If I could have changed places with Fidget, I could scarce have
expressed my disapproval of the new-comer more vehemently than he.
Miss Meyrick seemed quite annoyed at the little dog's uncalled-for
snapping and barking, and shook her umbrella at him in vain. I was
obliged to take him in hand myself at last, and to stand in the road
and order him to "Go home!" while the two young ladies walked on,
apparently the best of friends.
When I rejoined them Fanny Meyrick was talking fast and unconnectedly,
as was her habit: "Yes, lodgings in London--the dearest old house in
Clarges street. Such a butler! He looks like a member of Parliament.
We stayed there once before for three days. I am just going to settle
into an English girl. Had enough of the Continent. Never do see
England now-a-days, nobody. All rush off. So papa is going to have a
comfortable time. Embassy? Oh, I know the general well."
I looked beseechingly at Bessie. Why wouldn't she say that we too
would be there in London lodgings? Perhaps, then, Fanny Meyrick might
take the hint and leave us soon.
But Bessie gave no sign, and I relapsed into a somewhat impatient
_résumé_ of my own affairs. Yes: married quietly on Saturday; leave
here on Monday morning train; take, yes, Wednesday's steamer. I could
arrange it with my law-partners to be absent a little longer
perhaps, that there might be some little rest and romance about the
wedding-journey.
Two or three times in the course of that morning--for she stayed with
us all the morning--Fanny Meyrick rallied me on my preoccupation and
silence: "He didn't use to be so, Bessie, years ago, I assure you.
It's very disagreeable, sir--not an improvement by any means."
Then--I think without any malice prepense, simply the unreasoning
rattle of a belle of two seasons--she plunged into a description of
a certain fête at Blankkill on the Hudson, the occasion of our first
acquaintance: "He was so young, Bessie, you can't imagine, and blushed
so beautifully that all the girls were jealous as could be. We were
very good friends--weren't we?--all that summer?"
"And are still, I hope," said I with my most sweeping bow. "What have
I done to forfeit Miss Meyrick's esteem?"
"Nothing, except that you used to find your way oftener to Meyrick
Place than you do now. Well, I won't scold you for that: I shall make
up for that on the other side."
What did she mean? She had no other meaning than that she would have
such compensation in English society that her American admirers would
not be missed. She did not know of my going abroad.
But Bessie darted a quick glance from her to me, and back again to
her, as though some dawning suspicion had come to her. "I hope,"
she said quietly, "that you may have a pleasant winter. It will be
delightful, won't it, Charlie?"
"Oh, very!" I answered, but half noting the under-meaning of her
words, my mind running on deck state-rooms and the like.
"Charlie," said Miss Meyrick suddenly, "do you remember what happened
two years ago to-day?"
"No, I think not."
Taking out a little book bound in Russia leather and tipped with gold,
she handed it to Bessie, who ran her eye down the page: it was open at
September 28th.
"Read it," said Fanny, settling herself composedly in her shawl, and
leaning back against a tree with half-shut eyes.
"'_September 28th_'" Bessie read, in clear tones which had a strange
constraint in them, "'Charlie Munro saved my life. I shall love
him for ever and ever. We were out in a boat, we two, on the
Hudson--moonlight--I was rowing. Dropt my oar into the water. Leaned
out after it and upset the boat. Charlie caught me and swam with me to
shore.'"
A dead silence as Bessie closed the book and held it in her hand.
"Oh," said I lightly, "that isn't worth chronicling--that! It was
no question of saving lives. The New York boat was coming up, if I
remember."
"Yes, it was in trying to steer away from it that I dropped my oar."
"So you see it would have picked us up, any how. There was nothing but
the ducking to remember."
"Such a figure, Bessie! Imagine us running along the road to the gate!
I could scarcely move for my dripping skirts; and we frightened papa
so when we stepped up on the piazza out of the moonlight!"
To stop this torrent of reminiscences, which, though of nothings, I
could see was bringing the red spot to Bessie's cheek, I put out my
hand for the book: "Let me write something down to-day;" and I hastily
scribbled: "_September_ 28. Charles Munro and Bessie Stewart, to sail
for Europe in ten days, ask of their friend Fanny Meyrick her warm
congratulations."
"Will that do?" I whispered as I handed the book to Bessie.
"Not at all," said Bessie scornfully and coldly, tearing out the leaf
as she spoke and crumpling it in her hand.--"Sorry to spoil your book,
Fanny dear, but the sentiment would have spoiled it more. Let us go
home."
As we passed the hotel on that dreary walk home, Fanny would have
left us, but Bessie clung to her and whispered something in a pleading
voice, begging her, evidently, to come home with us.
"If Mr. Munro will take word to papa," she said, indicating that
worthy, who sat on the upper piazza smoking his pipe.
"We will walk on," said Bessie coldly. "Come, Fanny dear."
Strange, thought I as I turned on my heel, this sudden fond intimacy!
Bessie is angry. Why did I never tell her of the ducking? And yet when
I remembered how Fanny had clung to me, how after we had reached
the shore I had been forced to remind her that it was no time for
sentimental gratitude when we both were shivering, I could see why
I had refrained from mentioning it to Bessie until our closer
confidences would allow of it.
No man, unless he be a downright coxcomb, will ever admit to one woman
that another woman has loved him. To his wife--perhaps. But how much
Fanny Meyrick cared for me I had never sought to know. After
the dismal ending of that moonlight boat-row--I had been already
disenchanted for some time before--I had scarce called at Meyrick
Place more than civility required. The young lady was so inclined to
exaggerate the circumstance, to hail me as her deliverer, that I felt
like the hero of a melodrama whenever we met. And after I had met
Bessie there were pleasanter things to think about--much pleasanter.
How exasperating girls can be when they try! I had had my _congé_ for
the walk home, I knew, and I was vexed enough to accept it and stay at
the hotel to dinner.
"I will not be played upon in this way. Bessie knows that I stayed
over the morning train just to be with her, and piled up for to-morrow
no end of work, as well as sarcastic remarks from D. & Co. If she
chooses to show off her affection for Fanny Meyrick in these few hours
that we have together--Fanny Meyrick whom she _hated_ yesterday--she
may enjoy her friendship undisturbed by me."
So I loitered with my cigar after dinner, and took a nap on the sofa
in my room. I was piqued, and did not care to conceal it. As the clock
struck five I bethought me it was time to betake me to the Sloman
cottage. A sound of wheels and a carriage turning brought me to the
window. The two young ladies were driving off in Fanny Meyrick's
phaeton, having evidently come to the hotel and waited while it was
being made ready.
"Pique for pique! Serves me right, I suppose."
Evening found me at the Sloman cottage, waiting with Mrs. Sloman by
the tea-table. Why do I always remember her, sitting monumental by the
silver urn?
"The girls are very late to-night."
"Yes." I was beginning to be uneasy. It was nearing train-time again.
"Such lovely moonlight, I suppose, has tempted them, or they may be
staying at Foxcroft to tea."
Indeed? I looked at my watch: I had ten minutes.
A sound of wheels: the phaeton drove up.
