Moshi severely censures the disregard of the true order of things.  What mistaken and bewildered creatures men are!  What says the old song?  “Hidden far among the mountains, the tree which seems to be rotten, if its core be yet alive, may be made to bear flowers.”  What signifies it if the hand or the foot be deformed?  The heart is the important thing.  If the heart be awry, what though your skin be fair, your nose aquiline, your hair beautiful?  All these strike the eye alone, and are utterly useless.  It is as if you were to put horse-dung into a gold-lacquer luncheon-box.  This is what is called a fair outside, deceptive in appearance.

There’s the scullery-maid been washing out the pots at the kitchen sink, and the scullion Chokichi comes up and says to her, “You’ve got a lot of charcoal smut sticking to your nose,” and points out to her the ugly spot.  The scullery-maid is delighted to be told of this, and answers, “Really! whereabouts is it?” Then she twists a towel round her finger, and, bending her head till mouth and forehead are almost on a level, she squints at her nose, and twiddles away with her fingers as if she were the famous Goto[96] at work, carving the ornaments of a sword-handle.  “I say, Master Chokichi, is it off yet?” “Not a bit of it.  You’ve smeared it all over your cheeks now.”  “Oh dear! oh dear! where can it be?” And so she uses the water-basin as a looking-glass, and washes her face clean; then she says to herself, “What a dear boy Chokichi is!” and thinks it necessary, out of gratitude, to give him relishes with his supper by the ladleful, and thanks him over and over again.  But if this same Chokichi were to come up to her and say, “Now, really, how lazy you are!  I wish you could manage to be rather less of a shrew,” what do you think the scullery-maid would answer then?  Reflect for a moment.  “Drat the boy’s impudence!  If I were of a bad heart or an angular disposition, should I be here helping him?  You go and be hung!  You see if I take the trouble to wash your dirty bedclothes for you any more.”  And she gets to be a perfect devil, less only the horns.

[Footnote 96:  A famous gold- and silver-smith of the olden time.  A Benvenuto Cellini among the Japanese.  His mark on a piece of metal work enhances its value tenfold.]

There are other people besides the poor scullery-maid who are in the same way.  “Excuse me, Mr. Gundabei, but the embroidered crest on your dress of ceremony seems to be a little on one side.”  Mr. Gundabei proceeds to adjust his dress with great precision.  “Thank you, sir.  I am ten million times obliged to you for your care.  If ever there should be any matter in which I can be of service to you, I beg that you will do me the favour of letting me know;” and, with a beaming face, he expresses his gratitude.  Now for the other side of the picture.  “Really, Mr. Gundabei, you are very foolish; you don’t seem to understand at all.  I beg you to be of a frank and honest heart:  it really makes me quite sad to see a man’s heart warped in this way.”  What is his answer?  He turns his sword in his girdle ready to draw, and plays the devil’s tattoo upon the hilt:  it looks as if it must end in a fight soon.