"Well, this time I shall not tell. But the next time that you do
anything naughty, then I will tell."
After that day whenever a dispute arose between the two, the sister
would threaten the brother, saying, "Very well, then--I shall tell
that thing to father and mother." At these words the boy would always
yield to his sister. This happened many times; and the parents one day
overheard Fusa making her threat. Thinking Katsugorō must have been
doing something wrong, they desired to know what the matter was, and
Fusa, being questioned, told them the truth. Then Genzō and his wife,
and Tsuya, the grandmother of Katsugorō, thought it a very strange
thing. They called Katsugorō, therefore; and tried, first by coaxing,
and then by threatening, to make him tell what he had meant by those
words.
After hesitation, Katsugorō said:--"I will tell you everything. I used
to be the son of Kyūbei San of Hodokubo, and the name of my mother
then was O-Shidzu San. When I was five years old, Kyūbei San died; and
there came in his place a man called Hanshirō San, who loved me very
much. But in the following year, when I was six years old, I died of
smallpox. In the third year after that I entered mother's honorable
womb, and was born again."
The parents and the grandmother of the boy wondered greatly at hearing
this; and they decided to make all possible inquiry as to the man
called Hanshirō of Hodokubo. But as they all had to work very hard
every day to earn a living, and so could spare but little time for any
other matter, they could not at once carry out their intention.
Now Sei, the mother of Katsugorō, had nightly to suckle her little
daughter Tsuné, who was four years old;[5]--and Katsugorō therefore
slept with his grandmother, Tsuya. Sometimes he used to talk to her
in bed; and one night when he was in a very confiding mood, she
persuaded him to tell her what happened at the time when he had
died. Then he said:--"Until I was four years old I used to remember
everything; but since then I have become more and more forgetful; and
now I forget many, many things. But I still remember that I died of
smallpox; I remember that I was put into a jar;[6] I remember that I
was buried on a hill. There was a hole made in the ground; and the
people let the jar drop into that hole. It fell pon!--I remember that
sound well. Then somehow I returned to the house, and I stopped on
my own pillow there.[7] In a short time some old man,--looking like
a grandfather--came and took me away. I do not know who or what he
was. As I walked I went through empty air as if flying. I remember it
was neither night nor day as we went: it was always like sunset-time.
I did not feel either warm or cold or hungry. We went very far, I
think; but still I could hear always, faintly, the voices of people
talking at home; and the sound of the Nembutsu[8] being said for me.
I remember also that when the people at home set offerings of hot
_botamochi_[9] before the household shrinen [_butsudan_], I inhaled
the vapor of the offerings.... Grandmother, never forget to offer warm
food to the honorable dead [_Hotoké Sama_], and do not forget to give
to priests--I am sure it is very good to do these things.[10] ... After
that, I only remember that the old man led me by some roundabout way
to this place--I remember we passed the road beyond the village. Then
we came here, and he pointed to this house, and said to me:--'Now you
must be reborn,--for it is three years since you died. You are to be
reborn in that house. The person who will become your grandmother is
very kind; so it will be well for you to be conceived and born there.'
After saying this, the old man went away. I remained a little time
under the kaki-tree before the entrance of this house. Then I was
going to enter when I heard talking inside: some one said that because
father was now earning so little, mother would have to go to service in
Yedo. I thought, "I will not go into that house;" and I stopped three
days in the garden. On the third clay it was decided that, after all,
mother would not have to go to Yedo. The same night I passed into the
house through a knot-hole in the sliding-shutters;--and after that I
stayed for three days beside the _kamado_.[11] Then I entered mother's
honorable womb.[12] ... I remember that I was born without any pain at
all.--Grandmother, you may tell this to father and mother, but please
never tell it to anybody else."
