Page:Four Japanese Tales.pdf/34

 It was the summer cicada which the Japanese call and whose voice, the humble folk say, sounds like the chanting of a bonze in temple services. In Japan from spring till fall nature is full of the penetrating and often unspeakably sweet sounds of various species of cicadas or semi; this cicada however, which lying on its back and twirling around in a circle, buzzed on the hot temple-steps, filled the heart of the melancholy pilgrompilgrim [sic] with pity and sorrow. Its high note shook despairingly, like the weeping of someone who is dying painfully and unwillingly; and the recluse, touched to the bottom of his heart, picked up the cicada, trying to ascertain its injury and wondering whether he could not save it merely by placing it somewhere in the shade on the bark of a tree. But every time the cicada fell back on the ground, turned over on its back and renewed its lamentations.

And the man of the lonely heart took pity on the tortured insect, brought it home and made for it a soft nest in his garden of desire so far unfulfilled. It was already clear to him that, whether by a bird’s beak or through some other unfortunate accident, the poor cicada had been blinded; its big bulging eyes were covered by a sort of milky film; but it seemed to be its, that is the consequence of its acts in some previous incarnation, that it should not die as yet, and therefore the injured cicada had been dropped by the bird or in some other manner placed in the way of the man who befriended it. Day by day its moaning decreased and finally it regained the use of its legs, though it still occasionally fell over as if from weakness. It began to move about the garden, and the little temple on the hillock and the trunk of the dwarfed pine were its favorite haunts.

After a few days the lone man remembered that his ward was also alone, and that perhaps its song would be less mournful if it had near it another being which could understand it better than a person, and could bring it more comfort. His conscience smote him and he hurried to buy a tiny bamboo cage with another captive cicada. He had never kept captive cicadas and locusts in cages, as many people do, so as selfishly to enjoy their song of longing for freedom, for the perfume of nature; and upon his return home he set free the captive cicada in his tiny garden.

And a miracle happened: finding herself at liberty, the cicada did not forsake the garden and her crippled companion. Her body rustled quietly, almost inaudibly, when she came near the blind semi, and he answered her gently; it seemed as if those two had much to say to one another. And then when on a branch of the old pine the newly arrived cicada lifted her rejoicing, charming voice in