A Japanese miscellany - University of Oregon

74
Japanese Miscellany
such a big fish. I called out to you as loud as I
could — : ' I am not a fish — ! I am Kogi — Kogi
the priest ! please let me go back to my temple !
But you clapped your hands for gladness, and
paid no attention to my words. Then your cook
carried me into the kitchen, and threw me down
violently upon a cutting-board, where a terribly
sharp knife was lying. With his left hand he
pressed me down, and with his right hand he
took up that knife, — and 1 screamed to him —
:
' How can you kill me so cruelly ! I am a disciple
of the Buddha ! — help ! help !
' But in the
same instant 1 felt his knife dividing me — a
frightful pain ! —
and then I suddenly awoke, and
found myself here in the temple."
When the priest had thus finished his story,
the brothers wondered at it; and Suke said to
him : — "I now remember noticing that the jaws
of the fish were moving all the time that we were
looking at it ; but we did not hear any voice. . . .
Now I must send a servant to the house with
orders to throw the remainder of that fish into
the lake."
Kogi soon recovered from his illness, and lived
to paint many more pictures. It is related that,
'