tashi\n      Futa-f\u016bfu.--_Also by the husband_.\n\n_Fortunate indeed for two married couples has been the parish-temple\nfestival!_\n\n      Ikutos\u00e9 mo\n    Nigiyaka narishi,\n      Ujigami no,\n    Matsuri ni sor\u014d,\n    Ky\u014d no ur\u00e9shisa.--_By the wife._\n\n_Though for ever so many years it has always been a joyous occasion,\nthe festival of our parish-temple to-day is more pleasant than ever\nbefore, because of our being thus happily assembled together._\n\n      Matsuri tot\u00e9,\n    Ikka atsumaru,\n      Tanoshimi wa!\n    G\u00e9ni Ujigami no\n    M\u00e9gumi narik\u00e9ri.\n    --_By the wife._\n\n_To-day being a day of festival, and all of us meeting together,--what\na delight! Surely by the favour of the tutelar God [Ujigami] this has\ncome to pass._\n\n      Futa-f\u016bfu\n    Sor\u014dt\u00e9 ky\u014d no\n      Shitashimi mo,\n    Kami no m\u00e9gumi zo\n    M\u00e9d\u00e9ta kari-k\u00e9ri.--By the wife.\n\nTwo wedded pairs being to-day united in such friendship as\nthis,--certainly it has happened only through the favour of the Gods!\n\n      Ujigami no\n    M\u00e9gumi mo fukaki\n      F\u016bfu-zur\u00e9.--_By the wife._\n\n_Deep indeed is the favour of the tutelar God to the two married\ncouples._\n\n      Matsuri tot\u00e9,\n    Tsui ni shitat\u00e9shi\n      Iy\u014d-gasuri,\n    Ky\u014d tanoshimi ni\n    Kiru to omo\u00ebba.\n    --_By the wife._\n\n_This day being a day of festival, we decided to put on, for the joyful\nmeeting, the robes of Iyogasuri,[22] that had been made alike._\n\n      Omo\u00efkya!\n    Hakarazu s\u014dro\n      Futa-f\u016bfu;\n    Nani ni tat\u014d\u00ebn\n    Ky\u014d no kichi-jitsu.\n    --_By Goto (the brother-in-law)._\n\n_How could we have thought it! Here unexpectedly the two married\ncouples meet together. What can compare with the good fortune of this\nday?_\n\n      Matsuri tot\u00e9\n    Hajim\u00e9t\u00e9 sor\u014d\n      Futa-f\u016bfu,\n    Nochi no ka\u00ebri zo\n    Ima wa kanashiki.\n    --_By O-K\u014d, the married sister._\n\n_This day being a day of festival, here for the first time two wedded\npairs have met. Already I find myself sorrowing at the thought that we\nmust separate again._\n\n    Furu-sato no\n    Matsuri ni sor\u014d\n    Futa-f\u016bfu:\n    Katar\u014d ma sa\u00eb\n    Natsu mo mijika yo!\n    --_By O-K\u014d._\n\n_At the old parental home, two married couples have met together in\nholiday celebration. Alas! that the time of our happy converse should\nbe only one short summer night!_\n\nOn the fifth day of the seventh month, went to the Kanazawa-tei,[23]\nwhere Harimaday\u016b was then reciting; and we heard him recite the j\u014druri\ncalled Sanj\u016bsangend\u014d.\n\nOn the first day of the eighth month we went to the [Buddhist] temple\nof Asakusa [Kwannon] to pray,--that day being the first anniversary\n[_issh\u016bki_] of the death of my husband's former wife. Afterward we\nwent to an eel-house, near the Azuma bridge, for dinner; and while we\nwere there--just about the hour of noon--an earthquake took place.\nBeing close to the river, the house rocked very much; and I was greatly\nfrightened.\n\n--Remembering that when we went to Asakusa before, in the time of\ncherry blossoms, we had seen a big fire, this earthquake made me feel\nanxious;--I wondered whether lightning would come next.[24]\n\nAbout two o'clock we left the eating-house, and went to the Asakusa\npark. From there we went by street-car to Kanda; and we stopped awhile\nat a cool place in Kanda, to rest ourselves. On our way home we called\nat father's, and it was after nine o'clock when we got back.\n\n*\n\nThe fifteenth day of the same month was the festival of the\nHachiman-jinja[25]; and Goto, my sister, and the younger sister of\nGoto came to the house. I had hoped that we could all go to the temple\ntogether; but that morning my husband had taken a little too much\nwine,--so we had to go without him. After worshipping at the temple, we\nwent to Goto's house; and I stopped there awhile before returning home.\n\n*\n\nIn the ninth month, on the occasion of the Higan[26] festival, I went\nalone to the [Buddhist] temple to pray.\n\nOn the twenty-first day of the tenth month, O-Taka-San [_probably a\nrelative_] came from Shidzuoka. I wanted to take her to the theatre\nthe next day; but she was obliged to leave T\u014dky\u014d early in the morning.\nHowever, my husband and I went to the Ry\u016bsei theatre on the following\nevening; and we saw the play called _Matsuma\u00eb Bidan Teich\u016b-Kagami._[27]\n\n***\n\nOn the twenty-second day of the sixth month I began to sew a kimono\nwhich father had asked me to make for him; but I felt ill, and could\nnot do much. However, I was able to finish the work on the first day of\nthe new year [1897].\n\n... Now we were very happy because of the child that was to be born.\nAnd I thought how proud and glad my parents would be at having a\ngrandchild for the first time.\n\n***\n\nOn the tenth day of the fifth month I went out with mother to worship\nShiogama-Sama,[28] and also to visit Sengakuji. There we saw the tombs\nof the Shijin-shichi Shi [Forty-seven R\u014dnin], and many relics of their\nhistory. We returned by railroad, taking the train from Shinagawa to\nShinjiku. At Shioch\u014d-Sanch\u014dm\u00e9 I parted from mother, and I got home by\nsix o'clock.\n\n***\n\nOn the eighth day of the sixth month, at four o'clock in the afternoon,\na boy was born. Both mother and child appeared to be as well as could\nbe wished; and the child much resembled my husband; and its eyes were\nlarge and black.... But I must say that it was a very small child;\nfor, though it ought to have been born in the eighth month, it was born\nindeed in the sixth.... At seven o'clock in the evening of the same\nday, when the time came to give the child some medicine, we saw, by the\nlight of the lamp, that he was looking all about, with his big eyes\nwide open. During that night the child slept in my mother's bosom. As\nwe had been told that he must be kept very warm, because he was only a\nseven-months' child, it was decided that he should be kept in the bosom\nby day as well as by night.\n\nNext day--the ninth day of the sixth month--at half-past six o'clock in\nthe afternoon, he suddenly died....\n\n*\n\n--\"_Brief is the time of pleasure, and quickly turns to pain; and\nwhatsoever is born must necessarily die_\"[29];--that, indeed, is a true\nsaying about this world.\n\n*\n\nOnly for one day to be called a mother!--to have a child born only to\nsee it die!... Surely, I thought, if a child must die within two days\nafter birth, it were better that it should never be born.\n\nFrom the twelfth to the sixth month I had been so ill!--then at\nlast I had obtained some ease, and joy at the birth of a son; and I\nhad received so many congratulations about my good fortune;--and,\nnevertheless, he was dead! ... Indeed, I suffered great grief.\n\nOn the tenth day of the sixth month the funeral took place, at the\ntemple called Senpukuji, in \u014ckubo, and a small tomb was erected.\n\nThe poems composed at that time[30] were the following:--\n\n      Omo\u00efkya!\n    Mi ni sa\u00eb ka\u00ebnu\n      Nad\u00e9shiko ni,\n    Wakar\u00e9shi sod\u00e9 no\n    Tsuyu no tamoto wo!\n\n_If I could, only have known! Ah, this parting with the flower,[31] for\nwhich I would so gladly have given my own life, has left my sleeves wet\nwith the dew!_\n\n      Samidar\u00e9 ya!\n    Shim\u00e9rigachi naru\n    Sod\u00e9 no tamoto wo.\n\n_Oh! the month of rain![32] All things become damp;--the ends of my\nsleeves are wet._\n\nSome little time afterward, people told me that if I planted the\n_sotoba_[33] upside down, another misfortune of this kind would not\ncome to pass. I had a great many sorrowful doubts about doing such a\nthing; but at last, on the ninth day of the eighth month, I had the\n_sotoba_ reversed. ...\n\n*\n\nOn the eighth day of the ninth month we went to the Akasaka theatre.\n\n*\n\nOn the eighteenth day of the tenth month I went by myself to the Haruki\ntheatre in Hong\u014d, to see the play of _\u014ckubo Hikoza\u00ebmon_.[34] There,\nhaving carelessly lost my sandal-ticket [_g\u00e9soku-fuda_], I had to\nremain until after everybody else had left. Then I was at last able to\nget my sandals, and to go home; but the night was so black that I felt\nvery lonesome on the way.\n\nOn the day of the _Sekku_,[35]in the first month [1898], I was talking\nwith Hori's aunt and the wife of our friend Uchimi, when I suddenly\nfelt a violent pain in my breast, and, being frightened, I tried to\nreach a talisman (_o-mamori_) of Suiteng\u016b,[36] which was lying upon the\nwardrobe. But in the same moment I fell senseless. Under kind treatment\nI soon came to myself again; but I was ill for a long time after.\n\n***\n\nThe tenth day of the fourth month being the holiday\n_Sanjiu-nen-Sai_,[37] we arranged to meet at father's. I was to go\nthere first with Jiunosuk\u00e9 [_perhaps a relative_], and there wait for\nmy husband, who had to go to the office that morning for a little\nwhile. He met us at father's house about half-past eight: then the\nthree of us went out together to look at the streets. We passed through\nK\u014djimachi to Nakatamachi, and went by way of the Sakurada-Mon to the\nHibiya-Metsuk\u00e9, and thence from Ginzad\u014dri by way of the M\u00e9gan\u00e9-Bashi\nto Uy\u00e9no. After looking at things there, we again went to the\nM\u00e9gan\u00e9-Bashi; but then I felt so tired that I proposed to return, and\nmy husband agreed, as he also was very tired. But Jiunosuk\u00e9 said: \"As\nI do not want to miss this chance to see the Daimy\u014d-procession,[38] I\nmust go on to Ginza.\" So there we said good-by to him, and we went to\na little eating-house [_tempura-ya_], where we were served with fried\nfish; and, as luck would have it, we got a good chance to see the\nDaimy\u014d-procession from that very house. We did not get back home that\nevening until half-past six o'clock.\n\n*\n\nFrom the middle of the fourth month I had much sorrow on account of a\nmatter relating to my sister Tori [_the matter is not mentioned_].\n\n***\n\nOn the nineteenth day of the eighth month of the thirty-first year of\nMeiji [1898] my second child was born, almost painlessly,--a girl; and\nwe named her Hatsu. We invited to the _shichiya_[39] all those who had\nhelped us at the time of the child's birth.\n\n--Mother afterwards remained with me for a couple of days; but she\nwas then obliged to leave me, because my sister K\u014d was suffering from\nsevere pains in the chest. Fortunately my husband had his regular\nvacation about the same time; and he helped me all he could,--even in\nregard to washing and other matters; but I was often greatly troubled\nbecause I had no woman with me....\n\nWhen my husband's vacation was over, mother came often, but only while\nmy husband was away. The twenty-one days [_the period of danger_] thus\npassed; but mother and child continued well.\n\n--Up to the time of one hundred days after my daughter's birth, I\nwas constantly anxious about her, because she often seemed to have a\ndifficulty in breathing. But that passed off at last, and she appeared\nto be getting strong.\n\nStill, we were unhappy about one matter,--a deformity: Hatsu had been\nborn with a double thumb on one hand. For a long time we could not make\nup our minds to take her to a hospital, in order to have an operation\nperformed. But at last a woman living near our house told us of a very\nskilful surgeon in [the quarter of] Shinjiku; and we decided to go to\nhim. My husband held the child on his lap during the operation. I could\nnot bear to see the operation; and I waited in the next room, my heart\nfull of pain and fear, wondering how the matter would end. But [when\nall was over] the little one did not appear to suffer any pain; and she\ntook the breast as usual a few minutes after. So the matter ended more\nfortunately than I had thought possible.\n\nAt home she continued to take her milk as before, and seemed as if\nnothing had been done to her little body. But as she was so very young\nwe were afraid that the operation might in some way cause her to be\nsick. By way of precaution, I went with her to the hospital every day\nfor about three weeks; but she showed no sign of sickness.\n\n*\n\nOn the third day of the third month of the thirty-second year [1899],\non the occasion of the _hatsu-sekku_,[40] we received presents of\n_Dairi_ and of _hina_, both from father's house and from Goto's,--also\nthe customary gifts of congratulation: a _tansu_ [chest of drawers],\na _ky\u014ddai_ [mirror-stand], and a _haribako_ [work-box: lit.\n\"needle-box\"][41] We ourselves on the same occasion bought for her\na _chadai_ [teacup stand], a _zen_ [lacquered tray], and some other\nlittle things. Both Goto and Jiunosuk\u00e9 came to see us on that day; and\nwe had a very happy gathering.\n\n*\n\nOn the third day of the fourth month we visited the temple Ana-Hachiman\n[_Shint\u014d shrine in the district of Was\u00e9da_] to pray for the child's\nhealth....\n\nOn the twenty-ninth day of the fourth month Hatsu appeared to be\nunwell: so I wanted to have her examined by a doctor.\n\nA doctor promised to come the same morning, but he did not come, and\nI waited for him in vain all that day. Next day again I waited, but\nhe did not come. Toward evening Hatsu became worse, and seemed to be\nsuffering great pain in her breast, and I resolved to take her to a\ndoctor early next morning. All through that night I was very uneasy\nabout her, but at daybreak she seemed to be better. So I went out\nalone, taking her on my back, and walked to the office of a doctor in\nAkasaka. But when I asked to have the child examined, I was told that I\nmust wait, as it was not yet the regular time for seeing patients.\n\nWhile I was waiting, the child began to cry worse than ever before;\nshe would not take the breast, and I could do nothing to soothe her,\neither by walking or resting, so that I was greatly troubled. At last\nthe doctor came, and began to examine her; and in the same moment I\nnoticed that her crying grew feebler, and that her lips were becoming\npaler and paler. Then, as I could not remain silent, seeing her thus, I\nhad to ask, \"How is her condition?\" \"She cannot live until evening,\" he\nanswered. \"But could you not give her medicine?\" I asked. \"If she could\ndrink it,\" he replied.\n\nI wanted to go back home at once, and send word to my husband and to\nmy father's house; but the shock had been too much for me--all my\nstrength suddenly left me. Fortunately a kind old woman came to my aid,\nand carried my umbrella and other things, and helped me to get into a\njinrikisha, so that I was able to return home by jinrikisha. Then I\nsent a man to tell my husband and my father. Mita's wife came to help\nme; and with her assistance everything possible was done to help the\nchild. ... Still my husband did not come back. But all our pain and\ntrouble was in vain.\n\nSo, on the second day of the fifth month of the thirty-second year, my\nchild set out on her journey to the J\u016bmanokud\u014d[42]--never to return to\nthis world.\n\n*\n\nAnd we, her father and mother, were yet living--though we had caused\nher death by neglecting to have her treated by a skilled doctor! This\nthought made us both sorrow greatly; and we often reproached ourselves\nin vain. But the day after her death the doctor said to us: \"Even if\nthat disease had been treated from the beginning by the best possible\nmeans, your child could not have lived more than about a week. If\nshe had been ten or eleven years old, she might possibly have been\nsaved by an operation; but in this case no operation could have been\nattempted--the child was too young.\" Then he explained to us that the\nchild had died from a _jinz\u014den_.[43]...\n\nThus all the hopes that we had, and all the pains that we took in\ncaring for her, and all the pleasure of watching her grow during those\nnine months,--all were in vain!\n\nBut we two were at last able to find some ease from our sorrow by\nreflecting that our relation to this child, from the time of some\nformer life, must have been very slight and weak.[44]\n\n*\n\nIn the loneliness of that weary time, I tried to express my heart by\nwriting some verses after the manner of the story of Miyagino and\nShinobu in the _giday\u016b-bon_[45]:--\n\n    Kor\u00e9, kono uchi \u00e9 enzukishi wa,\n    Omoi ka\u00ebs\u00e9ba itsutos\u00e9 ma\u00eb;\n    Kondo m\u014dk\u00e9shi wa onago no ko,\n    Kawaii mono tot\u00e9 sodatsuru ka to;--\n\n    Waga mi no nari wa uchi-wasur\u00e9,\n    Sodat\u00e9shi koto mo, nasak\u00e9 nai.\n    K\u014dshita koto to wa tsuyushirazu,\n    Kono Hatsu wa buji ni sodatsuru ka.\n    Shubi y\u014d seijin shita naraba,\n    Yagat\u00e9 muko wo tori\n    Tanoshimash\u014d d\u014dshit\u00e9 to.\n    Monomi yusan wo tashinand\u00e9,\n    Wagako daiji to,\n    Otto no koto mo, Hatsu no koto mo,\n    Ko\u00efshi natsukashi om\u014d no wo;\n    --Tanoshimi-kurashita kai mo no.\n    Oyako ni narishi wa ur\u00e9shii ga,\n    Sakidatsu koto wo miru haha no\n    Kokoro mo suishit\u00e9 tamoi no to!\n\n    --T\u00e9 wo tori-kawasu f\u016bfu ga nag\u00e9ki,\n    Nag\u00e9ki wo tachi-giku mo,\n    Morai nakishit\u00e9 omot\u00e9guchi\n    Sh\u014dji mo nururu bakari nari.\n\n_Here in this house it was that I married him;--well I remember the\nday--five years ago. Here was born the girl-baby,--the loved one whom\nwe hoped to rear. Caring then no longer for my person [,--heedless\nof how I dressed when I went out],--thinking only of how to bring\nher up,--I lived. How pitiless [this doom of mine]! Never had I even\ndreamed that such a thing could befall me: my only thoughts were as\nto how my Hatsu could best be reared. When she grows up, I thought,\nsoon we shall find her a good husband, to make her life happy. So,\nnever going out for pleasure-seeking, I studied only how to care for my\nlittle one,--how to love and to cherish my husband and my Hatsu. Vain\nnow, alas! this hoped-for joy of living only for her sake.. .. Once\nhaving known the delight of the relation of mother and child, deign to\nthink of the heart of the mother who sees her child die before her!