Instead of leaving them to enrich the earth,
would it not be better to take them?"
"Think before you do such a terrible thing!" his mother begged. "This
is no matter of a mere whipping. Your father wanted to do the same
thing twenty years ago. He opened a coffin, and the corpse began to
smile at him. Your father died of that in four or five days. My son,
do not do it. It is no easy matter."
"Mother," he answered simply, "my mind is made up. Do not waste your
breath on me, for that is useless."
He bent over his bed, and took out of it a heavy iron tool.
"O mother, not each person's destiny is the same. I have consulted
soothsayers, and they have told me that I shall become rich this
year."
He took also an axe, a leather sack, and a dark lantern, which he
placed in readiness. Finally he wrapped himself in a great mantle of
reeds, for it was the eleventh moon and the snow had begun to fall.
He made a sort of hurdle with about ten inter-crossed bamboos, and
fastened it behind his mantle, so that it should drag along the ground
and efface his foot-prints.
The second watch was sounding when he went out, and all was still
bustle and gaiety in the town. But beyond the walls both silence and
solitude reigned in the growing cold. The snow was already thick. Who
would have ventured out there?
From time to time he turned his head, but no one followed him.
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