A short whispered colloquy between Hagané, the little Princess Sada-ko,
and Yuki, during the reception, a few days before, resulted in the
decision that the Japanese ladies should be asked to come quite early to
the sewing party; the foreign contingent to be bidden later, about one
in the afternoon. To all Japanese the early hours of the day are best.
Yuki knew that this was not the case with foreigners. Besides, to have
served a hot foreign luncheon to an indefinite number of guests would
have taken from the purpose of such a meeting most of its charitable
intent, and, very likely, all of the material profit. The simplest of
Japanese collations,--a bowl of thin fish soup, rice, tea, a fairy dish
of pickles, one sweetmeat, maybe, this could be served with propriety to
the Empress herself, had that gracious lady been present. These women
worked for their own hero soldiers, for their own adored Nippon. Their
utmost efforts were privileges; what the foreign ladies gave might,
among themselves, be considered alms.
When all had arrived, that is, the foreigners as well as Japanese, they
were to be given for entertainment, music of the two worlds. First,
English songs from a charming soprano, a Mrs. Wyndham of Yokohama,
justly celebrated in the East, as in her own land, for an unusually pure
and lovely voice. For Japanese they were to have improvisation and
martial chanting from a Satsuma biwa player, a court musician in highest
favor with their Majesties. The lending of him to Yuki for this meeting
had been a royal answer to Hagané's modest statement of his young wife's
plan.
The Japanese ladies, mostly of the noble class, began to arrive before
the blue morning mists had quite lifted from the long, gleaming surfaces
of castle moats; before the wild white herons, perching on great
down-sweeping arms of castle pines, had warmed their chilly feathers to
the skin; before the budding cherry-boughs had dared unfold a single
dripping leaf. By eight o'clock that end of the huge upstairs hall set
apart for their exclusive use had few vacant places. The Japanese ladies
brought scissors, thimble, and needles; material and thread were
contributed by Prince Hagané. Yuki's mother was among the first. Iriya
grew younger and prettier with each day, in this new pride and happiness
won through her only child. She had not brought the servants. Yuki
insisted that they be sent for. They came as upon the chariot of the
wind, released by a gruff sound of acquiescence from their master, their
blue sleeves flying horizontally in the morning air. Little Maru, whose
excessive love for candy kept her in a condition of pink rotundity,
gasped joyously for breath. "Ma-a-a!" she cried at first sight of a
courtyard filled with crested kuruma; and "Ma-a-a!" again, as she
tripped on the top step and fell full-length into the hall; and
"Ma-a-a!" once more as the obliging butler stooped to rescue her, until
Suzumé, frowning heavily, called her a bean-curd, and bade her cease
exclaiming.
It was a gentle company that worked in the upper hall. Shining black
heads bent as one above tumultuous yards of white cotton cloth. The
peculiar odor of cambric and unbleached domestic was mixed with Japanese
perfumes of sandalwood and incense, and with the unique aroma of
hair-oil made from camellia berries. Work went on steadily. Great white
towers of bandages were finished, and removed by servant-maids, who
staggered, laughed, and joked softly, as they bore the tottering burdens
to the packing-room downstairs. Sounds of hammer and nails arose as the
packages went into boxes. They could hear workmen haggling over the
spelling of certain Manchurian addresses.
In the big hall the nobly-born seamstresses talked, smiled, raised
eyebrows, nodded, shook their heads over bad news, and gave small,
half-finished exclamations over good, much as a roomful of Western women
might have done. The fortunes of war dominated interest. Bereavement had
already fallen upon more than one of the gentle company. Death was
spoken of quite simply, with no affectation of distress. Universal
contempt was expressed for a certain young widow who had been coarse and
self-centred enough to faint at her husband's tomb. "Hirotsuné's spirit
must have covered his eyes with shame at that sight, and thanked the
gods she had borne him no son," said an elderly aunt of the dead hero,
Hirotsuné.
But not all the conversation was of war. The rise in the price of
provisions was commented upon by anxious housewives. In all cases the
household expenses had been cut down, and the money deflected to the
national treasury. This seemed as natural to them all as that water
should flow. "The poor food makes, of course, no difference to us who
are adult, or to our boy children," murmured one sweet-faced matron.
