The spring buds returned to the capital’s river-willows, and after that he returned to the teahouse, more prosperous than before, but wearing mourning, for his father had died. Since he now had means, and she inclination, for a private hour in that upper room, where her obedient Younger Sisters had closed the reed-blinds, she played the koto for him, with those pink-and-white flowers blooming on her eggyolk-yellow kimono. His prayers redounded upon his face like hailstones. He informed her of his feelings, but because she considered that to undo the destiny woven by Kannon must be as impossible as to find spring flowers in autumn, she calmly discouraged him, then faded softly away, while her flowers issued down like tears.
He continued to read ancient verse, in order to become a less uncultured person. By the time he was getting whitehaired he had made progress; and because he spent so much money at geisha houses, several teahouse proprietresses bowed to him like cormorants. On the twenty-third spring that the Cherry Tree Ghost appeared before him, he recited Teika’s tanka about crossing a gorge in an autumn wind, the narrow bridge trembling like the traveller’s own sleeves, the setting sun so lonely, at which she hid her face in her sleeve. Just as after a rain at Nikko’s temples the dark water runs down the deep square grass-clotted grooves between wall and courtyard, so at each separation their regret for the time they had already wasted apart and their bitterness against the loneliness now to come bled between their bones. So he promised to seek her without fail.
It was still spring in the capital when he departed, informing no one. The moon was less white than her face. Kannon had made him a rich man, so that he possessed leisure to wander through this world; and of his own accord he might have grown a trifle wise. Soon he could no longer hear the village women beating cloth.
Passing the edge of the grass world, he rounded the curve of cool-breathing overhanging forest and forded the first bend of Jade River, crossing from stone to stone. On the far bank he halted to pray to Kannon. Then he knelt at the water’s edge. Seeking intimations of his delightful Cherry Tree Ghost, he saw a band of live white light: indistinct reflection of the white reeds atop the green reflection of the grass.
Now he ascended terraces of trees. Each time he crossed another bend of Jade River, the season latened. At home the people would soon be cutting out cloth for their new garments. It was high summer when he reached the forest gorge of hanging blossoms. Once that lay behind him, the nights elongated and the days began to chill. His hat blew away; his straw cape grew stained and torn. Disdaining scarlet leaves, whose noise kept falling upon the silence of vanished cherry petals, he wandered through this floating world, sometimes losing his way in the similitude of silhouetted tree-mountains, then praying to Kannon and choosing whichever path appeared most difficult; until he came to that abyss over which the bamboo bridge, with a single reed guardrail, swayed with each step, vibrating meanwhile in that cold wind as he picked his way toward the round red sun. The rotten bamboo began to give way beneath him. There was nothing to do but stride carefully forward. Although he was afraid, never in his life had he felt so free as in this moment between life and death, deliberately chosen, the outcome not yet known. Looking down into the gorge, he seemed to glimpse a dragon’s mouth and eyes. The sun was setting ever more rapidly, and for the first time his foot broke through the bridge. Calling loudly and repeatedly on Kannon, he continued through the windy dusk, and suddenly the moon rose, and he found that he was crossing a vermilion bridge, of the sort used only for generals and Imperial messengers. So he passed each glowing vermilion-lacquered lamppost, with darkness on either side of him and even the dragon’s eyes as far below him as reflected stars; so he continued along the curving plank-deck which hugged the steep round fern-rock. When he reached the far side of the gorge, it was a winter’s dawn, and on the hill before him stood his Cherry Tree Ghost, dark, wooden and naked, with her leafless arms over her head.
He fell to his knees, kissing her high and low, but she neither moved nor spoke. After awhile it began to snow, and he weepingly retraced his steps.
Although the journey had taken most of a year, his return took but a day, no doubt thanks to Kannon’s help; and once he had regained his home in Kyoto, the Flower Capital, where the servants had nearly given him up, he rested — for he was not young anymore — then spent the winter whispering entreaties to Kannon in the dim light of brass fittings on black-lacquered appointments of red-lacquered shrines.
In Kyoto there is a temple dedicated to the Thirty-Three Thousand Three Hundred and Thirty-Three Kannons. Believers raised up this structure in the twelfth century. Having purified himself, Shozo approached this place. He bowed three times; he clapped his hands twice. Kannon appeared to him at once, and said: It is not right for you to wish anything for her. You may wish only for yourself.
Then what should I wish for, goddess? I ask your advice.
If you call on me to decide, then I will send you away with nothing changed. Accept what you have.
But will I ever be able to marry the Cherry Tree Ghost?
If I tell you, that will change you. Do you wish to be changed?
To be as I am is misery.
What would you be?
I would be capable of happiness.
Then I leave you as you are.
Bowing and thanking her, he departed. That spring the Cherry Tree Ghost appeared within his house, and became his wife. He was happy then; all he wished for was to die in flower-rain, buried in pink cherry blossoms on golden silk.
Raising the wig from her head with both hands — for it was very heavy — she set it down on the stand which he had procured for her, and for the first time he saw her sweaty hair. She flushed. When he presently perceived her unpowdered and undressed, it became clear that she was not quite as young as he had thought. She might have been twenty instead of seventeen. A Noh actor would have portrayed her not with the ko-omote mask of the radiant girl, but with the waka-onna of the beautiful woman, and beautiful she was, if not so much as art could make her; and because this floating world is shallow, he felt disappointed for an instant, but then his love, desire and gratitude returned, for constancy was the gift which Kannon had given him so long ago without his knowing.
In the morning he asked when the blossoms must fall, and she replied: Tomorrow.
He grew pale. Powdering her face back into a mask, she fell silent.
She implored him to seek out Kannon again, since he had not yet availed himself of anything; but neither one could imagine what he ought to ask her. Of course he had long since erected a shrine to the goddess in one room of his house; there it was, indeed, that they had said their wedding vows on the previous night. Purifying themselves, they prepared to bow, within that frame of wooden darkness. She knelt down first, with the strings of cherry blossoms hanging from her long black hair, and he knelt beside her. They clapped their hands twice.
Folding a wide yellow sleeve across her breast, she began to sing to the goddess, who never appeared. Her complexion resembled clouds over snow.