@misc{oai:toyama.repo.nii.ac.jp:00017528, author = {中島, 淑恵}, month = {2020-01-29, 2020-02-06, 2020-02-06, 2020-02-06, 2020-02-06, 2020-02-06, 2020-02-06, 2020-02-06, 2020-02-06}, note = {application/mp3, テーマ:輪廻転生-女の恨みと生まれ変わり 1) Diplomacy It had been ordered that the execution should take place in the garden of the yashiki (1). So the man was taken there, and made to kneel down in a wide sanded space crossed by a line of tobi-ishi, or stepping-stones, such as you may still see in Japanese landscape-gardens. His arms were bound behind him. Retainers brought water in buckets, and rice-bags filled with pebbles; and they packed the rice-bags round the kneeling man,--so wedging him in that he could not move. The master came, and observed the arrangements. He found them satisfactory, and made no remarks. Suddenly the condemned man cried out to him:-- "Honored Sir, the fault for which I have been doomed I did not wittingly commit. It was only my very great stupidity which caused the fault. Having been born stupid, by reason of my Karma, I could not always help making mistakes. But to kill a man for being stupid is wrong,--and that wrong will be repaid. So surely as you kill me, so surely shall I be avenged;--out of the resentment that you provoke will come the vengeance; and evil will be rendered for evil."... If any person be killed while feeling strong resentment, the ghost of that person will be able to take vengeance upon the killer. This the samurai knew. He replied very gently,--almost caressingly:-- "We shall allow you to frighten us as much as you please--after you are dead. But it is difficult to believe that you mean what you say. Will you try to give us some sign of your great resentment--after your head has been cut off?" "Assuredly I will," answered the man. "Very well," said the samurai, drawing his long sword;--"I am now going to cut off your head. Directly in front of you there is a stepping-stone. After your head has been cut off, try to bite the stepping-stone. If your angry ghost can help you to do that, some of us may be frightened... Will you try to bite the stone?" "I will bite it!" cried the man, in great anger,--"I will bite it!--I will bite"-- There was a flash, a swish, a crunching thud: the bound body bowed over the rice sacks,--two long blood-jets pumping from the shorn neck;--and the head rolled upon the sand. Heavily toward the stepping-stone it rolled: then, suddenly bounding, it caught the upper edge of the stone between its teeth, clung desperately for a moment, and dropped inert. None spoke; but the retainers stared in horror at their master. He seemed to be quite unconcerned. He merely held out his sword to the nearest attendant, who, with a wooden dipper, poured water over the blade from haft to point, and then carefully wiped the steel several times with sheets of soft paper... And thus ended the ceremonial part of the incident. For months thereafter, the retainers and the domestics lived in ceaseless fear of ghostly visitation. None of them doubted that the promised vengeance would come; and their constant terror caused them to hear and to see much that did not exist. They became afraid of the sound of the wind in the bamboos,--afraid even of the stirring of shadows in the garden. At last, after taking counsel together, they decided to petition their master to have a Segaki-service (2) performed on behalf of the vengeful spirit. "Quite unnecessary," the samurai said, when his chief retainer had uttered the general wish... "I understand that the desire of a dying man for revenge may be a cause for fear. But in this case there is nothing to fear." The retainer looked at his master beseechingly, but hesitated to ask the reason of the alarming confidence. "Oh, the reason is simple enough," declared the samurai, divining the unspoken doubt. "Only the very last intention of the fellow could have been dangerous; and when I challenged him to give me the sign, I diverted his mind from the desire of revenge. He died with the set purpose of biting the stepping-stone; and that purpose he was able to accomplish, but nothing else. All the rest he must have forgotten... So you need not feel any further anxiety about the matter." --And indeed the dead man gave no more trouble. Nothing at all happened. 2) Oshidori There was a falconer and hunter, named Sonjo, who lived in the district called Tamura-no-Go, of the province of Mutsu. One day he went out hunting, and could not find any game. But on his way home, at a place called Akanuma, he perceived a pair of oshidori [1] (mandarin-ducks), swimming together in a river that he was about to cross. To kill oshidori is not good; but Sonjo happened to be very hungry, and he shot at the pair. His arrow pierced the male: the female escaped into the rushes of the further shore, and disappeared. Sonjo took the dead bird home, and cooked it. That night he dreamed a dreary dream. It seemed to him that a beautiful woman came into his room, and stood by his pillow, and began to weep. So bitterly did she weep that Sonjo felt as if his heart were being torn out while he listened. And the woman cried to him: "Why,--oh! why did you kill him?