Bakemono Yashiki | Page 4

Sarayashiki" of Byo[u]haku Hakuchi, in the "Kwaidan-shu[u]" published by the Hakubunkwan.
"The Bancho[u] Sarayashiki" of Ho[u]gyu[u]sha To[u]ko.
"Yui Sho[u]setsu" of Ko[u]ganei Koshu[u].
These references could be extended. The story of the Sarayashiki figures in most of the collections of wonder tales. The Gidayu of the "Banshu[u] Sarayashiki" by Tamenaga Taro[u]bei and Asada Itcho[u] finds no application. It deals with Himeji in Harima. As for the stories from an esoteric point of view, as illustrations of the period they have a value--to be continued in those more historical, and which deal with the lives and deeds of men of greater note and influence in this early Tokugawa court. The present volume instances the second class of wonder tales referred to in the preface to the Yotsuya Kwaidan.
O[u]marudani, 14th November, 1916.

CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface v
Map of Edo Facing xii

PART I.
TALES OF THE EDO BANCHO[U]: WHO AOYAMA SHU[U]ZEN WAS 1
Chapter I.
The Chu[u]gen Rokuzo 3
II. The Bak��mono Yashiki 17
III. Nakakawachi Shu[u]zen 26
IV. The O'kag�� Sama 38
V. The Report to the Tono Sama 48
VI. The Shrine of the O'Inari Sama 55
VII. The Luck of Okumura Shu[u]zen 64
VIII. Aoyama Shu[u]zen 76
IX. Shu[u]zen meets Shu[u]zen 84
X. The Meeting of the Gaman Kwai 89

PART II.
BANCHO[U] SARAYASHIKI: WHAT AOYAMA SHU[U]ZEN BECAME 97
Chapter XI.
The Yoshida Goten 99
XII. The Ko[u]jimachi Well 111
XIII. The Sen Him��gimi (Princess Sen) 122
XIV. Shu[u]zen Adolescens 130
XV. The God favours Shu[u]zen 142
XVI. The Affair of the Asakusa Kwannon 150
XVII. Emma Dai-O[u] gives Judgment 156
XVIII. Kosaka Jinnai 165
XIX. A Matter of Pedestrianism 171
XX. The Affair of Kishu[u] Ke 179
XXI. If old Acquaintance be forgot 192
XXII. The Shrine of the Jinnai-bashi 201
XXIII. A Winter Session 212
XXIV. The Tiger at the front Gate; the Wolf at the Postern 218
XXV. Chu[u]dayu wins his Suit 229
XXVI. Sampei Dono 236
XXVII. Aoyama wins his Suit 245
XXVIII. The Sarayashiki 251


PART I
TALES OF THE EDO BANCHO[U]
WHO AOYAMA SHU[U]ZEN WAS.
CHAPTER I
THE Chu[u]gen ROKUZO
Rokuzo the chu[u]gen sighed as he faced the long slope leading to the Kudanzaka. Pleasant had been his journey to this point. From his master's yashiki in Ichigaya to the shop of the sandal maker Suk��bei in lower Kanda it had been one long and easy descent. Suk��bei had gratified Rokuzo with the desired and well established commission or "squeeze." Orders for sandals in the yashiki of a nobleman were no small item. Rokuzo was easily satisfied. Though of a scant thirty years in age he had not the vice of women, the exactions of whom were the prime source of rascality in the sphere of chu[u]gen, as well as in the glittering train of the palace. At the turn of the road ahead Rokuzo could eye the massive walls of the moat, which hid the fortress and seraglio built up by the skilful hands of Kasuga no Tsubone in her earnest efforts to overcome the woman hating propensities of the San-dai-ke, the third prince of the Tokugawa line, Iyemitsu Ko[u]. Rokuzo was a chu[u]gen, servant in attendance on his master Endo[u] Saburo[u]za��mon, hatamoto or immediate vassal of the commander-in-chief, the Sho[u]gun or real ruler in the land of Nippon since the long past days of Taira Kiyomori.
Rokuzo had no great lady in charge of his domestic arrangements, one whose obsession it was to overcome his dislike of man's natural mate. Nor had he such mate to administer reproof for his decided liking for the sherry-like rice wine called sak��. Suk��bei had rigidly performed his part in the matter of the "squeeze"; but Rokuzo considered him decidedly stingy in administration of the wine bottle--or bottles. Willingly would he have sacrificed the commission for an amplitude of the wine. But even chu[u]gen had their formulae of courtesy, and such reflection on his host would have been too gross. With a sigh therefore he had set out from the shop of the sandal maker, eyeing the wine shops passed from time to time, but not fortunate enough to chance upon any acquaintance whose services he could call upon in facing him over a glass. Rokuzo had the virtue of not drinking alone.
Kanda village once passed, the yashiki walls hemmed in the highway which ran through a district now one of the busiest quarters of the city. This sloping ground was popularly known as Ichimenhara, to indicate its uniformity of surface. There was not a hint of the great university, the long street of book-stores close packed side by side for blocks. Their site was covered by the waters of the marsh, almost lake, of the Kanda River, then being slowly drained into the castle moats. The top of the hill reached, at what is now South Jimbocho[u], the shops and houses of the one village hereabouts, Tayasu-mura, offered a last chance for diversion. The steep slope of the Kudan hill was now before Rokuzo, and beyond he had to pass through the lonely wood which harboured a temple to the war god Hachiman,