“EVEN a calamity, left alone, may turn into a fortune,” quoted Lady
Saito Ichigo, devoutly, as with her hand trembling with excitement she
filled her pipe.
Ohano listlessly extended the taper to her mother-in-law, and the latter
took several puffs and inhaled with intense satisfaction.
There was something peculiarly still and strange about the attitude of
Ohano. Her eyes seemed almost closed, her lips were a single colorless
line, and there was not a vestige of color in her face. Almost she
seemed like some automaton that was unable to move save when touched.
One of Ohano’s arms was shorter than the other, and this had always been
a sensitive matter to her, so that generally she had carried it hidden
in her sleeve. Now she nursed it mechanically, almost as if it pained,
and twice she extended the lame arm for the taper. Whatever there was
about the girl’s expression or attitude, it aroused the irritation of
the older woman, and she said sharply:
“You perceive the wisdom of the proverb, my girl, do you not?”
Ohano said slowly, as though the words came from her with an effort:
“It is not apropos to our case at all. I do not at all see either the
calamity or the fortune, for that matter.”
Her mother-in-law took her pipe from her mouth and stared at her
amazedly a moment. Then she enumerated events upon her fingers.
“Calamity,” she said, “when my son met the Spider woman. Almost it
seemed as if the gods had forsaken their favorites. What a fate for the
illustrious ancestors—the last of the race married to a geisha!”
Ohano shrugged her shoulders, then averted her face. She had bitten her
lips so that now they seemed to be blistered, and pushed out, thick and
swollen.
“Well,” resumed her mother, triumphantly, “you perceive the workings of
the gods undoubtedly in what followed. The war came like a veritable
miracle. Think; had it come but a few—one or two—months later even, the
Spider would still have been in our house, and, what is more, Ohano,
elevated! Oh, there would have been no enduring the dancer. It is
said”—and she lowered her voice confidently—“that the arrogance and
pride of women of her class is an intolerable thing when once aroused.
An excellent actress was this Spider. Let us admit it. She was prepared
to—wait! She entreated patience for only a few months longer. But, as I
have said, the gods intervened. The war arose! It was found imperative
to return her at once! Hoom! That is right. You may well smile, my girl,
since your turn had come!”
Ohano’s mask-like countenance had broken into a rigid smile of
reminiscence. She recalled the days of her supreme triumph—the casting
out of the one she hated, her own elevation as the wife of the Lord
Saito Gonji. A faint color stole into her cheeks.
“I’ll confess,” continued the mother-in-law, humorously, “that you
proved a less docile and filial daughter.” She chuckled reminiscently.
“It is impossible to forget the humility of the Spider!” She looked at
Ohano fondly. “I will tell you, my girl, I always desired you for my
daughter. Your mother and I were cousins, and do you know—I will tell
you, now that my lord is honorably absent—that it was originally planned
that your father and I should marry.” She scowled and blinked her eyes,
sighing heavily. “Well, schemes fall through!”
For a time she was silent, drowsily pulling at her pipe, which Ohano
mechanically filled and refilled.
Presently Lady Saito laid her pipe down on the hibachi and resumed as if
she had not stopped.
“So much for the calamity—the intervention of the gods that followed.
Now look you, my girl. All the expensive offerings heaped at the shrines
have been in vain. It is my opinion that if you supplicated the gods
till doomsday and drank of the last drop of the Kiyomidzu waters, you
would not now become a mother! Superstitions are for the ignorant. These
are enlightened days, when we fight and beat—and _beat_, Ohano!—the
Western nations! So, now, we supplicate the gods for a solution of the
tragic problem facing us—the extinction of the illustrious race of
Saito. It is impossible for such a race to die!”
Ohano moved uneasily. She had picked up her embroidery frame, and was
attempting to work, but her lips were moving and her hands trembled.
Partly to hide her expression from her mother-in-law, she bent her head
far over the frame. Lady Saito began to laugh quite loudly.
“Never—no, not within the entire span of a lifetime—have I even heard of
such favor of the gods! Just think, Ohano, without the pains and labors
of a mother, they put into your honorable arms a most noble descendant
of the august ancestors. Why, you should extend your arms in perpetual
thanks to all the gods. Was ever such mercy?”
Said Ohano, with her face still hidden by the frame:
“It is said, as you know, that it is easier to beget children than to
care for them!”
Silence a moment. Then she added with sudden passionate vehemence:
“I loathe the task you set me, mother-in-law. It is not possible for me
to carry out your wishes.”
The expression on the older woman’s face should have warned her. The
thin lips drew back in a line as cruel as when previously she had looked
at the hapless Moonlight. Her voice was, if possible, harsher.
“It is better to nourish a dog than an unfaithful child!” she cried, got
to her feet, and, drawing her skirts about her, moved away in stately
dudgeon.
Ohano leaped up also, anxious to repair the injury she had done.
“Mother!” she cried out, chokingly, “put yourself in my place. Would it
be possible for you to cherish in your bosom the child of one you
abhorred?”
Slowly the outraged and angry look faded from Lady Saito’s face. It
seemed pinched and haggard. Her voice was curiously gentle:
“That is possible, Ohano. I have given you an instance in my own
honorable house, for as deeply as I hated your mother, so I have loved
you!”
Ohano’s breath came in gasps. She was losing control of the icy nerve
that had hitherto upheld her. She longed to fling herself upon the
breast of her mother-in-law, who, despite her austere bearing to all,
had always been kind to Ohano. Even as the two looked into each other’s
face the cry of the one they were expecting to arrive was heard outside
the screens. Matsuda had kept his word!
Ohano turned white with despair. She clutched at her throat as though
she were choking and clung for a moment to the screens, her anguished
face turned back toward her mother-in-law.
“It is a crime!” she gasped. “The Spider will come for her child!”
“Let her come,” darkly rejoined Lady Saito. “Who will take the word of a
public geisha against that of the honorable ladies of the house of
Saito?”
“The man—he himself—will betray—it is not possible to close the tongue
of one of the choum class.”
“He is well paid. Moreover, in committing the act he places himself
under the ban of the law. Will he betray himself?”
Lady Saito moved with a curious sense of hunger toward the doors,
outside which, she knew, was the son of her son. For the moment at least
she had forgotten Ohano; but when she found the girl barred her passage
she thrust her ruthlessly aside. Ohano fell upon her knees by the shoji,
and, with her face hidden upon the floor, she began to pray to the gods.
------------------------------------------------------------------------