--of what wrong was he guilty?... At Akanuma we were so happy together,--and you killed him!... What harm did he ever do you? Do you even know what you have done?--oh! do you know what a cruel, what a wicked thing you have done?... Me too you have killed,--for I will not live without my husband!... Only to tell you this I came."... Then again she wept aloud,--so bitterly that the voice of her crying pierced into the marrow of the listener's bones;--and she sobbed out the words of this poem:-- Hi kurureba Sasoeshi mono wo-- Akanuma no Makomo no kure no Hitori-ne zo uki! ("At the coming of twilight I invited him to return with me--! Now to sleep alone in the shadow of the rushes of Akanuma--ah! what misery unspeakable!") [2] And after having uttered these verses she exclaimed:--"Ah, you do not know--you cannot know what you have done! But to-morrow, when you go to Akanuma, you will see,--you will see..." So saying, and weeping very piteously, she went away. When Sonjo awoke in the morning, this dream remained so vivid in his mind that he was greatly troubled. He remembered the words:--"But to-morrow, when you go to Akanuma, you will see,--you will see." And he resolved to go there at once, that he might learn whether his dream was anything more than a dream. So he went to Akanuma; and there, when he came to the river-bank, he saw the female oshidori swimming alone. In the same moment the bird perceived Sonjo; but, instead of trying to escape, she swam straight towards him, looking at him the while in a strange fixed way. Then, with her beak, she suddenly tore open her own body, and died before the hunter's eyes... Sonjo shaved his head, and became a priest. 2)-2 Trois contes by Gustave Flaubert Le cerf, qui etait noir et monstrueux de taille, portait seize andouillers avec une barbe blanche. La biche, blonde comme les feuilles mortes, broutait le gazon; et le faon tachete, sans l'interrompre dans sa marche, lui tetait la mamelle. L'arbalete encore une fois ronfla. Le faon, tout de suite, fut tue. Alors sa mere, en regardant le ciel, brama d'une voix profonde, dechirante, humaine. Julien exaspere, d'un coup en plein poitrail, l'etendit par terre. Le grand cerf l'avait vu, fit un bond. Julien lui envoya sa derniere fleche. Elle l'atteignit au front, et y resta plantee. Le grand cerf n'eut pas l'air de la sentir; en enjambant par-dessus les morts, il avancait toujours, allait fondre sur lui, l'eventrer; et Julien reculait dans une epouvante indicible. Le prodigieux animal s'arreta; et les yeux flamboyants, solennel comme un patriarche et comme un justicier, pendant qu'une cloche au loin tintait, il repeta trois fois: --≪Maudit! maudit! maudit! Un jour, coeur feroce, tu assassineras ton pere et ta mere!≫ Il plia les genoux, ferma doucement ses paupieres, et mourut. Julien fut stupefait, puis accable d'une fatigue soudaine; et un degout, une tristesse immense l'envahit. Le front dans les deux mains, il pleura pendant longtemps. ==== De l'autre cote du vallon, sur le bord de la foret, il apercut un cerf, une biche et son faon. 3) Ingwa-banashi The daimyo's wife was dying, and knew that she was dying. She had not been able to leave her bed since the early autumn of the tenth Bunsei. It was now the fourth month of the twelfth Bunsei, --the year 1829 by Western counting; and the cherry-trees were blossoming. She thought of the cherry-trees in her garden, and of the gladness of spring. She thought of her children. She thought of her husband's various concubines,--especially the Lady Yukiko, nineteen years old. "My dear wife," said the daimyo, "you have suffered very much for three long years. We have done all that we could to get you well,--watching beside you night and day, praying for you, and often fasting for your sake, But in spite of our loving care, and in spite of the skill of our best physicians, it would now seen that the end of your life is not far off. Probably we shall sorrow more than you will sorrow because of your having to leave what the Buddha so truly termed 'this burning-house of the world. I shall order to be performed--no matter what the cost--every religious rite that can serve you in regard to your next rebirth; and all of us will pray without ceasing for you, that you may not have to wander in the Black Space, but nay quickly enter Paradise, and attain to Buddha-hood." He spoke with the utmost tenderness, pressing her the while. Then, with eyelids closed, she answered him in a voice thin as the voice of in insect:-- "I am grateful--most grateful--for your kind words.... Yes, it is true, as you say, that I have been sick for three long