More Portmanteau Plays - LightNovelsOnl.com
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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._
