The Lives of the Eight Dogs of the Satomi of Southern Fusa

Volume III, Book I

Assembled by the Master of the Crooked Pavilion in the Eastern Capital

Chapter XXI

Gakuzō, spying, complements Shino;

Inuzuka, yearning, gazes on a plum

To resume: While Inuzuka and Inukawa, the two boys Shino and Gakuzō, were thus proclaiming to one another their aspirations, binding themselves in a pact of righteousness, and conversing of what was yet to come, there suddenly came the sound of footsteps, from someone approaching outside. Shino pricked up his ears and gave Gakuzō a glance that the latter immediately understood, retreating to his own bedroom and lying down, pulling the bedclothes over him. As he did so, someone clattered the clapper that hung by the single gate—a throat was cleared, twice, thrice, a fourth time—and then came a voice. “My child, are you at home? Nukasuke has come to see you. Are you quite alright?”

Having sounded this greeting, the speaker peeked in through a tear in the paper door and then sat himself, one leg folded beneath him, on the rotting edge of the bamboo veranda, where, leaning back on his hands, he gazed at the new leaves on the trees in the garden. Shino arose and slid open the door. “Welcome, Uncle! Come in,” he said, sweeping a space clean with a whisk broom.

Nukasuke turned around and shook his head. “Stir not, I pray you, for my feet are filthy. As happens every year when cries the bird they call Death’s Planter, that was once the soul of Shu’s sovereign,¹ my labors occupy my every moment: soaking seedlings, both of early ears and late, and flooding fields and ploughing them into paddies. I am guilty of neglecting you, I fear. How do you like the boy the Estatesman sent you?”

At this, Shino glanced over his shoulder and said, “Gakuzō has been feeling unwell since yesterday; he is lying down. I decided that he must have caught cold, and I purchased some medicine for him, but he seems unlikely to improve soon.”

Hardly had he said this than Nukasuke replied, “That must be very troublesome for you! I will go to the main house and report this, and ask that somebody else be sent. If this has been the case since yesterday, why did you not notify them then? Neither of you is yet fifteen, and so we all assumed nothing could be wrong, but even your demonic uncle and aunt would not expect you to nurse your manservant when he can be of no use to you. Leave everything to me, I pray you.” So up he leapt, as full of himself as of th’conclusions to which he jumped so carelessly and yet with such sincerity, and rushed, still tripping o’er the edges of his words, outside and then, busily, away.

Now although Hikiroku and Kamezasa had assigned their menial Gakuzō to assist Shino with the morning and evening chores, the cooking and the like, still for appearances’ sake they once every three or four days sent over a pot of something for Shino to eat with his rice, and moreover they did visit him personally, to stand at his gate and inquire after his welfare; at first they did this fairly frequently, but because they did not love him, they came to forget their visits in the press of planting season. It had been, then, quite some time since they had last called on Shino when Nukasuke came and related thus and such to them. Hearing him, Kamezasa knit her brow and muttered, “If we had double the men we have now it would still not be enough, and yet this thoughtless boy goes and catches a cold! What does he mean by this?” Then she clamped shut her lips, smiled, and said, “You did well in bringing me this news. We shall have to do something about it.”

She dismissed Nukasuke and presently went to discuss the matter with her husband, who clucked impatiently as he listened. Then he whispered in her ear, “Our two houses may be close to each other, but it takes manpower to maintain two hearths—a great inconvenience. My opinion is that we should summon him here today, that we might raise him here from now on. But, child as he is, he takes after his parents in his obstinacy, and I doubt he will agree until the period of his father’s intermediacy has passed. A little while yet remains until then, so send someone—it matters not whom—to replace that boy Gakuzō. Why should we balk at humoring him, when to do so will redound to our benefit? Take care of it, please.”

She nodded, and sent an old manservant to take Gakuzō’s place; Gakuzō came quickly back, and by the look of him, nothing was the matter. “This is a fine thing,” thought Kamezasa, summoning him before his master and saying, “My word, Gakuzō! Our man Nukasuke told me you have been sick in bed since yesterday—we sent a servant to replace you, since we could hardly leave you there like that, even though we have not a hand to spare right now—but now that I see you, you hardly look as if anything were wrong. Perhaps the two of you unshorn youths became too close and started wrestling; you lost and it annoyed you, and so in a sulk you feigned illness—is that not what happened, you oaf and blackguard?”

Both husband and wife fixed him with an irate glare. Gakuzō pressed a hand to his forehead and spoke. “I did have a bit of a headache, but it was not enough to force me to lie down. Having said which, I am sure you will scold me all the more for a cunning layabout, but ever since the day I went there, that boy has never let down his guard. He will not use me—he forbids me to do anything, saying, ‘I shall fetch my own water—you need not; I shall do my own cooking—you leave it alone.’ We spent the days staring each other down, hemmed in by the spring skies. I knew not what to do. If I ran away and came home, I would be scolded. I began to reflect on the debt of gratitude I owe my lord who year by year chastises me and lets me serve him: finally, now, I saw. And yet, I had no reason to get up. I pulled the bedclothes over me and stared at my resentments like one hunts for fleas in summer. My feigned illness, then, was but a symptom of my daily and morose longing to return to the main house. I feel like one who has been snatched alive out of the jaws of certain death because I thought for all I was worth and found a way to be recalled—to the living, and to the house. I shall immerse myself in serving you, in field or paddy, in the house or out. Only I beg you, excuse me from serving Lord Inuzuka, even for a little while.” He wrung his hands in seemingly sincere apology as he spoke.

