恩讐の彼方に English

I

Ichikuro failed to fully parry his master's slashing sword and took a shallow cut from the blade, running from his left cheek down to his chin.

Ichikuro was conscious of his own crime — the fatal crime of having entered into an illicit love with his master's favored mistress, even though it was she who had first tempted him — and so he felt not the least resistance in his heart toward his master's upraised sword, accepting it as an inevitable punishment even as he strove to dodge its edge.

It was only that to throw away his life over such folly seemed to him such a waste that he wanted, if at all possible, to escape it.

So when his master, denouncing him for the affair, cut at him with his sword, Ichikuro seized the candlestick that lay at hand as a makeshift weapon and used it to fend off the keen blade.

But though his master was nearing fifty, his frame was still powerful, and his relentless strokes came down one after another; unable to go on the attack himself, Ichikuro could only defend, and before long he mishandled a parry, taking the first cut upon his left cheek.

But the moment he saw blood, Ichikuro's heart changed in an instant.

His mind, till then full of reason, turned as wild as a bull gored by a matador's lance.

Thinking he was bound to die regardless, there was no longer any world for him, no longer any bond of master and servant.

The man he had until now thought of as his master now looked to him like nothing but a beast — a vicious beast — bent on threatening his life.

He rose up in fury and turned to the attack.

He gave a cry — "Ouu!" —

and, shouting still, hurled the candlestick he had been holding straight at his opponent's face.

Saburobei, his master, who had grown careless in the belief that Ichikuro was fighting on the defensive alone, could not parry the suddenly hurled candlestick, and a corner of its wax-tray struck him a heavy blow to the right eye.

In the instant his opponent reeled, Ichikuro sprang at him before he had even drawn his short sword.

"You dare defy me!"

Saburobei roared in fury.

Ichikuro pressed the attack in silence.

His master's sword, nearly three shaku in length, clashed fiercely two or three times against Ichikuro's short blade.

As master and servant fought on desperately, crossing blades more than a dozen times, the tip of his master's sword grazed the low ceiling two or three times, again and again nearly robbing him of the freedom to wield it.

Ichikuro seized on this opening.

Realizing his disadvantage, his master fell back two or three steps and out onto the veranda, seeking the open air where he could move freely.

As Ichikuro, seizing the moment, pressed in still further, his master gave a cry — "Yah!" —

and, in his impatience, cut downward.

But so great was his impatience that the blade struck, unwittingly, two or three inches into the lintel hanging between the veranda and the room.

"Damn it!"

In the instant Saburobei, crying this out, tried to wrench his sword free, Ichikuro closed in and swept his blade with all his strength across his master's flank.

The moment his opponent fell, Ichikuro came back to himself.

As his mind, till then dazed with excitement, at last grew calm, he realized that he had committed the grave crime of killing his own master, and, overcome with remorse and terror, he sank down where he stood.

Night had passed into its first watch.

The main house stood far apart from the servants' quarters, so it seemed that the terrible struggle between master and servant had gone unnoticed by anyone save the maidservants living in the main house.

Those maidservants, terrified senseless by the violent struggle, had only gathered together in one room and sat there trembling.

Ichikuro was seized by deep remorse.

Dissolute and reckless young samurai though he was, he had never yet done anything that could truly be called an evil deed.

Still less had it ever occurred to him that he might commit the gravest of the eight unpardonable sins — the murder of one's own master.

He took up again the short sword still stained with blood.

That he should have taken up secretly with his master's mistress, and then, when about to receive just punishment for it, should instead have killed that very master — however he looked at it, there was nothing to be said in his favor.

Casting a sidelong glance at his master's corpse, which still twitched faintly, he quietly steeled himself to take his own life.

Just then, from the next room, came a voice, as though someone had at last broken free of some great oppression.

"Oh, I was truly worried about how it would all turn out. I thought that once you were cut clean in two, my turn would surely come next, so I've been holding my breath behind the screen this whole while, watching. But my, how well it's turned out! There's no time to lose now — let's gather up all the money there is and flee. The others in the house don't seem to have noticed yet, so now's the time to go, if we're to go at all. The nursemaid and the maids all seem to be over in the kitchen, shaking with fright, so I'll go and tell them not to make a fuss. Now then! You go and find whatever money there is."

The voice that said this was unmistakably trembling.

Yet she seemed to be holding that tremor in check through sheer feminine willpower, striving to appear composed.

Ichikuro — who had entirely lost his own will to act — came alive again, as if revived, the moment he heard the woman's voice.

Rising less by his own will than like a puppet moved by the woman's, he went to the paulownia tea cabinet standing in the room and laid his hands upon it.

Leaving bloodstained handprints upon its pale white grain, he began searching through the drawers one after another.

But by the time the woman — Oyumi, his master's mistress — returned, Ichikuro had found only a single packet of two-shu silver, worth five ryo.

Oyumi, coming back from the kitchen, saw the money and said,

"What good is such a paltry sum?"

and, saying so, flung the drawers open herself, rifling through them in a fury.

In the end she searched even inside the armor chest, but not a single koban turned up.

"He was famous for his stinginess — he's probably buried it all in a jar somewhere in the ground."

So she declared bitterly, and quickly bundled up whatever clothing and medicine cases looked valuable into a cloth wrapper.

Thus it was, in the early autumn of the third year of Anei, that this adulterous pair left the house of Nakagawa Saburobei, a bannerman living in Tawaramachi, Asakusa.

Left behind was Saburobei's only child, Jitsunosuke, then three years old, sleeping peacefully in his nursemaid's arms, unaware of his father's violent death.

II

After fleeing Edo, Ichikuro and Oyumi deliberately avoided the Tokaido and, keeping out of sight, made their way toward the Kamigata region along the Tosando.

Ichikuro was constantly tormented by his conscience for the crime of killing his master.

But Oyumi — a shameless woman, once a serving girl at a disreputable roadside tea house — would, whenever Ichikuro showed even the slightest sign of gloom, say to him,

"Now that you're a wanted criminal anyway, there's no use moping about it. The wise thing is to steel your nerve and enjoy life while you can."

and so, day after day, she spurred Ichikuro's heart further toward evil.

But by the time they had come from Shinshu to the post town of Yabuhara in Kiso, the two of them had less than a hundred mon left for travel expenses.

As their means grew desperate, the two of them were driven to crime.

At first they took up, as the easiest trade for a man and woman traveling together, the badger game — luring men with the promise of the woman's favors and then extorting them.

In this way, from post town to post town between Shinshu and Owari, they robbed travelling townsmen and farmers of their money.

At first Ichikuro had fallen into crime only through the woman's fierce goading, but before long he began to taste the pleasure of wrongdoing for himself.

Disguised as a masterless samurai, Ichikuro found his victims — townsmen and farmers alike — remarkably submissive even as their money was taken from them.

As his criminal skill advanced by degrees, Ichikuro moved on from the badger game to simpler, less troublesome extortion, and at last came to regard robbery and murder as a legitimate trade in its own right.

Before he knew it, he had settled on the Torii Pass, on the road from Shinano into Kiso.

By day he ran a wayside tea stall; by night he turned highwayman.

By now he felt neither hesitation nor unease at such a life.

He would single out travelers who looked to be carrying money, kill them, and dispose of the bodies with practiced skill.

