Chapter XVIII

Kijirō lays down his life on the banks of the River Hi;

Yoshirō suffers a wound in the house of the village headman

The Ōnin era lasted for two years before being renamed Bunmei. It was now Bunmei 2.¹ Shino was eleven, and his mother had been dead for three years, during which time he had served his father with an ever-increasing sense of duty. Notwithstanding this, however, Bansaku, who had added widowerhood to lameness, grew weaker of spirit with every passing year: though he was not yet fifty, his teeth fell out, his hair grew white, and many were the days he suffered the ravages of ill health. In spite of this his schoolchildren would come, but to make models of brushmanship for them was no longer a task to which he was equal. “And yet,” thought he, “considering that the three of us were only spared hunger and cold by the aid of these people, would it not be a thing of ill repute for me now to refuse to teach their children and grandchildren, hoarding up instead what remains of my life? I must leave behind something that will profit the village, by way of repaying my debt of gratitude to them.”

Thus it was that, in intervals between bouts of illness, he wrote down in a book what he knew concerning preparations for floods and droughts, and provisions for lean harvests, and indeed everything pertaining to the daily usages of the granger, and this he gave to the village elders. Seeing it, they all exclaimed, saying, “We were aware, Mister Inuzuka, that you wrote a pretty hand and knew all about the martial arts, but now we see you have got knowledge others have not about agriculture and the raising of silkworms. This volume is an invaluable gift to us. We shall have it copied and hid up as a treasure. Ah, but ’tis a pity for a samurai like yourself to be buried and forgotten like wood that petrifies.”

Now when Hikiroku was told of this, he was, needless to say, jealous, and wished to read the book immediately. But though he often begged for a glimpse of it, none of the village elders would bring it out for him. Always it was, “So-and-so has it today to copy, and Your Lordship must wait, if you please, until he has finished.” With no alternative, Hikiroku would wait a few days before sending another messenger, who was told that, “So-and-so has lent it to someone else again, and I know not where the book is now.” Hikiroku grew more and more annoyed, until finally he said, “Let it be! I have no need to see that book. Can it contain anything that one fit to be made village headman does not already know? Bansaku has been wandering around the paddies since he was young, but he has always been as spineless as the Leech-Child,² and he has never held a hoe—what profit can there be in anything he might know about tilling the soil, the upstart?” He spoke so extremely denigratingly of Bansaku that the villagers hated him for it, and in the end nobody ever showed him the book. In all things Hikiroku and Kamezasa were stricken with envy of ability when they found it in both intimate and stranger alike. It was as a sickness with them—they were grasping in their affections and warped in their hearts—and though they might slander a person, since they had no understanding of their own, often they would end up imitating him nonetheless.

Bansaku’s dog Yoshirō was twelve years old this year, and though his longevity was rare among the dogs of the village, his teeth were still strong and his coat had lost none of its luster; indeed, he was healthier in spirit than ever, as a result of which he came to have a certain authority among the village dogs, until none of the pack could stand against him. This, too, aroused Hikiroku’s envy. He kept several dogs, changing them year after year, but Yoshirō bit them all into submission: some died on the spot, and others received crippling wounds, while Hikiroku’s wrath and resentment grew. He had already made it known unto his menials that when he or they saw Yoshirō, they were to brandish sticks and beat him on both sides, but Yoshirō, as agile as a bird in flight, would always dash or dodge out of the way, and they never landed a blow. Indeed, such was his energy and fierceness when they approached him to beat him that the servants came to fear his bite, though they concealed it, and eventually they stopped telling their master when they saw Yoshirō.

Hikiroku, too, was wearied by the effort, until he ceased keeping dogs. Thenceforth he would say to all comers, “Every house adopts a dog, thinking it will guard the gate, but dogs these days will bark at their masters and wag their tails at thieves if only they are given something. They are useless in the office of gate-guard, they leave their droppings all around the house, and they are always underfoot. No, the thing to keep is a cat. Especially in a farmhouse, as there is nothing better for keeping the rats out of the grain. What would we do without cats? This is why I bear no love for dogs, but am thinking of adopting a cat. If you have a singular specimen, will you not let me have it?”

