Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things
maiden-daughter... We shall soon conduct you to the presence-chamber...
where His Augustness even now is waiting to receive you... But it will
be necessary that we first invest you... with the appropriate garments
of ceremony.”[2]
Having thus spoken, the attendants rose together, and proceeded to an
alcove containing a great chest of gold lacquer. They opened the chest,
and took from it various robes and girdles of rich material, and a
_kamuri_, or regal headdress. With these they attired Akinosuké as
befitted a princely bridegroom; and he was then conducted to the
presence-room, where he saw the Kokuō of Tokoyo seated upon the
_daiza_,[3] wearing a high black cap of state, and robed in robes of
yellow silk. Before the _daiza_, to left and right, a multitude of
dignitaries sat in rank, motionless and splendid as images in a temple;
and Akinosuké, advancing into their midst, saluted the king with the
triple prostration of usage. The king greeted him with gracious words,
and then said:—
“You have already been informed as to the reason of your having been
summoned to Our presence. We have decided that you shall become the
adopted husband of Our only daughter;—and the wedding ceremony shall
now be performed.”
As the king finished speaking, a sound of joyful music was heard; and a
long train of beautiful court ladies advanced from behind a curtain to
conduct Akinosuké to the room in which his bride awaited him.
The room was immense; but it could scarcely contain the multitude of
guests assembled to witness the wedding ceremony. All bowed down before
Akinosuké as he took his place, facing the King’s daughter, on the
kneeling-cushion prepared for him. As a maiden of heaven the bride
appeared to be; and her robes were beautiful as a summer sky. And the
marriage was performed amid great rejoicing.
Afterwards the pair were conducted to a suite of apartments that had
been prepared for them in another portion of the palace; and there they
received the congratulations of many noble persons, and wedding gifts
beyond counting.
Some days later Akinosuké was again summoned to the throne-room. On
this occasion he was received even more graciously than before; and the
King said to him:—
“In the southwestern part of Our dominion there is an island called
Raishū. We have now appointed you Governor of that island. You will
find the people loyal and docile; but their laws have not yet been
brought into proper accord with the laws of Tokoyo; and their customs
have not been properly regulated. We entrust you with the duty of
improving their social condition as far as may be possible; and We
desire that you shall rule them with kindness and wisdom. All
preparations necessary for your journey to Raishū have already been
made.”
So Akinosuké and his bride departed from the palace of Tokoyo,
accompanied to the shore by a great escort of nobles and officials; and
they embarked upon a ship of state provided by the king. And with
favoring winds they safety sailed to Raishū, and found the good people
of that island assembled upon the beach to welcome them.
Akinosuké entered at once upon his new duties; and they did not prove
to be hard. During the first three years of his governorship he was
occupied chiefly with the framing and the enactment of laws; but he had
wise counselors to help him, and he never found the work unpleasant.
When it was all finished, he had no active duties to perform, beyond
attending the rites and ceremonies ordained by ancient custom. The
country was so healthy and so fertile that sickness and want were
unknown; and the people were so good that no laws were ever broken. And
Akinosuké dwelt and ruled in Raishū for twenty years more,—making in
all twenty-three years of sojourn, during which no shadow of sorrow
traversed his life.
But in the twenty-fourth year of his governorship, a great misfortune
came upon him; for his wife, who had borne him seven children,—five
boys and two girls,—fell sick and died. She was buried, with high pomp,
on the summit of a beautiful hill in the district of Hanryōkō; and a
monument, exceedingly splendid, was placed upon her grave. But
Akinosuké felt such grief at her death that he no longer cared to live.
Now when the legal period of mourning was over, there came to Raishū,
from the Tokoyo palace, a _shisha_, or royal messenger. The _shisha_
delivered to Akinosuké a message of condolence, and then said to him:—
“These are the words which our august master, the King of Tokoyo,
commands that I repeat to you: ‘We will now send you back to your own
people and country. As for the seven children, they are the grandsons
and granddaughters of the King, and shall be fitly cared for. Do not,
therefore, allow your mind to be troubled concerning them.’”
On receiving this mandate, Akinosuké submissively prepared for his
departure. When all his affairs had been settled, and the ceremony of
bidding farewell to his counselors and trusted officials had been
concluded, he was escorted with much honor to the port. There he
embarked upon the ship sent for him; and the ship sailed out into the
blue sea, under the blue sky; and the shape of the island of Raishū
itself turned blue, and then turned grey, and then vanished forever...
And Akinosuké suddenly awoke—under the cedar-tree in his own garden!
For a moment he was stupefied and dazed. But he perceived his two
friends still seated near him,—drinking and chatting merrily. He stared
at them in a bewildered way, and cried aloud,—
“How strange!”
“Akinosuké must have been dreaming,” one of them exclaimed, with a
laugh. “What did you see, Akinosuké, that was strange?”
Then Akinosuké told his dream,—that dream of three-and-twenty years’
sojourn in the realm of Tokoyo, in the island of Raishū;—and they were
astonished, because he had really slept for no more than a few minutes.