By committing such crimes three or four times a year, he could easily support himself for the whole year.

It was around the spring of the third year since they had left Edo.

Because the processions of two northern daimyo, traveling for the alternate attendance, had passed through one after another, the post towns of the Kiso road were livelier than they had been in a long while.

At this time in particular, pilgrims bound for Ise from Shinshu, Echigo, and Ecchu crowded the road one after the next.

Many among them meant to extend their pilgrimage into a pleasure trip on to Kyoto and Osaka.

Ichikuro thought to cut down two or three of them and secure his living expenses for the year.

It was at dusk, when the mountain cherries blooming among the cedars and cypresses along the Kiso road had begun to scatter their petals.

Two travelers, a man and a woman, stopped at Ichikuro's stall.

They were plainly husband and wife.

The man was past thirty.

The woman must have been twenty-three or twenty-four.

They seemed to be a young couple, prosperous farmers of Shinshu, traveling at their ease without any attendants.

Ichikuro, taking in their appearance, thought he might make this pair his victims for the year.

"It can't be much farther to the post town of Yabuhara now."

So saying, the man stopped in front of Ichikuro's stall to retie the cords of his straw sandals.

Before Ichikuro could answer, Oyumi came out from the kitchen and said,

"That's right, sir. Once you're down this pass it's no more than half a ri. Do rest a while first, won't you?"

so she said.

Hearing these words of Oyumi's, Ichikuro understood that she was already urging him toward some dreadful scheme.

It was Ichikuro's usual method: to deceive travelers into believing that the more than two ri still remaining to Yabuhara was nothing at all, so as to put them off their guard, and then, taking advantage of nightfall overtaking them on the road, to race ahead by a side path and lie in wait to strike at the entrance to the town.

Hearing Oyumi's words, the man said,

"In that case, might we trouble you for a cup of tea?"

and even as he spoke, he had already fallen into their first trap.

The woman removed her traveling sedge hat with its red cord and sat down close beside her husband.

There they rested for the better part of half an hour from the fatigue of climbing the pass, then, leaving some coppers behind, went on down the Torii Pass toward the valley of Ogiso, already darkening into violet dusk.

The moment the two had passed out of sight, Oyumi gave the signal.

Ichikuro, like a hunter after his prey, thrust his short sword into his belt and set off after them at a run.

Turning right off the main road, he hurried along a steep side path that followed the flow of the Kiso River.

By the time Ichikuro reached the tree-lined road just short of Yabuhara, the long spring day had faded entirely into darkness; a moon some ten nights old was just rising beyond the mountains of Kiso, and only its faint pale glow gave the peaks a dim outline.

Ichikuro hid himself beneath a clump of round-leafed willows growing along the road and waited calmly for the couple to draw near.

Even he could not help but consider, deep in his heart, how grave a sin it would be to take unjustly the lives of this happy pair on their journey.

But to abandon a task once begun and turn back was not something he could bring himself to do, not with Oyumi to answer to.

He did not wish to shed this couple's blood.

He hoped only that they would submit to his threats without argument.

If they handed over their travel money and clothing, he meant never to take a life.

Just as his resolve had at last hardened, he saw, far down the road, the figures of the man and woman approaching at a hurried pace.

The road from the pass had proved farther than they had expected, and, evidently exhausted, they came hurrying along in silence, helping each other along.

As the two drew near the thicket of round-leafed willows, Ichikuro suddenly stood up squarely in the middle of the road.

and hurled at them the threatening words he had by now uttered so many times before.

The man, seemingly desperate, drew his travel dagger and took up a stance, shielding his wife behind him.

Ichikuro was momentarily taken aback.

But he raised his voice and cried, "Now then, traveler, don't throw your life away by resisting! I've no wish to take your life — just hand over your money and clothes quietly, and be on your way!"

So he shouted.

The man stared fixedly at his face,

"Ha! Aren't you the man from that tea stall on the pass?"

he cried, and, desperate, lunged at him.

Ichikuro thought, this is the end of it.

Now that his face had been recognized, he thought that for their own safety, he could no longer let this man and woman live.

Skillfully evading his opponent's desperate slash, he brought a single stroke down upon the man's neck.

Looking back, he saw his companion's wife crouched by the roadside as if she had fainted, trembling violently.

Ichikuro could not bring himself to kill the woman.

But he told himself that his own peril left him no choice.

Thinking to act while the bloodlust of killing the man was still upon him, he approached the woman with his bloodied blade raised.

The woman pressed her hands together and begged Ichikuro for her life.

Meeting her gaze, Ichikuro could not bring the sword down, try as he might.

But he told himself he had to kill her.

At that moment his greed stirred, and it struck him as a waste to cut the woman down and ruin her fine clothing in the process.

So thinking, he took the towel hanging at his waist and strangled her with it.

Once he had killed the two of them, a sudden horror at having taken human life came over Ichikuro, and he felt he could not bear to remain there another moment.

He stripped the couple of their money belts and clothing, and fled the scene in a headlong panic.

Though he had already killed more than ten people, they had all been of a certain sort — graying old men, merchants — and never before had he laid his own hands on a young married couple, killing both of them together.

He made his way back gripped by deep pangs of conscience.

The moment he stepped inside, he flung the couple's clothing and money toward Oyumi as though they were something unclean.

She, quite unruffled, examined the money first.

It came to less than expected — barely more than twenty ryo.

Oyumi picked up the dead woman's kimono and said, "Well, now — a robe of ki-hachijo silk, with a crested crepe underrobe. But tell me, what did you do with this woman's hair ornaments?"

and she turned to look at Ichikuro as though demanding an answer.

"Her hair ornaments!"

Ichikuro echoed, half in answer.

"Yes, her hair ornaments. A woman dressed in ki-hachijo silk with a crested crepe underrobe wouldn't be wearing cheap imitation combs and hairpins, would she? I got a good look when she took off her sedge hat earlier — they were tortoiseshell, a matched set, I'd stake my life on it."

So Oyumi said, bearing down on him.

Ichikuro, who had never once thought of the dead woman's hair ornaments, had no way to answer.

"You! Don't tell me you simply forgot to take them! If they're tortoiseshell, that's a good seven or eight ryo right there. You're no green beginner at this — what's the point of killing at all, then? To murder a woman dressed like that and not even notice her hair ornaments — how long have you been in this trade, anyway? What a bungling thief you are! Well? Say something!"

So Oyumi railed at him, drawing herself up in high indignation.

Ichikuro, whose very soul was by now nearly consumed with remorse for having killed the two young people, was cut to the quick by her words.

He felt not the slightest regret over his failure — his incompetence, as a thief — in forgetting to take the hair ornaments.

It was precisely because he knew in his heart that killing the two of them was wrong that his mind had been thrown into such turmoil by the act itself, and he had utterly forgotten that the woman wore ornaments worth close to ten ryo in her hair.

Even now, no regret rose in him for having forgotten it.

Fallen though he was to the life of a robber, killing people for gain, when he considered that he had not, like some fiend, picked his victims' very bones clean, Ichikuro felt no ill feeling in himself.

And yet, when he considered that Oyumi, seeing before her very eyes the undergarments of her own sex, a woman brutally murdered, laid out as tribute to her killer, could still let her insatiable greed reach even to hair ornaments that had escaped the notice of a hardened criminal like himself — when he thought of this, Ichikuro felt toward Oyumi a wretchedness he could scarcely bear.

