Ancient Tales and Folk-Lore of Japan | Page 9

sad when she heard this. She knew well (perhaps by experience) of the illnesses caused by love. She wept, and said to Zembei:
'I am quite with you in sorrow, my lord, at the terrible trouble that has come to us; but I cannot see my daughter die thus. Let us tell her we will make inquiries about the man she loves, and see if we can make him our son-in-law. In any case, it is the custom to make full inquiries, which will extend over some days; and in this time our daughter may recover somewhat and get strong enough to hear the news that we cannot accept her lover as our son-in-law.'
Zembei agreed to this, and O Matsu promised to say nothing to her mistress of the interview.
O Shing?? San was told by her mother that her father, though he had not consented to the engagement, had promised to make inquiries about Yoshisawa.
O Shing?? took food and regained much strength on this news; and when she was strong enough, some ten days later, she was called into her father's presence, accompanied by her mother.
'My sweet daughter,' said Zembei, 'I have made careful inquiries about Dr. Yoshisawa, your lover. Deeply as it grieves me to say so, it is impossible that I, your father, the head of our whole family, can consent to your marriage with one of so low a family as Yoshisawa, who, in spite of his own goodness, has sprung from the eta. I must hear no more of it. Such a contract would be impossible for the Asano family.'
No one ventured to say a word to this. In Japan the head of a family's decision is final.
Poor O Shing?? bowed to her father, and went to her own room, where she wept bitterly; O Matsu, the faithful servant, doing her best to console her.
Next morning, to the astonishment of the household, O Shing?? San could nowhere be found. Search was made everywhere; even Dr. Yoshisawa joined in the search.
On the third day after the disappearance one of the searchers looked down the Violet Well, and saw poor O Shines floating body.
Two days later she was buried, and on that day Yoshisawa threw himself into the well.
The people say that even now, on wet, stormy nights, they see the ghost of O Shing?? San floating over the well, while some declare that they hear the sound of a young man weeping in the Valley of Shimizutani.
Footnotes
19:1 Told to me by Shofukutei Fukuga.
19:2 Hollow.
24:1 The eta are the lowest people or caste in Japan--skinners and killers of animals.
5. The Ghost of Yoichi Appears to the Three as They Talk
IV GHOST STORY OF THE FLUTE'S TOMB??1
LONG ago, at a small and out-of-the-way village called Kumedamura, about eight miles to the south-east of Sakai city, in Idsumo Province, there was made a tomb, the Fuezuka or Flute's Tomb, and to this day many people go thither to offer up prayer and to worship, bringing with them flowers and incense-sticks, which are deposited as offerings to the spirit of the man who was buried there. All the year round people flock to it. There is no season at which they pray more particularly than at another.
The Fuezuka tomb is situated on a large pond called Kumeda, some five miles in circumference, and all the places around this pond are known as of Kumeda Pond, from which the village of Kumeda took its name.
Whose tomb can it be that attracts such sympathy The tomb itself is a simple stone pillar, with nothing artistic to recommend it. Neither is the surrounding scenery interesting; it is flat and ugly until the mountains of Kiushu are reached. I must tell, as well as I can, the story of whose tomb it is.
Between seventy and eighty years ago there lived near the pond in the village of Kumedamura a blind amma??1 called Yoichi. Yoichi was extremely popular in the neighbourhood, being very honest and kind, besides being quite a professor in the art of massage--a treatment necessary to almost every Japanese. It would be difficult indeed to find a village that had not its amma.
Yoichi was blind, and, like all men of his calling, carried an iron wand or stick, also a flute or 'fuezuka'--the stick to feel his way about with, and the flute to let people know he was ready for employment. So good an amma was Yoichi, he was nearly always employed, and, consequently, fairly well off, having a little house of his own and one servant, who cooked his food.
A little way from Yoichi's house was a small teahouse, placed upon the banks of the pond. One evening (April 5; cherry-blossom season), just at dusk, Yoichi was on his way home, having been at work all day. His road led him by