"From the mountain top I gaze down into the valley.
The cucumbers and the hawthorn, hope of the harvest, are in bloom."
"Come here, bonze," says Mitsou-Fide. "My mother is tired after her journey; you may prepare a bath for her."
"Who would have thought that I came here to play the part of servant?" cries Taiko, turning towards the audience with most wonderful facial expression. "I obey," he adds aloud.
The bath-room was only divided from the apartment which occupied the stage by a screen covered with oiled paper. Taiko prepares the bath; amusing the audience meantime by a thousand comical remarks, accompanied by appropriate grimaces.
Mitsou-Fide's mother, enters, and asks if the bath is ready. On the affirmative reply of the false bonze, she disappears behind the screen. But Mitsou-Fide learns that Taiko is in the pagoda, and now rushes up in a rage, shouting loudly for his enemy.
"He is in the bath," says a priest.
"He shall not escape me."
Taiko, during this scene, creeps off.
Mitsou-Fide cuts a long stock of bamboo in the garden, sharpens one end of it, and hardens it over the coals in a bronze chafing-dish. Then marching up to the dividing-screen, he pierces the paper with this impromptu spear, and thinking to slay his enemy, kills his mother.
"What have I done?" he exclaims in alarm, on hearing a woman's shriek.