Part 5

It was his pleasure to venture alone in a frail boat out to sea, there to meditate in the wild and watery waste. Once as he did this it chanced that he fell asleep in his boat, and he slept all night long, while his boat drifted out to the eastward. So, when he awoke in the bright light of morning, he found himself beneath the shadow of Fusan, the Wonder Mountain. His boat lay in the waters of a river of Horaizan, and he steered her amongst the flowering iris and the lotus, and sprang on shore.

"The sweetest spot in the world!" he said. "I think I have come to Horaizan the Blest."

Soon came the youths and maidens of the island, and with them the Wise Man of China, as young and as happy as they.

"Welcome, welcome, dear brother," they cried, "welcome to the Island of Eternal Youth."

When they had given him to eat of the delicious fruit of the island, they laid them down upon a bank of flowers to hear sweet music. Afterwards they wandered in the woods and groves. They rode and hunted, or bathed in the warm sea-water. They feasted and enjoyed every delightful pleasure. So the long day lingered, and there was no night, for there was no need of sleep, there was no weariness and no pain.

* * * * *

The Wise Man of Japan came to the Wise Man of China. He said:

"I cannot find my boat."

"What matter, brother?" said Jofuku. "You want no boat here."

"Indeed, my brother, I do. I want my boat to take me home. I am sick for home. There's the truth."

"Are you not happy in Horaizan?"

"No, for I have a word written upon my heart. The word is _Humanity_. Because of it I am troubled and have no peace."

"Strange," said the Wise Man of China. "Once I too had a word written on my heart. The word was _Mutability_, but I have forgotten what it means. Do you too forget."

"Nay, I can never forget," said the Wise Man of Japan.

He sought out the Crane, who is a great traveller, and besought her, "Take me home to my own land."

"Alas," the Crane said, "if I did so you would die. This is the Island of Eternal Youth; do you know you have been here for a hundred years? If you go away you will feel old age and weariness and pain, then you will die."

"No matter," said Wasobiobe, "take me home."

Then the Crane took him on her strong back and flew with him. Day and night she flew and never tarried and never tired. At last she said, "Do you see the shore?"

And he said, "I see it. Praise be to the gods."

She said, "Where shall I carry you?... You have but a little time to live."

"Good Crane, upon the dear sand of my country, under the spreading pine, there sits a poor fisherman mending his net. Take me to him that I may die in his arms."

So the Crane laid Wasobiobe at the poor fisherman's feet. And the fisherman raised him in his arms. And Wasobiobe laid his head against the fisherman's humble breast.

"I might have lived for ever," he said, "but for the word that is written on my heart."

"What word?" said the fisherman.

"_Humanity_ is the word," the Wise Man murmured. "I am grown old--hold me closer. Ah, the pain...." He gave a great cry.

Afterwards he smiled. Then his breath left him with a sigh, and he was dead.

"It is the way of all flesh," said the fisherman.

X

REFLECTIONS

Long enough ago there dwelt within a day's journey of the city of Kioto a gentleman of simple mind and manners, but good estate. His wife, rest her soul, had been dead these many years, and the good man lived in great peace and quiet with his only son. They kept clear of women-kind, and knew nothing at all either of their winning or their bothering ways. They had good steady men-servants in their house, and never set eyes on a pair of long sleeves or a scarlet _obi_ from morning till night.

The truth is that they were as happy as the day is long. Sometimes they laboured in the rice-fields. Other days they went a-fishing. In the spring, forth they went to admire the cherry flower or the plum, and later they set out to view the iris or the peony or the lotus, as the case might be. At these times they would drink a little _saké_, and twist their blue and white _tenegui_ about their heads and be as jolly as you please, for there was no one to say them nay. Often enough they came home by lantern light. They wore their oldest clothes, and were mighty irregular at their meals.

But the pleasures of life are fleeting--more's the pity!--and presently the father felt old age creeping upon him.

One night, as he sat smoking and warming his hands over the charcoal, "Boy," says he, "it's high time you got married."

