At midnight, when the moonlight spilled into the river reeds, and the willows, the waters, and the breeze were communing in whispers, the body of We Sheng was gently borne from beneath the bridge towards the sea. But Wei Sheng's spirit, in the lonely moonlight from heaven, would probably have reflected longing thoughts; and stealing away from the corpse, Wei Sheng's departing spirit, just like the smell of weeds and water rising from the spineless river, Rose towards the faintly glimmering sky.
Thousands of years thence, this spirit, having traversed in it's time countless transmigrations, has surely again been entrusted to life in human forms. This spirit is the spirit that dwells in me; and I - born in these modern times- cannot do work of any worth. Day and night, at random, I live a life that is apt to be desultory and dreamy, awaiting the coming of something inconceivable; and like the Wei Sheng beneath the bridge at dusk, I seem to live awaiting always a beloved who never comes......
From The Faith of Wei Sheng, Akutagawa Ryonosuke
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