山椒大夫 English

Along the road from Kasuga in Echigo to Imazu walked a party of travelers such as one rarely saw.

The mother was a woman who had just turned thirty, and she had two children with her.

The elder, a girl, was fourteen; the younger, a boy, was twelve.

With them was a maidservant of about forty, who to the two weary siblings kept saying, "We shall soon reach our lodging for the night—"

encouraging them on with such words, trying to keep them walking.

Of the two, the elder girl walked as though dragging her feet, yet she had more spirit than her weariness, and so as not to let her mother or brother know how tired she was, she would every now and then, as if suddenly remembering herself, put a spring into her step.

Had they been walking some nearby road on a pilgrimage, the group might have looked fitting enough, but their brisk equipage of broad hats and walking staffs struck every eye as strange, and stirred a certain pity as well.

The road ran on through stretches where farmhouses appeared and then gave way to open land.

There was much sand and gravel underfoot, but the autumn weather had dried it well, and being mixed with clay it had packed hard, so that it did not, as near the sea, swallow one's ankles and torment the walker.

They came upon a cluster of thatch-roofed houses standing in a row, ringed by a grove of oaks, with the evening sun blazing full upon it.

"Oh, look at those beautiful maple leaves."

said the mother, who walked ahead, pointing them out to the children.

The children looked where their mother pointed, but said nothing, so the maidservant spoke up.

"With the leaves turning color like that, it's no wonder the mornings and evenings have grown so cold."

The elder girl suddenly turned to her brother and said,

"I do wish we could hurry and reach the place where Father is."

"Sister. We shan't get there for a long while yet."

answered the boy, with a knowing air.

The mother spoke as if to instruct them.

"Indeed so. We must cross many more mountains like the ones we've already crossed, and cross rivers and the sea by boat again and again, before we get there. So we must walk on diligently and obediently, every day."

"But I do want to get there soon."

said the elder girl.

The party walked on in silence for a while.

From the opposite direction came a woman carrying empty buckets on a pole.

She was a woman who drew seawater, returning from the salt flats.

The maidservant called out to her.

"Excuse me. Is there no house hereabouts that will lodge travelers?"

The woman drawing seawater stopped and looked over the party of four, mistress and servants together.

Then she said,

"Oh, how unfortunate. Night is falling on you in an unlucky place. In this district there isn't a single house that will put up travelers."

The maidservant said,

"Is that really so? Why should the people here be so unfriendly?"

The two children, catching the rising tension of the exchange, drew close to the woman drawing seawater, so that together with the maidservant the three of them stood surrounding her.

The woman drawing seawater said,

"No, no—this is a place of good, believing people, but it can't be helped, for it's the governor's own decree. Just over there—"

she broke off, and pointed back along the road she had come by.

"You can just see it from here—when you reach that bridge, there stands a notice board. It's written out in full there, they say, but of late wicked slave traders have been prowling about these parts. And so anyone who lodges a traveler and lets him stay is held guilty, and the seven neighboring houses are made to share the blame, they say."

"That is troubling indeed. We have the children with us, and cannot go much farther now. Is there truly nothing to be done?"

"Let me think. If you were to come as far as the salt flats where I work, it would be night before you arrived. I fear there's nothing for it but to find some good spot along the way and sleep out in the open. To my mind, the best place would be under that bridge yonder. Close against the stone embankment of the bank, there is a great deal of timber standing up along the riverbed—timber that has come floating down from the upper reaches of the Arakawa. In the daytime children play beneath it, but further in, where the sun never reaches, there are places grown dark. There, at least, the wind won't reach you. I myself lodge, as I go there every day, with the owner of the salt flats—just there, in that grove of oaks. When night comes, I'll bring you straw and matting."

The children's mother had been standing apart, listening to all this, but now she came forward to the woman drawing seawater and said,

"It is our great good fortune to have met with someone so kind. Let us go there and rest. We should be glad to borrow straw and matting from you—if only enough for the children to lie upon and cover themselves with."

The woman drawing seawater agreed, and went back toward the oak grove.

The party of four, mistress and servants, hurried on toward the bridge.

—————————————

The party came to the foot of the Oge Bridge that spanned the Arakawa.

Just as the woman drawing seawater had said, a new notice board stood there.

The governor's decree written upon it did not differ from what the woman had told them.

If slave traders were indeed prowling about, one would think it more sensible to hunt down the slave traders themselves.

Why should the governor set down a decree that, in trying to keep travelers from lodging, left those overtaken by nightfall to wander lost in the road?

It was a clumsy sort of solicitude.

But to the people of that age, a decree was a decree.

The children's mother could only lament the fortune that had brought them to a land under such a decree; she did not stop to consider whether the decree itself was right or wrong.

At the foot of the bridge there was a path used by those who went down to the riverbed to wash clothes.

By that path the party went down to the riverbed.

Sure enough, a great quantity of timber stood leaning against the stone embankment.

The party crept in beneath the timber, following along the embankment.

The boy, finding it great fun, pushed ahead boldly, first of them all.

Deep within, where they crawled far in, there was a place like a cave.

Beneath, great timbers lay crosswise, so that it was almost like a floor laid down.

The boy went first, climbing onto the timbers lying there, and made his way into the farthest corner. "Sister, come quickly,"

he called.

The elder girl went to her brother's side, fearfully.

"Now, now, wait a moment."

said the maidservant, and she set down the bundle she had been carrying on her back.

She took out a change of clothing, drew the children aside, and spread it out in the corner.

There she had mother and children sit.

When the mother sat down, the two children clung to her, one on each side.

Since leaving their home in Shinobu District of Iwashiro, in the course of coming this far, mother and children had more than once slept in places even less sheltered than this hollow beneath the timber, even when it was within a house.

They had gradually grown used to such hardship, and no longer felt it so keenly.

It was not only clothing that came out of the maidservant's bundle.

There was also food, kept by for safety's sake.

The maidservant set it out before mother and children and said,

"We cannot light a fire here, for we must not risk being found by wicked people. I shall go to the house of the owner of those salt flats and get some hot water. And I'll ask again about the straw and matting."

The maidservant bustled off, ever diligent.

The children began happily eating rice cakes and dried fruit.

After a while, footsteps sounded, someone coming in beneath the shelter of the timber.

"Is that you, Ubatake?"

called the mother.

Yet in her heart she doubted—it seemed too soon for anyone to have gone all the way to the oak grove and back.

Ubatake was the maidservant's name.

The one who had come in was a man of about forty.

He was sturdily built, with so little fat on him that each muscle could almost be counted beneath his skin, his face like some ivory-carved figure wearing a smile, and in his hand he held a rosary.

He came forward toward the spot where mother and children lay hidden, walking with the easy familiarity of a man in his own house.

Then he seated himself on the end of the timber where mother and children sat.

Mother and children only looked on in astonishment.