"Now the gods forbid!" cries the young man. "Father, what makes you say such terrible things? Or are you joking? You must be joking," he says.

"I'm not joking at all," says the father; "I never spoke a truer word, and that you'll know soon enough."

"But, father, I am mortally afraid of women."

"And am I not the same?" says the father. "I'm sorry for you, my boy."

"Then what for must I marry?" says the son.

"In the way of nature I shall die before long, and you'll need a wife to take care of you."

Now the tears stood in the young man's eyes when he heard this, for he was tender-hearted; but all he said was, "I can take care of myself very well."

"That's the very thing you cannot," says his father.

The long and short of it was that they found the young man a wife. She was young, and as pretty as a picture. Her name was Tassel, just that, or Fusa, as they say in her language.

After they had drunk down the "Three Times Three" together and so became man and wife, they stood alone, the young man looking hard at the girl. For the life of him he did not know what to say to her. He took a bit of her sleeve and stroked it with his hand. Still he said nothing and looked mighty foolish. The girl turned red, turned pale, turned red again, and burst into tears.

"Honourable Tassel, don't do that, for the dear gods' sake," says the young man.

"I suppose you don't like me," sobs the girl. "I suppose you don't think I'm pretty."

"My dear," he says, "you're prettier than the bean-flower in the field; you're prettier than the little bantam hen in the farm-yard; you're prettier than the rose carp in the pond. I hope you'll be happy with my father and me."

At this she laughed a little and dried her eyes. "Get on another pair of _hakama_," she says, "and give me those you've got on you; there's a great hole in them--I was noticing it all the time of the wedding!"

Well, this was not a bad beginning, and taking one thing with another they got on pretty well, though of course things were not as they had been in that blessed time when the young man and his father did not set eyes upon a pair of long sleeves or an _obi_ from morning till night.

By and by, in the way of nature, the old man died. It is said he made a very good end, and left that in his strong-box which made his son the richest man in the country-side. But this was no comfort at all to the poor young man, who mourned his father with all his heart. Day and night he paid reverence to the tomb. Little sleep or rest he got, and little heed he gave to his wife, Mistress Tassel, and her whimsies, or even to the delicate dishes she set before him. He grew thin and pale, and she, poor maid, was at her wits' end to know what to do with him. At last she said, "My dear, and how would it be if you were to go to Kioto for a little?"

"And what for should I do that?" he says.

It was on the tip of her tongue to answer, "To enjoy yourself," but she saw it would never do to say that.

"Oh," she says, "as a kind of a duty. They say every man that loves his country should see Kioto; and besides, you might give an eye to the fashions, so as to tell me what like they are when you get home. My things," she says, "are sadly behind the times! I'd like well enough to know what people are wearing!"

"I've no heart to go to Kioto," says the young man, "and if I had, it's the planting-out time of the rice, and the thing's not to be done, so there's an end of it."

All the same, after two days he bids his wife get out his best _hakama_ and _haouri_, and to make up his _bento_ for a journey. "I'm thinking of going to Kioto," he tells her.

"Well, I am surprised," says Mistress Tassel. "And what put such an idea into your head, if I may ask?"

"I've been thinking it's a kind of duty," says the young man.

"Oh, indeed," says Mistress Tassel to this, and nothing more, for she had some grains of sense. And the next morning as ever was she packs her husband off bright and early for Kioto, and betakes herself to some little matter of house cleaning she has on hand.

The young man stepped out along the road, feeling a little better in his spirits, and before long he reached Kioto. It is likely he saw many things to wonder at. Amongst temples and palaces he went. He saw castles and gardens, and marched up and down fine streets of shops, gazing about him with his eyes wide open, and his mouth too, very like, for he was a simple soul.

At length, one fine day he came upon a shop full of metal mirrors that glittered in the sunshine.

"Oh, the pretty silver moons!" says the simple soul to himself. And he dared to come near and take up a mirror in his hand.

The next minute he turned as white as rice and sat him down on the seat in the shop door, still holding the mirror in his hand and looking into it.

