Part 25

Shuntoku asked: "Why do you laugh? I am the son of a rich and well-famed man, Nobuyoshi of Kawachi. But because of a malediction invoked upon me by my wicked stepmother, I have become as you see me."

Then Otohime, a daughter of that family, hearing the voices, came out, and asked the maid: "Why did you laugh?"

The servant answered: "Oh, my lady, there was a blind man from Kawachi, who seemed about twenty years old, clinging to the pillar of the gate, and loudly crying, 'Alms! alms.'

"So I tried to give him some clean rice upon a tray; but when I held out the tray toward his right hand, he advanced his left; and when I held out the tray toward his left hand, he advanced his right: that was the reason I could not help laughing."

Hearing the maid explaining thus to the young lady, the blind man became angry, and said: "You have no right to despise strangers. I am the son of a rich and well-famed man in Kawachi, and I am called Shuntoku-maru."

Then the daughter of that house, Otohime, suddenly remembering him, also became quite angry, and said to the servant: "You must not laugh rudely. Laughing at others to-day, you might be laughed at yourself to-morrow."

But Otohime had been so startled that she could not help trembling a little, and, retiring to her room, she suddenly fainted away.

Then in the house all was confusion, and a doctor was summoned in great haste. But the girl, being quite unable to take any medicine, only became weaker and weaker.

Then many famous physicians were sent for; and they consulted together about Otohime; and they decided at last that her sickness had been caused only by some sudden sorrow.

So the mother said to her sick daughter "Tell me, without concealment, if you have any secret grief; and if there be anything you want, whatever it be, I will try to get it for you."

Otohime replied: "I am very much ashamed; but I shall tell you what I wish.

"The blind man who came here the other day was the son of a rich and well-famed citizen of Kawachi, called Nobuyoshi.

"At the time of the festival of Tenjin at Kitano in Kyoto, I met that young man there, on my way to the temple; and we then exchanged letters of love, pledging ourselves to each other.

"And therefore I very much wish that I may be allowed to travel in search of him, until I find him, wherever he may be."

The mother kindly made answer: "That, indeed, will be well. If you wish for a kago, you may have one; or if you would like to have a horse, you can have one.

"You can choose any servant you like to accompany you, and I can let you have as many koban as you desire."

Otohime answered: "Neither horse nor kago do I need, nor any servant; I need only the dress of a pilgrim,--leggings and gown,--and a mendicant's wallet."

For Otohime held it her duty to set out by herself all alone, just as Shuntoku had done.

So she left home, saying farewell to her parents, with eyes full of tears: scarcely could she find voice to utter the word "good-by."

Over mountains and mountains she passed, and again over mountains; hearing only the cries of wild deer and the sound of torrent-water.

Sometimes she would lose her way; sometimes she would pursue alone a steep and difficult path; always she journeyed sorrowing.

At last she saw before her--far, far away--the pine-tree called Kawama-matsu, and the two rocks called Ota(1); and when she saw those rocks, she thought of Shuntoku with love and hope.

Hastening on, she met five or six persona going to Kumano; and she asked them: "Have you not met on your way a blind youth, about sixteen years old?"

They made answer: "No, not yet; but should we meet him anywhere, we will tell him whatever you wish."

This reply greatly disappointed Otohime; and she began to think that all her efforts to find her lover might be in vain; and she became very sad.

At last she became so sad that she resolved not to try to find him in this world anymore, but to drown herself at once in the pool of Sawara, that she might be able to meet him in a future state.

She hurried there as fast as she could. And when she reached the pond, she fixed her pilgrim's staff in the ground, and hung her outer robe on a pine-tree, and threw away her wallet, and, loosening her hair, arranged it in the style called Shimada(2).

Then, having filled her sleeves with stones, she was about to leap into the water, when there appeared suddenly before her a venerable man of seemingly not less than eighty years, robed all in white, and bearing a tablet in his hand.