He showed no sign of meaning them harm, and so they did not feel afraid.

The man spoke as follows.

"I am a boatman by the name of Yamaoka Dayu. Of late, it seems, slave traders have taken to prowling this district, so the governor has forbidden anyone to lodge travelers. Catching the slave traders themselves seems beyond the governor's power, it would appear. It's the travelers who suffer for it. And so I made up my mind to help them where I could. My house happens to lie off the highroad, so I can take people in quietly without answering to anyone. I go about searching the woods and under the bridges, wherever folk are likely to be sleeping out, and I've brought many a one home with me by now. I see the little ones are eating sweets, but such things won't fill a stomach—only wear on the teeth. At my place I can offer no great hospitality, but I can give you some sweet-potato gruel at least. Please, don't stand on ceremony—come along with me."

The man did not press them, but spoke as though half to himself.

The children's mother listened closely, and could not help being moved by so admirable a resolve—to save people even at the cost of defying the law of the land.

So she said,

"Hearing you speak, I see it is a most admirable resolve indeed. I am uneasy at the thought that borrowing lodging where the law forbids it might bring trouble down upon our host, but if only my children can be given some warm gruel to eat and allowed to rest beneath a roof, I myself matter little—and I shall not forget the debt even in the world to come."

Yamaoka Dayu nodded.

"Well, well, what a sensible lady you are. Then let me show you the way at once."

So saying, he made as if to rise.

The mother spoke as though troubled.

"Please wait just a moment. It already troubles me enough that the three of us should impose on your kindness, so I hardly know how to say this, but in truth we have one more companion."

Yamaoka Dayu pricked up his ears.

"You have a companion. Is it a man, or a woman?"

"She is a maidservant I brought along to look after the children. She said she would go and beg some hot water, and went back three or four cho along the highroad. She should be returning before long."

"A maidservant, is it. Then let us wait for her."

Across Yamaoka Dayu's composed, unfathomable face there passed, for some reason, the shadow of a pleased look.

—————————————

This is the inlet of Naoe.

The sun still lay hidden behind Mount Yoneyama, and over the deep-blue sea a thin mist hung.

There was a boatman loading a party of passengers into his boat and casting off the mooring line.

The boatman was Yamaoka Dayu, and the passengers were the party of four travelers, mistress and servants, who had lodged the night before at Dayu's house.

The mother and her two children, who had met Yamaoka Dayu beneath the Oge Bridge, had waited for the maidservant Ubatake to return with hot water in her chipped and battered flask, and then, led by Dayu, had gone to take up his offer of lodging.

Ubatake had followed along with an uneasy look on her face.

Dayu had put the four of them up in a thatched cottage within a pine grove, a little way south off the highroad, and had served them sweet-potato gruel.

Then he asked where they were traveling from, and where bound.

Having put the tired children to bed first, the mother told the master of the house, by the faint light of a lamp, something of the outline of her circumstances.

She herself was from Iwashiro.

Her husband had gone to Tsukushi and not returned, so she was traveling with her two children to seek him out.

Ubatake, she explained, was the maidservant who had nursed the elder girl from her very birth, and being without family of her own, had come to accompany them on this long and uncertain journey.

Now, though they had come this far, when she thought of the distant end of Tsukushi still before them, it was much as if they had only just left home.

Should they go on now by land?

Or should they go by way of the sea?

Since their host was a boatman, he would surely know about distant provinces.

She begged him, please, to teach her what he knew.

Dayu, as though answering something already perfectly obvious, recommended without the least hesitation that they go by sea.

If they went by land, even at the very border where one crossed into the neighboring province of Ecchu, there lay the notorious danger of Oyashirazu-Koshirazu.

At the foot of cliffs sheer as if hewn away, rough waves came crashing in.

Travelers had to duck into hollows in the rock and wait for the waves to draw back, then dash through the narrow path beneath the cliffs.

At such a moment, a parent could spare no thought for a child, nor a child for a parent.

Such was the peril along the shore.

And crossing the mountains, too, there were dangerous cliff paths where, should but a single stone underfoot give way, one would plunge to the bottom of a bottomless ravine.

No one could say how many such dangers lay between here and the far west.

By sea, on the other hand, it was safe.

So long as one trusted oneself to a reliable boatman, one could travel a hundred ri, even a thousand ri, without stirring a step.

He himself could not go all the way to the west, but he knew boatmen from many provinces, and could take them out by boat and transfer them to a vessel bound for the west.

Tomorrow morning, then, he would put them straight on board, Dayu said, as though it were nothing at all.

As dawn began to break, Dayu hurried the party of four out of the house.

At that moment the children's mother took money from a small pouch, meaning to pay for their lodging.

Dayu stopped her, saying he would take no payment for lodging, but that he would keep the precious pouch with the money in it for safekeeping.

Whatever was precious, he said, ought to be entrusted to the innkeeper on reaching an inn, and to the boat's master on boarding a boat.

From the moment she had first accepted Dayu's offer of lodging, the children's mother had found herself swept along, as if compelled to do whatever their host Dayu said.

Grateful as she was that he had broken the law to give them lodging, she did not trust him so far as to obey him in everything, whatever he said.

Yet she found herself swept along all the same, because there was a compelling force in Dayu's words that the mother could not resist.

And the reason she could not resist it was that there was, somewhere in him, something frightening.

Yet the mother did not think of herself as afraid of Dayu.

She herself did not clearly understand her own heart.

She boarded the boat with the feeling of one doing something she had no choice but to do.

The children, seeing the calm sea's surface spread out like a blue woven mat, boarded with hearts leaping at the novelty of it all.

Only on Ubatake's face did the shadow of unease never quite vanish, from the moment she had left the shelter beneath the bridge yesterday until now, as she boarded the boat.

Yamaoka Dayu cast off the mooring line.

With one push of the pole against the bank, the boat swayed and glided out.

—————————————

Yamaoka Dayu rowed for a while along the coast southward, toward the border of Ecchu.

The mist melted away before their eyes, and the waves shone in the sunlight.

In the shadow of a rock where no house stood, there was a spot where the waves washed the sand and cast up seaweed and kelp.

There, two boats lay at rest.

A boatman, seeing Dayu, called out to him.

"Well? Have you got any?"

Dayu raised his right hand and folded down his thumb.

And he too moored his boat there.

Folding down only the thumb was a signal that meant there were four.

One of the boatmen already there was called Saburo of Miyazaki, a man from Miyazaki in Ecchu.

He opened his left fist to show it.

Just as the right hand served as a signal for the goods, so the left hand served as a signal for the price.

This meant he had priced her at five kanmon.

"I'll go higher."

said the other boatman, and thrusting out his left elbow, he opened his fist once, then held up his forefinger.

This man was Jiro of Sado, and he had priced her at six kanmon.

"You lazy scoundrel!"

cried Miyazaki, springing up as if to strike him, whereupon, "It's you who tried to cheat me first,"

said Sado, squaring off.