After he had made this request of every visitor, he found a man who had a fat tortoise-shell tom that he presented to Hikiroku, who (being graspingly affectionate by nature), loved the cat, as indeed did Kamezasa and Hamaji. They placed a bright-red collar around his neck and took turns holding him on their knees, or cradling him in their arms, or carrying him in their bosoms—the cat never spent an hour at one time on the ground. “What shall we call him?” asked Hikiroku, when he had been unable to decide on a name himself. He consulted a person of some learning, who replied, “Long ago the Cloistered Emperor Ichijō’s cat was made a Lady by Command. When a dog called Okinamaro chased this cat, it provoked His Highness to banish the dog.³I have seen no other instances of a cat’s name being recorded. Pray, my lord, name him whatever strikes your fancy. What need have you of precedents or horoscopes?”

Hikiroku secretly rejoiced at this, and ran home to Kamezasa, to whom he said, “Cats are nobler than dogs. Long ago in the days of the Cloistered Emperor Ichijō, a cat was given court rank, and promoted to Lady by Command. And yet as a commoner, it would be awkward to name our cat Lady by Command, when even his master has no court rank. Our cat has pheasant markings—kijige. Bansaku’s dog has four white feet: he is a yoshiro, and so they call him Yoshirō, or so it is said. Well, since our cat has pheasant markings, we shall name him Kijirō.⁴ Give our servants to understand that they are to address him as such from this day forward.”

Kamezasa was all smiles as she heard this. “My, what an excellent, auspicious name! Hamaji, you must remember it, too. Now, where is Kijirō? Kijirō! Kijirō!” She called him and called him, with ever-increasing favor. But it was the end of the second month, and Kijirō was enticed by the voices of his feline companions, who were at the height of the mating-fever. He could not sit still on his haunches, but sauntered from rooftop to rooftop, bawling challenges at packs of cats and being put to flight by householders with long poles; and while he grew hungry he remained distant, spending the nights elsewhere, often not returning home for three and four days at a time.

One day Kijirō squared off against a fellow cat on the roof of the peasant Nukasuke’s outhouse, near Bansaku’s back gate. Their voices carried far, and Kamezasa, pricking up her ears, hastily summoned the menials and said, “Is that not Kijirō’s voice we hear off to the south? Go and see immediately.”

The servants acknowledged her order; guided by the voices, one at length headed toward Bansaku’s front garden, while one went toward Nukasuke’s dwelling. Meanwhile, Kijirō had been so mauled by his fellow’s jaws that he could not endure the pain, and tumbled with a thud to the ground beside the outhouse. At the time, Bansaku’s dog Yoshirō was lying on his belly by Bansaku’s back gate, and when he saw Kijirō fall, he stood up and ran over, with a mind to fell the cat with his bite. In his surprise and alarm, Kijirō bared his claws and flashed his forepaws as if to scratch Yoshirō’s nose, but the dog cared not; he pounced, clamped his jaws on one of the cat’s ears, and shook his head. His ear thus bitten off at the base, Kijirō fled for his life, but, not to be eluded, Yoshirō gave fervent chase.

Hikiroku’s servants witnessed the scene from about ten yards away, and they flew into a tizzy, crying “Oh, no!” and running, panting, after Yoshirō. When they had pursued him for what seemed a great distance, they came to a stream that ran past the chapel to the local lares. Kijirō, finding his way thus blocked, panicked—he turned to run in another direction—but Yoshirō was soon upon him, his jaws fastened around the cat’s neck. One chomp and the cat was dead. The servants, as they approached, could only cry, “There! There!” As none of them had a stick, they gathered rocks and began hurling them at the dog; seeing them about to overtake him, Yoshirō quickly crossed the road and disappeared.

