Now some say that Gensuke was not the name of a man, but the name of
an era, corrupted by local dialect into the semblance of a personal
appellation. Yet so profoundly is the legend believed, that when the new
bridge was being built thousands of country folk were afraid to come
to town; for a rumour arose that a new victim was needed, who was to
be chosen from among them, and that it had been determined to make the
choice from those who still wore their hair in queues after the ancient
manner. Wherefore hundreds of aged men cut off their queues. Then
another rumour was circulated to the effect that the police had been
secretly instructed to seize the one-thousandth person of those who
crossed the new bridge the first day, and to treat him after the manner
of Gensuke. And at the time of the great festival of the Rice-God, when
the city is usually thronged by farmers coming to worship at the many
shrines of Inari this year there came but few; and the loss to local
commerce was estimated at several thousand yen.
The vapours have vanished, sharply revealing a beautiful little islet in
the lake, lying scarcely half a mile away--a low, narrow strip of land
with a Shinto shrine upon it, shadowed by giant pines; not pines like
ours, but huge, gnarled, shaggy, tortuous shapes, vast-reaching like
ancient oaks. Through a glass one can easily discern a torii, and before
it two symbolic lions of stone (Kara-shishi), one with its head broken
off, doubtless by its having been overturned and dashed about by heavy
waves during some great storm. This islet is sacred to Benten, the
Goddess of Eloquence and Beauty, wherefore it is called Benten-no-shima.
But it is more commonly called Yomega-shima, or 'The Island of the Young
Wife,' by reason of a legend. It is said that it arose in one night,
noiselessly as a dream, bearing up from the depths of the lake the
body of a drowned woman who had been very lovely, very pious, and very
unhappy. The people, deeming this a sign from heaven, consecrated the
islet to Benten, and thereon built a shrine unto her, planted trees
about it, set a torii before it, and made a rampart about it with great
curiously-shaped stones; and there they buried the drowned woman.
Now the sky is blue down to the horizon, the air is a caress of spring.
I go forth to wander through the queer old city.