disappeared. There was nothing to mark even the spot where it had stood,
except the stumps of three willows -- two old trees and one young tree --
that had been cut down long before his arrival.


Beside the stumps of those willow-trees he erected a memorial tomb,
inscribed with divers holy texts; and he there performed many Buddhist
services on behalf of the spirits of Aoyagi and of her parents.




JIU-ROKU-ZAKURA


In Wakegori, a district of the province of Iyo (1), there is a very
ancient and famous cherry-tree, called Jiu-roku-zakura, or "the Cherry-tree
of the Sixteenth Day," because it blooms every year upon the sixteenth day
of the first month (by the old lunar calendar),-- and only upon that day.
Thus the time of its flowering is the Period of Great Cold,-- though the
natural habit of a cherry-tree is to wait for the spring season before
venturing to blossom. But the Jiu-roku-zakura blossoms with a life that is
not -- or, at least, that was not originally -- its own. There is the ghost
of a man in that tree.



He was a samurai of Iyo; and the tree grew in his garden; and it used to
flower at the usual time,-- that is to say, about the end of March or the
beginning of April. He had played under that tree when he was a child; and