“Fool that I was to give my daughter to a white-livered samurai such as you!”
“Ha! Do you use such a term of me!”
“You feign ignorance! Well, then, I will tell you why men call you a coward. Listen! It is said you let your cheek be struck by that low tea-priest a day or two ago and he still lives to tell the tale! Has it passed from your mind so soon? Ah, I see you recollect it!”
“Surely, I remember that Ryōkwan struck my cheek with his hand, but what of it!”
“What of it? What of it? Can a samurai receive a deadly insult like that and suffer it to pass unnoticed! Coward! How came you to permit him to do it in the first instance?”
“Ryōkwan put his sword in my way as I was hurrying to the presence of my lord; the hem of my hakama just touched it as I passed over but the man insisted that I had trodden on it and by design. It is evident he meant to pick a quarrel with me in any case. I apologised, but he refused to listen. Deeming it waste of time to argue with a bully, to end the matter as speedily as possible, I let him strike me as he wished. That is the whole affair.”
“Indolent coward!” exclaimed Yorikané, more incensed now that he heard Shigenari’s account than he had been before. “Ryōkwan is a mere tea-priest, and you are a samurai of high rank in close attendance on our lord. There can be no comparison as to your respective standing—you should have killed him on the spot. Your conduct is totally inexplicable!”
“You are mistaken, father, when you say I should have killed him.”
“How? There can be no two opinions on the matter. Where is your sense of honour? I will waste no more words on you. Let my daughter return home at once. I am ashamed to be called your father-in-law.”