years, and that I have been treated with all possible care and affection.... Why, indeed, should I turn away from the one true Path at the very moment of my death?... Perhaps to think of worldly matters at such a time is not right;--but I have one last request to make,--only one.... Call here to me the Lady Yukiko;--you know that I love her like a sister. I want to speak to her about the affairs of this household." Yukiko came at the summons of the lord, and, in obedience to a sign from him, knelt down beside the couch. The daimyo's wife opened her eyes, and looked at Yukiko, and spoke:--"Ah, here is Yukiko!... I am so pleased to see you, Yukiko!... Come a little closer,--so that you can hear me well: I am not able to speak loud.... Yukiko, I am going to die. I hope that you will be faithful in all things to our dear lord;--for I want you to take my place when I am gone.... I hope that you will always be loved by him,--yes, even a hundred times more than I have been,--and that you will very soon be promoted to a higher rank, and become his honored wife.... And I beg of you always to cherish our dear lord: never allow another woman to rob you of his affection.... This is what I wanted to say to you, dear Yukiko.... Have you been able to understand?" "Oh, my dear Lady," protested Yukiko, "do not, I entreat you, say such strange things to me! You well know that I am of poor and mean condition:--how could I ever dare to aspire to become the wife of our lord!" "Nay, nay!" returned the wife, huskily,--"this is not a time for words of ceremony: let us speak only the truth to each other. After my death, you will certainly be promoted to a higher place; and I now assure you again that I wish you to become the wife of our lord--yes, I wish this, Yukiko, even more than I wish to become a Buddha!... Ah, I had almost forgotten!--I want you to do something for me, Yukiko. You know that in the garden there is a yae-zakura,(2) which was brought here, the year before last, from Mount Yoshino in Yamato. I have been told that it is now in full bloom;--and I wanted so much to see it in flower! In a little while I shall be dead;--I must see that tree before I die. Now I wish you to carry me into the garden--at once, Yukiko,--so that I can see it.... Yes, upon your back, Yukiko;--take me upon your back...." While thus asking, her voice had gradually become clear and strong,--as if the intensity of the wish had given her new force: then she suddenly burst into tears. Yukiko knelt motionless, not knowing what to do; but the lord nodded assent. "It is her last wish in this world," he said. "She always loved cherry-flowers; and I know that she wanted very much to see that Yamato-tree in blossom. Come, my dear Yukiko, let her have her will." As a nurse turns her back to a child, that the child may cling to it, Yukiko offered her shoulders to the wife, and said:-- "Lady, I am ready: please tell me how I best can help you." "Why, this way!"--responded the dying woman, lifting herself with an almost superhuman effort by clinging to Yukiko's shoulders. But as she stood erect, she quickly slipped her thin hands down over the shoulders, under the robe, and clutched the breasts of the girl,, and burst into a wicked laugh. "I have my wish!" she cried-"I have my wish for the cherry- bloom,(3)--but not the cherry-bloom of the garden!... I could not die before I got my wish. Now I have it!--oh, what a delight!" And with these words she fell forward upon the crouching girl, and died. The attendants at once attempted to lift the body from Yukiko's shoulders, and to lay it upon the bed. But--strange to say!--this seemingly easy thing could not be done. The cold hands had attached themselves in some unaccountable way to the breasts of the girl,--appeared to have grown into the quick flesh. Yukiko became senseless with fear and pain. Physicians were called. They could not understand what had taken place. By no ordinary methods could the hands of the dead woman be unfastened from the body of her victim;--they so clung that any effort to remove them brought blood. This was not because the fingers held: it was because the flesh of the palms had united itself in some inexplicable manner to the flesh of the breasts! At that time the most skilful physician in Yedo was a foreigner, --a Dutch surgeon. It was decided to summon him. After a careful examination he said that he could not understand the case, and that for the immediate relief of Yukiko there was nothing to be done except to cut the hands from the corpse. He declared that it would be dangerous to attempt to detach them from the breasts. His advice was accepted; and the hands' were amputated at the wrists. But they remained clinging to the breasts; and there they soon darkened and dried up,--like the hands of a person long dead. Yet this was only the beginning of the horror. Withered and bloodless though