[Illustration:
[See p. 8]
THE STORM DANCE]
A JAPANESE
NIGHTINGALE
_by_
ONOTO WATANNA
ILLUSTRATED BY
GENJIRO YETO
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS
PUBLISHERS M-C-M I-I
Copyright, 1901, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
October, 1901.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE STORM DANCE 1
II. IN WHICH WOMAN PROPOSES AND MAN DISPOSES 16
III. AN APPOINTMENT 34
IV. IN WHICH MAN PROPOSES 46
V. IN WHICH THE EAST AND THE WEST ARE UNITED 57
VI. THE ADVENTURESS 66
VII. MY WIFE! 81
VIII. YUKI'S HOME 94
IX. THE MIKADO'S BIRTHDAY 107
X. A BAD OMEN 121
XI. THE NIGHTINGALE 131
XII. TARO BURTON 137
XIII. IN WHICH TWO MEN LEARN OF A SISTER'S SACRIFICE 148
XIV. A STRUGGLE IN THE NIGHT 165
XV. THE VOW 177
XVI. A PILGRIM OF LOVE 188
XVII. YUKI'S WANDERINGS 203
XVIII. THE SEASON OF THE CHERRY BLOSSOM 215
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE STORM DANCE _Frontispiece_
THE NIGHTINGALE SONG _Facing p_. 134
"THE THOUSAND PETALS OF
CHERRY BLOSSOMS WERE
FALLING ABOUT THEM" " 224
A JAPANESE NIGHTINGALE
I
THE STORM DANCE
The last rays of sunset were tingeing the land, lingering in splendor
above the bay. The waters had caught the golden glow, and, miser-like,
seemingly made effort to keep it with them; but, inexorably, the
lowering sun drew away its gilding light, leaving the waters a dark
green. The shadows began to darken, faint stars peeped out of the
heavens, and slowly, unwillingly, the day's last ray followed the sunken
sun to rest; and with its vanishment a pale moon stole overhead and
threw a seraphic light over all things.
Out in the bay that the sun had left was a tiny island, and on this a
Japanese business man, who must also have been an artist, had built a
tea-house and laid out a garden. Such an island! In the sorcerous
moonlight, one might easily believe it the witch-work of an Oriental
Merlin. Running in every direction were narrow jinrikisha roads, which
crossed bewildering little creeks, spanned by entrancing bridges. These
were round and high, and curved in the centre, and clinging vines and
creeping, nameless flowers crawled up the sides and twined about the
tiny steps which ascended to the bridges. After crossing a bridge shaped
thus, a straight bridge is forever an outrage to the eye and sense. And
all along the beach of this island was pure white sand, which looked
weirdly whiter where the moonbeams loitered and played hide-and-seek
under the tree-shadows.
The seekers of pleasure who made their way out to the little island on
this night moored their boats here in the shadows beneath the trees, and
drove in fairy vehicles, pulled by picturesque runners, clear around the
island, under the pine-trees, over miniature brooks, into the mysterious
dark of a forest. Suddenly they were in a blaze of swinging, dazzling
lights, laughter and music, chatter, the clattering of dishes, the twang
of the samisen, the ron-ton-ton of the biwa. They had reached the
garden and the tea-house.
Some pleasure-loving Japanese were giving a banquet in honor of the full
moon, and the moon, just over their heads, clothed in glorious raiment,
and sitting on a sky-throne of luminous silver, was attending the
banquet in person, surrounded by myriad twinkling stars, who played at
being her courtiers. Each of the guests had his own little mat, table,
and waitress. They sat in a semicircle, and drank the sake hot, in tiny
cups that went thirty or more to the pint; or the Kyoto beer that had
been ordered for the foreigners who were the chief guests this evening.
This is the toast the Japanese made to the moon: "May she with us drink
a cup of immortality!" and then each wished the one nearest him ten
thousand years of joy.