His master and mistress listened carefully, smiled, and exchanged glances. “Pray, what think you, Kamezasa? A child like Shino this one may be, but we can hardly say Shino was unjustified in his reserve—in treating Gakuzō as if he would be rid of him. If things happened as he says they did, was that any reason for him to feign illness, rather than coming to us in secret to report? If this is thinking for all he is worth, then he is not even worth three mon in cheap iron coins, the buffian.”

Thus did Hikiroku curse Gakuzō; Kamezasa tittered and said, “But scold not him alone. Shino, though but an unshorn youth, has the heart of an old man, filthy and obsessive, from what I have seen. Now, then, Gakuzō, you may not have liked it there, but you did spend many days with Shino. Was the time useless—did you hear nothing? I am sure that Shino hates us a terribly great deal. Is it not so? Tell us what you saw.”

With beatific face did she seek to lead him with her question as a horse to water, or point him as an arrow from a catalpa bow, but not willingly would he go. “Nay, but it was as I said just now: on those occasions when I addressed him, he gave me only the most cursory of answers. I heard nothing else. But why should he hate you, when he has nobody now but his aunt on whom he may depend? Without a doubt, he thinks of you more fondly than may at first appear. His harshness toward me must simply be a case of an enmity from a past life, or else we just do not get along. I am aware of no other reason for him to hate me.”

Hikiroku nodded: “That cannot be ruled out, since conflicts may arise even between master and man due to which of the five elements rule their constitutions²; but it was ill-considered of you to feign illness. I have a mind to punish you severely, but I shall stretch a point this time and forgive you, it being one of the busiest times of the year. However, if you do not compensate for your mistake by doing the work of two or three men, I will see to it that you come to grief. Now leave us.” At this urging, Gakuzō kowtowed repeatedly before beating a retreat to the kitchen.

Kamezasa watched him go and then whispered, “How did that strike you, my mate? People’s characters differ. We thought that, as they are both unshorn youths, they might rejoice in each other as friends, that the one might be of use to the other, and that the other might use him, but we were wrong: Shino treats Gakuzō abjectly, and it is not the work of a mere day or two. Is that perhaps why Gakuzō speaks so ill of him, with such dislike? Or is it simply that they do not get along? Does it not seem so to you?”

Hikiroku inclined his head. “That is not necessarily the case. It might be that Shino distrusts us—that he suspected us of setting a secret watch over him, by assigning him Gakuzō—and that this is what kept him from opening his heart to the boy. We must not underestimate him. Whom have you sent in Gakuzō’s stead?”

“Whom have I sent? It was so sudden. I told Sesuke to go. He is more than sixty years old, and cannot work as hard as others; on top of which, he has been inflaming his hands and feet with moxa recently, and has trouble bending over. ’Tis no loss to us, is it, to substitute him for Gakuzō?”

Hikiroku nodded several times and said, “Handled with exquisite subtlety. In view of things, after a day or two have passed—four or five at the most—you must summon Sesuke in secret and question him as to whether Shino has come to trust him. If Shino withholds his trust from Sesuke as well, then it is because he doubts the two of us. If he does not shun Sesuke as he did Gakuzō, then we can put it all down to that apprentice, and not to any distrust of us. Once we have ascertained whether there is anything to this, we shall make new plans. Understand this well.” This counsel they had taken with foreheads close together; now they finished, and stood up.

Two or three days passed, then Kamezasa personally called on Shino where he dwelt, and inquired casually after his welfare. To her observation of the situation, it appeared that Shino was not rejecting Sesuke, and that for his part Sesuke was performing all his service stalwartly. Kamezasa, business on her mind, passed a long time there, conversing about this subject and that, until she came to a conclusion about how things stood, at which point she begged leave and went home. When she arrived her husband was in a storeroom; she judged it an opportune moment, and approached him closely. “You bade me, formerly, to summon Sesuke and question him in secret, but it seemed to me that to do so might raise Shino’s suspicions, and so I went myself. By way of inquiring after his welfare in this period of mourning, I spent half the day there, during which time I observed everything there was to be observed. The situation seems to be thus-and-such, in so-on-and-so-forth a manner,” she said, stealthily making her report.

Hikiroku pondered for a moment, then said, “That may be so; and yet Shino is, at heart, not like normal boys. He is not likely to reveal himself so readily. First summon Gakuzō, and set him to doing thus-and-such. Once that is accomplished then so-and-so,” he continued. “Such a plan as this will bring us no regrets later. But give nothing away by your demeanor.”

When he had thus explained his scheme, leaving nothing out, Kamezasa exclaimed with unalloyed admiration. “This must be what the proverb means that says no needle, no matter how tiny, can be swallowed. Truly it behooves us to exercise caution upon caution with such a stout-hearted boy!”

As they thus, in concealment, conducted their conversation, there came a sound on the bamboo of the veranda as someone passed by the door to the room. Kamezasa wasted no time in calling out, “Gakuzō, is that you?”

“It is,” came the reply.

