Four Japanese Tales/The Adventure of a Knight-errant
THE ADVENTURE OF A KNIGHT-ERRANT.
The limping old man looked searchingly at the pilgrim wrapped in a straw raincoat. The stranger’s garments Were not worth much, but his accent and his behavior were excellent; and when the wind blew apart his coat for an instant, the old man noticed two swords behind his belt, which designated him as a samurai. Doubtlessly he was a ronin, a “wave-man”, a povertystricken nobleman without a lord, a wandering adventurer; his face was trustwothy, the gaze of his eyes was clean and frank. Nevertheless they were sad eyes, probably having seen much grief, of their own and of other people.
The old man’s eyes lit up. He had an idea, a very good idea, but it seemed to him too soon to come out with it as yet. Oh, it was not for nothing that his hamlet had been contented with him for thirty years as its muraosa, or headman. Perhaps just now a new opportunity was offering itself for him to display his prudence to his people. Too long had his mura suffered from the Honorable Goblin Spider, but already several ronins had perished in the attempt to rid the ancient temple of its haunting specter, and so far this good man, though undoubtedly brave, had not shown enough interest to warrant a hope that such an adventure would lure him. It was necessary to arouse his curiosity, to awaken his attention.
And bowing profoundly, the old man began to talk, sucking in some syllables and breathing out others, and in every other way strictly adhering to the rules of etiquette, so that the errant samurai could not be offended by a single word or look.
Yes, it is still a good way to the village, a full hour; of course, the distance can be shortened considerably by going on the paths through the rice fields. The villagers, however, do not like this shorter route because it is necessary to cross the river on a plank from beneath which one can hear the Phantom Washerwoman count her pieces of laundry and break into weeping when she finds one missing. Of a sunny day it seems that it is only the currents bubbling and gurgling and breaking on the boulders: but if the day be cloudy, at twilight, or especially of a night, no one can question the reality of the voice counting the washed clothes and in the end bursting into desperate lamentation. There were many who even saw the Phantom Washer-woman; and several of them paid for their inquisitiveness in one way or another. For the Phantom Washer-woman takes vengeance on those who cross the plank singing gaily. Once a certain honorable samurai of the neighborhood purposely did not heed the advice given him by his carriers, and being somewhat exuberant after having imbibed too freely, he not only sang on his way across the bridge, but actually had his sedan-chair stop in the middle of the plank, and sneered at the Phantom Washer-woman, adding the names of ludicrous objects to the names of the numbers as she recited them and finally mimicking her wails. Nothing happened, and he covered also his carriers and guides with biting ridicule. But when they were nearing home a comely maiden stepped into their way and handed the samurai a bamboo casket, with the alleged message of her mistress “that his good humor return whenever he looked at her present”. She made an obeissance and disappeared among the camellia bushes; and opening the casket, the samurai found the bloody and mutilated head of a little child. Dark forebodings came over him, and jumping out of the kago he hurried home to his family only to find there the headless body of his youngest son. The Phantom Washerwoman had revenged herself . . .
“Sitting in a kago (a sedan) does not entitle anyone to irritate kage (shades, superhuman powers)”, gravely observed the ronin, and the old man repeated this pun in his mind so that he could flaunt it on occasion. It was clear to him that this “wave-man” was a wise and discrete person; and it pleased him that he was not altogether uninquisitive. For in the next moment he asked why the Phantom Washerwoman counted her pieces of laundry and always burst into lamentations when she reached the number seventeen.
»She used to wash for the household of a rich yeoman,« he explained obligingly,« and most likely once some valuable piece was carried away by the current, or stolen by the treacherous ghost-fox. And because for former smaller losses she had suffered humilation at the hands of the cruel yeoman, she was overwhelmed with fear, counted her pieces again and again, and not being able to find the missing one, in the end threw herself into the river. Her body was mangled among the boulders just under the bridge. And because her own life had dragged by too gloomily for her to sing at her work, the Phantom Washerwoman’s hatred pursued all who ever enraged her with their singing.«
The ronin shook his head, setting upon his way again. »Hatred cannot be uprooted by hatred, but by love, our Master said, and if we do not react against an evil deed with hate, exactly so much evil will disappear forever from this transitory, wretched world.« His voice, however, sounded somewhat uncertain, and the old man, who limped along at his side, looked at him with a hurried, furtive sidelong glance. The countenance of the ronin, which life had furrowed with many wrinkles, was like a forest tarn: calm, but no one could tell what lay concealed on the bottom of his soul. »It is sinful even to entertain evil and hateful thoughts,« he continued in a moment, gazing vacantly ahead of him, »for we never know how far our hatred may reach and of what it is capable. It is not wise to be careless regarding thoughts. If they are thought persistently and strongly, they become embodied; and it takes a long time for any Thought to die. The world is full of Thoughts, good and bad, foolish and wise, valuable and useless. We live in the midst of innumerable influences and effects. Some thoughts are already mere phantoms. As for the unfortunate washerwoman, she envied people their gaiety, and her envy outlived her. Because of her envy she was chained so firmly to her karma that she could not disengage herself from her form in this incarnation and become embodied anew to continue on her pilgrimage to the Higher Worlds and Heavens. Only on the ship of the Good Law should one approach the Shore of Death and Incarnation.« And he sighed, as if from the depths of some hidden old grief.