_\n[46]\n\n*\n\n[_All of the foregoing is addressed to the spirit of the dead\nchild._--Translator.]\n\n*\n\n_Now, while husband and wife, each clasping the hands of the other,\nmake lament together, if any one pausing at the entrance should listen\nto their sorrow, surely the paper window would be moistened by tears\nfrom without._\n\n*\n\nAbout the time of Hatsu's death, the law concerning funerals was\nchanged for the better; and permission was given for the burning of\ncorpses in \u014ckubo. So I asked Namiki to have the body sent to the temple\nof which his family had always been parishioners,--providing that\nthere should be no [legal] difficulty about the matter. Accordingly\nthe funeral took place at Monj\u014dji,--a temple belonging to the Asakusa\nbranch of the Hongwanji Shin-sh\u016b; and the ashes were there interred.\n\n--My sister K\u014d was sick in bed with a rather bad cold at the time of\nHatsu's death; but she visited us very soon after the news had reached\nher. And she called again a few days later to tell us that she had\nbecome almost well, and that we had no more cause to feel anxious about\nher.\n\n--As for myself, I felt a dread of going out anywhere; and I did not\nleave the house for a whole month. But as custom does not allow one to\nremain always indoors, I had to go out at last; and I made the required\nvisit to father's and to my sister's.\n\n***\n\n--Having become quite ill, I hoped that mother would be able to help\nme. But K\u014d was again sick, and Yoshi [_a younger sister here mentioned\nfor the first time_] and mother had both to attend her constantly:\nso I could get no aid from father's house. There was no one to help\nme except some of my female neighbours, who attended me out of pure\nkindness, when they could spare the time. At last I got Hori-Shi to\nengage a good old woman to assist me; and under her kind care I began\nto get well. About the beginning of the eighth month I felt much\nstronger....\n\nOn the fourth day of the ninth month my sister K\u014d died of consumption.\n\n--It had been agreed beforehand that if an unexpected matter[47] came\nto pass, my younger sister Yoshi should be received in the place of\nK\u014d. As Goto-Shi found it inconvenient to live altogether alone, the\nmarriage took place on the eleventh day of the same month; and the\nusual congratulations were offered.\n\nOn the last day of the same month Okada-Shi suddenly died.\n\nWe found ourselves greatly troubled [_pecuniarily embarrassed_] by the\nexpenses that all these events caused us.\n\n*\n\n--When I first heard that Yoshi had been received so soon after the\ndeath of K\u014d, I was greatly displeased. But I kept my feelings hidden,\nand I spoke to the man as before.\n\n*\n\nIn the eleventh month Goto went alone to Sapporo. On the second day of\nthe second month, thirty-third year of Meiji [1900], Goto-Shi returned\nto T\u014dky\u014d; and on the fourteenth day of the same month he went away\nagain to the Hokkaid\u014d [_Yezo_], taking Yoshi with him.\n\n***\n\nOn the twentieth day of the second month, at six o'clock in the\nmorning, my third child--a boy--was born. Both mother and child were\nwell.\n\n*\n\n--We had expected a girl, but it was a boy that was born; so, when my\nhusband came back from his work, he was greatly surprised and pleased\nto find that he had a boy.\n\n--But the child was not well able to take the breast: so we had to\nnourish him by means of a feeding-bottle.\n\n*\n\nOn the seventh day after the boy's birth, we partly shaved his head.\nAnd in the evening we had the _shichiya_ [seventh-day festival]--but,\nthis time, all by ourselves.\n\n--My husband had caught a bad cold some time before; and he could not\ngo to work next morning, as he was coughing badly. So he remained in\nthe house. Early in the morning the child had taken his milk as usual.\nBut, about ten o'clock in the forenoon, he seemed to be suffering great\npain in his breast; and he began to moan so strangely that we sent\na man for a doctor. Unfortunately the doctor that we asked to come\nwas out of town; and we were told that he would not come back before\nnight. Therefore, we thought that it would be better to send at once\nfor another doctor; and we sent for one. He said that he would come\nin the evening. But, about two o'clock in the afternoon, the child's\nsickness suddenly became worse; and a little before three o'clock--the\ntwenty-seventh day of the second month--_a\u00ebnaku_![48]--my child was\ndead, having lived for only eight days....\n\n*\n\n--I thought to myself that, even if this new misfortune did not cause\nmy husband to feel an aversion for me, thus having to part with all my\nchildren, one after another, must be the punishment of some wrong done\nin the time of a former life. And, so thinking, I knew that my sleeves\nwould never again become dry,--that the rain [_of tears_] would never\ncease,--that never again in this world would the sky grow clear for me.\n\nAnd more and more I wondered whether my husband's feelings would not\nchange for the worse, by reason of his having to meet such trouble,\nover and over again, on my account. I felt anxious about his heart,\nbecause of what already was in my own.\n\nNevertheless, he only repeated the words, _Temm\u00e9\u00ef itashikata kor\u00e9\nnaku_: \"From the decrees of Heaven there is no escape.\"\n\n*\n\n--I thought that I should be better able to visit the tomb of my child\nif he were buried in some temple near us. So the funeral took place\nat the temple called Sempu-kuji in \u014ckubo; and the ashes were buried\nthere....\n\n      Tanoshimi mo\n    Sam\u00e9t\u00e9 hakanashi\n      Haru no yum\u00e9![49]\n\n[_Translation._]\n\n--_All the delight having perished, hopeless I remain: it was only a\ndream of Spring!_[50]\n\n[No date.]\n\n... I wonder whether it was because of the sorrow that I suffered--my\nface and limbs became slightly swollen during the fortnight[51] after\nmy boy's death.--It was nothing very serious, after all, and it soon\nwent away.... Now the period of twenty-one days [the period of danger]\nis past....\n\nHere the poor mother's diary ends. The closing statement regarding the\ntime of twenty-one days from the birth of her child leaves it probable\nthat these last lines were written on the thirteenth or fourteenth day\nof the third month. She died on the twenty-eighth of the same month.\n\n*\n\nI doubt if any one not really familiar with the life of Japan can fully\nunderstand this simple history. But to imagine the merely material\nconditions of the existence here recorded should not be difficult:--the\ncouple occupying a tiny house of two rooms--one room of six mats and\none of three;--the husband earning barely per month;--the wife sewing,\nwashing, cooking (outside the house, of course);--no comfort of fire,\neven during the period of greatest cold. I estimate that the pair\nmust have lived at an average cost of about seven pence a day, not\nincluding house-rent. Their pleasures were indeed very cheap: a payment\nof twopence admitted them to theatres or to _giday\u016b_-recitations; and\ntheir sight-seeing was done on foot. Yet even these diversions were\nluxuries for them. Expenses represented by the necessary purchase of\nclothing, or by the obligation of making presents to kindred upon the\noccasion of a marriage or a birth or a death, could only have been met\nby heroic economy. Now it is true that thousands of poor folk in T\u014dky\u014d\nlive still more cheaply than this,--live upon a much smaller income\nthan \u00a31 per month,--and nevertheless remain always clean, neat, and\ncheerful. But only a very strong woman can easily bear and bring up\nchildren under such conditions,--conditions much more hazardous than\nthose of the harder but healthier peasant-life of the interior. And, as\nmight be supposed, the weakly fail and perish in multitude.\n\n*\n\nReaders of the diary may have wondered at the eagerness shown by\nso shy and gentle a woman to become thus suddenly the wife of a\ntotal stranger, about whose character she knew absolutely nothing.\nA majority of Japanese marriages, indeed, are arranged for in the\nmatter-of-fact way here described, and with the aid of a _nak\u014ddo_;\nbut the circumstances, in this particular case, were exceptionally\ndiscomforting. The explanation is pathetically simple. All good girls\nare expected to marry; and to remain unmarried after a certain age is a\nshame and a reproach. The dread of such reproach, doubtless, impelled\nthe writer of the diary to snatch at the first chance of fulfilling her\nnatural destiny. She was already twenty-nine years old;--another such\nchance might never have offered itself.\n\n*\n\nTo me the chief significance of this humble confession of struggle\nand failure is not in the utterance of anything exceptional, but\nin the expression of something as common to Japanese life as blue\nair and sunshine. The brave resolve of the woman to win affection\nby docility and by faultless performance of duty, her gratitude for\nevery small kindness, her childlike piety, her supreme unselfishness,\nher Buddhist interpretation of suffering as the penalty for some\nfault committed in a previous life, her attempts to write poetry\nwhen her heart was breaking,--all this, indeed, I find touching, and\nmore than touching. But I do not find it exceptional. The traits\nrevealed are typical,--typical of the moral nature of the woman of\nthe people. Perhaps there are not many Japanese women of the same\nhumble class who could express their personal joy and pain in a\nrecord at once so artless and pathetic; but there are millions of\nsuch women inheriting--from ages and ages of unquestioning faith--a\nlike conception of life as duty, and an equal capacity of unselfish\nattachment.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: A _kozukai_ is a man-servant chiefly employed as\ndoorkeeper and messenger. The term is rendered better by the French\nword _concierge_ than by our English word \"porter\"; but neither\nexpression exactly meets the Japanese meaning.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The reader must understand that \"the man of the opposite\nhouse\" is acting as _nak\u014ddo_, or match-maker, in the interest of a\nwidower who wishes to remarry. By the statement, \"no preparation\nhas been made,\" the hither means that he is unable to provide for\nhis daughter's marriage, and cannot furnish her with a bridal\noutfit,--clothing, household furniture, etc.,--as required by custom.\nThe reply that \"no preparation is needed\" signifies that the proposed\nhusband is willing to take the girl without any marriage gifts.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Throughout this Ms., except in one instance, the more\nrespectful form _Sama_ never occurs after a masculine name, the popular\nform _Shi_ being used even after the names of kindred.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The father has evidently been consulting a fortune-telling\nbook, such as the _San-z\u00e9-s\u014d_, or a professional diviner. The allusion\nto the astrologically determined natures, or temperaments, of the pair\ncould scarcely be otherwise explained.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Miai_ is a term used to signify a meeting arranged in\norder to enable the parties affianced to see each other before the\nwedding-day.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Meaning: \"I am ready to become your wife, if you are\nwilling to take me as you have been informed that I am,--a poor girl\nwithout money or clothes.\"]\n\n[Footnote 7: Lucky and unlucky days were named and symbolized as\nfollows, according to the old Japanese astrological system:--\n\nSenkatsu:--forenoon good; afternoon bad.\n\nTomobiki:--forenoon good; afternoon good at the beginning and the end,\nbut bad in the middle.\n\nSenpu;--forenoon bad; afternoon good.\n\nButsumetsu:--wholly unlucky.\n\nTaian;--altogether good.\n\nShak\u014d:--all unlucky, except at noon.]\n\n[Footnote 8: This statement also implies that a professional diviner\nhas been consulted. The reference to the direction, or _b\u014dgaku_, can\nbe fully understood only by those conversant with the old Chinese\nnature-philosophy.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Lit. \"thrice-three-nine-times-wine-cup.\"]\n\n[Footnote 10: At a Japanese wedding it is customary to avoid the use\nof any words to which an unlucky signification attaches, or of any\nwords suggesting misfortune in even an indirect way. The word _sumu_,\n\"to finish,\" or \"to end\"; the word _ka\u0113ru_, \"to return,\" (suggesting\ndivorce), as well as many others, are forbidden at weddings.\nAccordingly, the term _o-hiraki_ has long been euphemistically\nsubstituted for the term _oitoma_ (\"honourable leave-taking,\" i.e.\n\"farewell\"), in the popular etiquette of wedding assemblies.]\n\n[Footnote 11: \"I felt a tumultuous beating within my breast,\" would\nperhaps be a closer rendering of the real sense; but it would sound\noddly artificial by comparison with the simple Japanese utterance:\n\"_Ato ni wa futari sashi-mukai to nari, mun\u00e9 uchi-sawagi; sono\nbazukashisa bisthi ni tsukushi-gatashi._\"]\n\n[Footnote 12: From _sato_, \"the parental home,\" and _ka\u00ebri_, \"to\nreturn.\" The first visit of a bride to her parents, after marriage, is\nthus called.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _Aigasa_, a fantastic term compounded from the verb\n_au_, \"to accord,\" \"to harmonize,\" and the noun _kasa_, \"an umbrella.\"\nIt signifies one umbrella used by two persons--especially lovers: an\numbrella-of-loving-accord. To understand the wife's anxiety about being\nseen walking with her husband under the borrowed umbrella, the reader\nmust know that it is not yet considered decorous for wife and husband\neven to walk side by side in public. A newly wedded pair, using a\nsingle umbrella in this way, would be particularly liable to have jests\nmade at their expense--jests that might prove trying to the nerves of a\ntimid bride.]\n\n[Footnote 14: She means the great Buddhist temple of Kwannon,--the most\npopular, and perhaps the most famous, Buddhist temple in Tokyo.]\n\n[Footnote 15: In the \u014ckubo quarter. The shrine is shadowed by a fine\ngrove of trees.]\n\n[Footnote 16: That is to say, \"It was agreed that we should all go\ntogether to see the flowers.\" The word _hanami_ (\"flower-seeing\") might\nbe given to any of the numerous flower-festivals of the year, according\nto circumstances; but it here refers to the season of cherry blossoms.\nThroughout this diary the dates are those of the old lunar calendar.]\n\n[Footnote 17: A literal rendering is almost impossible. There is\na ferry, called the Ferry of Imado, over the Sumidagawa; but the\nreference here is really neither to the ferry nor to the ferryman,\nbut to the _nak\u014ddo_, or match-maker, who arranged for the marriage.\n_Mim\u00e9guri-Inari_ is the popular name of a famous temple of the God of\nRice, in Mukojima; but there is an untranslatable play here upon the\nname, suggesting a lovers' meeting. The reference to the Sumidagawa\nalso contains a play upon the syllables _sumi_,--the verb \"sumi\"\nsignifying \"to be clear.\" _Shirahig\u00e9-Yashiro_ (\"White-Hair Temple\")\nis the name of a real and very celebrated Shint\u014d shrine in the city;\nbut the name is here used chiefly to express the hope that the union\nmay last into the period of hoary age. Besides these suggestions, we\nmay suppose that the poem contains allusions to the actual journey\nmade,--over the Sumidagawa by ferry, and thence to the various temples\nnamed. From old time, poems of like meaning have been made about these\nplaces; but the lines above given are certainly original, with the\nobvious exception of a few phrases which have become current coin in\npopular poetry.]\n\n[Footnote 18: The Soga Brothers were famous heroes of the twelfth\ncentury. The word _kaich\u014d_ signifies the religious festival during\nwhich the principal image of a temple is exposed to view.]\n\n[Footnote 19: Name of a public hall at which various kinds of\nentertainments are given, more especially recitations by professional\nstory-tellers.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Lit. \"there never yet having been any waves nor even wind\nbetween us.\"\n\n[Footnote 21: The Shinto parish-temple, or more correctly,\ndistrict-temple of the Yotsuya] quarter. Each quarter, or district,\nof the city has its tutelar divinity, or Ujigami. Suga-jinja is the\nUjigami-temple of Yotsuya.]\n\n[Footnote 22: _Iyogasuri_ is the name given to a kind of dark-blue\ncotton-cloth, with a sprinkling of white in small patterns,\nmanufactured at Iyo, in Shikoku.]\n\n[Footnote 23: The Kanazawa-tei is a public hall in the Yotsuya quarter.\nHarimaday\u016b is the professional name of a celebrated chanter of the\ndramatic recitations called _j\u014druri_ and _giday\u016b_,--in which the\nreciter, or chanter, mimes the voices and action of many different\ncharacters.]\n\n[Footnote 24: She alludes to a popular saying of Buddhist\norigin:--_Jishin, kwaji, kaminari, misoka, kikin, yamai no naki kuni \u00e9\nyuku_ (\"Let us go to the Land where there is neither earthquake, nor\nfire, nor lightning, nor any last day of the month, nor famine, nor\nsickness\").]\n\n[Footnote 25: _Ujigami_ of the Ushigom\u00e9 district.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Festival of the \"Further Shore\" (that is to say,\nParadise). There are two great Buddhist festivals thus called,--the\nfirst representing a period of seven days during the spring equinox;\nthe second, a period of seven days during the autumnal equinox.]