Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [335]
The innkeeper obligingly took the cloth to a neighborhood seamstress and on his way back bought some sake. He made a stew with the sweet potatoes and chatted with Musashi over the stew and sake until midnight, when the seamstress came with the clothes. Musashi folded the clothing neatly and placed it beside his pillow before retiring.
The old man was awakened long before dawn by the sound of splashing water. Looking out, he saw that Musashi had bathed with cold well water and was standing in the moonlight wearing his new underwear and just putting on his old kimono.
Musashi, remarking that he was a little tired of Kyoto and had decided to go to Edo, promised that when he came to Kyoto again, in three or four years, he would stay at the inn.
The innkeeper having tied his obi in the back for him, Musashi set off at a fast pace. He took the narrow path through the fields to the Kitano highroad, carefully picking his way through the piles of ox dung. The old man watched sadly as the darkness swallowed him.
Musashi’s mind was as clear as the sky above him. Physically refreshed, his body seemed to grow more buoyant with each step.
“There’s no reason to walk so fast,” he said out loud, slackening his pace. “I suppose this will be my last night in the realm of the living.” This was neither exclamation nor lament, merely a statement coming unbidden to his lips. He had no sense as yet of actually staring death in the face.
He had spent the previous day meditating under a pine tree at the inner temple at Kurama, hoping to achieve that state of bliss in which body and soul no longer matter. Unsuccessful in his effort to rid himself of the idea of death, he was now ashamed of having wasted his time.
The night air was invigorating. The sake, just the right amount, a short but sound sleep, the bracing well water, new clothing—he did not feel like a man about to die. He recalled the night in the dead of winter when he had forced himself to the top of Eagle Mountain. Then, too, the stars had been dazzling, and the trees had been festooned with icicles. The icicles would now have given way to budding flowers.
His head full of stray thoughts, he found it impossible to concentrate on the vital problem facing him. What purpose, he wondered, would be served at this stage by pondering questions that a century of thinking would not solve—the meaning of death, the agony of dying, the life that would follow afterward?
The district he was in was inhabited by noblemen and their retainers. He heard the doleful sound of a flageolet, accompanied by the slow strains of a reed mouth organ. In his mind’s eye he saw mourners seated around a coffin, waiting for the dawn. Had the dirge penetrated his ears before he actually became aware of it? Perhaps it had aroused a subconscious memory of the dancing virgins of Ise and his experience on Eagle Mountain. Doubt gnawed at his mind.
As he paused to give the matter some thought, he noticed that he had passed the Shōkokuji and was now only about a hundred yards from the silvery Kamo River. In the light reflected on a dirt wall, he caught sight of a still, dark figure. The man walked toward him, followed by a smaller shadow, a dog on a leash. Satisfied by the presence of the animal that the man was not one of his enemies, he relaxed and walked on by.
The other man took a few steps, turned and said, “Can I trouble you, sir?” “Me?”
“Yes, if it’s all right.” His cap and hakama were of the sort worn by artisans. “What is it?” asked Musashi.
“Forgive me a peculiar question, but did you notice a house all lit up along this street?”
“I wasn’t paying much attention, but no, I don’t think I did.”
“I guess I’m on the wrong street again.”
“What are you looking for?”
“A house where there’s just been a death.”
“I didn’t see the house, but I heard a mouth organ and a flageolet about a hundred yards back.”
“That must be the place.