The old man was surprised at this eloquence, which would have better become a wandering monk than a man of two swords; and doubts assailed him as to whether this ronin were a person to his liking, capable of fulfilling his hopes, »Not every one carries these exalted precepts in his mind, the less in his heart,« he interposed out of politeness, so as to show interest in the conversation. And sorrowfully his eyes roved to the grove on the hill, around which the road wound its way to the village, as yet invisible. There was the haunted temple; and he was preparing to lead the conversation from the Phantom Washerwoman to the Goblin Spider and to another way over the hill through a wild bamboo thicket around a deserted monastery and down immediately into the middle of the village. He had had everything planned so nicelly, but the ronin spoiled it all for him with this moralizing. The crippled old man sighed likewise, but from the depths of a fresh disappointment, which was reflected in his physiognomy and voice.
The ronin thoughtfully assented. »That is so: very few of us endeavor with all our might to approach perfection. It is easy to condemn the poor washerwoman for her envy which even after her death remained in this world, taking her form for its own. But who knows whether at the bottom of my heart there does not lie a hundred times greater anger . . . an anger that is driving me forever over the world from place to place?« His eyes flashed and he gnashed his teeth.« Yes, such is my case. But what can you look for in a ronin but blows of fate that peradventure did not yet cease to hurt! Do not be too much disappointed with my dishonorable worthlessness.«
Odjisan, however, lifted his head once more; his eyes brightened and quickened. It seemed that after all more could be expected from this ronin than monkish preaching. Oh, we all have our wounds, he remarked; but not all of us have the opportunity to heal them by forgetting, like honorable ronins, who roam all over the country, see many things and live through exciting adventures. And pleading his advanced age in excuse of his curiosity, he asked him what had befallen him that was so terrible.
Perhaphs the ronin was just in the mood to open his heart to somebody; or mayhap the great and holy peace that enveloped the coutryside, ripening for harvest, loosened his habit of reserve. »What happened to me was awful.« he said in a changed voice, and the old man noticed that beads of perspiration gathered upon his brow. »I revolted against priestly power; the abbot of a Buddhist monastery intrigued against my daimyo, and at the same time deluded him with honeyed words; he incensed the powerful and generous daimyo against us, his courtiers and vassals; he attained an ever stronger hold over the populace. Our daimyo finally shaved his head and entered an order, relinquishing his estates in favor of the monastery. We made an attempt to save our lord from the treachery, but it was too late. My family was put to death and I fled as an outlaw . . . But in the end the abbot overreached himself, trying to instigate an elaborate plot against neighboring daimyos. They united against him, routed his forces, and he barely escaped with his life. It is not known with certainty where he took refuge; but doli ever it was, my hatred surely followed him there. And therefore I remained a ronin, though I could have returned into the service of my daimyo. What kind of a life could I have led in a country where everything reminded me only of my lost family, my lost happiness? My hartred would have grown, but I wished to subdue and overcome it. That is why I am a ronin. I wish to walk away and think down my hatred. I see a great deal of suffering and many wrongs in the world, and wherever I can, I help sufferers and avenge wrongs like a man. I see also much good and kindness, and with each little bit my hatred grows smaller. I think that it is almost worn out; but there are still moments when suddenly it swells within me and shrieks . . .«
The old man could no longer restrain himself. »Honorable sir . . . would you care to acquire merit by a noble deed?« he interrupted the ronin, so excited that he stuttered.« Yes, a noble deed. A road shorter than this one leads, look, yonder over the hill that we see above us . . . that is, a road to our village. They are grateful folks, my villagers. That is, my unworthiness happens to be the muraosa, the headman. Oh, forgive me for mentioning such an insignificant detail. But it occured to me . . . Yes, when I was telling you about the Phantom Washerwoman it occured to me that I might also call your honorable attention to the Goblin Spider. It is an awful specter. But the path that leads past the temple saves much time. Over yonder it branches off. We do not have to cross the river. We shall come down directly into the village. Nobody uses the path, the people are afraid. But it is not necessary to go close to the temple. That is, your honor can go, if it pleases you . . .«
