The apology made the priests even angrier, because the boy spoke calmly and seemed to be without a trace of remorse. "Heathen!" they called him, and tied his hands behind his back and bound him to one of the large pillars of the temple.
"We're going to leave you here for a few days. Maybe you'll get eaten by rats," the priests said.
This sort of thing happened to Hiyoshi all the time. When his friends came the next day, he thought bitterly, he would not be able to play with them. And when they did come, they saw he was being punished and ran off.
“Untie me," he called out after them. "If you don't, I'm going to beat you up."
Elderly pilgrims and the village women who made their way up to the temple made fun of him. "Say, isn't that a monkey?"
At one point he was calm enough to mutter to himself, "I'll show you." His small body, pressed against the great temple pillar, was suddenly filled with a feeling of great power. He kept his lips shut about such things and, well aware of his predicament, put on a defiant face, cursing his fate.
He fell into a deep sleep, only to be awakened by his own drooling. The day was frightfully long. Thoroughly bored, he gazed at the broken incense burner. The potter had written an inscription in small characters on the bottom of the vessel: "Made with good omen, Gorodayu."
The nearby village of Seto and, in fact, the entire province was famous for pottery. This had never interested him before, but looking at the painted landscape on the incense burner, his imagination took off.
Where is that, I wonder?
Mountains and stone bridges, towers and people, clothing and boats, the like of which he had never seen before, were painted in indigo on the white porcelain. It all left him deeply puzzled.
What country is that? he wondered.
He could not guess. He had a young boy's cleverness and thirst for knowledge and, desperate for an answer, he strained his imagination for an answer that would fill this emtiness.
Could there really be such a country?
While he was thinking hard about this, something flashed in his head—something he had been taught or had heard, but had forgotten. He racked his brains.
China! That's it! It's a picture of China!
He was pleased with himself. As he looked at the glazed porcelain, he flew to China in his imagination.
At long last the day came to an end. The priests returned from their begging. Instead of finding Hiyoshi in tears, as they had expected, they saw that he was grinning.
“Even punishment is useless. He's beyond our help. We'd better send him back to his parents.”
That evening, one of the priests gave Hiyoshi some supper and took him down the hill to the house of Kato Danjo.
Kato Danjo lay down next to the lamp. He was a samurai, used to being exposed to battle morning and night. On those rare days when he could relax, he found staying at home much too peaceful. Tranquillity and relaxation were things to be feared—he might become used to them.
"Oetsu!"
"Yes?" Her voice came from the direction of the kitchen.
"Somebody's knocking at the gate."
"It's not the squirrels again?"
"No, somebody's out there."
Wiping her hands, she went to the gate and came back right away, saying, "It's a priest from the Komyoji. He's brought Hiyoshi." A look of distress swept over her young face.
"Aha!" Danjo, who had expected this, said, laughing, "It seems that Monkey has gotten a leave of absence." Danjo listened to the priest's recital of recent events. Having sponsored Hiyoshi's entrance into the temple, he now apologized to all concerned and took charge of Hiyoshi.
"If he is unfit to be a priest, there's nothing to be done. We'll send him back home to Nakamura. You should no longer feel under any obligation to keep him. I'm sorry he's been nothing but trouble."
"Please explain the matter to his parents," the priest said, and as he turned to go, his step became lighter, as if a heavy load had been lifted from his shoulders. Hiyoshi cut a lonely figure. He looked around curiously, wondering whose house he had come to. He had not stopped here on his way to the temple, nor had he been told that relatives lived close by.
"Well, little boy, have you had anything to eat?" Danjo asked with a smile. Hiyoshi shook his head.
"Have some cakes, then."
While he was munching on the cakes, Hiyoshi eyed the spear suspended over the door, and the crest on the armor chest, then looked hard at Danjo.
Is there really something wrong with this boy? Danjo asked himself. He had his doubts. He stared back, but Hiyoshi neither turned his eyes away nor looked down. There was no trace of the imbecile in him. He smiled rather charmingly at Danjo.
Danjo laughed as he gave in. "You've gotten quite big, haven't you? Hiyoshi, do you remember me?"
This focused a hazy memory in Hiyoshi's mind of a man who had patted him on the head when he was six.
As was the custom with samurai, Danjo almost always slept at the castle at Kiyosu, or on the battlefield. The days he was able to stay at home with his wife had been few. He had returned unexpectedly the day before, and would go back to Kiyosu the next day. Oetsu wondered how many months would pass before they spent another day together.
A troublesome child! Oetsu thought. Hiyoshi's arrival was inopportune. She looked up, embarrassed. What would her in-laws think? Could this really be her sister's child?
She could hear Hiyoshi's screechy voice from her husband's sitting room: "It was you with all those samurai on the riverbank that day, riding a horse."
"You remember, do you?"
"Sure." He went on in a familiar tone of voice, "If that's the case, you're a relative of mine. You and my mother's younger sister are engaged."
Oetsu and the maid went to the living room to get out serving trays. Oetsu felt uncomfortably cold, listening to Hiyoshi's language and his loud country boy's voice, Opening the sliding door, she called to her husband.
"Dinner's ready."
She saw that her husband was arm-wrestling with Hiyoshi, whose face was bright red, buttocks raised like a hornet's tail. Danjo, too, was acting like a child.
"Dinner?" he said absently.
"The soup is going to get cold."
"Go ahead and eat by yourself. This kid is playing for keeps. We're having a good time. Ha, ha! He's a strange one."
Danjo, totally absorbed, seemed to be taken in completely by Hiyoshi's artlessness. The boy, always quick to make friends, was almost leading his uncle by the nose. From arm-wrestling they went to finger puppets, then mimicry, playing children's games until njo was holding his sides with laughter.
The next day, as he was about to leave, Danjo said to his wife, who seemed depressed, “If his parents allow it, how about keeping him here? I doubt he'd be much use, but I suppose it'd be better than keeping a real monkey."
Oetsu was less than pleased with the idea. Going with her husband as far as the garden1 gate, she said, "No. He would annoy your mother. That would never do."