“To wait for you, my betrothed, were no less a joy than a duty. We are
pledged to each other for the time of seven existences.”
“But you doubt?” she questioned, watching his face.
“My dear one,” he answered, “I doubt whether I should be able to know
you in another body, under another name,—unless you can tell me of a
sign or token.”
“That I cannot do,” she said. “Only the Gods and the Buddhas know how
and where we shall meet. But I am sure—very, very sure—that, if you be
not unwilling to receive me, I shall be able to come back to you...
Remember these words of mine.”...
She ceased to speak; and her eyes closed. She was dead.
Nagao had been sincerely attached to O-Tei; and his grief was deep. He
had a mortuary tablet made, inscribed with her _zokumyō;_[1] and he
placed the tablet in his _butsudan_,[2] and every day set offerings
before it. He thought a great deal about the strange things that O-Tei
had said to him just before her death; and, in the hope of pleasing her
spirit, he wrote a solemn promise to wed her if she could ever return
to him in another body. This written promise he sealed with his seal,
and placed in the _butsudan_ beside the mortuary tablet of O-Tei.
Nevertheless, as Nagao was an only son, it was necessary that he should
marry. He soon found himself obliged to yield to the wishes of his
family, and to accept a wife of his father’s choosing. After his
marriage he continued to set offerings before the tablet of O-Tei; and
he never failed to remember her with affection. But by degrees her
image became dim in his memory,—like a dream that is hard to recall.
And the years went by.
During those years many misfortunes came upon him. He lost his parents
by death,—then his wife and his only child. So that he found himself
alone in the world. He abandoned his desolate home, and set out upon a
long journey in the hope of forgetting his sorrows.
One day, in the course of his travels, he arrived at Ikao,—a
mountain-village still famed for its thermal springs, and for the
beautiful scenery of its neighborhood. In the village-inn at which he
stopped, a young girl came to wait upon him; and, at the first sight of
her face, he felt his heart leap as it had never leaped before. So
strangely did she resemble O-Tei that he pinched himself to make sure
that he was not dreaming. As she went and came,—bringing fire and food,
or arranging the chamber of the guest,—her every attitude and motion
revived in him some gracious memory of the girl to whom he had been
pledged in his youth. He spoke to her; and she responded in a soft,
clear voice of which the sweetness saddened him with a sadness of other
days.