大つごもり English

Part One

The well had a rope twelve fathoms long wound on a pulley, and the kitchen faced north, where the bare winter wind of the twelfth month blew clean through, bitterly cold. "Oh, this is unbearable"—and so a minute of warming oneself by the stove fire stretched into an hour, and the maidservant who was scolded severely over a matter as trifling as a stick of firewood had a wretched lot indeed. When she had first been placed in service through the lodging-house mistress, the old woman's words had been: "The family has six children, boys and girls, but those who are ordinarily in the house are just the eldest son and the youngest two; the mistress is somewhat ill-tempered, but once you learn to read her eyes and expression, there is nothing so terrible about it, and in fact she is the kind who responds to flattery, so if you handle yourself well, you need not want for a half-collar, a half-apron, or an apron-string. The family's fortune is the greatest in the neighborhood, and accordingly their frugality is second to none, but in good matters the master is indulgent, so there ought to be no shortage of small perquisites. If you come to dislike it, send me a single postcard—no need to write

at length—and I will spare no effort in finding you another place." Thus the secrets of service were explained to her in terms of front and back, and though she thought what a frightful thing the woman was saying, she resolved that this was no affair of hers at heart, and that she would not be in the woman's debt again, and that if she only worked diligently and put in the effort, there was no reason the mistress should not be pleased—and so she came to have even such a demon of a mistress. Three days after her trial period was up, the seven-year-old young mistress was to go to her dance lesson from the afternoon onward, and the preparations for that were to start with a bath drawn from the morning. In the frozen predawn, while she was still in the warm bed, the mistress struck the ash-blowing pipe and called out her orders; those words struck her heart more sharply than any alarm clock, and without being called a third time she had her tasuki sleeves tied up, working briskly with her sash before anything else. Going out to the well, she found moonlight still lingering on the drain, and the wind, sharp enough to pierce the skin, chased the last of sleep away. The bath was a sunken tub, not large,

but she had to make no fewer than thirteen trips, filling two buckets to overflowing each time, and she was drenched in sweat from carrying them. Along the way, the clogs on her feet—those water-soaked clogs with a missing tooth on the worn wheel, the front thong gone slack so she had to curl up her toes to keep them on—slipped on the ice at the drain with a heavy load in her hands, and before she could cry out she fell sideways, striking her shin hard on the edge of the well curb; poor girl, her skin, modest as snow, bloomed purple and livid. She dropped the buckets there and then: one was still full, but the other's bottom had come out. She did not know what price the bucket might fetch, but the mistress, the blue veins standing frighteningly at her temples as though the family fortune were to be ruined by it, glared at her throughout breakfast service, and said not a word to her all that day. From the day after that, at every lifting and setting down of chopsticks, she would be told: nothing in this household comes free of cost; if you think lightly of the master's things you will be

punished for it. This sermon was recited morning and evening and repeated to every caller, and it was mortifying to a young heart; after that she took such pains with everything that she never again committed a blunder. There were many households in the world that kept maidservants, but none could have gone through servants as frequently as the Yamamura household: two a month was ordinary; some had come back in three or four days, and some had fled after a single night. If you counted from time immemorial on your fingers, you thought of that mistress's sleeve-cuffs; and people said of O-Mine: she has real endurance, and it would call down heaven's punishment to treat her harshly, and after this there can be nobody in all of Tokyo who would become a maid at Yamamura's—what a praiseworthy disposition, what a fine attitude. And then there were those who said, first and foremost, her looks were flawless—and that the men were quick to say so.

Since autumn her only uncle had been ill, and the greengrocer's shop he kept had quietly closed, and though she heard he had come to live in a back tenement in the same neighborhood, in her position of having a difficult mistress and having received her wages in advance—which was the same as selling herself—she could not even go to see him. The errand calls she did make, she had to time by the clock down to the minute, calculating how many steps and how many blocks, and the strain of it was painful. To slip away at a dash—she thought of it, but evil travels a thousand leagues, and if she ruined her hard-won endurance over that and lost her place, it would only cause more worry to her ailing uncle, and to burden the lean household even for a single day would be unkind. Telling herself it would work out soon, she sent only letters, and remained here against her will, letting the days pass.