they seemed, those hands were not dead. At intervals they would stir--stealthily, like great grey spiders. And nightly thereafter,--beginning always at the Hour of the Ox,(4)--they would clutch and compress and torture. Only at the Hour of the Tiger the pain would cease. Yukiko cut off her hair, and became a mendicant-nun,--taking the religious name of Dassetsu. She had an ibai (mortuary tablet) made, bearing the kaimyo of her dead mistress,--"Myo-Ko-In-Den Chizan-Ryo-Fu Daishi";--and this she carried about with her in all her wanderings; and every day before it she humbly besought the dead for pardon, and performed a Buddhist service in order that the jealous spirit might find rest. But the evil karma that had rendered such an affliction possible could not soon be exhausted. Every night at the Hour of the Ox, the hands never failed to torture her, during more than seventeen years,-- according to the testimony of those persons to whom she last told her story, when she stopped for one evening at the house of Noguchi Dengozayemon, in the village of Tanaka in the district of Kawachi in the province of Shimotsuke. This was in the third year of Kokwa (1846). Thereafter nothing more was ever heard of her. 1 Lit., "a tale of ingwa." Ingwa is a Japanese Buddhist term for evil karma, or the evil consequence of faults committed in a former state of existence. Perhaps the curious title of the narrative is best explained by the Buddhist teaching that the dead have power to injure the living only in consequence of evil actions committed by their victims in some former life. Both title and narrative may be found in the collection of weird stories entitled Hyaku-Monogatari. 2 Yae-zakura, yae-no-sakura, a variety of Japanese cherry-tree that bears double-blossoms. 3 In Japanese poetry and proverbial phraseology, the physical beauty of a woman is compared to the cherry-flower; while feminine moral beauty is compared to the plum-flower. 4 In ancient Japanese time, the Hour of the Ox was the special hour of ghosts. It began at 2 A.M., and lasted until 4 A.M.--for the old Japanese hour was double the length of the modern hour. The Hour of the Tiger began at 4 A.M. 4) XXV Of ghosts and goblins Sec. 1 THERE was a Buddha, according to the Hokkekyo who 'even assumed the shape of a goblin to preach to such as were to be converted by a goblin.' And in the same Sutra may be found this promise of the Teacher: 'While he is dwelling lonely in the wilderness, I will send thither goblins in great number to keep him company.' The appalling character of this promise is indeed somewhat modified by the assurance that gods also are to be sent. But if ever I become a holy man, I shall take heed not to dwell in the wilderness, because I have seen Japanese goblins, and I do not like them. Kinjuro showed them to me last night. They had come to town for the matsuri of our own ujigami, or parish-temple; and, as there were many curious things to be seen at the night festival, we started for the temple after dark, Kinjuro carrying a paper lantern painted with my crest. It had snowed heavily in the morning; but now the sky and the sharp still air were clear as diamond; and the crisp snow made a pleasant crunching sound under our feet as we walked; and it occurred to me to say: 'O Kinjuro, is there a God of Snow?' 'I cannot tell,' replied Kinjuro. 'There be many gods I do not know; and there is not any man who knows the names of all the gods. But there is the Yuki-Onna, the Woman of the Snow.' 'And what is the Yuki-Onna?' 'She is the White One that makes the Faces in the snow. She does not any harm, only makes afraid. By day she lifts only her head, and frightens those who journey alone. But at night she rises up sometimes, taller than the trees, and looks about a little while, and then falls back in a shower of snow.' [1] 'What is her face like?' 'It is all white, white. It is an enormous face. And it is a lonesome face.' [The word Kinjuro used was samushii. Its common meaning is 'lonesome'; but he used it, I think, in the sense of 'weird.'] 'Did you ever see her, Kinjuro?' 'Master, I never saw her. But my father told me that once when he was a child, he wanted to go to a neighbour's house through the snow to play with another little boy; and that on the way he saw a great white Face rise up from the snow and look lonesomely about, so that he cried for fear and ran back. Then his people all went out and looked; but there was only snow; and then they knew that he had seen the Yuki-Onna.' 'And in these days, Kinjuro, do people ever see her?' 'Yes. Those who make the pilgrimage to Yabumura, in the period called Dai-Kan, which is the Time of the Greatest Cold, [2] they sometimes see her.' 'What is there at Yabumura, Kinjuro?' 