“Yes. Speech blossomed from anxiety, after all. Words were fermented from the uncertainty of existence, like poisonous red mushrooms that sprout from rotting earth. It’s true we have words of joy and pleasure, but aren’t those the most unnatural and contrived of all? Apparently human beings experience anxiety even in the midst of joy. But in a place without anxiety there’s no need for such ignoble contrivances. I’ve never heard Her Highness utter a single word. But, mind you, she’s not like a lot of quiet people who secretly have a bitter or cynical view of things. Far from it-she hasn’t a thought in her head. She just smiles that little smile, plucks at her harp, wanders about the halls, sips at the cherry petals, and generally takes things as they come. She’s very easygoing.”
“Oh? So she too drinks this cherry wine? It really is good stuff, isn’t it? It’s all a man needs. Mind if I have a bit more?”
“Help yourself. To practice self-restraint in a place like this would be the height of idiocy. You have unlimited license here. Why don’t you eat something as well? Every algae bush you see is a rare delicacy. You want something substantial? Or something light and tart? Any flavor you like, we’ve got it.”
“I can hear the harp again. I suppose it’s all right to lie down and listen awhile.”
Unlimited license. This is something Urashima has never before experienced. Forgetting all about his refinement-and everything else, for that matter-he sprawls out on his back. “Ahh… It feels good to get high and just stretch out like this. Wouldn’t mind nibbling on something while I’m at it. Is there any algae here that tastes like roasted pheasant?”
“There is,” says the tortoise.
“And, let’s see, how about mulberries?”
“I suppose you can find that flavor too. But I must say you’ve got awfully provincial tastes.”
“Just revealing my true colors. I’m only a hick from the sticks, y’know.” Even his manner of speaking has changed.
Looking up, he can see a misty blue dome made of schools of countless fish serenely revolving high above him; and even as he watches, one school breaks away from the others and swiftly scatters in every direction, silvery scales glinting and swirling like snow in a raging blizzard.
In the Dragon Palace there is no day or night. It’s like a perpetual morning in May, cool and fresh and suffused with leafy green rays of light. Urashima has no idea how long he’s been here now, but he has indeed been granted unlimited license during his stay. He has even visited Princess Oto’s chambers. She displays not the slightest aversion, but merely smiles her faint, ambiguous smile.
A time comes, however, when Urashima has had his fill. Perhaps he’s grown bored with absolute freedom. He begins to miss his modest life on land and to think of those who remain there, fretting over their mutual criticisms, weeping with sorrow and rage, furtively living out their meager lives, as charming and somehow very beautiful.
He goes to Princess Oto and bids her farewell. Even this sudden departure of his is met with only a wordless smile of acquiescence. Nothing is unacceptable. He’s been given unlimited license from the very beginning of his stay until the very end. Princess Oto comes as far as the great stairway to see him off and silently hands him a seashell. It’s a tightly closed bivalve shell of five brilliant colors. This is, of course, the famous “jeweled box” that Urashima carries home with him.
Once you’ve climbed to the top, ’sno fun coming down. In a kind of daze he settles on the tortoise’s back again and leaves the palace behind. A strange sort of melancholy wells up in his breast.
It saddens him to admit it, but he knows he isn’t worthy of living a life of ease in that wonderful palace.
“Ngah! This won’t do! I feel so lonesome!” Urashima croaks with something very close to despair. “Tortoise! Let me hear some of those spirited wisecracks of yours! You haven’t said a word since we left.” Which is true. The tortoise has been silently flapping his fins and forging doggedly ahead. “Are you angry? Angry because I’m leaving so suddenly, like a guest who eats and runs?”
“Don’t be neurotic. This is what I hate about you landlubbers. You want to leave, you leave. How many times have I told you that, from the very beginning? Anything you want to do is fine.”
“You do seem rather down in the mouth, though.”
“Look who’s talking. As for me, well, I don’t mind welcoming people, but seeing them off just isn’t my cup of tea.”
“’Sno fun, eh?”
“’Sno time for bad puns. I’ll tell you, though, I never could get enthusiastic about these send-offs. All I can do is sigh, and anything I think of to say sounds so empty. I just want to get to goodbye and get it over with.”
“So you feel sad too?” Urashima is touched. “Well, allow me to express my gratitude for all you’ve done for me. I mean that.”
The tortoise doesn’t reply but jiggles his shell as if to brush off the sentiment and continues paddling onward and upward.
“I guess she’s back down there now amusing herself all alone.” A disconsolate sigh escapes Urashima’s lips. “She gave me this beautiful shell. It’s not something to eat, is it?”
The tortoise guffaws.
“It didn’t take you long down there to become a real pig, did it? No, the shell isn’t for eating. There may be something inside it. I’m not sure.”
Let us pause here for a moment. It would be easy to interpret the tortoise’s casual remark as a sinister appeal to human curiosity, made much in the spirit of the serpent of Eden. Perhaps, one thinks, it is simply the nature of cold-blooded creatures to pull such tricks. But no. To see the tortoise’s words in this way would be to do the good fellow a great disservice. Didn’t he himself once insist that he was “a genuine Japanese tortoise” and not to be compared with the serpent in the Garden? What reason have we to disbelieve him? Judging from his attitude toward Urashima up to this point, one must conclude that the tortoise scarcely seems the sort to whisper seductively while secretly plotting destruction. In fact, he seems quite the opposite of a deceptive schemer-he is, rather, as open as a carp streamer in the winds of May. In other words, he harbors no evil intentions. So I, at least, prefer to believe.
“But you might be better off not opening that shell,” he goes on. “It’s likely to contain, at the very least, the spirit energy of the Dragon Palace. Released on land, it could induce strange, mirage-like visions-or even madness. Then again, for all I know, the tides might rise in a surge and flood the earth. Let’s just say that I don’t think anything good could come of releasing whatever’s inside.”
There’s no nonsense in the tortoise’s voice, and Urashima is convinced of his sincerity.
“Perhaps you’re right. In any case, the noble atmosphere of the Dragon Palace could only be defiled by the coarse and brutish air of earth. It might even cause an explosion of some sort. I’ll store the shell at home, unopened, and treasure it as a family heirloom.”
They’ve now reached the surface of the sea. The sunlight is blindingly bright, but Urashima can see the beach of his old hometown. He can scarcely wait to run home, call his mother and father and sister and brother and all the servants together, and regale them with a detailed account of his visit to the Dragon Palace, filling them in on his newly acquired knowledge.
He’s so worked up that as soon as they reach shore he leaps from the tortoise’s back and runs for home, forgetting even to bid his ride farewell, but…
What happened to the village?
What happened to the house?
Nothing to see but empty fields.
No people! No roads!