The two boats tilted, their gunwales lashing at the water.

Dayu looked coolly from one boatman's face to the other.

"Don't be so hasty. Neither of you will go home empty-handed. So the passengers won't be too crowded, I'll divide them two and two. The price will be split according to the figures you named just now."

Having said this, Dayu turned to look at his passengers.

"Now then, two of you get into each boat there. Both are bound for the west, whichever you take. A boat rides poorly when it's too heavily laden."

Dayu took them each by the hand and had them change boats: the two children into Miyazaki's boat, the mother and Ubatake into Sado's.

As Dayu drew back his hand from helping them across, both Miyazaki and Sado pressed strings of coins into it.

"But—the pouch you left with our host—"

Ubatake was saying, tugging at her mistress's sleeve, when Yamaoka Dayu abruptly shoved his empty boat off.

"I'll take my leave now. My part is done once I've passed you from one sure hand to another. Fare you well on your journey."

The busy sound of the oar rang out, and Yamaoka Dayu's boat drew swiftly away, farther and farther.

The mother said to Sado,

"We shall row the same way and arrive at the same harbor, shan't we?"

Sado and Miyazaki looked at each other and burst out laughing.

Then Sado said,

"The boat we board is the Ferry of the Great Vow, and we all arrive at the very same Far Shore—or so the abbot of Rengebuji is said to have put it."

With that the two boatmen fell silent and pushed off.

Jiro of Sado rowed north.

Saburo of Miyazaki rowed south.

"Wait—wait!"

Mother and children, mistress and servant, called back and forth to one another, but only drew farther and farther apart.

The mother, half out of her mind, clutched the gunwale and rose up as far as she could.

"It cannot be helped now. This is our parting. Anju, treasure your guardian Jizo well. Zushio, treasure the protective sword your father gave you well. Pray that the two of you are never parted."

Anju was the name of the elder girl; Zushio, of the boy.

The children could only cry, "Mother! Mother!"

again and again.

Boat and boat drew steadily farther apart.

Behind, the two children's open mouths could still be seen, like fledglings waiting to be fed, but their voices could no longer be heard.

Ubatake called out to Jiro of Sado, "Oh, boatman, sir, please—"

but Sado paid her no heed, so at last she clung to his leg, thick and gnarled as a red pine's trunk.

"Boatman, sir. What is the meaning of this? Parted from our young lady and young master, where in this world can we go on living? And it's the same for my mistress. What will she have left to live for now? Please, row after that boat, wherever it goes. I beg you, for pity's sake."

"Shut your mouth."

and Sado kicked her backward.

Ubatake collapsed onto the boat's floorboards.

Her hair came undone and hung over the gunwale.

Ubatake raised herself up.

"Ah. This is the end. Forgive me, my lady."

So saying, she plunged headfirst into the sea.

"Hey!"

cried the boatman, thrusting out his arm, but he was too late.

The mother took off her robe and held it out before Sado.

"This is a poor thing, but I offer it to you in thanks for your trouble. I too shall take my leave now."

So saying, she put her hand to the gunwale.

"You fool."

said Sado, and seizing her by the hair, he dragged her down.

"I'll not let you die too. You're precious goods."

Jiro of Sado hauled out a towrope and rolled the mother round and round, binding her fast in it.

Then he rowed on, north and ever north.

—————————————

"Mother! Mother!"

Carrying the elder sister and younger brother, who kept calling this out again and again, Saburo of Miyazaki's boat ran on southward along the shore.

"Stop calling."

scolded Miyazaki.

"The fish and shellfish at the bottom of the sea might hear you, but that woman won't. She'll likely be taken across to Sado and set to chasing birds off the millet fields."

The elder sister Anju and the younger brother Zushio clung to each other and wept.

They had thought that leaving their home, and traveling this long road, would always be done together with their mother, but now, torn apart against all expectation, the two of them did not know what to do.

Nothing but sorrow filled their hearts, and they could not even grasp how much this parting was about to change the whole course of their lives.

At midday Miyazaki brought out rice cakes and ate.

He gave one each to Anju and Zushio as well.

The two of them held the rice cakes in their hands without trying to eat, and looked at each other and wept.

At night, beneath the straw matting Miyazaki threw over them, they cried themselves to sleep.

So the two of them spent day after day, dawn to dusk, aboard the boat.

Miyazaki went about hawking them at harbor after harbor along the coasts of Ecchu, Noto, Echizen, and Wakasa.

But since the two were so young, and looked frail besides, hardly anyone came forward wanting to buy them.

Now and then a buyer appeared, but the bargaining over price never came to an agreement.

Miyazaki grew steadily more ill-tempered, and "Will you cry forever?"

he would say, and took to striking the two of them.

Miyazaki's boat wandered on and on, until at last it came to the port of Yura in Tango.

Here, at a place called Ishiura, there stood the great estate of a wealthy man named Sansho the Bailiff, who had rice and wheat planted in his fields, sent men hunting in the mountains and fishing in the sea, kept silkworms and set up looms for weaving, and had craftsmen of every kind produce metalware, pottery, wooden vessels—everything imaginable—and who would buy people, any number of them.

Whenever Miyazaki had, in the past, some goods that found no buyer elsewhere, it had become his practice to bring them to Sansho the Bailiff's place.

The overseer of slaves who was stationed at the harbor on the Bailiff's behalf bought Anju and Zushio at once for seven kanmon.

"Well, well—rid of the brats at last, and lighter for it."

said Saburo of Miyazaki, and he tucked the money he'd received into his robe.

Then he went into a tavern by the wharf.

—————————————

In the innermost hall of the great mansion, built with pillars too thick to encircle with both arms, a hearth a full ken square had been cut into the floor, and charcoal fire was burning in it.

Opposite it, three cushions were laid one atop another, and upon them Sansho the Bailiff leaned against an armrest.

On either side of him sat his two sons, Jiro and Saburo, ranged like a pair of guardian lion-dogs.

The Bailiff had originally had three sons, but the eldest, Taro, at the age of sixteen, had once stood watching in silence as his father branded with his own hand a slave who had been caught trying to run away, and without a word he had walked out of the house one day and never been heard of since.

That was nineteen years ago now.

The slave overseer led Anju and Zushio forward.

And he told the two children to bow.

The two children seemed not to hear the overseer's words at all, and only stared wide-eyed at the Bailiff.

The Bailiff, sixty years old this year, had a face like something painted in vermilion, broad of brow and heavy of jaw, his hair and beard both gleaming silver.

The children, more amazed than afraid, gazed steadily at that face.

The Bailiff said,

"Is that the children they bought? I was told they were rare enough, unlike the usual slaves, and I'd not know what use to put them to, so I had them brought here specially to look at—and here they are, a pair of pale, spindly brats. As for what use to put them to, I'm sure I don't know myself."