"Oh, Charlie," said Bessie as she sprang out, "you bad boy! you'll
miss your train again. Fanny here will drive you to the hotel. Jump
in, quick!"
And as the moonlight shone full on her face I looked inquiringly into
her eyes.
"The letter," I said, "for Judge Hubbard?" hoping that she would go to
the house for it, and then I could follow her for a word.
"Oh! I had almost forgotten. Here it is;" and she drew it from her
pocket and held it out to me in her gloved hand. I pressed the hand
to my lips, riding-glove and all, and sprang in beside Fanny, who was
with some difficulty making her horse stand still.
"Good-bye!" from the little figure at the gate. "Don't forget, Fanny,
to-morrow at ten;" and we were off.
By the wretched kerosene lamp of the car, going down, I read my
letter, for it was for me: "I will not go to Europe, and I forbid you
to mention it again. I shall never, never forget that _I_ proposed
it, and that you--_accepted_ it. Come up to Lenox once more before you
go."
This was written in ink, and was sealed. It was the morning's note.
But across the envelope these words were written in pencil: "Go to
Europe with Fanny Meyrick, and come up to Lenox, both of you, when you
return."
SARAH C. HALLOWELL.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
INSIDE JAPAN.
A double pleasure rewards the pioneer who is the first to penetrate
into the midst of a new people. Besides the rare exhilaration felt in
treading soil virgin to alien feet, it acts like mental oxygen to look
upon and breathe in a unique civilization like that of Japan. To feel
that for ages millions of one's own race have lived and loved, enjoyed
and suffered and died, living the fullness of life, yet without the
religion, laws, customs, food, dress and culture which seem to us
to be the vitals of our social existence, is like walking through a
living Pompeii.
I confess to a chronic desire to explore the Island Empire in which I
dwell. Having already, in the central provinces of Japan, trodden many
a path never before touched by foreign foot, I yearned to explore
the twin provinces of Kadzusa and Awa, which form the peninsula lying
between the Gulf of Yeddo and the Pacific Ocean. A timely holiday and
a passport from the Japanese foreign office enabled me to start toward
the end of March, the time when all Japan is glorious with blossoming
plum trees, and the camellia trees in forests of bloom are marshaled
by thousands on the mountain-slopes.
I was glad to get away from Yeddo: I had a fit of anti-Caucasianism,
and wished to dwell a while amidst things purely Japanese. There
were too many foreigners in Yeddo. In that city of only eight hundred
thousand Japanese there are now full two hundred foreigners of all
nationalities; and of these, fifty or more are Americans. It was too
much like home and too little like Japan. Should I go to Yokohama,
the case was worse. Nearly twelve hundred of the sons of Japheth dwelt
there, and to reach that upstart European city one must travel on a
railway and see telegraph-poles all along the line. What _was_ the
use of living in Japan? Every young Japanese, too, in the capital is
brainful of "civilization," "progress," "reform," etc. I half suspect
a few cracks in the craniums belonging to some of the youths who wish
to introduce law, religion, steam, language, frock-coats and tight
boots by edict and ordinance. There was too much civilization. I
yearned for something more primitive, something more purely Japanese;
and tramping into the country I should find it. I should eat Japanese
food--profanely dubbed "chow-chow;" sleep in Japanese beds--on the
floor; talk Japanese--as musical as Italian; and live so much like an
old-time native that I should feel as one born on the soil. By that
time, returning to Yeddo as a Japanese of the period, I should of
course burn to adopt railways, telegraphs and balloons, codify the
laws, improve upon United States postage, coinage and dress-coats, and
finish off by annexing the English language after I had cut out all
irregularities and made all the crooked spelling straight.
So, resolving to be a heathen for a week at least, I left Yeddo one
afternoon, though it took several hours to do so: the big city is one
of distances more magnificent than those of Washington. I started in
a _jin-riki-sha_, which baby-carriage on adult wheels has already been
described, so as to be tolerably familiar to all American readers.
The "team" of this "man-power carriage" consists of two men, pulling
tandem--one in the shafts, the other running ahead with a rope over
his shoulder, and, until the recent passage of a law commanding
decency, attired only in his cuticle and a loin-cloth two inches wide.
You take three coolies when you wish to be stylish, while four are
not an unknown sensation in Yeddo. With these and fresh relays you can
travel sixty, or even eighty, miles a day; and I have known one man to
run thirty miles on the stretch.
Of all the modes of traveling in Japan, the jin-riki-sha is the most
pleasant. The _kago_ is excruciating. It is a flat basket, swung on
a pole and carried on the shoulders of two men. If your neck does
not break, your feet go hopelessly to sleep. Headaches seem to lodge
somewhere in the bamboos, to afflict every victim entrapped in it. To
ride in a kago is as pleasant as riding in a washtub or a coffin slung
on a pole. In some mountain-passes stout native porters carry you
pickapack. Crossing the shallow rivers, you may sit upon a platform
borne on men's shoulders as they wade. Saddle-horses are not to be
publicly hired, but pack-horses are pleasant means of locomotion.
These animals and their leaders deserve a whole chapter of description
for themselves. Fancy a brass-bound peaked pack-saddle rising a foot
above the animal's back, with a crupper-strap slanting down to clasp
the tail. The oft-bandied slur, that in Japan everything goes by
contraries, has a varnish of truth on it when we notice that the most
gorgeous piece of Japanese saddlery is the crupper, which, even on
a pack-horse, is painted crimson and gilded gloriously. The man who
leads the horse is an animal that by long contact and companionship
with the quadruped has grown to resemble him in disposition and
ejaculation: at least, the equine and the human seem to harmonize well
together. This man is called in Japanese "horse side." He is dressed
in straw sandals and the universally worn _kimono_, or blue cotton
wrapper-like dress, which is totally unfitted for work of any kind,
and which makes the slovens of Japan--a rather numerous class--always
look as if they had just got out of bed. At his waist is the usual
girdle, from which hangs the inevitable bamboo-and-brass pipe, the
bowl of which holds but a pellet of the mild fine-cut tobacco of the
country. The pipe-case is connected with a tobacco-pouch, in which
are also flint, steel and tinder. All these are suspended by a cord,
fastened to a wooden or ivory button, which is tucked up through the
belt. On his head, covering his shaven mid-scalp and right-angled
top-knot, is a blue cotton rag--not handkerchief, since such an
article in Japan is always made of paper. This head-gear is usually
fastened over the head by twisting the ends under the nose. With a
rope six feet long he leads his horse, which trusts so implicitly
to its master's guidance that we suspect the prevalence of blindness
among the Japanese pack-horses arises from sheer lack of the exercise
of their eyesight. These unkempt brutes are strangers to curry-combs
and brushes, though a semi-monthly scrubbing in hot water keeps them
tolerably clean. Their shoes are a curiosity: the hoofs are not shod
with iron, but with straw sandals, tied on thrice or oftener daily.
Grass is scarce in Japan, and oats are unknown. The nags live on
beans, barley, and the stalks, leaves and tops of succulent plants,
with only an occasional wisp of hay or grass.