"But sometimes the babes, and the very old servants, grumble a little at
having barley mixed with their rice." Fashions, since no one thought of
buying new gowns, was, for once in a female gathering, utterly ignored.
Gossip concerning foreign residents, especially women, remained, as
usual, an engrossing theme. The latest Yokohama and Tsukijii scandals
were whispered, not without zest. These high-nosed, fierce-looking
creatures of their own sex were a source of constant marvelling to
Japanese women. "Kitsui" (mannish) they were called, as the extreme of
disapprobation. Yuki defended them, and gave a softer coloring to some
of the alleged misdeeds. Gwendolen she cited as an example of a Western
girl who must, in her past incarnations, have been entirely Japanese.
The guests listened politely, but Yuki read skepticism on their calm
faces.
During the long forenoon not once was a voice raised or a loud laugh
heard. Yet not one face ever lapsed into indifference. One might have
gained from the resilient poise of slender throats an impression of
yielding strength. Their chatter was a murmur, with tripping, short
interludes of sound, and cooing, long-drawn vowels soft as their own
white hands. They were a flock of gray doves in a sheltered niche.
Never, one would have said, were creatures more tender, more feminine,
more dependent. So would a foreigner have thought, to see them; but a
Japanese knows the truth. Not a woman there but might be the child, the
parent, the wife of a hero. Many had looked calmly on death. Not one
among them would falter at the extremest test of heroic sacrifice, and
should the call come, this little sewing band would rise, arm itself
with swords, and deal what desperate death it could upon intruding
enmity, before at last plunging sharp surrender into its own brave
heart.
At noon the Japanese meal was served. After it came a little pause of
rest, enlivened by smoking from small gold pipes, and the drinking of
added cups of tea. Just before one o'clock the sewing was resumed. Then
the little silk-clad ladies waited, in deeper agitation than they would
have felt in facing Kuropatkin, for the coming of their foreign friends.
Mrs. Todd was punctual almost to the minute. With her came Gwendolen and
Mrs. Stunt. A slight coolness now existed between the two elder ladies.
Mrs. Stunt's explanation that her effusiveness to the Haganés was merely
"sarcasm" had failed to convince even so trustful a nature as Mrs. Todd.
Coolness, however, did not keep Mrs. Stunt from a neighborhood where she
might derive profit.
She had walked on foot to the Legation, declaring that her
jinrikisha-man was shockingly drunk, and had begged a seat in the
American carriage. It was, of course, given, and by the time Yuki's
residence was reached the artful one had regained some of her lost favor
with Mrs. Todd, and deepened the loathing of the silent Gwendolen.
The three came up the stairs together, their foreign shoes pounding in
unison, causing the huge, badly constructed house to rattle at every
window.
"Well!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd, as she lifted her lorgnette to survey the
long hall and the gathered company, "a regular sewing-bee, isn't it? And
I see, Yuki, you've got the piano upstairs, after all. I didn't believe
you'd get it up those steps."
Yuki had, of course, met them at the door. She and Gwendolen fell,
through force of habit, far in the wake of the bustling dame. Mrs. Stunt
kept well beside the leader. The two girls clasped hands shyly, and
looked at each other with side glances, like happy children in the first
embarrassment of play. Many of the Japanese ladies lifted glances of
interest to the tall blonde girl. This must be she of whom the Princess
Hagané had spoken, the girl with the face of the Sun Goddess
Amaterasu,--with the strayed soul of a Nipponese. She wore this
afternoon a simple costume of golden-brown silk. It was just the
transition tone between her golden hair and the darker brows and lashes.
A wide hat of bronze-colored velvet piled high with paler plumes
balanced itself on her delicate head. Bronze-colored gloves ran up the
slender arms to the elbow, where the sleeves fell away in a deep pointed
ruff. A belt of dull yellow shark's skin and bronze boots completed the
costume. The seated women, ignoring the advancing bulk of Madame Todd,
the restless insistency of her companion, let smiling eyes rest on
Gwendolen, then nodded to each other, and exchanged glances, as if in
corroboration of Yuki's previous words.
"I am keeping seats for your party, dear Mrs. Todd, over there by that
most sunshine window," said Yuki. "Please see that a chair is held for
Mrs. Wyndham, who is so very kind to sing for us. Ah, I hear many
peoples arriving. I see Mrs. Wyndham now. I will advance to her." Yuki
hurried off, and soon returned with the prima donna, whom she delivered
into Mrs. Todd's efficient hands.
