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Updated: June 21, 2025
Akira picks out the chrysanthemum, and insists that I shall eat it; and I begin to demolish the sugary blossom, petal by petal, feeling all the while an acute remorse for spoiling so beautiful a thing. Meanwhile four kakemono have been brought forth, unrolled, and suspended from pegs upon the wall; and we rise to examine them.
Then my interpreter translates his greeting large fine phrases of courtesy to which I reply as I best know how, expressing my gratitude for the exceptional favour accorded me. 'You are, indeed, he responds through Akira, 'the first European ever permitted to enter into the Oho-yashiro.
One is playing with an ivory plectrum upon some stringed instrument, just as a dancing-girl plays her samisen; and others are sounding those curious Chinese flutes, composed of seventeen tubes, which are used still in sacred concerts at the great temples. Akira says this heaven is too much like earth.
I do not know what flattering statements Akira may have made about me to the good priest; but the result is that I can rank only as a common person which veracious fact doubtless saves me from some formalities which would have proved embarrassing, all ignorant as I still am of that finer and more complex etiquette in which the Japanese are the world's masters.
'Oh, that is only insects, says Akira, laughing; 'nothing to do with the Bonku. Insects, yes! in cages! The shrilling is made by scores of huge green crickets, each prisoned in a tiny bamboo cage by itself.
'Now let us go to the Bon-ichi, says Akira, rising; 'she must go there herself soon, and it is already getting dark. Sayonara! It is indeed almost dark as we leave the little house: stars are pointing in the strip of sky above the street; but it is a beautiful night for a walk, with a tepid breeze blowing at intervals, and sending long flutterings through the miles of shop draperies.
Occupying the alcove, which is an indispensable part of the structure of Japanese guest-rooms, is a native cabinet painted with figures of flying birds; and on this cabinet stands the butsuma. Akira opens it with a sort of compassionate smile; and I look inside for the image.
'It is written, replies Akira, 'in the book called Jizo-Kyo-Kosui that the aged Enjobo, a priest dwelling in the province of Owari, was able to get rid of Bimbogami by means of a charm.
Akira tells me that in the book called Jizo-kyo-Kosui, this legend is related of the great statue of Jizo in this same ancient temple of Ken- cho-ji. Formerly there lived at Kamakura the wife of a Ronin named Soga Sadayoshi. She lived by feeding silkworms and gathering the silk.
And the same night, in a dream, Kobodaishi appeared to him, smiling gently, and said: 'Do the work even as the Emperor desires, and have no fear. So he restored the tablets in the first month of the fourth year of Kwanko, as is recorded in the book, Hon-cho-bun-sui. And all these things have been related to me by my friend Akira.
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