Notes
- affection; 愛情、慈しみ
- bore (bearの過去形); 子を産んだ（こうんだ）
- peasant; 小作農、田舎の人
- stooped; かがんだ、身を乗り出した
- whispering; ささやき
- flung (flingの過去形); 投げ捨てた
- shrieked; 悲鳴を上げた
- spired; 渦を巻いて昇った
- shuddered away; 震えながら消えていった
O-Yuki proved a very good daughter-in-law. When Minokichi’s mother came to die,—some five years later,—her last words were words of affection and praise for the wife of her son.
And O-Yuki bore Minokichi ten children, boys and girls,—handsome children all of them, and very fair of skin.
The country-folk thought O-Yuki a wonderful person, by nature different from themselves. Most of the peasant-women age early; but O-Yuki, even after having become the mother of ten children, looked as young and fresh as on the day when she had first come to the village.
One night, after the children had gone to sleep, O-Yuki was sewing by the light of a paper lamp; and Minokichi, watching her, said:—
“To see you sewing there, with the light on your face, makes me think of a strange thing that happened when I was a lad of eighteen. I then saw somebody as beautiful and white as you are now—indeed, she was very like you.”…
Without lifting her eyes from her work, O-Yuki responded:—
“Tell me about her… Where did you see her?”
Then Minokichi told her about the terrible night in the ferryman’s hut,—and about the White Woman that had stooped above him, smiling and whispering,—and about the silent death of old Mosaku.
And he said:—
“Asleep or awake, that was the only time that I saw a being as beautiful as you. Of course, she was not a human being; and I was afraid of her,—very much afraid,—but she was so white!… Indeed, I have never been sure whether it was a dream that I saw, or the Woman of the Snow.”…
O-Yuki flung down her sewing, and arose, and bowed above Minokichi where he sat, and shrieked into his face:—
“It was I—I—I! Yuki it was! And I told you then that I would kill you if you ever said one word about it!… But for those children asleep there, I would kill you this moment! And now you had better take very, very good care of them; for if ever they have reason to complain of you, I will treat you as you deserve!”…
Even as she screamed, her voice became thin, like a crying of wind;—then she melted into a bright white mist that spired to the roof-beams, and shuddered away through the smoke-hole…. Never again was she seen.
