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The old woman of a nickname called Moon Princess(*1) lives near a bamboo grove in the heart of the mountain. She looked at the moon every night since her smooth skin and almond eyes have been beautiful. They say that her face was light up white basking in the moonlight when she sat on the veranda and looked up to the sky.

There is a man who followed his wife who was accompanied by their children and went home in the summer vacation. He had not heard Moon Princess's rumor, and was going to pass near the bamboo grove casually. It was the night of a full moon.
An old woman's voice was asking him from the dark farmhouse.
"Did you see a rainbow?"
It seemed that the thatch talked, then he was frightened. He looked back it over the hedge, then someone was sitting on a veranda.(*2)
"A rainbow .... I didn't see it. In such night,it's still more difficult to see."
She was silent for a while. He understood that disappointment was there.
"Why do you care about the rainbow?"
"I cannot die until I see the rainbow of the moon."
"Why?"
The bamboos were noisy to the wind. She was asking toward darkness in back.
"Mother, aren't you cold?"
After catching silence, she turned around.
"A long time ago, I was wise and a beauty."
"Yes."
"How about coming in and sitting here? I may have a long talk."
She held out the hand toward the door of hedge. It was just in front of him.
"Thank you."
In spite of darkness, he took in the situation of the yard which was ruined and became desolate. Moonlight was reflecting in the passage of the veranda dimly. He sat down there, and the passage was cool and comfortable. The grass rustled.
"Here, the moon is visible so clearly, isn't it?"
"Yes...."
"Does a rainbow appear in the moonlight?"
"Yes, It does."
After answering so, she considered something, and restated.
"I've heard It did. I have seen it only with a picture. It said that a pure white rainbow arched."
"Really?"
"It's a very beautiful picture. I can't throw it away though It's a picture-book for children, and even now, I have it."
"You are a romanticist, aren't you?"
He sensed the sign that she moved.
"It isn't such an admirable thing. In order to see the rainbow of the moon, in this way, I stay up at night while the moon is comeing out, and while the sun is comeing out, I sleep."
They looked up to the moon together. It was really clear full moon. Suddenly he exclaimed.
"Oh, there is a rabbit in the moon! Sure it seems that it makes rice cake. I see it for the first time today. But as a child, in spite of having tried repeatedly, I couldn't see it. What a huge rabbit!"(*3)
"That's good."
She laughed joyfully.
After the popping fever cooled down, faint sounds which were surrounding them seemed to draw near. They knew that a grasshopper has leaped. After a while the man broke the silence.
"Why do you try hard so much, to see the rainbow of the moon?"
"Because, a long time ago they said that I was wise and beautiful."
"pardon?"
"A man said to me: You are a well informed person so much, and so beautiful, and the people pay excessive attention to you. But, have you seen the rainbow of the moon by your own eyes?"
He inclined his head and didn't answer. However the old woman seemed to be deep in meditation, she began to talk soon.
"There was a man."
"Uh-huh."
"And I loved him."
"Ah."
"I wanted to catch his mind.... and approached him when he began to talk about the rainbow of the moon by chance."
"Did you make friends with him?"
She smiled vaguely.
"No."
" ........"
"He said that he has seen the rainbow of the moon only at once and it was a really beautiful white rainbow. Then I was careless enough to say : Correctly the name of that is moonbow."
The man turned his face to her and gazed. Her eyes buried in wrinkles glistened, and only they looked young strange to say.
"Then, he asked you if you had seen it, didn't he?"
"Oh, yes..."
The insects of summer sang. Thin clouds covered the rabbit of a full moon and It got dark.
They became silent for a while. The children's footsteps sounded, when two small figures appeared besides the hedge.
"Oh, father is here."
Shaking bobbed hair, a girl pointed him.
"Yes, he is here!"
"It's the house of Moon Princess."
"Oh, good evening, boy and girl."
"Have you seen the rainbow of the moon, old Moon Princess?"
"No, it isn't easy to see."
"The rainbow doesn't arch in the moonlight. You are deceived."
"You may as well get married."
The old woman laughed.
"Marriage! That's a good joke."
And she said toward the back room.
"Mother, many visitors came today."
The children became silent for a moment.
"Father, let's go home."
The girl who looks older opened her mouth uneasily.
"You can't see the rainbow of the moon, Moon Princess. Because it isn't rainy today."
"Huh, that's right."
"Even if it is rainy, you can't."
"Uh-huh."
The man stood up and said,
"Thank you and good by."
The bedding was put down on the back room and it looked whitish.
"Madam, please take care of yourself."
"Thank you."
Moon Princess said.

The man urged children to go and touched the door of hedge, and turned around as remembered something.
"Well..., if you want to see a rainbow, don't look at the moon."
"Why? Is that bad?"
"Because it appears in a direction opposite to light."
She became silent for a while, and rolled about with laughter. The voice was too sharp and too sonorous. While she was laughing, only voice was rejuvenated gradually and became a strange surge as if it was echoing from the darkness of bamboo grove.
"Certainly! how fool I am!"
While the father and children were surprised and looked, she went on laughing her head off.
"When I was called cleverest girl in the village, I've never make such a stupid mistake!"
A child returned confusedly and held his arm firmly.
"Let's go, father!"
When he went away to be pulled by the thin hand of child gently, Moon Princess stood in the knee and was basking in the moonlight.
"At last, someone will come for me."(*4)

There was a funeral in a village on the previous day when the man went home with wife and children. Moon Princess died. When he went out with the Buddhist rosary to the temple, in the center of an altar, the photograph of a beautiful woman around 20 years old was put.
"Though we had a good search all over her house, her photograph didn't remain except for that."
The people of village said.
The old man who sat next has spoken to him. As might be expected of someone who has been a carpenter in his day, his hands were powerful and rough.
"That is a photograph at the time of Moon Princess's having been a human. She was beautiful."
What meaning is the time when she was a human? He asked by the eyes.
"It means before she began to look at the moon and sob every night. I had fallen in love with her at that time."
The man remembered that the old woman who had became Moon Princess seemed to have had a bedridden mother, and he asked him if the mother had any relative except for her. The man who used to be a carpenter shook his head.
"She had no such thing as mother.It was that photograph which was lying down in bedding."
"I see."
He hung his head and got up to queue for offering incense, then he had noticed.
"Oh, well..."
"What?"
"Isn't the picture-book in her belongings left by the departed? It is a book with which white moonbow was painted. Please put it into her coffin by all means."
The old man shook his hand.
"Oh, yes. I brought it with the intention. If you like, watch it before putting it into a coffin."

Into the picture-book which the old woman kept at hand to the last, a rainbow of the moon drawn in India ink arched. It was poor quality and couldn't be said beautiful by any standard.
In the stained rag paper, the rainbow had still been shining dimly like a moonstone.

ANNOTATION
1. "Moon Princess" is a folktale of Japan. She was born in the shining bamboo. Since she was very beautiful, five noblemen proposed to her. But she made some unreasonable demand and refused them. Though the emperor also proposed to her, she looked up at the moon and was sobbing every night. When her foster-parents asked the reason, she answered.
   "I am Moon Princess. before long, someone will come for me."
   The emperor and her foster-parents try to detain her, but she returned to the moon.
   
2. Japanese veranda has a passage facing the courtyard, and people sit on there and relax.
   
3. In Japan, the shade of the surface of the moon is likened to a rabbit makeing rice cake.
   
4. "Someone will come for me." is Moon Princess's words. And it means death for old people in Japan.

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