In certain districts horses of one or the other sex, as the law
determines, are kept exclusively. Horses of the gentler sex in Japan
are usually led by women. During part of my journey to the place which
I am about to describe the leader of the mare I bestrode was a maiden
of some forty summers--a neat, spare, vinegar-faced sylph, who had
evidently long since left the matrimonial market, and had devoted
herself to making one horse happy for the rest of her pilgrimage. That
she was neither wife nor widow I discovered, not by asking questions,
but by the manner in which her hair was dressed. Japanese virgins and
wives have each distinct coiffures, by which, apart from the shaven
eyebrows and the teeth dyed black of the married women, the _musume_
or young maiden may be known. The widow who has resolved never to
marry again (always too old or ugly) is distinguished by her smooth
skull, every hair of which is shaved off. A lady of rank may also be
known by her coiffure; and many other distinctions are thus noted.
I waited three-quarters of an hour for my horse and its leader to
appear at the post-relay at which I sat down, and was stared at during
that time by about three hundred pairs of eyes. The populace of
each village turned out _en masse_ to see the foreigner, and they
diligently improved their time in examining him from crown to
boot-sole. Like everything else in the rural districts of Japan, my
guide was not in a hurry, and could not understand why a foreigner
should be. But finally arriving, she bowed very low and invited me
to climb up on the saddle, and off we started for a mountain ride of
eight miles.
A Japanese pack-horse, at his best, seems always swaying between two
opinions: his affection for the bestower of his beans and that for the
repose of the stable mutually attract him. On this occasion the little
woman gently led the horse over the rough places and down the steep
paths with the ejaculation, _Mite yo! Mite yo!_ but when the beast
stopped too long to meditate or to chew the bit, as if vainly trying
to pick its teeth, a lively jerk of the rope and a "You old beast!
come on," started the animal on its travels. Finally, when the
creature stopped to deliberate upon the propriety of going forward at
all, the vials of the wrath of the Japanese spinster exploded, and I
was tempted to believe her affections had been blighted. But when we
met any of her friends on the road, or passed the wayside shops or
farm-houses, the scolder of horses was the lady who wished all _Ohaio_
("Good-morning"), or remarked that the weather was very fine; and when
joked for carrying a foreigner, replied, "Yes, it is the first time I
have had the honor."
I need not trouble the reader with many details of geography. My
trip lasted eight days, during which I passed over two hundred miles,
two-thirds of the way on foot. I made the entire circuit of the lower
half of the peninsula, but shall dwell only on my visit to Kanozan
(Deer Mountain), famous for its lovely scenery, temple and Booddhist
monastery. From the top of the mountain there are visible innumerable
valleys, nearly the whole of the Gulf of Yeddo, and the white-throned
Foosiyama, called the highest mountain in Japan and the most beautiful
in the world. We spent the night previous in Kisaradzu, the capital
of the now united provinces, and a neat little city, just beginning to
introduce foreign civilization. Its streets were lighted with Yankee
lamps and Pennsylvania petroleum. Postal boxes after the Yankee custom
were erected and in use. Gingham umbrellas were replacing those made
of oiled paper. Barbers' poles, painted white with the spiral red
band, were set up, and within the shops Young Japan had his queue
cut off and his hair dressed in foreign style. Ignorant of the
significance of the symbolic relic of the old days, when the barber
was doctor and dentist also, and made his pole represent a bandage
wound around a broken limb, the Japanese barber has, in many cases,
added a green or blue band. Not being an adept in the use of that
refractory language which Young Japan would so like to flatten out and
plane down for vernacular use, the Japanese barber is not always happy
in executing the English legend for his sign-board. The following are
specimens:
"A HAIR-DRESSING SALOON FOR
JAPANES AND FOREIGNER."
"SHOP OF HAIR."
"HAIRS CUT IN THE ENGLISH
AND FRENCH FASHION."
Passing out of Kisaradzu, and winding up to Kanozan over the narrow
bridle-path, we pass the usual terraced rice-fields watered by
descending rivulets, and the usual thatched and mud-walled cottages,
which characterize every landscape in Japan, besides long rows of
tall _tsubaki_ (camellia) trees, forty feet high and laden with their
crimson and white splendors. Along the road are the little wayside
shrines and sacred portals of red wood which tell where the worshipers
of the Shintoo faith adore their gods and offer their prayers without
image, idol or picture. The far more numerous images and shrines
of Booddha the sage, Amida the queen of heaven, and hundred-armed
Kuannon, tell of the popular faith of the masses of Japan in the
gentle doctrines of the Indian sage. The student of comparative
religions is interested in noticing how a code of morals founded
upon atheistic humanitarianism, in its origin utterly destitute
of theology, has developed into a colossal system of demonology,
dogmatics, eschatology, myths and legends, with a pantheon more
populous than that of old Rome. Many of the images by the wayside are
headless, cloven by frost, overturned by earthquakes, and so pitted
by time as to resemble petrified smallpox patients rather than
divinities. Nature neither respects dogma nor worships the gods made
by men, and the moss and the lichens have muffled up the idols and
eaten the substance of the sacred stone. Here Booddha wears a robe
of choicest green, and there the little saxafrage waves its white
blossoms from the shoulder of Amida, rending asunder her stone body.
Even the little stone columns which contain a guiding hand pointing
out the road to Kanozan are dedicated to Great Shaka (Booddha).
Passing one of the larger temples, we meet a company of pilgrims.
Actual sight and reasoning from experience in other lands agree in
telling me that they are women, and most of them old women. They
return my salute, politely striving to conceal their wonder at the
first _to-jin_ they have ever looked upon.
I would wager that these people, like most of the rustics in Japan,
have always believed the foreigners from Europe and America to be
certainly ruffians, and most probably beasts. Many of them,
without having heard; of Darwin or Monboddo, believe all the "hairy
foreigners" to be descendants of dogs. Their first meeting with a
foreigner sweeps away the cobwebs of prejudice, and they are ashamed
of their former ignorance. In extorting from Japanese friends their
first ideas about foreigners, I have been forcibly reminded of some
popular ideas concerning the people of China and Japan which are still
entertained at home, especially by the queens of the kitchen and the
lords of the hod.
After the fashion in Japan, I inquire of the pilgrims whence they came
and whither they are going. Leaning upon their staves and unslinging
their huge round, conical hats, they give me to know that they have
come on foot from Muja, nearly one hundred and fifty miles distant,
and that they will finish their pilgrimage at Kominato--where the
great founder of the Nichiren sect (one of the last developments of
Booddhism in Japan) was born--twenty-seven miles beyond the point
at which we met. I inform them that I have come over seven thousand
miles, and will also visit Nichiren's birthplace. "_Sayo de gozarimos!
Naru hodo?_" ("Indeed, is it possible?")
I have reached their hearts through the gates of surprise. A foreigner
visiting Nichiren's birthplace! And coming seven thousand miles too!
The old ladies become loquacious. They pour out their questions
by dozens. Do you have Booddhist temples in America? Of course the
Nichiren sect flourishes there? When I politely answer No to both
questions, a look of disappointed surprise and pity steals over both
the ruddy and the wrinkled faces. "Then he is a heathen!" says the
expression on their faces. How strange that no Booddhist temples exist
in the foreigner's country! Ah, perhaps, then, the Shintoo religion is
the religion of the foreigner's country? "No? _Naru hodo!_ Then what
_do_ you believe in?"
