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Abandoned Wife

(Japanese classical stories)

Translation　ちいさな翻訳屋さん

Japanese　←→　Japanese ＆ English　←→　English

　Once upon a time, there lived a very poor man in the suburb of the city.

　But one day, a friend of his was greatly promoted to a load of a distant country.

　Then the man was supposed to follow the load as his vassal.

“I finally have good luck,”

he was pleased but he didn’t even have money to get ready for the trip.

　So the man abandoned his sweet wife who had been with him for years, and got married with a woman from a rich family

　so that he could get the woman to pay for the trip.

　But his new wife was so selfish that she always complained to the man.

　Eventually, the man started missing his ex-wife.

　Since he got the money paid, on the other hand, he couldn’t kick out his new wife.

“I’m married to this woman for nothing.

　Oh, I wouldn’t mind being poor so I wish I could live with my ex-wife again.”

　The man gradually got to think so.

　After years had passed, the load was scheduled to return to the city.

“I can finally see her.”

　On arriving the city, the man made his new wife go to her parents’ house and he quickly returned to his old home.

　When he got home, however, the house was run-down as nobody was believed to live in.

“Is this where I lived?”

　The man was transfixed in front of the gate of the house.

“She must have left here blaming me.

　No, that was my fault. I can’t blame her,”

　he thought so and when he entered the house, he found his ex-wife sitting on the usual place.

“Hey, were you waiting for me?”

　He ran to his ex-wife and held her tight.

“Welcome back home, darling.”

　She didn’t make a compliment and happily looked at the man’s face.

“Please forgive what I did.

　My wife is you. I’ll never lose you again.”

　The two spent the whole night talking to each other and finally got to sleep at dawn.

　The man felt so relieved to be back home after a long time that he slept deeply.

　Hours passed after that.

　When the man woke up, the sun was already shining.

“Oh, I slept great.”

　Then the man looked at his wife.

“Whoa!”

he jumped out of the futon.

　He was surprised to see a skeleton body of his ex-wife lying there.

“What on earth is going on?”

　The man in his nightclothes rushed to the house next door to ask about his ex-wife.

　Then the next-door neighbor said,

“Oh, that woman passed away last year.

　She was extremely grieved because her husband left for a distant country with his new wife.

　Later on, she fell ill and died since there was nobody to take care of her.

　Even a funeral wasn’t held so it’s too scary to approach her house with her dead body in.”

“So, you’re saying that the woman I met yesterday was a ghost of my ex-wife’s?”

　The man suddenly felt scared, ran away and disappeared somewhere.

The end

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