The twelfth month is busy for the world in general, and a certain theater had chosen that very time to put on a new and particularly interesting program, and they said it had opened two days ago; the daughters clamored that they could not miss it, and it was announced that the whole household would see it on the fifteenth—an unusual treat. To delight in such an outing was ordinary enough, but now that her father and mother were gone, she could not go about sightseeing and pleasure-seeking while her one precious person lay sick in bed without even a visit from her; if it meant displeasing the mistress, so be it—she asked for a holiday in place of the outing. Her record of diligent service carried some weight, and the day after the day that passed, she was told: go early and come back early—such an offhand command, and though she managed to say "thank you very much," before long she was in a rickshaw thinking, are we there yet, are we there yet, growing impatient that Koishikawa was so slow in coming.

"Hatsune-cho" sounds charming, but it was a pauper's town, like the warbler in a lean year. There was a man called Honest Yasubei who had a great bald head at which some god of medicine seemed to have taken up residence—that forehead gleaming—and with it as his landmark he tended his greengrocer's trade somewhere between Tamachi and Kikuzaka; a thin starting-capital turned over and over, and since his stock had always to be the cheap and bulky kind rather than anything choice, his goods never ran to cucumbers floating like a rudderless boat with passengers, or first-of-the-season matsutake mushrooms wrapped in straw—so people laughed that Yasubei's stock always looked like something out of an account book. But his loyal customers were a blessing; crooked though his trade was, he had managed to wet the mouths of three people, and had even fulfilled his duty of sending Sannosuke, who was now eight, to the one-rin school. But autumn in the world is cruel, and at the end of September, one morning when the wind had suddenly turned sharp, he carried a load of purchases from Kanda back to his house on his own back, and then without pause came fever and then bone-aching illness—

—and now, three months later, the shop was of course closed, the household provisions steadily consumed, until they came to the point of selling even the carrying-pole. Unable to go on keeping the front shop, with no reason to spare themselves the humiliation of a fifty-sen back tenement, and telling themselves there would be another season, they moved—pitifully, only the sick man was put in the rickshaw, while a bundle barely manageable with one hand was tied up and they slipped into a corner of the same block.

O-Mine got down from the rickshaw and asked her way here and there, and when she peeked into the doorway of a cheap candy shop with kites and paper balloons hung from the eaves to attract children, there was no sign of Sannosuke among them, and she felt deflated. Looking absently at the street, she saw, on the opposite side from where she stood, the back of a thin child walking with a medicine bottle in hand; he was taller than Sannosuke and seemed too thin, but his manner was similar, and she ran up briskly and looked at his face. "Oh, elder sister!"—so it was Sannosuke after all—and as she was led along with him, deep into a narrow alley behind a sake shop and a potato shop, through a dark back-entrance with the grating boards rattling underfoot, Sannosuke ran ahead and called out from the doorway: "Father, Mother, I've brought sister home!"

"What, O-Mine has come?" said Yasubei, sitting up; his wife set aside the sewing she had been absorbed in and welcomed her almost as if she would take her hands in her own, saying what a rare treat this was. She looked around: one six-mat room with a single built-in closet, with no chest of drawers or long chest to begin with, but the old long brazier she remembered was gone too, and in its place a square earthenware piece from Imado set in a box of the same shape—this was apparently the sole piece of furniture in the house. She heard there was not even a rice bin; what a wretched state of things—while there were people going to the theater beneath the winter sky. O-Mine first felt tears rising, and said, "Do come, lie down, it is cold in this wind"—draping the thin quilt, stiff as hardtack, over her uncle's shoulders—"you must have had such a great deal of hardship, dear aunt, you look thinner too. Please don't fall ill from worry. Still, are you recovering day by day?

