清水寺に来れる女の懺悔

—The man in the dark blue hitatare, after having his way with me, looked down at my bound husband and laughed in mockery. How agonizing it must have been for my husband. Yet no matter how he writhed, the ropes that bound his body only bit deeper and tighter. I could not help but stumble and run toward him. No—I tried to run to him. But in an instant the man kicked me down where I stood. Just then—I caught in my husband’s eyes a gleam beyond all words. Beyond all words—even now, the memory of those eyes makes me shudder uncontrollably. My husband, who could not utter a single word, conveyed everything in that fleeting glance. Yet what flashed there was neither anger nor sorrow—it was nothing but a cold light of contempt for me, was it not? Struck more by the color of that gaze than by the man’s kick, I cried out without knowing what, and then lost consciousness entirely.

When at last I came to, the man in the dark blue hitatare was already gone somewhere. Only my husband remained, bound to the base of a cedar. I raised myself upon the fallen bamboo leaves and gazed at his face. But his eyes were not in the least changed from before. Still, beneath that cold contempt, there showed a hue of hatred. Shame, sorrow, rage—I cannot say what was in my heart at that moment. Swaying, I stood and drew near to him.

“Husband. Things being as they are, I cannot remain with you. I am resolved to die at a stroke. But—but you must die as well. You have seen my disgrace. I cannot leave you here alone.”

I forced out these words with all my strength. Still he only glared at me with loathing. Suppressing a breast ready to split, I searched for my husband’s sword. But it had been taken by the bandit, no doubt—neither sword nor bow was to be found in the copse. Yet by good fortune a dagger lay at my feet. I raised it, and spoke to my husband once more.

“Then give me your life. I shall follow at once.”

At these words, my husband at last moved his lips. Of course his mouth was stuffed full of bamboo leaves, so no sound reached me. But seeing him, I knew at once what he said. Contemptuous still, he spoke one word: “Kill.”

Almost as if in a dream, I drove the dagger deep into the chest of his pale blue hitatare.

I must have lost consciousness again then, too. When I looked about me once more, my husband, still bound, was long since dead. Upon his pallid face, a single shaft of the westward sun fell through the cedar grove mingled with bamboo. Swallowing my sobs, I loosed and cast off the ropes from the corpse. And then—and then what became of me? That, I have no strength to tell. In any case, I could not manage to die. I thrust the dagger in my throat, threw myself into the pond at the mountain’s foot—I tried many things. But since I live on unable to die, that is no boast. (A lonely smile) One so worthless as I may have been forsaken even by the compassionate Kannon Bodhisattva. Yet I, who killed my husband, I, who was ravished by the bandit—what am I to do? What am I to—I— (Sudden, violent sobbing)

“Stories of the world, in your language.”