THE FLIGHT
For all save one, sleep came early that evening to the house in the
Street-of-Prayer-to-the-Gods. In her little room Haru lay as stirless as
a sleeping flower. There was no sound save the hushed accents of the
outer night that penetrated the wooden _amado_.
At length she rose, noiselessly slid the paper _shoji_, and with
infinite care, inch by inch, pushed back the shutters. The moon had
risen and a flood of moonlight came into the room. Stealthily she opened
a wall-closet and selected her best and gayest robe--a holiday _kimono_
of dim green, with lotos flowers, and an _obi_ of cloth-of-gold, with
chrysanthemums peeping from the weave. By the round mirror on her low
dressing-cabinet, she redressed the coiled ebony butterfly of her hair,
and set a red flower in it. She touched her face with the soft
rice-powder, and added a tint of carmine to the set paleness of her
cheeks. She wrapped in a _furoshiki_ some soberer street clothing,
toilet articles, and a mauve _kimono_ woven with silver camelias, set
the bundle by the opened _amado_ and noiselessly passed into the next
room.
It was the larger living-apartment. The tiny lamp which burned before
the golden shrine of Kwan-on on the Buddha-shelf cast a wan glimmer over
the spotless alcove, and threw a ghostly light on her finery. Through
the thin paper _shikiri_ she could hear her father's deep breathing, and
in the room in which he slept a little clock chimed eleven. She opened
the door of the shrine and stood looking at the tablet it held--the
_ihai_ of her mother. The _kaimyo_, or soul name, it bore signified
"Moon-Dawn-of-the-Mountain-of-Light-Dwelling-in-the-Mansion-of-Luminous-
Perfume." She rubbed her palms softly together before it and her lips
moved silently. From the golden shadows she seemed suddenly to feel her
mother's hand guiding her childish steps to that place of morning
worship, to see that loving face, as she remembered it, looking down on
her across the rim of years. She bent and passed her hand along the two
swords, one long, one short, that rested on their lacquered rack beneath
the shelf--it was her farewell to her father.
She had left no message. She could tell no one. If she succeeded, she
would have done her part. If she failed--there was only a blank darkness
in that thought. But she had no agitation now--only a dull ache.
In her own room she took a book from a drawer and slipped it into her
sleeve, caught up the _furoshiki_, stepped noiselessly to the outer
porch and carefully closed the _amado_ behind her.
She walked swiftly back to the empty Chapel. The great glass window that
had seemed so beautiful with the light behind it, was now dark and
opaque and dead. Only the cross above the roof in the moonlight looked
as white as snow. She drew the book from her sleeve. It was her Bible,
with her name on the fly-leaf. She unhooked the gold chain about her
neck and slipped off the little enamel cross. She put this between the
leaves of the Bible and laid it on the doorstep.
A half-hour later she stood before a wistaria-roofed gate in
_Kasumiga-tani Cho_--the "Street-of-the-Misty-Valley"--near Aoyama
parade-ground. The glass lantern above it threw a dim light on a gravel
path twisting through low shrubbery. Down the street she could hear a
dozen students chanting the marching song of Hirosé Chusa, the young war
hero:
"Though the body die, the spirit dies not.
He who wished to be reborn
Seven times into this world,
For the sake of serving his country,
For the sake of requiting the Imperial Favor--
Has he really died?"
Haru opened the gate. Cherry-petals were sifting down like rosy
snowflakes over the scarlet trembling of _nanten_ bushes. A little way
inside was a graceful house entrance half-shaded by a trailing vine. The
_amado_ were not closed, the _shoji_ were brilliantly lighted.
With a little sob she unfastened the golden _obi_, rewound and tied it
with the knot in front.