Oyumi, entirely unaware of the violent change taking place in Ichikuro's heart,

"Come now! Go on, run back there. There's no sense being squeamish about something that's practically ours for the taking."

said this with a triumphant look, as one utterly convinced of the perfect reasonableness of her own demand.

But Ichikuro said nothing, and did not respond.

"Oh-ho! I see finding fault with your work has touched a nerve. Do you truly mean you won't go? Are you really going to let close to ten ryo slip through your fingers, plain as day?"

So Oyumi pressed him again and again.

Ordinarily Ichikuro was one to obey Oyumi's every word without question, but now his mind was caught in such violent turmoil that he was sunk too deep in thought to even hear what she said.

"So no matter how much I say it, you won't go. Very well, I'll run there myself. Where is it? The usual place, I suppose?"

So Oyumi said.

Ichikuro, who had begun to feel an irrepressible revulsion toward Oyumi, was almost glad to have her away from his side, if only for a moment.

"You know perfectly well where — the usual place, the pine avenue this side of Yabuhara."

Ichikuro said, spitting out the words.

"Well then, I'll run over and back. Lucky it's a moonlit night, so it's bright out... Honestly, what a bungled job."

So saying, Oyumi hitched up her hem, slipped on her sandals, and ran off.

As Ichikuro watched her retreating figure, his heart filled with a sense of utter wretchedness.

Watching the woman run off, bloodshot with greed, to strip the hair ornaments from a corpse, Ichikuro — precisely because he had once loved her — could not help feeling, from the depths of his heart, how wretched she was.

What was more, whenever he himself had done evil — even brutally killing a man, even stealing money — the very fact that it was he who was doing it had always served as a strange excuse of sorts, so that he had rarely felt its wretchedness; but now, calmly looking on while another person committed evil, the horror and wretchedness of it appeared before Ichikuro's eyes with a clarity he could not escape.

Seeing the woman he had staked his very life to win now cast aside every gentleness of her sex for the sake of a mere five or ten ryo of tortoiseshell, running toward a murdered woman's corpse like a wolf drawn to carrion, Ichikuro found he could not bear to remain another moment in this den of sin, together with her.

Once he began to think in this way, every evil deed he had ever committed rose up again, one after another, and tore his heart apart.

The eyes of the woman he had strangled, the groans of the blood-soaked silk-cocoon merchant, the death-cry of the white-haired old man he had cut down with a single stroke — all of it rose up together and assailed his conscience.

He wanted, as quickly as possible, to flee his own past.

He wanted to flee even from himself.

Still more did he want, with all his strength, to flee the woman who had been the seed of all his crimes.

He rose resolutely to his feet.

He wrapped two or three garments in a cloth bundle.

Leaving the money belt he had stolen from the man tucked in his robe as travel funds for the moment, and without even finishing his preparations, he bolted out into the night.

But after running some ten ken, it suddenly struck him that every last bit of the money and clothing he carried had been stolen, and as if flung back by some force, he turned and ran home, hurling the clothes and money down onto the entryway step with all his strength.

So as not to meet Oyumi, he ran headlong along no proper road at all, following the course of the Kiso River.

He had no destination in mind.

He only wanted to escape as far as he possibly could, even by a single inch, from the base of all his crimes.

III

Ichikuro covered more than twenty ri, racing on without a pause through mountain and field alike, and by the afternoon of the following day came running into Jogan-ji temple in the countryside of Ogaki, in Mino province.

He had not set out with this temple as his destination from the start.

It was only that, midway in his flight, he happened to come out before the temple gate, and his bewildered, penitent heart was suddenly moved to seek out some religious light to cling to.

Jogan-ji was the registrar temple for the Shingon sect throughout the whole of Mino province.

Ichikuro clung to the sleeve of the temple's presiding high priest, the Venerable Myohen, and poured out the whole truth of his repentance.

The holy man, for all that, did not turn away even so grave a sinner.

When Ichikuro spoke of turning himself in to the authorities, the priest stopped him, saying,

"Having piled sin upon sin as you have, one path would be to let the authorities expose your body on the gallows and take your punishment in this life. But do that, and you will suffer the torments of the burning hell for all eternity to come. Better, instead, to take refuge in the Buddhist path, and for the deliverance of all sentient beings, to give up your very life and body to save others — and in saving them, save yourself. That is what matters most."

So he instructed him.

Hearing the holy man's words, Ichikuro felt the fire of repentance sear his heart still further, and then and there resolved to take the tonsure.

He was ordained by the priest's own hand and given the Buddhist name Ryokai, throwing himself wholly into religious discipline. So fierce was his devotion that in under half a year his conduct grew purer than ice or frost — mornings wholly given to the threefold esoteric rites, evenings never once away from silent nembutsu prayer — until a mind of sudden, boundless wisdom began to unfold in him, and he became, in truth, an admirable man of religious learning.

Once he realized that his faith had become settled and would never again waver, he obtained his master's permission, took up the great vow to save all people, and set out on a wandering pilgrimage through the provinces.

Leaving the province of Mino behind, he made first for the capital, Kyoto.

It pained him that, having killed so many people, he should go on living at all, even in the guise of a monk.

He longed to grind his very body to pieces for the sake of others, if it might atone for even one ten-thousandth part of his sins.

In particular, when he thought of how he had once terrorized travelers deep in the mountains of Kiso, he felt he owed a debt to wayfarers everywhere that he could never fully repay.

In every moment, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, there was never a time he did not think of others.

Whenever he saw someone struggling on the road, he would take them by the hand or push at their back, helping them along their way.

There were times he carried the sick, old and young alike, upon his back for more than several ri without once thinking the distance too far.

Even for a bridge on some village road far off the main highway, if it lay broken, he would go himself into the mountains, cut timber, and haul stone to repair it.

Whenever he saw a road washed out, he would carry earth and gravel to mend it.

In this way, from the Kinai region through the Chugoku provinces, he devoted himself single-mindedly to accumulating merit; yet when he considered how the sins piled upon him rose higher than the sky, while the merit he had gathered lay lower than the earth, he grieved anew at the depth of the evil he had wrought in half a lifetime.

Ichikuro came to see that such trifling acts of merit could never atone for the enormity of his sins, and his heart grew dark with despair.

Waking at night in some traveler's inn, to think that he went on clinging so shamelessly to life while offering such feeble recompense seemed to him utterly contemptible, and there were even times he wished to take his own life.

But each time, he summoned anew his unshakeable resolve, and prayed only that the occasion might come for him to accomplish the great work of saving all people.

It was the autumn of the ninth year of Kyoho.

He crossed from Akamagaseki to Kokura, worshipped at Usa Hachiman Shrine in the province of Buzen, and, meaning to press upstream along the Yamakuni River to visit Rakan-ji temple on Mount Gishakutsu, made his way south from Yokkaichi across a vast expanse of red-earth plain, following the road along the gorge of the Yamakuni River.

Autumn in Tsukushi deepened with each night's lodging along the post road; the sumac in the groves of mixed timber burned a raw red, the rice ripened golden in the fields, and under the eaves of farmhouses the persimmons famous to this region hung in strings of crimson beads.