Now the moon-path widened on the bay, and the moon itself expanded and
grew more luminous as though in proud sympathy and understanding of the
thousand banquets held in her honor this night. All the music and noise
and clatter and revel had gradually ceased, and for a time an eloquent
silence was everywhere. Huge glowing fire-flies, flitting back and forth
like tiny twinkling stars, seemed to be the only things stirring.
Some one snuffed the candles in the lanterns, and threw a large mat in
the centre of the garden, and dusted it extravagantly with rice flour.
Then a shaft of light, that might have been the combination of a
thousand moonbeams, was flashed on the mat from an opening in the upper
part of the house, and out of the shadows sprang on to the mat a wild,
vivid little figure, clad in scintillating robes that reflected every
ray of light thrown on them; and, with her coming, the air was filled
with the weird, wholly fascinating music of the koto and samisen.
She pirouetted around on the tips of the toes of one little foot,
clapped her hands, and courtesied to the four corners of the earth. Her
dance was one of the body rather than of the feet, as back and forth she
swerved. There was a patter, patter, patter. Her garments seemed endowed
with life, and took on a sorrowing appearance; the lights changed to
accompany her; the music sobbed and quivered. It had begun to rain!
_She_ was raining! It seemed almost as if the pitter-patter of her feet
were the falling of tiny raindrops; the sadness of her garments had
increased, and now they seemed to be weeping, at first gradually, then
faster and still faster, until finally she was a storm--a dark, blowing,
lightning storm. From above the light shot down in quick, sharp flashes,
the drums clashed madly, the koto wept on, and the samisen shrieked
vindictively.
Suddenly the storm quieted down and ceased. A blue light flung itself
against the now lightly swaying figure; then the seven colors of the
spectrum flashed on her at once. She spread her garments wide; they
fluttered about her in a large half-circle, and, underneath the rainbow
of the gown, a girl's face, of exquisite beauty, smiled and drooped.
Then the extinction of light--and she was gone.
A common cry of admiration and wonder broke out from Japanese and
foreigners alike. They called for her, clapped, stamped, whistled,
cheered. One man's voice rose above the clatter of noises that had
broken loose all over the gardens. He was demanding excitedly of the
proprietor to tell him who she was.
The proprietor, smirking and bowing and cringing, nevertheless would not
tell.
The American theatrical manager lost his head a moment. He could make
that girl's fortune in America! He understood it was possible to
purchase a geisha for a certain term of years. He stood ready on the
spot to do this. He was ready to offer a good price for her. Who was
she, and where did she live?
Meanwhile the nerve-scraping dzin, dzin, dzin of a samisen was
disturbing the air with teasing persistence. There is something
provoking and still alluring in the music of the samisen. It startles
the chills in the blood like the maddening scraping of a piece of metal
against stone, and still there is an indescribable fascination and
beauty about it. Now as it scratched and squealed intermittently and
gradually twittered down to a zoom, zoom, zoom, a voice rose softly, and
gently, insinuatingly, it entered into the music of the samisen. Only
one long note had broken loose, which neither trembled nor wavered. When
it had ended none could say, only that it had passed into other notes as
strangely beautiful, and a girl was singing.
Again the light flashed down and showed her standing on the same mat on
which she had danced, her hands clasped, her face raised. She was
ethereal, divinely so. Her kimono was all white, save where the shaft of
moonbeams touched the silk to silvery brilliance. And her voice! All the
notes were minors, piercing, sweet, melancholy--terribly beautiful. She
was singing music unheard in any land save the Orient, and now for the
first time, perhaps, appreciated by the foreigners, because of that
voice--a voice meant for just such a medley of melody. And when she had
ceased, the last note had not died out, did not fall, but remained
raised, unfinished, giving to the Occidental ears a sense of
incompleteness. Her audience leaned forward, peering into the darkness,
waiting for the end.
The American theatrical manager stalked towards the light, which
lingered a moment, and died out, as if by magic, as he reached it. But
the girl was gone.