Saburo, at his side, spoke up.

He was the youngest son, but already thirty.

"Now, Father. I've been watching them, and though they're told to bow, they don't bow. They don't even give their names, the way the other slaves do. Feeble as they look, they're stubborn creatures. For a slave's first duties, it's always the boys who gather firewood and the girls who draw seawater. Set them to that, just as it's always done."

"Just as you say—they wouldn't give their names to me either."

said the overseer.

The Bailiff gave a mocking laugh.

"Fools, it would seem. Very well, I'll name them myself. The sister, whose lot is grief, shall be Shinobugusa. The brother shall be Wasuregusa—a name that forgets its own. Shinobugusa is to go to the shore and draw three loads of seawater a day. Wasuregusa is to go to the mountain and cut three loads of brushwood a day. In consideration of their frail bodies, I'll have the loads made light."

Saburo said,

"That's more consideration than they deserve. Here, overseer—take them off at once and give them their tools."

The overseer led the two children to the newcomers' hut and gave Anju a bucket and dipper, and Zushio a basket and sickle.

With each was given a wooden box for carrying the midday meal.

The newcomers' hut stood apart from where the other slaves lived.

By the time the overseer left, darkness had already fallen.

There was no light in this hut.

—————————————

The next morning was bitterly cold.

The night before, the bedding provided in the hut had been so filthy that Zushio had gone and found some matting, and the two of them had slept huddled beneath it, just as they had once huddled under the straw covering in the boat.

As the overseer had taught them the day before, Zushio took the wooden box and went to the kitchen to receive the morning meal.

Frost lay upon the rooftops, and upon the straw scattered over the ground.

The kitchen was a large earthen-floored room, and already many slaves had come and were waiting there.

Men and women received their food at separate places, but Zushio tried to collect a share for his sister as well as himself, and was scolded for it once; only after promising that each of them would come to fetch their own from tomorrow on did he finally manage to receive, besides the wooden box, two portions of thick gruel in round wooden cups, and two portions of hot water in wooden bowls.

The gruel had been cooked with salt in it.

As sister and brother ate their morning meal, they resolved between them, bravely enough, that having come to such a state, there was nothing for it now but to bow their necks beneath their fate.

And so the sister set off for the shore, and the brother for the mountain path.

Passing together out through the Bailiff's third gate, then the second, then the first, the two of them trod the frost and, looking back again and again, parted to left and right.

The mountain Zushio climbed was the foot of Mount Yura, reached by going a little south from Ishiura before beginning the ascent.

The place for cutting brushwood was not far from the foot of the mountain.

Passing here and there through spots where purple-colored rock lay bare, one came out onto a fairly broad stretch of level ground.

There a thicket of mixed trees grew dense.

Zushio stood in the midst of the thicket and looked all about him.

But not knowing how one went about cutting brushwood, he could not bring himself to begin, and for a while he simply sat, dazed, upon the fallen leaves that lay like a cushion, the frost just beginning to melt in the morning sun, and let the time pass.

At last pulling himself together, he cut a branch or two, and in doing so hurt his finger.

So he sat down again on the fallen leaves, thinking that if it was this cold even in the mountains, the sea wind must be bitterly cold indeed for his sister down at the shore, and he shed tears alone.

After the sun had climbed well up, another woodcutter, carrying brushwood on his back down toward the foot of the mountain, happened to pass by. "Are you one of the Bailiff's slaves too? How many loads of brushwood are you to cut in a day?"

he asked.

"I am to cut three loads a day, but I haven't cut so much as a single load yet."

answered Zushio, honestly.

"If it's three loads a day, you'd best have two cut by noon. This is how you cut brushwood."

The woodcutter set down his own load and cut one load for him then and there.

Zushio, heartened, managed to cut one load by noon, and then another after noon.

The elder sister Anju, bound for the shore, went north along the riverbank.

When she came down to the place for drawing seawater, she too did not know how it was done.

Bracing her own heart, she finally lowered the dipper, but no sooner had she done so than a wave snatched it away.

A girl drawing water nearby quickly retrieved the dipper and brought it back.

And she said,

"You can't draw seawater that way. Here, let me show you how. You dip with the right-hand ladle like this, and catch it with the left-hand bucket like this."

And she drew a whole load for her.

"Thank you so much. Thanks to you, I think I understand how it's done now. Let me try drawing a little myself."

Anju learned to draw seawater.

The girl drawing water beside her took a liking to guileless Anju.

As the two of them ate their midday meal, they confided their circumstances to each other and pledged themselves as sisters.

This was a girl called Kohagi of Ise, who had been bought and brought from Futamigaura.

In this way, on that first day, both the three loads of seawater assigned to the sister and the three loads of brushwood assigned to the brother were, with one load each given to them out of charity, successfully completed by nightfall.

—————————————

Day after day went by, the sister drawing seawater, the brother cutting brushwood.

The sister thought of her brother at the shore, and the brother thought of his sister on the mountain, and when they waited for nightfall and returned to their hut, the two of them would clasp hands and, saying how they longed for their father in Tsukushi and their mother on Sado, would speak and weep, and weep and speak again.

In this way some ten days passed.

And then the time came when they had to give up the newcomers' hut.

Once they left the hut, the male slaves would join the men's quarters, and the female slaves the women's.

The two of them said they would sooner die than be parted.

The overseer reported this to the Bailiff.

The Bailiff said,

"What foolishness. Drag the boy off to the men's quarters. Drag the girl off to the women's."

As the overseer, having received his orders, was about to rise, Jiro, seated beside him, called him to a halt.

And he said to his father,

"It's well enough to have the children pulled apart just as you say, but they say they'd sooner die than be parted. Foolish creatures that they are, they might well die of it. And however small the brushwood cut or the seawater drawn, it's a loss to lose even one pair of hands. Let me see to it myself, in my own way."

"I suppose that's so. I don't care for a loss myself either. Do as you like with it."

So saying, the Bailiff turned aside.

Jiro had a hut built at the third gate and put brother and sister there together.

One evening the two children were talking, as always, about their father and mother.

Jiro happened to pass by and overheard them.

Jiro made rounds of the estate, keeping watch over the slaves so that the strong should not abuse the weak, quarrel, or steal.

Jiro went into the hut and said to the two of them,

"However much you long for your parents, Sado is far, and Tsukushi is farther still. It's no place for children to travel to. If you want to see them, wait until you're grown."

So saying, he left.

Some time later, on another evening, the two children were again talking of their parents.

This time it was Saburo who happened to pass by and overheard them.

Saburo, fond of catching roosting birds, would go about the groves within the estate with a bow and arrow in hand.

Every time the two of them spoke of their parents, in their eagerness to see them again they would discuss what to do, this way and that, going over every possible means, even talking over dreamlike schemes.

That day the sister said this.