'There is the Yabu-jinja, which is an ancient and famous temple of Yabu- no-Tenno-San--the God of Colds, Kaze-no-Kami. It is high upon a hill, nearly nine ri from Matsue. And the great matsuri of that temple is held upon the tenth and eleventh days of the Second Month. And on those days strange things may be seen. For one who gets a very bad cold prays to the deity of Yabu-jinja to cure it, and takes a vow to make a pilgrimage naked to the temple at the time of the matsuri.' 'Naked?' 'Yes: the pilgrims wear only waraji, and a little cloth round their loins. And a great many men and women go naked through the snow to the temple, though the snow is deep at that time. And each man carries a bunch of gohei and a naked sword as gifts to the temple; and each woman carries a metal mirror. And at the temple, the priests receive them, performing curious rites. For the priests then, according to ancient custom, attire themselves like sick men, and lie down and groan, and drink, potions made of herbs, prepared after the Chinese manner.' 'But do not some of the pilgrims die of cold, Kinjuro?' 'No: our Izumo peasants are hardy. Besides, they run swiftly, so that they reach the temple all warm. And before returning they put on thick warm robes. But sometimes, upon the way, they see the Yuki-Onna.' =========== 'Long ago, in the days of a daimyo whose name has been forgotten, there lived in this old city a young man and a maid who loved each other very much. Their names are not remembered, but their story remains. From infancy they had been betrothed; and as children they played together, for their parents were neighbours. And as they grew up, they became always fonder of each other. 'Before the youth had become a man, his parents died. But he was able to enter the service of a rich samurai, an officer of high rank, who had been a friend of his people. And his protector soon took him into great favour, seeing him to be courteous, intelligent, and apt at arms. So the young man hoped to find himself shortly in a position that would make it possible for him to marry his betrothed. But war broke out in the north and east; and he was summoned suddenly to follow his master to the field. Before departing, however, he was able to see the girl; and they exchanged pledges in the presence of her parents; and he promised, should he remain alive, to return within a year from that day to marry his betrothed. 'After his going much time passed without news of him, for there was no post in that time as now; and the girl grieved so much for thinking of the chances of war that she became all white and thin and weak. Then at last she heard of him through a messenger sent from the army to bear news to the daimyo and once again a letter was brought to her by another messenger. And thereafter there came no word. Long is a year to one who waits. And the year passed, and he did not return. 'Other seasons passed, and still he did not come; and she thought him dead; and she sickened and lay down, and died, and was buried. Then her old parents, who had no other child, grieved unspeakably, and came to hate their home for the lonesomeness of it. After a time they resolved to sell all they had, and to set out upon a sengaji--the great pilgrimage to the Thousand Temples of the Nichiren-Shu, which requires many years to perform. So they sold their small house with all that it contained, excepting the ancestral tablets, and the holy things which must never be sold, and the ihai of their buried daughter, which were placed, according to the custom of those about to leave their native place, in the family temple. Now the family was of the Nichiren-Shu; and their temple was Myokoji. 'They had been gone only four days when the young man who had been betrothed to their daughter returned to the city. He had attempted, with the permission of his master, to fulfil his promise. But the provinces upon his way were full of war, and the roads and passes were guarded by troops, and he had been long delayed by many difficulties. And when he heard of his misfortune he sickened for grief, and many days remained without knowledge of anything, like one about to die. 'But when he began to recover his strength, all the pain of memory came back again; and he regretted that he had not died. Then he resolved to kill himself upon the grave of his betrothed; and, as soon as he was able to go out unobserved, he took his sword and went to the cemetery where the girl was buried: it is a lonesome place--the cemetery of Myokoji. There he found her tomb, and knelt before it, and prayed and wept, and whispered to her that which he was about to do. And suddenly he heard her voice cry to him: "Anata!" and felt her hand upon his hand; and he turned, and saw her kneeling beside him, smiling, and beautiful as he remembered her, only a little pale. Then his heart leaped so that he could not speak for the wonder and the doubt and the joy of that moment. But she said: "Do not doubt: it is really I. I am not dead. It was all a mistake. I was buried, because my people thought me dead-- buried too soon. And my own parents thought me dead, and went upon a pilgrimage. Yet you see, I am not dead--not a ghost. It is I: do not doubt it! And I have seen your heart, and that was worth all the waiting, and the pain.. . But now let us go away at once to another city, so that people may not know this thing and trouble us; for all still believe me dead." 