\n\n[Footnote 27: This drama is founded upon the history of a famous rice\nmerchant named Matsuma\u00ebya Gor\u014dbei.]\n\n[Footnote 28: Shiogama-Daimy\u014djin, a Shinto deity, to whom women pray\nfor easy delivery in child-birth. Shrines of this divinity may be found\nin almost every province of Japan.]\n\n[Footnote 29: Ur\u00e9shiki ma wa wazuka nit\u00e9, mata kanashimi to henzuru;\numar\u00e9ru mono wa kanarazu shizu.--A Buddhist text that has become a\nJapanese proverb.]\n\n[Footnote 30: Composed by the bereaved mother herself, as a discipline\nagainst grief.]\n\n[Footnote 31: _Nad\u00e9shiko_ literally means a pink; but in poetry the\nword is commonly used in the meaning of \"baby.\"]\n\n[Footnote 32: _Samidar\u00e9_ is the name given to the old fifth month, or,\nmore strictly speaking, to a rainy period occurring in that month.\nThe verses are, of course, allusive, and their real meaning might be\nrendered thus: \"Oh! the season of grief! All things now seem sad: the\nsleeves of my robe are moist with my tears!\"]\n\n[Footnote 33: The _sotoba_ is a tall wooden lath, inscribed with\nBuddhist texts, and planted above a grave. For a full account of the\n_sotoba_, see the article entitled \"The Literature of the Dead,\" in my\n_Exotics and Retrospectives_, p. 102. I am not able to give any account\nor explanation of the curious superstition here referred to; but it\nis probably of the same class with the strange custom recorded in my\n_Gleanings in Buddha-Fields_, p. 126.]\n\n[Footnote 34: It would be unfair to suppose that this visit to the\ntheatre was made only for pleasure; it was made rather in the hope of\nforgetting pain, and probably by order of the husband.\n\n\u014ckubo Hikoza\u00ebmon was the favourite minister and adviser of the Sh\u014dgun\nIyem-itsu. Numberless stories of his sagacity and kindness are recorded\nin popular literature; and in many dramas the notable incidents of his\nofficial career are still represented.]\n\n[Footnote 35: There are five holidays thus named in every year. These\n_go-sekku_ are usually called, _Jinjitsu_ (the 7th of the 1st month),\n_Joki_ (the 3d of the 3d month), _Tango_ (the 5th of the 5th month),\n_Tanabata_ (the 7th of the 7th month), and _Ch\u014dy\u014d_ (the 9th of the 9th\nmonth).]\n\n[Footnote 36: A divinity half-Buddhist, half-Shint\u014d, in origin, but now\npopularly considered Shint\u014d. This god is especially worshipped as a\nhealer, and a protector against sickness. His principal temple in T\u014dky\u014d\nis in the Nihonbashi district.]\n\n[Footnote 37: A festival in commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary\nof the establishment of T\u014dky\u014d as the Imperial capital, instead of\nKy\u014dt\u014d.]\n\n[Footnote 38: _Daimy\u014d-no-g y\u014dretsu_. On the festival mentioned there\nwas a pageant representing feudal princes travelling in state,\naccompanied by their retainers and servants. The real armour, costumes,\nand weapons of the period before Meiji were effectively displayed on\nthis occasion.]\n\n[Footnote 39: A congratulatory feast, held on the evening of the\nseventh day after the birth of a child. Relatives and friends invited\nusually make small presents to the baby.]\n\n[Footnote 40: The first annual Festival of Girls is thus called.]\n\n[Footnote 41: All the objects here mentioned are toys--toys appropriate\nto the occasion. The _Dairi_ are old-fashioned toy-figures,\nrepresenting an emperor and empress in ancient costume. _Hina_ are\ndolls.]\n\n[Footnote 42: Another name for the Buddhist Paradise of the West,--the\nheaven of Amida (Amit\u0101bha).]\n\n[Footnote 43: Nephritis.]\n\n[Footnote 44: Or, \"very thin and loose,\"--the Karma-relation being\nemblematically spoken of as a bond or tie. She means, of course, that\nthe loss of the child was the inevitable consequence of some fault\ncommitted in a previous state of existence.]\n\n[Footnote 45: _Giday\u016b-bon_, \"the book of the _giday\u016b_.\" There are many\n_giday\u016b_ books. _Giday\u016b_ is the name given to a kind of musical drama.\nIn the dramatic composition here referred to, the characters Miyagino\nand Shinobu are sisters, who relate their sorrows to each other.]\n\n[Footnote 46: I.e. before she herself (the mother) dies;--there is a\ncolloquial phrase in the Japanese text. _Ko ga oya ni sakidatsu_ is the\ncommon expression: \"the child goes before the parents,\"--that is to\nsay, dies before the parents.]\n\n[Footnote 47: A euphemistic expression for death.]\n\n[Footnote 48: _A\u00ebnaku_ is an adjective signifying, according to\ncircumstances, \"feeble,\" or \"transitory,\" or \"sad.\" Its use here might\nbest be rendered by some such phrase as \"Piteous to say!\"]\n\n[Footnote 49: Her poem bears no date.]\n\n[Footnote 50: A necessarily free translation;--the lines might also\nbe read thus: \"Having awakened, all the joy fleets and fades;--it was\nonly a dream of Spring.\" The verb _sam\u00e9ru_, very effectively used here,\nallows of this double rendering; for it means either \"to awake\" or \"to\nfade.\" The adjective _hakanashi_ also has a double meaning: according\nto circumstances it may signify either \"fleeting\" (evanescent) or\n\"hopeless\" (wretched).]\n\n[Footnote 51: Lit. \"the first two _nanuka_\": one _nanuka_ representing\na period of seven successive days from the date of death.]\n\n\n\n\nHeik\u00e9-gani\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nIn various countries of which the peoples appear strange to us, by\nreason of beliefs, ideas, customs, and arts having nothing in common\nwith our own, there can be found something in the nature of the\nland--something in its flora or fauna--characterized by a corresponding\nstrangeness. Probably the relative queerness of the exotic nature in\nsuch regions helped more or less to develop the apparent oddity of the\nexotic mind. National differences of thought or feeling should not be\nless evolutionally interpretable than the forms of vegetables or of\ninsects; and, in the mental evolution of a people, the influence of\nenvironment upon imagination must be counted as a factor....\n\n*\n\nThese reflections were induced by a box of crabs sent me from the\nProvince of Ch\u014dsh\u016b,--crabs possessing that very same quality of\ngrotesqueness which we are accustomed to think of as being peculiarly\nJapanese. On the backs of these creatures there are bossings and\ndepressions that curiously simulate the shape of a human face,--a\ndistorted face,--a face modelled in relief as a Japanese craftsman\nmight have modelled it in some moment of artistic whim.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nTwo varieties of such crabs--nicely dried and polished--are constantly\nexposed for sale in the shops of Akamagas\u00e9ki (better known to\nforeigners by the name of Shimonos\u00e9ki). They are caught along the\nneighbouring stretch of coast called Dan-no-Ura, where the great\nclan of the Heik\u00e9, or Taira, were exterminated in a naval battle,\nseven centuries ago, by the rival clan of Genji, or Minamoto. Readers\nof Japanese history will remember the story of the Imperial Nun,\nNii-no-Ama, who in the hour of that awful tragedy composed a poem, and\nthen leaped into the sea, with the child-emperor Antoku in her arms.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nNow the grotesque crabs of this coast are called Heik\u00e9-gani, or\n\"Heik\u00e9-crabs,\" because of a legend that the spirits of the drowned and\nslaughtered warriors of the Heik\u00e9-clan assumed such shapes; and it is\nsaid that the fury or the agony of the death-struggle can still be\ndiscerned in the faces upon the backs of the crabs. But to feel the\nromance of this legend you should be familiar with old pictures of the\nfight of Dan-no-Ura,--old coloured prints of the armoured combatants,\nwith their grim battle-masks of iron and their great fierce eyes.\n\nThe smaller variety of crab is known simply as a\n\"Heik\u00e9-crab,\"--Heik\u00e9-gani. Each Heik\u00e9-gani is supposed to be animated\nby the spirit of a common Heik\u00e9 warrior only,--an ordinary samurai. But\nthe larger kind of crab is also termed Taish\u014d-gani (\"Chieftain-crab\"),\nor Tatsugashira (\"Dragon-helmet\"); and all Taish\u014d-gani or Tatsugashira\nare thought to be animated by ghosts of those great Heik\u00e9 captains\nwho bore upon their helmets monsters unknown to Western heraldry, and\nglittering horns, and dragons of gold.\n\nI got a Japanese friend to draw for me the two pictures of Heik\u00e9-gani\nherewith reproduced; and I can vouch for their accuracy. But I told\nhim that I could not see anything resembling a helmet, either in his\ndrawing of the Tatsugashira, nor in the original figure upon the back\nof the crab.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\"Can you see it?\" I asked. \"Why, yes,--somewhat like this,\" he\nanswered, making the following sketch:--\n\n\"Well, I can make out part of the head-gear,\" I said;--\"but that\noutline of yours is not according to facts,--and that face is vapid as\nthe face of the Moon. Look at the nightmare on the back of the real\ncrab!...\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nFireflies\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nI\n\nI want to talk about Japanese fireflies, but not entomologically.\nIf you are interested, as you ought to be, in the scientific side\nof the subject, you should seek enlightenment from a Japanese\nprofessor of biology, now lecturing at the Imperial University of\nT\u014dky\u014d. He signs himself \"Mr. S. Watas\u00e9\" (the \"S\" standing for the\npersonal name Shozaburo); and he has been a teacher as well as a\nstudent of science in America, where a number of his lectures have\nbeen published,[1]--lectures upon animal phosphorescence, animal\nelectricity, the light-producing organs of insects and fishes, and\nother wonderful topics of biology. He can tell you all that is\nknown concerning the morphology of fireflies, the physiology of\nfireflies, the photometry of fireflies, the chemistry of their\nluminous substance, the spectroscopic analysis of their light, and the\nsignificance of that light in terms of ether-vibration. By experiment\nhe can show you that, under normal conditions of temperature and\nenvironment, the number of light-pulsations produced by one species\nof Japanese firefly averages twenty-six per minute; and that the\nrate suddenly rises to sixty-three per minute, if the insect be\nfrightened by seizure. Also he can prove to you that another and\nsmaller kind of firefly, when taken in the hand, will increase the\nnumber of its light-pulsings to upward of two hundred per minute.\nHe suggests that the light may be of some protective value to the\ninsect,--like the \"warning colours\" of sundry nauseous caterpillars\nand butterflies,--because the firefly has a very bitter taste, and\nbirds appear to find it unpalatable. (Frogs, he has observed, do not\nmind the bad taste: they fill their cold bellies with fireflies till\nthe light shines through them, much as the light of a candle-flame\nwill glow through a porcelain jar.) But whether of protective value or\nnot, the tiny dynamo would seem to be used in a variety of ways,--as\na phototelegraph, for example. As other insects converse by sound or\nby touch, the firefly utters its emotion in luminous pulsings: its\nspeech is a language of light.... I am only giving you some hints about\nthe character of the professor's lectures, which are never merely\ntechnical. And for the best part of this non-scientific essay of\nmine,--especially that concerning the capture and the sale of fireflies\nin Japan,--I am indebted to some delightful lectures which he delivered\nlast year to Japanese audiences in T\u014dky\u014d.\n\n\nII\n\nAs written to-day, the Japanese name of the firefly (_hotaru_) is\nideographically composed with the sign for fire, doubled, above the\nsign for insect. The real origin of the word is nevertheless doubtful;\nand various etymologies have been suggested. Some scholars think that\nthe appellation anciently signified \"the First-born of Fire\"; while\nothers believe that it was first composed with syllables meaning \"star\"\nand \"drop.\" The more poetical of the proposed derivations, I am sorry\nto say, are considered the least probable. But whatever may have been\nthe primal meaning of the word _hotaru_, there can be no doubt as to\nthe romantic quality of certain folk-names still given to the insect.\nTwo species of firefly have a wide distribution in Japan; and these\nhave been popularly named _Genji-botaru_ and _Heik\u00e9-botaru_: that is\nto say, \"the Minamoto-Firefly\" and \"the Taira-Firefly.\" A legend avers\nthat these fireflies are the ghosts of the old Minamoto and Taira\nwarriors; that, even in their insect shapes, they remember the awful\nclan-struggle of the twelfth century; and that once every year, on the\nnight of the twentieth day of the fourth month,[2] they fight a great\nbattle on the Uji River. Therefore, on that night all caged fireflies\nshould be set free, in order that they may be able to take part in the\ncontest.\n\n*\n\nThe _Genji-botaru_ is the largest of Japanese fireflies,--the largest\nspecies, at least, in Japan proper, not including the Loochoo Islands.\nIt is found in almost every part of the country from Ky\u016bsh\u016b to \u014csh\u016b.\nThe _Heik\u00e9-botaru_ ranges further north, being especially common in\nYezo; but it is found also in the central and southern provinces. It\nis smaller than the Genji, and emits a feebler light. The fireflies\ncommonly sold by insect-dealers in T\u014dky\u014d, \u014csaka, Kyoto, and other\ncities, are of the larger species. Japanese observers have described\nthe light of both insects as \"tea-coloured\" (_cha-iro_),--the tint of\nthe ordinary Japanese infusion, when the leaf is of good quality, being\na clear greenish yellow. But the light of a fine Genji-firefly is so\nbrilliant that only a keen eye can detect the greenish colour: at first\nsight the flash appears yellow as the flame of a wood-fire, and its\nvivid brightness has not been overpraised in the following _hokku_:--\n\n      Kagaribi mo\n    Hotaru mo hikaru--\n      Genji kana!\n\n\"Whether it be a glimmering of festal-fires[3] [far away], or a\nglimmering of fireflies, [one can hardly tell]--ah, it is the Genji!\"\n\n*\n\nAlthough the appellations _Genji-botaru_ and _Heik\u00e9-botaru_ are still\nin general use, both insects are known by other folk-names. In\ndifferent provinces the Genji is called _\u014c-botaru_, or \"Great Firefly\";\n_Ushi-botaru_, or \"Ox-Firefly\"; _Kuma-botaru_, or \"Bear-Firefly\"; and\n_Uji-botaru_, or \"Firefly of Uji,\"--not to mention such picturesque\nappellations as _Komos\u014d-botaru_ and _Yamabuki-botaru_, which could not\nbe appreciated by the average Western reader. The _Heik\u00e9-botaru_ is\nalso called _Him\u00e9-botaru_, or \"Princess-Firefly\"; _Nenn\u00e9i-botaru_, or\n\"Baby-Firefly\"; and _Yur\u00e9i-botaru_, or \"Ghost-Firefly.\" But these are\nonly examples chosen at random: in almost every part of Japan there is\na special folk-name for the insect.\n\n\nIII\n\nThere are many places in Japan which are famous for fireflies,--places\nwhich people visit in summer merely to enjoy the sight of the\nfireflies. Anciently the most celebrated of all such places was a\nlittle valley near Ishiyama, by the lake of \u014cmi. It is still called\nHotaru-Dani, or the Valley of Fireflies. Before the Period of Genroku\n(1688-1703), the swarming of the fireflies in this valley, during the\nsultry season, was accounted one of the natural marvels of the country.\nThe fireflies of the Hotaru-Dani are still celebrated for their size;\nbut that wonderful swarming of them, which old writers described,\nis no longer to be seen there. At present the most famous place for\nfireflies is in the neighbourhood of Uji, in Yamashir\u014d. Uji, a pretty\nlittle town in the centre of the celebrated tea-district, is situated\non the Ujigawa, and is scarcely less famed for its fireflies than for\nits teas. Every summer special trains run from Ky\u014dt\u014d and \u014csaka to\nUji, bringing thousands of visitors to see the fireflies. But it is\non the river, at a point several miles from the town, that the great\nspectacle is to be witnessed,--the _Hotaru-Kassen_, or Firefly Battle.\nThe stream there winds between hills covered with vegetation; and\nmyriads of fireflies dart from either bank, to meet and cling above the\nwater. At moments they so swarm together as to form what appears to the\neye like a luminous cloud, or like a great ball of sparks. The cloud\nsoon scatters, or the ball drops and breaks upon the surface of the\ncurrent, and the fallen fireflies drift glittering away; but another\nswarm quickly collects in the same locality. People wait all night in\nboats upon the river to watch the phenomenon. After the _Hotaru-Kassen_\nis done, the Ujikawa, covered with the still sparkling bodies of the\ndrifting insects, is said to appear like the Milky Way, or, as the\nJapanese more poetically call it, the River of Heaven. Perhaps it was\nafter witnessing such a spectacle that the great female poet, Chiyo of\nKaga, composed these verses:--\n\n      Kawa bakari,\n    Yami wa nagar\u00e9t\u00e9--?\n      Hotaru kana!\n\n--Which may be thus freely rendered:--\n\n\"Is it the river only?--or is the darkness itself drifting?... Oh, the\nfireflies!...\"[4]\n\n\nIV\n\nMany persons in Japan earn their living during the summer months by\ncatching and selling fireflies: indeed, the extent of this business\nentitles it to be regarded as a special industry. The chief centre of\nthis industry is the region about Ishiyama, in Gosh\u016b, by the Lake of\n\u014cmi,--a number of houses there supplying fireflies to many parts of\nthe country, and especially to the great cities of Osaka and Ky\u014dt\u014d.