Chôko Iida: Otsune, Ka-yan

A Story of Floating Weeds

Otsune, Ka-yan

Kihachi: My troupe's finally disbanded. No word from Shinkichi yet? Like father, like son. So fast with the girls. I'm finished this time.
Otsune, Ka-yan: I'll fix you a drink.
Kihachi: No sake for me.
Otsune, Ka-yan: Then you won't travel anymore? You can stay as long as you like. Shinkichi is old enough to know by now. He'll understand. He'll be back sometime or other. Let's live together like a family. It isn't good to be alone all the time.
[Kihachi nods]
Otsune, Ka-yan: Let's have a drink.

Kihachi: Where have you been? Why act like nothing's happened?
Otoki: [Kihachi hits Otoki repeatedly] Forgive me, Master.
Shinkichi: She apologized. Why hit her?
[Father hits son]
Kihachi: You're to blame too. Don't you know your mother worries about you?
[the men fight. Kihachi falls down]
Otsune, Ka-yan: What are you doing? Who do you think he is? The man you hit just now is your father.
[Kihachi scratches his back]
Shinkichi: I have no father like him. My father was a civil servant. He's dead. If my father were alive, he'd never have abandoned us for 20 years. All these years it's just been us. Right, Mother? No father could be that selfish.
Otsune, Ka-yan: What if, out of respect for his son, he couldn't call himself father. He didn't want you to be a traveling actor like him. He wanted you to have an education and a good job. That's why he had to lie and live in loneliness. He's been poor, but wherever he was, he always paid for your schooling. Aren't you sorry for striking such a considerate father?
[Shinkichi cries and rushes out of frame]

Kihachi: I'll go away again.
Otsune, Ka-yan: Shinkichi has accepted you in his heart.
Kihachi: I don't want him to feel awkward because of me. Let me go as the usual carefree uncle one last time. I'll start up in business again. If I do well, I'll return again. I'll be a great actor so Shinkichi won't be ashamed of me. And you can thank me with a curtain call.

Shinkichi: Uncle? Where is Uncle?
Otsune, Ka-yan: You mean Father?
[Shinkichi nods]
Otsune, Ka-yan: He went on the road again. Don't try to stop him. Just be a great man. That's all he wants. Since you were born, he's been coming here with that one hope in mind.
[Shinkichi and Otoki cry. Shot of the daruma doll]