Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/355

Rh Osan, yet he would still call in a priest to hold services in her memory. Ironically enough, he offered one of her choice silk garments as an altar cloth for the local temple, where, fluttering in the fickle wind of Life and Death, it became a further source of lamentation.

Even so, there is no one bolder than a man deeply attached to the things of this world, and Mōemon, who before was so prudent that he never went outdoors at night, soon lost himself in a nostalgic desire to see the capital again. Dressing in the most humble attire and pulling his hat down over his eyes, he left Osan in the care of some villagers and made a senseless trip to Kyoto, all the while fearing more for his own safety than a man who is about to deliver himself into the hands of an enemy.

It began to get dark when he reached the neighborhood of Hirozawa, and the sight of the moon, reflected in the double pond, made him think again of Osan, so that his sleeve became soaked with idle tears. Presently he put behind him the rapid Narutaki, with its myriad bubbles, dancing over the rocks, and hurried on toward Omuro and Kitano, for he knew that way well. When he entered the city his fears were multiplied. “What’s that!” he would ask himself, when he saw his own silhouette under the waning moon, and his heart would freeze with terror.

In the quarter with which he was so familiar, because his former master lived there, he took up eavesdropping to learn the state of things. He heard about the inquiry which was to be made into the overdue payment from Edo, and about the latest style in hairdress, as discussed by a gathering of young men, who were also commenting on the style and fit of each other’s clothes the sort of silly chatter that love and lust inspire in men. When these topics of conversation were exhausted, sure enough they fell to talking about Mōemon. “That rascal Mōemon, stealing a woman more beautiful than all others! Even though he paid with his worthless life for it, he certainly got the best of the bargain; a memory worth dying with!” But a man of more discernment upheld morality against Mōemon. “He’s nobody to raise up in public. He’d stink in the breeze. I can’t imagine anyone worse than a man who’d cheat both his master and a husband at once.”