With Mrs. Hearn's quaint and tender record of Lafcadio Hearn's last
days, his "Life and Letters" may fitly conclude.
* * * * *
About 3 P. M. Sept. 19th, 1904, as I went to his library I
found him walking to and fro with his hands upon the breast. I asked
him: "Are you indisposed?" Husband: "I got a new sickness."
"What is your new sickness?" Husband: "The heart-sickness." I:
"You are always over anxious." At once I sent for our doctor Kizawa with
a jinrikisha furnished with two riksha men. He would not let myself
and children see his painful sight, and ordered to leave him. But I
stayed by him. He began writing. I advised him to be quiet. "Let me do
as I please," he said, and soon finished writing. "This is a letter
addressed to Mr. Ume. Mr. Ume is a worthy man. He will give you a good
counsel when any difficulty happen to you. If any greater pain of this
kind comes upon me I shall perhaps die," he said; and then admonished
me repeatedly and strongly that I ought to keep myself healthy and
strong; then gave me several advices, hearty, earnest, and serious, with
regard to the future of children, concluding with the words, "Could
you understand?" Then again he said: "Never weep if I die. Buy for my
coffin a little earthen pot of three or four cents worth; bury me in
the yard of a little temple in some lonesome quarter. Never be sorry.
You had better play cards with children. Do not inform to others of my
departure. If any should happen to inquire of me, tell him: 'Ha! he died
sometime ago. That will do.'" I eagerly remonstrated: "Pray, do not
speak such melancholy things. Such will never happen." He said: "This is
a serious matter." Then saying "It cannot be held," he kept quiet.
A few minutes passed; the pain relaxed. "I would like to take bath," he
said. He wanted cold bath; went to the bath-room and took a cold bath.
"Strange!" he said, "I am quite well now." He recovered entirely, and
asked me: "Mamma San! Sickness flew away from me. Shall I take some
whiskey?" I told him: "I fear whiskey will not be good for heart. But
if you are so fond of it I will offer it to you mixed with some water."
Taking up the cup, he said: "I shall no more die." He then told me for
the first time that a few days ago he had the same experience of pain.
He lay down upon the bed then with a book. When the doctor arrived at
our house, "What shall I do?" he said. Leaving the book, he went out to
the parlour, and said "Pardon me, doctor. The sickness is gone." The
doctor found no bad symptom, and jokes and chattering followed between
them.
He was always averse to take medicine or to be attended by a doctor. He
would never take medicine if I had not been careful; and if I happen to
be late in offering him medicine he would say: "I was glad thinking you
had forgot." If not engaged in writing, he used to walk in meditation
to and fro in the room or through the corridor. So even in the time of
sickness he would not like to remain quiet in confinement.
One day he told me in gladness: "Mamma San! I am very pleased about
this." I asked him what it was. "I wrote this newspaper article:
'Lafcadio Hearn disappeared from the world.' How interesting! The world
will see me no more--I go away in secret--I shall become a hermit--in
some remote mountain, with you and with Kazuo."
It was a few days before his departure. Osaki, a maid, the daughter of
Otokitsu of Yaidzu, found a blossom untimely blooming in one of the
branches of cherry-tree in the garden. She told me about that. Whenever
I saw or heard anything interesting I always told it to him; and this
proved his greatest enjoyment. A very trifling matter was in our home
very often highly valued. For instance, as the following things:--
To-day a young shoot appeared on a musa basjoo in the garden.
Look! an yellow butterfly is flying there.
In the bamboo bushes, a young bamboo-sprout raised its head from the
earth.
Kazuo found a mound made by ants.
A frog is just staying on the top of the hedge.
From this morning the white, the purple, and the red blossoms of the
morning-glory began to bloom, etc., etc.
Matters like those had great importance in our household. These things
were all reported to him. They were great delight for my husband.
He was pleased innocently. I tried to please him with such topics
with all my heart. Perhaps if any one happened to witness, it would
have seemed ridiculous. Frogs, ants, butterflies, bamboo-sprouts,
morning-glory,--they were all the best friends to my husband.
Now, the blossom was beautiful to look. But I felt all at once my bosom
tremble for some apprehension of evil, because the untimely bloom is
considered in Japan as a bad omen. Anyhow I told him of the blossom. He
was interested as usual. "Hello!" he said, and immediately approaching
to the railing, he looked out at the blossom. "Now my world has come--it
is warm, like spring," said he; then after a pause, "but soon it will
become cold and that blossom will die away." This blossom was upon the
branch till the 27th, when toward the evening its petals scattered
themselves lonesomely. Methought the cherry-tree, which had Hearn's
warmest affection for these years, responded to his kindness and bade
good-bye to him.
Hearn was an early riser; but lest he should disturb the sleep of
myself and children, he was always waiting for us and keeping quiet
in the library, sitting regularly upon the cushion and smoking with a
charcoal-brazier before him, till I got up and went to his library.
In the morning of Sept. 26th--the sad, last day--as I went to his
library about 6.30 A. M., he was already quietly sitting as
usual on the cushion. "Ohayō gozaimasu" (good-morning) I said. He
seemed to be thinking over something, but upon my salutation he said his
"good-morning," and told me that he had an interesting dream last night,
for we were accustomed to tell each other when we had a pleasant dream.
"What was it," I asked. He said: "I had a long, distant journey. Here I
am smoking now, you see. Is it real that I travelled or is it real that
I am smoking? The world of dream!..." Thus saying he was pleased with
himself.
Before going to bed, our three boys used to go to his library and say in
English: "Papa! Good-night! Pleasant dream!" Then he says in Japanese:
"Dream a good dream," or in English: "The same to you."
On this morning when Kazuo, before leaving home for school, went to him,
and said a "good-morning," he said: "Pleasant dream." Not knowing how to
say, Kazuo answered: "The same to you."
About eleven o'clock in the morning, while walking to and fro along the
corridor, he looked into my sitting-room and saw the picture hung upon
the wall of alcove. The picture entitled "Morning Sun," represented a
glorious, but a little mistic, scene of seashore in the early morning
with birds thronging. "A beautiful scenery! I would like to go to such a
land," he remarked.
He was fond of hearing the note of insects. We kept _matsu mushi_ (a
kind of cricket) this autumn. Toward evening the plaintive notes
which matsu mushi made at intervals made me feel unusually lonesome. I
asked my husband how it sounded to him. He said: "That tiny creature
has been singing nicely. It's getting cold, though. Is it conscious
or unconscious that soon it must die? It's a pity, indeed." And, in a
lonesome way, he added: "Ah, poor creature! On one of these warm days
let us put him secretly among the grasses."
Nothing particularly different was not to be observable in all about him
that day through. But the single blossom of untimely cherry, the dream
of long journey he had, and the notes of matsu mushi, all these make me
sad even now, as if there had existed some significance about them. At
supper he felt sudden pain in the breast. He stopped eating; went away
to his library; I followed him. For some minutes, with his hands upon
his breast, he walked about the room. A sensation of vomiting occurred
to him. I helped him, but no vomiting. He wanted to lie on bed. With his
hands on breast, he kept very calm in bed. But, in a few minutes after,
he was no more the man of this side of the world. As if feeling no pain
at all, he had a little smile about his mouth.