It did not take long to answer that question. There is no country in
the world in which Christianity has been more publicly and universally
advertised. For three centuries, in every city, village and hamlet and
on every highway, the names of Christianity and its Founder have been
proclaimed on the edict-boards and in the public law-books of the
empire as belonging to a corrupt and hateful doctrine; which should
a man believe, he would be punished on earth by fines, imprisonment,
perhaps death, and in _jigoku_ (hell) by torments eternal. "Whosoever
believeth in Christ shall be damned--whosoever believeth not shall be
saved," was the formula taught by the priests for centuries. I pointed
to the board on which hung the edicts prohibiting Christianity, and
told them I believed in that doctrine, and that Christ was the One
adored and loved by us. A volley of _naru hodos_, spoken with bated
breath, greeted this announcement, and I could only understand the
whispered "Why, that is the sect whose followers will go to hell!"
The old ladies could not walk fast, and we soon parted, after many
a strange question concerning morals, customs and the details of
civilization in the land of the foreigner. Be it said, in passing,
that the present liberal and enlightened government of Japan, in spite
of priestly intolerance and the bigotry of ignorance, resisting even
to blood, has decided upon the recission of the slanderous falsehoods
against the faith of Christendom; and Japan, though an Asiatic nation,
will soon grant toleration to all creeds.
The path wound up through higher valleys, revealing bolder scenery.
Afar off, in the sheen of glorified distance, the water slanted to the
sky. The white bosoms of the square-sailed junks heaved with breezy
pulses, the mountains were thrones of stainless blue, the floods
of sunny splendor and the intense fullness of light, for which the
cloudless sky of Japan is remarkable, told the reason for the naming
of Niphon, of which "Japan" is but the foreigner's corruption,
"Great Land of the Fountain of Light." Anon we entered the groves
of mountain-pines anchored in the rocks, and with girths upon which
succeeding centuries had clasped their zones. They seemed like
Nature's senators in council as they whispered together and murmured
in the breeze that reached us laden with music and freighted with
resinous aroma. Reaching a hamlet called Mute ("six hands"), I sit
outside an inn on one of the benches which are ever ready for the
traveler, and shaded overhead by a screen of boughs. A young girl
brings me water, the ever-ready cup of tea, and fire for the pipe
which I am supposed to smoke. A short rest, another hour's climb and
walk, and we are in the village of Kanozan, which is scarcely more
than a street of hotels. Situated on the ridge of the mountain, it
rises like an island in a sea of pines.
In imagining a Japanese hotel, good reader, please dismiss all
architectural ideas derived from the Continental or the Fifth Avenue.
Our hotels in Japan, outwardly at least, are wooden structures, two
stories high, often but one. Their roofs are usually thatched, though
the city caravansaries are tiled. They are entirely open on the front
_ground_ floor, and about six feet from the sill or threshold rises a
platform about a foot and a half high, upon which the proprietor may
be seen seated on his heels behind a tiny railing ten inches high,
busy with his account-books. If it is winter he is engaged in the
absorbing occupation of all Japanese tradesmen at that time of
year--warming his hands over a charcoal fire in a low brazier. The
kitchen is usually just next to this front room, often separated
from the street only by a latticed partition. In evolving a Japanese
kitchen out of his or her imagination, the reader must cast away the
rising conception of Bridget's realm. Blissful, indeed, is the thought
as I enter the Japanese hotel that neither the typical servant-girl
nor the American hotel-clerk is to be found here. The landlord comes
to meet me, and, falling on his hands and knees, bows his head to the
floor. One or two of the pretty girls out of the bevy usually seen
in Japanese hotels comes to assist me and take my traps. Welcomes,
invitations and plenty of fun greet me as I sit down to take off my
shoes, as all good Japanese do, and as those filthy foreigners don't
who tramp on the clean mats with muddy boots. I stand up unshod, and
am led by the laughing girls along the smooth corridors, across an
arched bridge which spans an open space in which is a rookery, garden,
and pond stocked with goldfish, turtles and marine plants. The room
which my fair guides choose for me is at the rear end of the house,
overlooking the grand scenery for which Kanozan is justly famous all
over the empire. Ninety-nine valleys are said to be visible from
the mountain-top on which the hotel is situated, and I suspect that
multiplication by ten would scarcely be an exaggeration. A world of
blue water and pines, and the detailed loveliness of the rolling
land, form a picture which I lack power to paint with words. The water
seemed the type of repose, the earth of motion.
Enjoying to the full that rapture of first vision which one never
feels twice, I turned and entered the room, which made up in neatness
what it lacked in luxury. Furniture in a Japanese house there is
none. Like all the others, the floor of my room was covered with soft
matting two inches thick, made into sections six feet long and three
feet wide, and bound with a black border. The dimensions of a room may
always be expressed by the number of mats. The inside of the mats is
of rice straw, the outside is of the finest and smoothest matting.
There are no chairs, stools, sofas or anything to sit down upon,
though, having long since forgotten the fact, we find a ready seat on
the floor. On one side of the room, occupying one-half of its space,
is the _tokonoma_, a little platform anciently used for the bed, two
feet wide and five or six inches high. In one corner is a large vase
containing four or five boughs broken from a plum tree crowded with
blossoms, and a large bunch of white, crimson and dappled camellias,
both single and double. In the centre is the sword-rack, found in
every samurai's house, yet now obsolete, since Japan's chivalry have
laid aside their two swords. On the other half of the room, occupying
the same side as the tokonoma, is a series of peculiar shelves like
those of an open Japanese cabinet, though larger; and at the top of
these is a little closet closed by sliding doors. The other three
sides of the room are of sliding partitions six feet high, made of
fine white wood, latticed in small squares and covered with paper,
through which mellow, softened light fills the room. On the plastered
wall above the latticed sliding doors hangs a framed tablet on which
are written Chinese characters, which, having the Japanese letters
at the side, tell in terse and poetical phrase that "This room is the
chamber of peaceful meditation, into which the moonlight streams."
Some of the lattice and other work is handsomely carved and wrought,
and a paper screen along the wall which separates this room from the
next is covered with verses of Japanese poetry. Were it cold weather,
a brazier, with some live coals in it, would be brought for us to
toast our hands and feet and to shiver over, as stoves and hard coal
are not Japanese institutions. First of all, however, at present, one
of the _musumes_ brings me a _tobacco-bon_ or tray, in which is fire
to light my pipe, the Japanese scarcely having a conception of a man
who does not smoke.