"My _dear_ Mrs. Wyndham," cried that lady. "Oh, I beg pardon. Mrs.
Stunt, Mrs. Wyndham; my daughter, Miss Todd, Mrs. Wyndham. I didn't
realize that you had not met Miss Todd."
"I called at your Legation last Tuesday,--the proper day, I am
sure,--but failed to see Miss Todd," said the Englishwoman, stiffly.
Mrs. Todd flushed crimson. Mrs. Stunt turned away to hide her
satisfaction. A public slight to Gwendolen generally meant, for Mrs.
Todd, attempted annihilation of the offender. She turned angered eyes to
Mrs. Wyndham, and would have spoken, but Gwendolen pressed her arm. "No,
mother dear, don't defend me; I deserve it. Let me speak. Mrs. Wyndham,
I am mother's despair at the Legation. I forget reception-days half the
time. I--I--" here she lowered her voice to a delicious, confidential
whisper, "the fact is I--I _shirk_ them. So many old frumps, you know!
It's getting to be a regular hen-roost. But, honest, I am sorry I was
out last Tuesday, and I want you to give me another chance." Gwendolen
could generally be irresistible when she chose. Now she chose not only
to win Mrs. Wyndham, to whose high-bred English face she had taken an
instant liking, but to deal another blow to her enemy Mrs. Stunt.
In both efforts she was successful, though Mrs. Wyndham did not
capitulate all at once. The sparkling hazel eyes and the gray ones met.
Suspicion lived a little longer in the latter. "Please," murmured
Gwendolen. Suspicion died. "I am always at home on my Wednesdays," said
the Englishwoman.
"I'll be there," laughed Gwendolen. "Have me a place set at your
breakfast-table!"
Yuki had vanished to perform her duties of hostess. Mrs. Todd and her
small party took the "sunshine" seats, and a Japanese lady whom they had
not met brought them foreign sewing materials. Work had not begun with
them when a low, plaintive voice leaned to Mrs. Todd's large ear.
"Please, please, help me in all ways you can, dear Mrs. Todd. This is
much worse than that reception I held downstairs. So many foreign ladies
are come,--and they all look at everybody so very hard! Ask kind Mrs.
Wyndham to sing just as soon as she are ready, and soon, please."
Mrs. Wyndham rose instantly, and looked with composure over the sea of
lifted heads. Every chair was now taken, and servants brought up new
ones from the rooms downstairs. She was used to audiences, also to
commendation. In her hands she held a roll of music. Mrs. Wyndham was
one of those colonists--a large class in the Far East--who never forgive
Japan for not being England. She emphasized her homesickness by
withdrawal from all native interests, except, as now, when she could
give pleasure and assistance by her voice. It was her pride that she ate
no Japanese products. Everything on her table was "imported." Even her
garden held only English flowers. That great sea of spiritual and
physical beauty which lies in Japanese character, and in its
environment, was to her nonexistent. Such dwellers in the East are like
children who, in springtime, search the grass for fallen apples, and
never once lift their disappointed faces to the pink canopy of bloom.
As may be inferred, all Japanese music was, to Mrs. Wyndham and her
intimate associates, mere squeaking, caterwauling, an excruciating
discord. She spoke constantly of "civilized" music. She was fond of
referring to the English school of harmony. She was exaggerated in her
use of English method.
"Shall I be compelled to play my own accompaniment?" now asked Mrs.
Wyndham. Her pretty face showed concern.
"If the music is not too hard I will try," said Gwendolen, springing
from her chair, while scissors and thimble fell clattering to the floor.
She gave the fallen articles a contemptuous glance, and, without a
motion to rescue them, followed Mrs. Wyndham to the piano.
A group of young Japanese girls, put in a corner to themselves,
exchanged looks of delight, and began to titter like wrens. "How much do
the ways of the honorable foreign scissors and thimble resemble those of
Japanese scissors and thimble!" they confided one to another.
"My thimble generally rolls off the veranda and buries itself among
pebbles. I think it possesses an imp!" laughed one.
"Mine goes always into the red coals of the hibachi," giggled another.
"That is precisely the conduct of my worthless article," added a third.