The uproar was quite extraordinary. Even Nukasuke came following behind the servants. Hikiroku, when he heard of the matter, wasted no time in running after them, carrying a pole and bringing with him a menial of eleven or twelve called Gakuzō, but Kijirō lay dead from the bite, and the dog, his mortal enemy, had gone. Hikiroku asked what had happened, and his servants answered, “This is the work of Bansaku’s dog Yoshirō.” When they had told him the details, Hikiroku’s eyes grew wide and brimmed over with tears—he hated his servants for being unable to save the cat; he raged and cursed and pummeled the ground with his pole.

“Why does that cripple scoff at me so? His elder sister is my wife. Not only am I the continuance of the main line of his house, but I am the head of this village. Yet he is so ill-mannered toward me that his dog follows his example, and murders my beloved cat: he will not be satisfied until I am utterly shamed. Well, I now have a fire in my belly that shall not be quenched until I personally see that dog killed, to cleanse Kijirō of the resentment he must feel. You two, go with Nukasuke to Bansaku’s dwelling and drag that beast back here. Tell him this for me,” he said, explaining in every particular what they must say.

The two servants who had been first upon the scene acknowledged their master’s commands and made all haste to Bansaku’s place, compelling Nukasuke to accompany them; meanwhile Hikiroku, ordering Gakuzō to take up the cat’s body, wended his way home, cursing all the while. The bridge that now crosses the River Hi at this place is called the Cat’s Fork Bridge, which name has its origins in these events concerning Kiji.⁵

We return to Hikiroku’s two servants, who had gone to the Inuzuka dwelling with Nukasuke. There they confronted Bansaku with the circumstances of the cat Kiji’s death and regaled him with tales of the dog Yoshirō’s cruelty. “For many years our master Hikiroku kept dog after dog, and your dog injured them all, some so severely that they died on the spot. In spite of this Hikiroku has been mindful of the virtue of peaceability: never has he expressed his resentment over it. Instead, he thought better of keeping dogs, judging that to replace his dead dog with another would be to verge upon yet another useless quarrel. Recently, then, he adopted a cat, in keeping with his doting wife and child’s desires. Now your dog has made a short morning’s work of this, too. When dogs fight one another, ’tis impossible to establish which is at fault, but cats will not fight dogs—they fear and avoid them, as anyone can see. Therefore when a dog chases down a cat and kills it, the guilt lies with the dog. It must be delivered up, so the cat may be avenged. The affair began next to the dwelling of this man Nukasuke, so we have brought him along as a witness. Surrender to us the dog. This is our master’s message.”

The servants spoke as one, and when they had finished, Nukasuke, who stood alone, turned on Bansaku a gaze that told of turmoil in his heart. “We of the village are accustomed to say that we hope nothing happens, but now it seems we have become involved in something queer, and it oppresses my heart, it does. If you do not give a peaceable answer, ’twill mean hardship for me, too, I fear. I wish I might hear a pleasant salutation from Your Lordship.”

Bansaku gave a laugh. “How could a thing like this bring hardship upon you, sir? I detect no such meaning in these messengers’ burden. Now, messengers, what you say would seem reasonable, but only applies on the basis of human ethics, while beasts know nothing of the five eternal virtues, and can never understand laws. The weak are conquered by the strong, the small submit to the great. Cats eat rats, but can never defeat dogs; dogs can hurt cats, but cannot fight wolves. It is all a question of power and its lack, stemming from relative size. If you would consider a cat to have a claim of vengeance upon a dog, then what of a rat’s claim upon a cat? To recompense death with vengeance is a tenet of human ethics. I have never heard of appealing to the law on behalf of beasts, or administering the death penalty unto one by way of revenge. Besides, a cat that is kept should be kept indoors. Yours lost his life to a dog because he forgot his place and went running around on the ground—because he ventured into death’s territory of his own free will, no? Meanwhile, a dog that is kept is kept outside, his feet on the earth. If he forgets his place and takes to sleeping indoors, shall he be forgiven by any that see him? Were my dog to stray to Your Honors’ house and enter it, and stand upon its floors, then I should bear you no ill will though he be beaten to death. But to deliver my dog unto you in reparation for your cat’s death is what I simply cannot do. Go back now and tell this to the headman, with my compliments. You have done excellent service as messengers.”