"Why, father," he said, "how did you come here? You are not dead, then? Now the dear gods be praised for that! Yet I could have sworn---- But no matter, since you are here alive and well. You are something pale still, but how young you look. You move your lips, father, and seem to speak, but I do not hear you. You'll come home with me, dear, and live with us just as you used to do? You smile, you smile, that is well."

"Fine mirrors, my young gentleman," said the shopman, "the best that can be made, and that's one of the best of the lot you have there. I see you are a judge."

The young man clutched his mirror tight and sat staring stupidly enough no doubt. He trembled. "How much?" he whispered. "Is it for sale?" He was in a taking lest his father should be snatched from him.

"For sale it is, indeed, most noble sir," said the shopman, "and the price is a trifle, only two _bu_. It's almost giving it away I am, as you'll understand."

"Two _bu_--only two _bu_! Now the gods be praised for this their mercy!" cried the happy young man. He smiled from ear to ear, and he had the purse out of his girdle, and the money out of his purse, in a twinkling.

Now it was the shopman who wished he had asked three _bu_ or even five. All the same he put a good face upon it, and packed the mirror in a fine white box and tied it up with green cords.

"Father," said the young man, when he had got away with it, "before we set out for home we must buy some gauds for the young woman there, my wife, you know."

Now, for the life of him, he could not have told why, but when he came to his home the young man never said a word to Mistress Tassel about buying his old father for two _bu_ in the Kioto shop. That was where he made his mistake, as things turned out.

She was as pleased as you like with her coral hair-pins, and her fine new _obi_ from Kioto. "And I'm glad to see him so well and so happy," she said to herself; "but I must say he's been mighty quick to get over his sorrow after all. But men are just like children." As for her husband, unbeknown to her he took a bit of green silk from her treasure-box and spread it in the cupboard of the _toko no ma_. There he placed the mirror in its box of white wood.

Every morning early and every evening late, he went to the cupboard of the _toko no ma_ and spoke with his father. Many a jolly talk they had and many a hearty laugh together, and the son was the happiest young man of all that country-side, for he was a simple soul.

But Mistress Tassel had a quick eye and a sharp ear, and it was not long before she marked her husband's new ways.

"What for does he go so often to the _toko no ma_," she asked herself, "and what has he got there? I should be glad enough to know." Not being one to suffer much in silence, she very soon asked her husband these same things.

He told her the truth, the good young man. "And now I have my dear old father home again, I'm as happy as the day is long," he says.

"H'm," she says.

"And wasn't two _bu_ cheap," he says, "and wasn't it a strange thing altogether?"

"Cheap, indeed," says she, "and passing strange; and why, if I may ask," she says, "did you say nought of all this at the first?"

The young man grew red.

"Indeed, then, I cannot tell you, my dear," he says. "I'm sorry, but I don't know," and with that he went out to his work.

Up jumped Mistress Tassel the minute his back was turned, and to the _toko no ma_ she flew on the wings of the wind and flung open the doors with a clang.

"My green silk for sleeve-linings!" she cried at once; "but I don't see any old father here, only a white wooden box. What can he keep in it?"

She opened the box quickly enough.

"What an odd flat shining thing!" she said, and, taking up the mirror, looked into it.

For a moment she said nothing at all, but the great tears of anger and jealousy stood in her pretty eyes, and her face flushed from forehead to chin.

"A woman!" she cried, "a woman! So that is his secret! He keeps a woman in this cupboard. A woman, very young and very pretty--no, not pretty at all, but she thinks herself so. A dancing-girl from Kioto, I'll be bound; ill-tempered too--her face is scarlet; and oh, how she frowns, nasty little spitfire. Ah, who could have thought it of him? Ah, it's a miserable girl I am--and I've cooked his _daikon_ and mended his _hakama_ a hundred times. Oh! oh! oh!"

With that, she threw the mirror into its case, and slammed-to the cupboard door upon it. Herself she flung upon the mats, and cried and sobbed as if her heart would break.

In comes her husband.

"I've broken the thong of my sandal," says he, "and I've come to---- But what in the world?" and in an instant he was down on his knees beside Mistress Tassel doing what he could to comfort her, and to get her face up from the floor where she kept it.

