The Hagané villa at Kamakura possessed its own green niche cut deep into
encroaching hills, its own curved scimitar of gray sea-beach, its
individual rocks, its blue ocean, and bluer sky. A fence of dead bamboo
branches, set up on end like fagots, barred out spying curiosity. The
house faced directly to the sand. On the three remaining sides the
hill-slopes made retreating walls. Upon them grew spindling, wind-tossed
pines and loops of wild white clematis and of rose.
Through the big, fragrant rooms of the villa all day the sea-winds
passed, stirring the few kakemono, and making flowers in bronze vases
nod like those more securely rooted on the hills. No attempt had been
made at an ornamental garden, except for a few great, gray stones spread
with a lichen sparkling from its diet of salty dew, three curious small
pines, and spaces of white sand. The placing of these trees and stones
hinted of more organic beauty than all the convolutions of the average
Occidental millionnaire's park. It is only fair to add that the
millionnaire would not agree to this.
The first two hours after arrival were devoted by Prince Hagané to the
writing of telegrams and letters. These were sent off by messengers as
soon as finished. The statesman strode out alone to the shore and walked
there, his head bent in meditation, until telegraphic answers began to
arrive. These apparently bore reassuring news. He sought out Yuki, his
sleeves quite stiff with crumpled missives, and told her that already he
had arranged his affairs so that he could have two days to belong to
himself alone. "Unless some unforeseen matter of gravest importance
should transpire," he added, "I shall not be disturbed. I shall give
orders to Bunshichi to bring me no letters that do not bear the Imperial
seal. And now, my child," here he seated himself near her, "I may be
permitted to recall the fact that I have a wife."
For two days Yuki was seldom out of his sight. The shrinking, delicate,
humble, exquisite thing, now so entirely his own, fed his stern eyes and
heart with ever-deepening satisfaction. Her pallor, her reticence, even
the strained smile which she sometimes turned to meet his words, were
all as best he liked to have them. An arrogant, self-assertive bride is,
to the Japanese, an inhuman monster.
On the third morning Bunshichi brought him with his breakfast the
accumulated mail of the two days. At sight of the great heap he sent a
quizzical glance to Yuki. "It appears, small sweet one," he remarked,
"that I am to have no more hours of happy indolence."
Before the first ten were read Yuki knew herself forgotten. Her bruised
soul stirred within her like a wounded thing recalled to animation. She
started violently at his next loud words. "I take the earliest train to
Tokio. Have my kuruma waiting." His voice was that of a master, not a
lover.
Yuki rose swiftly. At the kitchen-step she paused, threw back her head,
and took in a few long, long breaths. The servants below waited,
open-mouthed, for her orders. Meta's kind voice recalled her.
"What do you wish, August Mistress?"
"Oh, yes, Meta--I was thinking--I forgot. The master takes the next
train to Tokio. When does that train start?"
Meta's eye consulted the Waterbury clock. "In twenty minutes, Mistress.
Perhaps the Illustrious One will not wish to hasten so swiftly."
"Yes, yes, he desires to go at once. Go quickly, Bunshichi, call a
kuruma with two runners. Our master is a heavy man."
Her commission filled, Yuki returned slowly to the room where her
husband still sat reading letters. On the way a thought smote her. "Your
Highness, the train in twenty minutes honorably departs. Your kuruma
will be in readiness. Was it your august intention that I should
accompany you?"
Hagané looked up at her in a sort of half-recognition.
"You? Accompany? No, of course not. I would not have the time to give
you. In a few days more, perhaps. Put those scattered letters and papers
into a leathern portfolio. Bunshichi will know what else I need. How
fortunate that a train goes so soon!"
Between this and the starting moment he had for her neither look nor
word. Just as he stepped, however, into the vehicle, he turned as with
sudden, loving remembrance, and leaning far down to her said, "These
days have been as the heavenly island of Horai set in a sea of raging
politics. You are a docile and obedient wife. So shall I inform your
father."
When he had really gone, and even the heavy clink of jinrikisha wheels
on sand was no longer audible, Yuki lifted her head, brushed back the
low fall of hair from her forehead, stared at the quiet sea for a
moment, and then turned and walked back slowly into the house. For a few
moments she wavered, pausing now, now walking swiftly, now looking about
as for something she had lost. In such broken, indeterminate angles of
advance she reached a little chamber quite remote from the rest, a
closet darkened by nearness of a rising cliff. Here she stopped short. A
physical shudder ran through the length of her. She moaned, bit her lips
back into silence, pressed suddenly white hands upon her vacant eyes,
and then, failing all at once, fell to the matting, and lay, face down,
along its pallid surface. At last--at last--for a few hours at least
this tortured smile, this self-inflicted strain could be shaken off and
she, like a driven beast of burden, could lie still, to die, to moan, or
slowly to gather back what remained of endurance. Her thoughts buzzed
confusedly like a great swarm of bees whose nest has been taken.
