t as if ready to burst. The tongue hangs out like a
true guard (_hyo[u]tan_). The grin on the distended mouth is not nice to
see. Ah! The rascal has used the merest cord to cut himself off. And he
has nearly done so. The head is almost severed." He gave a
shout--"Naruhodo! Why, its...." One close by silenced him. The men above
looked down. They made signs to those below. The women gathered around
O'Tsuyu as if to keep her from the sight. She broke away from them as
the body was gently lowered to the ground. Her shrieks rang loud. They
strove to detach her from the dead body of Cho[u]zaemon. The House
ruined, daughter and husband taken out of her life in a single day; the
blow was too crushing for a brain harassed by a life with this debauched
worthless man. Her warders struggled with one gone clean daft. Years
after men grown up from childhood in the ward looked with pity at the
feeble ragged old mad beggar woman who crouched by the beautiful bronze
dragon which ornaments the water basin of the Ten-o[u] Jinja. They would
drop in her hand a copper "cash," and drive off with rebuke the children
who taunted and annoyed her--as they had done years before. Thus were
mother and daughter--the innocent--involved in the father's crime
against the dread Lady of Tamiya.

All these events created a tremendous stir in Yotsuya. Men disliked to
go abroad at night. Women, to their great inconvenience were confined to
the house. Two figures approaching each other in the darkness would be
seen to hesitate and stop. "What's that--standing, slinking yonder by
the wall? Alas! This Kinsaburo[u], this Genzaemon has evil fortune led
him into the clutches of the O'Bake? O'Iwa! O'Iwa!" With that and mad
cries they would fall on each other; at times only to exercise restraint
after some injury had been done. Hence quarrels arose; feuds, started in
all innocence, came into being. Women, as suspects, were chief
sufferers. The local atmosphere was overcharged, nerve racked. And so
from Honjo[u] to Nakacho[u] (Shinjuku), from Nakanocho[u] (Yoshiwara) to
Shinagawa, even in the nearer post towns of Kawasaki, Tsurumi, and
Kanagawa the talk was spreading of the strange happenings in Yotsuya of
Edo town. Katada Tatewaki, descendant of that Katada Samon who, as
vassal of Gongen Samon (Iyeyasu) had had this Aoyama-Yotsuya district in
fief, now first began his inquiries into the affair. The Katada had wide
possessions elsewhere at the time of the grant. Samon