Natsume Soseki - Ten Nights of Dreams (1908)
The First Night: Love Conquers Death
A man sits by the deathbed of his lover, unable to believe that
so young and beautiful a woman as she could be doomed to perish.
Before dying, she makes the man promise to wait faithfully for a
hundred years at her graveside until she comes back.
The man dutifully places her body in a hole he digs out with an
oyster shell, and marks the place with the fragments of fallen
stars. He watches the sun rise and set again and again until he
finally loses count of the days and the years. He is just
beginning to doubt her promise, when a flower sprouts up from
the grave and presses itself to his lips. He looks up at the sky
where a single star shines. She has returned.
A man is carrying a child on his back. There is, however, something sinister about the boy that makes the man eager to get rid of him. The man determines to abandon the child in a forest. Despite appearing to guess his intention, the boy leads the man across the paddies to the foot of a large cedar at the edge of the wood. It is revealed that the boy is none other than the spirit of a blind monk, whom the man had murdered in that very place many years before.
It is ancient times. A defeated samurai is hauled before the enemy leader. Refusing to capitulate he is sentenced to death, but makes a last request: that he be allowed to bid his lover farewell. The leader agrees to the request, provided that she can reach him by dawn. As the lover gallops towards them, a devil imitates the sound of a cock crowing. In shock, she tugs on the reins. The horse rears up and plunges into a ravine together with its rider.
The narrator is on board a huge cruise ship which is pressing on to some unknown destination. The company of his fellow passengers is repugnant to him: whether they sing arias in the saloon, or speculate on the existence of God, he finds them tedious and life meaningless. He resolves to die and finally musters the courage to fling himself overboard. The ship slides past him as he falls towards the dark sea. Just when it is too late, he is filled with infinite regret at what he has done.