"By Jove! She's great!" he cried out, enthusiastically. Then he turned
on the proprietor. "Where is she? Where can I find her?"
The man shook his head.
"Oh, come, now," the American demanded, impatiently, "I'll pay you."
"I don' know. She is gone."
"But you know where she lives?"
The proprietor again answered in the negative.
"Now, wouldn't that make one of this country's squatty little gods
groan?" the exasperated manager demanded of a younger man who had
followed him forward.
"She'd be a great card in vaudeville," the young man contented himself
with saying.
"There's a fortune in her! I'm going to find her if she's on this
island. Come on with me, will you?"
Nothing loath, Jack Bigelow fared forth behind the theatrical man, whom
he had never seen before that afternoon, and whom he never expected to
see again. They hurried down one of the narrow, shadowy roads that
almost made a labyrinth of the island. But fortune was with them. A turn
in the road, which showed the waters of the bay not fifty yards ahead,
revealed just in front of them two figures--two women--both small, but
one a trifle taller than her companion.
"Hi there! You!" shouted the manager, who, though among a people whose
civilization was older than his own, considered them but heathen, and
gave them the scant courtesy deserved by all so benighted in matters
theatrical. The two figures suddenly stopped.
"Are you the girl who sang?"
"Yes," came the answer in a clear voice from the taller figure.
The manager was not slow in coming to the point.
"Would you like to be rich?"
Again the positive monosyllable, uttered with much eagerness.
"Good!" The manager's face could not be seen, but his satisfaction was
revealed in his voice. "Just come with me to America, and your fortune's
made!"
She stood silent, her head down, so that the manager prompted her
impatiently: "Well?"
"I stay ad Japan," she said.
"Stay at Japan!" The manager barely controlled himself. "Why, you can
never get rich in this land. Now look-a-here--I'll call and see you
to-morrow. Where do you live?"
"I don' want you call. I stay ad Japan."
This time the manager, seeing a possible fortune escaping him, and
having in mind the courtesy due the heathen, delivered himself of a
large Christian oath. "If you stay here, you're a fool. You'll never--"
The young man named Bigelow, who had watched the attempted bargaining in
silence, broke in with some indignation. "Oh, let her go! She's got a
right to do as she pleases, you know. Don't try to bully her into going
to America if she'd rather stay here."
"Well, I suppose I can't use force to make her take a good thing," said
the manager, ungraciously. He drew out his card-case and handed the girl
his card. "Perhaps you'll change your mind after you think about this a
bit. If you do, my name and Tokyo address are on that card; just come
round and see me. I'm going down to Bombay to look out for some Indian
jugglers. I'll be gone about five months, and will be back in Tokyo
before I start out on another trip to China, Corea, and the Philippines,
and then off for home."
The girl took the card and listened in silence; when he finished, she
courtesied, slipped a hand into that of her companion, and hurried down
the narrow road.
After the two Americans had made their way back to the tea-garden, the
older one at once sought out the proprietor.
"You know something about that girl. Come, tell us," he said,
imperiously.
The proprietor was profusely courteous, but hesitated to speak of the
one who had danced and sung. Finally he unbent grudgingly. He told the
theatrical man and his companion that he knew next to nothing about her.
She had come to him a stranger, and had offered her services. She
refused to enter into the usual contract demanded of most geishas, and
in view of her talents he could not afford to lose her. She was
attracting large crowds to his gardens by her strange dances. Still he
disliked and mistrusted her. She came only when it suited her whim, and
on _fêtes_ and occasions of this kind he had no means of knowing where
she was. It was only by accident she had happened in this evening. Once
he had attempted to follow her, but she had discovered him, and made him
promise never to do such a thing again, threatening to stay away
altogether if he did so. He spoke disparagingly of her:
"Beautiful, excellencies! Phow! You cannot see properly in the deceitful
light of this honorable moon. A cheap girl of Tokyo, with the blue-glass
eyes of the barbarian, the yellow skin of the lower Japanese, the hair
of mixed color, black and red, the form of a Japanese courtesan, and the
heart and nature of those honorably unreliable creatures, alien at this
country, alien at your honorable country, augustly despicable--a
half-caste!"