It was on a day not long after the eighth month had begun.

With the clear waters of the Yamakuni River glinting in the light of an autumn morning on his right, he crossed the mountain road of Hotoke-zaka from Mikuchi, and arrived at the post town of Hida close to midday.

After taking his midday meal at that lonely post town, he set off south again, following the Yamakuni valley.

Once past the edge of Hida, the road ran again along the Yamakuni River, tracing the volcanic-rock riverbank.

As Ichikuro made his way, leaning on his staff, along the rough, stony path that was hard going underfoot, he happened to see, at the roadside, four or five men — farmers of the district, it seemed — shouting and making a commotion.

As Ichikuro drew near, one of them caught sight of him at once and said,

"Ah, you've come at just the right time. Here lies a poor soul who's met a violent death. Since you've happened by, won't you offer a prayer for him?"

So he said.

On hearing the words "violent death," Ichikuro's first thought was that this might be the corpse of some traveler slain by bandits, and, recalling his own past crimes, he felt his legs go weak beneath the sudden surge of remorse.

"He looks to have drowned, from what I can see — but what happened, that his flesh is torn in so many places?"

Ichikuro asked, fearfully.

"You'll not know of it, Reverend, being a traveler passing through — but go up this river half a cho and you'll find a treacherous crossing they call the Chain Crossing. It's the worst danger spot in the whole Yamakuni valley, a torment to every man and horse going north or south. This fellow was a packhorse driver from up the river, from Kakisaka village — this morning, midway across the Chain Crossing, his horse bolted, and he fell headlong from a height of nearly five jo. This is what became of him, as you see."

So one of them said.

"I have long heard tell that the Chain Crossing was a dangerous place — does one see such pitiful sights there often?"

Ichikuro asked, gazing at the corpse, his voice heavy with sorrow.

"Three or four a year, and as many as ten in a bad year, meet with some misfortune there. It's such a fearsome danger spot that even when the plank walkway rots away in wind and rain, we can't manage to repair it as we'd like."

So they answered, even as they set about seeing to the corpse.

Ichikuro recited a sutra for this unfortunate victim, then quickened his pace toward the Chain Crossing.

It was no more than a cho away by now.

Looking on, he saw that the roughly hewn mountain rising on the left bank of the river fell away, where it faced the Yamakuni River, into a sheer cliff nearly ten jo high, its ashen-gray face bared in jagged, deeply furrowed folds.

The waters of the Yamakuni River seemed drawn irresistibly to that cliff, gathering close as if in longing, washing its foot, deep green and swirling.

This, he thought, must be what the villagers had called the Chain Crossing.

The road broke off entirely at the foot of that cliff, and across its face, halfway up, ran a perilous plank walkway of pine and cedar logs linked together with chains.

Even one who was no frail woman or child might well lose his wits and feel his heart tremble, looking down at the water more than five jo below, and up at the cliff nearly ten jo high pressing down overhead.

Clinging to the rock face, planting each trembling step with care, Ichikuro at last made it across, and the instant he turned to look back at that cliff, a great vow suddenly and violently took root in his heart.

Feeling that the penance he had so far performed was far too small, he had been praying to encounter some formidable task that would put his fierce, unyielding spirit of religious striving to the test.

So it was no wonder that, seeing before his very eyes this danger spot where travelers suffered and which claimed nearly ten lives a year, the thought should blaze up in him with such force — that he must give up his own life and body to do away with this peril.

A daring vow rose up in his heart: to bore a road clean through more than two hundred ken of solid cliff.

Ichikuro felt that he had at last found here the very thing he had been searching for in all his wandering.

If he could save ten lives a year, then in ten years that would be a hundred, and as a hundred years passed into a thousand, he thought, he might save the lives of tens of millions.

Once his mind was made up, he set to work on this resolve with single-minded devotion.

From that day on, lodging at the guest quarters of Rakan-ji temple, he went about preaching to the villages along the Yamakuni River, seeking donations for the great work of boring a tunnel.

But not a single soul lent an ear to the words of this wandering monk.

"A madman, thinking he'll drive a hole clean through more than three cho of solid rock — ha, ha, ha!"

Those who merely laughed at him were still the better sort.

"He's a great swindler. Talking of something as absurd as peering at heaven through the eye of a needle, just to collect money — a great swindler, that's what he is."

There were even some who went so far as to persecute Ichikuro for his preaching.

For ten days Ichikuro persisted in this fruitless solicitation, but once he saw that no one would listen, he resolved, in a surge of determination, to take on this great task by his own strength alone.

He obtained a stonemason's hammer and chisel and took his stand at one end of that great cliff.

It was a scene fit for caricature.

Soft volcanic rock though it was, easily chipped away, Ichikuro meant, by his strength alone, to bore clean through that vast, sinuous cliff towering over the river.

"He's finally lost his mind!"

So passersby jeered, pointing at Ichikuro's figure.

But Ichikuro did not yield.

Bathing in the clear waters of the Yamakuni River and praying to the Bodhisattva Kannon, he brought his hammer down for the first time with all the strength in his body.

In answer, only two or three tiny chips of rock scattered off.

But he gathered his strength again and brought down a second blow.

Once more only two or three small fragments broke away from that vast, seemingly boundless mass of stone.

A third blow, a fourth, a fifth — Ichikuro struck on desperately.

When hunger came upon him, he went begging through the nearby villages, and once fed, he turned again to the cliff and swung his hammer.

Whenever a spirit of laziness rose in him, he simply chanted sacred verses and roused his fierce, unyielding heart once more.

One day, two days, three days — Ichikuro's labor went on without a single pause.

Travelers, every time they passed by, sent jeering laughter his way.

But Ichikuro's resolve did not waver, even for an instant, because of it.

Whenever he heard their mocking laughter, he only put still more force into the hand that gripped his hammer.

Before long, Ichikuro built himself a small wooden hut near the cliff, to shelter from the rain and dew.

In the morning he rose while the flow of the Yamakuni still mirrored the light of the stars, and in the evening he did not stop until the roar of the rapids rang clear through the stillness of heaven and earth.

Yet travelers on the road still did not cease their mocking words.

"A fool who doesn't know his own limits."

So they said, taking no notice at all of Ichikuro's labor.

But Ichikuro swung his hammer single-mindedly, without distraction.

So long as he was swinging his hammer, not a single stray thought rose in his mind.

There was no remorse there for the people he had killed.

Nor was there any yearning to be reborn in Paradise.

There was only, in that place, a clear and untroubled heart devoted wholly to his labor.

He felt that the memories of his own evil deeds, which had tormented him every night since he had taken the tonsure, waking him from sleep, were now growing fainter day by day.

He roused his fierce, unyielding spirit all the more, and swung his hammer with utter, single-minded devotion.

A new year came.

Spring came, and summer came, and before he knew it a full year had passed.

Ichikuro's labor had not been in vain.

At one end of the great cliff, a hollow nearly one jo deep had been bored into the rock.

It was but a tiny cave, yet it plainly bore the first clear mark of Ichikuro's unbending will.

But the people of the surrounding villages laughed at Ichikuro all the same.

"Look at that! That's all the mad monk has managed to dig. A whole year of struggling, and that's all there is to show for it..."

So they laughed.

