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[Before the House of Obaa-San. At the right back is a weeping willow tree, at the left the simple little house of Obaa-San.[O-Sode-San and O-Katsu-San enter.O-SODE-SANOi!... Oi!... Obaa-San!O-KATSU-SANObaa-San!... Grandmother!O-SODE-SANShe is not there.O-KATSU-SANPoor Obaa-San.O-SODE-SANWhy do you always pity Obaa-San? Are her clothes not whole? Has she not her full store of rice?O-KATSU-SANAy!O-SODE-SANThen what more can one want—a full hand, a full belly, and a warm body!O-KATSU-SANA full heart, perhaps.O-SODE-SANWhat does Obaa-San know of a heart, silly O-Katsu? She has had no husband to die and leave her alone. She has had no child to die and leave her arms empty.O-KATSU-SANHai! Hai! She does not know.[Pg 8]O-SODE-SANShe has had no lover to smile upon her and then—pass on.O-KATSU-SANBut Obaa-San is not happy.O-SODE-SANPss-s!O-KATSU-SANShe may be lonely because she has never had any one to love or to love her.O-SODE-SANHow could one love Obaa-San? She is too hideous for love. She would frighten the children away—and even a drunken lover would laugh in her ugly face. Obaa-San! The grandmother!O-KATSU-SANO-Sode, might we not be too cruel to her?O-SODE-SANIf we could not laugh at Obaa-San, how then could we laugh? She has been sent from the dome of the sky for our mirth.O-KATSU-SANI do not know! I do not know! Sometimes I think I hear tears in her laugh!O-SODE-SANPss-s! That is no laugh. Obaa-San cackles like an old hen.O-KATSU-SANI think she is unhappy now and then—always, perhaps.O-SODE-SANHas she not her weeping willow tree—the grandmother?[Pg 9]O-KATSU-SANAy. She loves the tree.O-SODE-SANThe grandmother of the weeping willow tree! It's well for the misshapen, and the childless, and the loveless to have a tree to love.O-KATSU-SANBut, O-Sode, the weeping willow tree can not love her. Perhaps even old Obaa-San longs for love.O-SODE-SANDo we not come daily to her to talk to her? And to ask her all about her weeping willow tree?O-KATSU-SANOi! Obaa-San.[A sigh is heard.O-SODE-SANWhat was that, O-Katsu?O-KATSU-SANSomeone sighed—a deep, hard sigh.O-SODE-SANOi! Obaa-San! Grandmother![The sigh is almost a moan.O-KATSU-SANIt seemed to come from the weeping willow tree.O-SODE-SANO-Katsu! Perhaps some evil spirit haunts the tree.O-KATSU-SANSome hideous Gaki! Like the Gaki of Kokoru—the evil ghost that can feed only on the unrest of humans. Their unhappiness is his food. He has to find misery in order to live, and win[Pg 10] his way back once more to humanity. To different men he changes his shape at will, and sometimes is invisible.

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