Part 9

“Dear Yone, whatever may happen, I cannot possibly keep myself from thinking about him! You know that you can get a hundred ryō to have the o-fuda taken off…. Only once more, I pray, dear Yone!—only once more bring me face to face with Hagiwara Sama,—I beseech you!” And hiding her face with her sleeve, she thus continued to plead.

“Oh! why will you ask me to do these things?” responded O-Yoné. “You know very well that I have no money. But since you will persist in this whim of yours, in spite of all that I can say, I suppose that I must try to find the money somehow, and to bring it here to-morrow night….” Then, turning to the faithless Tomozō, she said:—“Tomozō, I must tell you that Hagiwara Sama now wears upon his body a mamori called by the name of Kai-On-Nyōrai, and that so long as he wears it we cannot approach him. So you will have to get that mamori away from him, by some means or other, as well as to remove the o-fuda.”

Tomozō feebly made answer:—

“That also I can do, if you will promise to bring me the hundred ryō.”

“Well, mistress,” said O-Yoné, “you will wait,—will you not,—until to-morrow night?”

“Oh, dear Yoné!” sobbed the other,—“have we to go back to-night again without seeing Hagiwara Sama? Ah! it is cruel!”

And the shadow of the mistress, weeping, was led away by the shadow of the maid.

Another day went, and another night came, and the dead came with it. But this time no lamentation was heard without the house of Hagiwara; for the faithless servant found his reward at the Hour of the Ox, and removed the o-fuda. Moreover he had been able, while his master was at the bath, to steal from its case the golden mamori, and to substitute for it an image of copper; and he had buried the Kai-On-Nyōrai in a desolate field. So the visitants found nothing to oppose their entering. Veiling their faces with their sleeves they rose and passed, like a streaming of vapor, into the little window from over which the holy text had been torn away. But what happened thereafter within the house Tomozō never knew.

The sun was high before he ventured again to approach his master’s dwelling, and to knock upon the sliding-doors. For the first time in years he obtained no response; and the silence made him afraid. Repeatedly he called, and received no answer. Then, aided by O-Miné, he succeeded in effecting an entrance and making his way alone to the sleeping-room, where he called again in vain. He rolled back the rumbling shutters to admit the light; but still within the house there was no stir. At last he dared to lift a corner of the mosquito-net. But no sooner had he looked beneath than he fled from the house, with a cry of horror.

Shinzaburō was dead—hideously dead;—and his face was the face of a man who had died in the uttermost agony of fear;—and lying beside him in the bed were the bones of a woman! And the bones of the arms, and the bones of the hands, clung fast about his neck.

Hakuōdō Yusai, the fortune-teller, went to view the corpse at the prayer of the faithless Tomozō. The old man was terrified and astonished at the spectacle, but looked about him with a keen eye. He soon perceived that the o-fuda had been taken from the little window at the back of the house; and on searching the body of Shinzaburō, he discovered that the golden mamori had been taken from its wrapping, and a copper image of Fudō put in place of it. He suspected Tomozō of the theft; but the whole occurrence was so very extraordinary that he thought it prudent to consult with the priest Ryōseki before taking further action. Therefore, after having made a careful examination of the premises, he betook himself to the temple Shin-Banzui-In, as quickly as his aged limbs could bear him.

Ryōseki, without waiting to hear the purpose of the old man’s visit, at once invited him into a private apartment.

“You know that you are always welcome here,” said Ryōseki. “Please seat yourself at ease…. Well, I am sorry to tell you that Hagiwara Sama is dead.”

Yusai wonderingly exclaimed:—“Yes, he is dead;—but how did you learn of it?”

The priest responded:—

“Hagiwara Sama was suffering from the results of an evil karma; and his attendant was a bad man. What happened to Hagiwara Sama was unavoidable;—his destiny had been determined from a time long before his last birth. It will be better for you not to let your mind be troubled by this event.”

Yusai said:—

“I have heard that a priest of pure life may gain power to see into the future for a hundred years; but truly this is the first time in my existence that I have had proof of such power…. Still, there is another matter about which I am very anxious….”

“You mean,” interrupted Ryōseki, “the stealing of the holy mamori, the Kai-On-Nyōrai. But you must not give yourself any concern about that. The image has been buried in a field; and it will be found there and returned to me during the eighth month of the coming year. So please do not be anxious about it.”

More and more amazed, the old ninsomi ventured to observe:—

“I have studied the In-Yō, and the science of divination; and I make my living by telling peoples’ fortunes;—but I cannot possibly understand how you know these things.”

The Male and Female principles of the universe, the Active and Passive forces of Nature. Yusai refers here to the old Chinese nature-philosophy,—better known to Western readers by the name FENG-SHUI.

Ryōseki answered gravely:—

“Never mind how I happen to know them…. I now want to speak to you about Hagiwara’s funeral. The House of Hagiwara has its own family-cemetery, of course; but to bury him there would not be proper. He must be buried beside O-Tsuyu, the Lady Iijima; for his karma-relation to her was a very deep one. And it is but right that you should erect a tomb for him at your own cost, because you have been indebted to him for many favors.”

Thus it came to pass that Shinzaburō was buried beside O-Tsuyu, in the cemetery of Shin-Banzui-In, in Yanaka-no-Sasaki.

—Here ends the story of the Ghosts in the Romance of the Peony-Lantern.—

My friend asked me whether the story had interested me; and I answered by telling him that I wanted to go to the cemetery of Shin-Banzui-In,—so as to realize more definitely the local color of the author’s studies.

“I shall go with you at once,” he said. “But what did you think of the personages?”