ABSTRACT
Many were the visits paid by Iémon to contest at go with Itō Kwaiba. Rapid was the progress of the love affair between a young man and a young woman, both inspired with a consuming passion for each other. In former days—something more than two years before—when Iémon was priest in the Jōshinji of the Reigan district of Fukagawa, and was spending the money of the ōshō so freely, he had met O'Hana at the Fukagawa of Yagura no Shita. Just entering on her career, she at once captivated him with a permanent passion. It was in her company that the funds of the temple had been cast to the four winds of heaven. His love had been fully reciprocated by O'Hana. The one purpose was to ransom the lady, and then to live together as husband and wife. Such was the engagement plighted between them. However, the ransom figure was large. Iémon—or Kazuma at that time, he dropped his priestly name when out of bounds—had already planned a larger raid than usual on the ecclesiastical treasury. Warned by O'Hana that his operations had been discovered, he had sought safety in flight; not without a last tearful parting with his mistress, and assurance that fate somehow would bring them again together. The engagement thus entered on was to flourish under the new conditions.
