Free Japanese Gothic Tales by Kyoka Izumi Page B

blossoms lingered ev erywhere—in the hut, in the sit ting room, on the sleeves of the priest and his visitor.
    When the first rays of sunshine broke through, the priest offered to show the wanderer to the Snake Cavern on the other side of the mountain. But having heard the gentleman's story, the wanderer wasn't in the mood for walking the hills behind the temple. He'd pay his respects some other day, he thought, and finally took his leave.
    He had no particular thoughts about the priest's story, neither judgments to make nor opinions to give. He had simply taken in all that had been said, filling his mind until his heart, too, had become full. Walking quietly alone, he felt the need to run the story through his mind again in an attempt to understand it. There was probably nothing to be suspicious about, as the story came from a priest; and he had no reason to doubt the man, even though the priest's parting words had seemed a bit abrupt: "See you."
    He put the long flight of stone steps behind him and, seeing the two-story house ahead, let out a sigh. "In a nap at midday. . . ." He tried to mumble the lines of the poem, turning his head slightly to the side as he approached the house. His walking st ick was getting in the way, so h e tucked it under his arm, looking like a young kabuki actor who, after the curtain falls, makes an unhurried exit down the raised walkway. Though the sky had cleared and the sun was shining brightly, he walked very deliberately alongside the rape blossoms, not wanting to slip and fall.
    "In a nap at midday, I met my beloved." He returned to the poem. "Then did I begin to believe in the things called dreams."
    He raised his head slightly. An oak tree was growing horizontally from the cliff to his left. Looking at it from a distance, he saw that the leaves of the tree blotted out the bottom of the stone stairway. The hut would be just behind it and to the right.
    He had just seen a dream, but then -
    What about dreams? he thought . He felt as though he were see ing one now. If you wake up and realize you were asleep, then you know you were dreaming. But if you never wake up, how could it be a dream? Didn't someone say that the only difference between the mad and the sane is the length of one's periods of insanity? Like waves that grow wi ld in a blowing wind, everyone has times of mad ness. But the wind soon calms, and the waves end in a soothing dance. If not, then we begin to lose our minds, we who ply the seas of this floating world. And on the day that we pray for repose yet find no reprieve from the winds, we become seasick. Becoming seasick, we quickly go mad.
    How perilous!
    We find ourselves in the same situation when our dreams don't stop. If we can wake up, it's a dream. If we can't, then it's our reality. And yet, if it is in our dreams that we meet the people we love, why wouldn't we dream as much as we could? If the world asks, `What's gotten into him?' The dreamer answers, `Here I am,' fluttering in tandem with another butterfly, enjoying his enlightenment. Judging from what the priest had said, the gentleman who had been living in the hut must have had complete faith in his dreams.
    The wanderer was consumed by these thoughts as he continued yielding to the butterfly's enticements. As the thread of his life stretched out along the quiet field of rape, suddenly from the side came a snow-white arm, a crimson collar, a figure with toes bent back and arms stretched out, riding upon a black horse, flying through the blue sky, shooting past the brim of his cap aboard a great wave, da nc ing over the rainbow in one stride.
    When his flight of fancy ended, he realized he had just passed the spot where he had earlier encountered the snake in the rape field, and also the small house where the two women were working at their looms. This time he didn't hear the welcome sound of their shuttles at work, but rather the beating of drums coming from the distant train station. Like the second hand of a