"The water-kettle has to be taken aside, and grandmother scowls. Then we
all dig for the thimble with the copper fire-sticks. When we find it, it
is quite black, and--Ma-a-a!--so hot, that it must be dropped at once
into cold water, where it hisses like the head of a small serpent."
"Now what shall I sing for such a crowd as this?" mused Mrs. Wyndham, as
she shuffled the loose leaves of her music. Her words had the sound of
inner meditation.
"What would the Japanese like best?" asked Gwendolen, in a low tone.
"Oh, my _dear_! I wasn't thinking of them!" protested the other. "They
are incapable of appreciating any real music. I was thinking of our
foreign friends."
"Yuki Hagané is a Japanese. She loves the best music. Brahms is almost a
passion with her. She says that he sounds like the wind in pine-trees,
high above a great battle."
"Oh, Brahms!" said the other. "I never sing Brahms. He is too harsh and
unpoetic. These bellowing contraltos affect him. As for me, I must have
something light, poetic, full of melody."
"Here is our American McDowell," murmured Gwendolen, and bent her face
that its expression might not be seen. "Being patriotic by profession I
plead for McDowell."
"You do not consider him,--over their heads?" asked the Englishwoman,
dubiously.
"Oh, well, you can give them Sullivan next time, and bring down the
average!" Mrs. Wyndham bent a suspicious look, but Gwendolen's lifted
gaze was that of a seraph over a last harp note. "I'll try McDowell. Can
you play the accompaniment?"
"I can at least attempt it," said Gwendolen, meekly, and forthwith
rippled out the prelude with an ease that further deepened suspicion.
The song began with a single note, long sustained, the voice striking in
abruptly among hurrying chords. Mrs. Wyndham's beautiful voice took it
like a star. Suddenly, with another upward swerve, the note wavered,
passed into a new kindling as into the life of a bird, and swept along
on higher currents with motionless, outspread wings.
The foreign ladies exchanged glances of rapture. The Japanese workers,
on the other hand, stared first in astonishment, then with growing
apprehension. Surely this was not singing! Something must be going wrong
with the honorable insides of the kind lady! They stole timid looks
toward their hostess, and by her calm, interested face were reassured.
Still the piercing note went higher. The singer's throat swelled
slightly, and her face turned red. From the group of Japanese girls one
hysterical chuckle escaped. That set off the whole lot. Staid matrons
bowed convulsed faces to folds of cotton cloth; silken sleeves came into
requisition. A few of the foreign ladies looked about and frowned. Yuki
half rose from her chair.
Now, fortunately, the highest note was reached. It broke its flight with
a great twitter of wings. The bars of a staccato love-song began. Again
the Japanese women stared, but now in admiration as well as wonder.
Never were singing notes so light, so delicate, so silvery! As the song
ended (and indeed it had been exquisitely given), the foreign ladies
burst into simultaneous applause. Led by the bolder among them, the
Japanese followed suit.
"Oh, we can't let you stop at _that_, dear Mrs. Wyndham," came Mrs.
Stunt's high, rasping voice. "Won't you give us that lovely thing of
Goo-nowd's you sung at our last Charity concert?" Mrs. Wyndham
consented. After Gounod it was an English ballad, then another and
another, until at length the singer, with pretty petulance, turned from
the piano saying that she had already monopolized too much time. A great
buzzing of thanks and congratulations surged about her. No expression of
admiration was too exaggerated. In fact there was none that pretty Mrs.
Wyndham had not heard many times before. She accepted these tributes
now, as usual, with deprecating smiles, and little protesting shakes of
the head, finally declaring that they would make her conceited if they
didn't stop.
No one noticed the American girl, still at the piano. She gave a swift
look around, and seeing that the biwa player had not come, began
whispering to the keys the first notes of one of Chopin's most delicate
fantasies. Like the down on a moth's wing, it came. Like crystal
raindrops, then, mixed with the perfume of bruised petals, and sometimes
the distant yearning of a bird. This was music that even the untutored
Japanese girls could feel. It held the sound of their own koto
strings,--it breathed whispers of their own trees, and winds, and
sighing sea-stretches. Gradually all voices in the room ceased. Faster
the notes came, though still with a suggestion of whispering.
