IN THE STREET-OF-PRAYER-TO-THE-GODS
Haru unlatched a gate across which twisted a plum-branch with tarnished,
silver bark. It hid a garden so tiny that it was scarcely more than a
rounded boulder set in moss, with a clump of golden _icho_ shrubs.
Across the path, high in air, were stretched giant webs in whose centers
hung black spiders as big as Japanese sparrows. Beyond was a low
doorway, shaded by a gnarled _kiri_ tree. The thin, white rice-paper
pasted behind the bars of its sliding grill shone goldenly with the
candle-light within. She rang a bell which hung from a cord.
"_Hai-ai-ai-ai-ee!_" sounded a long-drawn voice from within, and in a
moment a little maid slid back the _shoji_ and bobbed over to the
threshold.
Her mistress stepped from her _géta_ into the small anteroom. Here the
floor was covered with soft _tatamé_,--the thick, springy rice-straw
mats which, in Japan, play the part of carpets--and a bronze vase on a
low lacquer stool held a branch of dark ground-pine and a single white
lily. A voice was audible, reciting in a droning monotone. It stopped
suddenly and called Haru's name.
She answered instantly, and parting the panels, passed into the next
room, where her father sat on his mat reading in the faint soft light of
an _andon_. He was an old man, with white head strongly poised on gaunt
shoulders. Broken in fortune and in health, the spirit of the _samurai_
burned inextinguishably in the fire of his sunken eyes. He took her hand
and drew her down beside him. She knew what was in his mind.
"Be no longer troubled," she said. "The American _Ojo-San_ is as lovely
as Ama-terasu, the Sun Goddess, and as kind as she is beautiful. I shall
be happy to be each day with her."
"That is good," he said. "Yet I take no joy from it. You are the last of
a family that for a thousand seasons has served none save its Emperor
and its _daimyo_."
"I am no servant," she answered quickly. "Rather am I, in sort, a
companion to the _Ojo-San_, to offer her my tasteless conversation and
somewhat to go about with her in this unfamiliar city. It is an
honorable way of acquiring gain, and thus I may unworthily pay my
support, for which now from time to time you are brought to sell the
priceless classics in which your soul exaltedly delights."
His face softened. "I have lived too long," he said. "My hand is
palsied--I, a two-sword man of the old clan! I should have died in the
war, fighting for Nippon and my Emperor. But even then was I too
dishonorably old! Why did not the gods grant me a son?--me, who wearied
them with my sacrifices?"
She did not answer for a moment. Nothing in her cried out at this
reiterated complaint, for she was of the same blood. If she had been a
son, that wound in her father's heart had been healed. Through her arm
the family would have fought. Her glorious death-name might even now be
written on an _ihai_ on the Buddha-shelf, her glad soul swelling the
numbers of that ghostly legion whose spiritual force was the true
vitality of her nation.
"Perhaps that, too, might be," she said presently in a low voice.
"Should I augustly marry one not of too exalted a station, he could
receive adoption into our family."
He looked into her deeply flushing face. "You think of the Lieutenant
Ishida Hétaro," he said. "It is true that the go-between has already
deigned to sit on my hard mats. He is, I think, in every way worthy of
our house. I would rather he were in the field, with a sword in his
hand--I know not much of this 'Secret Service.' What are his present
duties? Doubtless"--with a spark of mischief in his hollow, old
eyes--"you are better informed than I."
"He is in the household of one named Bersonin, a man-mountain like our
wrestlers, whose service Japan pays with a wage."
His seamed face clouded. "To cunningly watch the foreigner's incomings
and his outgoings, and make august report to the Board of Extraordinary
Information," he said, with a trace of bitterness. "To play the clod
when one is all eyes and ears. Honorable it is, no doubt, yet to my old
palate it savors too much of the actor strutting on the circular stage.
But times change, and if, to live, we must ape the foreigners, why, we
must borrow their ways till such time--the gods grant it be soon!--when
we can throw them on the dust heap. And what am I to set my debased
ignorance against my Princes and my Emperor!" He paused a moment and
sighed. "Ishida is well esteemed," he continued presently. "He has dwelt
in America and learned its tongue--a necessity, it seems, in these
topsy-turvy times. Yet, as for marriage, waiting still must be. These
are evil days for us, my child. From whence would come the gifts which
must be sent before the bride, to the husband's house? Your mother"--he
paused and bowed deeply toward the golden _butsu-dan_ in its
alcove--"may she rest on the lotos-terrace of _Amida_!--came to my poor
house with a train of coolies bearing lacquer chests: silken _f'ton_,
_kimono_ as soft and filmy as mist, gowns of cloth and of cotton,
cushions of gold and silver patternings, jeweled girdles, velvet sandals
and all lovely garniture. Shall her daughter be sent to a husband with a
chest of rags? No, no!"
She leaned her dark head against his blue-clad shoulder and drew the
scroll from his trembling fingers.
"I wind your words about my heart," she said. "Waiting is best. Perhaps
the evil times will withdraw. I have prayed to the Christian God
concerning it. But your eyes are augustly wearied. Let me read to you a
while."
He settled himself back on the mat, his gaunt hands buried in his
sleeves, and, snuffing the wick in the _andon_, she began to read the
archaic "grass-writing." It was the _Shundai Zatsuwa_ of Kyuso Moro.
"Be not _samurai_ through the wearing of two swords, but day and
night have a care to bring no reproach on the name. When you
cross your threshold and pass out through the gate, go as one
who shall never return again. Thus shall you be ready for every
adventure. The Buddhist is for ever to remember the five
commandments and the _samurai_ the laws of chivalry.
"All born as _samurai_, men and women, are taught from childhood
that fidelity must never be forgotten. And woman is ever taught
that this, with submission, is her chief duty. If in unexpected
strait her weak heart forsakes fidelity, all her other virtues
will not atone.
"_Samurai_, men and women, the young and the old, regulate their
conduct according to the precepts of Bushido, and a _samurai_,
without hesitation, sacrifices life and family for lord and
country."