The ronin smiled almost imperceptibly at the old man’s excitement and his transparent devise. »As for your Goblin Spider, I have never heard of it. A Buddhistic temple is haunted . . . you say? Deign to stoop to my ignorance and enlighten it. How long has the Goblin haunted the temple?«
The lame old man stopped questioningly at the parting of the ways, and when the ronin nodded silently, set out upon the path contentedly. »Twenty years ago a new abbot came to the monastery, but with him also misfortune. Bonze after bonze left the temple, many of them ran away on dark nights, and in the end the abbot alone remained. Nobody in all the country around went any more to pray in the church; for whenever anyone prayed for anything in this temple, the opposite was sure to happen. But the abbot was a hard man; he stayed that he might combat the specter that was ruining the reputation of the temple. In the end he was overcome; they found him entangled like a fly in an awful cobweb . . . and without a drop of blood. He was dead and sucked dry by the Goblin Spider. Thus it was and not otherwise. We thought that after the abbot’s death the specter would desert the temple; but it stayed on, and its hatred was shifted on to us, to our village . . . Great is the harm it does us, and many the ways in which we have tried to get rid of it . . . All in vain. Our youths have gone against it, and more than one ronin. But nobody who dares to pass the night in the temple ever comes out alive and sound. Many came to harm even in broad dalylight in the temple or on its grounds. It happened that at night pilgrims allowed themselves to be lured by the lights that always burn in the church, and paid with their lives for their mistake. Some of the villagers, near the temple in broad daylight, caught sight of a beautiful geysha in a gaily-colored robe and with golden hairpins in her lustrous, high coiffure; she walked mincingly to the temple and on its steps turned and smiled at them; thereupon they noticed with amazement that she did not touch the ground with her feet, but floated like a spirit, in a vapor of the colors of mother-of-pearl. Others, again, saw a weeping maiden with hair loosened, kneeling before the church and praying fervently; but when they had gone around her, they saw to their horror that she had but half a body and half a face, and that her hair was a tangled cobweb, full of small blue and black flies. And they fled.«
The ronin appeared to wonder at some of the circumstances. »Twenty years ago,« he muttered in thought. »And this specter can be seen in the daytime! That is most strange, for as is well known, the Shi-ryo or ghosts of the dead haunt only at night. Between two and three in the morning is their hour. But this Goblin Spider is no ordinary specter. And is it still so fierce?
The villager seemed somewhat embarrassed. »We make sacrifices to it, so as to propitiate it. Perhaps that is why it is milder now. For three years already it has not slain anyone, but the smaller misfortunes which continually are befalling our village are certainly his work. Here we may still talk about it; but when we come to yonder group of bushes and trees, it will be best to keep silent about the Goblin Spider. Its rage would pursue us if we were to malign it on its own premises. Of course, it would be something else if . . .« And he broke off eloquently.
The knight errant, however, understod. »If I offered to undertake fighting the specter and overcame it, you wish to say? Well, I shall try to acquire this merit. To night I shall stay in the haunted temple. It is still about two hours before sundown. Therefore we shall come to the deserted monastery in more than plenty of time.«
Thereupon, however, the old muraosa took pity on the good ronin, and began to persuade him to abandon his rash project. »The responsibility for your death would weigh heavily upon me,« he objected, »for you still have an important task before you: to appease your hatred. If you do not care to give up this insane idea for your own sake, do so for mine.«
But the ronin was a man of his word and not of words. He was, silent, peering from under bushy eyebrows straight before him, and Odjisan finally held his pace, knowing that his objections were useless and his persuasions vain. They walked one beside the other, and the sweet voice of the chirping se mi accompanied them. They passed the group of bushes and trees, before long were plunged in the shade of a wood, and finally caught sight of the tile roof of the temple, peeping out above the bamboo thicket.
»In the course of those years the garden ran wild,« whispered the muraosa. »As for me, I am superfluous here. In this jungle I could not find the way.«
The ronin stopped before a spot to which no longer penetrated the rays of the sun, hanging low in the western horizon.
