Behind the cemetery at Shotsaniyi Temple, in the suburbs of the capital, there once stood a lonely small house in which lived an old man named Takahama. Because of his calm, friendly character, all the neighbors loved the old man, although they considered him a little crazy. For a person who performs all Buddhist ceremonies is expected to marry and continue his family. But he lived here completely alone for more than twenty years. Not a single person was able to convince Takahama to take a wife into his home. And no one ever noticed that he had a love relationship with any special one.
One summer, Takahama felt unwell and realized that the road of his life was coming to an end. He sent for his only widowed sister and her son, a young man of about twenty, to whom he was very attached. Having arrived, they began to do everything possible to somehow make the last days of the old man’s life easier.
It was a sultry afternoon. The widow and her son were at the dying man's bedside. Takahama fell asleep. At that moment, a very large butterfly flew into the room and settled on the patient’s pillow. The nephew drove her away with a fan, but she returned to the same place again. The butterfly was driven away again - it returned again. The nephew got angry and kicked her out into the garden, but she did not want to fly away, and the young man, waving his fan, drove the lovely insect through the garden. Through the open gate to the cemetery near the temple. And the butterfly kept fluttering in front of him, as if it could not fly further on its own, and behaved so strangely. That the young man began to fear Ma, who had temporarily assumed a beautiful airy form. He kept chasing her and chasing her, and didn’t notice how he ended up in the depths of the cemetery. Here, in the dense shadow of the thickets, a butterfly flew up to one gravestone and disappeared without a trace. No matter how he tried to find her, it was all to no avail. Then the young man turned his attention to the tombstone. On it was the name: “Akiko,” embossed along with a family name unknown to him, and the subsequent inscription informed that Akiko had died at the age of eighteen. In places, lush moss had clogged into the recesses of the hieroglyphs, and it looked as if the tombstone had been installed at least twenty years ago. But oddly enough, it was well cared for: fresh flowers lay in front of it, and the water container had been filled quite recently.
Upon returning to the young man’s house, news awaited him: his uncle had died. Death crept up on the sleeping man unnoticed, and the dead face smiled. The nephew told his mother about where he had been and what he had found in the cemetery.
- Ah! - she exclaimed. - this is the same Akiko!
- But who is she, this Akiko, mom?! he asked.
The widow replied:
“When your good uncle was young, he was engaged to a charming girl named Akiko, a neighbor’s daughter. But she died of a chest illness just shortly before the day on which the wedding was scheduled, and her failed husband grieved heavily. After the girl was buried, he vowed never to marry or look at women again. Then my uncle built this small house close to the cemetery in order to always be close to her grave. All this happened more than twenty years ago. And every day of all these long years, no matter whether it was winter or summer, your uncle came to the cemetery and prayed at her grave. He himself really didn’t like it when they mentioned all this, and never told anyone anything...
But Akiko finally came for him: the large white butterfly was her soul.
Once I saw a fallen flower return to the branch. But, alas! Just a butterfly fluttered...
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru