Once upon a time, a certain ronin, Tajima Shume by name, an able and
well-read man, being on his travels to see the world, went up to Kiyoto
by the Tokaido. [The road of the Eastern Sea, the famous highroad
leading from Kiyoto to Yedo. The name is also used to indicate the
provinces through which it runs.] One day, in the neighbourhood of
Nagoya, in the province of Owari, he fell in with a wandering priest,
with whom he entered into conversation. Finding that they were bound for
the same place, they agreed to travel together, beguiling their weary
way by pleasant talk on divers matters; and so by degrees, as they
became more intimate, they began to speak without restraint about their
private affairs; and the priest, trusting thoroughly in the honour of
his companion, told him the object of his journey.
“For some time past,” said he, “I have nourished a wish that has
engrossed all my thoughts; for I am bent on setting up a molten image
in honour of Buddha; with this object I have wandered through various
provinces collecting alms, and (who knows by what weary toil?) we have
succeeded in amassing two hundred ounces of silver--enough, I trust, to
erect a handsome bronze figure.”
What says the proverb? “He who bears a jewel in his bosom bears poison.”
Hardly had the ronin heard these words of the priest than an evil heart
arose within him, and he thought to himself, “Man’s life, from the womb
to the grave, is made up of good and of ill luck. Here am I, nearly
forty years old, a wanderer, without a calling, or even a hope of
advancement in the world. To be sure, it seems a shame; yet if I could
steal the money this priest is boasting about, I could live at ease for
the rest of my days;” and so he began casting about how best he might
compass his purpose. But the priest, far from guessing the drift of his
comrade’s thoughts, journeyed cheerfully on till they reached the
town of Kuana. Here there is an arm of the sea, which is crossed in
ferry-boats, that start as soon as some twenty or thirty passengers
are gathered together; and in one of these boats the two travellers
embarked. About half-way across, the priest was taken with a sudden
necessity to go to the side of the boat; and the ronin, following him,
tripped him up while no one was looking, and flung him into the sea.
When the boatmen and passengers heard the splash, and saw the priest
struggling in the water, they were afraid, and made every effort to
save him; but the wind was fair, and the boat running swiftly under
the bellying sails; so they were soon a few hundred yards off from the
drowning man, who sank before the boat could be turned to rescue him.
When he saw this, the ronin feigned the utmost grief and dismay, and
said to his fellow-passengers, “This priest, whom we have just lost, was
my cousin; he was going to Kiyoto, to visit the shrine of his patron;
and as I happened to have business there as well, we settled to travel
together. Now, alas! by this misfortune, my cousin is dead, and I am
left alone.”
He spoke so feelingly, and wept so freely, that the passengers believed
his story, and pitied and tried to comfort him. Then the ronin said to
the boatmen:
“We ought, by rights, to report this matter to the authorities; but as I
am pressed for time, and the business might bring trouble on yourselves
as well, perhaps we had better hush it up for the present; I will at
once go on to Kiyoto and tell my cousin’s patron, besides writing home
about it. What think you, gentlemen?” added he, turning to the other
travellers.
They, of course, were only too glad to avoid any hindrance to their
onward journey, and all with one voice agreed to what the ronin had
proposed; and so the matter was settled. When, at length, they reached
the shore, they left the boat, and every man went his way; but the
ronin, overjoyed in his heart, took the wandering priest’s luggage, and,
putting it with his own, pursued his journey to Kiyoto.
On reaching the capital, the ronin changed his name from Shume to
Tokubei, and, giving up his position as a samurai, turned merchant, and
traded with the dead man’s money. Fortune favouring his speculations,
he began to amass great wealth, and lived at his ease, denying himself
nothing; and in course of time he married a wife, who bore him a child.
Thus the days and months wore on, till one fine summer’s night, some
three years after the priest’s death, Tokubei stepped out on the veranda
of his house to enjoy the cool air and the beauty of the moonlight.