\nFrom sixty to seventy firefly-catchers are employed by each of the\nprincipal houses during the busy season. Some training is required\nfor the occupation. A tyro might find it no easy matter to catch a\nhundred fireflies in a single night; but an expert has been known to\ncatch three thousand. The methods of capture, although of the simplest\npossible kind, are very interesting to see.\n\nImmediately after sunset, the firefly-hunter goes forth, with a long\nbamboo pole upon his shoulder, and a long bag of brown mosquito-netting\nwound, like a girdle, about his waist. When he reaches a wooded place\nfrequented by fireflies,--usually some spot where willows are planted,\non the bank of a river or lake,--he halts and watches the trees. As\nsoon as the trees begin to twinkle satisfactorily, he gets his net\nready, approaches the most luminous tree, and with his long pole\nstrikes the branches. The fireflies, dislodged by the shock, do not\nimmediately take flight, as more active insects would do under like\ncircumstances, but drop helplessly to the ground, beetle-wise, where\ntheir light--always more brilliant in moments of fear or pain--renders\nthem conspicuous. If suffered to remain upon the ground for a few\nmoments, they will fly away. But the catcher, picking them up with\nastonishing quickness, using both hands at once, deftly tosses them\n_into his mouth_--because he cannot lose the time required to put them,\none by one, into the bag. Only when his mouth can hold no more, does he\ndrop the fireflies, unharmed, into the netting.\n\nThus the firefly-catcher works until about two o'clock in the\nmorning,--the old Japanese hour of ghosts,--at which time the insects\nbegin to leave the trees and seek the dewy soil. There they are said to\nbury their tails, so as to remain viewless. But now the hunter changes\nhis tactics. Taking a bamboo broom he brushes the surface of the\nturf, lightly and quickly. Whenever touched or alarmed by the broom,\nthe fireflies display their lanterns, and are immediately nipped and\nbagged. A little before dawn, the hunters return to town.\n\nAt the firefly-shops the captured insects are sorted as soon as\npossible, according to the brilliancy of their light,--the more\nluminous being the higher-priced. Then they are put into gauze-covered\nboxes or cages, with a certain quantity of moistened grass in each\ncage. From one hundred to two hundred fireflies are placed in a\nsingle cage, according to grade. To these cages are attached small\nwooden tablets inscribed with the names of customers,--such as hotel\nproprietors, restaurant-keepers, wholesale and retail insect-merchants,\nand private persons who have ordered large quantities of fireflies\nfor some particular festivity. The boxes are despatched to their\ndestinations by nimble messengers,--for goods of this class cannot be\nsafely intrusted to express companies.\n\nGreat numbers of fireflies are ordered for display at evening parties\nin the summer season. A large Japanese guest-room usually overlooks\na garden; and during a banquet or other evening entertainment, given\nin the sultry season, it is customary to set fireflies at liberty in\nthe garden after sunset, that the visitors may enjoy the sight of the\nsparkling. Restaurant-keepers purchase largely. In the famous D\u014dtombori\nof \u014csaka, there is a house where myriads of fireflies are kept in a\nlarge space enclosed by mosquito-netting; and customers of this house\nare permitted to enter the enclosure and capture a certain number of\nfireflies to take home with them.\n\n*\n\nThe wholesale price of living fireflies ranges from three sen per\nhundred up to thirteen sen per hundred, according to season and\nquality. Retail dealers sell them in cages; and in Tokyo the price of\na cage of fireflies ranges from three sen up to several dollars. The\ncheapest kind of cage, containing only three or four fireflies, is\nscarcely more than two inches square; but the costly cages--veritable\nmarvels of bamboo work, beautifully decorated--are as large as cages\nfor song-birds. Firefly cages of charming or fantastic shapes--model\nhouses, junks, temple-lanterns, etc.--can be bought at prices ranging\nfrom thirty sen up to one dollar.\n\nDead or alive, fireflies are worth money. They are delicate insects,\nand they live but a short time in confinement. Great numbers die in\nthe insect-shops; and one celebrated insect-house is said to dispose\nevery season of no less than five _sh\u014d_--that is to say, about one\npeck--of dead fireflies, which are sold to manufacturing establishments\nin Osaka. Formerly fireflies were used much more than at present in\nthe manufacture of poultices and pills, and in the preparation of\ndrugs peculiar to the practice of Chinese medicine. Even to-day some\ncurious extracts are obtained from them; and one of these, called\n_Hotaru-no-abura,_ or Firefly-grease, is still used by woodworkers for\nthe purpose of imparting rigidity to objects made of bent bamboo.\n\nA very curious chapter on firefly-medicine might be written by\nsomebody learned in the old-fashioned literature. The queerest part of\nthe subject is Chinese, and belongs much more to demonology than to\ntherapeutics. Firefly-ointments used to be made which had power, it was\nalleged, to preserve a house from the attacks of robbers, to counteract\nthe effect of any poison, and to drive away \"the hundred devils.\" And\npills were made with firefly-substance which were believed to confer\ninvulnerability;--one kind of such pills being called _Kansh\u014dgan_, or\n\"Commander-in-Chief Pills\"; and another, _Buigan_, or \"Military-Power\nPills.\"\n\n\nV\n\nFirefly-catching, as a business, is comparatively modern; but\nfirefly-hunting, as a diversion, is a very old custom. Anciently\nit was an aristocratic amusement; and great nobles used to give\nfirefly-hunting parties,--_botaru-gari_. In this busy era of Meiji\nthe _botaru-gari_ is rather an amusement for children than for\ngrown-up folks; but the latter occasionally find time to join in the\nsport. All over Japan, the children have their firefly-hunts every\nsummer;--moonless nights being usually chosen for such expeditions.\nGirls follow the chase with paper fans; boys, with long light poles,\nto the ends of which wisps of fresh bamboo-grass are tied. When struck\ndown by a fan or a wisp, the insects are easily secured, as they are\nslow to take wing after having once been checked in actual flight.\nWhile hunting, the children sing little songs, supposed to attract\nthe shining prey. These songs differ according to locality; and the\nnumber of them is wonderful. But there are very few possessing that\nsort of interest which justifies quotation. Two examples will probably\nsuffice:--\n\n    (_Province of Chosh\u016b._)\n    Hotaru, koi! koi!\n    Koi-tomos\u00e9!\n    Nippon ichi no\n    J\u014dsan ga,\n    Ch\u014dchin tomoshit\u00e9,\n    Koi to ina!\n\nCome, firefly, come! Come with your light burning! The nicest girl in\nJapan wants to know if you will not light your lantern and come!\n\n    (_Dialect of Shimonos\u00e9ki._)\n\n          H\u014dchin, koi!\n          H\u014dchin, koi!\n    S\u00e9ki no machi no bon-san ga,\n          Ch\u014dchin tomoshit\u00e9,\n              Koi!\n              Koi!\n\nFirefly, come! firefly, come! All the boys of S\u00e9ki [want you to come]\nwith your lantern lighted! Come! come!\n\n*\n\nOf course, in order to hunt fireflies successfully, it is necessary\nto know something about their habits; and on this subject Japanese\nchildren are probably better informed than a majority of my readers,\nfor whom the following notes may possess a novel interest:--\n\n*\n\nFireflies frequent the neighbourhood of water, and like to circle\nabove it; but some kinds are repelled by impure or stagnant water,\nand are only to be found in the vicinity of clear streams or lakes.\nThe Genji-firefly shuns swamps, ditches, or foul canals; while the\nHeik\u00e9-firefly seems to be satisfied with any water. All fireflies\nseek by preference grassy banks shaded by trees; but they dislike\ncertain trees and are attracted by others. They avoid pine trees, for\ninstance; and they will not light upon rose-bushes. But upon willow\ntrees--especially weeping willows--they gather in great swarms.\nOccasionally, on a summer night, you may see a drooping willow so\ncovered and illuminated with fireflies that all its branches appear \"to\nbe budding fire.\" During a bright moonlight night fireflies keep as\nmuch as possible in shadow; but when pursued they fly at once into the\nmoonshine, where their shimmering is less easily perceived. Lamplight,\nor any strong artificial light, drives them away; but small bright\nlights attract them. They can be lured, for example, by the sparkling\nof a small piece of lighted charcoal, or by the glow of a little\nJapanese pipe, kindled in the dark. But the lamping of a single lively\nfirefly, confined in a bottle, or cup, of clear glass, is the best of\nall lures.\n\n*\n\nAs a rule the children hunt only in parties, for obvious reasons.\nIn former years it would have been deemed foolhardy to go alone in\npursuit of fireflies, because there existed certain uncanny beliefs\nconcerning them. And in some of the country districts these beliefs\nstill prevail. What appear to be fireflies may be malevolent spirits,\nor goblin-fires, or fox-lights, kindled to delude the wayfarer. Even\nreal fireflies are not always to be trusted;--the weirdness of their\nkinships might be inferred from their love of willow trees. Other trees\nhave their particular spirits, good or evil, hamadryads or goblins; but\nthe willow is particularly the tree of the dead--the favourite of human\nghosts. Any firefly may be a ghost--who can tell? Besides, there is an\nold belief that the soul of a person still alive may sometimes assume\nthe shape of a firefly. And here is a little story that was told me in\nIzuno:--\n\n*\n\nOne cold winter's night a young shizoku of Matsu\u00eb, while on his way\nhome from a wedding-party, was surprised to perceive a firefly-light\nhovering above the canal in front of his dwelling. Wondering that such\nan insect should be flying abroad in the season of snow, he stopped\nto look at it; and the light suddenly shot toward him. He struck at\nit with a stick; but it darted away, and flew into the garden of a\nresidence adjoining his own.\n\nNext morning he made a visit to that house, intending to relate the\nadventure to his neighbours and friends. But before he found a chance\nto speak of it, the eldest daughter of the family, happening to enter\nthe guest-room without knowing of the young man's visit, uttered a cry\nof surprise, and exclaimed, \"Oh! how you startled me! No one told me\nthat you had called; and just as I came in I was thinking about you.\nLast night I had so strange a dream! I was flying in my dream,--flying\nabove the canal in front of our house. It seemed very pleasant to fly\nover the water; and while I was flying there I saw you coming along the\nbank. Then I went to you to tell you that I had learned how to fly; but\nyou struck at me, and frightened me so that I still feel afraid when I\nthink of it.. ..\" After hearing this, the visitor thought it best not\nto relate his own experience for the time being, lest the coincidence\nshould alarm the girl, to whom he was betrothed.\n\n\nVI\n\nFireflies have been celebrated in Japanese poetry from ancient time;\nand frequent mention of them is made in early classical prose. One\nof the fifty-four chapters of the famous novel, _Genji-Monogari_,\nfor example,--written either toward the close of the tenth century\nor at the beginning of the eleventh,--is entitled, \"Fireflies\"; and\nthe author relates how a certain noble person was enabled to obtain\none glimpse of a lady's face in the dark by the device of catching\nand suddenly liberating a number of fireflies. The first literary\ninterest in fireflies may have been stimulated, if not aroused, by\nthe study of Chinese poetry. Even to-day every Japanese child knows a\nlittle song about the famous Chinese scholar who, in the time of his\nstruggles with poverty, studied by the light of a paper bag filled with\nfireflies. But, whatever the original source of their inspiration,\nJapanese poets have been making verses about fireflies during more than\na thousand years. Compositions on the subject can be found in every\nform of Japanese poetry; but the greater number of firefly poems are in\n_hokku_,--the briefest of all measures, consisting of only seventeen\nsyllables. Modern love-poems relating to the firefly are legion; but\nthe majority of these, written in the popular twenty-six-syllable form\ncalled _dodo\u00eftsu_, appear to consist of little more than variants of\none old classic fancy, comparing the silent burning of the insect's\nlight to the consuming passion that is never uttered.\n\n*\n\nPerhaps my readers will be interested by the following selection of\nfirefly poems. Some of the compositions are many centuries old:--\n\n    Catching Fireflies\n\n      Mayoi-go no\n    Naku-naku tsukamu\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nAh! the lost child! Though crying and crying, still he catches\nfireflies!\n\n      Kuraki yori\n    Kuraki hito yobu:\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nOut of the blackness black people call [to each other]: [they are\nhunting] fireflies!\n\n      Iu koto no\n    Kiko\u00ebt\u00e9 ya, takaku\n      Tobu hotaru!\n\nAh! having heard the voices of people [crying \"Catch it!\"], the firefly\nnow flies higher!\n\n      Owar\u00e9t\u00e9 wa\n    Tsuki ni kakururu\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nAh, [the cunning] fireflies! being chased, they hide themselves in the\nmoonlight!\n\n      Ubayot\u00e9\n    Fumi-koroshitaru\n      Hotaru kana!\n\n[Two firefly-catchers] having tried to seize it [at the same time], the\npoor firefly is trampled to death!\n\n    The Light of Fireflies\n\n      Hotarubi ya!\n    Mada kur\u00e9yaranu,\n      Hashi no uri.\n\nFireflies already sparkling under the bridge,--and it is not yet dark!\n\n      Mizu-gusa no\n    Kururu to mi\u00e9t\u00e9\n      Tobu hotaru.\n\nWhen the water-grasses appear to grow dark, the fireflies begin to\nfly.[5]\n\n      Oku-no-ma y\u00e9\n    Hanashit\u00e9 mitaru\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nPleasant, from the guest-room,[6] to watch the fireflies being set free\nin the garden!\n\n      Yo no fukuru\n    Hodo \u014dkinaru\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nEver as the night grows [deeper, the light of] the firefly also grows\n[brighter]!\n\n      Kusakari no\n    Sod\u00e9 yori idzuru,\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nSee! a firefly flies out of the sleeve of the grass-cutter!\n\n      Koko kashiko,\n    Hotaru ni aoshi\n      Yoru no kusa.\n\nHere and there the night-grass appears green, because of the light of\nthe fireflies.\n\n      Ch\u014dchin no\n    Kiy\u00e9t\u00e9, t\u014dtoki\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nHow precious seems [the light of] the firefly, now that the\nlantern-light has gone out!\n\n      Mado kuraki,\n    Sh\u014dji wo noboru\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nThe window itself is dark, but see!--a firefly is creeping up the paper\npane!\n\n      Mo\u00eb yasuku,\n    Mata k\u00e9y\u00e9 yasuki,\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nHow easily kindled, and how easily put out again, is the light of the\nfirefly!\n\n      Hitotsu kit\u00e9,\n    Niwa no tsuyuk\u00e9ki,\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nOh! a single firefly having come, one can see the dew in the garden!\n\n      T\u00e9 no hira wo\n    Hau ashi miyuru\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nOh, this firefly!--as it crawls on the palm of my hand, its legs are\nvisible [by its own light]!\n\n      Osoroshi no\n    T\u00e9 ni sukit\u014dru,\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nIt is enough to make one afraid! See! the light of this firefly shows\nthrough my hand![7]\n\n      Sab\u00e9shisaya!\n    Isshaku kiy\u00e9t\u00e9\n      Yuku hotaru!\n\nHow uncanny! The firefly shoots to within a foot of me, and--out goes\nthe light!\n\n      Yuku saki no\n    Sawaru mono naki\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nThere goes a firefly! but there is nothing in front of it to take hold\nof [nothing to touch: what can it be seeking--the ghostly creature?].\n\n      H\u014dki-gi ni\n    Ari to wa miy\u00e9t\u00e9,\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nIn this hoki-bush it certainly appeared to be,--the firefly! [but where\nis it?]\n\n      Sod\u00e9 \u00e9 kit\u00e9,\n    Y\u014dhan no hotaru\n      Sabishi kana!\n\nThis midnight firefly coming upon the sleeve of my robe--how\nweird[8]!...\n\n      Yanagi-ba no\n    Yami saki ka\u00ebsu\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nFor this willow tree the season of budding would seem to have returned\nin the dark--look at the fireflies!\n\n      Mizu soko no\n    Kag\u00e9 wo kowagaru\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nAh, he is afraid of the darkness under the water,--that firefly!\n[Therefore he lights his tiny lantern!]\n\n      Sugitaru wa!\n    M\u00e9 ni mono sugoshi\n      Tobu hotaru!\n\nAh, I am going too far!... The flitting of the fireflies here is a\nlonesome sight!\n\n      Hotarubi ya!\n    Kusa ni osamaru\n      Yo\u00e4k\u00e9gata.\n\nAh, the firefly-lights! As the darkness begins to break, they bury\nthemselves in the grass.\n\n      Love-Poems\n\n      Mur\u00e9yo, hotaru,\n    Mono iu kao no\n      Miyuru hodo!\n\nO fireflies, gather here long enough to make visible the face of the\nperson who says these things to me![9]\n\n      Oto mo s\u00e9d\u00e9,\n    Omoi ni moyuru,\n      Hotaru koso,\n    Naku mushi yori mo\n    Awar\u00e9 nari-k\u00e9ri!\n\nNot making even a sound [yet] burning with desire,--for this the\nfirefly indeed has become more worthy of pity than any insect that\ncries![10]\n\n      Y\u016b sareba,\n    Hotaru yori ki ni\n      Moyur\u00e9domo,\n    Hikari min\u00e9ba ya\n    Hito no tsur\u00e9naki!