I hear about the situation in letters, but not seeing you makes me anxious—I waited and waited for today's holiday and finally got it. Never mind the house—once uncle is fully recovered, getting back to a front shop is nothing; please get well as quickly as possible. I wanted to bring something for uncle, but the road was long and my heart was hurrying—the rickshaw man's feet seemed slower than usual—and I missed even the stall of your favorite sweet-seller. This money is small, but it is what remains of my allowance: when guests came from the relatives in Kojimachi, the old retired lady had an attack of tapeworm and was suffering greatly, and I massaged her back through the night, and she gave it to me saying to buy myself an apron. One thing and another—the house is strict, but guests from outside have become my patrons. Please be pleased, uncle. Service is not so difficult. This purse and this half-collar are all

given to me. The collar is plain, so please wear it, aunt; the purse, with a slight alteration in shape, would be just right as a lunch bag for Sannosuke. And are you still going to school? If you have any calligraphy to show, let your sister see it too." And so she spoke, one thing leading to another, at great length.

When she was seven her father, at a good client's warehouse under construction, had climbed the scaffolding with a plaster trowel in hand for the rough-coat work, and as he turned around to say something to the man below, it must have been a day the calendar marked with a black ill-omened mark, for he stumbled on scaffolding he had been accustomed to for years and fell—falling from a height onto flagstones being reset in a new pattern, the freshly cut angles of the piled stones striking his head hard, and he was gone; people afterwards shuddered that it had been his year of pre-calamity at forty-two. His mother was Yasubei's sibling, so she was taken in here, and two years later she too was carried off by a sudden severe epidemic, and after that O-Mine had counted Yasubei and his wife as her parents up to her eighteenth year now—their kindness went without saying—and when they called her "sister," Sannosuke was as dear to her as a little brother; she drew him to her, stroked his back and peered into his face, and murmured that he must be lonely and sad with his father ill, and that New Year's

was coming soon, and his sister would buy him something. She told him not to give his mother trouble; but his mother said, never mind being troubled—listen to this, O-Mine. He is eight, but he is big and strong; since I have been bedridden there is no breadwinner but the expenses mount, and seeing our hardship, he seems to have taken it to heart: he goes out with the boy from the salt-seller's out front and peddles clams, carrying as many as his legs can manage, and when that boy sells eight sen worth he always manages ten. Whether it is because Heaven sees the boy's filial devotion, this neighbor and that—the medicine costs are met by Sannosuke's earnings. Please praise him, O-Mine—and the father, pulling the quilt over himself, wrung tears from his voice.

"He loved school above all else—never once gave anyone trouble, dashed out after breakfast, and never dawdled or got into mischief on the way home from school at three o'clock. Not boasting, but he is a child the teacher praises too—and only because we are poor, we have him carrying clams in this cold sky on little feet in straw sandals. Think of a parent's heart in that," said the aunt, also in tears.

O-Mine held Sannosuke close and said: truly, there is no child so devoted in all the world. Big as he is, eight is eight—does the carrying-pole not hurt your shoulders? Do the straw sandals not cut into your feet? Please forgive me. From today onward I will come home and help nurse uncle and keep house. Not knowing, I have been fretting even this morning over the icy rope of the bucket at the well—what a waste. In a school age, to have you carrying clams while your sister goes about in her long kimono—uncle, please grant me leave. I am done with service," she said, and burst into disordered weeping.

Sannosuke quietly let his tears fall one by one, turning his face downward as though to hide them; his shoulders, where stitches showed plain through torn clothing, were what he bore the carrying-pole on—a painful sight. Yasubei said that O-Mine's wish to take her leave was altogether out of the question; the intention was touching, but a woman's work when she came home was one thing, and besides, wages had been drawn in advance from the employer. You cannot simply say "that's that" and go back; the first time in service is the crucial time—it would not do to be thought of as someone who came back unable to endure it. Keep your service faithfully. My illness will not last long; once I am a little better, my spirits will revive, and trade will naturally follow. Ah, if only this year, now half a month from its end, would pass, the New Year is sure to bring good things. Endure, endure in all things—Sannosuke, you endure too; O-Mine, you endure too, he said, swallowing his tears.

