Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

well. The best plan will be for me to step out of the bamboo grove which
is behind the house, and to creep round the verandah, and I can listen to
these fellows holding their consultation: they will certainly be raking up
all sorts of scandal about me. It will be all in harmony, then, if I kick
down the shutters and sliding-doors with a noise like thunder. And what
fun it will be!"
As he thought thus to himself, he pulled off his iron-heeled sandals,
and stuck them in his girdle, and, girding up his dress round his waist,
left the bamboo grove at the back of the house, and, jumping over the
garden wicket, went round the verandah and looked in. Peeping through
a chink in the shutters, he could see his relations gathered together in
council, speaking in whispers. The family were sitting in a circle, and one
and all were affixing their seals to the petition of disinheritance. At last,
having passed from hand to hand, the document came round to where
the two parents were sitting. Their son, seeing this, said—
"Come, now, it's win or lose! My parents' signing the paper shall be the
sign for me to kick open the door and jump into the middle of them."
So, getting ready for a good kick, he held his breath and looked on.
What terrible perversion man can allow his heart to come to! Môshi
has said that man by nature is good; but although not a particle of fault
can be found with what he has said, when the evil we have learned becomes
a second nature, men reach this fearful degree of wickedness.
When men come to this pass, Kôshi 106 and Môshi themselves might
preach to them for a thousand days, and they would not have strength to
reform. Such hardened sinners deserve to be roasted in iron pots in the
nethermost hell. Now, I am going to tell you how it came about that the
vagabond son turned over a new leaf and became dutiful, and finally
entered paradise. The poet says, "Although the hearts of parents are not
surrounded by dark night, how often they stray from the right road in
their affection for their children!"
When the petition of disinheritance came round to the place where the
two parents were sitting, the mother lifted up her voice and wept aloud;
and the father, clenching his toothless gums to conceal his emotion, remained
with his head bent down: presently, in a husky voice, he said,
"Wife, give me the seal!"
But she returned no answer, and with tears in her eyes took a leather
purse, containing the seal, out of a drawer of the cupboard and placed it
before her husband. All this time the vagabond son, holding his breath,
106.Kôshi is the Japanese pronunciation of the name of the Chinese philosopher Kung
Tsu-, or Kung Fu Tsu-, whom we call Confucius.
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