\n\nWhen evening falls, though the soul of me burn more than burns the\nfirefly, as the light [of that burning] is viewless, the person\n[beloved] remains unmoved.[11]\n\n    Miscellaneous\n\n      Suito yuku,\n    Mizu-gi wa suzushi,\n      Tobu-hotaru!\n\nHere at the water's edge, how pleasantly cool!--and the fireflies go\nshooting by--suito!\n\n      Midzu \u00e9 kit\u00e9,\n    Hikuu naritaru\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nHaving reached the water, he makes himself low,--the firefly![12]\n\n      Kuzu no ha no\n    Ura, utsu am\u00e9 ya,\n      Tobu-hotaru!\n\nThe rain beats upon the _Kuzu_-plant;[13]--away starts the firefly from\nthe underside of the leaf!\n\n      Am\u00e9 no yo wa,\n    Shita bakari yuku\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nAh! this rainy night they only go along the ground,--the fireflies!\n\n      Yura-yura to\n    Ko-am\u00e9 furu yo no\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nHow they swing themselves, to and fro, the fireflies, on a night of\ndrizzling rain!\n\n      Akinur\u00e9ba,\n    Kusa nomi zo\n      Hotaru-kago.\n\nWith the coming of dawn, indeed, there is nothing visible but grass in\nthe cage of the firefly!\n\n      Yo ga ak\u00e9t\u00e9,\n    Mushi ni naritaru\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nWith the coming of the dawn, they change into insects again,--these\nfireflies!\n\n      Hiru mir\u00e9ba,\n    Kubi-suji akaki\n      Hotaru kana!\n\nOh, this firefly!--seen by daylight, the nape of its neck is red!\n\n      Hotaru k\u014dt\u00e9,\n    Shiba shi-go-mai ni\n      Fuze\u00ef kana!\n\nHaving bought fireflies, respectfully accord them the favour of four or\nfive tufts of lawn-grass![14]\n\nSong of the Firefly-seller\n\n      Futatsu, mitsu,\n    Hanashit\u00e9 mis\u00e9nu\n      Hotaru-uri.\n\n      Mitsu, yotsu wa,\n    Akari ni nokos\u00e9\n      Hotaru-uri.\n\n      Onoga mi wa\n    Yami ni ka\u00ebru ya\n      Hotaru-uri.\n\nHe will not give you the chance to see two or three fireflies set\nfree,--this firefly-seller.\n\nHe leaves in the cage three or four, just to make a light,--this\nfirefly-seller.\n\nFor now he must take his own body back into the dark night,--this\nfirefly-seller.\n\n\nVII\n\nBut the true romance of the firefly is to be found neither in the\nstrange fields of Japanese folk-lore nor in the quaint gardens of\nJapanese poetry, but in the vast profound of science. About science\nI know little or nothing. And that is why I am not afraid to rush in\nwhere angels fear to tread. If I knew what Professor Watas\u00e9 knows\nabout fireflies, I should feel myself less free to cross the boundaries\nof relative experience. As it is, I can venture theories.\n\n*\n\nThe tremendous hypotheses of physical and psychical evolution no\nlonger seem to me hypotheses: I should never dream of doubting them.\nI have ceased to wonder at the growth of Life out of that which has\nbeen called not-living,--the development of organic out of inorganic\nexistence. The one amazing fact of organic evolution, to which my\nimagination cannot become accustomed, is the fact that the substance\nof life should possess the latent capacity or tendency to build itself\ninto complexities incomprehensible of _systematic_ structure. The power\nof that substance to evolve radiance or electricity is not really more\nextraordinary than its power to evolve colour; and that a noctiluca,\nor a luminous centipede, or a firefly, should produce light, ought not\nto seem more wonderful than that a plant should produce blue or purple\nflowers. But the biological interpretation of the phenomenon leaves me\nwondering, just as much as before, at the particular miracle of the\nmachinery by which the light is made. To find embedded in the body of\nthe insect a microscopic working-model of everything comprised under\nthe technical designation of an \"electric plant,\" would not be nearly\nso wonderful a discovery as the discovery of what actually exists.\nHere is a firefly, able, with its infinitesimal dynamo, to produce a\npure cold light \"at one four-hundredth part of the cost of the energy\nexpended in a candle flame\"!... Now why should there have been evolved\nin the tail of this tiny creature a luminiferous mechanism at once\nso elaborate and so effective that our greatest physiologists and\nchemists are still unable to understand the operation of it, and our\nbest electricians impotent to conceive the possibility of imitating\nit? Why should the living tissues crystallize or build themselves\ninto structures of such stupefying intricacy and beauty as the visual\norgans of an ephemera, the electrical organs of a gymnotus, or the\nluminiferous organs of a firefly?... The very wonder of the thing\nforbids me to imagine gods at work: no mere god could ever contrive\nsuch a prodigy as the eye of a May-fly or the tail of a firefly.\n\nBiology would answer thus:--\"Though it is inconceivable that a\nstructure like this should have been produced by accumulated effects\nof function on structure, yet it is conceivable that successive\nselections of favourable variations might have produced it.\" And no\nfollower of Herbert Spencer is really justified in wandering further.\nBut I cannot rid myself of the notion that Matter, in some blind\ninfallible way, _remembers_; and that in every unit of living substance\nthere slumber infinite potentialities, simply because to every ultimate\natom belongs the infinite and indestructible experience of billions of\nvanished universes.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Professor Watas\u00e9 is a graduate of Johns Hopkins. Since\nthis essay was written, his popular Japanese lectures upon the\nfirefly have been reissued in a single pretty volume. The coloured\nfrontispiece,--showing fireflies at night upon a willow-branch,--is\nalone worth the price of the book.]\n\n[Footnote 2: By the old calendar. According to the new calendar, the\ndate of the Firefly Battle would be considerably later: last year\n(1901) it fell upon the tenth day of the sixth month.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The term _kagar-bi_, often translated by \"bonfire,\"\nhere especially refers to the little wood-fires which are kindled,\non certain festival occasions, in front of every threshold in the\nprincipal street of a country town, or village. During the festival of\nthe Bon such little fires are lighted in many parts of the country to\nwelcome the returning ghosts.]\n\n[Footnote 4: That is to say, \"Do I see only fireflies drifting with the\ncurrent? or is the Night itself drifting, with its swarming of stars?\"]\n\n[Footnote 5: More literally: \"The water-grasses having appeared to\ngrow dark, the fireflies begin to fly.\" The phrase _kururu to mi\u00e9t\u00e9_\nreminds one of the second stanza in that most remarkable of modern\nfairy-ballads, Mr. Yeats' \"Folk of the Air\":--\n\n    \"And he saw how the weeds grew dark\n      At the coming of night-tide;\n    And he dreamed of the long dim hair\n      Of Bridget his bride.\"\n]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Oku-no-ma_ really means the back room. But the best\nrooms in a Japanese house are always in the rear, and so arranged as\nto overlook the garden. The composer of the verse is supposed to be\na guest at some banquet, during which fireflies are set free in the\ngarden that the visitors may enjoy the spectacle.]\n\n[Footnote 7: That is to say, makes the fingers appear diaphanous,\nas if held before a bright candle-flame. This suggestion of rosy\nsemi-transparency implies a female speaker.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The word _sabishi_ usually signifies lonesome or\nmelancholy; but the sense of it here is \"weird.\" This verse suggests\nthe popular fancy that the soul of a person, living or dead, may assume\nthe form of a firefly.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The speaker is supposed to be a woman. Somebody has been\nmaking love to her in the dark; and she half doubts the sincerity of\nthe professed affection.]\n\n[Footnote 10: From the _Fugetsu-Sh'u_. The speaker is a woman: by the\nsimile of the silent-glowing firefly she suggests her own secret love.]\n\n[Footnote 11: From the Kokon Wakash\u016b Enky\u014d. The speaker is supposed to\nbe a woman.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Or, \"he stoops low.\" The word _bikui_ really means low of\nstature.]\n\n[Footnote 13: A kind of arrowroot.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Not literal; and I doubt whether this poem could be\nsatisfactorily translated into English. There is a delicate humour in\nthe use of the word _fuzei_, used in speaking humbly of one's self, or\nof one's endeavours to please a superior.]\n\n\n\n\nA Drop of Dew\n\n\nTsuyu no inochi.\n  --_Buddhist proverb._\n\n[Illustration]\n\nTo the bamboo lattice of my study-window a single dewdrop hangs\nquivering.\n\nIts tiny sphere repeats the colours of the morning,--colours of sky\nand field and far-off trees. Inverted images of these can be discerned\nin it,--also the microscopic picture of a cottage, upside down, with\nchildren at play before the door.\n\nMuch more than the visible world is imaged by that dewdrop: the world\ninvisible, of infinite mystery, is likewise therein repeated. And\nwithout as within the drop there is motion unceasing,--motion forever\nincomprehensible of atoms and forces,--faint shiverings also, making\nprismatic reply to touches of air and sun.\n\n*\n\nBuddhism finds in such a dewdrop the symbol of that other microcosm\nwhich has been called the Soul.... What more, indeed, is man than\njust such a temporary orbing of viewless ultimates,--imaging sky and\nland and life,--filled with perpetual mysterious shudderings,--and\nresponding in some wise to every stir of the ghostly forces that\nenviron him?...\n\n*\n\nSoon that tiny globe of light, with all its fairy tints and topsy-turvy\npicturings, will have vanished away. Even so, within another little\nwhile, you and I must likewise dissolve and disappear.\n\nBetween the vanishing of the drop and the vanishing of the man, what\ndifference? A difference of words.... But ask yourself what becomes of\nthe dewdrop?\n\nBy the great sun its atoms are separated and lifted and scattered. To\ncloud and earth, to river and sea they go; and out of land and stream\nand sea again they will be updrawn, only to fall and to scatter anew.\nThey will creep in opalescent mists;--they will whiten in frost and\nhail and snow;--they will reflect again the forms and the colours of\nthe macrocosm; they will throb to the ruby pulsing of hearts that are\nyet unborn. For each one of them must combine again with countless\nkindred atoms for the making of other drops,--drops of dew and rain and\nsap, of blood and sweat and tears....\n\nHow many times? Billions of ages before our sun began to burn, those\natoms probably moved in other drops, reflecting the sky-tints and the\nearth-colours of worlds in some past universe. And after this present\nuniverse shall have vanished out of Space, those very same atoms--by\nvirtue of the forces incomprehensible that made them--will probably\ncontinue to sphere in dews that will shadow the morning beauty of\nplanets yet to be.\n\n*\n\nEven so with the particles of that composite which you term your\nvery Self. Before the hosts of heaven the atoms of you were--and\nthrilled,--and quickened,--and reflected appearances of things. And\nwhen all the stars of the visible Night shall have burnt themselves\nout, those atoms will doubtless again take part in the orbing of\nMind,--will tremble again in thoughts, emotions, memories,--in all\nthe joys and pains of lives still to be lived in worlds still to be\nevolved....\n\n*\n\nYour personality?--your peculiarity? That is to say, your ideas,\nsentiments, recollections?--your very particular hopes and fears and\nloves and hates? Why, in each of a trillion of dewdrops there must\nbe differences infinitesimal of atom-thrilling and of reflection. And\nin every one of the countless pearls of ghostly vapour updrawn from\nthe Sea of Birth and Death there are like infinitesimal peculiarities.\nYour personality signifies, in the eternal order, just as much as the\nespecial motion of molecules in the shivering of any single drop.\nPerhaps in no other drop will the thrilling and the picturing be ever\nexactly the same; but the dews will continue to gather and to fall,\nand there will always be quivering pictures ... The very delusion of\ndelusions is the idea of death as loss.\n\nThere is no loss--because there is not any Self that can be\nlost. Whatsoever was, that you have been;--whatsoever is,\nthat you are;--whatsoever will be, that you must become.\nPersonality!--individuality!--the ghosts of a dream in a dream! Life\ninfinite only there is; and all that appears to be is but the thrilling\nof it,--sun, moon, and stars,--earth, sky, and sea,--and Mind and\nMan, and Space and Time. All of them are shadows. The shadows come and\ngo;--the Shadow-Maker shapes forever.\n\n\n\n\nGaki\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n--\"Venerable Nagasena, are there such things as demons in the world?\"\n\n--\"Yes, O King.\"\n\n--\"Do they ever leave that condition of existence?\"\n\n--\"Yes, they do.\"\n\n--\"But, if so, why is it that the remains of those demons are never\nfound?\"...\n\n--\"Their remains are found, O King.... The remains of bad demons can\nbe found in the form of worms and beetles and ants and snakes and\nscorpions and centipedes.\"...\n\n--_The Questions of King Milinda._\n\n\nI\n\nThere are moments in life when truths but dimly known before--beliefs\nfirst vaguely reached through multiple processes of reasoning--suddenly\nassume the vivid character of emotional convictions. Such an experience\ncame to me the other day, on the Suruga coast. While resting under\nthe pines that fringed the beach, something in the vital warmth\nand luminous peace of the hour--some quivering rapture of wind and\nlight--very strangely bestirred an old belief of mine: the belief that\nall being is One. One I felt myself to be with the thrilling of breeze\nand the racing of wave,--with every flutter of shadow and flicker of\nsun,--with the azure of sky and sea,--with the great green hush of the\nland. In some new and wonderful way I found myself assured that there\nnever could have been a beginning,--that there never could be an end.\nNevertheless, the ideas of the moment were not new: the novelty of the\nexperience was altogether in the peculiar intensity with which they\npresented themselves; making me feel that the flashing dragon-flies,\nand the long gray sand-crickets, and the shrilling s\u00e9mi overhead, and\nthe little red crabs astir under the roots of the pines, were all of\nthem brothers and sisters. I seemed to understand, as never before, how\nthe mystery that is called the Soul of me must have quickened in every\nform of past existence, and must as certainly continue to behold the\nsun, for other millions of summers, through eyes of other countless\nshapes of future being. And I tried to think the long slow thoughts of\nthe long gray crickets,--and the thoughts of the darting, shimmering\ndragonflies,--and the thoughts of the basking, trilling cicad\u00e6,--and\nthe thoughts of the wicked little crabs that lifted up their claws\nfrom between the roots of the pines.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nPresently I discovered myself wondering whether the consequence of\nsuch thoughts could have anything to do with the recombination of my\nsoul-dust in future spheres of existence. For thousands of years the\nEast has been teaching that what we think or do in this life really\ndecides,--through some inevitable formation of-atom-tendencies, or\npolarities,--the future place of our substance, and the future state\nof our sentiency. And the belief is worth thinking about--though no\namount of thinking can enable us either to confirm or to disprove it.\nVery possibly, like other Buddhist doctrines, it may adumbrate some\ncosmic truth; but its literal assertions I doubt, because I must doubt\nthe power ascribed to thought. By the whole infinite past I have been\nmoulded, within and without: how should the impulse of a moment reshape\nme against the weight of the eternities?... Buddhism indeed answers\nhow, and that astounding answer is irrefutable,--but I doubt....\n\nAnyhow, acts and thoughts, according to Buddhist doctrine, are\ncreative. Visible matter is made by acts and thoughts,--even the\nuniverse of stars, and all that has form and name, and all the\nconditions of existence. What we think or do is never for the moment\nonly, but for measureless time: it signifies some force directed to the\nshaping of worlds,--to the making of future bliss or pain. Remembering\nthis, we may raise ourselves to the zones of the Gods. Ignoring it, we\nmay deprive ourselves even of the right to be reborn among men, and may\ndoom ourselves, though innocent of the crimes that cause rebirth in\nhell, to re\u00ebnter existence in the form of animals, or of insects, or of\ngoblins,--_gaki_.[1]\n\nSo it depends upon ourselves whether we are to become insects or\ngoblins hereafter; and in the Buddhist system the difference between\ninsects and goblins is not so well defined as might be supposed. The\nbelief in a mysterious relation between ghosts and insects, or rather\nbetween spirits and insects, is a very ancient belief in the East,\nwhere it now assumes innumerable forms,--some unspeakably horrible,\nothers full of weird beauty.\n\n\"The White Moth\" of Mr. Quiller-Couch would not impress a Japanese\nreader as novel; for the night-moth or the butterfly figures in\nmany a Japanese poem and legend as the soul of a lost wife. The\nnight-cricket's thin lament is perhaps the sorrowing of a voice once\nhuman;--the strange red marks upon the heads of cicad\u00e6 are characters\nof spirit-names;--dragon-flies and grasshoppers are the horses of the\ndead. All these are to be pitied with the pity that is kin to love.