THE STORY OF A MARIONETTE
On the first day of Ura Bon, when I was twelve years old, Ishi brought
a new ornament for my hair and placed it just in front of my big,
stand-up bow-knot. It was a silver shield set in a mass of small, loose
silver flowers, and looked very beautiful against the shiny black
background.
"It was sent to you by Honourable Yedo Grandmother," she said. "She had
it made from melted ancient coins, and it is very wonderful."
I turned my face in the direction of Tokyo and bowed a silent "Thank
you" to the kind invisible donor. Just who Honourable Yedo Grandmother
was I did not know. Each year, ever since I could remember, I had
received a beautiful gift from her for our midsummer festival of
Ura Bon, and, in a vague way, I was conscious that our family had
some close connection with her; but I gave it no thought. All little
girls had grandmothers. Some had two and some still more. Of course,
grandmothers on the mother's side lived elsewhere, but it was not
unusual for a father to have both his mother and grandmother living in
his home. Old people were always welcome, their presence giving dignity
to the family. The house of a son who had the care of three generations
of parents was called "the honoured seat of the aged."
Ura Bon--(A Welcome to Souls Returned)--was our festival to celebrate
the annual visit of O Shorai Sama, a term used to represent the
combined spirits of all our ancestors. It was the most dearly loved
of our festivals, for we believed that our ancestors never lost their
loving interest in us, and this yearly visit kept fresh in all our
hearts a cheerful and affectionate nearness to the dear ones gone.
In preparing for the arrival of O Shorai Sama the only standards were
cleanliness and simplicity; everything being done in an odd primitive
fashion, not elaborated, even in the slightest degree, from Bon
festivals of the most ancient time.
For several days everyone had been busy. Jiya and another man had
trimmed the trees and hedges, had swept all the ground, even under
the house, and had carefully washed off the stepping stones in the
garden. The floor mats were taken out and whipped dustless with bamboo
switches, Kin and Toshi, in the meantime, making the air resound with
the "pata-pata-pata" of paper dusters against the _shoji_, and the
long-drawn-out "see-wee-is-shi" of steaming hot padded cloths pushed up
and down the polished porch floors. All the woodwork in the house--the
broad ceiling boards, the hundreds of tiny white bars crossing the
paper doors, the carved ventilators, and the mirror-like post and
platform of the _tokonomas_--was wiped off with hot water; then every
little broken place in the rice-paper _shoji_ was mended, and finally
the entire house, from thatch to the under-floor ice-box, was as fresh
and clean as rain-water falling from the sky.
Mother brought from the godown a rare old _kakemono_, one of Father's
treasures, and after it was hung Kin placed beneath it our handsomest
bronze vase holding a big loose bunch of the seven grasses of
autumn--althea, pampas, convolvulus, wild pink, and three kinds of
asters, purple, yellow, and white. These are mostly flowers, but
Japanese designate all plants that grow from the ground in slender,
blade-like leaves, as grasses.
The shrine was, of course, the most important of all, as it was there
the spirit guest lived during the days of the visit. Jiya had gone to
the pond before dawn to get lotus blossoms, for it is only with the
first rays of sunrise that the "puff" comes, which opens the pale green
buds into snowy beauty. Before he returned, the shrine had been emptied
and cleaned, and the bronze Buddha reverentially dusted and returned to
his place on the gilded lotus. The tablet holding the ancestors' names,
and Father's picture, which Mother always kept in the shrine, were
wiped off carefully, the brass open-work "everlasting-light" lantern
filled afresh with rape-seed oil, the incense burner, the candle
stands, the sacred books, and our rosaries, all arranged in place, and
the ugly fish-mouth wooden drum, which is typical of woman's submissive
position, rubbed until the worn place on the red lacquer was a shiny
brown. Then Jiya covered the floor before the shrine with a fresh,
rudely woven mat of pampas grass and placed on either side a vase
holding bunches of the seven grasses of autumn.
But the most interesting time of all came when Honourable Grandmother
and I sat down before the shrine to prepare the decorations of welcome.