But Ichikuro, gazing at the hole he had bored, felt a joy that brought tears to his eyes.

Shallow as it was, it stood, without doubt, as the true and visible proof of his own power of devotion.

As the years went on, Ichikuro roused himself yet again.

By night in true darkness, and by day still in the dim gloom of the cave, he sat upright and did nothing but swing his right arm, as though possessed.

For Ichikuro, the swinging of that right arm had become the whole of his religious life.

Outside the cave, the sun shone and the moon gleamed, the rain fell and storms raged.

But inside the cave, there was nothing but the unceasing sound of the hammer.

Even at the end of the second year, the villagers still had not stopped their mockery.

But it no longer rose to words.

They would only, after catching sight of Ichikuro, exchange glances and laugh silently among themselves.

But another year passed.

The sound of Ichikuro's hammer rang on without ceasing, just like the voice of the Yamakuni's waters.

The villagers no longer said anything at all.

The look of mockery on their faces had, before they knew it, changed into one of astonishment.

As Ichikuro never combed his hair, it had grown, before he knew it, long enough to cover both shoulders, and as he never bathed, he was so caked with grime that he scarcely looked human.

Yet within the cave he himself had bored, he went on writhing like some animal, swinging his hammer on and on as though possessed.

The villagers' astonishment had, before they knew it, turned into sympathy.

More and more often now, whenever Ichikuro stole a brief moment to set out begging for alms, he would find, unexpectedly, a bowl of food waiting at the mouth of the cave.

Thanks to this, Ichikuro was able to turn the time he would have spent begging back toward the cliff instead.

The end of the fourth year came.

The cave Ichikuro had bored had by now reached a depth of five jo.

But set against a cliff of more than three cho, it was still cause for the despair of one lost among endless byways.

The villagers, for all their astonishment at Ichikuro's dedication, still had not one among them willing to lend a hand to what so plainly looked like futile labor.

Ichikuro had to carry on his labor entirely alone.

But by now Ichikuro had entered a state of pure absorption in his digging, and held no thought in his mind beyond the swinging of his hammer.

He had no other thought at all, except to go on digging, like a mole, for as long as life remained in him.

All alone, he pressed on, digging doggedly forward.

Outside the cave, spring departed and autumn came, and the scenery of the four seasons shifted in turn, but inside the cave there was nothing but the unceasing sound of the hammer.

"Poor monk. He's gone mad, it seems, boring away at that great mass of rock. He'll end his own life before he's bored through even a tenth of it."

So travelers on the road began to grieve over what seemed Ichikuro's futile labor.

But one year passed, then two, and by the very end of the ninth year, he had bored the tunnel to a measured depth of twenty-two ken from mouth to end.

For the first time, the villagers of Hida began to see that Ichikuro's undertaking might, after all, be possible.

The thought took root in the villagers' hearts that if a single gaunt beggar-monk, through nine years' effort alone, had managed to bore this far, then with more hands and more years added, it might not, after all, be so strange a thing to bore clean through this great cliff.

The people of the seven villages along the Yamakuni River, who nine years before had all turned Ichikuro's solicitations away, now came forward of their own accord to contribute to the excavation.

Several stonemasons were hired to help with Ichikuro's undertaking.

Ichikuro was no longer alone.

The sound of many hammers striking the rock face began to spill out from the cave, brisk and lively.

But the following year, when the villagers measured how far the work had progressed and found that it had not even reached a quarter of the way through the cliff, they once again let out murmurs of discouragement and doubt.

"Even with more hands, this will never be finished. We've been taken in by Ryokai for nothing, and thrown our money away."

So they said, having grown, before they knew it, thoroughly weary of the slow-moving work.

Ichikuro was once again left behind, alone.

He noticed that the men swinging hammers beside him dwindled, one by one, two by two, until at last not a single one remained.

But he never once tried to call back those who left.

He simply went on, in silence, swinging his hammer all alone.

The villagers' attention drifted entirely away from Ichikuro.

The deeper the cave was bored, moreover, the further from the sight of passersby Ichikuro's figure, swinging his hammer far within, receded.

People would peer into the darkness sealed within the cave and wonder,

"Is Ryokai still at it, I wonder?"

So they doubted.

But even that much attention gradually faded away, until Ichikuro's very existence was on the verge of vanishing altogether from the villagers' minds.

But just as Ichikuro's existence had become a matter of indifference to the villagers, so too had the villagers' existence become a matter of indifference to him.

For him, only the great rock face before his eyes existed at all.

But by now, after more than ten years of sitting upright inside that cave, on the cold, gloomy stone without pause, Ichikuro's face had gone pale, his eyes had sunk deep into their sockets, the flesh had wasted from his bones until they showed through, and he scarcely looked like a living man of this world.

Yet within Ichikuro's heart, an unshakeable, ferocious resolve burned on and on, and there was nothing in him but the single-minded drive to press ever forward with his boring.

Every time even a fraction of an inch of the rock face was chipped away, he raised a cry of pure joy.

Left behind entirely alone, Ichikuro passed another three years.

Then the villagers' attention began, once again, to turn back toward him.

When, out of mere curiosity, they measured the depth of the cave, they found it now ran sixty-five ken in length, with a single window bored through the rock face toward the river to let in light, and that fully a third of this great cliff had by now been pierced through, chiefly by Ichikuro's own emaciated arms.

Once again their eyes widened in astonishment.

They were ashamed of their earlier ignorance.

Reverence for Ichikuro was reborn once more in their hearts.

Before long, the sound of hammers wielded by nearly ten stonemasons, donated to the effort, once again joined with his own.

Another year passed.

As that year's months went by, the villagers began, before long, to regret an expense whose payoff still lay so far in the future.

The workmen provided by donation dwindled, before anyone knew it, one by one, two by two, until in the end only the sound of Ichikuro's hammer shook the darkness of the cave.

But whether or not others stood beside him, the force of Ichikuro's hammer never changed.

He raised the hammer with all the strength of his body, like a machine, and brought it down again with all the strength of his body.

He had forgotten even his own self.

The killing of his master, the highway robbery, the murders he had committed — all of it had faded entirely beyond the reach of his memory.

A year passed, then two.

Wherever his single-minded will moved, his emaciated arms did not bend, hard as iron.

It was just at the end of the eighteenth year.

Before he knew it, he had bored through half of the rock face.

Seeing this fearsome miracle, the villagers no longer doubted Ichikuro's work in the slightest.

They were deeply ashamed of their two earlier lapses, and the people of the seven villages, in full sincerity of united effort, began helping Ichikuro all together.

That year, the district magistrate of the Nakatsu domain came on an inspection tour and bestowed words of high commendation upon Ichikuro.

Nearly thirty stonemasons were gathered from the surrounding villages and beyond.

The work advanced like fire through dry leaves.

The people, seeing Ichikuro's pitifully wasted form, urged him,

"Surely now you should simply oversee the stonemasons. There's no need for you to swing the hammer yourself any longer."

So they urged, but Ichikuro stubbornly refused.

He seemed to have resolved that if he was to fall, he would fall with the hammer still gripped in his hand.

As if unaware that thirty stonemasons now worked beside him, he forgot sleep and food, and exerted himself with all his might, no differently than before.

But it was no wonder the people urged him to rest.

