Chapter Ten, The Case of Ōtsu Summary

At the hotel garden, Ōtsu tells Mitsuko how he wears the clothes of an outcast so he can carry the indigent dying to a facility near the river, and the dead to the crematorium. He believes his Onion would do the same, and resides in Hinduism and Buddhism as well as Christianity. Mitsuko asks Ōtsu if he believes in reincarnation, and Ōtsu talks of how his Onion was killed and brought to life in the hearts of his disciples, whom he still loved even though they betrayed and denied him. He thinks of the Ganges like the love of his Onion, encompassing all. Ōtsu takes his leave of Mitsuko, telling her that he must be up early to continue his task of finding the dead and dying and bringing them to the river...