To this generous and eminently reasonable reply, delivered with an eloquence as of flowing water, the two servants could only answer, “Aye,” as, like cats with a sack thrown over them, they lifted their hindquarters, lowered their heads, and moved backward in retreat. Nukasuke, apprehensive, took his leave of Bansaku and left with the servants.

Meanwhile, in Hikiroku’s house, Kamezasa and Hamaji were weeping over the dead body of Kijirō the cat, crying and wailing, cursing the dog, hating Bansaku, and waiting for news of the servants, thinking, “Any moment they will bring the cat’s nemesis.” Then the two servants and Nukasuke returned empty-handed. They related Bansaku’s reply just as it had been given, omitting nothing, and Kamezasa was overcome with anger when she heard it.

“This is hardly the first time that Bansaku’s warped ideas have kept him from treating me as befits an elder sister, but this time he has gone too far, for he has responded with lawless scorn and pride when he might have smoothed things over with an apology. Go back there, you two, and bind the dog with ropes and bring him here—do not allow Bansaku a say in the matter. You were too easy on him!”

Thus did she rage, but Hikiroku sought to restrain her. “Bansaku may have a withered leg, but his martial skills are still not to be scoffed at. Were I, as the head of this village, to allow this quarrel to drag on to the point that someone got hurt, simply because of a cat, it would be counted a failing in me, though I have reason on my side. And I have misgivings about bringing this to the attention of the authorities. There must be a means of removing our shame without rocking the boat. Indeed, has he not told us of one himself? If that dog enters into where I dwell, I can beat it to death, and he will bear me no ill will—did he not blurt out something to that effect? Lucky for us. We shall make a plan to lure that dog onto the grounds, and then stab him to death with bamboo spears. Everyone, go ready the spears.”

As Hikiroku was delivering these instructions with a self-satisfied air, Kamezasa looked from one servant to the next, until it struck her. “I believe Nukasuke came back with you—did he hear about the bamboo spears?”

The servants looked behind them, and replied, “He was here until just now—we did not see him leave.”

At which Kamezasa knit her brow and said, “That man Nukasuke lives on the near side of Bansaku’s back gate, and I have always heard that they are friendly. Will he not leak my husband’s plan to Bansaku? A slip, this is.”

While she clucked in regret, Hikiroku slapped his knee as their error dawned on him. “An error has been made, and ’twas we who made it. A plan is only as good as it is secret, and ours has been overheard by the wrong man. Chase him! Stop him! He cannot have gone far. The child will be the fleetest of foot—Gakuzō, you go.”

His master spoke so urgently that Gakuzō made no answer, but went outside, tucked up his hems, and ran. However, this Gakuzō was worthy beyond his years: he was not one to reveal his talents, but he harbored aspirations in his heart, and month after month he had ached seeing his master’s jealousies, although he never openly disobeyed him. This day, too, he could not refrain from, in his heart of hearts, thinking that the aforementioned scheme was “oafish in the extreme.” Nevertheless he did as he was told, and ran outside with a great show of haste; but he did not go far, and after a while he returned to say, “Master, as I was unable to overtake him on the way, I went to his dwelling to have a look, but Master Nukasuke had not gone back there. I have heard that he still owes on last autumn’s tribute. Why then would he make an enemy of the village head, when to do so would invite his own destruction? I bethought myself that if it should please you to leave him alone, he will not speak of what he heard, and so I refrained from seeking him at every place he might have gone. Shall I search further, sir?”

