Eager to soothe her dying moments, he answered tenderly:—
“To wait for you, my betrothed, were no less a joy than a duty. We are pledged to each other for the time of seven existences.”
“But you doubt?” she questioned, watching his face.
“My dear one,” he answered, “I doubt whether I should be able to know you in another body, under another name,—unless you can tell me of a sign or token.”
“That I cannot do,” she said. “Only the Gods and the Buddhas know how and where we shall meet. But I am sure—very, very sure—that, if you be not unwilling to receive me, I shall be able to come back to you... Remember these words of mine.”...
She ceased to speak; and her eyes closed. She was dead.
Nagao had been sincerely attached to O-Tei; and his grief was deep. He had a mortuary tablet made, inscribed with her zokumyō;[[1]] and he placed the tablet in his butsudan,[[2]] and every day set offerings before it. He thought a great deal about the strange things that O-Tei had said to him just before her death; and, in the hope of pleasing her spirit, he wrote a solemn promise to wed her if she could ever return to him in another body. This written promise he sealed with his seal, and placed in the butsudan beside the mortuary tablet of O-Tei.
Nevertheless, as Nagao was an only son, it was necessary that he should marry. He soon found himself obliged to yield to the wishes of his family, and to accept a wife of his father’s choosing. After his marriage he continued to set offerings before the tablet of O-Tei; and he never failed to remember her with affection. But by degrees her image became dim in his memory,—like a dream that is hard to recall. And the years went by.
During those years many misfortunes came upon him. He lost his parents by death,—then his wife and his only child. So that he found himself alone in the world. He abandoned his desolate home, and set out upon a long journey in the hope of forgetting his sorrows.