Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/327

Rh Another of them, a priest of perhaps forty-two years, was a man whom long and bitter penances had emaciated and weakened, but there remained about him an aristocratic air, and his teeth were deeply blackened. Above his torn robes he wore a priest’s stole. He had seemed to be immersed in thought, but he looked up and said, “I should like to be the first to speak.

“Since what I have to relate occurred in the capital, it may well be that you have already heard of it. Formerly I was called Kasuya no Shirōzaemon, and I was in the personal service of the Shogun Takauji. From the age of thirteen I was in attendance at his palace, and I used to accompany him on pilgrimages to temples and shrines and on excursions to view the moon and the cherry blossoms, never failing to be present.

“It happened once, when the Shogun was visiting the Nijō Palace, that the other young men in his service were having a party, and messages came from them two or three times, urging me to hurry back and join them. It was less the desire to be with them than impatience over the slowness of the Shogun to leave which led me to look into his private room to see how much longer he was likely to remain. The second or third round of the drink offerings was being passed to him. Just then a court lady entered the room bearing what appeared to be a gift, a silken garment on a stand. She was not yet twenty. Her long hair was swept up, revealing a face of indescribable beauty. Not even Yang Kuei-fei or (in our own country) Ono no Komachi could possibly have surpassed her. Ah, what man but would desire to converse with such a woman, to lay his pillow beside hers! I prayed that she might appear again so that I could have another glimpse of her. From that moment on my mind was in turmoil, my heart was turned to smoke. However much I tried to forget my yearning for her, I could not. The love in which I was plunged grew more and more hallucinatory.

“When the Shogun left the palace that night I returned to my lodgings. The lady’s face would not leave my mind. I could not eat and, taking to my bed, failed to appear at court for four or five days.