“I have something I would say to you in secret. Come in here,” she said, stopping him in his progress. When he gently slid open the door and stuck his head into the room, she indicated a spot at her knee and said, “Shut the door and come here.” He did.

“What I have to tell you is hardly grand enough to need telling here, with all of us present, but I shall speak it to you anyway, as the timing is right. Shino is—make no mistake—my nephew, but he has inherited Bansaku’s warped, demonic heart, so that his disposition is as you know it to be. What, other than a dissatisfaction with the aunt whose compassion for him has known no bounds, could lead him to despise the person sent, out of just that compassion, to serve him? Or is it instead that you have annoyed him, albeit unintentionally, with your mindless chatter—is that why he dislikes you?

“But that is neither here nor there: the world can be as persnickety as a mother-in-law, and for better or for worse, ’tis not easy for me to address that child. What am I to do but accept things as they are and take caution not to allow myself to be tripped up? You have served us as a menial-for-life since you were six or seven: I think more of you than I do my nephew, I do. If you recognize the uncommon debt of gratitude you owe to your master who raised you, then make yourself Shino’s intimate, no matter how harshly he treats you, and report to us in secret anything you may hear. This is no temporary charge I give you, for we will bring Shino here to raise, for no telling how many months and days—far into the future, certainly. Take heed of what I tell you now; ponder it, and be of service to your master, than which there can be no more effective divine intervention on your behalf. Will you accept?”

Once Kamezasa had concluded her attempt at persuasion, Hikiroku wiped the pair of tweezers with which he had been plucking whiskers, rubbed his jaw, and said, “Gakuzō, you are enjoying a karmic reward. Would Kamezasa have delivered unto you this secret if she did not place more trust in you than in her nephew? Therefore I shall send you to once again take Sesuke’s place. Endure it a while.”

Gakuzō rubbed his knees as he replied, “How could I forget what you have said to me and thereby repay with enmity the debt I owe you for caring about me so? As I whispered to you the other day, Lord Inuzuka is not likely to entertain any ambitions, since he has nobody but you to depend on, but nevertheless I shall become his intimate, and anything untoward I chance to hear I shall tell you privily. I pray you, set your minds at ease on the subject.”

So earnest was his reply that his master and master’s wife at length began to speak more sweetly to him, and though he knew they were humoring him, he let himself be humored. He stood to go that he might substitute himself for Sesuke, but Kamezasa fussed and held him back. “Children you may be, but you have had a falling-out, and I imagine you will find it hard to go back to that boy’s dwelling with your head held high, if you go alone. Let me tag along,” she said.

She rose to her feet and, straightening her layered robes in front and smoothing down her sash-ends tied in back, emerged onto the bamboo veranda; Gakuzō stepped down before her and prepared her wood-soled sandals for her feet. Then Kamezasa lifted up her hem and, glancing back toward the storeroom, said, “Well, then, I am off for a little while.” Her husband merely nodded, and so she set off down the paddy-path from their back gate, the shortest way to where her nephew dwelt, the equal of his sire, though uncrowned yet—a seedling, as it were.

In this manner Kamezasa called on Shino where he resided. She gave him a smile such as was not at all usual for her and said, “Shino, you must have been bored. Short as the way has always been to your house, I could not visit until the need presented itself. What do you think I have come for now? My visit is occasioned by none other than Gakuzō here. He barefaced said that ‘I know not how, but I have offended him, so that he will not employ me, and so I feigned illness and came home,’ which when your aunt heard she could not countenance. Yea, though once we were estranged, now we are close as nephew and aunt should be! It weighs on my mind, it does, to think of you without your servant, getting wheat grains stuck in your teeth. Lord Hikiroku was outraged, too. He gave Gakuzō a fierce scolding, so that Gakuzō immediately regretted his failings and wept, saying, ‘I apologize—please reconcile us!’ Therefore I have led him here once again. No doubt he will continue to do nothing but displease you, but if you would use him, pointing out his shortcomings in so many words, it would be greatly to his benefit, and nothing could give your aunt greater joy. Come here,” she said, turning her head.

Gakuzō, wearing an expression of shame and scratching his head, inched forward on his knees and apologized, saying: “It is even as the mistress of the house says. I had nothing against you, particularly, sir, but when you refused to let me do the cooking in the morning, I felt I had been laid aside like a useless thing, like a pot whose bottom is too sooty to clean, and it made me sick in the noggin. But that, too, was a product of my foolish, warped heart. Pray forgive me.”

Shino and Gakuzō had already discussed this; now Shino would not let him finish, but said, with a look of surprise on his face, “How unexpected! What need have you to apologize to me? What reconciliation do we require? I am accustomed to doing chores—I have been tending fires and doing the washing since my parents were alive. Perhaps I was unintentionally distant from you, thinking I needed no assistant, but if so, I am unaware of it. If I have caused the master and mistress of the main house any concern, then I alone bear the guilt of it. How could I intentionally snub you?”

At this Kamezasa smiled. “Well, then, the matter is settled. The two of you have made up. I will leave Gakuzō here, so please let me have Sesuke back. All of this comes from the inconveniences you must be enduring living in a house apart, like a second scabbard, while we await the end of your mourning for the departed. We wish you might end your observances at the fifth seventh day—it would be such a relief to take care of you in the main house. Lord Hikiroku, too, has desired this from the beginning, but he was unable to guess your feelings, and so he has elected to wait out the months and the days as they pass. Well, will you, or will you not?”