"Of course it's true that we can't make such a long journey until we're grown. But it's just that impossible thing we want to do. Still, when I really think it over, there's no way the two of us can escape from here together. You mustn't worry about me—you must escape alone. Go on ahead to Tsukushi, see Father, and ask him what's to be done. Then go to Sado and bring Mother back."

It was, unluckily, these very words of Anju's that Saburo overheard, standing there listening.

Saburo, bow and arrow still in hand, stepped abruptly into the hut.

"Hoy. So you two are plotting to run off, are you. Anyone who so much as plans to run away gets branded. That's the law of this house. Red-hot iron is a hot thing indeed."

The two children turned deathly pale.

Anju stepped forward before Saburo and said,

"That was only a lie. How far could my brother possibly get, running off alone? I only said it because I want so badly to see our parents. Just the other day I even said that he and I ought to turn into birds and fly there. It's all idle talk."

Zushio said,

"It's just as my sister says. We're always saying impossible things like that, the two of us, just to ease the longing for our parents."

Saburo looked from one face to the other and was silent for a while.

"Hmph. A lie's a lie, fine. But I've heard for certain now what the two of you talk about when you're alone together."

So saying, Saburo went out.

That night the two of them went to sleep with an uneasy feeling.

How long they had slept after that, they could not tell.

They woke suddenly at the sound of something.

Since coming to this hut, they had been allowed to keep a light.

By its faint glow they saw Saburo standing at their pillows.

Saburo stepped close and seized both of them by the hand, one in each of his.

Then he hauled them up and out through the door.

Looking up at the pale moon, the two of them were dragged along the broad horse-path they had once walked down on the day they were first brought before the Bailiff.

They climbed three steps.

They passed along a corridor.

Winding this way and that, they were brought into the great hall they had seen that first day.

There, many people stood ranged in silence.

Saburo dragged the two of them out before the hearth, where the charcoal fire burned red-hot.

From the moment they had been hauled up in the hut, the two of them had done nothing but cry, "Forgive us, forgive us—"

they had kept saying, but since Saburo dragged them along in silence, in the end they too fell silent.

On the far side of the hearth, three cushions were laid one atop another, and there Sansho the Bailiff sat.

The Bailiff's ruddy face, catching the glow of the torches burning to right and left of his seat, seemed almost to be aflame.

Saburo drew a pair of fire tongs, glowing red, out of the charcoal.

He held them in his hand and studied them for a while.

The iron, at first so red it seemed nearly transparent, gradually darkened.

At that, Saburo drew Anju toward him and made to press the tongs to her face.

Zushio flung himself upon his arm, clinging to it.

Saburo kicked him down and pinned him beneath his right knee.

Then at last he pressed the tongs to Anju's forehead in the shape of a cross.

Anju's scream tore through the silence of the hall and rang out.

Saburo thrust Anju away, hauled Zushio up from beneath his knee, and pressed the tongs to his forehead as well, in the same cross.

Zushio's fresh cry of pain rang out and mingled with his sister's, now grown somewhat fainter.

Saburo threw down the tongs and, just as he had when he first brought the two of them into the hall, seized their hands once more.

Then, after sweeping his eyes over the assembled company, he led them round through the great house and hauled them out to the three steps, and shoved them down onto the frozen ground.

The two children, nearly fainting from the pain of their wounds and the terror in their hearts, somehow endured it, and, hardly knowing which way they walked, made their way back to the little hut at the third gate.

Collapsing onto their bedding, the two of them lay still as corpses for a while, but then all at once Zushio cried out, "Sister, quickly, the Jizo—"

he cried.

Anju sat up at once and drew out the amulet pouch she wore next to her skin.

With trembling hands she untied the cord, took the little image out of the pouch, and set it by their pillow.

The two of them bowed low, one on either side.

At that moment the pain in their foreheads, which they could not have borne even by gritting their teeth, vanished as though wiped away.

When they touched their foreheads with their palms, the wounds were gone without a trace.

With a start, the two of them woke.

The two children sat up and told each other of their dream.

They had dreamed the very same dream, at the very same moment.

Anju took out her guardian image and set it by their pillow, just as she had done in the dream.

The two of them bowed down before it in worship, and by the dim light of the lamp peered closely at the forehead of the Jizo.

There, to either side of the tuft of white hair between its brows, a cross-shaped mark, as clear as if carved with a chisel, could plainly be seen.

—————————————

From the night their talk had been overheard by Saburo, and they had had that terrible dream, Anju's manner had changed a great deal.

Her face wore a taut, set expression, a furrow had come between her brows, and her eyes seemed always fixed on some far-off point.

And she said very little.

When she came back from the shore at evening, though until now she had always waited for her brother to return from the mountain so they could talk at length together, now she spoke little even at such times.

Zushio, worried, would ask, "Sister, what's the matter?"

and she would answer, "Nothing's the matter. I'm quite all right."

and force a laugh.

This was the only change in Anju; what she said was never amiss, and what she did was just as it had always been.

Yet Zushio, seeing his one sister—who had always comforted him and been comforted by him in turn—grown so changed, felt an endless ache in his heart that he could confide to no one.

The two children's lot had grown lonelier still than before.

Snow fell, and stopped, and fell again, and the year drew toward its close.

Both the male and female slaves gave up their outdoor work and came to labor indoors.

Anju spun thread.

Zushio beat straw.

Beating straw required no skill, but spinning thread was difficult.

So at night, Kohagi of Ise would come and help her, teaching her the way of it.

Anju's manner had changed not only toward her brother, but toward Kohagi as well—she spoke little, and was apt to seem cold.

But Kohagi never took offense, and continued to keep her company gently, as though tending to her.

Even at the gates of Sansho the Bailiff's estate, pine boughs were set up.

But there was nothing festive about the New Year here, and since the women of the family lived deep within the house and rarely came or went, there was no bustle of celebration either.

Only that high and low alike drank sake, and quarrels broke out in the slaves' huts.

Ordinarily a quarrel was severely punished, but at such times the overseer looked the other way.

Even when blood was drawn, he might pretend not to notice.

Sometimes, even if someone was killed, nothing was made of it.

To the lonely hut at the third gate, Kohagi came now and then to visit.

As if she had brought along with her the liveliness of the women's quarters, while Kohagi talked the gloomy hut would take on a springlike air, and even on Anju's face, so much changed of late, the shadow of a smile, rarely seen now, would sometimes rise.

After three days, the indoor work began again.

Anju spun thread.

Zushio beat straw.

By now Anju had grown so used to turning the spindle that, even when Kohagi came at night, there was no longer any need for her to help.

Changed as she was, it caused no trouble for such quiet, repetitive work; indeed the work itself seemed rather to loosen the single-minded intensity of her heart and bring her a kind of calm.

Zushio, no longer able to talk with his sister as he once had, found it more reassuring than anything to have Kohagi there, talking to his spinning sister.

