She had told him her name, and he murmured it in his sleep. “Kiohimé--Kiohimé!” Waking, he repeated it instead of his prayers--to the great scandal of the brethren, who whispered together and said, “Is our brother mad?”
At length Anchin went to the good Abbot, and in his ear poured forth all his tale in a passion of mingled love and grief, humbly asking what he must do.
The Abbot said, “Alack, my son, now you suffer for sin committed in a former life, for Karma must needs be worked out.”
Anchin asked him, “Then is it past help?”
“Not that,” said the Abbot, “but you are in a very great strait.”
“Fast and pray, and for a penance stand in the ice-cold water of our mountain torrent an hour at sunrise and an hour at sunset. Thus shall you be purged from carnal affection and escape the perils of illusion.”
So Anchin fasted and prayed, he scourged his body, and hour after hour he did penance in the ice-cold water of the torrent. Wan as a ghost he grew, and his eyes were like flames. His trouble would not leave him. A battle raged in his breast. He could not be faithful to his vows and faithful to his love.
The brethren wondered, “What can ail the monk Anchin, who was so learned and so holy--is he bewitched by a fox or a badger, or can he have a devil?”
Now on a hot night of summer, the monk being sleepless in his cell, he was visited by Kiohimé, the magic lady of the mere. The moonlight was on her hands and her long sleeves. Her robe was green and gold, interwoven; golden were her sandals. Her hair was braided with scarlet and adorned with scarlet flowers.
“Long, long have I waited for thee on the plains,” she said. “The night wind sighs in the sedge--the frogs sing by the Marshy Mere. Come, lord....”
But he cried, “My vows that I have vowed--alas! the love that I love. I keep faith and loyalty, the bird in my bosom ... I may not come.”
She smiled, “_May_ not?” she said, and with that she lifted the monk Anchin in her arms.
But he, gathering all his strength together, tore himself from her and fled from the place. Barefooted and bareheaded he went, his white robe flying, through the dark halls of the monastery, where the air was heavy with incense and sweet with prayers, where the golden Amida rested upon her lotus, ineffably smiling. He leaped the grey stone steps that led down from her shrine and gained the pine trees and the mountain path. Down, down he fled on the rough way, the nymph Kiohimé pursuing. As for her, her feet never touched the ground, and she spread her green sleeves like wings. Down, down they fled together, and so close was she behind him that the monk felt her breath upon his neck.