Gwendolen's white hands became a misty blur. The theme drew closer, with
now a wind-driven swish of rain and scurrying petals; now the nearer cry
of a bird, and a low under-rhythm of human sorrow. The sounds whirled
and lifted into melodious agitation. The caged bird seemed to give low
plaints of fear; the wind and the rain drove close, dashed into the face
of silence, and drew back. Then all sounds died away in waves of
exhausted sobbing. Gwendolen sprang up, leaving the piano vibrant. She
hurried to the nearest window, turning her face from all in the room.
Mrs. Wyndham was the first to speak. Her light laugh had an artificial
sound. "And to think, my dear, that I insisted upon knowing whether you
could manage my accompaniments!"
Gwendolen did not heed. She was tingling with the excitement and unrest
that Chopin's music so often brought her. Yuki came softly, slipping a
little scarred hand into that of her friend.
"I hate Chopin!" cried the American girl, in a low, angry voice. "I
wonder why I keep on playing him! Every time I say I won't, and then I
go and do it! He is morbid, he is childish, he is French! One sees his
weak chin quiver, and the tears roll down his cheek! He wants you to see
them. I hate him, I say! But, oh, he is a compelling genius!"
"Yes, he do like every one to see him when he cries. But when I hear him
I think, 'Oh, what must it be to a person's soul to be able to cry such
tears of music!'"
A sound at the main entrance-door caused the little hostess to turn.
"Ah, there is the Satsuma biwa player! I must now go to him. He, too,
makes tears, Gwendolen, but of a different sort. Perhaps you will not
wish to cry for him. You may even think him to be funny, as many of the
Japanese ladies thought Mrs. Wyndham's beautiful singing to be funny.
You must not try to stay,--you and Mrs. Todd,--if it will tire you."
As she hurried away Mrs. Wyndham drew slowly near. "You naughty one! I
shall owe you a grudge for this. You are not to be forgiven until you
promise to come often--often--and let us play sometimes together. You
are a genius!"
"Not quite that, I think," said Gwendolen, smiling. "Though, indeed, I
have never known a friend to take music's place, except Yuki; and now
that she is a princess, I suppose I can't feel her to be so much my own.
I shall love to come to you and play. Your voice is like sunshine on an
English fountain."
"Ah!" said the other, "what a charming speech! No man could say anything
half so pretty! Now, as reward, I am going to give you a piece of
valuable advice." She leaned confidentially near. "Make your escape
while you can." She nodded significantly toward the biwa player, who,
with Yuki beside him, stood shrinkingly in the doorway. "I've heard him
once,--or one like him. It is what you Americans might call 'the
limit'!"
"You mean for me to go? But I have never heard any Japanese music at
all!" protested Gwendolen.
"Oh, in that case--" said Mrs. Wyndham, with her delicate shrug. "If you
care for the experience!" She hurried off with many protestations of
regret. Several other ladies followed her example.
The biwa player now stood beside the piano. Two Japanese tatami (padded
straw mats six feet in length) were brought in and placed upon the
floor. Before inviting him to be seated Yuki made a hesitating little
speech to the company, first in English, then in Japanese, saying to the
foreigners that while the music to come would doubtless be strange, and
possibly displeasing to them, to her and her compatriots it was a
trumpet-call to heroism. "It stirs our blood to every drop!" she cried,
forgetting, for the instant, her shyness. "It echoes to the brave deeds
of a thousand years ago,--it foretells deeds more greater that may come!
It is the crying of strong souls, it is breath of our fathers' Gods!"
Gwendolen, in that vague sort of way in which impressions of alien
customs are formed, had believed all male musicians in Japan to be
blind. Some one had told her so, or she had read it. She was surprised,
therefore, and interested, to see in this famous singer of battle-hymns
a young man, indeed almost a boy, with thin, shaven face, tumultuous
black hair not too closely or evenly cut, tossed in thick locks all over
his well-poised head; and eyes, large, straight, expressive, and
brilliant enough to be the ornament of a young French or Italian
seigneur. He showed a slight embarrassment, at first, in the presence of
so many women. He was used to the audience of statesmen, to the flashing
response of Majesty. Here were not only Japanese girls, mere children,
but a great company of high-nosed, pink and purple foreigners. Saturated
as he was, made up of lore and legend, with songs of the Lady Sakanouyé,
or of Ono no Komachi never far from his lips, even Gwendolen's bright
beauty seemed a trifle abnormal, bleached, repellent.