»As for the entrance to the temple yard, I shall find it myself,« he said in an even voice. »Let your honor continue on the way home in peace and quiet. Is it possible to hear the temple bell distinctly in the village?«
Still more quietly the old man responded: »Not only the bell but also the big drum of the main temple can be heard in the village. Only we have not heard either for a long time.«
The ronin smiled:
»Be good enough, you and your people, to listen early in the morning, and if you will hear the sound of the drum, be sure I am well and alive and that your village has been delivered from the Goblin-Spider once and forever.«
The old man took fright at these words uttered in a loud voice, hastened to bow himself away and hobbled at a lively pace out from the immediate nearness of the temple. In a few moments he disappeared in the wood. And the ronin, left alone on the glade divided into dying light and growing shadow, for a long, long time stood motionless, plunged in thought, and then set about searching for the path, overgrown and hidden somewhere in the bamboo thicket.
***
It was gloaming, and at the slightest movement of a bamboo twig it looked as if a spider were gliding down to the ground. The dusk blended the outlines of things, over which there seemed to slip an insidious cobweb. Immense shadows lay here and there; a boulder beneath a widespread pine might have been a spider’s body, and the bulging roots its phantom legs; in places there were black tarns of darkness.
The ronin, however, did not mind these weird shadows, being engaged in seeking the path by which he could penetrate to the yard of the temple. Only now it occurred to him that he should have asked the old man to bring him a lantern; but when at length he found the way he saw that it would have been superfluous. For through the bushes and the bamboo there beckoned a flickering, uncanny light, hung in the temple court-yard. He took down the lantern, and looking neither to the left nor to the right, made directly for the main altar. His steps had been muffled by grass when he was crossing the yard; but although he had on straw sandals, just as soon as he reached the wooden stairs he heard his hollow footfalls reverberating in all the nooks and crannies of the court and temple. The staircase was old and warped, and crackled with a hundred strange voices and whispers; it seemed as if from everywhere malicious imps were snickering at him. Even the pillars moaned as if warningly, and it would not have taken an unusually experienced ronin to discern at once that this was in truth a haunted temple. But the knight knew no fear and did no stop; for that matter, his thoughts were only partly aware of his surroundings, being mostly somewhere in the past, twenty years distant. »And the new abbot came here twenty years, ago,« he whispered absently. »How strange, how very strange!«
He entered the temple and sat down directly beneath the altar, on which a bedusted Shaka Muni, with his hand raised in blessing, reposed on a lotos flower. A thousand cobwebs were hung all around, even on the smile of the dreaming Buddha; they were extended in many layers, one above the other, and from below it looked as if clouds had congealed above the ronin’s head in the dusk of the eaves. But whereas the cobwebs entwining the saint differed in no respect from the product of ordinary spiders, the silky tissue of the net everywhere else in the temple was iridescent with magnificently glittering hues.
»Only a good spider dares to approach Shaka Muni, who is supreme good,« the ronin said to himself. »It is easy to see that the rest of the cobwebs are the vain work of the Goblin Spider.«
And because he knew that in the beauty of evil only evil again is hidden, he turned aside his gaze from the pearly shimmer of those phantom cobwebs and cast his eyes on the floor, thinking good and clean thoughts. And the resplendent, vividly colored cobwebs vanished.
He was satisfied with himself when he noted this but further he saw nothing out of the ordinary, nor did he hear any suspicious sound; not until midnight. Then suddenly there appeared before him a specter having only half a face, one eye, one hand, one foot, and flowing hair that was naught but a tangled cobweb. And when it was very near the phantom kneeled down and seated itself halfheartedly on its single foot, saying in a squeaky voice, with its half of a mouth:
»Hitokusai!« Which means something like: »I smell a man.« And the ronin realized that thus exactly had squeaked the old stairway by which he had mounted into this temple, chosen as a lair by this foul spirit.
He was brave, and the hand he held on the grip of his sword did not tremble. But he did not budge or utter a word. And the ghost vanished as soundlessly as it had made its appearance.
