URASHIMA TARO
'You don't mean the original Urashima Taro?' he said. 'But still, you may be some descendant of his—what?'
'I do not understand you. My name is Urashima Taro. There is no other bears that name. I am the fisherman: surely you know me.'
The man looked at Urashima very closely to see if he were joking or not.
'There was a Urashima Taro, a famous fisherman of three hundred years ago, but you—you are joking.'
'Nay, nay, I am not joking. It is you that are joking with your three hundred years. I left here three or four days ago, and now I have returned. Where have my father and mother gone?'
The man stared at him aghast.
'Are you mad?' he cried. 'I have lived in this house for thirty years at least, and, as for your father and mother—why, if you are really Urashima Taro, they have been dead three hundred years; and that is absurd. Do you want me to believe you are a ghost?'
'Not so; look at my feet.' And Urashima put out one foot and then the other, in full accordance with the Japanese belief that ghosts have no feet.
'Well, well,' said the man, 'you can't be Urashima Taro, whatever you say, for he lived three hundred years ago, and you are not yet thirty.'
With this the man banged the door in Urashima's face.
What could it all mean? Urashima Taro dead. Lived three hundred years ago. What nonsense! He must be dreaming. He pinched his ear and assured himself that he was not only alive, but wide awake. And yet—and yet—everything about him seemed very much changed since he saw it last. He stood stock still on his way to the gate, and looked this way and that, trying to find something that had suffered only three days' change. But everything was unfamiliar.
Then an idea struck him. On the morning of the day that he
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