So sincere did he make himself appear that Hikiroku nodded as he listened, then said, “Indeed, it is as you say—he does still owe. He will not speak ill of me to his own detriment. Yea, even if he does speak, even if he does leak our plan—well, that dog has four good legs. In this respect he is unlike his master Bansaku. He can be chained for a little while, but sooner or later, he will get out. Then it will be an easy matter to entice him onto the grounds and stab him to death. Keep the bamboo spears ready, then—no negligence!” He spoke of the preparations he expected, and then settled in to wait out the days until the dog Yoshirō should appear.

Meanwhile, the peasant Nukasuke had taken it into his head to warn Bansaku of Hikiroku’s scheme, and so he left without saying goodbye and hurried to where Inuzuka dwelt, where he secretly notified Bansaku of everything Hikiroku and his wife had said. “Telling you this makes me appear shiftless and two-faced, sir, but I owe a debt to the village head. In the wrong he may be, but I cannot tell him so. The headman’s consort is your elder sister, estranged though you be; it would do no good to allow more hatred to build up between you, on a beast’s account. Therefore I pray you, send Yoshirō to one of the neighboring villages. Once the dog is gone, their hatred will dissipate of its own accord. What think you of this counsel?”

Bansaku considered his whispered words. At last, he replied: “My joy at Your Lordship’s kindness, of which this is far from the first instance, could not be greater. Nevertheless, I have not a dewdrop’s worth of fear for any designs Hikiroku and his household might, after much cudgeling of their wits, conceive. I am not without means to respond. My only vexation is this withered leg of mine, which ails me more and more of late. I seek no quarrel, though I have reason on my side. A beast, though, both has and has not wisdom. As he knows not his peril, he may be easily tricked into going where he will be beaten to death, which would redound to my shame. Will you not find a way, milord, to take the dog far from this place?”

Nukasuke was overjoyed to hear Bansaku agree to his suggestion. He explained the circumstances to Shino, and they gave Yoshirō plenty to eat, and then that night Nukasuke led him to the River Taki, and committed him to the temple there. But the dog came home quicker than Nukasuke, and was waiting for him by Bansaku’s gate. “It was because the temple is too close—if we take him across the river, he will not be able to return,” Nukasuke said, and the following day he led the dog off to the southeast, across the Miyato River, and left him at Ushi Isle, but neither would Yoshirō stay there: he came back home. Nukasuke made two or three more such attempts, spending some five or six days on the project, but all his efforts came to naught, and finally, in wonder, he gave up abandoning the dog.

Shino’s thoughts at this time were thus: “Yoshirō loves his master, and knows not the suffering that is in store for himself. If he is killed, my father will be exceedingly angry, and who knows what he may do? It grieves me so. Would there were a way to safely diffuse my aunt’s and uncle’s wrath, without getting Yoshirō killed!” In secret he racked his brain, but could conceive of but one plan. “If I tell my father, it will never work; perhaps I should discuss it with that fellow Nukasuke.”

Finally, with this in mind, Shino went out to call on the man in question. He was in the brush, turning soil for a field; nobody was tilling beside him, and it struck Shino as “an excellent opportunity.” He approached Nukasuke and revealed unto him his secret intent.

“I shall lead Yoshirō into the vicinity of my aunt’s husband’s house, and then I shall turn to the dog and begin cursing him. I shall say, ‘You, beast, killed our headman’s beloved cat for no reason, and thereby brought suffering upon us by arousing the resentment of our relatives. Time and again have I abandoned you, but you will never learn—you always come home again—you know not that you enter of your own accord into death’s territory. There is nothing for it now: I will simply kill you, to dispel the wrath of my aunt and her husband. Ready yourself!’ Then, when I cane the dog, he will run away: I shall chase after him, beating him, and follow him right back home, where I shall chain him for a while. When they hear what I shall say and see what I shall do, my aunt and her husband are sure to think, ‘Bansaku is having his son beat their dog by way of apology for the murder of our cat.’ With this understanding, their resentment will abate, and they will abandon their desire to kill the dog. By saving Yoshirō from certain death, I shall also be sparing my father shame and preventing even more resentment from building up between kin. Pray, tell me what you think of this.”