II
IN WHICH WOMAN PROPOSES AND
MAN DISPOSES
Jack Bigelow was beset by the nakodas (professional match-makers). He
was known to be one of the richest foreigners in the city, and the
Nekoosa gave him no rest. Though he found them interesting, with the
little comedies and tragedies to relate of the matches they had made and
unmade, he had remained impregnable to their arts. He naturally shrank
from such a union, and in this position he was strengthened by a promise
he had made before leaving America to a college chum, his most intimate
friend, a young English-Japanese student, named Taro Burton, that during
his stay in Japan he would not append his name to the long list of
foreigners who for a short, happy, and convenient season cheerfully take
unto themselves Japanese wives, and with the same cheerfulness desert
them.
Taro Burton was almost a monomaniac on this subject, and denounced both
the foreigners who took to themselves and deserted Japanese wives, and
the native Japanese, who made such a practice possible. He himself was a
half-caste, being the product of a marriage between an Englishman and a
Japanese woman. In this case, however, the husband had proved faithful
to his wife and children up to death; but then he had married a daughter
of the nobility, a descendant of the proud Jakichi family, and the
ceremony had been performed by an English missionary. Despite the
happiness of this marriage, Taro held that the Eurasian was born to a
sorrowful lot, and was bitterly opposed to the union of the women of his
country with men of other lands, particularly as he was Westernized
enough to appreciate how lightly such marriages were held by the
foreigners. It was true, of course, that after the desertion the wife
was divorced, according to the law, but that, in Taro's mind, only made
the matter more detestable.
For five years, up to their graduation four months before this, the
young American and the young half-Japanese had been associated as
closely together as it is possible for two young men to be, and a strong
and deep affection existed between them.
It had been originally decided that the friends would make this trip
together, which in Taro Burton's case was to be his return to the home
he had left, and, with Jack Bigelow, was to be the beginning of a year's
travel preliminary to entering the business of his father, who was a
rich shipbuilder. But for some reason, which he never clearly set forth
to his friend, Taro had backed out at almost the last minute; yet he had
urged Jack to undertake the trip alone, and, under promise to follow
shortly, finally had prevailed. So Jack Bigelow had made the long voyage
to Japan, and had taken a pretty house of his own a short distance from
Tokyo.
It was unfortunate that Taro could not have accompanied his friend, for,
while the latter was not a weak character, he was easy-going,
good-natured, and easily manipulated through his feelings.
The young Japanese, had he done nothing else, at least would have kept
the Nekoosa and their offerings of matrimonial happiness on the other
side of the American's doors. As it was, one of them in particular was
so picturesque in appearance, quaint in speech, and persistent in his
calls, that the young man had encouraged his visits, until a certain
jocular intimacy put their relations with each other on a pleasant and
familiar footing.
It was this nakoda (Ido was his name, so he told Jack) who brought an
applicant for a husband to his house, one day, and besought him at least
to hold a look-at meeting with her.
"She is beautiful like unto the sun-goddess," he declared, with the
extravagance of his class.
"The last was like the moon," said the young man, laughing. "Have you
any stars to trot out?"
"Stars!" echoed the other, for a moment puzzled, and then, beaming with
delighted enlightenment, "Ah, yes--her eyes, her feet, hair, hands,
twinkling like unto them same stars! She prays for just a look-at
meeting with your excellency."
"Well, for the fun of the thing, then," said the other, laughing. "I'm
sure I don't mind having a look-at meeting with a pretty girl. Show her
into the zashishi (guest-room) and I'll be along in a moment. But, look
here," he continued, "you'd better understand that I'm only going
through this ceremony for the fun of the thing, mind you. I don't intend
to marry any one--at all events, not a girl of that class."