—————————————

The season came when the water grew warm and the grass began to sprout.

On the day before outdoor work was to begin again, Jiro, making his rounds of the estate, came by the hut at the third gate.

"Well now. Will you be fit to go out to work tomorrow? Among so many people there are always some who fall sick. I can't tell just from hearing the overseer's reports, so today I've gone round looking in on every hut myself."

Zushio, who had been beating straw, was about to answer, but before he could get the words out, Anju, quite unlike her manner of late, stopped her spinning hand and stepped forward abruptly before Jiro.

"There is something I wish to ask, concerning that. I should like to work in the same place as my brother. Please arrange it so that I may go up to the mountain together with him."

Color rose in her pale face, and her eyes shone.

Zushio, startled to see his sister's manner change yet a second time, and puzzled too that she should suddenly say she wanted to go cut brushwood without consulting him at all, only stared wide-eyed, watching her.

Jiro said nothing, only gazed steadily at Anju.

Anju kept repeating, "It is my only wish, the one and only thing I ask—please, let me go up to the mountain—"

again and again.

After a while Jiro opened his mouth. "In this house, deciding what work is given to which slave is a weighty matter, and my father settles it himself. But Shinobugusa, your wish seems to come from something you've thought over long and hard. I'll take it in hand myself, and see to it that you're able to go up to the mountain. Set your mind at ease. Well now—it's a good thing the two of you children got through the winter safely."

So saying, he left the hut.

Zushio set down his mallet and came to his sister's side.

"Sister. What's the matter? I'm glad enough that you want to come to the mountain with me, but why did you ask so suddenly? Why didn't you talk it over with me?"

His sister's face shone with joy.

"It's only natural you should wonder. But truly, I never meant to ask until the moment I saw his face. It just came to me all at once."

"Is that so? How strange."

Zushio gazed at his sister's face as though looking upon something strange and rare.

The overseer came in carrying a basket and a sickle.

"Miss Shinobugusa. I hear they're taking you off seawater-drawing and sending you to cut brushwood, so I've brought your tools. I'll take the bucket and dipper back with me in exchange."

"How very good of you to trouble yourself."

Anju rose lightly to her feet and brought out the bucket and dipper to return them.

The overseer took them, but showed no sign of leaving yet.

A kind of bitter smile had come over his face.

This man listened to the orders of the Sansho household as though hearing the pronouncements of a god.

And so he would carry out even the most pitiless, cruel commands without hesitation.

But by nature he had no wish to watch people writhe in agony or cry out in weeping.

If things could pass off quietly, without his having to witness such scenes, so much the better for him.

That bitter smile now on his face was the look that came over him whenever he had resigned himself to the fact that he could not avoid causing someone hardship, and had to say or do something regardless.

The overseer turned to Anju and said,

"Now then, there's one more matter. The truth is, it was Master Jiro who arranged with the Bailiff to have you sent to cut brushwood. But Master Saburo happened to be there at the time, and he said, well then, send Shinobugusa up the mountain with her hair cropped like a boy's. The Bailiff laughed and said it was a fine idea. So I must take your hair back with me."

Zushio, listening beside her, heard these words as though a blade had pierced his chest.

And with tears welling in his eyes, he looked at his sister.

To his surprise, the look of joy did not fade from Anju's face.

"Why, of course. Since I'm to go cut brushwood, I'm as good as a boy now. Please, cut it off with this sickle."

Anju stretched her neck out before the overseer.

Anju's long, glossy hair fell away cleanly at a single stroke of the sharp sickle.

—————————————

The next morning, the two children, baskets on their backs and sickles thrust through their belts, went out through the gate hand in hand.

This was the first time since coming to Sansho the Bailiff's that they had walked together.

Unable to fathom his sister's heart, Zushio's chest was filled with something between loneliness and grief.

Yesterday too, after the overseer had gone, he had asked her all sorts of things in all sorts of ways, but his sister seemed to be turning something over in her own mind alone, and in the end never spoke it openly.

When they reached the foot of the mountain, Zushio could bear it no longer and said,

"Sister. I ought to be glad, walking together with you like this after so long, but I can't help feeling so sad. Even holding your hand like this, I can't bring myself to turn and look at your cropped head. Sister. You're hiding something from me, something you've been thinking over. Why won't you tell me what it is?"

This morning too, Anju's brow bore a joy as though lit by some radiant light, and her large eyes shone.

But she did not answer her brother's words.

She only tightened her grip on the hand she held.

At the place where they were about to climb the mountain, there was a marsh.

Along its edge, dead reeds lay tangled every which way just as they had the year before, but in the grass along the roadside, green shoots had already come up among the yellowed leaves.

Turning right from the edge of the marsh and climbing, there was a place where clear water welled up from a crevice in the rock.

Passing that, they climbed the winding path with the rock face on their right.

The morning sun fell full across the face of the rock just then.

Anju spotted a small violet growing, rooted in a weathered crack between layered rocks.

She pointed it out to Zushio and said,

"Look. Spring's really come, hasn't it."

Zushio nodded without a word.

The sister kept a secret locked in her heart, and the brother held nothing but sorrow, so that between them conversation would not take hold, and their talk trailed off, as water sinks away into sand.

When they reached the edge of the thicket where he had cut brushwood the year before, Zushio stopped.

"Sister. This is where I cut it."

"Well, let's climb a little higher first, shall we?"

Anju went on ahead, climbing steadily higher.

Zushio followed, puzzled.

After a while they came to a place well above the thicket, what might be called the summit of the outer hills.

Anju stood there and gazed steadily southward.

Her eyes traced the upper course of the Oguno River, which passed through Ishiura and flowed into the port of Yura, and came to rest on Nakayama across the river, about a ri away, where the tip of a pagoda could be seen rising from a thick grove of trees.

And then, "Zushio—"

she called to her brother.

"You must have thought it strange, all this while, that I've had something on my mind and haven't talked with you the way I used to. Never mind cutting brushwood today—just listen carefully to what I have to say. Kohagi, who was sold here from Ise, once told me the road from her home to this place, and if you cross that Nakayama over there, the capital is close by. Going to Tsukushi would be hard, and going back to cross to Sado wouldn't be easy either, but the capital—the capital you can surely reach. Ever since we left Iwashiro with Mother, we've met with nothing but terrible people, but if a person's fortune can turn, there's no reason we shouldn't meet with good ones too. So make up your mind, escape this place, and go up to the capital. If you're guided by the gods and buddhas to meet with good people, you may learn what has become of Father, who went down to Tsukushi, and you may even go to Sado and bring Mother back. Leave the basket and sickle behind—take only the meal-box with you."

Zushio listened in silence, but tears began to run down his cheeks.

"And you, Sister—what will you do?"

"Never mind about me. Do this thing you must do alone as though I were doing it with you. Once you've seen Father, and brought Mother back from the island, come and rescue me."