For Nukasuke there was no counter-argument to be made. “How clever you are, how clever you are! You are only eleven, my child, yet in wisdom you are the equal of Lord Kusunoki of old.⁶ Yea, and your plans on behalf of your father and your concern for your aunt show filial piety and a sense of right. I shall accompany you, so let us hurry.”

With these urgings, Shino found that he had enlisted aid such as to give him even more courage than before, and he quickly ran home to where Yoshirō rested in the gate of his house. He roused the dog and then he and Nukasuke led it toward Hikiroku’s gate, where, just as they had planned, they raised their voices and began to curse and accuse the dog, and brandishing stick and cane they beat Yoshirō soundly.

The dog, unable to understand why he was being struck, and why Nukasuke, unusually for him, had joined in the beating, was startled—he panicked—he lost his way, and instead of fleeing back the way he had come, he ran around the edge of the grounds of Hikiroku’s house, to the rear gate. Seeing this, Shino and Nukasuke as much as cried, “For pity’s sake, not that way! Flee this way!”

They fell away to either side to open a path, then brandished their canes and ran pell-mell after the dog, but he was now howling mad with confusion; he tried to run away, but found himself in a place shaped like a calabash: there was only one opening, and no road forward. He was forced to run in through Hikiroku’s back gate, and then, impelled by his momentum, he made a great leap to his left, landing in the house, in a small sitting-room.

“Halloo!” Hikiroku’s menials were in an uproar. They carefully barred both the rear and fore gates, and then with a clamor of trembling voices they began to call, “Here he is! No, there he is!”

Hearing this from outside, Nukasuke became utterly flustered; he grabbed Shino by the sleeve and said, “Let sleeping dogs lie: that is what we should have done, and we should do so now. If we tarry here it will no doubt go disastrously for us, and soon. Pray, run away!” As he spoke he sought to hide the pole he held; finally he thrust it into his bosom, but when he started to run, it poked him in the chin, got tangled in his legs, even crushed his stones. He tripped and fell flat on his face with a yelp; finally he extracted the pole and flung it aside as he picked himself up. He had no time to spare for hurt joint and bloody nose: he hurried off, grimacing, limping, and stroking his knee.

For all of this, Shino did not retreat. “O, useless, pointless thing that I have done,” thought he, with hundredfold, thousandfold regret. There was nothing for him to do—he had leisure in plenty now to think of ways to rescue Yoshirō, but though he ran this way and that, waiting for the dog to come out again, the gates were locked now, and there was no escape. And now he heard the dog’s voice raised in howls and whines of pain. “Alas, Yoshirō will be killed! What have I done?” he muttered to himself. Still he stood by the back gate, clutching his cane.

But it was not to be. “There is no way for me to save him now,” thought Shino with resignation. And so he returned home, where he did the unavoidable and told his father all that had happened, concealing nothing. Bansaku listened intently, though with no sign of anger, and then sighed and said:

“You are still but an unshorn youth, but you have talent and learning greater than many a man. Your wisdom led you into an unsuspecting defeat, however; the error was in your not knowing the ways of men. My elder sister’s heart is warped, and Hikiroku is a petty man, jealous of ability. How could your plan to beat the dog yourself satisfy such people or cause them to cast aside their wrath? And yet what seems to be an unwitting defeat, in chasing the dog to where he will be struck, may not be such after all, for how bitterly I should have felt it if the dog were to have been lured in and killed by them. Yoshirō’s death is to be pitied, it is true, but to refuse to accept it will accomplish nothing. Let us be attentive to the news the wind brings, that we may ascertain what has happened.”

No sooner had he said these words than the dog in question, covered with blood and falling every few paces, came loping unsteadily in through the back entrance to the garden, where he dropped to the ground with a thud. Shino quickly looked about. “Yoshirō has returned, the poor wretch!” he said, running over to give him comfort.