Feeling dull and lonely, he began musing over all kinds of things, when
on a sudden the deed of murder and theft, done so long ago, vividly
recurred to his memory, and he thought to himself, “Here am I, grown
rich and fat on the money I wantonly stole. Since then, all has gone
well with me; yet, had I not been poor, I had never turned assassin nor
thief. Woe betide me! what a pity it was!” and as he was revolving the
matter in his mind, a feeling of remorse came over him, in spite of all
he could do. While his conscience thus smote him, he suddenly, to his
utter amazement, beheld the faint outline of a man standing near a
fir-tree in the garden; on looking more attentively, he perceived that
the man’s whole body was thin and worn, and the eyes sunken and dim;
and in that poor ghost that was before him he recognised the very priest
whom he had thrown into the sea at Kuana. Chilled with horror, he looked
again, and saw that the priest was smiling in scorn. He would have fled
into the house, but the ghost stretched forth its withered arm, and,
clutching the back of his neck, scowled at him with a vindictive glare
and a hideous ghastliness of mien so unspeakably awful that any ordinary
man would have swooned with fear. But Tokubei, tradesman though he was,
had once been a soldier, and was not easily matched for daring; so he
shook off the ghost, and, leaping into the room for his dirk, laid about
him boldly enough; but, strike as he would, the spirit, fading into the
air, eluded his blows, and suddenly reappeared only to vanish again;
and from that time forth Tokubei knew no rest, and was haunted night and
day.
At length, undone by such ceaseless vexation, Tokubei fell ill, and
kept muttering, “Oh, misery! misery! the wandering priest is coming to
torture me!” Hearing his moans and the disturbance he made, the
people in the house fancied he was mad, and called in a physician, who
prescribed for him. But neither pill nor potion could cure Tokubei,
whose strange frenzy soon became the talk of the whole neighbourhood.
Now it chanced that the story reached the ears of a certain wandering
priest who lodged in the next street. When he heard the particulars,
this priest gravely shook his head as though he knew all about it,
and sent a friend to Tokubei’s house to say that a wandering priest,
dwelling hard by, had heard of his illness, and, were it never so
grievous, would undertake to heal it by means of his prayers; and
Tokubei’s wife, driven half wild by her husband’s sickness, lost not
a moment in sending for the priest and taking him into the sick man’s
room.
But no sooner did Tokubei see the priest than he yelled out, “Help!
help! Here is the wandering priest come to torment me again. Forgive!
forgive!” and hiding his head under the coverlet, he lay quivering all
over. Then the priest turned all present out of the room, put his mouth
to the affrighted man’s ear, and whispered:
“Three years ago, at the Kuana ferry, you flung me into the water; and
well you remember it.”
But Tokubei was speechless, and could only quake with fear.
“Happily,” continued the priest, “I had learned to swim and to dive as
a boy; so I reached the shore, and, after wandering through many
provinces, succeeded in setting up a bronze figure to Buddha, thus
fulfilling the wish of my heart. On my journey homeward, I took a
lodging in the next street, and there heard of your marvellous ailment.
Thinking I could divine its cause, I came to see you, and am glad to
find I was not mistaken. You have done a hateful deed; but am I not a
priest, and have I not forsaken the things of this world, and would it
not ill become me to bear malice? Repent, therefore, and abandon your
evil ways. To see you do so I should esteem the height of happiness. Be
of good cheer, now, and look me in the face, and you will see that I am
really a living man, and no vengeful goblin come to torment you.”
Seeing he had no ghost to deal with, and overwhelmed by the priest’s
kindness, Tokubei burst into tears, and answered, “Indeed, indeed, I
don’t know what to say. In a fit of madness I was tempted to kill and
rob you. Fortune befriended me ever after; but the richer I grew, the
more keenly I felt how wicked I had been, and the more I foresaw that my
victim’s vengeance would some day overtake me. Haunted by this thought,
I lost my nerve, till one night I beheld your spirit, and from that time
fell ill. But how you managed to escape, and are still alive, is more
than I can understand.”
“A guilty man,” said the priest, with a smile, “shudders at the rustling
of the wind or the chattering of a stork’s beak; a murderer’s conscience
preys upon his mind till he sees what is not. Poverty drives a man to
crimes which he repents of in his wealth. How true is the doctrine of
Moshi [Mencius], that the heart of man, pure by nature, is corrupted by
circumstances!”
Thus he held forth; and Tokubei, who had long since repented of his
crime, implored forgiveness, and gave him a large sum of money, saying,
“Half of this is the amount I stole from you three years since; the
other half I entreat you to accept as interest, or as a gift.”
The priest at first refused the money; but Tokubei insisted on his
accepting it, and did all he could to detain him, but in vain; for the
priest went on his way, and bestowed the money on the poor and needy. As
for Tokubei himself, he soon shook off his disorder, and thenceforward
lived at peace with all men, revered both at home and abroad, and ever
intent on good and charitable deeds.