They could not treat a rare guest to anything special, but there were Imagawayaki sweets she liked, and simmered taro—please eat plenty, those words were a comfort. She wished she could not see their hardship, but right before her eyes the last day of the year drew near and the family's trouble pressed on her chest like a lump that was not quite a spasm. When he had first taken to his bed, he had borrowed ten yen from a high-rate money-lender in Tamachi on a three-month binding; one yen fifty sen was taken as advance interest, so only eight and a half yen had come into hand. Since it was from the end of September, this month was certainly the due date by the agreement, but what could come of things as they stood? Husband and wife had put their heads together: she pricked her fingertips doing piecework day and night and could not earn ten sen a day. Telling Sannosuke would be useless. O-Mine's employer lived in Shirokanedaimachi with a hundred tenement houses to his name, collecting rents and dressed splendidly in fine clothes every day; O-Mine had gone as far as the gate once on an errand for her, and had seen a

storehouse construction that no mere thousand yen could have accomplished—such enviable wealth she had witnessed. To that employer, who had grown familiar with O-Mine over a year's service, it could not be said that a trusted maidservant's small request would be refused. If she could go and weep and beg to roll over the debt at month's end, and paid the one yen twenty-five sen of interest here, that would make another three months' extension; it sounds like greed to say it, but without going so far as to buy New Year's cake from a street stall, not to let Sannosuke, who had such a future ahead of him, hold chopsticks over the New Year's soup—that would make the sacrifices of a parent with children meaningless. Please find a way to ask for two yen by the last day of the month—it is hard to ask, but that is what he asked her; O-Mine thought a moment, then said: that shall be so, I will certainly see to it. If it comes to that, I will request it as an advance on my wages—it may be hard to resolve a money matter anywhere, as things look and things inside are different, but it is not a large amount, and if this much will settle things here, they will surely not refuse once they hear the reason

—but all the more reason not to bungle the approach. Today I am going back; the next holiday will be well into spring. By then let us all gather and laugh together, she said, and accepted the responsibility.

How is the money to get there? Shall we send Sannosuke to fetch it? Yes, that would be right—even on ordinary days I have no free time, and on the last day of the year I certainly cannot leave my post. It is a long way and I am sorry for the child, but I am counting on you, Sannosuke. I will certainly have everything ready before midday, she said, having promised smoothly, and O-Mine went back.

Part Two

Ishirosuke was the eldest son of Yamamura; his father's affection was thin because he was born of a different mother, and talk of sending him into adoption and keeping the succession among the daughters had been in the air for the past ten years—an unpleasant thing to have heard. That in this day and age there was no such thing as formal disinheritance amused him; he would do as he pleased and make his mother cry, and forgetting all about his father, he began his misbehavior from the age of fifteen onward. He had a rugged masculine presence, with sharp intelligent eyes; he was dark-complexioned but of a fine bearing, and rumors about him were heard among the neighborhood daughters. Yet his way was purely violent: his feet turned toward Shinagawa too, but the disturbance was only for the moment; he thought nothing of summoning a rickshaw in the middle of the night to rouse the ruffians of Kurumamachi, and his pastime was to empty his wallet and force his way through. To leave the succession to such a man was like setting fire to an oil warehouse—the family fortune would go up in smoke and there would be nothing left for the rest of them; unable to bear the thought, his mother

never ceased her slanders to his father; yet who in this world would take such a prodigal as an adopted son? In the end it was decided privately to split off a portion of the capital and set him up as a retired householder on a separate family register, but the man himself listened with one ear and let it go out the other, and would not take the bait. The sum was ten thousand yen, with a monthly retirement allowance besides, no restrictions on amusement; if his father were to pass away, I shall be looked up to as a parent-substitute, as an elder brother, he said—even the pine tree of the household god obeys my word—if those are your terms, then by all means, I shall become the master of a separate household and shall be free to do nothing at all for this family; if that suits you, I will comply as you say—thus he always managed to say something aggravating and put everyone at a loss.