"But once I'm gone, they'll make things terrible for you."

In Zushio's mind rose the terrible dream of being branded.

"They may torment me, it's true, but I'll bear it and show them I can. They won't kill a slave they paid good money for. Most likely, once you're gone, they'll try to make me do the work of two. I'll cut plenty of brushwood, at that thicket you showed me. I may not manage six loads, but I'll cut four, or five. Now then, let's go back down there, leave the basket and sickle, and I'll see you off to the foot of the mountain."

So saying, Anju went ahead, descending.

Zushio, unable to make up his own mind about anything, followed dazedly after her, going down.

The sister was fifteen this year, and the brother thirteen, but girls mature early, and besides she had grown, as if possessed by something, unusually clear-sighted and wise, so that Zushio could not bring himself to defy his sister's words.

Descending to the thicket, the two of them set the basket and sickle down on the fallen leaves.

The sister took out her guardian image and placed it in her brother's hand.

"This is a precious charm, but I'll entrust it to you until we meet again. Think of this Jizo as me, and keep it safe together with your protective sword."

"But then you'll have no charm of your own, Sister."

"No. You're the one facing more danger than I am, so it's you who should have the charm. When you don't come back tonight, they're sure to send men after you. However fast you run, if you flee by the ordinary way, they're bound to catch you. Go up the river we saw just now, to a place called Wae, and if you manage to cross to the far bank without being seen, Nakayama will be close by. Once you're there, go into that temple where we saw the pagoda and have them hide you. Stay hidden there for a while, and once the men who've come after you have given up and gone back, slip away from the temple."

"But will the priests at the temple really hide me?"

"Well, that's the test of your fortune. If your fortune is to open up, the priests will surely hide you."

"You're right. Everything you're telling me today, Sister, sounds just as if some god or buddha were speaking through you. I've made up my mind. I'll do exactly as you say, in everything."

"Oh, thank you for listening so well. The priests are good people—they'll surely hide you."

"Yes. It seems that way to me now too. I'll escape, and I'll reach the capital. I'll see Father and Mother. And I'll come back for you, Sister."

Zushio's eyes began to shine, just like his sister's.

"Come now, I'll go with you as far as the foot of the mountain. Hurry."

The two of them hurried down the mountain.

Their footsteps, too, were different now from before—it seemed as if the sister's fervent resolve had passed, like a suggestion, into her brother.

They came to the place where the spring welled up.

The sister took out the wooden bowl that came with the meal-box and drew some of the clear water.

"This is the sake to celebrate your setting out."

So saying, she drank a mouthful and passed it to her brother.

Her brother drained the bowl.

"Then, Sister, farewell. I'll surely reach Nakayama without being seen."

Zushio dashed down the remaining ten paces or so of the slope in one rush, and came out onto the highroad along the marsh.

Then he hurried on along the bank of the Oguno River, upstream.

Anju stood at the edge of the spring and watched his retreating figure, now hidden behind the roadside pines, now appearing again, until it grew small and was gone.

And though the sun was drawing near noon, she made no move to climb the mountain.

Fortunately, it seemed no one was cutting wood on this side of the mountain that day, and no one noticed Anju standing on the slope, letting the time pass.

Later, when the pursuers of the Sansho household went out to search for the two siblings, they found, at the edge of the marsh at the foot of this slope, one small straw sandal.

It was Anju's.

—————————————

At the great gate of the Kokubunji at Nakayama, torch-flames wavered and scattered, and a great crowd of people came pressing in.

At their head was Saburo, Sansho the Bailiff's son, a white-hilted glaive thrust through his belt.

Saburo stood before the hall and shouted in a loud voice.

"We who have come here are of the household of Sansho the Bailiff of Ishiura. Someone has seen for certain that one of the Bailiff's slaves has fled into this mountain. There's nowhere for him to hide but within this temple. Bring him out at once."

The great crowd following him cried out, "Come, bring him out, bring him out!"

they shouted.

A broad stone pavement ran from before the main hall out to beyond the gate.

On those stones, Saburo's men, torches in hand, now jostled and pressed together.

And on either side of the pavement, nearly every monk and layman living within the temple grounds had gathered, hardly one left behind.

When the band of pursuers had raised their clamor outside the gate, people had come out from the inner sanctuary and from the kitchen quarters alike, wondering what on earth had happened.

When the pursuers first shouted from outside the gate for it to be opened, many of the monks, fearing that violence might follow if they let them in, had wanted to keep it shut.

But the abbot, the Vinaya Master Donmyo, had it opened.

Yet now, though Saburo shouted loudly for the runaway slave to be handed over, the main hall remained shut up and silent for a while.

Saburo stamped his feet and repeated the same demand two or three times.

From among his men someone called out, "Well, priest, what's the matter?"

someone called out.

A short burst of laughter mixed in with it.

At last the doors of the main hall quietly opened.

It was the Vinaya Master Donmyo himself who had opened them.

The Master, wearing nothing but a single monastic robe, making no show of ceremony at all, stood at the top of the hall's steps, the faint light of the eternal lamp behind him.

His tall, sturdy frame and his sharp-boned face, the brows still black, were lit by the flickering flames.

The Master had only just turned fifty.

The Master opened his mouth calmly.

Even the noisy pursuers fell silent at the mere sight of him, so that his voice carried to every corner.

"So you've come searching for a runaway servant. In this temple, no one is sheltered without my knowing of it, as abbot. I know of no such person, and so that person is not within these grounds. That aside—you came in the dead of night bearing arms, a great crowd of you, and demanded the great gate be opened. I had it opened, thinking perhaps some great disturbance had broken out in the province, or that some rebel against the throne had appeared. And what is it instead? An inquiry after some household servant of yours? This temple is one founded by imperial decree; an imperial tablet hangs upon its gate, and in the seven-story pagoda are enshrined sutras written in gold, in the Emperor's own hand. Should violence be done here, the governor himself will be held to answer for it before the inspector. And should we appeal to our head temple, Todaiji, there's no telling what judgment might come down from the capital. Think well on that, and you'd do better to withdraw at once. I mean you no ill—it's for your own sake I say it."

So saying, the Master quietly closed the doors.

Saburo glared at the closed doors of the hall and ground his teeth.

But he had not the courage to break down the doors and force his way in.

His men only murmured among themselves, like leaves rustling in the wind.

At that moment someone cried out in a loud voice.

"This runaway you're after—a little brat of twelve or thirteen, isn't he? If so, I know something of him."

Saburo turned in surprise to see who had spoken.

It was an old man so like the Bailiff himself that one might mistake him for his father—the temple's bell-tower keeper.

The old man went on,

"That brat—round about noon, watching from the bell tower, I saw him pass outside the earthen wall, hurrying south. Frail as he looks, he's light on his feet. He'll have covered a good deal of ground by now."

"That's it, then. A child can only get so far in half a day. After him!"

said Saburo, and he wheeled about and set off.

