The Reconciliation

At last the Governor’s official term expired, and the Samurai was free. “Now I will go back to my dear one,” he vowed to himself. “Ah, what a cruelty, what a folly to have divorced her!” He sent his second wife back to her own people (she had given him no children); and hurrying to Kyoto, he went at once to seek his former companion, not allowing himself even the time to change his traveling clothes.

When he reached the street where she used to live, it was late in the night—the night of the tenth day of the ninth month—and the city was as silent as a cemetery. But a bright moon made everything visible, and he found the house without difficulty. It had a deserted look: tall weeds were growing on the roof. He knocked at the sliding doors, and no one answered. Then, finding that the doors had not been fastened from within, he pushed them open and entered. The front room was empty and lacked floor mats; a chilly wind was blowing through crevices in the wood, and the moon shone through a ragged break in the wall of the alcove. Other rooms presented a similarly forlorn condition. The house, to all appearances, was unoccupied. Nevertheless, the Samurai