She ran all the way home. She wanted her step-mother’s consent as
quickly as possible, so that she might hasten back to the minister.
Her breathless words astounded Madame Yamada.
“That barbarous, beautiful priest wishes to marry me,” she announced in
one breath.
Madame Yamada’s lips fell apart.
“What do you mean?” she inquired roughly.
“That’s right—right!” cried the girl, clasping her hands excitedly. “Oh,
I am the happiest girl in all Japan!”
Her step-mother extended a long finger and struck it at the girl’s
breast.
“What! The foreign devil wants to marry you?”
Madame Yamada was excited, agitated, above all delighted. The gods were
favoring her. Here was a solution to all their difficulties.
“Breathe not a word to anyone of this, my daughter,” she said, “but
hasten back with the speed of wings to the house of the barbarian. Bring
him here, and we will go at once to the next town and have a private
ceremony there. The Nakoda Okido must not suspect.”
Azalea swung her sleeves coquettishly.
“Oh,” she said airily, “we will not make Japanese marriage,
step-mother.” She clasped her hands behind her and raised her head with
childish dignity and pride.
“I am to be an American lady. Therefore we will marry in American
fashion.”
“How is that?” asked Madame Yamada, mystified.
“Oh, you don’t understand,” said Azalea pityingly, “but I do. He told me
once how they marry. Just pray, bend head like this, and knees like
this, hold hands tight—so, mother-in-law; and then the priest prays on
top of the heads and the bride is given a ring—big and shining—very
fine. That’s the way they marry.”
“They do not exchange the marriage cup?” questioned her mother,
horrified.
“No—there are no marriage cups. Also to marry that foreign way, I have
got to be Kirishitan.”
“Ah-h! I see. You will turn convert?”
“I am already. I wish already to be so,” said the girl simply.
An idea flashed swiftly across the mind of Madame Yamada—a brilliant
idea.
“Good!” she said. “It is well for a maiden to be of the same religion as
the man she marries. But do not let it be known till the ceremony is
over. Then throw away your ancestral tablets. You will have no further
use for them.”
Azalea paled a trifle. She was not ignorant of the effect of such an
action. One who renounces the tablets of his ancestor she knew is in
popular opinion forever lowered. One might attend the church meetings of
the Kirishitans, one might even affiliate with the foreigners; but it is
only when one has openly declared oneself for the new religion and, in
defiance of the old, destroyed the sacred symbols, the ancestral
tablets, that one becomes an outcast. Yet it was necessary, surely. It
was not possible without hypocrisy to acknowledge the new God, and still
in secret cherish the tablets of the old.
Well, what were the tablets to her now?
Her husband’s love, the new God’s strength, would stand between her and
shield her from her enemies. Azalea smiled bravely at her step-mother.
“Yes,” she said, “if my honorable husband requires it, I will throw away
the tablets.”
They were married in the little mission church on the hill. An old and
venerable missionary officiated.
The church was quite crowded, for Madame Yamada had spread the news
about the town, in anticipation of its effect upon the community. She
herself wept unceasingly throughout the ceremony, never once uncovering
her shamed face buried in the sleeve of her kimona. Truly, thought her
neighbors, the good Madame Yamada was distressed by this action of her
step-daughter.
[Illustration:
“She threw the tablets in the direction of the little river in the
valley below.”
(Page 98)
]
When, after it was all over, Azalea’s friends turned their heads from
her or looked askance at her, the girl simply lifted her eyes to her
husband. The look of wistful apprehension that a moment before had
clouded them vanished. Her face became radiant. She clung to his sleeve
like a child, proudly, gaily. But when, after proceeding a few steps in
the direction of her new home, she realized that they were being
followed, a feeling of recklessness and defiance assailed her. She
stopped suddenly and dipped her hand down into the long sleeve of her
marriage gown. She hardly looked at what she had drawn out, but raising
her hand suddenly she threw the tablets in the direction of the little
river in the valley below. The noise of their fall upon the rocks
frightened her. She covered her ears with her hands and stood trembling
in the sunny light. Then she became conscious of the fact that those who
had followed her had suddenly, and it seemed, silently, disappeared. She
stood alone with the man, her husband. For a moment he seemed a
stranger. That momentary blind impulse, she knew, cut her off forever
from her kind. Publicly she had insulted her ancestors. She had chosen
between them and this tall white stranger whom she scarcely dared to
look at now. The silent departure of those who had followed her told
more eloquently than any outcry could have done the resentment of her
people.
Azalea looked about her dazedly. Suppose, after all, her friends spoke
truly? Suppose this new God was in reality an evil spirit? Had she not
felt its subtle influence upon her? When in memory could she recall the
time that her whole being had thrilled and glowed with emotions and
feelings so strange and new to her? Was it not the influence of this
spirit which had forced her to throw away the tablets—had forced her to
marry one of its priests?
Her husband stood looking at her tenderly, yearningly. He was thinking
of her future, and of the trusting soul that had come to his keeping.
“Well, they are all gone now,” he said, “and what was that you threw
away?”
She shook her head piteously. He waited for her answer, and marvelled
that she, who had gone through the marriage ceremony in such a brave and
happy spirit, was now so white and trembling. Surely, she had not begun
to fear him? Poor little frightened bride!
“I din nod mean to throw it away,” she said brokenly. “I coon nod help
me.”
“Oh, you are trembling about what you threw away? Well, let me go after
it. Such a little mite of a hand cannot fling very far.”
“No, no,” she said, catching at his sleeve, “do not touch it. The gods
may punish you also.”
He enclosed her hands in his, and looked at her very seriously.
“You must not talk of ‘the gods,’ my wife. It sounds pagan, and I am
going to cure you of the habit.”
“Yes, yes,” she said, and now she was almost sobbing; “pray you do so,
ple-ase. I am most ignorant girl in all the whole worl’. I like know
about those gods. Pray tell me truth, will you not?”
He could not understand the meaning of her beseeching voice. How could
he suppose that she still dreaded the thought that he was a priest of a
possible evil spirit? She wanted to be reassured. He only saw that she
was very white and trembling, now that the ceremony was over, and he
dimly realized that in marrying him she had sacrificed much.
“When you look and speak like that,” he said, “I feel as if I had done
some brutal act. Come, be my happy, joyful sweet-heart again. Why,
marriage is not a tragedy; not when there is love. Now, let us look
about us just a moment, and then we will go home—to our own home
together. Just see how sunny and beautiful everything is here. Was ever
a sky more lovely? And the fields! What color can we call them?”
His arm was about her and she had recovered somewhat of her confidence.
“It is a purple world,” she said, “all purple and green to-day,
Excellency.”
“Why, yes, it does seem so,” he said. “The skies are more purple than
blue, and their very reflection seems to rest upon the fields to-day.
Just look down there in the valley.”
“It is the purple iris and wistaria,” she said. “I so love them. Do they
grow like that in America?”
“No, unfortunately.”
“And are not the skies purple there?” she asked.
“No-o. That is, not often.”
“Oh,” she said, with a sudden, unexpected vehemence, “I never want to go
to that America. I love these fields so purple and so green—and those
skies! Excellency, you will not take me away, will you?”
He was touched to the heart of him.
“No, no,” he said. “I will not. I will not.”
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