Then came a bonsan with a polished head and a pleasant smile on his well-fed face. He bowed, seated himself opposite the ronin and began to play on a samisen. Never before had the samurai heard such enchanting and wonderful music. The strings of the samisen sighed beneath the ivory plectrum so silkily and so sweetly that the ronin’s eyes began to close. It seemed to him that he could fall into a most delicious slumber with his head resting in his hand. Visions of his former happiness evolved before his mind’s eye, and after long years he again beheld dear faces with great distinctness, he beheld his wife and children, who had died a cruel death at the hand of the tyrannical monk. His wife’s voice seemed to sound from the strings of the samisen, . . . the voice that once had whispered words of tenderness and devotion to him. Dampness gathered under the lashes of the haggard ronin, and in time with that seductive melody his head began to nod to and fro; the gratifying visions became still more gratifying, and it began to seem to him that more than twenty years was but a dreary dream, and that this was reality, that he was young again and enveloped in the love of his family. Then suddenly he tore himself out of his intoxication and with a greath leap jumped up from the floor, at the same instant drawing his sword. For he comprehended that a cruel pitfall had been prepared for him, that he had fallen victim to hallucinations, and that such dulcet music could not issue from beneath human fingers.
But the priest burst into boisterous, goodnatured merriment. »Oh hoho, oh, ho . . . you thought I am a ghost!« he laughed. »Not in the least, you are mistaken, honorable sir! I am only the wretched, hard-tried bonsan of this temple and I play to drive away evil spirits. Does my music sound at all uncanny to you?« This voice sounded strangely familiar to the ronin, and his heart was heavy in his bosom. »Does not this samisen sound extremely well?« continued the priest persuasively. »Could a specter venture into the magic circle of sweet sounds?«
The ronin sat down anew, half-shamefacedly peering from beneath his shaggy eyebrows at the mysterious bonsan. He wished to weigh his situation and all the circumstances of this incident, but his thoughts were confused, and as soon as the dreamy sounds began to float quietly from the samisen, again the visions became alive in his imagination, and his heart ached. These visions were reality before the evil, terrible abbot destroyed his happiness forever . . . His bosom heaved with a sigh, his face became livid. Oh, how he used to hate the priest who in the name of the gods had heaped crime upon crime . . . However, now his hatred bowed its head and became contrite; it changed to pity . . . There still would come moments when his soul would be embittered, when his thoughts would suddenly jumble in his head, when a red mist would be whirled by a burning wind before his dry, parchingly dry eyes . . But so it is with all people: from pity to hate is a mere step . . . The ronin, however, resolved never again in this wasted, wretched, expiating existence to take this step. At that moment the bonsan leaned towards him, and his voice sounded ingratiating. »Deign, honorable sir, to condescend to try the excellent tone of my samisen yourself!« he said, handing him his musical instrument.
Involuntarily the ronin extended his left hand; but at that instant his smile congealed on his face. For in the bonze’s countenance there came to pass a terrifying change, rapidly and still dilatorily, violently and still of its own accord. Whose were those sticky features? Whose that suave and penetrating look? Whose that smile? And recognizing his greatest enemy, who had put his wife and children to death, the knight errant summoned all the strength of his soul to supress the desire to jump up and kill this wretch. He smiled painfully, and with that smile bis bosom was relieved, his eyes cleared, his heart thawed. He bowed, thanked formally and with his extended left hand accepted the proffered samisen.
No sooner had he touched it than the samisen was transformed into a phantom cobweb and the bonsan into the Goblin Spider, into a hideous monster, here hairy and there slimily bare, but sparkling all over with the colors of mother-of pearl like a rotting puddle. Its long legs were terminated by frightful claws, each one resembling a different instrument of torture. All this the ronin took in at a single glance, but he was alarmed by nothing, notwithstanding that his left hand was entagled in the web to such a degree that he could not use it. »A fly caught in a spiderweb struggles and dies,« he said to himself, and assumed a defensive position, avoiding violent movements, jerks, and sweeps. His opponent was a skilful fighter, and his attacks were adroit and clever; but it seemed to the ronin that he could figure them out in advance and that he felt instinctively the direction from which each came. He combated the furious fiend heroically and inflicted upon it many a grievous wound with his sword; for his right hand was entirely free and his left helped at least in guarding. Nevertheless he himself suffered more than one wound, and in the heat of combat becoming careless, finally was so bound up in the cobweb that upon being thrown to the ground he could not rise again.
He fell, however, under the blessing hand of Buddha, and the Goblin Spider did not seem to have enough strength to continue the fight. With wideopen eyes the ronin observed it as wading in its own blood it crawled out of the temple. With every movement it left on the floor a bloody imprint of its body and feet; and its blood was purple. The lights went out and the ronin, feeling extraordinarily at ease though physically bound, fell into a deep sleep, in which he dreamt that he had attained his end and worn out the anger in his heart.