Through the sweet spring day she lay prone, inanimate, stirring only at
a passing sting of consciousness. "My country--my Emperor!" once she
moaned aloud. "O Kwannon the Merciful! O my Christian God!--must I live,
can I endure it? Already I am cowed and broken. Shall I ever again look
a flower in the face?"
More than once the kind-hearted maid-servant knelt beside her, urging
food and drink, or a walk into the reviving air. Yuki seemed not to
hear. After one such unsuccessful excursion, Meta returned to the
kitchen, shaking her head. "They have married that beautiful young
maiden to our august yet somewhat ancient master, and her heart's love
dies within her for another. Oh, I know well enough!" she cried, with a
touch of defiance, as her father lifted bleared, protesting eyes; "so
was I bartered to the wicked man who beat me and drove me forth. I may
be of low estate, but I know a woman's heart."
"Then you know the seat of folly," grumbled the old man. "When your
husband drove you out, I suppose he had reason; I received you, didn't
I?--I allow you still to call me father--"
"Yes, and do all your work and mine too for it," muttered the woman.
"As for our young mistress," went on the old man, ignoring this last
impertinence, "all know her for the most fortunate young woman in this
empire and, therefore, in the world. Is she not lawfully married to the
richest and most powerful of lords, to Prince Hagané?"
Meta seated herself on a low bench and began to clean the fish for
dinner. "Yes, father," she answered at length, "and this newly snared
fish whose honorable insides I am preparing to remove is to be eaten by
that same rich and powerful lord. Does that make the knife in its belly
less sharp?"
The round sun was bisected by a western hill-top pine when Meta knelt
again beside her mistress. "August Lady, you _must_ listen. A telegram
has arrived."
Yuki sat up instantly. She had begun to tremble. Her hair, now
disordered, fell about an ashen face. "Has my master come?" she cried, a
wild look flashing into her eyes, but lapsing almost immediately into
dulness. She put up both hands and spread wide the night-black wings of
her hair. Meta drew down one little hand and thrust the telegram between
its fingers. "Oh, a telegram," said Yuki, embarrassed.
"Why did you not mention--perhaps Lord Hagané will not come back
to-night." She read the few words carefully. Again that faint, sickening
throb of relief passed over her. She lifted her head and met the woman's
eyes as she said, trying to seem calm and unconcerned, "It is true,--our
master cannot come to-night. He bids me remain until further message."
Meta bowed. "Condescend to receive my condolence, noble Mistress. You
will be honorably lonely, I fear. But such is always the fate of one
married to a great statesman like our lord."
"Yes," said Yuki, eagerly, "and, Meta, I wish last of all things to
become an obstacle in his illustrious path."
"Mistress," said the servant, in her honest way, with a smile like
sunshine dawning upon the broad, fresh-colored face, "all day you have
eaten nothing. May I not prepare a little meal to tempt your appetite?"
"You are kind to me, Meta," said the young wife. She put a hand out to
the servant's arm. For some reason known only to women, the eyes of both
flooded with tears.
"Yes," said Yuki, her own smile dawning, "prepare me the little dinner.
I will try very hard to eat. Indeed I think even now I am becoming quite
ravenous!"
Meta, laughing outright, hurried back to the kitchen. She was a good
cook, and she knew it. In this same villa-kitchen she had served
marvellous dishes to prime ministers and princes, but never before had
she worked with a heart so full of love and tender compassion. Never was
a meal more daintily served. Slices of tai from the salt waves,
embellished with grated daikon and small foreign radishes; lily-bulbs
dug from the hills around them and boiled with sugar and wine into balls
of crumbling sweetness; lotos roots from the temple pond, sliced thin
and served with vinegar, ginger-root and shoyu, salad of yellow
chrysanthemums, pickles of coleus, cucumber and egg-plant, the whitest
of rice, and tea picked but the week before by the dew-wet hands of
little maids at Uji. Yuki was literally betrayed into enjoyment. As she
ate, Meta and the old man peeped in at her through the shoji, nudging
each other joyously at each new mouthful.