It was likely the result of having sat, for nearly twenty years, deep within the rock where no ray of sunlight ever reached.

His legs had been damaged by so many years of sitting upright, and had, before he knew it, lost the freedom to bend and stretch.

He now had to lean on a staff even to walk the shortest distance.

It was likely also because he had sat so long in darkness, never seeing the light of day.

And likely too because the fragments of shattered stone that constantly flew about him had injured his eyes.

Both his eyes had grown clouded and dim, losing their light, until he could scarcely tell one thing from another.

Even the unshakeable Ichikuro, for all his resolve, could not help but feel the pain of the infirmity now closing in on him.

He held no attachment to his own life, yet nothing seemed to him more bitter than the thought of collapsing midway through his task.

"Just two more years of endurance."

So he cried within his own heart, and swung his hammer with all his might, trying to forget his own decline.

The rock face that had once stood before Ichikuro in all the inviolable majesty of nature had, before anyone knew it, been pierced by the arm of a single wasted beggar-monk, and the cave boring through its midst now pressed, as though it were itself alive, straight toward its very heart.

IV

Ichikuro's health had been pitifully ravaged by excessive exhaustion, but for him, an even more fearsome enemy than that lay in wait for his life.

Nakagawa Saburobei, who had met a violent death at Ichikuro's hands, had been killed by his own retainer, and on the grounds of improper household management, his house was abolished; his only child, Jitsunosuke, then three years old, was taken in and raised by relatives.

When Jitsunosuke turned thirteen, he learned for the first time that his father had met a violent death.

When he learned, moreover, that his father's killer had been no equal in rank — no fellow samurai — but a lowly servant kept and fed by his own house, the boy's heart burned with bitter, indignant fury.

He resolved, then and there, on the single purpose of vengeance, and engraved it deep in his heart.

He hurried off and entered the Yagyu school of swordsmanship.

In his nineteenth year, once he was granted full mastery of the art, he set out at once upon his journey of vengeance.

sent off with words of encouragement from all his relatives, who promised that if he succeeded in his purpose and returned, they would see to the revival of his family's house.

Jitsunosuke, suffering many hardships on a road unfamiliar to him, wandered through the provinces, single-mindedly seeking the whereabouts of his enemy Ichikuro.

For Jitsunosuke, who had never once laid eyes on Ichikuro, it was a search as elusive and hopeless as grasping at clouds.

Through the Five Home Provinces, the Tokaido, the Tosando, the San'in, the San'yo, the Hokuriku, the Nankai — he passed year after year on his wandering road, continuing his empty pilgrimage until he had reached the age of twenty-seven.

Time and again, the hardships of the road threatened to wear away even his hatred and fury toward his enemy.

But whenever he thought of his father's bitter, violent death, and of the grave duty of restoring the Nakagawa house, he roused his resolve anew, in a surge of determination.

In the spring of just the ninth year since he had left Edo, he found himself in the castle town of Fukuoka.

Having searched the main provinces in vain, he had resolved to search the remote frontier of Kyushu as well.

Moving on from the castle town of Fukuoka to that of Nakatsu, he visited Usa Hachiman Shrine one day after the second month had begun, and prayed that his long-cherished purpose might be fulfilled as soon as possible.

After finishing his worship, Jitsunosuke rested at a tea stall on the shrine grounds.

It was then that he happened to overhear a man who looked like a farmer, sitting nearby, say to a fellow worshipper who had happened by,

"That monk, they say, originally came from Edo. He killed a man in his youth, so it's told, and repented of it, and took a great vow to save all people — and that tunnel at Hida they were just speaking of was carved through by that monk's own strength, all alone."

So he heard the man say.

Hearing this tale, Jitsunosuke felt a keenness of interest he had not known in the nine years since he had set out.

He asked, somewhat urgently, "Forgive my abruptness, but let me ask you something. How old would you say this monk is?"

So he asked.

The man, apparently taking it as an honor that his talk had caught a samurai's attention, said,

"Let me see, now. I've never laid eyes on the Reverend myself, but by all accounts he must be close to sixty."

"Is he tall, or short?"

Jitsunosuke pressed on, asking.

"That I couldn't say for certain either. He stays so deep within the cave, you see, that no one really knows for sure."

"Do you happen to know what his lay name was, before he took orders?"

"That too I couldn't tell you at all, but I hear he was born in Kashiwazaki in Echigo, and went up to Edo when he was young."

So the farmer answered.

Hearing this much, Jitsunosuke leapt up in joy.

When he had left Edo, one of his relatives had warned him that, since his enemy was born in Kashiwazaki in Echigo, there was no telling whether the man might make his way back to his native province, and that he should search Echigo with especial care.

Jitsunosuke's spirits rose, certain that this was nothing less than an oracle from Usa Hachiman Shrine itself.

He asked for the old priest's name and the road to the Yamakuni valley, and although it was already past the hour of eight, he threw all his desperate strength into his legs and hurried toward his enemy's whereabouts.

Arriving at the village of Hida near the first watch of night, Jitsunosuke thought at first to make straight for the cave, but he checked himself, telling himself he must not act in haste, and passed that night in an inn at the post town of Hida, a night of restless impatience; the next day he rose early, and in light travel dress made for the Hida tunnel.

When he reached the mouth of the tunnel, he questioned a stonemason there who was carrying out fragments of broken rock.

"I'm told there's a monk called Ryokai somewhere within this cave — is that true?"

"Of course he's there — where else would he be? The Venerable Ryokai is practically the master of this hollow. Ha, ha, ha!"

So the stonemason laughed, without a care.

Jitsunosuke rejoiced, his spirits soaring, feeling that the fulfillment of his long-cherished purpose now lay directly before his eyes.

But he told himself he must not act rashly.

"Now then — is this the only entrance and exit?"

he asked.

For he thought he must not let his enemy escape.

"Why, of course it is. The Venerable Ryokai is suffering the very tortures of hell trying to open a mouth on the far side."

So the stonemason answered.

Jitsunosuke rejoiced that his enemy of so many years now lay before him like a rat trapped in a sack.

No matter how many stonemasons might be working under him, he thought, cutting the man down would be no trouble at all, and his spirits rose high.

"I have a small favor to ask of you. Tell the Venerable Ryokai that someone has come a great distance to seek an audience with him."

So he said.

After the stonemason had gone into the cave, Jitsunosuke moistened the peg of his sword's hilt.

In his heart, he pictured the face of the enemy he was about to meet for the very first time in his life.

If the man was leading the excavation of the tunnel, he must, though past fifty, still be a man of powerful frame and muscle.

And since he had, in his youth, been no stranger to swordsmanship, Jitsunosuke told himself he must never for a moment let down his guard.

But after a while, a beggar-monk came out of the tunnel mouth and stood before Jitsunosuke.

It would be more accurate to say he crawled out, like a toad, than that he simply came out.

He seemed less a human being than the wreckage of one.

All the flesh had wasted from him until his bones showed through, and his legs below the joints were raw and festering in places, so that one could hardly bear to look at him for long.

His tattered robe alone showed him to be a monk, and his hair had grown long, covering a forehead deeply lined with wrinkles.

Blinking his clouded, grayish eyes, the old monk looked up at Jitsunosuke and said,

"My old eyes have failed me utterly — I cannot tell who it is that stands before me."

