“I’ve no heart to go to Kioto,” says the young man, “and if I had, it’s the planting-out time of the rice, and the thing’s not to be done, so there’s an end of it.”
All the same, after two days he bids his wife get out his best hakama and haouri, and to make up his bento for a journey. “I’m thinking of going to Kioto,” he tells her.
“Well, I am surprised,” says Mistress Tassel. “And what put such an idea into your head, if I may ask?”
“I’ve been thinking it’s a kind of duty,” says the young man.
“Oh, indeed,” says Mistress Tassel to this, and nothing more, for she had some grains of sense. And the next morning as ever was she packs her husband off bright and early for Kioto, and betakes herself to some little matter of house cleaning she has on hand.
The young man stepped out along the road, feeling a little better in his spirits, and before long he reached Kioto. It is likely he saw many things to wonder at. Amongst temples and palaces he went. He saw castles and gardens, and marched up and down fine streets of shops, gazing about him with his eyes wide open, and his mouth too, very like, for he was a simple soul.
At length, one fine day he came upon a shop full of metal mirrors that glittered in the sunshine.
“Oh, the pretty silver moons!” says the simple soul to himself. And he dared to come near and take up a mirror in his hand.
The next minute he turned as white as rice and sat him down on the seat in the shop door, still holding the mirror in his hand and looking into it.
“Why, father,” he said, “how did you come here? You are not dead, then? Now the dear gods be praised for that! Yet I could have sworn—— But no matter, since you are here alive and well. You are something pale still, but how young you look. You move your lips, father, and seem to speak, but I do not hear you. You’ll come home with me, dear, and live with us just as you used to do? You smile, you smile, that is well.”