In a Grove

The woodcutter. Yes, sir. It was I who found the body. I went up this morning, as I always do, to cut cedar on the hill behind the village, and there it was, in a grove in the shadow of the mountain. Where exactly? Four or five hundred yards from the Yamashina post road — bamboo, with a few thin cedars among it, a place nobody goes. The man lay on his back in a pale blue robe, with the soft black cap of the capital still on his head. A single wound, but it was in the chest, and the fallen bamboo leaves around him were stained dark red. No, the blood had stopped flowing; the wound looked dry. A horsefly was feeding on it, so bold it did not hear me coming. A sword? Nothing. Only a rope, dropped at the foot of a cedar — and, yes, a comb. Those two things and nothing else. But the grass and the leaves were trampled everywhere, so the man must have put up a hard fight before he died. A horse? No horse could get in there; the grove is a whole thicket away from the road.

The travelling priest. I met the dead man yesterday — around noon, I think, on the road from Sekiyama to Yamashina. He was walking towards Sekiyama beside a woman on horseback. Her face I could not see: she wore a veil. I saw only the colour of her robe, lilac over crimson. The horse was a sorrel with a clipped mane. Its height? Perhaps four hands over the standard — but I am a monk; I know little of horses. The man carried a sword, and a bow and arrows too — I remember clearly a black-lacquered quiver with more than twenty arrows in it. I never dreamed he would come to this. Truly a man's life is as the dew, as the lightning. What a pitiful thing.

The police officer. The man I arrested? He is Tajōmaru, sir — the famous bandit, no doubt of it. When I took him he had fallen from a horse and was groaning on the stone bridge at Awataguchi; it was about the first watch last night. He wore the same dark blue robe as the last time he slipped through my hands, and carried the same sword. This time he also had a bow and arrows. Yes — the same as the dead man carried? Then it was Tajōmaru who killed him, no question. A leather-bound bow, a black-lacquered quiver, seventeen hawk-feathered arrows — all the dead man's. And the horse, as you say: a sorrel with a clipped mane. It threw him — that is fate for you. It was grazing by the roadside beyond the bridge, trailing its long rein. Of all the bandits who prowl the capital, this one is the one who goes after women. Last autumn a pilgrim and her serving-girl were found murdered on the hill behind the Toribe temple; people said that was his work. If he killed this man, what has become of the woman on the sorrel horse? Forgive my presumption, sir — but I beg you to look into that as well.

The old woman. Yes, that body is my daughter's husband. Not a man of the capital — a samurai in the service of the provincial office at Wakasa. Kanazawa no Takehiro, twenty-six years old. A gentle nature; no one could have borne him a grudge. My daughter? Her name is Masago; she is nineteen. A spirited girl, as bold as any man, but she has never known any man but Takehiro. A small oval face, rather dark, with a mole at the corner of the left eye. They set out for Wakasa yesterday, the two of them, and now this. What karma brought it? I can give up my son-in-law — but my daughter: what has become of her? I beg you, sir, this is an old woman's one prayer: search every blade of grass for her. And the one I hate is that bandit, that Tajōmaru or whatever he calls himself. Not only my son-in-law — my daughter too — (here she broke down in tears and could say no more).

I killed the man. But I did not kill the woman. Where did she go? I don't know. Wait — torture me all you like, I cannot tell you what I don't know. And now that it has come to this, I have no intention of hiding anything like a coward.

I met the two of them yesterday a little after noon. A gust of wind lifted the woman's veil for an instant — an instant, and it fell again — and perhaps that was why her face looked to me like the face of a bodhisattva. In that moment I made up my mind to take the woman, even if I had to kill the man.

Killing a man is not the great matter you people think. If you take a woman, the man dies anyway. Only I use the sword at my belt, and you use no sword — you kill with power, you kill with money, sometimes you kill with a kind word. No blood flows, the man is splendidly alive — and yet you have killed him. Weigh the sin, and I am not sure which of us is the worse. (A sarcastic smile.)

Still, I would have preferred to take the woman without killing him, and on the post road that was impossible. So I had to get them into the hills. That was easy. I fell in with them and told them there was an old burial mound on the far mountain; I had dug it open and found mirrors and swords, and buried them in a grove where nobody would find them; if they wanted, I would sell the lot cheap. Greed is a terrible thing, is it not? Within half an hour the man was turning his wife's horse up the mountain path.

At the grove I said the treasure was buried inside — come and see. The man was thirsty for it; he did not hesitate. The woman said she would wait on her horse; the thicket was so dense that you could hardly blame her. It suited me perfectly. I led the man in through the bamboo to a clearing of thin cedars, told him the treasure lay under the trees — and the moment we reached it I threw him down. He was strong enough, with a sword at his side, but a man taken by surprise is helpless, and in a moment I had him tied to the root of a cedar. Rope? A thief never knows when he will need to climb a wall; I carry it at my belt. I stuffed his mouth with bamboo leaves to keep him quiet, and that was that.

Then I went back to the woman and told her that her husband had been taken ill, and she should come. She came, leading her by the hand, into the grove — and the instant she saw him tied to the tree she had a dagger out of her sleeve. I have never seen a woman so fierce. Had I been careless for a moment she would have run me through. As it was, dodging her, I might have been cut badly. But I am Tajōmaru; I knocked the blade out of her hand without even drawing my sword. Fierce or not, a woman without a weapon can do nothing. So I had what I wanted — without taking the man's life.

Without taking his life — yes. I had no intention of killing him even then. But as I turned to leave the grove, with the woman sobbing on the ground behind me, she seized my arm like a madwoman and cried out, in broken words, that one of us must die — I or her husband; that to be shamed before two men was worse than death; that she would go with whichever of us was left alive. At that moment I wanted to kill him. (A dark excitement.)

