For she well knew that her father would quickly kill her in a most cruel manner, should the iron-hearted Choja(1) come to know the truth.
Wherefore, through fear of being mingled with the earth of the moor Uwanogahara,—fitting place for a father in wrath to slay his daughter,—she set the end of the letter between her teeth, and rent it to pieces, and withdrew to the inner apartment.
(1) Choja is not a proper name: it signifies really a wealthy man only, like the French terms "un richard," "un riche." But it is used almost like a proper name in the country still; the richest man in the place, usually a person of influence, being often referred to as "the Choja."
But the merchant, knowing that he could not go back to Hitachi without bearing some reply, resolved to obtain one by cunning.
Wherefore he hurried after the princess even into her innermost apartment, without so much as waiting to remove his sandals, and he cried out loudly:—"Oh, my princess! I have been taught that written characters were invented in India by Monju Bosatsu, and in Japan by Kobodaishi.
"And is it not like tearing the hands of Kobodaishi, thus to tear a letter written with characters?
"Know you not that a woman is less pure than a man? Wherefore, then, do you, born a woman, thus presume to tear a letter?
"Now, if you refuse to write a reply, I shall call upon all the gods; I shall announce to them this unwomanly act, and I shall invoke their malediction upon you!"
And with these words he took from the box which he always carried with him a Buddhist rosary; and he began to twist it about with an awful appearance of anger.
Then the Princess Terute, terrified and grieved, prayed him to cease his invocations, and promised that she would write an answer at once.