Shino answered with a sigh. “Though but a cot, this place is home to me—I find it hard to leave, especially when I think of my parents, both of whom are gone. And yet, though I wait until the forty-ninth day, in the end I shall still have to depart. A hundred days could I stay, and still at the end of them it would be difficult to go. To have my own way in this, at the expense of causing you concern, is to deepen my guilt with each passing day. Make your plans, I pray you: I shall not disobey your word.”

Kamezasa was overjoyed at his cheerful acquiescence. “How splendid, how splendid! You have listened to me, you good child, you. In that case, you must invite some of the nearer villagers on the eve of the fifth seventh day to make offerings to the buddhas, and on the following day chain the door and move yourself into the main house. Our daughter Hamaji is there, although she can hardly be much of a verbal sparring partner for you. Please be so kind as to think of her as a younger sister—or as your wife.”

At this she laughed a little, to herself, while Shino, dumbfounded, did not respond. Kamezasa was in the best of moods by now. She counted on her fingers, nodding as she did so, and said, “The thirty-fifth day since the departed’s death is a scant four days from now. We will begin preparations for the evening ceremony tomorrow—it will please Lord Hikiroku so. In which case, I must leave now. Gakuzō, take the utmost care to serve Shino well in everything. Do not forget what you have been told. Shino, please employ him without reservation for any task dealing with fire or water. They say the sheaf-barges must be pulled up the Mogami River,³ but I imagine it would be no very remarkable thing to row them upriver, provided one disciplines the rowers. Is that fellow Sesuke there by the back gate? Sesuke, I have brought Gakuzō here, so you may return to the main house with me. Are you there? Where are you?” she called.

“Here I am,” he called, finally sliding open the door to the kitchen.

“How untroubled this fellow looks! So you were there all along, you dullard? To the gate, quickly now,” she urged him. She delayed no longer, but stood immediately to leave.

Shino hurriedly left his seat, as well, saying, “The day seems as if it will stretch on a bit longer yet—stay and talk a while, I pray you. I have some water boiling for a floral infusion.”

But she shook her head, saying, “I have no time for tea drinking. If I am absent for even an hour from the taking-in of the wheat and the kindling for the kettles, our losses will be great. I shall come again.”

She left, and Gakuzō and Shino went to see her off, while Sesuke, fuming, placed his palms upon the porch to bid farewell to Shino, bowing like the tops of the box-trees that filled, too long unpruned, the garden where his mistress exited, dragging Sesuke along.

Gakuzō remained standing outside for a time, gazing toward the main house and looking all around on either hand, before he closed firmly the single gate and resumed his former seat. Then he proceeded to describe to Shino in confidence what the Estatesman and his wife had spoken, and what he himself had said. Shino sighed repeatedly as he listened, and then said, “Bad may have been the blood between them, but still she was my father’s elder sister, by a different mother; in addition to which she is my one and only aunt. When I think of this I wonder that she should have such a tangle of unworthy thoughts in her heart. She suspects me, and thinks of me with something very like enmity. How am I to endure the long months and days I must spend with those people? In truth, I am trapped—I can neither advance nor retreat.” He sighed again.

Gakuzō sought to comfort him. “That is the way things are, and so that is the way things shall remain. Your aunt and her husband are desire incarnate, nothing more. Since you know that their passion for gain is such as to cause them to disregard the love they owe their own flesh and blood, it will be no great matter for you to avoid their baleful intent. Then there is me—as loyal to you as your shadow, while deep enough in the counsels of the enemy to have already found a thread by which we may begin to unravel them. Thus there can be nothing better for us than to avoid intimacy indefinitely, that we may not be thought to share aspirations. As long as it is so, then whatever I say will be believed. Is it not said that even a nine-bushel bow⁴ goes slack if left strung too long? They may mean you harm, but if you, in the fidelity of your heart, receive their strength with flexibility, you will be able to break the horns of your aunt’s malevolence, and in the end she may even be transformed into a compassionate mother to you. Perhaps that is hoping for too much; but still, will you not cast yourself into their arms, and see what they will do? More thought now will not help you when the moment comes. Do not be so timid!”

Gakuzō’s remonstrations moved Shino to a new and immediate understanding. The latter could not help but grin as he said, “Great is the disparity in the talents given to men. I am your younger brother by only a single year, yet see by how far I fail to measure up to you! To give myself over to my aunt was, to go back to the beginning, my father’s final wish, and so I shall leave the consequences to chance, for good or ill. When at length I do move to the main house, it will not be easy for us to converse like this, knee to knee, heart to heart. If you have anything you would teach me in preparation for what is to come, and what is to come after that, I wish you might.”

Gakuzō stroked his own head. “My talent falls short of yours, but ’tis easy to win when you are not the one playing. Your own purse of wisdom is full, so if you watch for your chance and adapt to changes, you will be able to avoid calamity. And I shall be your shield in secret, to protect you from the blade concealed within the smile. But by all means, let us keep our intentions hidden,” he whispered. A precocious pair of children indeed, as they sat sharing their thoughts and plans.

