_Yo no naka ni Ushi no Kuruma no Nakari-seba, Omoi no iye wo Ikade ide-mashi?_
In this world If there were no Ox-cart (_i.e._ Buddhist religion), How should we escape From the (burning) mansion of our thought?
During October, the whole family of the Fujinami removed from Tokyo for a few days in order to perform their religious duties at the temple of Ikégami. Even grandfather Gennosuké emerged from his dower-house, bringing his wife, O Tsugi. Mr. Fujinami Gentaro was in charge of his own wife, Shidzuyé San, of Sadako and of Asako. Only Fujinami Takeshi, the son and heir, with his wife Matsuko, was absent.
There had been some further trouble in the family which had not been confided to Asako, but which necessitated urgent steps for the propitiation of religious influences. The Fujinami were followers of the Nichiren sect of Buddhism. Their conspicuous devotion and their large gifts to the priests of the temple were held to be causes of their ever-increasing prosperity. The dead Fujinami, down from that great-great-grandfather who had first come to seek his fortune in Yedo, were buried at Ikégami. Here the priests gave to each _hotoké_ (Buddha or dead person) his new name, which was inscribed on small black tablets, the _ihai_. One of these tablets for each dead person was kept in the household shrine at Tokyo, and one in the temple at Ikégami.
Asako was taken to the October festival, because her father too was buried in the temple grounds--one small bone of him, that is to say, an _ikotsu_ or legacy bone, posted home from Paris before the rest of his mortality found alien sepulture at Père Lachaise. Masses were said for the dead; and Asako was introduced to the tablet. But she did not feel the same emotion as when she first visited the Fujinami house. Now, she had heard her father's authentic voice. She knew his scorn for pretentiousness of all kinds, for false conventions, for false emotions, his hatred of priestcraft, his condemnation of the family wealth, and his contempt for the little respectabilities of Japanese life.
A temple in Japan is not merely a building; it is a site. These sites were most carefully chosen with the same genius which guided our Benedictines and Carthusians. The site of Ikégami is a long-abrupt hill, half-way between Tokyo and Yokohama. It is clothed with _cryptomeria_ trees. These dark conifers, like immense cypresses, give to the spot that grave, silent, irrevocable atmosphere, with which Boecklin has invested his picture of the Island of the Dead. These majestic trees are essentially a part of the temple. They correspond to the pillars of our Gothic cathedrals. The roof is the blue vault of heaven; and the actual buildings are but altars, chantries and monuments.