IV
And there comes to me the memory of a queer story.
The common faith of the common people, that the misfortunes of the present are results of the follies committed in a former state of existence, and that the errors of this life will influence the future birth, is curiously reinforced by various superstitions probably much older than Buddhism, but not at variance with its faultless doctrine of conduct. Among these, perhaps the most remarkable is the belief that even our most secret thoughts of evil may have ghostly consequences upon other people's lives.
The house now occupied by one of my friends used to be haunted. You could never imagine it to have been haunted, because it is unusually luminous, extremely pretty, and comparatively new. It has no dark nooks or corners. It is surrounded with a large bright garden,—a Kyūshū landscape garden without any big trees for ghosts to hide behind. Yet haunted it was, and in broad day.
First you must learn that in this Orient there are two sorts of haunters: the Shi-ryō and the Iki-ryō. The Shi-ryō are merely the ghosts of the dead; and here, as in most lands, they follow their ancient habit of coming at night only. But the Iki-ryō, which are the ghosts of the living, may come at all hours; and they are much more to be feared, because they have power to kill.
Now the house of which I speak was haunted by an Iki-ryō.
The man who built it was an official, wealthy and esteemed. He designed it as a home for his old age; and when it was finished he filled it with beautiful things, and hung tinkling wind bells along its eaves. Artists of skill painted the naked precious wood of its panels with blossoming sprays of cherry and plum tree, and figures of gold-eyed falcons poised on crests of pine, and slim fawns feeding under maple shadows, and wild ducks in snow, and herons flying, and iris flowers blooming, and long-armed monkeys clutching at the face of the moon in water: all the symbols of the seasons and of good fortune.
Fortunate the owner was; yet he knew one sorrow—he had no heir. Therefore, with his wife's consent, and according to antique custom, he took a strange woman into his home that she might give him a child,—a young woman from the country, to whom large promises were made. When she had borne him a son, she was sent away; and a nurse was hired for the boy, that he might not regret his real mother. All this had been agreed to beforehand; and there were ancient usages to justify it. But all the promises made to the mother of the boy had not been fulfilled when she was sent away.
And after a little time the rich man fell sick; and he grew worse thereafter day by day; and his people said there was an Iki-ryō in the house. Skilled physicians did all they could for him; but he only became weaker and weaker; and the physicians at last confessed they had no more hope. And the wife made offerings at the Ujigami, and prayed to the Gods; but the Gods gave answer: "He must die unless he obtain forgiveness from one whom he wronged, and undo the wrong by making just amend. For there is an Iki-ryō in your house."
Then the sick man remembered, and was conscience-smitten, and sent out servants to bring the woman back to his home. But she was gone,—somewhere lost among the forty millions of the Empire. And the sickness ever grew worse; and search was made in vain; and the weeks passed. At last there came to the gate a peasant who said that he knew the place to which the woman had gone, and that he would journey to find her if supplied with means of travel. But the sick man, hearing, cried out: "No! she would never forgive me in her heart, because she could not. It is too late!" And he died.
After which the widow and the relatives and the little boy abandoned the new house; and strangers entered thereinto.
Curiously enough, the people spoke harshly concerning the mother of the boy—holding her to blame for the haunting.
I thought it very strange at first, not because I had formed any positive judgment as to the rights and wrongs of the case. Indeed I could not form such a judgment; for I could not learn the full details of the story. I thought the criticism of the people very strange, notwithstanding.
Why? Simply because there is nothing voluntary about the sending of an Iki-ryō. It is not witchcraft at all. The Iki-ryō goes forth without the knowledge of the person whose emanation it is. (There is a kind of witchcraft which is believed to send Things,—but not Iki-ryō.) You will now understand why I thought the condemnation of the young woman very strange.
But you could scarcely guess the solution of the problem. It is a religious one, involving conceptions totally unknown to the West. She from whom the Iki-ryō proceeded was never blamed by the people as a witch. They never suggested that it might have been created with her knowledge. They even sympathized with what they deemed to be her just plaint. They blamed her only for having been too angry,—for not sufficiently controlling her unspoken resentment,—because she should have known that anger, secretly indulged, can have ghostly consequences.
I ask nobody to take for granted the possibility of the Iki-ryō, except as a strong form of conscience. But as an influence upon conduct, the belief certainly has value. Besides, it is suggestive. Who is really able to assure us that secret evil desires, pent-up resentments, masked hates, do not exert any force outside of the will that conceives and nurses them? May there not be a deeper meaning than Western ethics recognize in those words of the Buddha,—"Hatred ceases not by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love: this is an old rule"? It was very old then, even in his day. In ours it has been said, "Whensoever a wrong is done you, and you do not resent it, then so much evil dies in the world." But does it? Are we quite sure that not to resent it is enough? Can the motive tendency set loose in the mind by the sense of a wrong be nullified simply by non-action on the part of the wronged? Can any force die? The forces we know may be transformed only. So much also may be true of the forces we do not know; and of these are Life, Sensation, Will,—all that makes up the infinite mystery called "I."