He saw children at their play, and often he put his hand beneath their chins to turn their faces up. Alas! he did it all in vain.
“Where are my little children,” he said, “O Lady Kwannon the Merciful? Peradventure the gods know the meaning of all this; it is too much for me.”
When sunset came, his heart was heavy as stone, and he went and stood at the parting of the ways outside the town. As men passed by he pulled them by the sleeve:
“Friend,” he said, “I ask your pardon, did you know a fisherman of this place called Urashima?”
And the men that passed by answered him, “We never heard of such an one.”
There passed by the peasant people from the mountains. Some went a-foot, some rode on patient pack-horses. They went singing their country songs, and they carried baskets of wild strawberries or sheaves of lilies bound upon their backs. And the lilies nodded as they went. Pilgrims passed by, all clad in white, with staves and rice-straw hats, sandals fast bound and gourds of water. Swiftly they went, softly they went, thinking of holy things. And lords and ladies passed by, in brave attire and great array, borne in their gilded _kago_. The night fell.
“Oh, old, old man,” cried the fisherman, “you have seen many days; know you ought of Urashima? In this place was he born and bred.”
Then the old man said, “There was one of that name, but, sir, that one was drowned long years ago. My grandfather could scarce remember him in the time that I was a little boy. Good stranger, it was many, many years ago.”
“No man more dead than he. His sons are dead and their sons are dead. Good even to you, stranger.”
Then Urashima was afraid. But he said, “I must go to the green valley where the dead sleep.” And to the valley he took his way.
He said, “How chill the night wind blows through the grass! The trees shiver and the leaves turn their pale backs to me.”
He said, “Hail, sad moon, that showest me all the quiet graves. Thou art nothing different from the moon of old.”
He said, “Here are my sons’ graves and their sons’ graves. Poor Urashima, there is no man more dead than he. Yet am I lonely among the ghosts....”
Then he went back to the seashore. “Who will comfort me?” cried Urashima. But the sky was unmoved, and the mountain waves of the sea rolled on.