By and by it was the eve of the thirty-fifth day since Bansaku’s death. Kamezasa had since the day before been preparing broths and vinegared salads, and sending bowls and furniture along with menials from the main house, back and forth, again and again, feet pounding like the pestles in the kitchen, working ’til everything was ready and twilight come. Shino had gone again this day to visit the graves of his late parents, and when he returned, in a hurry, it was in the company of the priest from the family cloister.

The priest faced the house altar, struck the wooden block, recited from a sutra, and allotted the offering portion of bite-sized eggplant and clear broth. Nukasuke and many other villagers had come to attend the service, and stood around exchanging greetings and remarks about the weather or about the absent one, such as, “It seems like only yesterday—can it really have been thirty-five days already? The immediacy of impermanence: ’tis swift indeed. It really is a floating world, when you think about it, and we in it are dreamers—speaking of which, move over, will nobody move over?” “Pardon, pardon! But that puts me in too exalted a seat—rudeness a thousand, ten thousand times over!” “This is no time to worry about that—no time to dither!” “A fine imposition, this! Master Kamahei should act as the senior member of our gathering.” “Now, now, none of that! There is such a thing as an old lecher, you know! And when I put my hand to my hoe, I can still out-hoe any of you young men. ’Tis Nukasuke who should be the guest of honor, as he had such a particular familiarity with the new buddha. Please, sir, take your seat.”

Both among standers and sitters, the yieldings of place and protesting of deference considerable commotion raised, until at last the crowd had settled down, in rows on either side of the room, to the repast that Shino had arrayed before them with his own hands. A hurly-burly of greetings ensued over food and sake, while watchful, never careless, Gakuzō did dishes purloin, returning them mounded high with rice and brimming o’er with broth to please the palate and ease the digestion; then as the meal progressed, they caught their second wind, and tipplers set their sights on making sport of their different-sected brethren th’abstemious, while the Six Poetic Immortals⁵ did appear, rambunctiously encircling the priest.

Having calculated and chosen his time, Hikiroku now came around by the porch and opened the doors at the head of the gathering, saying, “Everyone is assembled—welcome, welcome. I have nothing to give you, but please relax and converse among yourselves.” He stepped forward and assumed his place, straightening with both hands the creases in his trousers (of a diamond-pattern weave), looking every inch the master there.

As one the guests put down their chopsticks, and one said, “Your Honor has so graced us with this unlooked-for hospitality that, though not a warrior in armor fully clad, I am so constrained in my movements that I cannot kowtow to you as I ought to do.” At this everyone erupted in laughter uncontrollable, spewing a blossom-blizzard of grains of rice. “Now then, now then,” they all said, scrambling to gather each stray bit—a task so arduous they wished the sparrows by the gate might not have slept, and twittered to invite their assistance.

In spite of all this Hikiroku maintained a bitter countenance; he looked straight ahead, and at length spoke again. “As each of you knows, my wife is the daughter, in the main line, of Master Ōtsuka Shōsaku, former Steward here,⁶ and is also Bansaku’s elder sister; however, that family was destroyed in the Kakitsu era at the Battle of Yūki, and its descendants cast down into the ranks of the commoners—what revived it was my merit and Kamezasa’s karma, bonded together. This hardly bears repeating. And yet when Bansaku, whom we had heard was dead, returned, a wife in tow, a man so hobbled by a lame leg that it was useless to consider dividing with him our territory and yielding to him the estatesmanship, it seemed that he had not reconciled himself in his heart to his physical limitations, for without ever paying us a visit he conceived a grudge against his elder sister, and cursed me as a bitter enemy to whom he never would speak for the rest of his life: this grieved my heart, and yet so weighty were my official duties that I had no means of extending a conciliatory hand to him—I could not. Notwithstanding which each and every one of you pitied him—you leagued yourselves together to collect money for him, to redeem for him a house, to place in subjection to him paddies and fields to support him for the rest of his life—and all this was righteousness and fidelity in you, mindful of your old duties. All these years have I watched with many a deep sigh, many a tear of embarrassed gratitude in my eye, with emotions I never gave voice to; that I could never commend you all, despite what I felt, was a sorrow that came with my responsibilities, some little part of which you may be able to imagine. Well, all that is past now, as Bansaku stuck to his stubbornness until it took him to his grave, to the Yellow Springs, where I make no doubt his only worry is for Shino. Were I not to take in his orphan to raise up to manhood, I should fail in my duty to my forebears, and how could I call myself human? Therefore did Kamezasa and I, in constant consultation, beginning the day his father met his end, detail unto him menials, and direct our own steps, my wife’s and my own alternately, toward his gate, and inclined our hearts toward him always, even until this day, the eve of his father’s fifth seventh day: we have not slighted Shino, as each and every one of you must know. Be that as it may, how long can we leave our nephew alone here, and he not yet fifteen? Tomorrow we shall welcome him into the main house, where we will protect and nurture him until he is a fine man, and we shall marry him to our daughter Hamaji and make him the heir of the Ōtsuka clan. Now, what will you do with Bansaku’s Tillage: shall it be returned to each of you, or will you give it to Shino?”

At this query the listeners all raised their heads and said, “You need not speak of that, sir. What was the father’s belongs to the son—there is no distinction between noble and base on that score. Those fields have no other owner than his son here. How could we do otherwise? See that it is so, we pray you.”

