So she spoke, sobbing aloud.  The relations, who heard this, looked round at one another, and watched the father to see what he would do; and he (who knows with what thoughts in his head?) put back the seal into the leather purse, and quickly drew the strings together, and pushed back the petition to the relations.

“Certainly,” said he, “I have lost countenance, and am disgraced before all my family; however, I think that what the good wife has just said is right and proper, and from henceforth I renounce all thoughts of disinheriting my son.  Of course you will all see a weakness of purpose in what I say, and laugh at me as the cause of my son’s undutiful conduct.  But laugh away:  it won’t hurt me.  Certainly, if I don’t disinherit this son of mine, my house will be ruined before three years are over our heads.  To lay waste the house of generations upon generations of my ancestors is a sin against those ancestors; of this I am well aware.  Further, if I don’t disinherit my son, you gentlemen will all shun me.  I know that I am cutting myself off from my relations.  Of course you think that when I leave this place I shall be dunning you to bestow your charity upon me; and that is why you want to break off relations with me.  Pray don’t make yourselves uneasy.  I care no more for my duties to the world, for my impiety to my ancestors, or for my separation from my family.  Our son is our only darling, and we mean to go after him, following him as beggars on foot.  This is our desire.  We shall trouble you for no alms and for no charity.  However we may die, we have but one life to lose.  For our darling son’s sake, we will lay ourselves down and die by the roadside.  There our bodies shall be manure for the trees of the avenue.  And all this we will endure cheerfully, and not utter a complaint.  Make haste and return home, therefore, all of you.  From to-morrow we are no longer on speaking terms.  As for what you may say to me on my son’s account, I do not care.”

And as his wife had done, he lifted up his voice and wept, shedding manly tears.  As for her, when she heard that the act of disinheritance was not to be drawn up, her tears were changed to tears of joy.  The rest of the family remained in mute astonishment at so unheard-of a thing, and could only stare at the faces of the two old people.

You see how bewildered parents must be by their love for their children, to be so merciful towards them.  As a cat carrying her young in her mouth screens it from the sun at one time and brings it under the light at another, so parents act by their children, screening their bad points and bringing out in relief their good qualities.  They care neither for the abuse of others, nor for their duties to their ancestors, nor for the wretched future in store for themselves.  Carried away by their infatuation for their children, and intoxicated upon intoxication, the hearts of parents are to be pitied for their pitifulness.  It is not only the two parents in my story who are in this plight; the hearts of all parents of children all over the world are the same.  In the poems of the late learned Ishida it is written, “When I look round me and see the hearts of parents bewildered by their love for their children, I reflect that my own father and mother must be like them.”  This is certainly a true saying.