Dead wife of The Reconciliation

Overview

A samurai in Hearn’s The Reconciliation divorces his first wife when poverty leads him to seek advancement through another marriage. Years later, regretting his decision, he returns to Kyoto. Her house appears deserted, with empty rooms and a damaged roof and wall, but he finds her sewing by lamplight in an inner room. She appears as young as he remembers, welcomes him and gently accepts his repeated apologies. She says she has lived alone because she could not afford a servant.

They spend the night talking and move to their former bridal chamber. At dawn he falls asleep; on waking, he finds bare, decaying floorboards beneath him and a wasted female corpse beside him, wrapped in a grave-sheet, with bones and long tangled black hair remaining. His subsequent inquiry brings the explanation that the abandoned wife died from illness in the autumn of the year he left, on the tenth day of the ninth month—the same calendar date as his return.

The story presents an affectionate nocturnal reunion followed by the discovery of the body, without describing an attack, a pursuit or the husband’s later fate. Her lack of a face belongs to the wasted corpse revealed in daylight; it is not a separately named faceless spirit species. Hearn identifies his written source as Konséki-Monogatari. This entry concerns that particular unnamed wife and retains the contrast between the welcome he experiences and the neglected body he discovers.

Origins & earliest records

Japanese written tales retold in English by Lafcadio Hearn

Records & interpretation

Complete story, ending and all attached notes read in the identified historical edition.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Shadowings

   Lafcadio Hearn · 1919

   I, The Reconciliation, pp.5–11; Boston, Little, Brown and Company,1919; copyright1900

Family & connections

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Primary records and illustrations

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Historical literary retellingHearn, Shadowings, I, The Reconciliation, pp.5–11Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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