Hikiroku smiled. “Well, then. Until Shino is grown, I shall keep the deeds myself. As for this house, we shall clear out its floors and use it as a barn for Bansaku’s Tillage. I trust you will all agree to this.”

He spoke with a great show of sincerity, but these poor water-drinking tenant farmers knew by this that his aim was to make their fields his own, and they looked at each other, at a loss for an answer.

At this moment Kamezasa came in from the kitchen to add her voice to the discussion; she pushed her way to Shino’s side and said, “Regardless of the buddha we celebrate today, and how things may have been between us, this boy is my son-in-law, as well as my son. Those who have no children of their own adopt those of others to love. We shall yield to our one and only nephew all responsibility for the paddies and fields, so what else could be done with Bansaku’s Tillage? Shino, you must take this to heart: that beginning tomorrow everything in our residence, down to the ashes at the bottom of the hearth, is destined, I say, to one day be yours. My younger brother was hateful to me, but oh, how I miss him now when I think of what lies ahead for you, my child, with no relative but your aunt no matter where you look—I pity you more than I do Hamaji, whom I have raised since she was in swaddling clothes. You are dear to me,” she said, as busily she wiped away the rain that on her sleeves did fall, but wet them not.

Kamezasa was but the first to weep—after her the villagers all began blowing their noses and sighing in spite of themselves. “Verily are kin a port in a storm—’tis in hardship that one learns the truth about a person. This testimonial of Her Ladyship Shino’s aunt is the perfect offering for this wake. Most of the people in the hamlet heard her pronounce Lord Bansaku’s son her daughter’s prospective bridegroom, so how can there be any doubt? It is only proper that the paddies and fields in question should be overseen for a time by His Eminence the Estatesman,” they answered as one. Hikiroku and Kamezasa rejoiced, and ladled out new broth where the old had gone cold, pressed more cups on everybody, more rice, and in general extended a hospitality greater than what they had at the beginning of the evening.

The night drew on, and by the first watch,⁷ the banquet came at long last to an end. The priest did struggle mightily to stuff his alms, two strings of cash, beneath his sash, while the peasants, having reached satiety, proclaimed their joy and thanks, and sent up prayers for th’departed by the gate as they passed it, their lamps the light of the Law as each in turn intoned the name of the Buddha—“Hail Amitabha Butdon’t stumble into the paddies”—they left, with some assisting the tipplers home. The house then lay as silent as the calm that oft succeeds the gale, th’only sounds the cleansing, wiping dry, and storing of the ceremony’s fivefold implements: the vases, candlesticks, and thurible.

The next morning Shino made his way to the family cloister to offer flowers and incense at the graves of his late father and mother; Hikiroku and his wife did not wait for him to return before rousing their menials to haul away the Inuzuka house’s furnishings. Most of the hearth items, the floor mats and standing screens, they sold, until very quickly the house had been rendered vacant. Shino knew nothing of this until he returned and saw someone standing by the side of the road near his home. A second look revealed the loiterer to be Gakuzō, but Shino could not understand why the hems of his robe were tucked up high, why his sleeves were tied back so severely with cord, and why he was mopping a sweaty, sooty brow. Shino ran up to him and asked, “What have you been doing?”

Gakuzō looked over his shoulder before answering. “This very morning, not long after you left, His Lordship the Estatesman led some of his men here to your house and caused them to haul off or sell off its furnishings—I myself was drafted into the job—see how sooty my arms and legs are, as if I had been sweeping up at year’s end. We have only just now finished. No doubt you are angry, but endure it, I pray you, and go at once to the main house.”

Shino was nearly dumbfounded. “I had been preparing myself for it, and yet I had thought I should not be counted late if I went after this day had passed, marking the fifth seventh day since my father’s death. Still, this haste no doubt stems from fear of a change in the people’s feelings. The longer we talk, the more chance it will be known: go quickly now, I pray you.”

After sending Gakuzō on his way, he walked silently on, but could not pass his home without a glance—its hedge, indeed, no diff’rent, but the face its garden showed had changed, bow-broken like the spindle-trees within—its gate was locked, forbidding him entrance—oh, how memories did move him now, when nothing else could shift him from the spot where melancholic’ly he stood and gazed at the space beside the plum tree where he had buried Yoshirō. Dew now dampened his sleeves, so much did he miss the dog.

“Dear me,” he said to himself. “Let me erect for him a stupa.” He drew the knife nestled in the hilt of the small field blade he carried and with it carved away some of the bark from the plum’s trunk. He then took his writing brush from its quiver and wrote the words: Even thus can a beast conceive a heart to know truth—Hail Amitabha Buddha. He put away his brush and then intoned with reverence the Buddha’s name ten times.

He knew he should not be doing this, and so he then went straight to his aunt’s house, where Hikiroku and Kamezasa were waiting for him.

“Ah, Shino, that was quick of you! Come here now.” They beckoned him closer and said, “We had originally thought to clear out the house after you came back from the temple, but then we could not have finished in a day. We also thought it rash to let you see it as it was done, as it might cause you to moan with dismay. And so, with such spurs of haste digging into our hearts, we emptied out your old dwelling and brought our family altars together here. From this day forth, this is your house. As we said last evening, when you are twenty you shall take Hamaji to wife and become the estatesman, the second generation in our house, while we shall retire to the back of the property to spend each day fanning ourselves in idleness—an occasion we are awaiting with much anticipation. Hamaji, oh Hamaji!”

