HAVING determined upon the course to take, Lord Saito Ichigo summoned a
council of the relatives of the family.
For the first time, possibly, since his marriage, he faced the assembled
kinsfolk with the calm demeanor of one who had seized, and intended to
retain, the authority properly invested in him as head of the house of
Saito. His should be the voice heard! His the decision that must
prevail!
In the minds of most men—Japanese men, at least—who have married at the
dictates of their parents, there is always some little cherished chamber
to which, despite the passing years, memory returns with loving,
loitering step. So with Lord Ichigo. Now, with the fate of his beloved
child in his hands, the father looked back upon his own life, and it was
no reflection upon his excellent and virtuous wife that he did so with
just a shade of vague regret.
The impetuous Gonji’s passionate words had not been spoken to deaf ears.
Lord Saito Ichigo was determined to keep his promise to his son,
whatever the result; for well he knew of the upheaval in his household
which would be sure to follow.
There was, of course, Ohano to think of. Her case was not as difficult
as it seemed, he pointed out to the assembled relatives. An orphan, one
of a family already allied by marriage to the Saitos, they had taken her
into their house at an early age. They already regarded her as a
daughter. As for a daughter, they would seek, outside their own family,
for a worthy and suitable husband for the maiden. In fact, it was better
that Ohano should marry another than Lord Gonji, since the latter had
always looked upon her as a sister, and a union between them was, to
him, repugnant. That, indeed, Ichigo himself had thought at first, but
he had desired to please “the honorable interior” (his wife) and the
many relatives of his honorable wife.
Thus he disposed of this matter briefly, and, although the relatives
looked at each other with startled glances, they had nothing to say.
Something in the fixed attitude of the one they had hitherto somewhat
contemptuously regarded as weak and yielding claimed now their
respectful attention.
To approach the matter of the marriage of a Saito with a public geisha
required not alone tact, but bravery. Hardly had the father of Gonji
mentioned the matter when a storm of dissent arose. To a man—to say
nothing of the countless unseen female relatives arrayed even more
bitterly against her—the exalted kinsmen resented even the suggestion of
such a union. So the Lord Ichigo approached the subject by wary paths.
In the first place, he pointed out boldly, the assembled ones were not
actually of the Saito blood, but relatives by marriage only; and, while
their counsel and advice were respectfully and gratefully solicited,
even their united verdict could not finally stand out against the legal
head of the house. This bold statement at the outset met a silence more
eloquent of resentment than any storm of words.
It was imperative, as all had agreed, continued Lord Ichigo, that the
son and heir of the house of Saito should make an early marriage. He was
the last of the line. The glorious and heroic ancestors demanded
descendants. It was a sacred duty to keep alive the illustrious seed.
Lord Ichigo launched into a detailed recital here of the notable deeds
of his ancestors, but was stopped abruptly by the sarcastic comment of
Takedo Isami, who quoted the ancient proverb, “There is no seed to a
great man!” meaning none could inherit his greatness.
This cut off Ichigo’s oratory; and, hurt and disturbed at the quotation
as a reflection upon his own shortcomings, he brought up squarely before
them the main issue.
These were the days of enlightenment, when the iron-clad ships of war
sailed the seas as far as the great Western lands; when the Japanese had
accepted the best of the ways of the West; when the spirit of the New
Japan permeated every nook and corner of the empire. There was one
Western privilege which the men of New Japan were now demanding, and
desired above all things. That they must have: the right to love!
Now, “love” is not a very proper word, according to the Japanese notion
of polite speech. Hence the attitude of the relatives. Nor did the
frigid atmosphere melt in the slightest before the flow of fervid
eloquence that the father of Gonji brought to the defense of this
reprehensible weakness.
Takedo Isami, who seemed to have assumed the position of leader and
dictator among the relatives, arose slowly to his feet, and, thrusting
out a pugnacious chin, asked for the right to speak. He was short, dark,
with the face of a fighter and the body of a dwarf.
Admitting the right of man to love, he said it was better to hide this
weakness, and, by all means, fight its insidious effort to enter the
household. Only men of low morals married for love. Duty was so
beautiful a thing that it brought its own reward. The proper kind of
love—the lofty and the pure—declared the uncle of Ohano, came always
after marriage, and sanctified the union. That the last of a great race,
in whose keeping the ancestors had confidently placed the family honor,
should contemplate a union of mere love and passion with a notorious and
public geisha was a gratuitous and cruel insult not alone to his many
living relatives—and they of his mother’s side were equally of his
blood—but to the ancestors.
As the uncle of Ohano reseated himself a low murmur of approbation broke
out from the circle. Gloomy looks were turned toward Ichigo, whose face
had become curiously fixed. Far from weakening his resolve, his pride
had been stung to the quick. Nothing, he told himself inwardly, would
cause him to retreat from the position he had taken. He looked Takedo
Isami squarely in the eye ere he spoke.
The honorable Takedo Isami’s remarks, he declared, were a reflection
upon his own, since they concerned one whom the ancestors and the Lord
Saito Gonji deemed worthy to honor. Moreover, it was both vain and
reprehensible to cast a stone at a profession honored by all intelligent
Japanese. It was of established knowledge that often the geishas were
recruited from the noblest families in Japan. It was absurd to regard
them with disdain, as apparently had latterly become the fashion. There
was no great event in the history of the nation since feudal times
wherein the geisha had not played her part nobly. The greatest of
sacrifices she had made for her country and the Mikado. There were
instances, too famous to need repeating, of the most exquisite
martyrdom. The Emperor, the nobility, the priests—all delighted to do
her honor. Only the ignorant assumed to despise her. She was in reality
the darling and the pride of the entire nation. One would as soon dream
of being without the flowers and the birds, and all the other joyous
things of life, as the geisha. Who was it, then, dared to reflect upon
the most charming of Japanese institutions?
Up sprang Takedo Isami, his hand raised, his dark face flushed with
fury, despite the restraint he sought to exercise upon his features. His
voice was under control, and he spoke with incisive bitterness.
His honorable kinsman, he loudly declared, wished but to confuse the
issue. No one denied the virtues of the geisha; also the undoubted fact
that many of them came from the impoverished families of the samourai.
Nevertheless, charming and desirable as she was, she had not been
educated to be the mother of a great race. Her lithe, twisting, dancing
little body was not meant to bear children. Her light, frivolous mind
was ill-fitted to instruct one’s sons and daughters. Society had set her
in her proper place. It was against all precedents to take her from her
sphere. One did not desire as a mate through life a creature of mere
beauty, any more than one would care to take one’s daily bowl of rice
from a fragile work of art which would shatter at the mere contact of
the sturdy chop-sticks against it.
Such a storm of dissent and discussion now arose that it was impossible
for the father of Gonji to hear his own voice, and indeed all seemed to
make an effort to drown it. So he summoned servants, and coolly bade
them put the amado (outside sliding walls) in place, lest the unseemly
noise of wordy strife be heard by some passing neighbor—for the Japanese
esteem it a disgrace to engage in controversy. Then, when the doors were
in place, Lord Saito Ichigo gravely bowed to the assembled relatives,
and, taking his son by the arm, bade them good night, advising that they
argue the matter among themselves, without his unnecessary presence.
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