"Why, what is it, my own darling?" says he.

"_Your_ own darling!" she answers very fierce through her sobs; and "I want to go home," she cries.

"But, my sweet, you are at home, and with your own husband."

"Pretty husband!" she says, "and pretty goings-on, with a woman in the cupboard! A hateful, ugly woman that thinks herself beautiful; and she has _my_ green sleeve-linings there with her to boot."

"Now, what's all this about women and sleeve-linings? Sure you wouldn't grudge poor old father that little green rag for his bed? Come, my dear, I'll buy you twenty sleeve-linings."

At that she jumped to her feet and fairly danced with rage.

"Old father! old father! old father!" she screamed; "am I a fool or a child? I saw the woman with my own eyes."

The poor young man didn't know whether he was on his head or his heels. "Is it possible that my father is gone?" he said, and he took the mirror from the _toko no ma_.

"That's well; still the same old father that I bought for two _bu_. You seem worried, father; nay, then, smile as I do. There, that's well."

Mistress Tassel came like a little fury and snatched the mirror from his hand. She gave but one look into it and hurled it to the other end of the room. It made such a clang against the woodwork, that servants and neighbours came rushing in to see what was the matter.

"It is my father," said the young man. "I bought him in Kioto for two _bu_."

"He keeps a woman in the cupboard who has stolen my green sleeve-linings," sobbed the wife.

After this there was a great to-do. Some of the neighbours took the man's part and some the woman's, with such a clatter and chatter and noise as never was; but settle the thing they could not, and none of them would look into the mirror, because they said it was bewitched.

They might have gone on the way they were till doomsday, but that one of them said, "Let us ask the Lady Abbess, for she is a wise woman." And off they all went to do what they might have done sooner.

The Lady Abbess was a pious woman, the head of a convent of holy nuns. She was the great one at prayers and meditations and at mortifyings of the flesh, and she was the clever one, none the less, at human affairs. They took her the mirror, and she held it in her hands and looked into it for a long time. At last she spoke:

"This poor woman," she said, touching the mirror, "for it's as plain as daylight that it is a woman--this poor woman was so troubled in her mind at the disturbance that she caused in a quiet house, that she has taken vows, shaved her head, and become a holy nun. Thus she is in her right place here. I will keep her, and instruct her in prayers and meditations. Go you home, my children; forgive and forget, be friends."

Then all the people said, "The Lady Abbess is the wise woman."

And she kept the mirror in her treasure.

Mistress Tassel and her husband went home hand in hand.

"So I was right, you see, after all," she said.

"Yes, yes, my dear," said the simple young man, "of course. But I was wondering how my old father would get on at the holy convent. He was never much of a one for religion."

XI

THE STORY OF SUSA, THE IMPETUOUS

When Izanagi, the Lord who Invites, turned his back upon the unclean place, and bade farewell to Yomi, the World of the Dead, whither he had journeyed upon a quest, he beheld once more the Land of Fresh Rice Ears, and was glad. And he rested by the side of a clear river that he might perform purification.

And Izanagi-no-Mikoto bathed in the upper reach. But he said, "The water of the upper reach is too rapid." Then he bathed in the lower reach; but he said, "The water of the lower reach is too sluggish." So he went down for the third time and bathed in the middle reach of the river. And as the water dropped from his beautiful countenance there were created three sublime deities--Ama Terassu, the Glory of High Heaven; Tsuki-Yomi-no-Kami, the Moon-Night-Possessor; and Susa, the Impetuous, the Lord of the Sea.

Then Izanagi-no-Mikoto rejoiced, saying, "Behold the three august children that are mine, who shall also be illustrious for ever." And, taking the great string of jewels from his neck, he bestowed it upon Ama Terassu, the Glorious, and said to her, "Do Thine Augustness rule the Plain of High Heaven, shining in thy beauty by day." So she took the august jewels and hid them in the storehouse of the gods.