I always loved to help her do this. Ishi and Toshi brought us some
odd-shaped vegetables they had found in the garden, a handful of dried
hemp stems from which the bark had been removed, and yards and yards of
_somen_--a sort of soft, pliable macaroni. Honourable Grandmother took
a crooked-necked cucumber, one end of which was shaped something like
a lifted head, and made it into a horse, using corn silk for mane and
tail and hemp stems for stiff little legs. Of a small, plump eggplant
she made a water buffalo, with horns and legs of hemp stems, and
twisting some half-dried _somen_ into harness for both little animals,
she placed them in the shrine. I made several horses and buffaloes
too. While we were working, Jiya came in with some small lotus leaves,
the edges of which were beginning to dry and turn up like little curved
dishes, and a few very small yellow and red balls, a new kind of fruit,
which I now know were tomatoes.
After Ishi had filled the lotus-leaf dishes with vegetables and every
kind of fruit except the furry peach, Honourable Grandmother looped the
_somen_ across the top of the shrine in a series of graceful festoons,
hanging on it at intervals small purple eggplants and the tiny yellow
and red tomatoes.
Then Ishi brought the kitchen "row-of-steps," and climbing up, hung
the white Bon lantern high above everything. It was only a white paper
cube, twisted about with a braid of paper having loose ends; but when
it was lighted the heat made it constantly whirl, and the many ends
of paper rising, falling, and waving looked like a flock of tiny
fluttering birds. It was very beautiful.
The meaning of the decorations and the queer little vegetable animals
has been lost in the mist of past years, but the lotus-leaf shape of
the dishes was because the lotus is a sacred flower. The Buddhist bible
tells this story of Buddha's time of temptation when he was living as a
hermit on the Mount of Snow.
One day, at the hour of dawn, he was sitting in meditation, when he
heard a strange, sweet song. As he listened wonder and joy crept into
his heart, for in the notes of the melody was slowly unfolding the
plan of salvation. Suddenly it ceased. In vain he waited. All was
silence. Hurrying to the edge of a precipice he peered into the mists
of the valley and there saw a horrible demon who turned a taunting
face toward the disappointed and anxious prophet. Earnestly the Buddha
begged for the remainder of the song, but the demon said that he could
sing no more until his hunger was satisfied with human flesh and his
thirst with human blood. Then would he sing the mystic plan, until the
knowledge of salvation had reached all humankind.
The Buddha's dearest vision that he himself should bring the message to
the world faded into nothingness, and eagerly he cried, "Satisfy thy
hunger with my flesh, and quench thy thirst with my blood; but continue
thy song until every soul is saved!" and casting off his robe he sprang
from the rock. A sudden gleam of sunshine lighted the valley and
touched the waters of a pool where was floating a lotus with spreading
leaves and one unopened bud. As the holy prophet fell through the air,
the bud burst suddenly into bloom, and on its snowy petals softly sank
the one who was to give to more than one third of the world a faith far
better than any they had known.
The raised centre of the lotus, even now, is called _utena_, which
means "seat," and lotus blossoms, either natural or artificial, are
always before every Buddhist shrine.
Just before sunset we were all ready, for twilight was the hour of
welcome. O Shorai Sama was always spoken of as a vague, impersonal
figure who came riding on a snow-white steed from "the land of
darkness, the shores of the unknown, the place of the dead."
Like all children I had always looked forward with pleasure to the
visit of the ancestors, but after Father's death, I felt a deep
personal interest, and my heart was beating with excitement, as the
family met at the shrine. Each one, even the servants, wore a new
dress--simple and inexpensive, but new. As twilight deepened, the
shrine lantern was lighted, the _shoji_ pushed back, and the entrance
doors opened; thus leaving a free path from the outside road all the
way to the shrine.
Then we started, walking two by two through the open door, across
the hall, down the step of the "shoe-off" place and along the stone
walk to the big entrance gates, which were open wide. In the centre of
the gateway Jiya had criss-crossed a little pile of hemp stems--just
thirteen--around a tiny heap of fluffy dried grass. When we reached
this we parted, Jiya and Yoshita going on one side of the path, and on
the other, Honourable Grandmother, Mother, myself, and Ishi, Kin, and
Toshi. Then, all respectfully stooping, we bowed our heads and waited.
