Obaa-San!... Grandmother!

O-SODE-SAN

She is not there.

O-KATSU-SAN

Poor Obaa-San.

O-SODE-SAN

Why do you always pity Obaa-San? Are her clothes not whole? Has she not her full store of rice?

O-KATSU-SAN

Ay!

O-SODE-SAN

Then what more can one want--a full hand, a full belly, and a warm body!

O-KATSU-SAN

A full heart, perhaps.

O-SODE-SAN

What 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-SAN

Hai! Hai! She does not know.

O-SODE-SAN

She has had no lover to smile upon her and then--pa.s.s on.

O-KATSU-SAN

But Obaa-San is not happy.

O-SODE-SAN

Pss-s!

O-KATSU-SAN

She may be lonely because she has never had any one to love or to love her.

O-SODE-SAN

How 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-SAN

O-Sode, might we not be too cruel to her?

O-SODE-SAN

If 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-SAN

I do not know! I do not know! Sometimes I think I hear tears in her laugh!

O-SODE-SAN

Pss-s! That is no laugh. Obaa-San cackles like an old hen.

O-KATSU-SAN

I think she is unhappy now and then--always, perhaps.

O-SODE-SAN

Has she not her weeping willow tree--the grandmother?

O-KATSU-SAN

Ay. She loves the tree.

O-SODE-SAN

The 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-SAN

But, O-Sode, the weeping willow tree can not love her. Perhaps even old Obaa-San longs for love.

O-SODE-SAN

Do we not come daily to her to talk to her? And to ask her all about her weeping willow tree?

O-KATSU-SAN

Oi! Obaa-San.

[_A sigh is heard._