The sun arose and the birds started to sing in the temple garden, where for long years no bird’s song had resounded. The knight recovered from his stupor and looked around the interior of the temple in wonder, recalling the happenings of the foregoing afternoon and night one after the other. He did not command a complete view of the space in the middle of which he was lying, being so much entangled in that ghostly net that he could hardly raise his head to look at the big drum by the side of the altar. It was out of the question: for him to beat upon it; but without the signal agreed upon the villagers would never venture even to the spot to which the loquacious muraosa had escorted him, much less through the thickets to the yard, unseen by human eyes for three years. Without that signal he would be condemned to a slow and horrible death of hunger, thirst, and loss of blood; and only at this thought did the ronin notice that the blood long since pad ceased to flow from his wounds, which under the cobwebs had not only closed, but even healed. Only small scars remained after them, and they looked like a text of the sacred sutras. The ronin allowed his weary head to sink again to the floor, and raised his eyes to the blessing Shaka Muni. It seemed to him that the statue was smiling graciously at him, and feeling a great calm and extraordinary content in his heart, he resigned himself to his ingwa. Happen what would, one thing was sure: his soul was entirely free of the hatred that formerly had blinded him, which for years he had endeavored to drive out of his heart. His features were composed, his glance clean and bright.
Thereupon immense beautiful butterflies appeared in the temple, gilded by the morning sun, and whenever one of them in his flight hit the drum, it resounded deeply. And their swarming seemed to form the noble strokes of ideographs in which the reclining knight read the renowned kyó or sutra about love and forgiveness, about the nothingness of all things and the vanity of illusions . . . .
Thus the villagers found him: smiling and gazing somewhere beyond visible things into other and more perfect worlds. They found him entangled in awful cobwebs; but when, putting aside their useless weapons, they set about liberating him, they discovered that the phantom tissue vanished like mist before the sun, hardly was it separated from the ronin’s body.
»But who beat the drum?« they asked in amazement, after hearing the ronin’s account of the night’s happenings.
»Somebody’s beautiful thoughts turned into butterflies,« said the knight errant, slowly gathering himself up from the ground, »and these butterflies, fluttering about the statue of Shaka Muni and hitting the drum, summoned you, honorable sirs,«
He arose and looked around the temple; and then a great wonder filled his soul. For the imprints left by the bleeding Goblin Spider looked at first glance exactly like his family emblem. »But here on the floor you see the traces of an evil thought that took on the form of the Goblin Spider,« he added thoughtfully. »Somebody’s hatred embodied itself in an Iki-ryó; but the hatred weakened, as the years went by, and the Iki-ryó lost its ivincibility. Small indeed is my merit!«
And he bade the muraosa with his villagers to follow him in the purple tracks of the wounded goblin. They went out of the temple into the yard, from the yard they penetrated into the forlorn garden, where azalea clumps long ago had forgotten their trimmed shapes and gone wild, and there, away in the corner, between two fallen lanterns they found the Goblin Spider, moaning and groaning horribly.
A long-dried-out little fishpond was filled with the purple blood of the monster, which had not had the strength to crawl to the hole yawning beneath one of the prostrate toros. The immense spotted feet twitched in the throes of death, and the bulging yellow eyes turned upwards; the horrible claws, however, had disappeared from the extremities, and the villagers wondered how the Spider could have fought so murderously when he vas almost unarmed.
For a while the ronin gazed motionlessly at the Goblin Spider; then he smiled, raised his sword, and merely touching the monster’s body with it, at one stroke severed the head from the hideous body. It rolled into the hole under the fallen lantern; and the body became but the shadow of the branch of a tree on the yellow sand.
The villagers were so terrified and awe-stricken by all this that not a single one of them noticed another sudden change in their immediate vicinity. But nothing escaped the ronin’s eye. He saw that there where before a hole had gaped under the wrecked lantern now suddenly an orderly grave had appeared with a mossgrown monument. And in the boughs of the tree above the hako a bird sang sweetly and then vanished at once, as if it had changed to vapor.
***
Having shaved his head, the knight errant became a monk and undertook to reestablish this temple, where he had conquered his own hatred. The faithful from far and wide made pilgrimages to the temple, but especially those who either were persecuted by an Iki-ryó or were being consumed by their own secret hatred. It was said that nobody ever returned from this pilgrimage without consolation, and many were enlightened on the dark ways of life. For by the grace of the gods it was given them to understand that, like all things, intentions, and feelings, also hatred is but an illusion, a hideous illusion, however, murderous and selfdestroying.