Now his hostess, the young Princess Hagané, looked into his eyes, and
spoke to him in their own tongue. "Be not concerned, honorable sir, at
the presence of foreign women! They cannot understand your words, of
course; but I am sure they will listen courteously. As for us,--we
Japanese women,--we are the wives, the daughters, the mothers of heroes.
Our frail lives toss as thin flames on the altar of prayer. We cannot
fight, we can only pray and work. Sing strength to us as we minister to
distant soldiers dying, perhaps on barren fields, or heaped, dead, in
the ploughed siege-trenches of this fearful war!"
His deep eyes seemed to drink of her inspiration, so long was the gaze
with which he held her. "I am honored to sing at your bidding," he
answered. He had forgotten to bow at the words. He forgot that she was a
princess. He recognized her as a spirit. Forever after this slight girl,
seen but once, became one of the poet's galaxy of pale, pure stars. For
years he could not sing of the death-struggle of the Heiké clan without
a vision of her prophetic eyes.
He took his seat very slowly on the soft straw mat. Yuki withdrew, and
became lost among her guests. The biwa, a large lute in the shape of
half a pear, had been held, all this time, closely against the young
man's breast. Now, in taking his seat, the instrument was extended to
the full length of his right arm. It gave out, under his close grasp, a
sleepy hum. For an instant only it was placed apart from him, on the
mat, that he might spread and smooth the knees of his silken robe, draw
his stiff sleeves into exact angles, and adjust the low kimono collar.
Then he turned impatiently again to the lute. It murmured to him; he
drew it close, smiling as a mother upon her babe.
"Ain't he handsome for a Jap?" whispered Mrs. Stunt to Gwendolen. The
girl winced. She was studying him in her own way. His manner, just
before beginning, was aloof and reserved, as if he were restating to
himself consecration to service. The Japanese women, even the oldest,
gazed upon him with deep reverence.
"Beethoven may have smiled like that, or St. Francis of Assisi," thought
Gwendolen. "It is a look, not of race, but of immortality."
The player's head lifted slightly. He was losing consciousness of
material presences. His part was with the unseen world; he must draw
down currents of a mighty past, and send them as new streams of
influence, on through a menaced future. For he was to improvise, not to
repeat. His theme alone was set,--a most heroic incident of civil wars,
resulting in extermination of a dominating clan. The annihilation of the
Heiké might give him text, but the flow of rhythmic words should
vibrate, thrill, moan, quicken, purl, or shatter, as the mood of the
moment might demand. Doubtless in this pause he was invoking, in full
faith, the souls of those dead heroes; offering them possession of his
human frame, and entreating higher gods to make him worthy of the test.
His low voice and the first three slow notes rose together. The minor
quality suggested lamentation. A short passage, rapidly chanted without
accompaniment, made the hearts of the listeners beat a little faster.
Then voice and instrument clashed together; both whirled nearer, until,
all at once,--silence! The player looked about the room in bewilderment.
He stared down upon the biwa. He closed his eyes and swayed slightly
backward, then forward, then back again. Suddenly he reopened his eyes.
They were larger, more brilliant; they flashed a new fire, the glare of
battle reflected in their depths. Words now came rapidly. His sentences
fell of themselves into long, unstable rhythms. Cadences were lacking.
All phrasing, except in rarest intervals, broke into the air with a sob,
a sigh, a shuddering gasp. Often now the biwa strings were slashed
across by the ivory plectrum, and the human wail rang through vibrating
response. Then voice and strings plunged into a seeming discord, a
frantic wrack of sound exorcised an instant later by pure calm notes
struck separately, like the drip of slow water.
In the sense of Western harmony there was none, but something in the
weird vibrations of long notes, the intricacies of overtone, and, above
all, the unbelievable subtleties of rhythm, gave to one eager American
listener, at least, her first insight into a new world of sound. "They
are nearer in this, as in all their other arts, to nature," she thought
to herself. "They summon the very essences of being, and find skeins for
entangling them. Without conscious representation, they suggest to the
human ear the lisp of sea winds, the flutter of fire, the rushing
monologue of mountain streams. They hear sounds we Westerners never
hear. I believe the very mists are audible."