\nBut the noxious and dangerous insects represent the results of another\nquality of karma,--that which produces goblins and demons. Grisly\nnames have been given to some of these insects,--as, for example,\n_Jigokumushi,_ or \"Hell-insect,\" to the ant-lion; and _Kappa-mushi_,\nto a gigantic water-beetle which seizes frogs and fish, and devours\nthem alive, thus realizing, in a microcosmic way, the hideous myth of\nthe _Kappa_, or River-goblin. Flies, on the other hand, are especially\nidentified with the world of hungry ghosts. How often, in the season of\nflies, have I heard some persecuted toiler exclaim, \"_Ky\u014d no hai wa,\ngaki no yo da ne?_\" (The flies to-day, how like gaki they are!)\n\n[Footnote 1: The word gaki is the Japanese Buddhist rendering of the\nSanscrit term \"preta,\" signifying a spirit in that circle or state of\ntorment called the World of Hungry Ghosts.]\n\n\nII\n\nIn the old Japanese, or, more correctly speaking, Chinese Buddhist\nliterature relating to the gaki, the Sanscrit names of the gaki are\ngiven in a majority of cases; but some classes of gaki described have\nonly Chinese names. As the Indian belief reached Japan by way of\nChina and Korea, it is likely to have received a peculiar colouring\nin the course of its journey. But, in a general way, the Japanese\nclassification of gaki corresponds closely to the Indian classification\nof the pretas.\n\nThe place of gaki in the Buddhist system is but one degree removed from\nthe region of the hells, or Jigokud\u014d,--the lowest of all the States\nof Existence. Above the Jigokud\u014d is the Gakid\u014d, or World of Hungry\nSpirits; above the Gakid\u014d is the Chikush\u014dd\u014d, or World of Animals; and\nabove this, again, is the Shurad\u014d, a region of perpetual fighting\nand slaughter. Higher than these is placed the Ningend\u014d, or World of\nMankind.\n\nNow a person released from hell, by exhaustion of the karma that sent\nhim there, is seldom reborn at once into the zone of human existence,\nbut must patiently work his way upward thither, through all the\nintermediate states of being. Many of the gaki have been in hell.\n\nBut there are gaki also who have not been in hell. Certain kinds or\ndegrees of sin may cause a person to be reborn as a gaki immediately\nafter having died in this world. Only the greatest degree of sin\ncondemns the sinner directly to hell. The second degree degrades him to\nthe Gakid\u014d. The third causes him to be reborn as an animal.\n\n*\n\nJapanese Buddhism recognizes thirty-six principal classes of gaki.\n\"Roughly counting,\" says the Sh\u014db\u014d-nen-j\u014d-ky\u014d, \"we find thirty-six\nclasses of gaki; but should we attempt to distinguish all the different\nvarieties, we should find them to be innumerable.\" The thirty-six\nclasses form two great divisions, or orders. One comprises all\n\"Gaki-World-dwellers\" (_Gaki-Sekai-Ju_);--that is to say, all Hungry\nSpirits who remain in the Gakid\u014d proper, and are, therefore, never seen\nby mankind. The other division is called Nin-ch\u016b-J\u016b, or \"Dwellers among\nmen\": these gaki remain always in this world, and are sometimes seen.\n\nThere is yet another classification of gaki, according to the character\nof their penitential torment. All gaki suffer hunger and thirst; but\nthere are three degrees of this suffering. The _Muzai-gaki_ represent\nthe first degree: they must hunger and thirst uninterruptedly, without\nobtaining any nourishment whatever. The _Sh\u014dzai-gaki_ suffer only in\nthe second degree: they are able to feed occasionally upon impure\nsubstances. The _Usai-gaki_ are more fortunate: they can eat such\nremains of food as are thrown away by men, and also the offerings of\nfood set before the images of the gods, or before the tablets of the\nancestors. The last two classes of gaki are especially interesting,\nbecause they are supposed to meddle with human affairs.\n\n*\n\nBefore modern science introduced exact knowledge of the nature and\ncause of certain diseases, Buddhists explained the symptoms of such\ndiseases by the hypothesis of gaki. Certain kinds of intermittent\nfever, for example, were said to be caused by a gaki entering the\nhuman body for the sake of nourishment and warmth. At first the\npatient would shiver with cold, because the gaki was cold. Then, as\nthe gaki gradually became warm, the chill would pass, to be succeeded\nby a burning heat. At last the satiated haunter would go away, and\nthe fever disappear; but upon another day, and usually at an hour\ncorresponding to that of the first attack, a second fit of ague would\nannounce the return of the gaki. Other zymotic disorders could be\nequally well explained as due to the action of gaki.\n\n*\n\nIn the Sh\u014db\u014d-nen-j\u014d-ky\u014d a majority of the thirty-six kinds of gaki are\nassociated with putrescence, disease, and death. Others are plainly\nidentified with insects. No particular kind of gaki is identified by\nname with any particular kind of insect; but the descriptions suggest\nconditions of insect-life; and such suggestions are re\u00ebnforced by a\nknowledge of popular superstitions. Perhaps the descriptions are vague\nin the case of such spirits as the _Jiki-ketsu-gaki_, or Blood-suckers;\nthe _Jiki-niku-gaki_, or Flesh-eaters; the _Jiki-da-gaki,_ or * * * * *\n*-eaters; the _Jiki-fun-gaki_, or * * * *-eaters; the _Jiki-doku-gaki_,\nor Poison-eaters; the Jiki-fu-gaki, or Wind-eaters; the Jiki-k\u00e9-gaki,\nor Smell-eaters; the _Jiki-kwa-gaki_, or Fire-eaters (perhaps they\nfly into lamps?); the _Shikk\u014d-gaki_, who devour corpses and cause\npestilence; the _Shinen-gaki_, who appear by night as wandering fires;\nthe _Shin-ko-gaki_, or Needle-mouthed; and the _Kwaku-shin-gaki_, or\nCauldron-bodied,--each a living furnace, filled with flame that keeps\nthe fluids of its body humming like a boiling pot. But the suggestion\nof the following excerpts[2] will not be found at all obscure:--\n\n*\n\n\"Jiki-man-gaki.--These gaki can live only by eating the wigs of false\nhair with which the statues of certain divinities are decorated....\nSuch will be the future condition of persons who steal objects of value\nfrom Buddhist temples.\n\n\"Fuj\u014d-ko-hyaku-gaki.--These gaki can eat only street filth and\nrefuse. Such a condition is the consequence of having given putrid or\nunwholesome food to priests or nuns, or pilgrims in need of alms.\n\n\"Cho-ken-ju-jiki-netsu-gaki.--These are the eaters of the refuse of\nfuneral-pyres and of the clay of graves.... They are the spirits of men\nwho despoiled Buddhist temples for the sake of gain.\n\n\"Ju-ch\u016b-gaki.--These spirits are born within the wood of trees, and\nare tormented by the growing of the grain. ... Their condition is\nthe result of having cut down shade-trees for the purpose of selling\nthe timber. Persons who cut down the trees in Buddhist cemeteries or\ntemple-grounds are especially likely to become ju-ch\u016b-gaki.\"[3]\n\nMoths, flies, beetles, grubs, worms, and other unpleasant creatures\nseem thus to be indicated. But some kinds of gaki cannot be identified\nwith insects,--for example, the species called Jiki-h\u014d-gaki, or\n\"Doctrine-eaters.\" These can exist only by hearing the preaching of\nthe Law of the Buddha in some temple. While they hear such preaching,\ntheir torment is assuaged; but at all other times they suffer\nagonies unspeakable. To this condition are liable after death all\nBuddhist priests or nuns who proclaim the law for the mere purpose\nof making money.... Also there are gaki who appear sometimes in\nbeautiful human shapes. Such are the _Yoku-shiki-gaki_, spirits of\nlewdness,--corresponding in some sort to the _incubi_ and _succubi_ of\nour own Middle Ages. They can change their sex at will, and can make\ntheir bodies as large or as small as they please. It is impossible to\nexclude them from any dwelling, except by the use of holy charms and\nspells, since they are able to pass through an orifice even smaller\nthan the eye of a needle. To seduce young men, they assume beautiful\nfeminine shapes,--often appearing at wine parties as waitresses or\ndancing girls. To seduce women they take the form of handsome lads.\nThis state of _Yoku-shiki-gaki_ is a consequence of lust in some\nprevious human existence; but the supernatural powers belonging to\ntheir condition are results of meritorious Karma which the evil Karma\ncould not wholly counterbalance.\n\nEven concerning the _Yoku-shiki-gaki_, however, it is plainly stated\nthat they may take the form of insects. Though wont to appear in human\nshape, they can assume the shape of any animal or other creature, and\n\"fly freely in all directions of space,\"--or keep their bodies \"so\nsmall that mankind cannot see them....\" All insects are not necessarily\ngaki; but most gaki can assume the form of insects when it serves their\npurpose.\n\n\n[Footnote 2: Abridged from the Sh\u014db\u014d-nen-j\u014d-Ky\u014d. A full translation of\nthe extraordinary chapter relating to the gaki would try the reader's\nnerves rather severely.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The following story of a tree-spirit is typical:--In\nthe garden of a Samurai named Satsuma Shichiza\u00ebmon, who lived in the\nvillage of Echigawa in the province of \u014cmi, there was a very old\n\u00e9noki. (The \u00e9noki, or \"Celtis chinensis,\" is commonly thought to be a\ngoblin-tree.) From ancient times the ancestors of the family had been\ncareful never to cut a branch of this tree or to remove any of its\nleaves. But Shichiza\u00ebmon, who was very self-willed, one day announced\nthat he intended to have the tree cut down. During the following\nnight a monstrous being appeared to the mother of Shichiza\u00ebmon, in a\ndream, and told her that if the inoki were cut down, every member of\nthe household should die. But when this warning was communicated to\nShichiza\u00ebmon, he only laughed; and he then sent a man to cut down the\ntree. No sooner had it been cut down than Shichiza\u00ebmon became violently\ninsane. For several days he remained furiously mad, crying out at\nintervals, \"The tree! the tree! the tree!\" He said that the tree put\nout its branches, like hands, to tear him. In this condition he died.\nSoon afterward his wife went mad, crying out that the tree was killing\nher; and she died screaming with fear. One after another, all the\npeople in that house, not excepting the servants, went mad and died.\nThe dwelling long remained unoccupied thereafter, no one daring even to\nenter the garden. At last it was remembered that before these things\nhappened a daughter of the Satsuma family had become a Buddhist nun,\nand that she was still living, under the name of Jikun, in a temple at\nYamashir\u014d. This nun was sent for; and by request of the villagers she\ntook up her residence in the house, where she continued to live until\nthe time of her death,--daily reciting a special service on behalf of\nthe spirit that had dwelt in the tree. From the time that she began to\nlive in the house the tree-spirit ceased to give trouble. This story is\nrelated on the authority of the priest Shungy\u014d, who said that he had\nheard it from the lips of the nun herself.]\n\n\nIII\n\nGrotesque as these beliefs now seem to us, it was not unnatural that\nancient Eastern fancy should associate insects with ghosts and devils.\nIn our visible world there are no other creatures so wonderful and so\nmysterious; and the true history of certain insects actually realizes\nthe dreams of mythology. To the minds of primitive men, the mere facts\nof insect-metamorphosis must have seemed uncanny; and what but goblinry\nor magic could account for the monstrous existence of beings so similar\nto dead leaves, or to flowers, or to joints of grass, that the keenest\nhuman sight could detect their presence only when they began to walk\nor to fly? Even for the entomologist of to-day, insects remain the\nmost incomprehensible of creatures. We have learned from him that they\nmust be acknowledged \"the most successful of organized beings\" in the\nbattle for existence;--that the delicacy and the complexity of their\nstructures surpass anything ever imagined of marvellous before the\nage of the microscope;--that their senses so far exceed our own in\nrefinement as to prove us deaf and blind by comparison. Nevertheless\nthe insect world remains a world of hopeless enigmas. Who can explain\nfor us the mystery of the eyes of a myriad facets, or the secret\nof the ocular brains connected with them? Do those astounding eyes\nperceive the ultimate structure of matter? does their vision pierce\nopacity, after the manner of the R\u00f6ntgen rays? (Or how interpret the\ndeadly aim of that ichneumon-fly which plunges its ovipositor through\nsolid wood to reach the grub embedded in the grain?) What, again, of\nthose marvellous ears in breasts and thighs and knees and feet,--ears\nthat hear sounds beyond the limit of human audition? and what of the\nmusical structures evolved to produce such fairy melody? What of the\nghostly feet that walk upon flowing water? What of the chemistry that\nkindles the firefly's lamp,--making the cold and beautiful light that\nall our electric science cannot imitate? And those newly discovered,\nincomparably delicate organs for which we have yet no name, because\nour wisest cannot decide the nature of them--do they really, as some\nwould suggest, keep the insect-mind informed of things unknown to human\nsense,--visibilities of magnetism, odours of light, tastes of sound?...\nEven the little that we have been able to learn about insects fills\nus with the wonder that is akin to fear. The lips that are hands,\nand the horns that are eyes, and the tongues that are drills; the\nmultiple devilish mouths that move in four ways at once; the living\nscissors and saws and boring-pumps and brace-bits; the exquisite elfish\nweapons which no human skill can copy, even in the finest watch-spring\nsteel--what superstition of old ever dreamed of sights like these?\nIndeed, all that nightmare ever conceived of faceless horror, and all\nthat ecstasy ever imagined of phantasmal pulchritude, can appear but\nvapid and void by comparison with the stupefying facts of entomology.\nBut there is something spectral, something alarming, in the very beauty\nof insects....\n\n\nIV\n\nWhether gaki do or do not exist, there is at least some shadowing of\ntruth in the Eastern belief that the dead become insects. Undoubtedly\nour human dust must help, over and over again for millions of ages,\nto build up numberless weird shapes of life. But as to that question\nof my revery under the pine trees,--whether present acts and thoughts\ncan have anything to do with the future distribution and requickening\nof that dust,--whether human conduct can of itself predetermine the\nshapes into which human atoms will be recast,--no reply is possible. I\ndoubt--but I do not know. Neither does anybody else.\n\n*\n\nSupposing, however, that the order of the universe were really as\nBuddhists believe, and that I knew myself foredoomed, by reason of\nstupidities in this existence, to live hereafter the life of an insect,\nI am not sure that the prospect would frighten me. There are insects\nof which it is difficult to think with equanimity; but the state of an\nindependent, highly organized, respectable insect could not be so very\nbad. I should even look forward, with some pleasurable curiosity, to\nany chance of viewing the world through the marvellous compound eyes\nof a beetle, an ephemera, or a dragon-fly. As an ephemera, indeed, I\nmight enjoy the possession of three different kinds of eyes, and the\npower to see colours now totally unimaginable. Estimated in degrees of\nhuman time, my life would be short,--a single summer day would include\nthe best part of it; but to ephemeral consciousness a few minutes would\nappear a season; and my one day of winged existence--barring possible\nmishaps--would be one unwearied joy of dancing in golden air. And I\ncould feel in my winged state neither hunger nor thirst,--having no\nreal mouth or stomach: I should be, in very truth, a Wind-eater. ...\nNor should I fear to enter upon the much less ethereal condition of a\ndragon-fly. I should then have to bear carnivorous hunger, and to hunt\na great deal; but even dragon-flies, after the fierce joy of the chase,\ncan indulge themselves in solitary meditation. Besides, what wings\nwould then be mine!--and what eyes!... I could pleasurably anticipate\neven the certainty of becoming an _Amemb\u014d_,[4] and so being able to run\nand to slide upon water--though children might catch me, and bite off\nmy long fine legs. But I think that I should better enjoy the existence\nof a s\u00e9mi,--a large and lazy cicada, basking on wind-rocked trees,\nsipping only dew, and singing from dawn till dusk.\n\nOf course there would be perils to encounter,--danger from hawks and\ncrows and sparrows,--danger from insects of prey--danger from bamboos\ntipped with birdlime by naughty little boys. But in every condition of\nlife there must be risks; and in spite of the risks, I imagine that\nAnacreon uttered little more than the truth, in his praise of the\ncicada: \"_O thou earth-horn,--song-loving,--free from pain>--having\nflesh without blood,--thou art nearly equal to the Gods!_\"... In fact I\nhave not been able to convince myself that it is really an inestimable\nprivilege to be reborn a human being. And if the thinking of this\nthought, and the act of writing it down, must inevitably affect my\nnext rebirth, then let me hope that the state to which I am destined\nwill not be worse than that of a cicada or of a dragon-fly;--climbing\nthe cryptomerias to clash my tiny cymbals in the sun,--or haunting,\nwith soundless flicker of amethyst and gold, some holy silence of\nlotos-pools.