My description of a Japanese room will answer, in the main, for any
in Japan _as it was_--from the artisan's to the emperor's. Even
the palaces of the mikado in Kioto never contained tables, chairs,
bedsteads or any such inconvenient and space-robbing thing. The tables
upon which they ate, played chess or wrote were six inches or a foot
high. A Japanese of the old style thinks the cumbrous furniture in our
Western dwellings impertinent and unnecessary. In the eye of aesthetic
Japanese a room crowded with luxurious upholstery is a specimen of
barbaric pomp, delighting the savage and unrefined eye of the hairy
foreigners, but shocking to the purged vision and the refined taste
of one born in great Niphon. No such tradesman as an upholsterer or
furniture-dealer exists in Japan. The country is a paradise for young
betrothed couples who would wed with light purses. One sees love in a
cottage on a national scale here. That terrible lion of expense, the
furnishing of a house, that stands ever in the way of so many loving
pairs desirous of marriage and a home of their own, is a bugbear not
known in Japan. A chest of drawers for clothing, a few mats, two or
three quilts for a bed on the floor, some simple kitchen utensils,
and the house is furnished. Why should we litter these neatly matted
rooms, why cover with paint and gilding virgin wood of faultless
grain, or mar the sweet simplicity and airy roominess of our
(Japanese) chambers by loading them with all kinds of unnecessary
luxuries?
These reflections are broken in upon by Miss Cherry-blossom, one of
the maids, who glides in, kneels upon the floor, and sets down a tiny
round tray with a baby tea-pot and a cup the size of an egg. Pouring
out some tea, enough to half fill one of these porcelain thimbles, she
sets it in the socket of another yet tinier tray, and bowing her head
coquettishly, begs me to drink. Having long since learned to quaff
Japan's fragrant beverage guiltless of milk or sugar, I drain the cup.
Miss Cherry-blossom, sitting upright upon her heels, folds her dress
neatly under her knees, gives her loose robe a twitch, revealing to
advantage her white-powdered neck, the prized point of beauty in a
Japanese maiden, and then asks the usual questions as to whence
I came, whither I am going, and to what country I belong. These,
according to the Japanese code of etiquette, are all polite questions;
and in return, violating no dictum which the purists of Kioto or Yeddo
have laid down, I inquire her age ("Your honorable years, how many?").
The answer, "_Ju-hachi_," makes known that she is eighteen years of
age. Chatting further, I learn what things there are to be seen in the
neighborhood, whether foreigners have been there before, the distance
to the next village, the history of the old temple near by, etc. All
this is told with many a laugh and a little pantomime--she naturally
committing the mistake of speaking louder and faster to the foreigner
who cannot fully understand her dialect or allusions--when a new
character appears upon the scene.
A very jolly, matronly-looking woman, evidently the landlady, pulls
aside one of the sliding paper doors, and bowing low on her hands and
knees, smiles cavernously with her jet-black teeth, which, like all
correct and cleanly women in Japan, she dyes on alternate days. She
asks concerning dinner, and whether it is the honorable wish of the
visitor to eat Japanese food. The answer being affirmative, both
matron and maiden disappear to prepare the meal, evidently thinking it
a fine joke. No such thing as a common dining-room exists in Japanese
hotels. Caste has hitherto been too strictly observed to allow of such
an idea. Every guest eats in his own room, sitting on his calves and
heels. The preparations are simple, though of course I speak now of
every-day life.
Miss Peach-blossom appears, bearing in her hand a table four inches
high, one foot square, and handsomely lacquered red and black. Behind
her comes a young girl carrying a rice-box and plate of fish. Most
gracefully she sets it down with the apology, "I have kept you long
waiting," and the invitation, "Please take up."
On the table are four covered bowls, two very small dishes containing
pickles and soy, and a little paper bag in which is a pair of
chopsticks. The place of each article is foreordained by gastronomic
etiquette, and rigidly observed. In the first bowl is soup, in the
second a boiled mixture consisting of leeks, mushrooms, lotus-root
and a kind of sea-weed. In a third are boiled buckwheat cakes or
dumplings, and _tofu_ or bean-curd. In the porcelain cup is rice. In
an oblong dish, brought in during the meal, is a broiled fish in soy.
Lifting off the covers and adjusting my chopsticks deftly, I begin.
The bowl of rice is first attacked, and quickly finished. The
attendant damsel proffers her lacquered waiter, and uncovering the
steaming tub of rice paddles out another cupful. It is etiquette to
dispose of unlimited cups of rice and soup, but a deadly breach of
good manners to ask to have the other two bowls replenished. Of course
at the hotels whatever the larder affords can be ordered. Boiled eggs,
cracked and peeled before you by the tapering fingers of the damsels,
are considered choice articles of food. Raw fish, thinly sliced and
eaten with radish, sauce, ginger sprouts, etc., is highly enjoyed by
the Japanese, who are surprised to find the dish disliked by their
foreign guests. A member of one of the embassies sent to Europe
confessed that amid the luxuries of continental tables, he longed for
the raw fish and grated radish of his native land. Some articles of
our own diet, especially cheese and butter, are as heartily detested
by the Japanese as their raw fish is by us. The popular idea at home,
that the Japanese live chiefly on mice and crawfish, and that the
foreigners are in chronic danger of starvation, is matched by that of
some Japanese, who, finding that the "hairy foreigners" do not eat
the food of human beings--_i.e._ Japanese--wonder what they do eat. A
member of the present embassy in Europe, when first leaving his native
land, was thus addressed by his anxious mother: "Now, Yazirobe, you
are going to those strange countries, where I am afraid you will get
very little to eat: do take some rice with you." I confess that on
first landing in Japan I could not relish Japanese diet and cookery.
Barring eggs and rice, everything tasted like starch or sawdust. The
flavors seemed raw and earthy, or suggested dishcloths not too well
scalded. I suspect that a good deal of Philadelphia and Caucasian
pride lined the alimentary canal of the writer. Now, after a ten-mile
tramp, a Japanese meal tastes very much as it does to one native and
to the diet born.
Besides the young damsel who presides, there is another, less neatly
dressed. Her apron is suggestive of the kitchen, and altogether she
seems a Cinderella by the fireplace. This damsel is evidently a supe
or scullion. She is not so self-possessed as her superior companion,
and while observing the foreigner with a mild stare, unskillfully
concealing her mirth, she finally explodes when he makes a _faux pas_
with the chopsticks and drops a bit of fish on the clean matting.
Thereupon she is dispatched to the kitchen for a floor-cloth, and
severely lectured for laughing aloud, and is told to stay among the
pots and pans till she learns better manners.
Dinner over, a siesta on the soft mats is next in order. These mats
seem made for sleep and indolence. No booted foot ever defiles them.
Every one leaves his clogs on the ground outside, and glides about in
his mitten-like socks, which have each a special compartment for the
great toe. My waiting damsel having gone out, and there being no such
things as bells, I do as the natives and clap my hands. A far-off
answer of _Hei--i--i_ is returned, and soon the shuffling of feet
is heard again. The housewife appears with the usual low bow, and,
smiling so as to again display what resembles a mouthful of coal, she
listens to the request for a pillow. Opening the little closet before
spoken of, she produces the desired article. It is not a ticking bag
of baked feathers enclosed in a dainty, spotless case of white linen,
but a little upright piece of wood, six inches high and long, and one
wide, rounded at the bottom like the rockers of a cradle. On the
top, lying in a groove, is a tiny rounded bag of calico filled with
rice-chaff, about the size of a sausage. The pillow-case is a piece of
white paper wrapped around the top, and renewed in good hotels daily
for each guest. One can rest about four or six inches of the side of
his _os occipitis_ on a Japanese pillow, and if he wishes may rock
himself to sleep, though the words suggest more than the facts
warrant. By sleeping on civilized feathers one gets out of training,
and the Japanese pillows feel very hard and very much in one place.