Later in the evening, when lamps were lighted, and the shoji all drawn
close, the two servants, with that delicate familiarity, that respectful
presumption of which they have made an art, found pretext to enter. At
first there was but the usual salutation, and the expressions of
gratitude that she had condescended to partake of such badly prepared
food. One question led to another. In a few moments the three were
chatting and laughing like schoolgirls, the old man bearing, in his
double superiorities of age and sex, the greater share of the
conversation. Yuki soon found that he had a single theme,--the
perfections of Prince Hagané. More from kindness of heart than interest,
she encouraged him in these reminiscences; but in a very short time she
was listening as Desdemona to her Moor. The tales indeed were
marvellous. Once, at the age of six, or so said Bunshichi, the little
Sanétomo had gone at night alone to a distant graveyard to bring home,
as proof of his courage, the severed head of a criminal that day
executed. At eight he had slain with his own hand a monstrous
mountain-cat, terror of a cringing village. But the story which most
impressed the listener was that of a poor leper, a beggar already eaten
away beyond hope of relief, who, having asked alms by the roadway, was
questioned, the young prince fixing thoughtful eyes upon him, "You ask
for money to buy food, is that the best gift I could offer you?"
"Nay, Master," answered the thing who once was man, "there is a better."
"Name it," said Hagané.
"Death," sobbed the beggar.
"So think I," cried the boy, and, without further speech, sent his short
sword to the leper's heart.
Meta always shuddered at this tale; but Yuki raised her head with so
still and white a look that the old man felt uneasy, and began to
explain at length. "It was really the best gift, Mistress, and after it
our princeling had him buried, and many, many prayers said for the rest
of his soul. He even caused search to be made for his family."
"Do you think I wish excuse for it?" said Yuki, with her strange smile.
"I know not which most I envy, the beggar or Prince Hagané."
The next day, fair and sweet and practically windless, except in gusts
of "pine-wind" from the shore, deepened the balm of her preceding hours.
Wild pinks sprang up like a fairy people on the hills. Crows perched and
chattered in the garden pines. Little red crabs came out, and all day
long drew marvellous maps upon the sand; and the swinging censers of
hillside roses burned a little timid incense to the sun. All the
forenoon Yuki busied herself about the house. A long letter was written
to Iriya filled with descriptions of the day. Frequent excursions to the
kitchen kept Meta and old Bunshichi in a condition of expectant smiles.
In the afternoon a sudden thought came, bearing to the girl's mind a
hint of wonder at her own insensibility. "Why, the Great Buddha is here,
not a mile away from me, and not once have I remembered. I will go to
him!"
Meta heard the stirring, and peeped. "Our mistress goes for a walk," she
told her father. "Even now she lifts her adzuma-coat. I will get her
geta (clogs). Nothing could be better for her than a walk. It is the
good food that gives her strength."
"These young things beat their wings like the cliff-birds when the cage
first snaps, but soon they come to reason and docility," chuckled the
old man over his pipe.
"I go to the Great Buddha, Meta San," said Yuki.
"Will you not take an umbrella--not even a foreign bat-umbrella--to
protect your illustrious head?"
"On these short days the sun sinks very early. See, already he becomes
entangled, like a boy's red kite, in the branches of those tall hill
pines. I need no covering."
"Should the august master deign to arrive before your divine
reappearance--" suggested Meta, with deference and a deep bow.
Yuki's face changed utterly. "I--I--did not think of him," she
stammered. "I will not be long absent, and, Meta, should he come, send
quickly a runner and a kuruma for me. Do you think he will be angry,
Meta, that I went?"
"Nay, little Mistress, he would wish it. There is no kinder man alive
than Prince Hagané."
"I suppose he must be very kind," murmured Yuki, and went with downcast
looks into the street. The sense of childish anticipation, of vivid
expectancy were gone. Meta, in her effort to be dutiful, had clamped
more tightly the manacles her mistress had just begun to endure. Why
should she wish to go? What matter that the Buddha waited? It was not
for her; she could but drag before it Hagané's obedient wife, a cowed
white ghost of duty. She moved forward mechanically. Her head sank still
further forward, as if the great black orchid of her hair grew heavier.
At every step the lacquered bars of her high clogs went deep into sand,
so that it was increasingly hard to walk. A group of children, passing,
looked up into the pretty lady's face for a smile, then hurried by in a
small panic of fear. It is a strange woman who does not smile at
children in Japan.
Now she crossed at right angles the one street of the village, a rough
and stony thoroughfare lined with opened booths. The street terminates
abruptly at the foot of a hill whereon stands an ancient and famous
temple of Kwannon the Merciful. Within a hundred yards of this hill an
abrupt turn to the right leads into a country of unfenced fields of
egg-plant, peanuts, and sweet potatoes; then comes another bit of hard
paved road, and then the towering Red Gate of the temple grounds of
Buddha.
Yuki had noted dully that in little gardens the cherry trees, always
earlier here than in Tokio, were fashioning their annual robes of pink.
The wind from the sea, now rising, threw petals out into the air before
her. She watched the fluttering signals eagerly, but for some morbid
reason would not lift her eyes to the tree. She had but one thought
now,--a hunger for the Buddha's face. She longed to test herself, to
find whether, in the gap between the Christian Yuki and the Princess
Hagané, a shred of herself still clung. This shred, it must be, that the
Buddha would smile upon.