They summoned the girl and sat her and Shino down between them. “It was too soon to speak of this before, Hamaji, but now that you will be in such proximity you are bound to come to know each other better. Shino here is a cousin to you, and as of today we have made him our child. When he is older he shall be your husband—we desire to see you man and wife as soon as you have grown enough. Do live happily together, we pray you.”

As all these things were thus explained to her, poor Hamaji did blanch in embarrassment, and like a covey of plover chicks she could not stand her ground but suddenly left and hid behind a screen. Now, Shino, ever wary, aware that sweetened words could act like poison and therefore determined never to lend an ear to them, was at his wits’ end, and knew not what to do. Kamezasa bade him follow her, and led him to a room on the west side of the house. “This shall be your room. Neglect not your studies, neither reading nor writing. Should any needs arise, do not hesitate to employ either Gakuzō or Hamaji. This is no place for you to be reserved—how long will you be so dainty? Let down your guard,” she said comfortingly, showing him what seemed a single-minded hospitality.

Thus it was that the summer’s Three Concealments passed,⁸ the first winds of autumn arrived, and Shino’s period of mourning for his father came to an end. In advance of this Kamezasa had caused new, men’s, garments to be sewn for Shino that he might trade them for his girl’s attire, and so on this day, when he visited the holy place of their lares, he looked like a youth of fourteen or fifteen, rather than the boy of eleven that he yet was, for he was taller than most boys. “Since we are already serving red rice in celebration today, perhaps you should have him trim the corners of his bangs today.” This was the advice Kamezasa gave her husband, and Hikiroku followed it, carrying out the ceremony for Shino’s official assumption of a man’s dress with a punctiliousness so evident to the world at large that the villagers who had hated him these many years were now fooled into thinking the old tanuki quite reliable after all.

In all of these matters Shino simply did as he was told, balking at nothing; in exchanging his girl’s clothing for men’s and following the ways of the world he was simply fulfilling his father Bansaku’s dying instructions. But even as he felt abashed with gratitude for his father’s unerring perceptiveness, he felt how lusterless and unsettled was his future with each day that darkened into night and with each morrow that dawned, until at long last he had seen the year out in vain, and, although he had not been awaiting it, the coming of spring in the third month of the following year brought the anniversary of his late father’s death. He could do nothing else, on the eve of that day, but shut himself up with the family altar and pray for his father’s and mother’s happiness in the hereafter.

The next day Shino went to pray at their graves, and Kamezasa had already assigned Gakuzō to go as his companion, but caution that they be not overheard prevented them from conversing on the way. They visited the temple, and together they washed the gravestones, ladled out water, and offered flowers. As they, master and man, passed the time in dedicated recollection of the dead, they were moved even unto tears.

They then set out on the road back. But as they neared the house, Shino found himself gazing long and hard at the roof of his old home. “I was never far from it, and yet once that I lived in it no more, how soon this anniversary did verge! The eightfold creepers overrun the garden whose trees and grass alone are left unchanged—oh, let us turn aside and look at them.” And so master and man pushed open the single gate, already half-collapsed, and walked through.

Upon the eaves grew hare’s-foot fern, as if frond mem’ries to evoke among the skewed and slanting pillars and the falling walls, of which little but straw remained. The place was indeed deserted—only traces remained of its former human habitation—and so much had changed that to seek anything that had once been there was useless. And yet, as if to perform the office of a medium for their tears, there still stood the plum on whose trunk, a year ago this month, Shino had carved a space and written the passage that began Even thus can a beast, for the sake of Yoshirō’s life to come—indeed, the tree had flourished like never before, to such a degree that the wound on its trunk had healed and effaced the characters Shino had written there, while the tree’s limbs were heavy laden with green plums.

“Perhaps the dog I buried beneath this plum has nourished it. Its flowers being light red, it rarely produced fruit before—this is the first year it has ever born progeny on every branch like this. See here,” said Shino, pointing.

Gakuzō stepped forward and gazed intently at the fruit. “How auspicious! These plums are growing eight to the branch. I have heard of octuplet plums—but never have I seen one. And yet here they are—bunches of eight.”⁹

Shino saw that it was so. “Truly, they are in bunches of eight. As far back as I can remember, I have never heard tell of plums growing eight to the branch like this. If they grew in bunches of four—if they were quadruplet plums—then they would bear well their name as mementoes of Yoshirō,¹⁰ who though but a beast knew his master so well. But what is the significance of bunches of eight?”

He gazed a while longer before continuing. “A prodigy, I say. See—not only do they grow in eights, but each fruit bears a pattern of markings. What do they look like to you?” He pulled a branch close and plucked its fruits, holding them in the palm of his hand and examining them in the sunlight. As he did so, he saw that the plums bore writing, naturally appearing. One said jin, “benevolence,” and one said gi, “righteousness”—and two others said rei, “propriety”; and chi, “wisdom.” There were four other characters besides: chū, “loyalty”; shin, “fidelity”; kō, “filiality”; and tei, “fraternity.” Each fruit bore one of these characters, clearly legible.

The two clever boys exclaimed in astonishment; every hair stood on end. “The eight characters I wrote on the trunk, after carving a space for them—Even thus can a beast and so on—have disappeared, and now these eight characters—benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, all eight virtuous acts—appear on the fruit of this tree. What can it mean?” This was as much as Shino could say: his wonderment would not be allayed.