*
The grandmother told Genzō and his wife what Katsugorō had related to
her; and after that the boy was not afraid to speak freely with his
parents on the subject of his former existence, and would often say
to them: "I want to go to Hodokubo. Please let me make a visit to the
tomb of Kyūbei San." Genzō thought that Katsugorō, being a strange
child, would probably die before long, and that it might therefore be
better to make inquiry at once as to whether there really was a man
in Hodokubo called Hanshirō. But he did not wish to make the inquiry
himself, because for a man to do so [_under such circumstances?_] would
seem inconsiderate or forward. Therefore, instead of going himself to
Hodokubo, he asked his mother Tsuya, on the twentieth day of the first
month of this year, to take her grandson there.
Tsuya went with Katsugorō to Hodokubo; and when they entered the
village she pointed to the nearer dwellings, and asked the boy,"
Which house is it?--is it this house or that one?" "No," answered
Katsugorō,--"it is further on--much further,"--and he hurried before
her. Reaching a certain dwelling at last, he cried, "This is the
house!"--and ran in, without waiting for his grandmother. Tsuya
followed him in, and asked the people there what was the name of the
owner of the house. "Hanshirō," one of them answered. She asked the
name of Hanshirō's wife. "Shidzu," was the reply. Then she asked
whether there had ever been a son called Tōzō born in that house.
"Yes," was the answer; "but that boy died thirteen years ago, when he
was six years old."
Then for the first time Tsuya was convinced that Katsugorō had spoken
the truth; and she could not help shedding tears. She related to
the people of the house all that Katsugorō had told her about his
remembrance of his former birth. Then Hanshirō and his wife wondered
greatly. They caressed Katsugorō and wept; and they remarked that he
was much handsomer now than he had been as Tözö before dying at the
age of six. In the mean time, Katsugorō was looking all about; and
seeing the roof of a tobacco shop opposite to the house of Hanshirō,
he pointed to it, and said:--"That used not to be there." And he also
said,--"The tree yonder used not to be there." All this was true. So
from the minds of Hanshirō and his wife every doubt departed [_ga wo
orishi_].
On the same day Tsuya and Katsugorō returned to Tanitsuiri,
Nakano-mura. Afterwards Genzō sent his son several times to Hanshirō's
house, and allowed him to visit the tomb of Kyūbei his real father in
his previous existence.
Sometimes Katsugorō says:--"I am a _Nono-Sama_:[13] therefore please
be kind to me." Sometimes he also says to his grandmother:--"I think
I shall die when I am sixteen; but, as Ontaké Sama[14] has taught us,
dying is not a matter to be afraid of." When his parents ask him,
"Would you not like to become a priest?" he answers, "I would rather
not be a priest."
The village people do not call him Katsugoro any more; they have
nicknamed him "Hodokubo-Kozō" (the Acolyte of Hodokubo).[15] When any
one visits the house to see him, he becomes shy at once, and runs to
hide himself in the inner apartments. So it is not possible to have any
direct conversation with him. I have written down this account exactly
as his grandmother gave it to me.
I asked whether Genzō, his wife, or Tsuya, could any of them remember
having done any virtuous deeds. Genzō and his wife said that they
had never done anything especially virtuous; but that Tsuya, the
grandmother, had always been in the habit of repeating the _Nembutsu_
every morning and evening, and that she never failed to give two
_mon_[16] to any priest or pilgrim who came to the door. But excepting
these small matters, she never had done anything which could be called
a particularly virtuous act.
(--This is the End of the Relation of the Rebirth of Katsugorō.)
7.--(Note by the Translator.) The foregoing is taken from a manuscript
entitled _Chin Setsu Shū Ki_; or, "Manuscript-Collection of Uncommon
Stories,"--made between the fourth month of the sixth year of Bunsei
and the tenth month of the sixth year of Tempo [1823-1835]. At the
end of the manuscript is written,--"From the years of Bunsei to the
years of Tempo.--Minamisempa, Owner: Kurumachō, Shiba, Yedo" Under
this, again, is the following note:--"Bought from Yamatoya Sakujirō
Nishinohubo: twenty-first day [?], Second Year of Meiji [1869]."
From which it would appear that the manuscript had been written by
Minamisempa, who collected stories told to him, or copied them from
manuscripts obtained by him, during the thirteen years from 1823 to
1835, inclusive.