Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [470]
“So?”
“When the boss gets back, she’ll blab to him.”
“You’re right. And with that tongue of hers, she’ll make us look real bad.”
“Yeah. If she could only walk as well as she talks, but she’s thin as a grasshopper. If she gets run into by a horse, that’ll be the end of her. I hate to ask you, but you better go after her and see she gets there in one piece.”
Koroku ran off, and Jūrō, ruminating on the absurdity of it all, appropriated a corner of the young men’s room. It was a big room, perhaps thirty by forty feet. The floor was covered with thin, finely woven matting, and a wide variety of swords and other weapons were lying about. Hanging from nails were hand towels, kimono, underwear, fire hats and other items of the sort a band of ne’er-do-wells might require. There were two incongruous articles. One was a woman’s kimono, in bright colors with a red silk lining; the other was the gold-lacquered mirror stand over which it was suspended. They had been placed there on the instructions of Kojirō, who explained to Yajibei, somewhat mysteriously, that if a group of men lived together in one room with no feminine touch, they were apt to get out of hand and fight each other, rather than save their energies for meaningful battles.
“You’re cheating, you son of a bitch!”
“Who’s cheating? You’re nuts.”
Jūrō cast a disdainful look at the gamblers and lay down with his legs crossed comfortably. With all the rumpus going on, sleep was out of the question, but he wasn’t going to demean himself by joining one of the card or dice games. No competition, as he saw it.
As he closed his eyes, he heard a dejected voice say, “It’s no good today—no luck at all.” The loser, with the sad eyes of the utterly defeated, dropped a pillow on the floor and stretched out beside Jūrō. They were joined by another, then another and another.
“What’s this?” asked one of them, reaching out for the sheet of paper that had fallen from Jūrō’s kimono. “Well, I’ll be—it’s a sutra. Now, what would a mean cuss like you be carrying a sutra for? “
Jūrō opened one sleepy eye and said lazily, “Oh, that? It’s something the old woman copied. She said she’d sworn to make a thousand of them.”
“Let me see it,” said another man, making a grab for it. “What do you know? It’s written out nice and clear. Why, anybody could read it.”
“Does that mean you think you can read it?”
“Of course. It’s child’s play.”
“All right then, let’s hear some of it. Put a nice tune to it. Chant it like a priest.”
“Are you joking? It’s not a popular song.”
“What difference does that make? A long time ago they used to sing sutras. That’s how Buddhist hymns got started. You know a hymn when you hear one, don’t you?”
“You can’t chant these words to the tune of a hymn.”
“Well, use any tune you like.”
“You sing, Jūrō.”
Encouraged by the enthusiasm of the others, Jūrō, still lying on his back, opened the sutra above his face and began:
“The Sutra on the Great Love of Parents.
Thus have I heard.
Once when the Buddha was on the Sacred Vulture Peak
In the City of Royal Palaces,
Preaching to bodhisattvas and disciples,
There gathered a multitude of monks and nuns and lay believers, both male and female,
All the people of all the heavens, dragon gods and demons,
To hear the Sacred Law.
Around the jeweled throne they gathered
And gazed, with unwavering eyes,
At the holy face—”
“What’s all that mean?”
“When it says ‘nuns,’ does it mean the girls we call nuns? You know, I heard some of the nuns from Yoshiwara have started powdering their faces gray and will give it to you for less than in the whorehouses—”
“Quiet!”
“At this time the Buddha
Preached the Law as follows:
‘All ye good men and good women,
Acknowledge your debt for your father’s compassion,
Acknowledge your debt for your mother’s mercy.
For the life of a human being in this world
Has karma as its basic cause,
But parents as its immediate means of origin.”’