Compared to last year the tenements had increased and the income had doubled—he learned the state of his own household from other people's mouths. How amusing, how amusing—so you are building it up for whom? Even a fire starts from a lamp-oil saucer, don't you know—do you not know that what you call the eldest son is a rolling ball of fire? I will sweep it all up and give you a fine New Year of your own, he said, delighting the poor folk of Isaraago, with no fixed place yet for the last day of the year's drinking party, looking forward to it.

When word came that "elder brother is back," the younger sisters all shrank away as if from a swelling, and touched nothing near him; at his every wish being granted without a word, his willfulness intensified all the more. Both feet under the kotatsu, crying again and again for water while coming out of his drunken sleep—this was where his outrages reached their pinnacle. Hateful though he was, duty is a bitter thing after all; his mother concealed her venomous words said in his absence, tucked a small padded jacket about him so that he would not catch cold, set a pillow by his side, and there at his bedside, making a show of thriftily pulling apart the dried sprats for tomorrow's preparations, muttered that things done by strange hands are apt to be mishandled—a reproach meant to be overheard.

As midday approached, O-Mine grew uneasy about her promise to her uncle; there was no spare moment in which to watch for the mistress to be in a good humor, and in a brief interval of free time she tied up her head-towel in her hand and said: I have been putting this request for some time now, and it is thoughtless of me to bring it up when you are so busy, but the money about which I was told with such urgency to have ready by this afternoon—if you could help me in this, it would be uncle's good fortune and my joy, and I would be grateful forever, she begged, rubbing her hands together. Relying on the words that had been vague at first but had ultimately come to a "yes" when she first raised the matter, she had restrained herself from bringing it up again lest pressing too eagerly might prove counterproductive, even though the mistress's mood had lately been difficult—but the deadline was today, the last day of the year, before midday, and there had been no word at all, which was unnerving. She made herself say as much. The mistress looked

surprised, with an expression of bewilderment: "Now, what on earth are you talking about? To be sure, I heard something about your uncle's illness and then about a debt, but I never said I was going to pay it out of my own household right now—you must have misunderstood something. I have no recollection of any such thing whatsoever." And this was that woman's signature move—utterly pitiful.

The spring robes of the daughters, made up beautifully in the colors of flowers and autumn leaves, their collars aligned and their hems layered—she would have liked to gaze at them and let others gaze, but the intrusive brother's watching eye was annoying; she wanted him out, wanted him gone quickly, though she did not say so aloud. Her chronic irritability was pressing beyond endurance, and if a sage monk had looked upon her at that moment he would have seen her enveloped in flames, her heart in a black smoke of confusion; and it was at this moment that the appeal was made. "Money is the cure-all," she thought; of course she remembered having agreed—but why should she mind now? She dismissed the matter completely: "You probably misheard something," she said, and that was that, blowing perfect smoke-rings.

What a trifling amount, two yen—and she had agreed with her own mouth, and not ten days had passed since, so there was no forgetting it. There in the drawer of the hanging ink-stone stand was a bundle she knew to be the untouched portion, ten or twenty bills perhaps—not all of it, just two sheets—and that would bring a smile to uncle's face, a smile to aunt's face, and Sannosuke would be able to hold his chopsticks over the New Year's soup. O-Mine was unable to speak from sheer chagrin, and the always meek young woman had no way to press her case with logic; she went back to the kitchen with her head down, and just then the noon cannon boomed loudly—in such a moment it struck her chest with particular force.