You think me crueller than yourselves. That is because you did not see her face — the burning look in her eyes at that instant. When our eyes met I wanted her for my wife, if the thunder struck me dead for it. Not lust, as you imagine; if it had been only lust I would have kicked her aside and run. And he would never have bloodied my sword. But in that dim grove, looking at her face, I knew I would not leave until I had killed the man.

Even so, I would not kill him like a coward. I untied him and told him to fight. (The rope by the cedar is the one I forgot to take away.) He went white, drew his heavy sword and flew at me without a word. How it ended I need not tell you. At the twenty-third stroke my blade went through his chest. The twenty-third — remember that. To this day it is the one thing I am proud of: no man in the empire but he ever crossed swords with me twenty times. (A cheerful smile.)

When he fell I lowered my bloody sword and turned to the woman — and she was gone. I searched among the cedars; there was no trace on the fallen leaves. I listened; there was only the sound of the man dying in his throat. Perhaps she had slipped out to fetch help the moment we began to fight. Then it was my life at stake. I took his sword and bow and went back to the road, where her horse was quietly cropping grass. The rest is not worth telling — except that before I entered the capital I had already got rid of the sword. That is my confession. I expect to hang from a tree in any case; give me the severest punishment you have. (A defiant bearing.)

The confession of a woman who came to the Kiyomizu temple. When the man in the dark blue robe had done what he did to me, he looked at my bound husband and laughed. How my husband must have suffered! But the more he struggled, the deeper the ropes bit. I ran to him — tried to run; the man kicked me down. And in that instant I saw in my husband's eyes a light I cannot describe. I shudder to remember it now. He could not speak a word, but in that one look he told me everything in his heart — and what flashed there was not anger, and not grief. It was a cold light of contempt. That look struck me harder than the kick. I cried out something, and fainted.

When I came to myself, the man was gone. Only my husband remained, tied to the cedar. I raised myself from the leaves and looked at his face, and his eyes had not changed: cold contempt, and under it, hatred. Shame, grief, rage — I cannot say what was in me. I stood up and went to him and said: 'After this I cannot stay with you. I mean to die. But — you must die too. You have seen my shame. I cannot leave you alive behind me.' He only went on staring at me with loathing. I looked for his sword; the bandit had taken it, and the bow as well. But my dagger lay at my feet. I lifted it and said: 'Then give me your life. I will follow you at once.' His lips moved. His mouth was full of bamboo leaves and no sound came, but I understood him. Still despising me, he said one word: 'Kill.' Half in a dream, I drove the dagger through the breast of his pale blue robe.

I must have fainted again. When I looked around, he was dead, still bound; a single ray of the evening sun fell across his white face through the cedars. Swallowing my sobs, I cut the rope from the body. And then — what became of me? I have no strength left to tell it. I could not manage to die. I put the dagger to my throat; I threw myself into a pond at the foot of the mountain; nothing succeeded — and here I am, alive, which is nothing to boast of. (A lonely smile.) Perhaps even the merciful Kannon has given up a creature as feeble as I am. But I, who killed my husband, who was shamed by a bandit — what am I to do? What am I — what — (a sudden violent sobbing).

The story of the dead man, told through a medium. When the bandit had done with my wife, he sat down beside her and began to comfort her. I could not speak, of course; I was bound to the tree. But I signalled to her with my eyes, again and again: do not believe a word he says; whatever he says is a lie. And she sat on the fallen leaves with her head down, staring at her knees — and did she not seem to be listening to him? I writhed with jealousy. And the bandit went on, cleverly: once her body had been dishonoured, things could never be right with her husband; would she not rather be his wife than stay with such a man? It was because he loved her that he had gone so far. He dared to say that.

At those words my wife lifted her face as if in a trance. I had never seen her so beautiful. And what did that beautiful wife answer, with her husband bound before her? Wandering in the dark between lives, I have never once recalled her answer without burning. She said: 'Then take me wherever you like.' (A long silence.)

And that is not the whole of her crime. If it were, I would not suffer as I do in this darkness. As she went out of the grove, her hand in the bandit's, she suddenly turned white, pointed at me tied to the cedar, and cried: 'Kill him! While he lives I cannot go with you!' She screamed it again and again, like a madwoman. 'Kill him!' — the words are a storm that still hurls me headlong into the dark. Has anything so hateful ever come from a human mouth? (A sudden burst of scornful laughter.) Even the bandit turned pale. She clung to his arm, still screaming. He looked at her a long moment — and then, without a word of answer, kicked her down onto the leaves. (Again the laughter.) He folded his arms and turned to me. 'What shall I do with her?' he said. 'Kill her, or let her go? Just nod. Kill her?' For those words alone I could forgive the bandit everything. (Again, a long silence.)

While I hesitated, my wife gave one cry and ran into the depths of the grove. The bandit sprang after her but could not so much as catch her sleeve. I watched it all as if it were a vision. When she had gone, he picked up my sword and my bow and arrows and cut one of my ropes. 'Now it's my own neck I have to think of,' I remember him muttering as he vanished. After that, all was still. No — someone was weeping. I listened as I worked myself free of the ropes — and the weeping was my own.

At last I raised my exhausted body from the foot of the tree. In front of me lay the dagger my wife had dropped, shining. I took it and drove it into my chest. Something warm and bitter rose into my mouth, but there was no pain. Only my chest went cold, and the world grew quieter still. Not a single bird came to sing over that grove in the mountain's shadow; only a lonely light lay on the tops of the cedars and the bamboo — and even that was fading. Then someone came softly to my side. I tried to see who. Dusk had gathered around me. A hand I could not see drew the dagger gently from my chest, and my mouth filled with blood once more, and I sank for ever into the darkness between lives.