24
Eminent Authors of Japan
- most honourable from the first, but we have grown to love each other very dearly indeed. I hope that you will forget it.
- Tomo.—It is not my business, but it only makes me angry with the world. I destroyed my life because I loved another man’s wife, but you are really doing just the same thing, and the world calls you loyal. You have the means to love while you are doing this wrong, but I have none. You who know the duty of a good samurai, and who, to all appearances, are living the life of a good man, are really bad and weak-minded. This just proves how unjust the world is in its summing-up of mankind. I was bad and I took the life of another fellow creature, yet I have been tormented by the memory of my deed ever since. You are about to kill me, but it will be the means of raising you in the esteem of the world. Do you think the world is fair? Do you think that you are just and good?
- Gohei.—Forgive me, Ikeda, I now see that I was wrong, I am also a wicked man.!
- Tomo.—Then, will you let me have my life?
- Gohei.—Oh … No, … ! …
- Tomo.—Neither you nor Okuni have the right to kill me. You have wronged your master’s wife too. If I were a strong man, I would make Okuni my wife even now, and would call you my enemy!
- Okoni.—Oh, Tomonojo … I can see that perhaps you are right, … but if you still love me so madly, will you not give up your life for me?