So he said.

Jitsunosuke's heart, strung so tight until this very moment, faltered the instant he laid eyes on this old monk.

He had wanted a wicked monk he could hate from the very bottom of his heart.

Yet before him now crouched a half-dead old monk, scarcely to be told apart from a corpse.

Jitsunosuke steeled his own heart, which had begun to sink into disappointment, and said,

"Are you the one they call Ryokai?"

he asked, with forced vigor.

"Indeed, that is who I am. And you are — ?"

The old monk looked up at him, puzzled.

"Ryokai, or whatever you call yourself now — however much you disguise yourself in a monk's robes, you cannot have forgotten. In your younger days, when you were called Ichikuro, you struck down and fled from your master, Nakagawa Saburobei. I am that man's only son, Jitsunosuke. Resign yourself — there is no escape for you now."

Jitsunosuke's words remained utterly composed, yet within them was a severity that would yield not one step.

But Ichikuro, on hearing Jitsunosuke's words, showed not the slightest sign of surprise.

"Indeed — so you are the young master, Jitsunosuke, son of the House of Nakagawa. Yes, the one who struck down your father and fled — that is none other than this Ryokai."

He answered not so much as one meeting an enemy who sought his life, but with the warmth of one meeting the orphaned child of his former master; yet Jitsunosuke told himself he must not be deceived by the gentleness in Ichikuro's voice.

"For nearly ten years I have passed through hardship upon hardship, all to strike down you, monstrous man, who murdered your master and fled. Now that we have met here, there is no more escape for you — fight me honorably, as is proper."

So he said.

Ichikuro showed not the least flicker of cowardice.

It grieved him somewhat to think he might die without living to see the fulfillment of a great vow that was to be completed within the year, but when he considered that this too was the just reward of his own past sins, he made up his mind to die.

"Young master Jitsunosuke, come — cut me down. As you may have heard, this is the tunnel that I, Ryokai, resolved to bore through as penance for my sin, and after nineteen years' labor it now stands nine parts in ten complete. Even should Ryokai perish, it will surely be finished before many more years pass. If I am to shed my blood at this tunnel's mouth by your hand, and become a living pillar for its completion, then I have nothing left in this world to regret."

So he said, blinking his sightless eyes.

As Jitsunosuke stood before this half-dead old monk, he found that the hatred he had long borne toward his father's murderer had, before he knew it, faded away entirely.

His enemy, in penance for the sin of killing his father, had ground his very body and soul to pieces, suffering through half a lifetime.

And now, the moment Jitsunosuke had named himself, the man was ready to give up his life without the slightest resistance.

What manner of vengeance would it even be, Jitsunosuke wondered, to take the life of such a half-dead old monk?

And yet, unless he struck down this enemy, he had no grounds on which to bring his years of wandering to an end and return to Edo.

Still less could he even dream of restoring his family's name.

Jitsunosuke thought that he might cut short the old monk's life not so much out of hatred, but out of calculation.

But to kill a man out of mere calculation, without feeling the fierce, burning hatred that ought to drive it, was more than Jitsunosuke could bear.

He tried to fan back to life the hatred that was fading within him, and so strike down an enemy no longer worth striking.

It was at that very moment.

Five or six stonemasons came running out of the cave, and seeing Ichikuro in danger, threw themselves forward to shield him, crying, "What do you mean to do to the Venerable Ryokai?"

So they rounded on Jitsunosuke.

On their faces was plainly written a look that would brook no forgiveness, depending on what happened next.

"I have my reasons — I have long sought this old monk as my enemy, and today, at last, by chance, I have found him, and mean to fulfill my long-cherished purpose. Get in my way, whoever you are, and I will show no mercy."

Jitsunosuke said, with stern resolve.

But even as he spoke, the number of stonemasons grew, and travelers on the road stopped one after another, until they had surrounded Jitsunosuke, each of them working himself into a fury, determined not to let so much as a finger touch Ichikuro's body.

"Whether or not one takes an enemy's life is a matter for those still living in the ordinary world. As you can see for yourself, the Venerable Ryokai has already shorn his hair and donned the dyed robes of a monk, and to the people of these seven villages of the Yamakuni valley he is revered as nothing less than the Bodhisattva Jichi come again."

So said the leader, and some among the crowd went so far as to insist that Jitsunosuke's quest for revenge was an impossible, misguided ambition.

But being obstructed in this way by those around him, Jitsunosuke's fury toward his enemy revived, before he knew it.

As a matter of samurai pride, he could not simply fold his arms and walk away.

"Even in the guise of a monk, he cannot escape the grave crime of killing his master. I will show no mercy to any man who dares hinder one taking vengeance for his father."

So saying, Jitsunosuke drew his sword from its scabbard.

The crowd surrounding Jitsunosuke all braced themselves as one.

It was then that Ichikuro raised his hoarse voice.

"Everyone, hold back. This Ryokai has every reason to be struck down. It was only to atone for that very sin that I set myself to bore this tunnel in the first place. To end this half-dead body now, by the hand of so filial a son, is the one wish of Ryokai's whole life. There is no need for any of you to interfere."

So saying, Ichikuro threw his body forward and tried to crawl toward Jitsunosuke's side.

The people around him, who knew Ichikuro's iron will only too well from long experience, understood there was no way to turn him from his resolve.

It seemed that Ichikuro's life would end right there.

At that moment, the foreman of the stonemasons stepped forward before Jitsunosuke and said,

"You must have heard as much yourself, sir, but this tunnel is the great vow of the Venerable Ryokai's whole life — for nearly twenty years he has ground his very body and soul to pieces in this hardship. Whatever his own past sins, how bitter it would be for him to perish now, with the fulfillment of his great vow lying so nearly within reach. Our plea, from all of us together, is this — we do not ask for long — will you not entrust the Venerable Ryokai's life to our keeping, only until this tunnel is broken through? The very moment it is completed, you may do with him exactly as you please."

So he pleaded, with utmost sincerity.

The crowd, each voice joining the next, cried,

"It's only right, it's only right!"

in agreement.

Hearing them put it this way, Jitsunosuke found he could not refuse their plea.

He thought that, rather than risk some disgraceful blunder here and now by trying to strike down his enemy against the crowd's resistance, it was surely certain that if he waited for the tunnel's completion, Ichikuro — who even now was ready to offer himself up to be killed — would, moved by a sense of honor, offer his own head all the more willingly.

And setting such calculation aside, letting this old monk, enemy though he was, carry his great vow through to completion was not, in itself, an unpleasant thing to allow.

Jitsunosuke, looking evenly between Ichikuro and the crowd, said,

"Out of regard for Ryokai's monastic vows, I will grant this request. See that you do not forget the promise just made."

So he said.

"There is no doubt of it at all. The very moment this tunnel breaks through to the far side — by so much as a single bu, a single sun — we will let you strike down the Venerable Ryokai on the spot, without delay. Until then, please make yourself comfortable and stay on here."

So the master stonemason said, in a gentle tone.

Once this disturbance had been peacefully resolved, Ichikuro, as though grudging every moment of time it had cost him, crawled his way back into the cave.

Jitsunosuke seethed with anger that, at so crucial a moment, an unforeseen obstacle had kept him from accomplishing his purpose.