After a time Gakuzō took out his bead, which he kept hidden in an amulet pouch next to his skin. “Look at this, my young friend. Those plums and this bead bear a mutual resemblance—they are similarly shaped, and the characters upon them are identical. There must be a reason for this, though I cannot comprehend it.”

“Indeed,” said Shino, taking out his own bead, which he kept in his own amulet pouch, and comparing it to the plums. In size, and in writing, it was the same. “Truly, it is as you say. Is this the effect of some karmic cause? With these beads and these plums, it is as if we have brought together the two halves of a tally—only to find an even greater prodigy. Were I to hazard a guess, I should say that there were originally eight of these beads—one for benevolence, one for righteousness, and one for each of the other virtuous acts. If that be so—if the full complement of beads be eight—then the remaining six must yet exist somewhere in this world. Let us not say they are gone from it. Why does this plum bear octuplet fruit? Why are the characters appearing on these beads and on these plums identical? Inquire we might, but the grasses and trees are not sentient; strike them we might, but the gems and stones will never answer. There must be a karmic connection, but we can only hope to make sense of it later. People love prodigies, and if this one becomes known, let them know it, but we should not tell it to them. Rather let us strive to keep it secret.”

Thus in hushed tones did they agree. They then wrapped the eightfold plum-fruit in paper and placed them in their pouches along with their beads. Having done this, they left the wasted garden at a run, and at length returned to their residence.

It was in the fifth month of that year, when the plums were ripe, that some menials employed in Hikiroku’s house, and indeed the villagers nearby, first discovered the fruit, and that it hung in bunches of eight; the fact was reported to the master and his wife as something rare in all the world, and it was also repeated here and there, so that the tree’s fame spread. However, as the plums ripened, the writing on them, denoting the eight virtuous acts, disappeared, so that what the villagers prized was simply that the plums were octuplets—none knew of the characters. Every year thenceforth the tree bore fruit eight to the branch, but never again after that spring did the fruit bear writing. Furthermore, although Hikiroku and Kamezasa heard of the plums, they were insensible of elegance, insensitive to the pleasures of blossoms and fruit, and so they merely rejoiced that the plums were many. Year after year they pickled them, and used them only to round out meals or as accompaniments to drink. The plum gradually came to be more and more widely known, until the tree could justifiably be called famous, and even Yoshirō was heard of, so that the Octuplet Plum was called Yoshirō’s Barrow in the tales of the oldsters; nevertheless, in later years, the tree fell prey numerous times to conflagrations of troops—the plum died, the mound was plowed up, and no traces of either can be identified today. Cat’s Fork Bridge alone remains.

1. That is, the hototogisu, or cuckoo. Legend says that the ancient state of Shu was ruled by a former farmer named Du Yu. Later he abdicated; in mountain seclusion he became a cuckoo, which would ever after use its call to remind the people when planting time had come. When the state of Shu later fell, the cuckoo cried until it coughed up blood. In Japan the bird was also known as “death’s planter” (shide no taosa), which is thought to be a corruption of “commoner planter” (shizu no taosa), but which came to associate the bird with death, or proclaiming death. Here Bakin writes the word with kanji meaning “Shu’s soul,” a compound sometimes read hototogisu, and glosses them shide no taosa.

2. The five primordial elements in Chinese cosmology: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water.

3. See, for example, Sutoku-in’s poem Mogamigawa / tsuna de hiku to mo / inabune no / shibashi ga hodo wa / ikari orosamu: “Up the Mogami River / with ropes you may drag them / but nay, the sheaf-boats / will yet for a while / drop their anchors.” In the poem, “anchor” is punned with “ire” and “nay” with “sheaf,” making the poem a refusal to stop being angry. The poem, along with Saigyō’s reply (which involves the same imagery), is found in Saigyō’s collection Sankashū.

4. Bow strength was measured by suspending bags of grain from the middle of the bow shaft. A bow that took nine bushels of grain to bend was very strong.

5. Six classical poets singled out by Ki no Tsurayuki in his preface to Kokin wakashū and thereafter celebrated as exemplars of waka.

6.Jitō, a samurai official administering estate lands.

7. Late, but before midnight.

8. The “season of the Three Concealments” refers, most basically, to the late summer and early fall. The Chinese calendrical cycle designates days as belonging to one of the five elements (fire, water, earth, wood, and metal), and further designates “elder” and “younger” of each of these days. The element of fire is ascendant in the summer, and since fire trumps metal, the metal days falling during the hottest part of the summer were said to “conceal” themselves, or retreat. Specifically, the third and fourth elder metal days following the summer solstice, and the first elder metal day after the beginning of fall, were known as the “Three Concealments” (sanpuku). As explained in Chapter VIII, this season and its designation have a special relationship to Princess Fuse.

9. The “octuplet plum,” or yatsubusa ume, bears several plums for each flower. Yatsubusa, which may also be read yatsufusa, is homophonous with, and in fact written with the same characters as, the name of the Satomi dog.

10. “Quadruplet” plums, or yotsufusa, would correspond with the “four” in Yoshirō’s name (which originally meant “four white,” as in feet); see Chapter XVII.