"Morning-Dew"

Tsuyu ("Morning Dew") was the only daughter of Iijima. When her father married again she found she could not live happily with her stepmother, and a separate house was built for her, where she lived with her servant-maid Yoné.

One day Tsuyu received a visit from the family physician, Yamamoto Shijō accompanied by a handsome young samurai named Hagiwara Shinzaburō. These young people fell in love with each other, and at parting Tsuyu whispered to Shinzaburō: "Remember! if you do not come to see me again I shall certainly die!"

Shinzaburō had every intention of seeing the fair Tsuyu as frequently as possible. Etiquette, however, would not allow him to visit her alone, so that he was compelled to rely on the old doctor's promise to take him to the villa where his loved one lived. The old doctor, however, having seen more than the young people had supposed, purposely refrained from keeping his promise.

Tsuyu, believing that the handsome young samurai had proved unfaithful, slowly pined away and died. Her faithful servant Yoné also died soon afterwards, being unable to live without her mistress, and they were buried side by side in the cemetery of Shin-Banzui-In.

Shortly after this sad event had taken place the old[Pg 229] doctor called upon Shinzaburō and gave him full particulars of the death of Tsuyu and her maid.

Shinzaburō recognised Tsuyu and her maid Yoné

Shinzaburō felt the blow keenly. Night and day the girl was in his thoughts. He inscribed her name upon a mortuary tablet, placed offerings before it, and repeated many prayers.
The Dead Return

When the first day of the Festival of the Dead[2] arrived he set food on the Shelf of Souls and hung out lanterns to guide the spirits during their brief earthly sojourn. As the night was warm and the moon at her full, he sat in his verandah and waited. He felt that all these preparations would not be in vain, and in his heart he believed that the soul of Tsuyu would come to him.

Suddenly the stillness was broken by the sound of kara-kon, kara-kon, the soft patter of women's geta. There was something strange and haunting about the sound. Shinzaburō rose and peeped over the hedge. He saw two women. One was carrying a long-shaped lantern with silk peonies stuck in at the upper end; the other wore a lovely robe covered with designs of autumnal blossom. In another moment he recognised the sweet figure of Tsuyu and her maid Yoné.

When Yoné had explained that the wicked old doctor had told them that Shinzaburō was dead, and the young samurai had likewise informed his visitors that he, too, had learnt from the same source that his loved one and her maid had departed this life, the two women entered the house, and remained there that night, returning home a little before sunrise. Night after night they came in this mysterious manner, and always Yoné carried the shining peony-lantern, always she and her mistress departed at the same hour.

[Pg 230]
A Spy

One night Tomozō, one of Shinzaburō's servants, who lived next door to his master, chanced to hear the sound of a woman's voice in his lord's apartment. He peeped through a crack in one of the sliding doors, and perceived by the night-lantern within the room that his master was talking with a strange woman under the mosquito-net. Their conversation was so extraordinary that Tomozō was determined to see the woman's face. When he succeeded in doing so his hair stood on end and he trembled violently, for he saw the face of a dead woman, a woman long dead. There was no flesh on her fingers, for what had once been fingers were now a bunch of jangling bones. Only the upper part of her body had substance; below her waist there was but a dim, moving shadow. While Tomozō gazed with horror upon such a revolting scene a second woman's figure sprang up from within the room. She made for the chink and for Tomozō's eye behind it. With a shriek of terror the spying Tomozō fled to the house of Hakuōdō Yusai.
Yusai's Advice

Now Yusai was a man well versed in all manner of mysteries; but nevertheless Tomozō's story made considerable impression upon him, and he listened to every detail with the utmost amazement. When the servant had finished his account of the affair Yusai informed him that his master was a doomed man if the woman proved to be a ghost, that love between the living and the dead ended in the destruction of the living.

However, apart from critically examining this strange event, Yusai took practical steps to rescue this young[Pg 231] samurai from so horrible a fate. The next morning he discussed the matter with Shinzaburō, and told him pretty clearly that he had been loving a ghost, and that the sooner he got rid of that ghost the better it would be for him. He ended his discourse by advising the youth to go to the district of Shitaya, in Yanaka-no-Sasaki, the place where these women had said they lived.
The Mystery is Revealed

Shinza............