Brother was in Tokyo, so Honourable Grandmother, with Ishi's help,
struck the fire of purity with flint and steel, and the dropping sparks
lighted the hemp stems into a blaze of welcome.
All the town was silent and dusky except for hundreds of tiny fires,
for one was blazing at every gateway. As I bowed, my longing heart
seemed to pull my father to me. Through the distance I could hear the
sound of soft, galloping feet, and I knew the snow-white steed was
nearing. The moment's blaze of the hemp-stem fire was dying, a faint
breath of warm August wind struck my cheek, and peace crept into my
heart. Slowly we rose and with bowed heads walked back, on the outside
edges of the path, two by two--but wide apart--leaving the sacred space
of the walk between. When we reached the shrine Mother struck the gong
and we all bowed with the dignified cheerfulness of our usual greeting
to a welcome guest. We seemed so few since even the year before, and
how cordially our hearts welcomed the presence which we knew would
bring into our home cheerful companionship for the happy and helpful
comfort for the sorrowful.
The next two days the town was full of lanterns. Everybody carried one,
every house was decorated with them, every street was lined with them,
and at night the cemeteries were filled with glow-worm lights; for
every grave had above it a tiny white lantern swinging from an arch
made from stems of pampas grass. It was a happy time for all Japan, and
the one day in the year when no life was taken of fish, fowl, or even
insect. The fishermen idly wandered about arrayed in holiday garments,
the chickens cackled and crowed in their bamboo cages, and the little
crickets, which children love to keep in tiny cages, sang their shrill
song in the trees without the approach of a single sticky-topped pole.
And charity extended loving arms to the farthest limit. No priest
passed with an empty begging bowl; pampas-woven baskets of food were
hidden beneath lotus leaves on the graves, waiting for the poor to
carry away when the Bon lights had burned out; and even the sinners in
hell, if their hearts longed for salvation, were given another chance
during the merciful days of Bon.
Our home was filled with an atmosphere of pleasant thoughts, unselfish
acts, and happy laughter; for we felt that our kind guests enjoyed our
simple pleasures of new clothes, company courtesies, and our daily
feasts with them of the shrine food consisting of fruits, vegetables,
and rice dumplings. Honourable Grandmother's face grew more peaceful
each hour, Mother's beamed with calm content, the servants were
chattering and smiling all the time, and my heart was full of quiet joy.
In the shadows before sunrise of the fourth day, Jiya went for lotus
blossoms, and Mother placed fresh food before the shrine. When the
brightening air outside began to quarrel with the soft white lantern
inside we gathered for the farewell.
The past days had been happy ones and I think we all felt sad when,
after the last deep bows, Mother rose and lifted the pampas mat from
before the shrine. She doubled and flattened it, then tied the ends
with grass, thus forming a rude little canoe, and fixed a hemp-stem
arch in the centre. The lotus-leaf dishes of food were placed within,
and some balls of rice and uncooked dough added, as O Shorai Sama's
gift to the birds. Then the little vegetable animals and all the
decorations of the shrine were put in, the white fluttering lantern was
swung from the arch, and, with Jiya carrying the little canoe, Mother
and I, followed by Ishi and Toshi, went to the river.
Morning was just dawning, but the streets were full of people and the
air crowded with circling birds who seemed to know that a treat was
before them. When we reached the bank, all except Jiya took their
places on the bridge and watched him make his way down the slippery
steps cut in the bank, and join the throng below. Each person was
holding a little canoe with its burden of food and tiny swinging
lantern.
"Look," whispered Ishi, as Jiya lifted his hands to strike the flint
and steel to light our little lantern, "our honourable ancestors will
embark on the first tide warmed by the sunrise."
The silence was unbroken except for the loud cries of the birds, then
a sudden ray of sunlight shot across a distant mountain and hundreds
of figures stooped and launched the little canoes. All stood watching
as they whirled and drifted along in the midst of the storm of darting
birds screaming their thanks. One upset.
"My O Shorai Sama has stepped off and is now in the unknown land!"
said an old lady, and waiting no longer, she climbed the bank and
contentedly made her way home.
As daylight brightened we could see the little boats far in the
distance rising and falling, the tiny white lanterns swinging back and
forth. We waited until the sun broke into brilliance; then, as the
light came racing down the mountain-side, a soft, deep murmur rose from
the bowing figures all along the shores.