One gōshi said:—
“Indeed, you saw strange things. We also saw something strange while
you were napping. A little yellow butterfly was fluttering over your
face for a moment or two; and we watched it. Then it alighted on the
ground beside you, close to the tree; and almost as soon as it alighted
there, a big, big ant came out of a hole and seized it and pulled it
down into the hole. Just before you woke up, we saw that very butterfly
come out of the hole again, and flutter over your face as before. And
then it suddenly disappeared: we do not know where it went.”
“Perhaps it was Akinosuké’s soul,” the other gōshi said;—“certainly I
thought I saw it fly into his mouth... But, even if that butterfly
_was_ Akinosuké’s soul, the fact would not explain his dream.”
“The ants might explain it,” returned the first speaker. “Ants are
queer beings—possibly goblins... Anyhow, there is a big ant’s nest
under that cedar-tree.”...
“Let us look!” cried Akinosuké, greatly moved by this suggestion. And
he went for a spade.
The ground about and beneath the cedar-tree proved to have been
excavated, in a most surprising way, by a prodigious colony of ants.
The ants had furthermore built inside their excavations; and their tiny
constructions of straw, clay, and stems bore an odd resemblance to
miniature towns. In the middle of a structure considerably larger than
the rest there was a marvelous swarming of small ants around the body
of one very big ant, which had yellowish wings and a long black head.
“Why, there is the King of my dream!” cried Akinosuké; “and there is
the palace of Tokoyo!... How extraordinary!... Raishū ought to lie
somewhere southwest of it—to the left of that big root... Yes!—here it
is!... How very strange! Now I am sure that I can find the mountain of
Hanryōkō, and the grave of the princess.”...
In the wreck of the nest he searched and searched, and at last
discovered a tiny mound, on the top of which was fixed a water-worn
pebble, in shape resembling a Buddhist monument. Underneath it he
found—embedded in clay—the dead body of a female ant.
RIKI-BAKA
His name was Riki, signifying Strength; but the people called him
Riki-the-Simple, or Riki-the-Fool,—“Riki-Baka,”—because he had been
born into perpetual childhood. For the same reason they were kind to
him,—even when he set a house on fire by putting a lighted match to a
mosquito-curtain, and clapped his hands for joy to see the blaze. At
sixteen years he was a tall, strong lad; but in mind he remained always
at the happy age of two, and therefore continued to play with very
small children. The bigger children of the neighborhood, from four to
seven years old, did not care to play with him, because he could not
learn their songs and games. His favorite toy was a broomstick, which
he used as a hobby-horse; and for hours at a time he would ride on that
broomstick, up and down the slope in front of my house, with amazing
peals of laughter. But at last he became troublesome by reason of his
noise; and I had to tell him that he must find another playground. He
bowed submissively, and then went off,—sorrowfully trailing his
broomstick behind him. Gentle at all times, and perfectly harmless if
allowed no chance to play with fire, he seldom gave anybody cause for
complaint. His relation to the life of our street was scarcely more
than that of a dog or a chicken; and when he finally disappeared, I did
not miss him. Months and months passed by before anything happened to
remind me of Riki.
“What has become of Riki?” I then asked the old woodcutter who supplies
our neighborhood with fuel. I remembered that Riki had often helped him
to carry his bundles.
“Riki-Baka?” answered the old man. “Ah, Riki is dead—poor fellow!...
Yes, he died nearly a year ago, very suddenly; the doctors said that he
had some disease of the brain. And there is a strange story now about
that poor Riki.
“When Riki died, his mother wrote his name, ‘Riki-Baka,’ in the palm of
his left hand,—putting ‘Riki’ in the Chinese character, and ‘Baka’ in
_kana_ (1). And she repeated many prayers for him,—prayers that he
might be reborn into some more happy condition.
“Now, about three months ago, in the honorable residence of
Nanigashi-Sama (2), in Kojimachi (3), a boy was born with characters on
the palm of his left hand; and the characters were quite plain to
read,—‘_RIKI-BAKA_’!
“So the people of that house knew that the birth must have happened in
answer to somebody’s prayer; and they caused inquiry to be made
everywhere. At last a vegetable-seller brought word to them that there
used to be a simple lad, called Riki-Baka, living in the Ushigomé
quarter, and that he had died during the last autumn; and they sent two
men-servants to look for the mother of Riki.
“Those servants found the mother of Riki, and told her what had
happened; and she was glad exceedingly—for that Nanigashi house is a
very rich and famous house. But the servants said that the family of
Nanigashi-Sama were very angry about the word ‘Baka’ on the child’s
hand. ‘And where is your Riki buried?’ the servants asked. ‘He is
buried in the cemetery of Zendōji,’ she told them. ‘Please to give us
some of the clay of his grave,’ they requested.
“So she went with them to the temple Zendōji, and showed them Riki’s
grave; and they took some of the grave-clay away with them, wrapped up
in a _furoshiki_[1]].... They gave Riki’s mother some money,—ten
yen.”... (4)
“But what did they want with that clay?” I inquired.
“Well,” the old man answered, “you know that it would not do to let the
child grow up with that name on his hand. And there is no other means
of removing characters that come in that way upon the body of a child:
_you must rub the skin with clay taken from the grave of the body of
the former birth_.”...
HI-MAWARI
On the wooded hill behind the house Robert and I are looking for