Suppressing a frustration he could do nothing about, he let one of the stonemasons show him into a wooden hut.

Left alone to think, he could not help but feel bitter regret at his own helplessness, having had his enemy directly before him and yet failed to strike him down.

His heart, before he knew it, had filled entirely with irritated fury.

He had utterly lost whatever leniency of heart had let him agree to wait for the tunnel's completion.

He resolved firmly that he would steal into the cave that very night, cut down Ichikuro, and be gone.

But just as Jitsunosuke was keeping watch over Ichikuro, the stonemasons were, in turn, keeping watch over Jitsunosuke.

He passed the first two or three days idly, against his own will, but it was on the very evening of the fifth day.

As it had gone on night after night, the stonemasons seemed to have let their watchful eyes relax, and by the hour approaching the ox, every one of them had fallen into a deep, careless sleep.

Jitsunosuke resolved that tonight, at last, was the time.

He sprang up at once, drew the sword lying by his pillow close to him, and slipped quietly out of the hut.

It was a night of early spring, the moon shining clear and cold.

The waters of the Yamakuni River flowed on, swirling pale blue beneath the moonlight.

But paying no heed to the scenery around him, Jitsunosuke crept forward stealthily, drawing near to the tunnel mouth.

Chunks of chiseled rock lay scattered here and there, bruising his feet with every step he took.

Inside the cave, only the moonlight streaming in from the entrance and through windows bored open here and there cast faint, pale patches of light.

Feeling his way along the rock wall to his right, he pressed on deeper and deeper.

When he had gone about two cho from the entrance, he suddenly heard, echoing up from the depths of the cave, a sound — clack, clack — coming at intervals.

At first he could not tell what it was.

But with every step he took, the sound grew louder, until at last it echoed through the still, nighttime silence of the cave.

It was, unmistakably, the sound of an iron hammer striking against the rock face.

Jitsunosuke felt his own heart struck violently by that grave, uncanny sound.

As he drew nearer to the depths, that sharp sound, like jewels shattering, echoed all around the cave and assailed his hearing with fierce force.

Guided by this sound, he crept forward, drawing closer.

The one wielding this hammer, he thought, could be none other than his enemy Ryokai.

Secretly moistening the mouth of his scabbard, he drew close, holding his breath.

It was then that, in the intervals between the hammer blows, he heard Ryokai's voice, chanting sutras, half a whisper and half a groan.

That hoarse, sorrowful voice pierced straight through Jitsunosuke, like a dash of cold water.

In the dead of night, with everyone else gone and even the plants and trees asleep, the figure of Ryokai — sitting upright in the darkness, swinging his iron hammer all alone — rose vivid before the eye of Jitsunosuke's mind, even amid that ink-black gloom.

It was, by now, no longer the heart of a mere human being.

It was the heart of a bodhisattva, fierce and unyielding in devotion, risen above joy, anger, sorrow, and delight, doing nothing but swing the iron hammer.

Jitsunosuke realized that his grip on his sword's hilt had, before he knew it, loosened.

He suddenly came back to himself.

When he considered how he himself, taking advantage of the darkness of night, was crouched there like a highway robber, like a beast, with a sword of wrath drawn against a holy man of great virtue — one who had already attained the heart of the Buddha and was suffering the agony of grinding his own body to pieces for the sake of all living beings — a violent shudder ran through his entire body.

The powerful hammer blows that shook the cave, together with that grave, sorrowful voice of prayer, shattered Jitsunosuke's resolve utterly to pieces.

He decided that he had no choice but to wait, with a clean and honest heart, for the day of completion, and for the promise made to him to be fulfilled.

Filled with deep emotion, Jitsunosuke crawled his way back out of the cave, making for the moonlight outside.

Not long after this happened, the figure of Jitsunosuke, in samurai dress, could be seen among the stonemasons working on the tunnel.

He no longer held the slightest trace of that grim resolve to ambush the old monk under cover of darkness and be gone.

Knowing now that Ryokai would neither flee nor hide, he resolved, with genuine goodwill, to wait for the day when Ryokai would fulfill the great vow of his lifetime.

But even so, realizing that rather than waiting about idly, he might, by lending some strength of his own arm to this great undertaking, shorten by however little the date of his own vengeance, Jitsunosuke took his place among the stonemasons and began swinging a hammer himself.

Enemy and enemy struck their blows side by side.

Jitsunosuke swung his hammer with all his might, wishing only that the day his purpose would be fulfilled might come even one day sooner.

Ryokai, ever since Jitsunosuke's appearance, must have wished to complete his great vow even a single day sooner, so as to grant the wish of so filial a son.

He roused his fierce devotion all the more, and went on smashing the rock face like a madman.

Month after month, in this way, passed and came again.

Jitsunosuke's heart, moved by Ryokai's fierce, unshakeable resolve, more and more found itself losing, in the great work of the tunnel, its own grudge against its enemy.

Even at midnight, while the stonemasons rested from the day's fatigue, enemy and enemy swung their hammers side by side, in silence.

It was the night of the tenth day of the ninth month of the third year of Enkyo — twenty-one years since Ryokai had struck the first blow of the Hida tunnel, and one year and six months since Jitsunosuke had first met him.

That night too, all the stonemasons had withdrawn to their huts, and only Ryokai and Jitsunosuke, undaunted by a full day's fatigue, went on swinging their hammers with all their strength.

Near the hour of nine that night, Ryokai brought his hammer down with all his strength, and it struck as though against rotten wood, with no resistance at all, so that the momentum carried his right palm, still gripping the hammer, against the rock, and he cried, "Ah!" —

the sound escaping him before he knew it.

It was at that very moment.

Even to Ryokai's dim, clouded old eyes, there appeared, unmistakably, through the small hole his hammer had broken open, the vivid sight of the Yamakuni River, bathed in moonlight.

Ryokai gave a cry — "Ohh!" —

a shout so indescribable it seemed to shake his whole body, and no sooner had it left him than a fit of weeping and laughter, so wild with joy it seemed like madness, shook the very cave to its depths.

"Lord Jitsunosuke. Look, look! My great vow of twenty-one years — at last, tonight, it is fulfilled!"

So saying, Ryokai took Jitsunosuke's hand and showed him, through the small hole, the flow of the Yamakuni River.

Directly below the hole, a stretch of blackened earth could be seen — unmistakably the highway running along the riverbank.

Enemy and enemy clasped hands there together, and choked on tears of overwhelming joy.

But after a while, Ryokai drew back and said,

"Now, Lord Jitsunosuke — the day of our promise has come. Cut me down. If I am to pass from this world in the very midst of such religious ecstasy, then my rebirth in the Pure Land of Paradise is certain, beyond all doubt. Come, cut me down. If it waits until tomorrow, the stonemasons will surely try to stop you — come, cut me down now."

So his hoarse voice rang through the night air of the cave.

But Jitsunosuke only sat before Ryokai, his arms folded, choked with tears.

Watching the withered old monk weep with joy welling up from the very depths of his heart, the thought of killing him as an enemy no longer even occurred to him.

Far more than any thought of taking vengeance, his heart was filled with wonder and deep emotion at the great work accomplished by these two frail human arms.

He crept forward and took the old monk's hand once more.

There the two of them, forgetting everything else, wept together, overcome with emotion.