"Farewell, O Shorai Sama," we all gently called. "Come again next
year. We will be waiting to welcome you!"
The crowd scattered, and with satisfied faces, made their way homeward.
Mother and I walked happily along, with Ishi, Toshi, and Jiya chatting
pleasantly behind us. The anxious look that Mother's face had lost
during the last few days did not come back, and I felt that Father had
really been with us bringing comfort and help to us all; and now he had
gone, leaving behind him, not loneliness, but peace.
That afternoon, as Ishi was putting away my flower hair-ornament,
she pointed to the shield of polished silver set in the midst of the
flowers. A crest was carved deeply in it, and the cut edges sparkled
like jewels.
"It is not the Inagaki crest," I said.
"No, it is the birth crest of Honourable Yedo Grandmother," said she,
closing the little box and putting it away. "It is very wonderful work.
Everything Honourable Yedo Grandmother has ever given you is especially
beautiful or rare."
"Honourable Yedo Grandmother never sends a gift to my father or to my
mother," I said.
"No. To no one but you," Ishi replied. "She always remembers you on the
festival to welcome and honour the ancestors of the Inagaki."
I remembered long afterward that a faint wonder passed through my mind
at that time that I should be the one member of the family who ever
received a gift from Honourable Yedo Grandmother, but it lasted only a
moment. A Japanese child rarely asked what was not told, and there were
so many taken-for-granted things in Japanese life, anyway, that I gave
the matter no further thought.
Not until I was grown did I learn that Honourable Yedo Grandmother was
my father's own mother, and that my dear Honourable Grandmother, to
whom I owed so much, was in reality my great-grandmother.
When my grandfather died suddenly, leaving Father, at the age of seven,
as his heir, Honourable Grandmother became the mistress of her dead
son's home and the mother of his child. That the young widow, Father's
mother, did not remain in her own home, was one of the tragedies of our
family system, which, wise as it was when made, has resulted in many
wrongs, as must always be the case when the world moves too swiftly and
customs slowly lag behind.
The Restoration of 1868 was not a sudden event. There had been
political agitation for years, in which the world of Japan was divided
into two factions--those who believed that the Imperial power should
include both sacred and secular duties, and those who believed the
shogun, as military ruler, should take all national burdens from the
shoulders of the sacred Emperor.
My grandfather believed in the restoration of Imperial power, but his
wife's father, being a _hatamoto_--body-guard of the shogun--was, of
course, a strong advocate of the opposing party. Personally, the two
men were friends, but each was strongly loyal to his own principles and
to his overlord.
Grandfather's death took place very suddenly when he was in Tokyo (then
called Yedo) on official duty. It is said that he was taken violently
and mysteriously ill just after being elaborately entertained at the
mansion of his father-in-law. At the feast were present a number of
ardent politicians. That my grandfather understood the political
significance of the gathering was shown, when, after his death, it was
discovered that he had gone to the feast wearing beneath his usual
ceremonial dress his white death robe.
In those days, when the heart of Japan was beating violently and she
was pushing hard against the set, but questioned, control of ages, such
an event was not so unusual; nor was my grandfather's quiet acceptance
of his fate so rare. It was only samurai loyalty to a cause, and
samurai bravery in accepting defeat. Standards differ in different
countries, but everywhere we are expected to be loyal and to be brave.
But the tragedy of it came to the girl wife--my grandmother, who was
little more than twenty years old when she became a widow. Under
ordinary circumstances she would have been the honoured widow-mother of
the seven-year-old heir--my father; but because of the well-understood
though outwardly ignored situation, there was but one thing for this
proud, deeply humiliated woman to do. Whether she was the sacrifice
of her father's ambition, or of his loyalty, I do not know, but she
"humbly abdicated" from her husband's family, and changing her name
Inagaki to the death name, returned to her former home. According to
the ideals of that time, this was the most dishonoured position that
any samurai woman could hold. It was scorned as would be that of a
soldier who goes bravely to the battlefield and cowardly returns home
before fighting has begun.
For a few years the young widow lived a quiet life in her father's home
devoting her time to classic literature and cultural attainments; then
she was offered an important position as lady official in the mansion
of the daimio of Satsuma.