And the Lord of Invitation commanded Tsuki-Yomi-no-Kami, saying, "Do Thine Augustness rule the Dominion of the Night." Now this was a youth of a fair and pleasant countenance.

And to the youngest of the deities, his Augustness the Lord Izanagi gave the Sea Plain.

So Ama Terassu ruled the day, and Tsuki-Yomi-no-Kami softly ruled the night. But Susa, the Impetuous, flung himself upon the ground and violently wept, for he said, "Ah, miserable, to dwell for ever upon the confines of the cold sea!" So he ceased not in his weeping, and took the moisture of the valley for his tears, so that the green places were withered and the rivers and streams were dried up. And evil deities increased and flourished, and as they swarmed upon the earth their noise was as the noise of flies in the fifth moon; and far and wide there arose portents of woe.

Then his father, the Lord of Invitation, came and stood terribly by him and said, "What is this that I do see and hear? Why dost thou not rule the dominions with which I charged thee, but lie here, like a child, with tears and wailings? Answer."

And Susa, the Impetuous, answered, "I wail because I am in misery and love not this place, but would depart to my mother who rules the Nether Distant Land, who is called the Queen of Yomi, the World of the Dead."

Then Izanagi was wroth and expelled him with a divine expulsion, and charged him that he should depart and show his face no more.

And Susa, the Impetuous, answered, "So be it. But first I will ascend to High Heaven to take leave of Her Augustness, my sister, who is the Glory of Heaven, and then I will depart."

So he went up to Heaven with a noise and a great speed, and at his going all the mountains shook and every land and country quaked. And Ama Terassu, the Light of Heaven, she also trembled at his coming, and said, "This coming of His Augustness, my brother, is of no good intent, but to lay hold of mine inheritance, and to take it by force. For this alone does he invade the fastness of High Heaven."

And forthwith she divided the hair that hung upon her shoulders and rolled it in two august bunches to the left and to the right, and adorned it with jewels. So she made her head like the head of a young warrior. And she slung upon her back a great bow and a quiver of arrows, one thousand and five hundred arrows, and she took in her hand a bamboo staff and brandished it and stamped upon the ground with her armed feet, so that the earth flew like powdered snow. So she came to the bank of the Tranquil River of Heaven and stood valiantly, like unto a mighty man, and waited.

And Susa, the Impetuous, spoke from the farther bank: "My lovely sister, Thine Augustness, why comest thou thus armed against me?"

And she answered, "Nay, but wherefore ascendest thou hither?"

And Susa replied, "There is nothing evil in my mind. Because I desired to dwell in the Land of Yomi, therefore has my father deigned to expel me with a divine expulsion, and I thought to take leave of thee, and so I have ascended hither. I have no evil intention."

And she, bending her great eyes on him, said "Swear."

And he swore, by the ten-grasp sword that was girded on him, and after that he swore by the jewels in her hair. Then she suffered him to cross over the Tranquil River of Heaven, and also to cross over the Floating Bridge. So Susa, the Impetuous, entered the dominions of his sister, the Sun Goddess.

But his wild spirit never ceased to chafe. And he pillaged the fair lands of Ama Terassu and broke down the divisions of the rice-fields which she had planted, and filled in the ditches. Still the Light of Heaven upbraided him not, but said, "His Augustness, my brother, believes that the land should not be wasted by ditches and divisions, and that rice should be sown everywhere, without distinction." But notwithstanding her soft words Susa, the Impetuous, continued in his evil ways and became more and more violent.

Now, as the great Sun Goddess sat with her maidens in the awful Weaving Hall of High Heaven, seeing to the weaving of the august garments of the gods, her brother made a mighty chasm in the roof of the Weaving Hall, and through the chasm he let down a heavenly piebald horse. And the horse fled hither and thither in terror, and wrought great havoc amongst the looms and amongst the weaving maidens. And Susa himself followed like a rushing tempest and like a storm of waters flooding the hall, and all was confusion and horror. And in the press the Sun Goddess was wounded with her golden shuttle. So with a cry she fled from High Heaven and hid herself in a cave; and she rolled a rock across the cave's mouth.