As the emotion increased and the subject became more martial, the time
of the music grew rapid, broken, syncopated, involved. Soft, melodious
passages shattered into jarring notes. Like European troubadours of
France, or the meistersingers of mediæval Germany, he yielded himself to
the unconscious swing of impulse, and sang what was given him. Lines
shortened. Syllables became more staccato. It was dramatic,
undidactic--the deeds rather than the thoughts of men. His diction
became more simple and direct, with sharp, incisive verbs at the end
that rang like smitten steel. His whole body, at times, was shaken.
After some terrific passage, while the sobbing lute-strings sustained
the passion, his body would bend over and down, as if, in its
abandonment to joy, grief, or battle ardor, it would hug the instrument
that had become its soul.
Now he sang of the hero youth, Atsumori, of his insistence upon
honorable death at the hand of his conqueror, Kumagayé.
"The Hour of the Hare comes at last, and the red sun advances,
Raised like a cry and a shield in the mists of the morning,
"Warriors and chiefs and the dauntless brave youth Atsumori
Drive to the sea all the hordes of the sweating red demons."
The dove-gray garments of the Japanese women, folded so modestly across
seemingly quiet breasts, began to stir and palpitate. More than one tear
fell upon the bandages. Yuki's face, set now unfalteringly upon the
singer, grew ever more white; her long eyes burned, and trembled apart.
Unconsciously she went close to him, and, kneeling upon the hard floor,
drank of his voice. The group of Japanese maidens hid faces in their
bright sleeves. The air stirred and tingled with invisible influences.
Gwendolen began to shiver like an animal which knows not its own source
of fear. The charged atmosphere, the face, the voice of the singer,
Yuki's great glowing eyes, swept in her soul strained chords of unknown
feeling. She felt in herself the vibrations of that trembling lute. In
its cell a soul, just wakened, fumbled at a new discovered latch.
"Surely it must be reincarnation," whispered the girl. "Surely I have
felt and seen all this before! Yuki and I together have listened; that
look was on her face. Yuki!" The cry was scarcely a whisper. Yuki, many
feet away, could not possibly have heard, yet instantly she turned,--the
eyes, night-black and hazel, caught and clung together, with half
ghostly memories that were the same.
"Hissed there the sea with the scorching of steel and of passion,
Rolled up the clouds from the sky and the shore in a tumult,
There on the sand lies the body of young Atsumori."
One great crashing across the strings, "like the tearing of brocade,"
and the singer's head fell forward,--his frame trembled and shrank, he
quivered into stillness. Yuki half crawled to him, holding out a
protecting arm, and facing her guests like a young tigress. "Do not any
one speak. Do not crowd about him," she cried in English. "His soul will
be weary from the long journey."
The Japanese women understood, and returned quietly to their sewing. The
foreigners tittered, shrugged, and exchanged glances, then they, too,
began to work. A servant brought tea to the singer, and a glass of cold
water. At length he stretched out a trembling hand to the latter, and
having finished the draught, rose quietly and went from the room, with
Yuki close behind. A few moments later Gwendolen heard her returning,
unaccompanied, along the hall. She went out to meet her, thankful indeed
for the privilege of a few words alone.
"Yuki-ko," she faltered, "I just wanted to say that at last I
understand,--I think I understand entirely."
Yuki, still half in the world of shadows, gave her a strange look. "You
understand, Gwendolen? Is it my marriage you speak of?"
"Oh, so much more than that!" cried the other, with a little sob. "Had
you been what the conventional foreigner calls 'faithful,' you would
have been the most faithless girl in all the world!"
"You are a wonderful friend," said Yuki. Her voice had the strange
quality of her look. Both had caught the rhythm of low martial chanting.
"But even you, my Gwendolen, did not hear or understand it all. There is
tragedy before me. You did not hear that in the music?"
"I thought I heard it, darling, but I shut my ears! I shall not believe.
We can compel even tragedy, Yuki. Nothing can harm you with Hagané's
love!"
"It is of that the tragedy come. But do not trouble. If I can serve
Nippon, I asks no more of this life."
"Yuki, what can you mean?" cried the other, holding her back.
"Hush, dearest; do not trouble," smiled Yuki. "See, the guests turn
their heads to listen. I must go to them. I have no fear at all."