SO the Lord Saito Gonji went to Tokio the following day, and immediately
the machinery of law, which grinds less slowly in Japan than in many
other countries, was set in motion. All that wealth, power, influence
could do to hasten matters was brought to bear. Presently the wife of
Lord Gonji was divorced by her husband’s parents and legally barred from
the home of his ancestors.
No one knew where she had gone. Disregarding and refusing all the
charitable and gracious offers and promises of present or future aid,
she disappeared upon the night of her last interview with her husband,
going without even the customary ceremonious leave-taking.
Even her going, pointed out the relatives, was proof of her
unworthiness. The daughter of a samourai would have departed with a
certain submissive dignity and grace, and, whatever her lacerated
feelings, would have proclaimed her pleasure in the act of the superior
ones. But the geisha-girl fled in the night, like one who goes in fear
and shame.
Meanwhile Ohano was duly taken to Tokio. Here in the presence of a host
of triumphantly joyous and exultant relatives she was married at last to
the Lord Saito Gonji.
Here, like a dutiful wife, she remained in the capital by her husband’s
side, awaiting the summons which would take him from her and give him
eternally to the Emperor.
As a little boy Gonji had been, in a way, fond of Ohano. She was of that
chubby, sulky type that a small boy delights to tease. Time had changed
very little the form and disposition of Ohano; but what in a child had
appealed to his humorous affection, in a woman proved not merely
tiresome but repellent. Mere unadorned flesh has little attraction for
one of a naturally poetic and visionary temperament. Even the slight
affection he had felt for Ohano as a child had now entirely disappeared.
It was with an element of positive loathing that he regarded the girl he
had married. When his mind reverted to the one he had forsaken on her
account, he was filled with such overwhelming despair that it seemed as
if he must injure himself—but for the mighty events in which he tried
vainly to plunge his mind.
No soldier in all the Emperor’s service, though animated with the most
lofty patriotism and excitement as the times demanded, seized upon the
cause with such fanatic zeal as Lord Gonji. Day and night he was among
his men. When not in some way improving their equipment and physical
condition, he was arousing and stimulating their ardor and patriotism.
People pointed with pride to the young man’s heroic ancestry, and
prophesied that in his young body still glowed that wonderful spark
which would give to Japan another hero, and assure for all under him
glorious victory and triumph.
It seemed as if it were impossible for him to leave his men even to
return to his temporary home for rest and sleep. The prayers and
entreaties of his mother and of his new wife fell upon deaf ears. Vainly
they besought him, in the short time he was yet to be in Japan, to
remain as much as possible in their company. They were sacrificing him
for all time. Surely even exalted Tenshi-sama (the Mikado) would not
begrudge to them the little, precious moments he might yet spend in
Japan.
Gonji looked at the pleading women with blank, cold eyes. Then,
abruptly, he would return to his labors.
Never since the day they had married him to Ohano had he voluntarily
addressed a single word to his wife. When forced finally at night to
return to her sole company, he would creep back stealthily to the house
like some guilty wretch entering upon some infamous errand. There,
always, he found her patiently, dutifully awaiting his coming.
“My dear lord,” she would humbly say, “though it is very late, I pray
you feed the honorable insides. Permit the honorable interior to wait
upon your excellency.”
He ignored the tray of viands thus nightly tendered him as completely as
he did her words; but when she made officious efforts to assist him to
undress, kneeling in the attitude of a servant or the lowliest of wives,
to wash his feet, he would quietly push her to one side, just as though
she were some article that stood in his pathway.
Sometimes he would point silently to his wife’s couch, thus sternly
bidding her retire. When this was accomplished, he would lie down beside
her, and not till the heavy, even, healthy breathing of Ohano proclaimed
she slept would he close his own weary eyelids.
Beside Ohano’s blooming, satisfied face (for with feminine logic Ohano
set her husband’s curious treatment of her down to his absorption in the
war matter, and thus in the proud knowledge of possession still found
happiness), he conjured up always that thin, white, wistful one, whose
long dark eyes had drawn the very heart out of his breast from the
moment they had first looked into his own.
Sometimes in the night he would arise, to tramp frenziedly up and down,
as he pictured the fate that might have befallen the beloved Moonlight.
What had become of her? Whither had she gone? How would she fare, now
that, penniless and without even her old employment (for now in time of
war the geishas were in reduced circumstances), she had been cast
adrift?
He cursed his own folly in not having foreseen the way in which she
would go; for not having provided for her, forced her to accept at least
monetary assistance of some kind from his family.
His agents had assured him she had not returned to Matsuda; neither had
a trace been found of her in any of the geisha-houses of Tokio or Kioto.
Whither, then, had she gone? A sick fear seized upon him that she had
started upon the Long Journey alone, without waiting for him, who had
promised to tread it with her. He knew that he would never know a
moment’s peace till the time when, face to face, they should meet each
other upon the Long Road which has no ending.
Thus the wretched nights passed, giving the unhappy man little or no
rest; and that he might not encounter the ingratiating smiles and
questions of Ohano, he would depart hurriedly ere she awoke, and plunge
into the war preparations with renewed fervor and desperation.
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