\n\n\n[Footnote 4: A water-insect, much resembling what we call a \"skater.\"\nIn some parts of the country it is said that the boy who wants to\nbecome a good swimmer must eat the legs of an _Amemb\u014d._]\n\n\n\n\nA Matter of Custom\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThere is a nice old priest of the Zen sect,--past-master in the craft\nof arranging flowers, and in other arts of the ancient time,--who comes\noccasionally to see me. He is loved by his congregation, though he\npreaches against many old-fashioned beliefs, and discourages all faith\nin omens and dreams, and tells people to believe only in the Law of the\nBuddha. Priests of the Zen persuasion are seldom thus sceptical. But\nthe scepticism of my friend is not absolute; for the last time that we\nmet we talked of the dead, and he told me something creepy. \"Stories of\nspirits or ghosts,\" he said, \"I always doubt. Sometimes a _danka_[1]\ncomes to tell me about having seen a ghost, or having dreamed a strange\ndream; but whenever I question such a person carefully, I find that\nthe matter can be explained in a natural way.\n\n\"Only once in my life I had a queer experience which I could not easily\nexplain. I was then in Ky\u016bsh\u016b,--a young novice; and I was performing my\ngy\u014d,--the pilgrimage that every novice has to make. One evening, while\ntravelling through a mountain-district, I reached a little village\nwhere there was a temple of the Zen sect. I went there to ask for\nlodging, according to our rules; but I found that the priest had gone\nto attend a funeral at a village several miles away, leaving an old nun\nin charge of the temple. The nun said that she could not receive me\nduring the absence of the priest, and that he would not come back for\nseven days.... In that part of the country, a priest was required by\ncustom to recite the s\u00fbtras and to perform a Buddhist service, every\nday for seven days, in the house of a dead parishioner.... I said that\nI did not want any food, but only a place to sleep: moreover I pleaded\nthat I was very tired, and at last the old nun took pity on me. She\nspread some quilts for me in the temple, near the altar; and I fell\nasleep almost as soon as I lay down. In the middle of the night--a\nvery cold night!--I was awakened by the tapping of a _mokugyo_[2] and\nthe voice of somebody chanting the _Nembutsu_[3], close to where I was\nlying. I opened my eyes; but the temple was utterly dark,--so dark that\nif a man had seized me by the nose I could not have seen him [_hana wo\ntsumar\u00e9t\u00e9 mo wakaranai_]; and I wondered that anybody should be tapping\nthe _mokugyo_ and chanting in such darkness. But, though the sounds\nseemed at first to be quite near me, they were somewhat faint; and I\ntried to persuade myself that I must have been mistaken,--that the\npriest had come back and was performing a service in some other part of\nthe temple. In spite of the tapping and chanting I fell asleep again,\nand slept until morning. Then, as soon as I had washed and dressed, I\nwent to look for the old nun, and found her. After thanking her for\nher kindness, I ventured to remark, 'So the priest came back last\nnight?' 'He did not,' she answered very crossly--'I told you that he\nwould not come back for seven days more.' 'Please pardon me,' I said;\nMast night I heard somebody chanting the _Nembutsu_, and beating the\n_mokugyo_, so I thought that the priest had come back.' 'Oh, that was\nnot the priest!' she exclaimed; 'that was the _danka._' 'Who?' I asked;\nfor I could not understand her. 'Why,' she replied, 'the dead man, of\ncourse![4] That always happens when a parishioner dies; the _hotok\u00e9_\ncomes to sound the _mokugyo_ and to repeat the _Nembutsu_ ...' She\nspoke as if she had been so long accustomed to the thing that it did\nnot seem to her worthwhile mentioning.\"\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _Danka_ or _dank\u00e9_ signifies the parishioner of a Buddhist\ntemple. Those who regularly contribute to the support of a Shint\u014d\ntemple are called _Ujiko_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The _mokugyo_ is a very curious musical instrument of\nwood, in the form of a fish's head, and is usually lacquered in red\nand gold. It is tapped with a stick during certain Buddhist chants or\nrecitations, producing a dull hollow sound.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The invocation to Amit\u00e2bha, _Namu Amida Butsu_ (\"Hail to\nthe Buddha Amit\u00e2bha!\"), commonly repeated on behalf of the dead, is\nthus popularly named.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The original expression was at least equally emphatic:\n\"_Aa, ar\u00e9 desuka?--ar\u00e9 wa botok\u00e9 ga kita no desu yo!_\" The word\n\"hotok\u00e9\" means either a Buddha or, as in this case, the spirit of a\ndead person.]\n\n\n\n\nRevery\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nIt has been said that men fear death much as the child cries at\nentering the world, being unable to know what loving hands are waiting\nto receive it. Certainly this comparison will not bear scientific\nexamination. But as a happy fancy it is beautiful, even for those to\nwhom it can make no religious appeal whatever,--those who must believe\nthat the individual mind dissolves with the body, and that an eternal\ncontinuance of personality could only prove an eternal misfortune.\nIt is beautiful, I think, because it suggests, in so intimate a way,\nthe hope that to larger knowledge the Absolute will reveal itself\nas mother-love made infinite. The imagining is Oriental rather than\nOccidental; yet it accords with a sentiment vaguely defined in most of\nour Western creeds. Through ancient grim conceptions of the Absolute as\nFather, there has gradually been infused some later and brighter dream\nof infinite tenderness--some all-transfiguring hope created by the\nmemory of Woman as Mother; and the more that races evolve toward higher\nthings, the more Feminine becomes their idea of a God.\n\nConversely, this suggestion must remind even the least believing that\nwe know of nothing else, in all the range of human experience, so\nsacred as mother-love,--nothing so well deserving the name of divine.\nMother-love alone could have enabled the delicate life of thought to\nunfold and to endure upon the rind of this wretched little planet:\nonly through that supreme unselfishness could the nobler emotions ever\nhave found strength to blossom in the brain of man;--only by help of\nmother-love could the higher forms of trust in the Unseen ever have\nbeen called into existence.\n\n*\n\nBut musings of this kind naturally lead us to ask ourselves emotional\nquestions about the mysteries of Whither and Whence. Must the\nevolutionist think of mother-love as a merely necessary result of\nmaterial affinities,--the attraction of the atom for the atom? Or can\nhe venture to assert, with ancient thinkers of the East, that all\natomic tendencies are shapen by one eternal moral law, and that some\nare in themselves divine, being manifestations of the Four Infinite\nFeelings?... What wisdom can decide for us? And of what avail to know\nour highest emotions divine,--since the race itself is doomed to\nperish? When mother-love shall have wrought its uttermost for humanity,\nwill not even that uttermost have been in vain?\n\n*\n\nAt first thought, indeed, the inevitable dissolution must appear the\nblackest of imaginable tragedies,--tragedy made infinite! Eventually\nour planet must die: its azure ghost of air will shrink and pass, its\nseas dry up, its very soil perish utterly, leaving only a universal\nwaste of sand and stone--the withered corpse of a world. Still for a\ntime this mummy will turn about the sun, but only as the dead moon\nwheels now across our nights,--one face forever in scorching blaze, the\nother in icy darkness. So will it circle, blank and bald as a skull;\nand like a skull will it bleach and crack and crumble, ever drawing\nnearer and yet more near to the face of its flaming parent, to vanish\nsuddenly at last in the cyclonic lightning of his breath. One by one\nthe remaining planets must follow. Then will the mighty star himself\nbegin to fail--to flicker with ghastly changing colours--to crimson\ntoward his death. And finally the monstrous fissured cinder of him,\nhurled into some colossal sun-pyre, will be dissipated into vapour more\ntenuous than the dream of the dream of a ghost....\n\nWhat, then, will have availed the labour of the life that was,--the\nlife effaced without one sign to mark the place of its disparition\nin the illimitable abyss? What, then, the worth of mother-love, the\nwhole dead world of human tenderness, with its sacrifices, hopes,\nmemories,--its divine delights and diviner pains,--its smiles and tears\nand sacred caresses,--its countless passionate prayers to countless\nvanished gods?\n\n*\n\nSuch doubts and fears do not trouble the thinker of the East. Us\nthey disturb chiefly because of old wrong habits of thought, and the\nconsequent blind fear of knowing that what we have so long called\nSoul belongs, not to Essence, but to Form.... Forms appear and vanish\nin perpetual succession; but the Essence alone is Real. Nothing\nreal can be lost, even in the dissipation of a million universes.\nUtter destruction, everlasting death,--all such terms of fear have\nno correspondence to any truth but the eternal law of change. Even\nforms can perish only as waves pass and break: they melt but to swell\nanew,--nothing can be lost....\n\nIn the nebulous haze of our dissolution will survive the essence of\nall that has ever been in human life,--the units of every existence\nthat was or is, with all their affinities, all their tendencies, all\ntheir inheritance of forces making for good or evil, all the powers\namassed through myriad generations, all energies that ever shaped the\nstrength of races;--and times innumerable will these again be orbed\ninto life and thought. Transmutations there may be; changes also made\nby augmentation or diminution of affinities, by subtraction or addition\nof tendencies; for the dust of us will then have been mingled with\nthe dust of other countless worlds and of their peoples. But nothing\nessential can be lost. We shall inevitably bequeath our part to the\nmaking of the future cosmos--to the substance out of which another\nintelligence will slowly be evolved. Even as we must have inherited\nsomething of our psychic being out of numberless worlds dissolved, so\nwill future humanities inherit, not from us alone, but from millions of\nplanets still existing.\n\nFor the vanishing of our world can represent, in the disparition of a\nuniverse, but one infinitesimal detail of the quenching of thought: the\npeopled spheres that must share our doom will exceed for multitude the\nvisible lights of heaven.\n\nYet those countless solar fires, with their viewless millions of\nliving planets, must somehow reappear: again the wondrous Cosmos,\nself-consumed, must resume its sidereal whirl over the deeps of the\neternities. And the love forever with rise again, infinitudes of the\neverlasting battle. The light of the mother's smile will survive\nour sun;--the thrill of her kiss will last beyond the thrilling of\nstars;--the sweetness of her lullaby will endure in the cradle-songs\nof worlds yet unevolved;--the tenderness of her faith will quicken the\nfervour of prayers to be made to the hosts of another heaven,--to the\ngods of a time beyond Time. And the nectar of her breasts can never\nfail: that snowy stream will still flow on, to nourish the life of some\nhumanity more perfect than our own, when the Milky Way that spans our\nnight shall have vanished forever out of Space.\n\n\n\n\nPathological\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nVery much do I love cats; and I suppose that I could write a large\nbook about the different cats which I have kept, in various climes and\ntimes, on both sides of the world. But this is not a Book of Cats; and\nI am writing about Tama for merely psychological reasons. She has been\nuttering, in her sleep beside my chair, a peculiar cry that touched\nme in a particular way. It is the cry that a cat makes only for her\nkittens,--a soft trilling coo,--a pure caress of tone. And I perceive\nthat her attitude, as she lies there on her side, is the attitude of\na cat holding something,--something freshly caught: the forepaws are\nstretched out as to grasp, and the pearly talons are playing.\n\n*\n\nWe call her Tama (\"Jewel\")--not because of her beauty, though she is\nbeautiful, but because Tama is a female name accorded by custom to\npet cats. She was a very small tortoise-shell kitten when she was\nfirst brought to me as a gift worth accepting,--a cat-of-three-colours\n(mik\u00e9-neko) being somewhat uncommon in Japan. In certain parts of the\ncountry such a cat is believed to be a luck-bringer, and gifted with\npower to frighten away goblins as well as rats. Tama is now two years\nold. I think that she has foreign blood in her veins: she is more\ngraceful and more slender than the ordinary Japanese cat; and she has a\nremarkably long tail, which, from a Japanese point of view, is her only\ndefect. Perhaps one of her ancestors came to Japan in some Dutch or\nSpanish ship during the time of Iy\u00e9yasu. But, from whatever ancestors\ndescended, Tama is quite a Japanese cat in her habits;--for example,\nshe eats rice!\n\n*\n\nThe first time that she had kittens, she proved herself an excellent\nmother,--devoting all her strength and intelligence to the care of her\nlittle ones, until, by dint of nursing them and moiling for them, she\nbecame piteously and ludicrously thin. She taught them how to keep\nclean,--how to play and jump and wrestle,--how to hunt. At first, of\ncourse, she gave them only her long tail to play with; but later she\nfound them other toys. She brought them not only rats and mice, but\nalso frogs, lizards, a bat, and one day a small lamprey, which she must\nhave managed to catch in a neighbouring rice-field. After dark I used\nto leave open for her a small window at the head of the stairs leading\nto my study,--in order that she might go out to hunt by way of the\nkitchen roof. And one night she brought in, through that window, a big\nstraw sandal for her kittens to play with. She found it in the field;\nand she must have carried it over a wooden fence ten feet high, up the\nhouse wall to the roof of the kitchen, and thence through the bars of\nthe little window to the stairway. There she and her kittens played\nboisterously with it till morning; and they dirtied the stairway,\nfor that sandal was muddy. Never was cat more fortunate in her first\nmaternal experience than Tama.\n\nBut the next time she was not fortunate. She had got into the habit of\nvisiting friends in another street, at a perilous distance; and one\nevening, while on her way thither, she was hurt by some brutal person.\nShe came back to us stupid and sick; and her kittens were born dead. I\nthought that she would die also; but she recovered much more quickly\nthan anybody could have imagined possible,--though she still remains,\nfor obvious reasons, troubled in spirit by the loss of the kittens.\n\n*\n\nThe memory of animals, in regard to certain forms of relative\nexperience, is strangely weak and dim. But the organic memory of\nthe animal,--the memory of experience accumulated through countless\nbillions of lives,--is superhumanly vivid, and very seldom at fault....\nThink of the astonishing skill with which a cat can restore the\nrespiration of her drowned kitten! Think of her untaught ability to\nface a dangerous enemy seen for the first time,--a venomous serpent,\nfor example! Think of her wide acquaintance with small creatures\nand their ways,--her medical knowledge of herbs,--her capacities of\nstrategy, whether for hunting or fighting! What she knows is really\nconsiderable; and she knows it all perfectly, or almost perfectly. But\nit is the knowledge of other existences. Her memory, as to the pains of\nthe present life, is mercifully brief.\n\n*\n\nTama could not clearly remember that her kittens were dead. She knew\nthat she ought to have had kittens; and she looked everywhere and\ncalled everywhere for them, long after they had been buried in the\ngarden. She complained a great deal to her friends; and she made me\nopen all the cupboards and closets,--over and over again,--to prove to\nher that the kittens were not in the house. At last she was able to\nconvince herself that it was useless to look for them any more. But she\nplays with them in dreams, and coos to them, and catches for them small\nshadowy things,--perhaps even brings to them, through some dim window\nof memory, a sandal of ghostly straw....\n\n\n\n\nIn the Dead of the Night\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nBlack, chill, and still,--so black, so still, that I touch myself to\nfind out whether I have yet a body. Then I grope about me to make sure\nthat I am not under the earth,--buried forever beyond the reach of\nlight and sound. .. . A clock strikes three! I shall see the sun again!\n\nOnce again, at least. Possibly several thousand times. But there will\ncome a night never to be broken by any dawn,--a stillness never to be\nbroken by any sound.\n\nThis is certain. As certain as the fact that I exist.\n\nNothing else is equally certain. Reason deludes; feeling deludes; all\nthe senses delude. But there is no delusion whatever in the certain\nknowledge of that night to come.\n\nDoubt the reality of substance, the reality of ghosts, the faiths\nof men, the gods;--doubt right and wrong, friendship and love, the\nexistence of beauty, the existence of horror;--there will always remain\none thing impossible to doubt,--one infinite blind black certainty.\n\nThe same darkness for all,--for the eyes of creatures and the eyes\nof heaven;--the same doom for all,--insect and man, ant-hill and\ncity, races and worlds, suns and galaxies: inevitable dissolution,\ndisparition, and oblivion.