Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan, volume 2.pdf/17

Rh * beyond that; even to the end of Oshu. It may be necessary for us to go such a distance.
 * Okuni.—My Grandmother was a skilful writer of ‘waka’ poems, and she told me many things about it, … the barrier of Shirakawa became a very famous place as a subject of that art, the distance is some hundreds of miles from Hiroshima, my native castle. Beyond Osaka, beyond Kyoto, beyond Yedo which is at the end of the great Tokaido road: hundreds of miles away even from that distant city of Yedo, … and beyond that barrier, my grandmother used to tell me, there is a wide, wide country, where once a very barbarous race of people lived.
 * Gohei.—Perhaps we shall be obliged even to roam through that wide, wide country, madam.
 * Okuni.—Three years have already passed since we left our native castle, and the third Autumn is wearing away, yet we cannot find even a trace of my bitter enemy. What a misfortune it is for us!
 * Gohei.—All your home folks must be impatient now. Your boy will be six years old this year, if I remember aright; how lovely he must have grown by now!
 * Okuni.—Ah, you must not mention my boy to me. When you speak of him I feel I must fly back immediately to my home. It makes my heart ache for those I have left behind.
 * Gohei.—Pray pardon me, madam; I am too often forgetful and thoughtless … I hope that we can