Those two persons were Tarō and O-Yoshi. They ran quickly, partly to escape the observation of that very policeman, and partly so as to meet the Tōkyō express as far from the station as possible. After passing the curve, however, they stopped running, and walked, for they could see the smoke coming. As soon as they could see the train itself, they stepped off the track, so as not to alarm the engineer, and waited, hand in hand. Another minute, and the low roar rushed to their ears, and they knew it was time. They stepped back to the track again, turned, wound their arms about each other, and lay down cheek to cheek, very softly and quickly, straight across the inside rail, already ringing like an anvil to the vibration of the hurrying pressure.
The boy smiled. The girl, tightening her arms about his neck, spoke in his ear:—
"For the time of two lives, and of three, I am your wife; you are my husband, Tarō Sama."
Tarō said nothing, because almost at the same instant, notwithstanding frantic attempts to halt a fast train without airbrakes in a distance of little more than a hundred yards, the wheels passed through both,—cutting evenly, like enormous shears.
IX
The village people now put bamboo cups full of flowers upon the single gravestone of the united pair, and burn incense-sticks, and repeat prayers. This is not orthodox at all, because Buddhism forbids jōshi, and the cemetery is a Buddhist one; but there is religion in it,—a religion worthy of profound respect.
You ask why and how the people pray to those dead. Well, all do not pray to them, but lovers do, especially unhappy ones. Other folk only decorate the tomb and repeat pious texts. But lovers pray there for supernatural sympathy and help. I was myself obliged to ask why, and I was answered simply, "Because those dead suffered so much."
So that the idea which prompts such prayers would seem to be at once more ancient and more modern than Buddhism,—the Idea of the eternal Religion of Suffering.