“They will part us,” she cried, “O my dear heart’s desire. The dear gods are angry with us, and we so young.”
“Ah,” he said, “I was afraid.... Farewell, dear maid, O little maid, sweet and slender. Remember we are pledged to one another for the space of many existences.”
Then the two of them clung together, trembling and weeping, and they bade farewell a thousand times.
The next day they bore O Schichi home to Honjo. She grew languid and listless. White she grew, white as the buckwheat flower. She drooped and she failed. No longer was she numbered with the five beauties of Yedo, nor likened to a cherry-tree in the time of the spring blossoming. All the day long she brooded silently. At night she lay awake in her low bed.
“Oh! oh!” she moaned, “the weary, weary night! Shall I never see him? Must I die of longing? Oh! oh! the weary, weary night....”
Her eyes grew large and burning bright.
“Alas! poor maid,” said her father.
“I am afraid ...” said her mother. “She will lose her wits.... She does not weep any more.”
At last O Schichi arose and took straw and made it into a bundle; and she put charcoal in the bundle and laid it beneath the gallery of her father’s house. Then she set fire to the straw and the charcoal, and the whole burnt merrily. Furthermore the wood of her father’s house took light and the house was burnt to the ground.
“I shall see him; I shall see him!” shrieked O Schichi, and fell in a swoon.