Suddenly the stillness was broken by the sound of kara-kon, kara-kon, the soft patter of women's geta. There was something strange and haunting about the sound. Shinzaburō rose and peeped over the hedge. He saw two women. One was carrying a long-shaped lantern with silk peonies stuck in at the upper end; the other wore a lovely robe covered with designs of autumnal blossom. In another moment he recognised the sweet figure of Tsuyu and her maid Yoné.
When Yoné had explained that the wicked old doctor had told them that Shinzaburō was dead, and the young samurai had likewise informed his visitors that he, too, had learnt from the same source that his loved one and her maid had departed this life, the two women entered the house, and remained there that night, returning home a little before sunrise. Night after night they came in this mysterious manner, and always Yoné carried the shining peony-lantern, always she and her mistress departed at the same hour.
A Spy
One night Tomozō, one of Shinzaburō's servants, who lived next door to his master, chanced to hear the sound of a woman's voice in his lord's apartment. He peeped through a crack in one of the sliding doors, and perceived by the night-lantern within the room that his master was talking with a strange woman under the mosquito-net. Their conversation was so extraordinary that Tomozō was determined to see the woman's face. When he succeeded in doing so his hair stood on end and he trembled violently, for he saw the face of a dead woman, a woman long dead. There was no flesh on her fingers, for what had once been fingers were now a bunch of jangling bones. Only the upper part of her body had substance; below her waist there was but a dim, moving shadow. While Tomozō gazed with horror upon such a revolting scene a second woman's figure sprang up from within the room. She made for the chink and for Tomozō's eye behind it. With a shriek of terror the spying Tomozō fled to the house of Hakuōdō Yusai.
Yusai's Advice
Now Yusai was a man well versed in all manner of mysteries; but nevertheless Tomozō's story made considerable impression upon him, and he listened to every detail with the utmost amazement. When the servant had finished his account of the affair Yusai informed him that his master was a doomed man if the woman proved to be a ghost, that love between the living and the dead ended in the destruction of the living.
However, apart from critically examining this strange event, Yusai took practical steps to rescue this young samurai from so horrible a fate. The next morning he discussed the matter with Shinzaburō, and told him pretty clearly that he had been loving a ghost, and that the sooner he got rid of that ghost the better it would be for him. He ended his discourse by advising the youth to go to the district of Shitaya, in Yanaka-no-Sasaki, the place where these women had said they lived.
The Mystery is Revealed
Shinzaburō carried out Yusai's advice, but nowhere in the quarter of Yanaka-no-Sasaki could he find the dwelling-place of Tsuyu. On his return home he happened to pass through the temple Shin-Banzui-In. There he saw two tombs placed side by side, one of no distinction, and the other large and handsome, adorned with a peony-lantern swinging gently in the breeze. Shinzaburō remembered that this lantern and the one carried by Yoné were identical, and an acolyte informed him that the tombs were those of Tsuyu and Yoné. Then it was that he realised the strange meaning of Yoné's words: "We went away, and found a very small house in Yanaka-no-Sasaki. There we are now just barely able to live by doing a little private work." Their house, then, was a grave. The ghost of Yoné carried the peony-lantern, and the ghost of Tsuyu wound her fleshless arms about the neck of the young samurai.