"Have some tea," he said. Then, taking a small tea bowl for himself, Hanbei sipped the tea almost as though he were licking the bowl. He tasted the tea a number of times, as though there were absolutely nothing else in his heart.

"Honored guest…"

"Yes?"

"Do you like orchids? In the spring they are beautiful, but they're quite nice in the fall, too."

"Orchids! What do you mean, orchids?"

"The flowers. When you go about three or four leagues deeper into the mountain, on the precipices and cliffs there are orchids that hold the dew of ancient times. I had my servant, Kokuma, pick one and then put it into a pot. Would you like to see it?"

"N-no." Hideyoshi stopped hesitantly. "I have no use for looking at orchids."

"Is that so?"

"I hope to one day, but the fact that my dreams run off to the battleground even when I'm at home shows that I'm still a hot-blooded youth. I'm nothing more than a humble servant of the Oda clan. I don't understand the feelings of such men of leisure."

"Well, that's not unreasonable. But don't you think it's a personal waste for a man like you to be so busily worn out by the search for fame and profit? There's a rather profound significance to a life lived in the mountains. Why don't you leave Sunomata and come build a hut on this mountain?"

Isn't honesty the same as foolishness? And in the end doesn't being without strategy mean being without wisdom? Perhaps sincerity alone is not sufficient to knock at the human heart. I don't understand, Hideyoshi thought as he silently went down the moun­tain. It had been in vain. His visit to Hanbei's house had been for nothing. Burning with indignation, he turned around and looked back. Now nothing remained but resentment. No regrets. He had been politely sent away after today's first encounter. Perhaps I'll never meet him again, Hideyoshi thought. No. The next time I'll examine his head after they place it in front of my camp stool on the battlefield. He promised this to himself as he chewed his lip. How many times had he walked this road and lowered his head, being perfectly courteous and hiding his shame? This road was now an irritation. He turned around once again.

“You worm!" he shouted impotently. Perhaps he was recalling Hanbei's pale face and worn body. In his anger, he quickened his pace. Then, taking a turn in the road that looked out over a cliff on one side, he suddenly seemed to remember something he had been suppressing ever since leaving Hanbei's house. Standing on the cliff, he relieved himself into the valley below. The arcing stream became a rusting mist halfway down. Hideyoshi became abstracted and took care of his business, but when he finished he exclaimed, "That's enough of grumbling!" With that, he quickened his pace even more, and dashed down to the foothills of the mountain.

When he got to Moemon's house he said, "Saya, this has unexpectedly turned out to be a long trip. Let's get up early tomorrow and go home." With his master wearing such an energetic look, Saya thought that the meeting with Takenaka Hanbei must have gone well, and he felt happy for his master. Hideyoshi and Saya passed the evening with Moemon and his family, and then dropped off to sleep. Hideyoshi slept with an empty mind, Saya was so surprised at his master's snoring that he opened his eyes from time to time. But when he thought about it, he realized that the worry and physical fatigue of going up Mount Kurihara every day must have been considerable. With this knowledge, even Saya became teary-eyed.

Trying to triumph, even just a little, must be something, he told himself, but he had no idea that his master's efforts had ended in failure. Hideyoshi was already finishing his travel preparations before dawn. Stepping out into the dew, they left the village. No doubt many of the families there were still sound asleep.

"Wait, Saya."

Hideyoshi suddenly stopped and stood up straight, facing the rising sun. Mount Kurihara was still black above the sea of morning mist. Behind the mountain, the glowing clouds were moving with the colors of the brilliantly ascending sun.

"No, I was wrong," Hideyoshi muttered. "I came to get a person who is hard to get. So that he is hard to get is natural. Maybe my own sincerity is still insufficient. How can I accomplish great things with such smallness of mind?"

He turned completely around. "Saya, I'm going up Mount Kurihara one more time. You go back before me." With that, he abruptiy turned and went back up the road, pierc­ing the morning mist on the slopes of the mountain, going steadily on. So today, again, he climbed the mountain, and before long he was already halfway up. When he came to the edge of a broad, grassy swamp that was close to Hanbei's house, he heard a voice addressing him in the distance.

It was Oyu, and with her was Kokuma. She had an herb basket at her elbow and was riding the cow. Kokuma was holding the reins.

"Well, I'm surprised. You're amazing, aren't you, mister? Even my teacher said you'd had enough and probably wouldn't come back today."

Dismounting from the cow's back, Oyu made her salutations as always. But Kokuma beseeched him.

"Mister, please don't go on, just for today. He said he had had a fever in the night because he talked with you for a long time. Even this morning his mood was horrible, and I got scolded."

"Don't be rude," Oyu reprimanded him, and apologized to Hideyoshi, asking him in a roundabout way not to visit. "It's not that my brother became ill from talking to you, but he seems to have a bit of a cold. He's in bed today, so I'll tell him that you wanted to come. But, please, not today."

"I suppose it would be an annoyance. I'll drop the idea and go back, but…"

He took a brush and an ink case from his kimono, and wrote a poem on a piece of paper.

There is no leisure in a life of indolence.

That should be left to the birds and beasts.

There is seclusion even in a crowd,

Tranquillity in the streets of a town.

The mountain clouds are free from worldly attachments,

They come and go of themselves.

How can the place to bury one's bones

Be limited to the green mountains?

He knew very well that it was a poor poem, but it expressed what he felt. He added one more thing:

Where is the destination of the clouds that leave the peaks?

To the west? To the east?

"I'm sure he's going to laugh at me and call me impudent and shameless, but this is the last time I'll bother him. I'll wait here for an answer. And if I see that it will be im­possible to complete my lord's order, I'll commit seppuku right here by this swamp. So please go speak to him for me one more time." He was even more earnest today than he had been yesterday. And there was no falseness in his use of the word seppuku. It had slipped out almost unconsciously, from his own zeal.

Rather than despising him, Oyu felt a deep sympathy and returned to her brother's sickbed with the letter. Hanbei read the letter once and said absolutely nothing. He kept his eyes closed for almost half a day. Evening came, and the day turned into a moonlit night.

"Kokuma, fetch the cow," Hanbei said suddenly.

Since he was obviously going to go out, Oyu became alarmed and dressed her brother warmly in padded cotton clothes and a heavy kimono. Then he left, riding on the cow. With Kokuma as his guide, they went down the mountain slope toward the swamp. On a grassy knoll in the distance, he could see the figure of someone who had had nei­ther food nor drink, sitting cross-legged like a Zen priest under the moon. Had a hunter discovered him from afar, he would have thought that Hideyoshi made a perfect target. Hanbei got down from the cow and approached him directly. Then he knelt down in front of Hideyoshi and bowed.

“Master guest, I was discourteous today. I'm not sure what promise you've set your heart on, from a person who is nothing more than a worn-out man living in the mountains, but your manners were more than I deserved. It is said that a samurai will die for someone who truly knows him. I don't want you to die in vain, and I will carve this into my heart. And yet, at one time I served the Saito clan. I'm not saying that I will serve Nobunaga.1 am going to serve you, and devote this sickly body to your cause. I came here simply  to say this. Please forgive my rudeness of the last several days."