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"Here lie the clean ashes of my young wife, Kano Uta-ko," said the old man, without preface or explanation. "In former days, before before my illness, I came here often," said the other. His eyes hung on the written words of the kaimyo. "If you grieved deeply, it must have been great solace that you could come thus to her grave," he added wistfully.
"Wait, you shall see," cried the old man, now laughing aloud, now weeping, like a hysterical girl. "You shall see in a moment! My dead wife takes me by the hand and leads me from you, just a little way, dear Tatsu, just here among the shadows. No longer are the shadows for you, joy is for you. Yes, Uta-ko, I 'm coming. The young love springs like new lilies from the old.
She went into her tiny chamber, and from her treasures brought out a metal mirror given her by the young wife, Uta-ko. "Look, close," she said, placing it in Umè's hand. "That is the bride of nineteen years ago. Never have you looked so like her as at this hour!" Kano came back alone, tired, dusty, and discouraged. Tatsu had escaped him, he said, at the first glimpse of the Sumida River.
First there was Umè at the willow; then Tatsu, in the same place, taking his mad plunge for death's oblivion; Umè, the hooded acolyte, kneeling in the sick chamber at the head of her husband's bed; Umè, the nun, standing each day at twilight on the edge of the temple cliff to catch a glimpse of him she loved; and, at the last, Tatsu and Umè rejoined beside the tomb of Kano Uta-ko.
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