He was a samurai of Iyo; and the tree grew in his garden; and it used
to flower at the usual time,--that is to say, about the end of March or
the beginning of April. He had played under that tree when he was a
child; and his parents and grandparents and ancestors had hung to its
blossoming branches, season after season for more than a hundred years,
bright strips of colored paper inscribed with poems of praise. He
himself became very old,--outliving all his children; and there was
nothing in the world left for him to live except that tree. And lo! in
the summer of a certain year, the tree withered and died!

Exceedingly the old man sorrowed for his tree. Then kind neighbors
found for him a young and beautiful cherry-tree, and planted it in his
garden,--hoping thus to comfort him. And he thanked them, and pretended
to be glad. But really his heart was full of pain; for he had loved the
old tree so well that nothing could have consoled him for the loss of
it.

At last there came to him a happy thought: he remembered a way by which
the perishing tree might be saved. (It was the sixteenth day of the
first month.) Along he went into his garden, and bowed down before the
withered tree, and spoke to it, saying: "Now deign, I beseech you, once
more to bloom,--because I am going to die in your stead." (For it is
believed that one can really give away one's life to another person, or
to a creature or even to a tree, by the favor of the gods;--and thus to
transfer one's life is expressed by the term migawari ni tatsu, "to act
as a substitute.") Then under that tree he spread a white cloth, and
divers coverings, and sat down upon the coverings, and performed
hara-kiri after the fashion of a samurai. And the ghost of him went
into the tree, and made it blossom in that same hour.

And every year it still blooms on the sixteenth day of the first month,
in the season of snow.

THE DREAM OF AKINOSUKE

In the district called Toichi of Yamato Province, (1) there used to
live a goshi named Miyata Akinosuke... [Here I must tell you that in
Japanese feudal times there was a privileged class of
soldier-farmers,--free-holders,--corresponding to the class of yeomen
in England; and these were called goshi.]

In Akinosuke's garden there was a great and ancient cedar-tree, under
which he was wont to rest on sultry days. One very warm afternoon he
was sitting under this tree with two of his friends, fellow-goshi,
chatting and dri