Bansaku hurriedly pulled himself to his feet, using a pillar for support, and hobbled out to the veranda to see. “Truly, this dog is one of a kind, to bring himself back here with all those spear wounds, rather than collapsing on the spot. And yet I fear he cannot survive them. Drag him over here, out of the sun.”

Shino did as he was told, spreading a rough straw mat on the ground below the veranda and helping the injured dog to lie down on it. “Ah, Yoshirō, are you in pain? I did thus and such as part of a plan to spare you suffering, and yet you lost your way and passed the gate of one who hates you, and it may have cost you your life. Truly I am to blame—how useless I am!” Thus berating himself, Shino poured water into the dog’s mouth, sprinkled medicine on his wounds, and did everything in his power to care for him; but it did not look as if the dog should live.

What had happened was this: Hikiroku, upon finding that the hated Yoshirō had unexpectedly come in by the back gate and climbed up into the small sitting-room, caused his menials to fasten all the doors and gates, and then the master and his men, some five or six in all, armed themselves with the bamboo spears they had placed in readiness and set to chasing the dog, rousting him out to where they could put an end to him. However, the dog was fleet of foot, and ducked beneath the spearpoints as he sought a way out. But as both the front and back gates were locked, he was soon trapped, unable to move forward or backward, and suffered wounds in several places. Still he was fierce—mad—he would not lie down, but broke through the bottom of a plank fence and emerged outside the grounds. “Do not let him get away!” Hikiroku and his men opened the portals and ran out in pursuit, but soon they pulled back, saying, “That will do.”

Hikiroku was flushed with excitement, and he complimented his menials, saying, “You have distinguished yourself today by your labors. ‘Tis horrid that we were unable to give the dog a killing stroke, but then again, with such deep wounds he will surely collapse on the road—will he not?” Beaming with pride, he leaned his spear against the eaves and seated himself on the veranda while Kamezasa behind him opened a fan and began to fan him. “Yes, today we have at last avenged Kijirō. But that beast was more ferocious than I had thought, to escape dying here. Were any of you hurt?”

Donning the clothing they had doffed for the fight, his menials answered, “No, not at all, Your Lordship. As Your Lordship says, that was a ferocious dog, and we should not have been able to do anything by our own hands—but by the light of Your Lordship’s example, by hook or by crook we dealt him some deep wounds.”

“Well, certainly,” said Hikiroku, head held oafishly high, and after a bit more of such posturing, he went inside. Alone among the men there, Gakuzō had avoided injuring the beast—had not pursued him, but only milled about among the other menials—and now he watched closely the looks of satisfaction his master gave his wife and child as he left. Then Gakuzō himself walked away, laughing bitterly.

Sometime later, Hikiroku called Kamezasa into one of their rooms and pulled the ramie door shut. He brought his forehead close to hers, lowered his voice, and said: “According to what our menials tell me, the reason Bansaku’s dog chanced to come running in through our back gate is that Shino chased him there. The whippersnapper was overheard cursing the dog, reproving him for thus and such. Nor was Shino acting on his own: Nukasuke was beating the dog, too, I am told. Now, there must be a reason for this. Were I to hazard a guess, I would say that while Bansaku put up a strong front, he knew that this was not a quarrel in which he could prevail, and so he assigned his son to drive the dog here. The momentum is ours now, and if we do not blunt it, if we plan carefully, then we can cause Bansaku to submit without being asked, and the weapon Rainmaker shall pass into my hands at last.

“I am the last remnant of the Ōtsuka line, but I have neither genealogies nor ancient records. I am merely the husband of you, Master Shōsaku’s eldest daughter. And now in Kamakura the Minister of the Court Nariuji has fallen out with the two Overseers, Akisada and Sadamasa, and he has just been driven from Kamakura to take refuge in Koga Castle; he is besieged there, engaged in ceaseless battle. As a result, the Lieutenant over this region, who belongs to the Ōishi house, has already reported to Kamakura and pledged to follow the two Overseers. If I, as the successor to the Ōtsuka line, which served Nariuji’s elder brothers Shun’ō and Yasuō, do not display aspirations, and uncommonly strong ones, to serve the Overseers, then I shall never rest easy, or know myself secure. By presenting the sword Rainmaker to Kamakura I shall show that I am free of ambition, and earn a reward such as will separate me from the pack.