"Please come at once, ma'am—since this morning she has been in pain, and the delivery looks to be in the afternoon; the husband is beside himself as it is a first birth, and with no older woman in the house the confusion is beyond words—please come this very moment," they said: a rickshaw had come from a daughter of Saio-ji Temple with a matter of life and death, a first birth. This was something for which there was no postponing even on the last day of the year. There was money in the house, the prodigal young master was sleeping there—but her feelings were divided, and drawn by the heavier weight of kinship and affection, she got into the rickshaw; yet she resented her easygoing husband for having no heart, wondering why he couldn't be out deep-sea fishing on a day like today—she departed thoroughly cursing the Fisherman's Saint for being such a useless fellow.

Missing each other on the road, Sannosuke, having found Shirokanedaimachi as he had been told, located the house without error, and feeling self-conscious about his own shabby appearance and how it reflected on his sister, he peered nervously through the back gate. Someone called out, "Who's there?"—and saw O-Mine who had been crouching weeping by the stove, and as she wiped her tears and looked up, there was the child. "Oh, what a time to come," she could not say; she thought what to do. "Sister, may I come in? Will I be scolded? Can you get the promised thing? Father says to be sure to thank the master and the mistress," the child said in all innocence, with a happy face—how painful. "Wait a moment please; I have a small errand," she said, and hurried out to survey the house inside and out. The young mistresses were in the garden absorbed in battledore, the shop-boy had not yet come back from his errand, the seamstress was upstairs and moreover was deaf—all was safe. And the young master, she looked—there in his sitting-room under the kotatsu, at this very moment deep in

the midst of his dreams. "I pray to you, gods and Buddhas—I am about to become a wicked person. I do not wish to become one, but I cannot help becoming one. If you are to punish me, let it fall on me alone; my uncle and aunt know nothing of this, so please forgive them. I humbly beg that I may be granted these coins as stolen," she prayed—and from the drawer of the hanging ink-stone stand she had kept in mind, she seized just two bills from the bundle; afterward she could not tell if it was dream or reality. She gave them to Sannosuke and sent him on his way—and to think that no one had seen—how foolish of her.

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Toward the end of that same day, the master came home from fishing, his face beaming like the god of good fortune; the mistress followed soon after, cheerfully tipping even the rickshaw man who had seen her home out of joy at the safe delivery. "We are done for tonight, but I will come again to call—please have one of the younger sisters, whoever is free, come to help tomorrow, do tell them." She said what a fine effort it had been, gave them candle-money and the like, and returned, saying "how busy—someone lend me half your free body. O-Mine, have you boiled the komatsuna? Have you washed the herring roe? Has the master come home? And the young master?"—the last in a lower voice; hearing "not yet" she knitted her brows.

Ishirosuke was quiet that night. The New Year begins tomorrow, it is a three-day holiday, and though it would be natural to celebrate at his own house, as everyone knows there are no purse-strings there at all, and the stiff formality of haori-and-hakama and the exchange of pleasantries were too much trouble; besides, he was sick of hearing lectures, and since the relatives' faces held no beauty, he had no desire to see them either. As he had a promise tonight to friends in the tenement quarter, he would take his leave for now and hoped to receive whatever was coming to him well into the spring. And then: by the way, it being an auspicious occasion, how much would he receive as a year-end gift? Having spent the day in bed waiting for his father to come home—it was this money he had been waiting for. It is said that children are the fetters of the three worlds, but truly there is no parent more wretched than one who has a prodigal son; the tie of blood that cannot be cut means that, having exhausted every mischief possible and bringing disgrace upon them all, the chasm he would fall into was this one. Even if one claimed not to know, the world would not forgive it, and to spare the family name, his own face in shame, the precious

storehouses would be opened. Counting on that, Ishirosuke said: there is a debt due tonight, on which I stood guarantor and sealed the bond; there are those in the rowdy crowd at the flower-viewing gathering who must be paid off, and if they are not, it will be difficult to settle things; I personally have no way out, but it would be disgraceful to the family name—so saying, he made it clear he wanted the money.

