"But why?" I asked in surprise,—-noticing only that under my unshod feet, the spot where the child had been kneeling felt comfortably warm.
Manyemon answered:—
"She believes that to sit down upon the place made warm by the body of another is to take into one's own life all the sorrow of that other person,—unless the place be stricken first."
Whereat I sat down without performing the rite; and we both laughed.
"Iné," said Manyemon, "the master takes your sorrows upon him. He wants "—(I cannot venture to render Manyemon's honorifics)—"to understand the pain of other people. You need not tear for him, Iné."
[1] The posthumous Buddhist name of the person buried is chiseled upon the tomb or haka.
[2] "Children without parents, like the seagulls of the coast. Evening after evening the sleeves are wrung." The word chidori—indiscriminately applied to many kinds of birds,—is here used for seagull. The cries of the seagull are thought to express melancholy and desolation: hence the comparison. The long sleeve of the Japanese robe is used to wipe the eyes as well as to hide the face in moments of grief. To "wring the sleeve"—that is, to wring the moisture from a tear-drenched sleeve—is a frequent expression in Japanese poetry.