The dreams which one has on these pillows are characteristic. In my
first some imps were boring gimlet-holes in the side of my skull,
until they had honeycombed it and removed so much brain that I felt
too light-headed to preserve my equilibrium. On the present occasion,
after falling asleep, I thought that the pillow on which I lay pressed
its shape into my head, and the skull, to be repaired, was being
trepanned. My head actually tumbling off the pillow was the cause of
the fancied operation being suddenly arrested. A short experience in
traveling among the Japanese has satisfied me that they are one of
the most polite, good-natured and happy nations in the world. By
introducing foreign civilization into their beautiful land they may
become richer: they need not expect to be happier.
W.E. GRIFFIS.
JASON'S QUEST.
I.
This is a story of love for love, and how it came to naught. In it
there shall be no marrying from mercenary motives; the manoeuvering
mother-in-law is suppressed; Nature takes her course; and in the
climax I strive to prove how sad a thing it is that men are modest and
women weak.
Still, I do not lose faith in humanity, but hope for better things in
the broad, bright future. I would respectfully call attention to
the moral of this tale, and, as for the heroes and heroines of the
hereafter, I cheerfully leave them to regulate their affairs upon a
different basis; which basis, I devoutly believe, will be one of the
inevitable results of time.
But, lo! the heroine approaches and the story begins!
* * * * *
Life with some of us is but the grouping of a few brilliant or sombre
tableaux, which are like the famous lines in an epic that immortalize
the whole. Maud's life was such a one, and her years had been rather
unpicturesque until now, when the shadows began to deepen and the
lights to grow more intense. In fact, she seemed to be approaching
some sort of a climax, and she began to grow nervous about it, being
just woman enough to dwell somewhat anxiously upon her anticipated
_début_, and to hope for at least a decent appearance in her
extremity.
The good-hearted, commonplace people of a pleasant country down the
coast--which I will call Dreamland for convenience' sake--thought
of Maud only as a gentle and humane little lady, with a comfortable
income and a character above reproach. So Maud abode in peace with her
maids at the seaside cottage, spending the still hours of Dreamland
between her rose-garden on the sunny slope to the southward and the
conservatory of lily-like nuns on the hill toward the sea.
Maud was unhappy in a world which had treated her very kindly indeed,
and it was simply because she had a dove's heart, that was always
fluttering in a strange place, and the face of a nun, that was for
ever getting looked at by all sorts of people, much as it disliked
that kind of treatment from the best of them.
The only reason why Maud preferred such a dull place as Dreamland to
the splendid metropolis up the coast was that she might have a quiet
time of it, and not be annoyed by the impudent metropolitans. In fact,
she was tired of her lovers--all save one, a fine young fellow named
Jason, but better known in Dreamland as John. I have mentioned, I
believe, that Maud was in very good circumstances: I am sorry to
add that Jason wasn't. He was rich only in his untried youth and the
promises of a glorious manhood.
Jason loved Maud, and she knew it as well as she ever knew anything in
her life--she knew it without his having told her. Had she not divined
it by the infallible intuition of the heart, she might have lived
believing herself unloved, for Jason hadn't the remotest idea of
mentioning the fact. He could barely live comfortably by himself,
frugal as he was; and he would not go to her empty-handed, though
Heaven knows she had enough for two, and was dying to share it with
him. He went his way, and the way was tedious enough in those days.
Like a mirage, happiness glimmered before him, but his upright and
patient steps brought him no nearer to its alluring vista.
Youth is impatient and sanguine, and Jason, in his impetuous and
hopeful youth, besought the oracle, whose prophetic utterances seemed
to imply that his future and his fortune lay in some distant land,
and that it would be wise for him to seek it at once. Jason, like his
illustrious predecessor, resolved to go over the sea in search of the
golden fleece. It was the most adventurous thing he ever did, and Maud
thought it a hopeless and a willful act; yet she could do nothing
but hold her peace, while her poor heart was as near to breaking
as possible--much nearer to breaking than it is usually safe for a
maiden's heart to be.
So Jason gathered his mates--a reckless lot they were, too--and,
having laden his barque and swung into the stream, his men said their
final adieux, receiving quantities of pincushions and bookmarks, so
indispensable to Argonauts, as testimonials of eternal fidelity from
the maids of Dreamland.
Jason strode to the cottage and kissed the hand of Maud as if it
were the hand of a princess; after which, with much embarrassment, he
plucked a rose from her garden, while a pang pierced his heart till it
ached again, and a thorn probed his finger till a drop of blood
fell upon a myrtle leaf; which leaf Maud coveted, and keeps to this
day--hugged to her in her grave-clothes.
It is of course best that this life should not be perfect, for the
life to come might suffer by comparison; yet it is one of the cruelest
decrees of Nature--if Nature has really decreed what seems so wholly
against her--that a woman's heart must bide its time and be silent in
the presence of its natural mate while every attribute of her being
implores his recognition; and that the truest men are too honorable
or too proud to yield themselves, having no offering but their honest
love to lay at the feet of their mistresses. If it were not so, the
princess would not have mourned in her garden for her flown mate, and
there would have been much happiness on short notice.
Driven forth by the propitious winds, the barque fled from the shore,
while Maud, seated among her roses, with weeping and wringing of
hands, poured out upon the winds the burden of her love.
Why didn't Jason catch a syllable of that fervent prayer, reef, and
come home to her? Then I need not have written this history, and all
would have been well in Dreamland. But he didn't. He heard nothing
but the sibilant waters as they rushed under his keel: he thought of
nothing but the rose that was withering in the secret locker of his
cabin, and of the wound in his heart that was gaping and as fresh as
ever. So the night-winds hurried him onward, and the darkness absorbed
the outlines of the dear Dreamland coast.
Maud watched the barque while it lessened and lessened in the
distance, and the clouds blew over her, and it grew chilly and damp in
the rose-garden--as chilly and damp as though it were not the abode of
a princess who was beloved of the noblest of men. She watched the sail
till it faded suddenly beyond the headland, and between it and her
loomed the dark towers of the convent. Out on that troubled sea,
seeking the golden fleece in some remote kingdom, tossed on the
treacherous waves for her sake, in her white and radiant dreams she
beheld Jason. Yet ever between him and her, hiding the lessening
barque from the slope of the rose-garden, loomed the dark towers of
the convent.
II.
Jason and his fellows coursed the seas, scanning with eager eyes
the cloudy belt of the horizon, hopefully seeking some signs of the
Fortunate Islands, of whose indescribable beauty and untold wealth
they had heard many surmises. Day after day they pressed on between
the same blank sky and the same blank sea, but there was no token to
gladden the eyes of the watchers. Jason grew impatient at last: he had
called upon nearly all the saints in the calendar, and was growing to
be a very poor sort of a Catholic, inasmuch as he doubted the efficacy
of his prayers and the ability of saints to answer them. He didn't
realize that there might be good reasons for their not being answered
under the existing circumstances; which is a matter worthy of the
consideration of all of us.