The bell-tower keeper watched from the bell tower as the line of torches went out through the temple gate and away south along the outside of the earthen wall, and he laughed aloud.

In the nearby grove, two or three crows that had just settled down to sleep took startled flight once more.

—————————————

The next day, men went out from the Kokubunji in various directions.

Those who went to Ishiura came back with word of Anju's drowning.

Those who went south came back with word that the pursuers under Saburo had gone as far as Tanabe and turned back.

Two days later, the Vinaya Master Donmyo set out from the temple, heading toward Tanabe.

He carried an iron alms bowl as large as a washtub, and leaned on a pilgrim's staff as thick as a man's arm.

Behind him followed Zushio, his head shaved clean, dressed in the three robes of a monk.

The two of them walked the highroad by broad daylight and lodged at temples here and there by night.

When they reached Suzakuno in Yamashiro, the Master rested at the Gongendo and parted from Zushio there.

"Guard your protecting image well, and go on. You will surely learn what has become of your father and mother."

So he told him, and the Master turned on his heel.

This priest says the very same thing my late sister said, Zushio thought.

On reaching the capital, Zushio, being in monk's guise, lodged at Kiyomizudera in Higashiyama.

He slept in the retreat hall, and when he woke the next morning, an old man dressed in a court robe and cap and wide trousers was standing at his pillow, and said,

"Whose child are you? If you have some precious thing about you, please, show it to me. I came here last night to pray for my daughter's recovery from illness. And in a dream I had a revelation—that a boy sleeping by the left lattice carries a fine protecting image, and that I should borrow it and worship before it. This morning I came to the left lattice, and here you are. Please, tell me your circumstances, and lend me your protecting image. I am the Regent Morozane."

Zushio said,

"I am the child of a man called Masauji, Deputy Governor of Mutsu. Twelve years ago my father went to Anrakuji in Tsukushi and, I am told, never returned. That same year my mother, taking me, newly born, and my sister, then three years old, came to live in Shinobu District of Iwashiro. In time, when I had grown a good deal, she set out on a journey with my sister and me to seek out my father. When we reached Echigo we fell into the hands of dreadful slave traders; my mother was taken to Sado, and my sister and I were sold to Yura in Tango. My sister died at Yura. This Jizo is the protecting image I carry."

So saying, he brought out the protecting image and showed it to him.

Morozane took the image in his hands and, raising it as if to touch it to his own forehead, made obeisance.

Then, turning it over and over, front and back, he examined it closely and said,

"This is the golden image, long spoken of, of the sacred Jizo Bosatsu, Radiant King. It came over from the kingdom of Kudara, and was kept as a personal devotion by Prince Takami. That you should carry it down through your family leaves no doubt of your lineage. You can be none other than the eldest son of Taira no Masauji, who, in the early years of Eiho, while the retired Emperor still sat upon the throne, was implicated in the governor's misconduct and exiled to Tsukushi. If you wish to return to lay life, an appointment as a provincial governor may follow in time. For now, you shall be a guest in my house. Come with me to my residence."

—————————————

The one called the daughter of the Regent Morozane was in fact an adopted daughter waiting upon the retired Emperor's court, actually a niece of his wife.

This lady had long been ill, but the moment she borrowed Zushio's protecting image and worshipped before it, she recovered at once, as if wiped clean.

Morozane had Zushio return to lay life, and with his own hands placed the cap of manhood upon him.

At the same time, he sent a messenger to the place of Masauji's exile, bearing a pardon, to inquire after his safety.

But by the time this messenger arrived, Masauji was already dead.

Zushio, now come of age and known by the name Masamichi, grieved until his body was worn thin with it.

In the autumn appointments of that year, Masamichi was made Governor of Tango.

This was an absentee post, one in which he did not go to the province himself, but appointed a deputy to govern it in his place.

But as his very first act of government, the Governor forbade the buying and selling of people throughout the whole province of Tango.

And so Sansho the Bailiff too freed all his slaves, every one, and undertook to pay them wages instead.

For a time the Bailiff's household took this to be a great loss, but from then on, both the farming and the craftwork flourished more than ever, and the family grew ever more prosperous.

The Vinaya Master Donmyo, to whom the Governor owed so much, was raised to the rank of Sozu, and Kohagi, who had been so kind to the Governor's sister, was sent back to her home.

Anju was given a solemn memorial after her death, and at the edge of the marsh where she had drowned herself, a convent was to be built.

Having done this much for the province under his charge, Masamichi specially requested leave of absence, and crossed over to Sado in disguise.

The provincial capital of Sado was in a place called Sawata.

Masamichi went there and had the officials search the whole province, but his mother's whereabouts were not easily discovered.

One day, lost in thought, Masamichi left his lodging alone and walked about the town.

Before he knew it, he had left the rows of houses behind and come onto a path through the fields.

The sky was clear, and the sun shone bright and red.

In his heart Masamichi thought, "Why can I not learn what has become of Mother? Is it perhaps that the gods and buddhas, angry that I've left the search to officials instead of seeking her out myself, refuse to let us meet?"

So he thought, as he walked on.

Glancing about, he happened to see a fairly large farmhouse.

On the south side of the house, within a thin hedge, was a bit of open ground, the earth beaten hard, and over the whole of it straw mats had been spread.

On the mats, harvested millet heads lay drying.

In the very middle of it sat a woman in ragged clothes, holding a long pole, driving off the sparrows that came to peck at the grain.

The woman was murmuring something, in a tone like a song.

Masamichi, drawn to this woman he knew not why, stopped and looked closer.

Her disheveled hair was caked with dust.

Looking at her face, he saw she was blind.

Masamichi felt a deep pity for her.

Presently, as his ears grew accustomed to it, he began to make out the words the woman was murmuring.

And at that same instant Masamichi's whole body began to shake as with a fever, and tears welled up in his eyes.

These were the words the woman kept murmuring over and over.

Anju, I long for you, hoyareho.

Zushio, I long for you, hoyareho.

Even a bird, since it too has life,

fly away, fly away quickly—I'll not chase you.

Masamichi stood transfixed, lost in listening to these words.

Presently his very entrails seemed to seethe within him, and he clenched his teeth to hold back a cry, half animal, that was rising to his lips.

All at once, as though some binding rope had snapped, Masamichi rushed in through the hedge.

And trampling the millet heads underfoot, he flung himself down before the woman.

In his right hand he held the protecting image aloft, and as he fell prostrate, he pressed it to his forehead.

The woman sensed that something large, not a sparrow, had come to trample the millet.

And she stopped her usual chant, and stared straight ahead with her sightless eyes.

At that moment, as a dried shellfish softens when it is wetted, moisture came into both her eyes.

The woman's eyes opened.

"Zushio—"

burst from the woman's mouth.

The two of them clung to each other, tight.

January, Taisho 4 (1915)