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in which the remainingmonks, not more than ten or twelve, were supposedly meditating.
    If you could achieve insight while gossiping, they would have achieved it years since. Two weeks ago a band of sumo wrestlers had asked lodging in return for a performance. They had been fine big stupid men, alert and forceful, without a thought in their heads, but by nature gentle. They had that well conditioned fat that looks as though it could be peeled away in strips and then put back on, without doing any damage, and their toes turned up with great elegance. They were as affectionate as large dogs, and just about as lost without a master. The monks doted on sumo wrestlers. But they had forced him to send these away, afraid that they were enemies in disguise.
    He could not really blame them. Far away, at Kamakura , an entire monastic order had been burned alive with its abbot. But he could not see what difference that made. Neither had the abbot. It was said he had entered the bonfire with the polite resignation of an exile going down the plank to his boat, with a last look round, to memorize everything, and that was all.
    Yet the incident had been disturbing. His brother was at Kamakura, or rather, not far from there, at a rural town up in the hills.
    Over the sounds of the waterfall, on which he tried to concentrate, he could hear the pattering gossip of the monks, as they came to and fro all day. He knew very well what they had to say.
    But he could not hide from them forever. At about nine, in the warm, restless night, when even the guttering lamps looked sticky, he crossed the pump court andwalked quietly into the Zendo hall. It was the centre of the monastery. On either side of the aisle a raised platform ran the length of the building. When full this could accommodate thirty monks, each with his tatami mat and bedroll . Here they were supposed to spend their days in meditation, but the place was now half-empty. It had echoes. The twelve remaining brothers were huddled under their cotton comforters, but he doubted if they were asleep. Inside the door, on his left, the supervisor of the hall was not lying down, but sat bolt upright, staring at the open doorway. Muchaku was startled. But this man. was more reliable than the others. Muchaku beckoned him out into the pump court.
    Oio’s face was grave and blue in the starlight. “It was hard to get them to sleep. You should not have left us alone today.”
    Muchaku shrugged.
    “They say there is an army out there.”
    “There is no army.”
    “There is something.”
    “Oh yes, there is always something out there. But fear won’t send it away.” Muchaku looked at Oio curiously. “And what do you think?”
    Oio kept his thoughts to himself. He always did. “I thought it better to watch.”
    “What good would watching do?” Muchaku asked irritably. “Go back to your mat and go to sleep.” Oio usually upset him, and did now.
    “Will you sleep?” he said.
    “Yes, of course, why not?” The man was fond of him, and therefore saw too much. Muchaku’s temper was worn. He did not want it to fray in front of Oio. Hewalked to his own quarters, without looking back, and slid the panel closed behind him. But he did not sleep.
    He only pretended.
    One is used to taking the immutability of nature for granted. There is no certainty more calm than that of a summer’s night. But now that blandness was pocked with little doubts. The crack of a twig, a sudden listlessness in the sound of falling water, the stifled silence of the tree toads, now seemed to mean something other than themselves. And indeed the beauty of nature is both so austere and so intense, that it cannot fail to make us wary, if we are aware of it at all.
    As he lay there in the dark, all the familiar noises whirled through unexpected dimensions, like the ceiling to a drunk. And is not fear a form of drunkenness? A little too much of it, and the floor begins to slip.
    The night was very long. Then there was a hush. It