IF Ohano’s relatives were aware of the manner of her death, they gave no
sign. Such of the male members of the family and of her husband’s as
were not serving in the war stolidly attended the funeral of their
kinswoman, and shortly Ohano was honorably interred in the mortuary
halls of the Saito ancestors.
There had been expressions of sorrow over her passing, but these were
largely perfunctory. Ohano had been an orphan; and, as she had lived all
of her life in the Saito house, her husband’s people had really been
nearer to her than her own family. Her uncle, Takedo Isami, was possibly
the only one of her relatives who had known the girl with any degree of
intimacy, and at this time he too had entered the war service.
Many offerings and prayers were put up for Ohano, and in the end the
relatives quietly dispersed to their homes, leaving the silent and prim
old Lady Saito alone in the now almost deserted mansion. She shut
herself into the chamber of the dead girl, and for several days not even
her personal maid was permitted to intrude upon her voluntary
retirement. Whatever were the thoughts that tormented and haunted the
mother-in-law of Ohano, she emerged, in the end, still resolute and
stern, though her hair had turned as white as snow.
From day to day now the aged lady crouched over the kotatsu, warming her
withered old fingers, lighting and relighting her pipe, and always
seeming to listen, to watch for some one she expected to return.
Couriers and agents had been despatched by her orders to the city in
search of Moonlight and her child. There was nothing left for the
Dowager Saito to do, save to wait. Not for a moment had she considered
the possibility that her servants might be unable to find the one they
sought, or, having found her, fail to induce the geisha to return to the
house of the Saitos. To keep her mind from brooding over Ohano, she
endeavored to force it to remain fixed upon one matter only—the recovery
of her son’s child.
But the days passed away, the chill season of hoar frost swept the trees
bare of leaf and color, and the silently moving servants set the winter
amado (wooden sliding walls) in place; and still, with a stony, frozen
look upon her face, the Lady Saito waited.
Gradually the proud and strong spirit within her began to weaken under
the strain. Supported by a maid on either side, she toiled up the
mountain slope to visit the temple endowed by her family, and to seek
advice and comfort there. In broken words, her voice stammering and
shaking, she whispered a confession to the chief priest, and entreated
him to help her with spiritual advice and prayers.
Though the lives of the priests are devoted largely to meditation and
the study of the sacred books, they are by no means ignorant of what
passes about them. The chief priest of the Saito temple knew every
detail of the casting out of the first wife; he knew, moreover, what had
been the end of Ohano. As the family had not, up to the present,
however, sought his advice in the matter, he had expressed no opinion.
An acolyte had quite recently come to the chief priest with a strange
story. It concerned a very beautiful geisha who seemed in deep distress,
who, with her maiden clinging to her skirt and a baby upon her back, had
asked the boy to direct them toward a certain small temple where an
ancient priestess of the Nichi sect had lived. The acolyte had been
unable to direct the geisha; and, to his surprise and distress, the two
had climbed higher up the mountain slope, with the evident intention of
penetrating farther into the interior. Both the priest and the acolyte
had waited anxiously for the return of the wanderers, for they knew
there were no sheltering places in the direction the pair had taken, and
the weather had turned very cold. It was not the season for an infant to
be abroad. Now the chief priest called the acolyte before him and
requested the boy to repeat his story to the Lady Saito Ichigo.
She listened with mixed feelings; and when the boy was through he
chanced, timidly, to raise his eyes to the face of the exalted patroness
of the temple, and, as he afterward informed the priest, he saw that
great tears ran down the stern and furrowed cheeks of the lady, nor
could she speak for the sobs that tore her.
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