The Reconciliation by Lefkadio Hearne. There was a young samurai of Kyoto who had
been reduced to poverty by the ruin of his lord, and found himself obliged
to leave his home and take service with the governor of a distant province.
Before quitting the capital, this samurai divorced his wife, a good and beautiful
woman, under the belief that he could better obtain promotion by another alliance.
He then married the daughter of a family of some distinction, and took her
with him to the district whither he had been called. But it was in
the time of the thoughtlessness of youth and the sharp experience of want, that
the samurai could not understand the worth of the affections so lightly cast away.
His second marriage did not prove a happy one. The character of his new
wife was hard and selfish, and he soon found every cause to think with
regret of Kyoto days. Then he discovered that he still loved his first wife,
loved her more than he could ever love the second, and he began
to feel how unjust and thankless he had been. Gradually his repentance deepened into
a remorse that left him no peace of mind. Memories of the woman he
had wronged. Her gentle speech, her smiles, her dainty, pretty ways,
her faultless patience constantly haunted him. Sometimes in dreams he saw her at
her loom, weaving, as when she toiled night and day to help him
during the years of their distress. More often he saw her kneeling alone in
the desolate little room where he had left her, veiling her tears with her
poor worn sleeve. Even in the hours of official duty, his thoughts would
wander back to her. Then he would ask himself how she was living,
what she was doing. Something in his heart assured him that she could not
accept another husband and that she would never refuse to pardon him, and he
secretly resolved to seek her out as soon as he could return to Kyoto,
then to beg her forgiveness, to take her back, to do everything that
a man could do to make atonement. But the years went by. At
last, the governor's official term expired and the samurai was free. Now I
will go back to my dear one, he vowed to himself. Ah,
what a cruelty, what a folly to have divorced her. He sent his
second wife to her own people. She had given him no children, and
hurrying to Kyoto, he went at once to seek his former companion, not
allowing himself even the time to change his traveling garb. When he reached the
street where she used to live, it was late in the night, the
night of the tenth day of the ninth month, and the city was silent
as a cemetery. But a bright moon made everything visible, and he found
the house without difficulty. It had a deserted look. Tall weeds were growing
on the roof. He knocked at the sliding doors and no one answered.
Then, finding that the doors had not been fastened from within, he pushed
them open and entered. The front room was mathless and empty. A chilly
wind was blowing through crevices in the planking, and the moon shone through a
ragged break in the wall of the alcove. Other rooms presented a like forlorn
condition. The house, to all seeming, was unoccupied. Nevertheless, the
samurai determined to visit one other apartment at the further end of the dwelling,
a very small room that had been his wife's favorite resting place. Approaching the
sliding screen that closed it, he was startled to perceive a glow within.
He pushed the screen aside and uttered a cry of joy, for he saw
her there, sewing by the light of a paper lantern. Her eyes at
the same instant met his own, and with a happy smile, she greeted
him, asking, only when did you come back to Kyoto? How did
you find your way here to me? Through all those black rooms? The
years had not changed her. Still she seemed as fair and young as in
his fondest memory of her. But sweeter than any memory, there came to
him the music of her voice, with its trembling of pleased wonder. Then
joyfully he took his place beside her and told her all how deeply he repented
his selfishness, how wretched he had been without her, how constantly he had
regretted her, how long he had hoped and planned to make amends. Caressing
her the while and asking her forgiveness over and over again. She answered him
with loving gentleness, according to his heart's desire, entreating him to cease all
self reproach. It was wrong, She said that he should have allowed himself
to suffer on her account. She had always felt that she was not worthy
to be his wife. She knew that he had separated from her, notwithstanding
only because of poverty, and while he lived with her, he had always
been kind, and she had never ceased to pray for his happiness. But
even if there had been a reason for speaking of Amen's, this honorable visit
would be ample Amend's. What greater happiness than this to see him again,
though it were only for a moment, Only for a moment, he answered,
with a glad laugh, say, rather, for the time of seven
existences, my loved one, unless you forbid, I am coming back to
live with you, always, always, always, Nothing shall ever separate us
again. Now I have means and friends, we need not fear poverty.
Tomorrow my goods will be brought here, and my servants will come to wait
upon you, and we shall make this house beautiful tonight, he added apologetically.
I came thus late, without even changing my dress, only because of
the longing I had to see you, and to tell you this. She
seemed greatly pleased by these words, and in her turn, she told about
all that had happened in Kyoto since the time of his departure, excepting her
own sorrows, of which she sweetly refused to speak. They chatted far into
the night. Then she conducted him to a warmer room facing south, a
room that had been their bridal chamber in former time. Have you no one
in the house to help you, he asked, as she began to prepare
the couch for him. No, she answered, laughing cheerfully. I could
not afford a servant, so I have been living all alone. You will
have plenty of servants tomorrow, he said, Good servants, and everything else
that you need. They lay down to rest, not to sleep. They
had too much to tell each other, and they talked of the past and
the present and the future until the dawn was gray. Then, involuntarily the
samurai closed his eyes and slept. When he awoke, the daylight was streaming
through the chinks of the sliding shutters, and he found himself, to his
utter amazement, lying upon the naked boards of a moldering floor. Had he
only dreamed a dream? No, she was there, she slept. He
bent above her and looked and shrieked, for the sleeper had no face before
him. Wrapped in its grave sheet, only lay the corpse of a woman,
a corpse so wasted that little remained save the bones. And the long,
black, tangled hair. Slowly as he stood, shuddering and sickening in
the sun, the icy horror yielded to a despair so intolerable, a pain
so atrocious, that he clucked at the mocking shadow of a doubt. Feigning
ignorance of the neighborhood, he ventured to ask his way to the house in
which his wife had lived. There is no one in that house, said
the person questioned. It used to belong to the wife of a samurai who
left the city several years ago. He'd Worcester in order to marry another woman
before he went away, and she fretted a great deal, and so became
sick. She had no relatives in Kyoto and nobody to care for her,
and she died in the autumn of the same year, on the tenth day
of the ninth month, end of the reconciliation