Most of the Japanese stories about butterflies appear, as I have said, to
be of Chinese origin. But I have one which is probably indigenous; and it
seems to me worth telling for the benefit of persons who believe there is
no "romantic love" in the Far East.



Behind the cemetery of the temple of Sozanji, in the suburbs of the
capital, there long stood a solitary cottage, occupied by an old man named
Takahama. He was liked in the neighborhood, by reason of his amiable ways;
but almost everybody supposed him to be a little mad. Unless a man take the
Buddhist vows, he is expected to marry, and to bring up a family. But
Takahama did not belong to the religious life; and he could not be
persuaded to marry. Neither had he ever been known to enter into a
love-relation with any woman. For more than fifty years he had lived
entirely alone.


One summer he fell sick, and knew that he had not long to live. He then
sent for his sister-in-law, a widow, and for her only son,-- a lad of about
twenty years old, to whom he was much attached. Both promptly came, and did
whatever they could to soothe the old man's last hours.


One sultry afternoon, while the widow and her son were watching at his
bedside, Takahama fell asleep. At the same moment a very large white
butterfly entered the room, and perched upon the sick man's pillow. The
nephew drove it away with a fan; but it returned immediately to the pillow,
and was again driven away, only to come back a third time. Then the nephew
chased it into the garden, and across the garden, through an open gate,