The mother, having suspected as much since morning, had no doubt now; she was impatient at how meekly the master would deal with him, for she herself could not win an argument with Ishirosuke. Unlike this morning when he had made O-Mine cry, she kept glancing fearfully at her husband's expression from the corners of her eyes. The father went quietly to the room with the safe, and before long came back with one bundle of fifty yen; he said: "This is not a gift to you. The girls who are not yet married are pitiful, and their husbands will bear the mark of this; the Yamamura family has been honest and upright from generation to generation, a straightforward line with never a bad rumor attached to it—whether it is a demon reincarnated, I cannot fathom, but you—a villain like you—has appeared, and if in your bottomless recklessness you come to peering into other people's pockets, the shame will not end with my generation. The family fortune comes second, I am saying—do not disgrace your parents and siblings. To tell you this is

useless, but a normal young master of Yamamura's would never earn ill-repute in circles that need not concern him, and could help his father in at least a little of the year-end greeting rounds. To make a parent of nearly sixty weep is nothing short of divine punishment. When you were a child you had a touch of this, but how is it you don't understand even now? Go, be off, go wherever you like—do not disgrace this house," and his father went deep inside, and the money went into Ishirosuke's pocket.

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"Mother, a good and happy New Year to you—and now farewell," making his leave with deliberately exaggerated courtesy. "O-Mine, straighten my clogs—no, not through the front entrance, it's going out, not going away," he said impudently, waving his arms wide as he left. Where was he bound? The father's tears—would a single night's commotion turn them into a dream? A misfortune to have a prodigal son, a misfortune to be the stepmother who has raised a prodigal.

Though they did not scatter salt after him, they gave the place a good sweep first, and rejoiced at the young master's departure; the money was regrettable, but seeing him was equally hateful, so it was the best possible outcome not to have him in the house. "How does anyone come to be that brazen?—I would like to see the face of the mother who bore him," said the mistress, polishing her sharp tongue as usual.

O-Mine had no way to take in these events; such was her terror at the crime she had committed, she traced back what she had done as if following a dream—was it herself, or was it someone else? Thinking it over—could such a thing pass without being discovered? Even one bill out of tens, when you count them, is right there in plain sight; if the required number came up short in a place it should not be short, suspicion could only point in one direction. If she were investigated, what would she do, what would she say? To bluff her way through would be a deeper sin; to confess would bring it down on her uncle as well. Her own crime she was prepared to accept, but to have the blameless uncle draped in a false accusation—unable to dry themselves of it is the poor man's lot—might people not say that such is what they do? How wretched—what ought she to do? Was there no way to die on the spot so that no slur would attach to uncle? Her eyes followed the mistress's every movement, while her mind wandered

to the hanging ink-stone stand.

There was the year-end accounting—all the money in the house was to be gathered and sealed that night. The mistress suddenly remembered, and said: "Just now before—that money from Yarouya Taro that came back—there were twenty of them in the ink-stone drawer. O-Fude, O-Mine, bring the hanging ink-stone here." Called from the inner room, O-Mine thought: my life is already forfeit. Before the master herself, I will tell the whole story from the beginning, say exactly what the mistress said, and say there is nothing I can do, no way out. Honesty is my protection; I cannot run, I cannot hide. Though I did not know what I was doing, I stole it—I will confess. I will insist to the end that uncle had no part in it; if they will not believe me, it is no use, and I will bite off my own tongue and die right there, and surely they cannot think it a lie when I stake my life on it. With that much resolution, still my heart going to the inner room was like a lamb being led to the slaughter.

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What O-Mine had drawn out was only two bills; of the remaining eighteen that should have been there, by whatever means they were gone—turning the box over and shaking it was of no use. Among the scattered scraps of paper, a receipt of some kind, written at some unknown time, was found.

(I have also borrowed the contents of the drawer. Ishirosuke)

"So it was the prodigal after all"—and everyone looked at one another, and O-Mine was subjected to no investigation. Whether the reward of filial devotion showed itself without her knowing it and the sin fell upon Ishirosuke—or whether he knew and took the blame upon himself in passing—one cannot say. If so, Ishirosuke may be O-Mine's patron saint. How one wishes to know what came after.