“The Jo-sama of Nakoi had, in her evil days, her hand sought by two suitors. One of them was a young man she met while she was at school in Kyoto, and the other a son of the wealthiest man in the castled town.”
“So? Which did she choose?”
“The Jo-sama herself would have had her lover in Kyoto if she could make her own choice; but her father forced her to accept the young man of the castled-town.”
“That is to say, she fortunately escaped drowning herself in the river?”
“To her young husband she was as dear as his own life, and he did all he could to please her; but she was not happy to the worry of all. Soon after the present war had broken out her husband lost his job, the bank where he was working closing its doors, while the same cause wrought the ruin of his own family. This made the Jo-sama come back to her father’s house in Nakoi, and gossip has been busy making a heartless and ungrateful woman of her. As a girl, the Jo-sama was always coy and gentle; but she has latterly been changing into a woman of unwomanly high spirits. So says Gembey every time he passes here, as he feels really sorry for her.”
I did not want to hear more, to have my fancies spoiled. The woman’s story was beginning to smell of human ills and worries and I felt as if somebody was wanting back the fairy wand, when I was just becoming celestial. It cost me uncommon pains to negotiate the perils of the “Seven Bends,” and reach here. All that and the very reason of my wandering out of my house would have been lost, if I were now to be so recklessly brought back to the every-day world. This and that of life are all very well up to a certain point; but past that limit it brings a worldly odor that enters you through the pores of the skin and makes you feel heavy with dirt. So I started to go, with this departing word, after depositing a silver piece on the bench: “The road is straight to Nakoi, is it not Obahsan?”
“Turn right, down the slope from the tomb of Nagarano Otome and you will make a saving of some half a mile. The road is not very good; but a young gentleman like you would make a short cut.... God bless you for such generosity. Take good care of yourself, Danna-sama.”
CHAPTER III.
I had a queer time of it last night.
About 8 o’clock I reached the hotel. It had already closed up for the night, and was but dimly lighted. I could not, of course, tell, then, the plan of the house or the lay-out of its garden, to say nothing of its bearing on the points of the compass. I was led by the nose, as it were, through a long, long winding sort of passage, at the end of which I was put in a small room of about six mats. I could not at all tell where I was; the place had so completely changed since I was here last. After supper, and then a dip in the hot spring bath, I was sipping tea in my room, when a young girl came in, and asked me if she should make my bed.