Speaker 1: The reconciliation by leaf kati O Herne. There was a
young samurai of Kuiyoto 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
affection 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 the 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
matless 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 amends, this honorable visit
would be ample amends. 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. To morrow 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. Horster 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