their petals, bent back in utter disarray, were translucent in the sunlight. Huddled together in such a mass, the lilies stood with drooping heads.
The most beautiful of the three thousand wild lilies brought by young Iinuma and his companions had been selected to adorn the cask and the jar, but the rest were also brilliantly in evidence, arranged in vases before the sanctuaries. Lilies were everywhere. The breeze carried the scent of lilies. The theme of lilies was persistent and inescapable, as though lilies had come to express the very essence of life. Now the priests advanced with the cask and the earthen jar. White-robed, with black ceremonial headgear, they solemnly held these offerings aloft, and the bound lilies trembled in beauty over their heads. The bud of one especially long-stemmed lily seemed as pale as a tense young man on the verge of fainting.
The wail of the flutes filled the air. The drums throbbed. Placed before a dark stone wall, the lilies seemed to flush crimson. The priests crouched down beside the cask and the jar, parted the stems of the lilies, and dipped out saké. Other priests approached to receive it in their plain wood flasks, and then raised them in oblation before each of the three shrines. This ritual, with its musical accompaniment, seemed quite in the spirit of a cheerful banquet of the gods. Within the doorway of the sanctuary the noon shadows evoked a vaguely growing sense of divine intoxication.
Meanwhile a group of miko , four beautiful young girls, had begun the Cedar Dance in the outer hall. Their heads were bound with cedar leaves, and their black hair was braided with red and white paper fastened with gold thread. Over pale crimson hakama , they wore gossamer robes of pure white with a silver pattern of rice leaves. The five robes worn beneath the white outer one revealed themselves at the neckline in an alternating white and red pattern.
The young girls made their appearance in the midst of lilies, lilies standing upright, petals wide open, amber-colored stamens out-thrust. And each of these miko , too, held a bunch of lilies in her hand. As the musicians played, the girls formed a square facing inward and began to dance, their upraised lilies starting to shake with fearful abandon. The dance progressed, the lilies now elegantly rising, now dipping to come together, now separating once more. Again and again, like the passes of a keen sword blade, a graceful edge of whiteness cut through the air. As they were thus whipped about, the lilies gradually wilted, cruelly handled, it seemed, for all the quiet elegance of the music and the dance.
As Honda looked on, he felt a kind of intoxication overcoming him. He had never seen such a beautiful ritual. The effects of his sleepless night made the spectacle begin to blur, and the lily festival he was now watching started to merge with the kendo match he had seen the previous day. The girls’ lilies became bamboo staves and then, in another moment, flashing sword blades. As the miko circled about with easy grace in the sunlight, the shadows of their long eyelashes on their white-powdered cheeks became for Honda the shadows cast by the glittering bars of the kendo mask.
After the guests and other worshippers had lifted the pendant-festooned sakaki branch in reverence before the sanctuary, the doors were shut once more. By noon the ritual was over.
The Naorai, the sacred banquet following a ritual, was to take place in an adjacent hall. The chief priest came over to Honda with a middle-aged man he wanted to introduce. As soon as Honda saw young Iinuma in his school cap walking along behind him, he realized that the man was Shigeyuki Iinuma. Iinuma’s slender moustache had thrown him off for a moment.
“This must be Mr. Honda,” Iinuma said. “What memories this brings back! Has it really been nineteen years? My son Isao told me about yesterday, how kind you were to him. What a strange turn of fate!”
Iinuma pulled a sheaf of
The most beautiful of the three thousand wild lilies brought by young Iinuma and his companions had been selected to adorn the cask and the jar, but the rest were also brilliantly in evidence, arranged in vases before the sanctuaries. Lilies were everywhere. The breeze carried the scent of lilies. The theme of lilies was persistent and inescapable, as though lilies had come to express the very essence of life. Now the priests advanced with the cask and the earthen jar. White-robed, with black ceremonial headgear, they solemnly held these offerings aloft, and the bound lilies trembled in beauty over their heads. The bud of one especially long-stemmed lily seemed as pale as a tense young man on the verge of fainting.
The wail of the flutes filled the air. The drums throbbed. Placed before a dark stone wall, the lilies seemed to flush crimson. The priests crouched down beside the cask and the jar, parted the stems of the lilies, and dipped out saké. Other priests approached to receive it in their plain wood flasks, and then raised them in oblation before each of the three shrines. This ritual, with its musical accompaniment, seemed quite in the spirit of a cheerful banquet of the gods. Within the doorway of the sanctuary the noon shadows evoked a vaguely growing sense of divine intoxication.
Meanwhile a group of miko , four beautiful young girls, had begun the Cedar Dance in the outer hall. Their heads were bound with cedar leaves, and their black hair was braided with red and white paper fastened with gold thread. Over pale crimson hakama , they wore gossamer robes of pure white with a silver pattern of rice leaves. The five robes worn beneath the white outer one revealed themselves at the neckline in an alternating white and red pattern.
The young girls made their appearance in the midst of lilies, lilies standing upright, petals wide open, amber-colored stamens out-thrust. And each of these miko , too, held a bunch of lilies in her hand. As the musicians played, the girls formed a square facing inward and began to dance, their upraised lilies starting to shake with fearful abandon. The dance progressed, the lilies now elegantly rising, now dipping to come together, now separating once more. Again and again, like the passes of a keen sword blade, a graceful edge of whiteness cut through the air. As they were thus whipped about, the lilies gradually wilted, cruelly handled, it seemed, for all the quiet elegance of the music and the dance.
As Honda looked on, he felt a kind of intoxication overcoming him. He had never seen such a beautiful ritual. The effects of his sleepless night made the spectacle begin to blur, and the lily festival he was now watching started to merge with the kendo match he had seen the previous day. The girls’ lilies became bamboo staves and then, in another moment, flashing sword blades. As the miko circled about with easy grace in the sunlight, the shadows of their long eyelashes on their white-powdered cheeks became for Honda the shadows cast by the glittering bars of the kendo mask.
After the guests and other worshippers had lifted the pendant-festooned sakaki branch in reverence before the sanctuary, the doors were shut once more. By noon the ritual was over.
The Naorai, the sacred banquet following a ritual, was to take place in an adjacent hall. The chief priest came over to Honda with a middle-aged man he wanted to introduce. As soon as Honda saw young Iinuma in his school cap walking along behind him, he realized that the man was Shigeyuki Iinuma. Iinuma’s slender moustache had thrown him off for a moment.
“This must be Mr. Honda,” Iinuma said. “What memories this brings back! Has it really been nineteen years? My son Isao told me about yesterday, how kind you were to him. What a strange turn of fate!”
Iinuma pulled a sheaf of
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