The fact was, the Fortunate Islands were not one-half so wonderful as
had been represented; and the saints knew it well enough. Had Jason
invested there, as he purposed doing at the time of his embarkment,
he might have sunk all that he possessed--which was little enough
to float, as one would think--and then Maud might have tended her
rose-garden and carried fruit-offerings to the sweet-faced nuns
till she was gray and limping, for all Jason's fine notions of
independence--namely, a good income from the rise of stocks in the
Fortunate Islands, and two souls and two hearts doing the same sort of
thing at the same time, with complete and unqualified success, in that
sweet rose-garden on the sunny slope to the southward.
That was the way life went with Captain Jason of the Argonauts, called
John, for short, in Dreamland, while the crew growled a good deal at
their ill-luck, and began to fear that if things went on in that way
much longer they would have more fasts than Fridays in the week. Those
were trying times for all of them, and when land was made at last, and
it proved to be a temptation and a snare, Jason ordered a special fast
and a mass for the salvation of the souls in imminent peril. Out in
the world at last, thousands of miles from the unsophisticated
people of Dreamland, Jason beheld the dread Symplegades rocking their
enormous bulks upon the waves, and liable at any moment to swing
together with a terrific and deadly crash. Probably they were whales
at play: it may have been two currents of the sea rushing into
each other's arms: at all events, it was something deluding, though
temporary, and perhaps the selfsame difficulty experienced by the
original J. when he went after the original fleece.
My hero was young and unschooled in the world's wickedness, but he
knew that where two opposing elements come together with much force,
whatever happens to lie between them must suffer. What should be done
was a question of no little importance to the Argonauts. Most of
them were in favor of running the risk of a collision and letting the
vessel drive straight through. Jason thought this a judgment worthy
of young men whose lady-loves give expression to their most sacred
sentiments by gifts of pincushions and bookmarks. But he had something
to consider more than they--yea, more than any other living man--in
exemplification of the pleasing fallacy that besets all lovers in all
ages. Blessed be God that it is so!
The original Jason in the fable let loose a dove upon the waters, and
the dove lost only a tail-feather or two when the clashing islands
clashed their worst, and in the moment of the rebound the Argo swept
through in safety. The modern J. thought of this in his predicament,
and having turned it in his mind, he concluded that whereas the
pioneer Argonaut did not meet his princess till after his encounter
with the elements, he was not worthy of consideration; for had he
known her and loved her as some one knew and loved some one else
at that moment, most likely he would not have valued his life so
slightly. He clewed up his canvas like a wise mariner, and lay to
while the Symplegades butted one another with their foreheads of
adamant, and the sea was white with terror all about them. Jason
was no coward: he would have braved the passage had he alone been
concerned in the result; but for Maud in her rose-garden and for the
future, dear to him as his hope of heaven, he paused and trembled.
It is a pity there should be so little pausing and trembling among
the clashing islands when life hangs in the balance and the odds are
against it. But there always has been and always will be this little,
because we believe that nothing but experience is capable of teaching
us, and experience invariably teaches it all wrong end to, so that we
begin our lesson with a disaster and conclude it with a slow recovery.
During Jason's hour of deliberation his guardian angel, who was the
only one having his interests really at heart, and who loved him
unselfishly,--this angel advised him in the similitude of a dream to
"luff a little and go round the obstacles." Jason luffed, and passed
on with colors flying; which was doubtless much better than trying to
squeeze through the floating islands in the midst of an exceedingly
disagreeable sea.
Then came the land beyond, the long-sought kingdom, full of arts and
wiles. Jason was beset with ten thousand temptations, and was more
than once upon the point of falling into a snare, when, however, he
seemed to behold the apparition of his withered rose, which bloomed
and blushed again at such times, and gave out a faint fragrance, so
like a breath from that Eden on the sunny slope that he paused and
grew strong, and was saved.
His troubles were not yet over. There was the bargaining for the
golden fleece, and the tempting offer of the dragons' teeth which
he was to sow. They were the lusts of the body, that, once planted,
spring up an armed force of bloody and persistent accusers. But
that precious rose! How it blossomed over and over for his especial
benefit, a perpetual warning and an unfailing talisman--a very
profitable sort of blossom to wear in one's button-hole in these
times! But such blossoms are scarce indeed.
In due course of time that potent charm got him the golden fleece in a
very natural and business-like way, and, rejoicing in his possessions,
Jason returned to his vessel and trimmed his sails for home.
Merry the hearts that sailed with him, and fresh the winds that wafted
them onward, while, as is usual at sea, nothing occurred during the
voyage worth mentioning an hour after its occurrence. Jason in his new
joy had almost forgotten that withered token. In deep remorse at his
thoughtlessness, he sought his treasure, and, horror of horrors! every
leaf had fallen from the stem, the blossom was annihilated for ever.
He dwelt upon this episode morbidly, as upon a presentiment: he
pictured in his mind the hill-slope cottage deserted, the rose-garden
wasted and full of tares, and the bleak wind blowing whither it listed
through those avenues of beauty, for desolation possessed them all. He
groaned in spirit and wrestled with his new and invisible adversary,
beseeching the Most Merciful, from the bitterness of his suspense, a
speedy deliverance or a happy death.
III.
There were thistles and tares in the unkept rose-garden, and
the cottage was abandoned to a sisterhood of doves, who mourned
perpetually for their lost princess. The place was desolate, yet there
had been no sudden desertion of it. For many months no news had been
heard of the Argonauts. They were considerably overdue: the sages of
Dreamland shook their grizzly heads. They were just as sage and shaky
in those days as in these degenerate times. The maids of the hamlet
wept for a season, then turned from sorrowing, dried their tears, took
unto themselves new lovers, and the world wagged well in Dreamland.
But Maud was a truer soul than any amongst them: she prayed hourly
for Jason's prosperity, and was trusting and hopeful until it seemed
almost that something had whispered to her the fate of the voyagers.
Then she mourned night and day: she went into retirement with the
sweet-faced nuns at the headland, whose secluded life had ever been
very grateful to her. She gave out of her bounty to all who asked, and
rested not then, but sought the sick and the suffering, and they were
comforted, and blessed her who had blessed them. They began to think
her half an angel in Dreamland, and it seemed as though she were not
made for this world at all. The same thing happens now occasionally,
and in this way we acknowledge our shortcomings before our fellow-men
and women when we find some one considerably above the average who
shames us into confessing it. I hope the Recording Angel is within
hearing at these precious moments.
The world certainly possessed no charms for one of Maud's temperament:
it never did possess any for her. She was as out of place in it as a
mourning dove in a city mob. Her spirit sought tranquillity, and she
found it in the serene and changless convent life. You and I might
seek in vain for anything like peace of spirit in such a place: we
might find it a stale and profitless imprisonment; and perhaps it
speaks badly for both of us that it is so. The violet finds its silent
cell in the earth-crevice by the hidden spring a sufficient refuge,
and rejoices in it, but the sea-grass that has all its life tossed in
the surges would think that a very dull sort of existence. There are
human violets in the world, and human sunflowers and poppies, and
doves also, and apes and alligators; and some of them come within one
of being inhuman; and sometimes that _one_ drops out, and the inhuman
swallows up the human.