This was just the time when Satsuma was playing a conspicuous part
in history. It was this daimiate which, single-handed, challenged
the entire British Eastern Squadron, after the young samurai of the
clan had killed Mr. Richardson, a British merchant who boldly crossed
the ceremonial procession of their overlord. Satsuma was the most
powerful daimio in Japan and his home, like all high-rank houses
during feudal days, was divided into two distinct departments: the
State and the Home. The government of the Home Department was entirely
under lady officials; and in large mansions with many retainers these
lady officers had to be as efficient as the officials of the State
Department. Among these able retainers my grandmother occupied an
honoured place.
Very soon her special gifts were recognized and she was chosen as
governess to the little girl-princess, a position which she held until
her charge became a bride-elect and required teachers for wifehood
training. Then my grandmother, generously pensioned for life, was
"honourably released," this farewell being poetically worded "the
regretted disappearance of the full moon behind folds of cloud, leaving
in her wake soft, wide-spreading shafts of light, to remain with us
always, as gentle and lasting memories."
I never saw Honourable Yedo Grandmother with my human eyes, but I can
see her always when I look into my heart. Living in the largest daimio
mansion in Japan, surrounded by wealth and luxury, in the midst of
daily expressed appreciation of her culture and her natural gifts and
with the respect and affection of her much-loved young princess always
with her, yet her thoughts turned to the little granddaughter whom
she never saw. It was not altogether the call of love, though I like
to think that was there also. She was groping over a new and puzzling
path, striving to find a way to keep faithful to her wifely vow.
Her lifework, through no fault or neglect of her own, had been taken
from her; but unflinchingly--as is the Samurai way--she held her broken
duty to her heart and, as long as she lived sent each year one of
her closest personal possessions to the little granddaughter who was
said to resemble her, even to her curly hair, to be worn in a welcome
greeting to the spirits of the Inagaki family to whom she could no
longer bow, but to whom her duty was due. Her helplessness was tragedy.
Her efforts were pathos. But to her best, and to the last, she was true.
Standards of duty differ on opposite sides of the world, but Japanese
people never flinch at its call. Many a boy and girl not yet in their
teens, many a man and woman at the time of brightest promise, many of
the aged have gone alone to a distant province, and among strangers
have become of them--body, brain, and spirit. But even among beautiful
surroundings, if duty lies behind, undone, nothing, while life lasts,
can break the heart pull, the brain planning, the soul prayer to reach,
even partially, the lost goal. Such is the deep-hidden soul of Japan.
When the young princess bade farewell to my grandmother, she presented
her, as the highest token of grateful and affectionate appreciation,
something which she herself had worn--a dress bearing her own crest.
Many years afterward, for the Bon festival when I was ten years old,
my grandmother sent this choice treasure to me. I well remember that
day. Ishi had taken me to my room to dress for the evening of welcome.
Hanging over one of the large lacquer frames on which we spread our
clothing to air or to wait until we were ready, was a beautiful summer
dress of pale blue linen decorated with an exquisite design of the
seven grasses of autumn. It seemed to me the most beautiful thing that
I had ever seen in my life.
"Oh, Ishi," I cried, "is this beautiful dress for me?"
"Yes, Etsu-bo Sama. Honourable Yedo Grandmother has sent it to you for
the festival."
It was too large for me and Toshi had to take deep tucks at the
shoulders and waist. When I dressed I went to show myself to Honourable
Grandmother and Mother, then I went to Father's room.
"I have come!" I announced, kneeling outside the closed door, ready to
open it.
"Enter!" came the response from within.
I pushed back the _shoji_. Father was reading. He looked up with a
smile; then what was my surprise to see him, after one glance at me,
quickly slip from his cushion and with slow dignity dramatically
announce, "Enter the Princess of Satsuma!"
Then he made a deep bow.
Of course my own little head was down to the floor in an instant, and
though when I lifted it he was laughing, still I felt, in some subtle
way, that there was something deeper beneath his smile than just his
humorous obeisance to the crest of a superior clan: a combined pride
and grief, and perhaps pain also--like the cruel ache in the heart of a
strong man whose sword arm is helpless.