\n\nAnd vain all human striving not to remember, not to think: the\nVeil that old faiths wove, to hide the Void, has been rent forever\naway;--and Sheol is naked before us,--and destruction hath no covering.\n\nSo surely as I believe that I exist, even so surely must I believe that\nI shall cease to exist--which is horror!... But--\n\nMust I believe that I really exist?... In the moment of that\nself-questioning, the Darkness stood about me as a wall, and spake:--\n\n\"I am only the Shadow: I shall pass. But the Reality will come, and\nwill not pass.\n\n\"I am only the Shadow. In me there are lights,--the glimmering of a\nhundred millions of suns. And in me there are voices. With the coming\nof the Reality, there will be no more lights, nor any voice, nor any\nrising, nor any hope.\n\n\"But far above you there will still be sun for many a million\nyears,--and warmth and youth and love and joy.. .. Vast azure of\nsky and sea,--fragrance of summer bloom,--shrillings in grass and\ngrove,--flutter of shadows and flicker of light,--laughter of waters\nand laughter of girls. Blackness and silence for you,--and cold blind\ncreepings.\"\n\nI made reply:--\n\n\"Of thoughts like these I am now afraid. But that is only because I\nhave been startled out of sleep. When all my brain awakens, I shall\nnot be afraid. For this fear is brute fear only,--the deep and dim\nprimordial fear bequeathed me from the million ages of the life of\ninstinct.... Already it is passing. I can begin to think of death as\ndreamless rest,--a sleep with no sensation of either joy or pain.\"\n\nThe Darkness whispered:--\n\n\"What is sensation?\"\n\nAnd I could not answer, and the Gloom took weight, and pressed upon me,\nand said:--\n\n\"You do not know what is sensation? How, then, can you say whether\nthere will or will not be pain for the dust of you,--the molecules of\nyour body, the atoms of your soul?... Atoms--what are they?\"\n\nAgain I could make no answer, and the weight of the Gloom waxed\ngreater--a weight of pyramids--and the whisper hissed:--\n\n\"Their repulsions? their attractions? The awful clingings of them\nand the leapings?... What are these?... Passions of lives burnt\nout?--furies of insatiable desire?--frenzies of everlasting hate?\n--madnesses of never ending torment?... You do not know? But you say\nthat there will be no more pain!...\"\n\nThen I cried out to the mocker:--\"I am awake--awake--fully awake!\nI have ceased to fear;--I remember!... All that I am is all that I\nhave been. Before the beginnings of Time I was;--beyond the uttermost\ncircling of the Eternities I shall endure. In myriad million forms I\nbut seem to pass: as form I am only Wave; as essence I am Sea. Sea\nwithout shore I am;--and Doubt and Fear and Pain are but duskings\nthat fleet on the face of my depth.. .. Asleep, I behold the illusions\nof Time; but, waking, I know myself timeless: one with the Life that\nhas neither form yet also one begins and the grave and graves,--the\nthe eater of neither form nor name, yet also one with all that begins\nand ends,--even the grave and the maker of graves,--the corpse and the\neater of corpses....\"\n\n*\n\nA sparrow twittered from the roof; another responded. Shapes of things\nbegan to define in a soft gray glimmering;--and the gloom slowly\nlightened. Murmurs of the city's wakening came to my ears, and grew and\nmultiplied. And the dimness flushed.\n\nThen rose the beautiful and holy Sun, the mighty Quickener, the mighty\nPutrefier,--symbol sublime of that infinite Life whose forces are also\nmine!...\n\n\n\n\nKusa-Hibari\n\n\nIssun no mushi ni mo gobu no tamashii.--_Japanese Proverb._\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nHis cage is exactly two Japanese inches high and one inch and a half\nwide: its tiny wooden door, turning upon a pivot, will scarcely\nadmit the tip of my little finger. But he has plenty of room in that\ncage,--room to walk, and jump, and fly; for he is so small that you\nmust look very carefully through the brown-gauze sides of it in order\nto catch a glimpse of him. I have always to turn the cage round and\nround, several times, in a good light, before I can discover his\nwhereabouts; and then I usually find him resting in one of the upper\ncorners,--clinging, upside down, to his ceiling of gauze.\n\nImagine a cricket about the size of an ordinary mosquito,--with a\npair of antennae much longer than his own body, and so fine that\nyou can distinguish them only against the light. _Kusa-Hibari_, or\n\"Grass-Lark,\" is the Japanese name of him; and he is worth in the\nmarket exactly twelve cents: that is to say, very much more than his\nweight in gold. Twelve cents for such a gnat-like thing!...\n\nBy day he sleeps or meditates, except while occupied with the slice of\nfresh egg-plant or cucumber which must be poked into his cage every\nmorning. ... To keep him clean and well fed is somewhat troublesome:\ncould you see him, you would think it absurd to take any pains for the\nsake of a creature so ridiculously small.\n\nBut always at sunset the infinitesimal soul of him awakens: then\nthe room begins to fill with a delicate and ghostly music of\nindescribable sweetness,-a thin, thin silvery rippling and trilling as\nof tiniest electric bells. As the darkness deepens, the sound becomes\nsweeter,--sometimes swelling till the whole house seems to vibrate\nwith the elfish resonance,--sometimes thinning down into the faintest\nimaginable thread of a voice. But loud or low, it keeps a penetrating\nquality that is weird.... All night, the atomy thus sings: he ceases\nonly when the temple bell proclaims the hour of dawn.\n\n*\n\nNow this tiny song is a song of love,--vague love of the unseen and\nunknown. It is quite impossible that he should ever have seen or\nknown, in this present existence of his. Not even his ancestors, for\nmany generations back, could have known anything of the night-life\nof the fields, or the amorous value of song. They were born of eggs\nhatched in a jar of clay, in the shop of some insect-merchant; and they\ndwelt thereafter only in cages. But he sings the song of his race as it\nwas sung a myriad years ago, and as faultlessly as if he understood the\nexact significance of every note. Of course he did not learn the song.\nIt is a song of organic memory,--deep, dim memory of other quintillions\nof lives, when the ghost of him shrilled at night from the dewy grasses\nof the hills. Then that song brought him love--and death. He has\nforgotten all about death; but he remembers the love. And therefore he\nsings now--for the bride that will never come.\n\nSo that his longing is unconsciously retrospective: he cries to the\ndust of the past,--he calls to the silence and the gods for the return\nof time.... Human lovers do very much the same thing without knowing\nit. They call their illusion an Ideal; and their Ideal is, after all,\na mere shadowing of race-experience, a phantom of organic memory. The\nliving present has very little to do with it.... Perhaps this atomy\nalso has an ideal, or at least the rudiment of an ideal; but, in any\nevent, the tiny desire must utter its plaint in vain.\n\nThe fault is not altogether mine. I had been warned that if the\ncreature were mated, he would cease to sing and would speedily die.\nBut, night after night, the plaintive, sweet, unanswered trilling\ntouched me like a reproach,--became at last an obsession, an\naffliction, a torment of conscience; and I tried to buy a female.\nIt was too late in the season; there were no more kusa-hibari for\nsale,--either males or females. The insect-merchant laughed and said,\n\"He ought to have died about the twentieth day of the ninth month.\" (It\nwas already the second day of the tenth month.) But the insect-merchant\ndid not know that I have a good stove in my study, and keep the\ntemperature at above 75\u00b0 F. Wherefore my grass-lark still sings at\nthe close of the eleventh month, and I hope to keep him alive until\nthe Period of Greatest Cold. However, the rest of his generation are\nprobably dead: neither for love nor money could I now find him a mate.\nAnd were I to set him free in order that he might make the search for\nhimself, he could not possibly live through a single night, even if\nfortunate enough to escape by day the multitude of his natural enemies\nin the garden,--ants, centipedes, and ghastly earth-spiders.\n\n*\n\nLast evening--the twenty-ninth of the eleventh month--an odd feeling\ncame to me as I sat at my desk: a sense of emptiness in the room. Then\nI became aware that my grass-lark was silent, contrary to his wont. I\nwent to the silent cage, and found him lying dead beside a dried-up\nlump of egg-plant as gray and hard as a stone. Evidently he had not\nbeen fed for three or four days; but only the night before his death he\nhad been singing wonderfully,--so that I foolishly imagined him to be\nmore than usually contented. My student, Aki, who loves insects, used\nto feed him; but Aki had gone into the country for a week's holiday,\nand the duty of caring for the grass-lark had devolved upon Hana, the\nhousemaid. She is not sympathetic, Hana the housemaid. She says that\nshe did not forget the mite,--but there was no more egg-plant. And\nshe had never thought of substituting a slice of onion or of cucumber!\n... I spoke words of reproof to Hana the housemaid, and she dutifully\nexpressed contrition. But the fairy-music has stopped; and the\nstillness reproaches; and the room is cold, in spite of the stove.\n\n*\n\nAbsurd!... I have made a good girl unhappy because of an insect half\nthe size of a barley-grain! The quenching of that infinitesimal life\ntroubles me more than I could have believed possible. ... Of course,\nthe mere habit of thinking about a creature's wants--even the wants of\na cricket--may create, by insensible degrees, an imaginative interest,\nan attachment of which one becomes conscious only when the relation\nis broken. Besides, I had felt so much, in the hush of the night,\nthe charm of the delicate voice,--telling of one minute existence\ndependent upon my will and selfish pleasure, as upon the favour of a\ngod,--telling me also that the atom of ghost in the tiny cage, and\nthe atom of ghost within myself, were forever but one and the same in\nthe deeps of the Vast of being.... And then to think of the little\ncreature hungering and thirsting, night after night, and day after day,\nwhile the thoughts of his guardian deity were turned to the weaving of\ndreams!... How bravely, nevertheless, he sang on to the very end,--an\natrocious end, for he had eaten his own legs!... May the gods forgive\nus all,--especially Hana the housemaid!\n\nYet, after all, to devour one's own legs--for hunger is not the worst\nby that can happen to a being cursed with the gift of song. There are\nhuman crickets who must eat their own hearts in order to sing.\n\n\n\n\nThe Eater of Dreams\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n      Mijika-yo ya!\n    Baku no yum\u00e9 k\u016b\n      Hima mo nashi!\n\n--\"Alas! how short this night of ours! The Baku will not even have time\nto eat our dreams!\"--Old Japanese Love-song.\n\nThe name of the creature is Baku, or Shirokinakatsukami; and its\nparticular function is the eating of Dreams. It is variously\nrepresented and described. An ancient book in my possession states that\nthe male Baku has the body of a horse, the face of a lion, the trunk\nand tusks of an elephant, the forelock of a rhinoceros, the tail of a\ncow, and the feet of a tiger. The female Baku is said to differ greatly\nin shape from the male; but the difference is not clearly set forth. In\nthe time of the old Chinese learning, pictures of the Baku used to be\nhung up in Japanese houses, such pictures being supposed to exert the\nsame beneficent power as the creature itself. My ancient book contains\nthis legend about the custom:--\n\n\"In the _Sh\u014dsei-Roku_ it is declared that K\u014dtei, while hunting on the\nEastern coast, once met with a Baku having the body of an animal,\nbut speaking like a man. K\u014dtei said: 'Since the world is quiet and\nat peace, why should we still see goblins? If a Baku be needed to\nextinguish evil sprites, then it were better to have a picture of the\nBaku suspended to the wall of one's house. Thereafter, even though some\nevil Wonder should appear, it could do no harm.'\"\n\nThen there is given a long list of evil Wonders, and the signs of their\npresence:--\n\n\"When the Hen lays a soft egg, the demon's name is Taifu.\n\n\"When snakes appear entwined together, the demon's name is Jinzu.\n\n\"When dogs go with their ears turned back, the demon's name is Taiy\u014d.\n\n\"When the Fox speaks with the voice of a man, the demon's name is\nGwaish\u016b.\n\n\"When blood appears on the clothes of men, the demon's name is Y\u016bki.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\"_When the rice-pot speaks with a human voice, the demon's name is_\nKanjo.\n\n\"_When the dream of the night is an evil dream, the demon's name is_\nRingetsu....\"\n\nAnd the old book further observes: \"Whenever any such evil marvel\nhappens, let the name of the Baku be invoked: then the evil sprite will\nimmediately sink three feet under the ground.\"\n\n*\n\nBut on the subject of evil Wonders I do not feel qualified to\ndiscourse: it belongs to the unexplored and appalling world of Chinese\ndemonology, and it has really very little to do with the subject of the\nBaku in Japan. The Japanese Baku is commonly known only as the Eater\nof Dreams; and the most remarkable fact in relation to the cult of the\ncreature is that the Chinese character representing its name used to\nbe put in gold upon the lacquered wooden pillows of lords and princes.\nBy the virtue and power of this character on the pillow, the sleeper\nwas thought to be protected from evil dreams. It is rather difficult to\nfind such a pillow to-day: even pictures of the Baku (or \"Hakutaku,\" as\nit is sometimes called) have become very rare. But the old invocation\nto the Baku still survives in common parlance: Baku kura\u00eb! Baku\nkura\u00eb!--\"Devour, O Baku! devour my evil dream!\"... When you awake from\na nightmare, or from any unlucky dream, you should quickly repeat that\ninvocation three times;--then the Baku will eat the dream, and will\nchange the misfortune or the fear into good fortune and gladness.\n\n*\n\nIt was on a very sultry night, during the Period of Greatest Heat, that\nI last saw the Baku. I had just awakened out of misery; and the hour\nwas the Hour of the Ox; and the Baku came in through the window to ask,\n\"Have you anything for me to eat?\"\n\nI gratefully made answer:--\n\n\"Assuredly!... Listen, good Baku, to this dream of mine!--\n\n\"I was standing in some great white-walled room, where lamps were\nburning; but I cast no shadow on the naked floor of that room,--and\nthere, upon an iron bed, I saw my own dead body. How I had come to die,\nand when I had died, I could not remember. Women were sitting near the\nbed,--six or seven,--and I did not know any of them. They were neither\nyoung nor old, and all were dressed in black: watchers I took them to\nbe. They sat motionless and silent: there was no sound in the place;\nand I somehow felt that the hour was late.\n\n\"In the same moment I became aware of something nameless in the\natmosphere of the room,-a heaviness that weighed upon the will,--some\nviewless numbing power that was slowly growing. Then the watchers began\nto watch each other, stealthily; and I knew that they were afraid.\nSoundlessly one rose up, and left the room. Another followed; then\nanother. So, one by one, and lightly as shadows, they all went out. I\nwas left alone with the corpse of myself.\n\n\"The lamps still burned clearly; but the terror in the air was\nthickening. The watchers had stolen away almost as soon as they began\nto feel it. But I believed that there was yet time to escape;--I\nthought that I could safely delay a moment longer. A monstrous\ncuriosity obliged me to remain: I wanted to look at my own body,\nto examine it closely.... I approached it. I observed it. And I\nwondered--because it seemed to me very long,--unnaturally long....\n\n\"Then I thought that I saw one eyelid quiver. But the appearance of\nmotion might have been caused by the trembling of a lamp-flame. I\nstooped to look--slowly, and very cautiously, because I was afraid that\nthe eyes might open.\n\n\"'It is Myself,' I thought, as I bent down,--'and yet, it is growing\nqueer!'... The face appeared to be lengthening.... 'It is not Myself,'\nI thought again, as I stooped still lower,--'and yet, it cannot be any\nother!' And I became much more afraid, unspeakably afraid, that the\neyes would open....\n\n\"_They_ opened!--horribly they opened!--and that thing sprang,--sprang\nfrom the bed at me, and fastened upon me,--moaning, and gnawing, and\nrending! Oh! with what madness of terror did I strive against it! But\nthe eyes of it, and the moans of it, and the touch of it, sickened;\nand all my being seemed about to burst asunder in frenzy of loathing,\nwhen--I knew not how--\n\nI found in my hand an axe. And I struck with the axe;--I clove, I\ncrushed, I brayed the Moaner,--until there lay before me only a\nshapeless, hideous, reeking mass,--the abominable ruin of Myself....\n\n\"--_Baku kura\u00eb! Baku kura\u00eb! Baku kura\u00eb!_ Devour, O Baku! devour the\ndream!\" \"Nay!\" made answer the Baku. \"I never eat lucky dreams. That\nis a very lucky dream,--a most fortunate dream.... The axe--yes! the\nAxe of the Excellent Law, by which the monster of Self is utterly\ndestroyed!... The best kind of a dream! My friend, _I_ believe in the\nteaching of the Buddha.\"\n\nAnd the Baku went out of the window. I looked after him;--and I beheld\nhim fleeing over the miles of moonlit roofs,--passing, from house-top\nto house-top, with amazing soundless leaps,--like a great cat....","title":"Kotto: Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":35938}