Maud was the mourning dove seeking its bower of shade: she used to
fancy herself a nun, and followed the prescribed duties of the house
as faithfully as Sister Grace herself. She knelt in the little chapel
of the convent till her back ached and her knees were lame, but it was
a never-failing joy in time of trouble, and her time of tremble had
come. Maud said many prayers before an altar of exceeding loveliness,
where fresh flowers seemed to breathe forth an unusual fragrance.
There was a statue of the Virgin, said to possess some miraculous
qualities: tradition whispered that on two or three occasions the
expression on the face of the statue had been seen to change visibly.
Maud heard of this, and was very eager to witness the miracle, for it
was thought to be nothing less than miraculous by the good Sisters.
She bowed before the altar for hours, and dreamed of the marble face
till she seemed to see its features smiling upon her and its small,
slim hand beckoning her back to prayer. She grew nervous and pale and
almost ill with watching and waiting, and at last was found prostrate
and insensible at the foot of the statue, overcome with excitement
and exhaustion. When she grew better she vowed she had seen the head
bowing to her, and the hands spread over her in benediction: no one
could deny it, for she was alone in the chapel. After that there was
a feast of lilies at the convent, and Maud became Sister Somebody or
other, and never again set foot beyond the great gates of the convent
wall.
The consecration was doubtless a blessing to her, for she was happy in
her new home, and found a sphere of usefulness that employed her hours
to the best advantage. Moreover, she grew to be a sensible nun, and
ceased to look for supernatural demonstrations in the neighborhood of
the chapel. She grew hearty, and was cheerful, and sang at her work,
and prayed with more honesty and less sentiment. Her life was as
placid as a river whose waters are untroubled by tempestuous winds,
and upon her bosom light cares, like passing barges, left but a
momentary wake.
As Maud mused in her cell one day, through the narrow barred window
she caught a glimpse of the burnished sea bearing upon its waves a
weather-beaten barque inward bound. There was danger that her mind
might wander off, piloted by her dreamy and worshipful eyes. She
arose, drew across the opening a leathern curtain, and returned with
undisturbed complacence to her prayers.
IV.
Jason, having among his freights the veritable golden fleece, still
coursed the seas, but beheld with rapture the fair outlines of the
Dreamland coast traced in the far blue and mysterious horizon. The
wind freshened: hour after hour they were nearing port, and as the
whole familiar picture grew more and more distinct, Jason saw the
convent towers looming like a great shadow, and afterward the sunny
slope whereon the rose-garden grew.
The manner of his quitting the barque before she was fairly within
communication with the shore was hardly worthy of his calling. I
forbear to dwell upon this exhibition of human weakness, for almost
any one in Jason's shoes would have been equally regardless of the
regulations, and in consequence proportionally unseamanlike.
With soiled garments and unshorn beard Jason ran to the hill. No one
of the idlers in port recognized the returned wanderer, and he assured
himself of the fact before venturing upon his visit to the dove-cot
where Maud dwelt, for he wished to gaze upon her from afar, and in
silence to worship her, unknown and unregarded. When he reached the
wicket, breathless with haste and excitement, he at once beheld the
ruin of his hopes--the thistles in the paths, the roses overgrown and
choked with weeds, the sad and general decay. Jason smote his breast
in a paroxysm of despair, while the doves fluttered out from the porch
of the cottage in amazement at the approach of a human foot to their
domains.
What could it mean? he asked himself again and again, while suspicions
taunted him almost to madness. Up and down that disordered garden he
paced like a ghostly sentinel; the doves fluttered to and fro, and
were dismayed; the night-winds came in from the chilly sea, and the
dews gathered in his beard. Through the deepening dusk he beheld the
lights of the little town below him: across the solemn silence floated
the clear notes of the vesper-bell. Jason turned toward the tower on
the headland. A single ray of light stealing from one of the high,
narrow windows shot through the mist toward heaven. "The ladder
of Jacob's dream," said Jason: "on it the angels are ascending and
descending in their visitations. Oh that I, like Jacob, might receive
intelligence from these!"
With the heaviest heart that ever burdened man he returned to the town
and entered the open doors of the church, seeking a few moments of
repose. An alien in his own land and unwelcomed of any, Jason sought
the good priest and learned the fate of Maud. She was dead to the
world and to him. It was but the realization of his fears, and he
was in some measure prepared for it; yet the best part of the man was
killed with the force of that blow. His only hope was gone. He set
his house in order, like one about to leave it, never to return:
his golden fleece was made over to enrich the convent, and, as the
magnanimous offering of a homelesss and nameless voyager, it delights
the happy creatures within those walls, and the shrine of the Virgin
was made more wonderfully beautiful than it is possible to conceive.
That night Jason walked in the shadow of the lofty walls and poured
out his sorrowful prayers upon the winds that swept about them. Once
in his agony he beat at the massive gates, demanding in the name of
God and of mercy admittance for a lost soul that had no shelter save
under that roof, and no salvation away from it; but his bleeding hands
made no impression upon the ponderous doors, and the silent inmates
at prayer heard nothing save their own whispers, or dreamed in their
cells of heaven and of peace.
So the cry of that hopeless soul rang up to the stars unanswered, and
the night frowned down upon him with impenetrable darkness.
End of the tragedy of Jason's Quest, which might easily have been a
pleasant comedy if Maud had only spoken her mind in the right place.
Will women never learn--since God has given them the same instincts
with man, to love, to trust, to doubt, to hate and to make themselves
at times disagreeable, even with a more complete success than men in
each of these lines of dramatic business--that God must have intended
also that they should have the equal right to choose the particular
object upon which they may exercise those various offices of love,
trust, etc., etc.? I shall never cease to wonder why they are
persistently and stupidly silent through six thousand years, content
to let their hearts wither and die within them, or surrender at
last to the wretched apology for a lover who offers himself as a
substitute, and is surprised at rinding himself accepted.
To be sure, it is less dramatic. Jason might have come back and
married Maud: there would have been a pretty wedding and some
delightful hours before things grew dull and commonplace, as they must
have done ultimately. That rose-garden would have come to grief
when once the children got to playing in it; Jason, on some tedious
afternoon, when overhauling old letters and the like, would have
thrown out that withered rose (of precious memory), quite forgetful
of its significance; Maud would have lost her myrtle leaf in
house-cleaning. Yet what were the odds? A withered rose and a myrtle
leaf are scarcely worth the keeping.
You will remember how it turned out in the days of the gods: Jason
wearied of Medea and the children; Medea was disgusted with such
conduct, and behaved like a savage; there was general unhappiness in
the family; and I blush for my sex--which is Jason's--whenever I think
of it. Now, if my Jason had married his Maud, it would have scarcely
been worth noticing beyond the simple register in the _Daily
Dreamlander_, after having been thrice published from the pulpit
between the Gospel and the Creed--"Jason to Maud."