“It has been with this in mind that I have, these past few years, applied all my faculties and skills to trying to obtain that treasure, that sword. But it is as if Bansaku knew my motive, for he has never come to our house, and he keeps the precious blade hidden, showing it to no man. I have been left without recourse, and my desires remain unfulfilled. Regardless of what else may happen, if I can only procure Bansaku’s submission, and get him to give me that blade, then the prosperity of our house is assured.

“Still and all Bansaku is a man of great wisdom and courage. Had I not used Nukasuke, I could not have made this work. ’Twas the most convenient of things that he and that whippersnapper together chased the dog to us here. Now, my dear, you must summon Nukasuke in secret and arrange for him to do thus-and-such. Wise and courageous Bansaku may be, but when he is cornered, how shall he not become lost in love for his child? The matter is all but realized. Here is the plan.” And as he pulled her ear closer and whispered into it, Kamezasa let out a series of exclamations.

Then, smiling, she raised her head and said, “Oh, this plan is a prodigy, a wonder! Bansaku may be my younger brother, but his mother was not mine. Our aspirations may not have agreed, but for him to live within a hundred paces of me and never once visit, but instead to slander me, his elder sister—well, now is the time to punish him for that, and to give him cause to think. Indeed!” And she called for a menial and dispatched him to “summon Nukasuke.”

What, then, did Kamezasa say to Nukasuke? This is what shall be explained in the next book.

End of Book IV of Volume II of the Lives of the Eight Dogs of the Satomi

1. 1470.

2. A child (firstborn, in some versions) of the gods Izanami and Izanagi, abandoned at the age of three, having never learned to stand. Discussed in Chapter 1 of Nihon shoki.

3. As related in Section 7 of Sei Shōnagon’s eleventh-century miscellany Makura no sōshi (The Pillow Book). “Lady by Command” translates the court title myōbu, which referred to a lady of the fifth rank. The person charged with caring for Myōbu finds the animal sleeping and mischievously decides to sic the dog Okinamaro on it. Obediently, Okinamaro gives chase to the cat, which flees, frightened. The emperor punishes the dog by having it beaten. Sei describes hearing the dog’s howling, and then being told it died during its beating. However, she and her fellow ladies in waiting later find a dog wandering around the grounds, terribly swollen from a beating. They wonder if this is Okinamaro, but it does not respond to the name. Later, however, when Sei says the dog’s name, it whimpers pitifully in answer. The court concludes that Okinamaro had been trying to remain unidentified for his own safety, but in his misery revealed himself. The dog is eventually pardoned. Okinamaro’s story is also invoked in Chapters VIII and IX of Eight Dogs.

4. The patterns of markings called “tortoise-shell” or “calico” in English were called kijige (“pheasant fur”). “Kijirō” is partially homophonous with this word, but is written with different characters, more appropriate for a man’s name (similar to Yoshirō’s name—see Chapter XVII).

5. Cat’s Fork Bridge, or Nekomatabashi, was a bridge in Edo in Bakin’s day; the 1829 gazetteer Edo meisho zue lists it, although it gives (not surprisingly) a different explanation for the origin of the name (Suzuki Tōzō and Asakura Haruhiko, eds., Shinpan Edo meisho zue, vol. 2 [Kadokawa, 1975], 725). Nekomata can mean “cat fork” (i.e., a fork named after a cat), but the word also referred to a cat that (in popular belief) had reached a prodigious age and thereby developed a forked tail and magical powers.

6. Kusunoki Masashige (1294–1336), a general loyal to Emperor Go-Daigo in helping to do away with the Kamakura shogunate, then in resisting Ashikaga Takauji’s attempts to establish a new shogunate. Kusunoki died in a losing battle against Takauji.