Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/429

Rh Shino sighed in spite of himself. “I am not made of wood or stone, and whether I wish it or not, I know what tender emotions are. But it can serve no purpose for me to voice my feelings—it will only arouse the antipathy of your parents. I know that you will be true to me, and you must know what lies within my heart. Koga is a bare forty miles from here—it takes no more than three or four days to make the journey there and back. Please wait till I return.”

He tried to persuade her, but Hamaji, wiping her eyes, exclaimed, “What you say is false. Once you leave here, what will ever make you return? The bird in the cage longs for the sky because it misses its friends; when a man leaves his home it must be because he is thinking of his advancement. You cannot depend on the likes and dislikes of my parents. They are sending you off now because you are in the way, and they have no desire for your return. Once you leave here, when will you come back? Tonight is the last we have of parting….

“Ever since the seventh moon of last year the little stream of our love has been dammed and its passage cut, but one thing remains unchanged, like the downward flow of water, the sincerity of my heart. Not a day has passed but that I have prayed morning and night for your safety, success, and prosperity, but you remain extremely hard of heart. Is it because of duty to your aunt that you are deserting your wife? If you had in you one-hundredth of the depth of feeling that I have, you would say to me, ‘For one reason or another the day of my return may be doubtful. Let us steal off secretly, together.’ We are man and wife—who would slander you as being my paramour? But however cruel I think you are, I cannot, with my woman’s heart, bear separation from you. Rather than that I be deserted and left to die of longing for you, kill me with your sword. I shall wait for you in the world to come, a hundred years if need be.” To these she added many words of persuasion, relating one after another the painful griefs she bore, and though she kept herself from weeping aloud, a thousand tears coursed down to soak her sleeves.

Shino could not very well say that it would bring embarrassment