"Nod for a leetle while whicheven?" persuaded the nakoda.
"Nod for a leetle while whicheven," echoed the young man, but the agent
had disappeared.
When Jack, curious to know what she was like, she who was seeking him
for a husband, entered the zashishi, he found the blinds high up and the
sunshine pouring into the room. His eyes fell upon her at once, for the
shoji at the back of the room was parted, and she stood in the opening,
her head drooping bewitchingly. He could not see her face. She was quite
small, though not so small as the average Japanese woman, and the two
little hands, clasped before her, were the whitest, most irresistible
and perfect hands he had ever seen. He had heard of the beauty of the
hands of the Japanese women, and was not surprised to find even a girl
of this class--she was a geisha, of course, he told himself--with such
exquisite, delicate hands. He knew she was holding them so that they
could be seen to advantage, and her little affected pose amused and
pleased him.
After he had looked at her a moment, she subsided to the mats and made
her prostration. She was dressed very gayly in a red crêpe kimono, tied
about with a purple obi. Her hair was dressed after the fashion of the
geisha, with a flower ornament at top and long, pointed daggers at
either side; but as she bowed her head to the mats, some pin in her hair
escaped and slipped, and then a tawny, rebellious mass of hair, which
was never meant to be worn smoothly, had fallen all about her, tumbled
into her eyes and over her ears, and literally covered her little
crouching form. She shivered in shame at the mishap, and then knelt very
still at his feet.
Bigelow was speechless. Never before in his life had he seen such hair.
It was black, though not densely so, for all over it, even where it had
been darkened with oil, there was a rich red tinge, and it was
luxuriously thick and long and wavy.
"Good heavens!" he said, after the little figure had remained absolutely
motionless for a full minute; "she'll hurt or cramp herself in that
position."
The girl did not rise at the sound of his voice, but crept nearer to
him, her hair still enshrouding her. It made him feel creepy, and
annoyed and pleased and amused him altogether.
"Don't do that," he said. "Please stand up. Do!"
The nakoda told him to lift her to her feet, and the young man did so,
entangling his hands in her hair. When she stood up, he saw her face,
which was oval and rosy, the lips very red. She still drooped her eyes,
so that her face was incomplete.
"What's your name?" he asked her, gently. "And what do you want with
me?"
Now she raised her head and he saw her eyes. They startled him. They
were large, though narrow, and intensely, vividly blue. Before, with her
hair neatly smoothed and dressed, he had noticed nothing extraordinary
about her; now, with that rich red-black hair enshrouding her, and the
long, blue eyes looking at him mistily, she was an eerie little creature
that made him marvel. A Japanese girl with such hair and eyes! And yet
the more he looked at her the more he saw that her clothes became her;
that she was Japanese despite the hair and eyes. He did not try to
explain the anomaly to himself, but he could not doubt her nationality.
There was no other country she could belong to.
"You are Japanese?" he finally asked, to make sure.
She nodded.
"I thought so, and yet--"
She smiled, and her eyes closed a trifle as she did so. She was all
Japanese in a moment, and prettier than ever.
"You see--your eyes and hair--" he began again. She nodded and dimpled,
and he knew she understood.
"What is it you want with me?" he asked, desiring rather to hear her
speak than to learn her object, for this he knew.
She was solemn now. She flushed, and her eyes went down. To explain to
him why she had come to him in this wise was a painful task. He could
guess that, but she forced the words past her lips.
"To be your wife, my lord," she said in English, and the queer quality
of her voice thrilled him strangely.
This was the answer he knew was coming; nevertheless it stirred him in a
way he had not expected. To have this wonderfully pretty girl before
him, beseeching him to marry her--he who had as yet never dreamed of
marriage for himself--was disturbing to his balance of mind. Nay,
more--it was revolting. He shrank back involuntarily, wondering why she
had come to him, and this wonder he put into words.