Through the gate she stumbled, her gaze still on the ground. The wide
stone pathway stretched soft and pink with fallen bloom. A breeze,
entering with her, swept the surface in a mass, as though some one
twitched the far end of a long pink rug. Petals filled the air. They
came now in a small hurricane, fretting her cheeks with ghostly fingers,
burrowing softly in her collar, catching and clinging to the long folds
of her robe. A sob stretched in her throat and hurt her. She would not
raise her eyes. She reached the two long granite steps leading up to the
inner court of the Buddha. Here petals were banked in rosy drifts. She
could see the bases of stone lanterns standing before the shrine. An
invisible hand seemed pressing on her shoulder.
"Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu!" sobbed her lost childhood through
her trembling lips.
An old priest, old beyond the telling, with a face as of wrinkled
silver, glided out from among the flower-laden trees. "You are in great
grief, my child?"
"Yes, reverend sir, in great grief; and it is of that kind which, to a
stronger heart, might not be called a grief."
"I know; that is a kind hard to endure, but its triumph gives greatest
enlightenment. Look to the face of Buddha, and pray for his endurance."
"Pitying sir," sobbed the girl, "I have become, while in the foreign
land, a Christian."
The smile on the old priest's face did not alter. "All new religions are
but forms of the old. Buddha will not pity thee less that thou dost call
him 'Ye-sus,' for He, too, was a Buddha, even as you and I, daughter,
even you and I, through long striving, may become."
"I will dare, then, raise my eyes to him," answered the girl. The old
man stood very close to her, and as he saw the white face lift, joined
his hands and whispered, "Namu Amida Butsu!" A moment later he was gone.
Petals eddied and settled where he had stood.
At first the young wife felt little emotion of any sort. She gazed
steadily into the marvellous, calm face with a glint of gold under the
half-closed lids and in the jewel on the forehead. As she looked, it
grew to be a thing not smoothed and fashioned by human hands, but by the
eyes and hearts of worshippers,--the apotheosis, the embodiment of a
majestic faith, so subtly wrought of faith that should belief be
changed, it, too, would vanish like a mist, its vibrant particles loosen
and dissipate, to recombine in some new symbol. How still it was and
calm and self-assured! Its lines were growing rigid like the formula of
its creed; but in that changeless, ever-changing, pitying smile, a
deathless truth still trembled. Near it the hills seemed little piles of
dust; pines, centuries old, mere fern-leaves of a summer.
"Give me calm, give me endurance, for they are yours to give!" said the
girl, aloud. "I am less than the insects which crawl unnoticed in the
grass,--I am a blown petal, frail as these I crush. If my life can serve
this land, or aid, in infinitesimal good, my Emperor, why can I not be
glad and desire no more?"
The sun had fallen far below the hills. A crimson light, a more ethereal
tide, flowed across the sea, and soaked up into the fibres of blue
horizon mist. A cricket with the chill of winter in his little voice
woke into querulous chiding. Yuki shivered and rose to her feet, drawing
the robe more tightly. She sent a glance about the wide gardens, and saw
that, apparently, she was alone. She turned as if to go, but an
overpowering instinct made her lift her face again to the brooding face
above her. How colossal, how patient, those dark shoulders bent in the
deepening twilight! Around the lotos pedestal, the cherry trees, touched
now by dull crimson light, changed to great billows of a smouldering
sea. Crows darted through them like strange black fish, then flew off,
cawing, to homes in the pines. Again Yuki turned to go, when a voice
that froze her to the stone said softly, "Ah, Madame Hagané, what
felicity to meet!"
Pierre had sprung from some unknown shadow. He must have been watching
her and listening to her words. He paused now, debonair, handsome,
though a little pale, directly beneath an outcurving granite petal of
the Buddha's throne. As she still stared, speechless, he struck a match
against the bronze and lighted a cigarette. She could not see, for her
own trembling, how his poor hands shook. The red match glare revealed
his face as distorted, evil, sinister.
"Well," he remarked once more, "have you nothing to say to me?"
This time she tried to speak, but no sound came. Her power of motion,
too, was in abeyance. He moved three deliberate steps nearer. As though
the air were glass, and she repelled by its material force, she went
backward the answering distance. Her left hand, clutching behind her,
found something hard and cold, and fastened to it eagerly. It was the
fin of a bronze dragon in full relief, twining upward, about the trunk
of a tall lantern. "Yes, go," she whispered. "Do not speak more words.
Go!"
Pierre took another stride. She cowered back bodily into the writhing
folds.
"For the love of God!" she panted.
"What if one has ceased to love God?"
"In mercy then--in pity--in human pity--go!"