'And they went away, no one observing them. And they went even to the village of Minobu, which is in the province of Kai. For there is a famous temple of the Nichiren-Shu in that place; and the girl had said: "I know that in the course of their pilgrimage my parents will surely visit Minobu: so that if we dwell there, they will find us, and we shall be all again together." And when they came to Minobu, she said: "Let us open a little shop." And they opened a little food-shop, on the wide way leading to the holy place; and there they sold cakes for children, and toys, and food for pilgrims. For two years they so lived and prospered; and there was a son born to them. 'Now when the child was a year and two months old, the parents of the wife came in the course of their pilgrimage to Minobu; and they stopped at the little shop to buy food. And seeing their daughter's betrothed, they cried out and wept and asked questions. Then he made them enter, and bowed down before them, and astonished them, saying: "Truly as I speak it, your daughter is not dead; and she is my wife; and we have a son. And she is even now within the farther room, lying down with the child. I pray you go in at once and gladden her, for her heart longs for the moment of seeing you again." 'So while he busied himself in making all things ready for their comfort, they entered the inner, room very softly--the mother first. 'They found the child asleep; but the mother they did not find. She seemed to have gone out for a little while only: her pillow was still warm. They waited long for her: then they began to seek her. But never was she seen again. 'And they understood only when they found beneath the coverings which had covered the mother and child, something which they remembered having left years before in the temple of Myokoji--a little mortuary tablet, the ihai of their buried daughter.' =========== 'A long time ago, in the days when Fox-women and goblins haunted this land, there came to the capital with her parents a samurai girl, so beautiful that all men who saw her fell enamoured of her. And hundreds of young samurai desired and hoped to marry her, and made their desire known to her parents. For it has ever been the custom in Japan that marriages should be arranged by parents. But there are exceptions to all customs, and the case of this maiden was such an exception. Her parents declared that they intended to allow their daughter to choose her own husband, and that all who wished to win her would be free to woo her. 'Many men of high rank and of great wealth were admitted to the house as suitors; and each one courted her as he best knew how--with gifts, and with fair words, and with poems written in her honour, and with promises of eternal love. And to each one she spoke sweetly and hopefully; but she made strange conditions. For every suitor she obliged to bind himself by his word of honour as a samurai to submit to a test of his love for her, and never to divulge to living person what that test might be. And to this all agreed. 'But even the most confident suitors suddenly ceased their importunities after having been put to the test; and all of them appeared to have been greatly terrified by something. Indeed, not a few even fled away from the city, and could not be persuaded by their friends to return. But no one ever so much as hinted why. Therefore it was whispered by those who knew nothing of the mystery, that the beautiful girl must be either a Fox-woman or a goblin. 'Now, when all the wooers of high rank had abandoned their suit, there came a samurai who had no wealth but his sword. He was a good man and true, and of pleasing presence; and the girl seemed to like him. But she made him take the same pledge which the others had taken; and after he had taken it, she told him to return upon a certain evening. 'When that evening came, he was received at the house by none but the girl herself. With her own hands she set before him the repast of hospitality, and waited upon him, after which she told him that she wished him to go out with her at a late hour. To this he consented gladly, and inquired to what place she desired to go. But she replied nothing to his question, and all at once became very silent, and strange in her manner. And after a while she retired from the apartment, leaving him alone. 