Temple Of Dawn by Yukio Mishima Read Free Book Online Page A

face, showing her white, childishly irregular teeth. Honda was relieved.
    The ring was returned to the case and given back to the first lady-in-waiting. The Princess spoke for the first time in a clear, intelligent voice. Her words were then transmitted through the three ladies like a green snake slithering from branch to branch in the sun-touched shade of the palms and finally, translated by Hishikawa, reached Honda. The Princess had said: “Thank you.”
    Honda asked Hishikawa to translate for him. “I have for long been an admirer of the Thai royal family, and I understand Her Serene Highness likes Japan too. If I may, I should like to send her a Japanese doll after I return. Would she accept it?” The Thai sentences spoken by Hishikawa were rather simple, but as they were passed on by the third and the second ladies-in-waiting, they grew longer and more numerous, and by the time the first lady-in-waiting conveyed the import to the Princess, they seemed endless.
    And the Princess’s words when they returned to Honda were devoid of any sparkle of emotion or charm after they had traveled through the ladies’ dark and wrinkled lips. It was as though the meat of the young Princess’s vivacious expressions had been sucked out in the process, chewed up by their ancient dentures, leaving only unsightly refuse for Honda.
    “They say that Her Serene Highness is pleased to accept Mr. Honda’s kind offer.”
    Then a strange thing happened.
    Catching the first lady off-guard, the Princess jumped off the chair, covered the three feet that separated her from Honda, and clung to his trouser legs. Honda rose in alarm. Quivering and still clinging to him, the Princess cried out, weeping loudly. He bent over and put his arms around the fragile shoulders of the sobbing girl.
    The ladies-in-waiting, nonplussed, were unable to pull her away. They clustered together, whispering uneasily among themselves as they stared at her.
    “What does she say? Translate!” Honda called to Hishikawa who was standing in amazement.
    Hishikawa translated in a shrill voice: “Mr. Honda! Mr. Honda! How I’ve missed you! You were so kind, and yet I killed myself without telling you anything. I have been waiting for this meeting to apologize to you for more than seven years. I have taken the form of a princess, but I am really Japanese. I spent my former life in Japan, and that is really my home. Please, Mr. Honda, take me back to Japan.”
    Finally the Princess was brought back to the chair and somehow the propriety of an audience was restored. Honda looked from where he stood at the black hair of the girl who was still weeping, now leaning against the first lady-in-waiting. He cherished the child’s warmth and fragrance which still lingered on his knee.
    The ladies requested that the audience be terminated since the Princess was not feeling well; but Honda begged, through Hishikawa, to be permitted two brief questions.
    “What year and what month was it that Kiyoaki Matsugae and I learned about the visit of the Abbess of the Gesshu Temple on the central island of the lake in the Matsugae estate?” was the first.
    When the question was conveyed to her, the Princess partly raised her wet cheeks from her attendant’s lap as though still cross and pushed back a strand of hair that adhered to her cheek.
    “October of 1912,” she answered readily.
    Honda was secretly surprised, but he was not sure whether, like an illuminated picture scroll, she kept in her mind a clear and detailed record of the events of two former lives. He was not certain either, despite Isao’s words of apology spoken so fluently, whether she knew the background details and circumstances. As a matter of fact, the accurate words had dropped from the Princess’s emotionless lips as though numerals picked and arranged at random.
    Honda asked the second question: “What was the date of Isao Iinuma’s arrest?”
    The Princess seemed to be growing sleepy, but she answered