'Only long after midnight she returned, robed all in white--like a Soul --and, without uttering a word, signed to him to follow her. Out of the house they hastened while all the city slept. It was what is called an oborozuki-yo--'moon-clouded night.' Always upon such a night, 'tis said, do ghosts wander. She swiftly led the way; and the dogs howled as she flitted by; and she passed beyond the confines of the city to a place of knolls shadowed by enormous trees, where an ancient cemetery was. Into it she glided--a white shadow into blackness. He followed, wondering, his hand upon his sword. Then his eyes became accustomed to the gloom; and he saw. 'By a new-made grave she paused and signed to him to wait. The tools of the grave-maker were still lying there. Seizing one, she began to dig furiously, with strange haste and strength. At last her spade smote a coffin-lid and made it boom: another moment and the fresh white wood of the kwan was bare. She tore off the lid, revealing a corpse within--the corpse of a child. With goblin gestures she wrung an arm from the body, wrenched it in twain, and, squatting down, began to devour the upper half. Then, flinging to her lover the other half, she cried to him, "Eat, if thou lovest mel this is what I eat!" 'Not even for a single instant did he hesitate. He squatted down upon the other side of the grave, and ate the half of the arm, and said, "Kekko degozarimasu! mo sukoshi chodai." [3] For that arm was made of the best kwashi [4] that Saikyo could produce. 'Then the girl sprang to her feet with a burst of laughter, and cried: "You only, of all my brave suitors, did not run away! And I wanted a husband: who could not fear. I will marry you; I can love you: you are a man!"' 7) Yuki-onna In a village of Musashi Province (1), there lived two woodcutters: Mosaku and Minokichi. At the time of which I am speaking, Mosaku was an old man; and Minokichi, his apprentice, was a lad of eighteen years. Every day they went together to a forest situated about five miles from their village. On the way to that forest there is a wide river to cross; and there is a ferry-boat. Several times a bridge was built where the ferry is; but the bridge was each time carried away by a flood. No common bridge can resist the current there when the river rises. Mosaku and Minokichi were on their way home, one very cold evening, when a great snowstorm overtook them. They reached the ferry; and they found that the boatman had gone away, leaving his boat on the other side of the river. It was no day for swimming; and the woodcutters took shelter in the ferryman's hut,--thinking themselves lucky to find any shelter at all. There was no brazier in the hut, nor any place in which to make a fire: it was only a two-mat [1] hut, with a single door, but no window. Mosaku and Minokichi fastened the door, and lay down to rest, with their straw rain-coats over them. At first they did not feel very cold; and they thought that the storm would soon be over. The old man almost immediately fell asleep; but the boy, Minokichi, lay awake a long time, listening to the awful wind, and the continual slashing of the snow against the door. The river was roaring; and the hut swayed and creaked like a junk at sea. It was a terrible storm; and the air was every moment becoming colder; and Minokichi shivered under his rain-coat. But at last, in spite of the cold, he too fell asleep. He was awakened by a showering of snow in his face. The door of the hut had been forced open; and, by the snow-light (yuki-akari), he saw a woman in the room,--a woman all in white. She was bending above Mosaku, and blowing her breath upon him;--and her breath was like a bright white smoke. Almost in the same moment she turned to Minokichi, and stooped over him. He tried to cry out, but found that he could not utter any sound. The white woman bent down over him, lower and lower, until her face almost touched him; and he saw that she was very beautiful,--though her eyes made him afraid. For a little time she continued to look at him;--then she smiled, and she whispered:--"I intended to treat you like the other man. But I cannot help feeling some pity for you,--because you are so young... You are a pretty boy, Minokichi; and I will not hurt you now. But, if you ever tell anybody--even your own mother--about what you have seen this night, I shall know it; and then I will kill you... Remember what I say!" With these words, she turned from him, and passed through the doorway. Then he found himself able to move; and he sprang up, and looked out. But the woman was nowhere to be seen; and the snow was driving furiously into the hut. Minokichi closed the door, and secured it by fixing several billets of wood against it. He wondered if the wind had blown it open;--he thought that he might have been only dreaming, and might have mistaken the gleam of the snow-light in the doorway for the figure of a white woman: but he could not be sure. He called to Mosaku, and was frightened because the old man did not answer. He put out his hand in the dark, and touched Mosaku's face, and found that it was ice! Mosaku was stark and dead... By dawn the storm was over; and when the ferryman returned to his station, a little after sunrise, he found Minokichi lying senseless beside the frozen body of Mosaku. Minokichi was promptly cared for, and soon came to himself; but he remained a long time ill from the effects of the cold of that terrible night. He had been greatly frightened also by the old man's death; but he said nothing about the vision of the woman in white. As soon as he got well again, he returned to his calling,--going alone every morning to the forest, and coming back at nightfall with his bundles of wood, which his mother helped him to sell. One evening, in the winter of the following year, as he was on his way home, he overtook a girl who happened to be traveling by the same road. She was a tall, slim girl, very good-looking; and she answered Minokichi's greeting in a voice as pleasant to the ear as the voice of a song-bird. Then he walked beside her; and they began to talk. The girl said that her name was O-Yuki [2]; that she had lately lost both of her parents; and that she was going to Yedo (2), where she happened to have some poor relations, who might help her to find a situation as a servant. Minokichi soon felt charmed by this strange girl; and the more that he looked at her, the handsomer she appeared to be. He asked her whether she was yet betrothed; and she answered, laughingly, that she was free. Then, in her turn, she asked Minokichi whether he was married, or pledged to marry; and he told her that, although he had only a widowed mother to support, the question of an "honorable daughter-in-law" had not yet been considered, as he was very young... After these confidences, they walked on for a long while without speaking; but, as the proverb declares, Ki ga areba, me mo kuchi hodo ni mono wo iu: "When the wish is there, the eyes can say as much as the mouth." By the time they reached the village, they had become very much pleased with each other; and then Minokichi asked O-Yuki to rest awhile at his house. After some shy hesitation, she went there with him; and his mother made her welcome, and prepared a warm meal for her. O-Yuki behaved so nicely that Minokichi's mother took a sudden fancy to her, and persuaded her to delay her journey to Yedo. And the natural end of the matter was that Yuki never went to Yedo at all. She remained in the house, as an "honorable daughter-in-law." O-Yuki proved a very good daughter-in-law. When Minokichi's mother came to die,--some five years later,--her last words were words of affection and praise for the wife of her son. And O-Yuki bore Minokichi ten children, boys and girls,--handsome children all of them, and very fair of skin. The country-folk thought O-Yuki a wonderful person, by nature different from themselves. Most of the peasant-women age early; but O-Yuki, even after having become the mother of ten children, looked as young and fresh as on the day when she had first come to the village. One night, after the children had gone to sleep, O-Yuki was sewing by the light of a paper lamp; and Minokichi, watching her, said:-- "To see you sewing there, with the light on your face, makes me think of a strange thing that happened when I was a lad of eighteen. I then saw somebody as beautiful and white as you are now--indeed, she was very like you."... Without lifting her eyes from her work, O-Yuki responded:-- "Tell me about her... Where did you see her?" Then Minokichi told her about the terrible night in the ferryman's hut,--and about the White Woman that had stooped above him, smiling and whispering,--and about the silent death of old Mosaku. And he said:-- "Asleep or awake, that was the only time that I saw a being as beautiful as you. Of course, she was not a human being; and I was afraid of her,--very much afraid,--but she was so white!... Indeed, I have never been sure whether it was a dream that I saw, or the Woman of the Snow."... O-Yuki flung down her sewing, and arose, and bowed above Minokichi where he sat, and shrieked into his face:-- "It was I--I--I! Yuki it was! And I told you then that I would kill you if you ever said one word about it!... But for those children asleep there, I would kill you this moment! And now you had better take very, very good care of them; for if ever they have reason to complain of you, I will treat you as you deserve!"... Even as she screamed, her voice became thin, like a crying of wind;--then she melted into a bright white mist that spired to the roof-beams, and shuddered away through the smoke-hold... Never again was she seen., Recording, oral, 中島淑恵(富山大学人文学部教授)が,これまでの研究成果を踏まえ,Lafcadio Hearn=ラフカディオ・ハーン=小泉八雲に関する様々を語る これは,当日,会場でICレコーダを用いて収録したMP3形式の音声ファイル, 日時:2020年1月29日(水)13:00~14:30 場所:富山大学附属図書館2階ワーキングラボ}, title = {へるんトーク第13回(音声ファイル)}, year = {} }