"But why do you want to marry me?" he asked.
The expression of her face was enigmatical now. She had ceased to blush
and smile, and had become quite white. Suddenly she commenced to
laugh--thrilling, elfish laughter, that rang out through the room,
startling the echoes of the house.
"Why?" he repeated, fascinated.
She shrugged her shoulders. "I mus' make money," she said.
Of course this was her reason; he knew that before she spoke; but
hearing her say so gave him pain. She was such a dainty little body.
"Oh, you need not sell yourself for that," he said, earnestly. "Why,
I'll give you some--all you want. You're awfully young, aren't you? Just
a little girl. _I_ can't marry you. It wouldn't be fair to you."
Again she shrugged her shoulders, and spoke in Japanese to the nakoda.
"She says some one else will, then," he interpreted.
"All right," said the young man, almost bitterly.
She pretended to go towards the door, and then came back towards
Bigelow.
"I seen you before," she announced, ingenuously.
"Where?" He was curiously interested. He fancied that her face was
familiar.
"Ad tea-house."
"What tea-house?"
"On liddle bit island. You 'member? I dance like this-a-way." She
performed a few steps.
"What! you that girl?" He knew her in an instant now. "How could you
remember me?"
"You following me after dance with 'nudder American gent, and before
thad some one point ad you--ole wooman thad always accompanying me."
"How did _she_ know me?"
"She din know you to speag ad, bud--she saying you mos' reech barbarian
ad all Japan."
"Oh, I see," he said, coldly.
"She tell me I bedder git marry with you."
"Indeed! Why?"
She hung her head a moment. "Because she know I luffing with you," she
said.
"You loving with _me_!" He laughed outright. Her ingenuousness was
entrancing.
"Yes," she said, and he, with masculine conceit, half believed her.
"But wouldn't you rather stay at the tea-house than get married?" he
asked.
"Not nuff money that businesses," she returned.
"Do you do everything for money?"
"How I goin' to live?"
This question, answering a question, brought her back to the purpose of
her visit. She held her little hands out to him.
"Ah, excellency, _pray_ marry with me," she begged.
He took her hands quickly in his own. They were soft and so small. He
could enclose them with one of his. They were delightful. He knew they
were daintily perfumed, like everything else about her. He did not let
them go.
"You ought not to marry, you know," he said to her, almost boyishly.
"How old are you, anyhow?"
She ignored his question.
"I will be true, good wife to you forever," she said, and then swiftly
corrected herself, as though frightened by her own words. "No, no, I
make ridigulous mistage--not forever--jus' for liddle bit while--as you
desire, augustness!"
"But I don't desire," he laughed nervously. "I don't want to get
married. I won't be over a few months at most in Japan."
"Oh, jus' for liddle bit while marry with me," she breathed,
entreatingly--"Pl-ease!"
It hurt him strangely to have her plead so. She looked delicate and
refined and gentle. He put her hands quickly from him. She held them out
and put them back again into his. Her eyes clouded, and he thought she
was going to cry.
He was seized with a desire to keep her from weeping, if he could, this
little creature, who seemed made for anything but tears. He spoke from
this impulse, without giving so much as a second's thought to the
seriousness of his words.
"Don't cry. I'll marry you, of course, if you want me to."
He felt the hands in his own tremble.
"Thangs, excellency," she said, in a voice that was barely above a
whisper, but it was a voice which had in it no note of joy.
There was pleasure, however, in the eyes of the nakoda. He had done a
good piece of business, a most excellent piece of business, for the
American gentleman was reputed to be able to buy hundreds and hundreds
of rice-fields if he so cared to do. The nakoda came forward with a
benignant smile to arrange the terms.
"She will cost only three hundred yen per down and fifteen yen each end
per week. Soach a cheap price for a wife!"
It was the grinning face of this matrimonial middleman that brought
Bigelow back to his senses. He had said he would marry this little
creature, whose limp hands he was holding. He dropped them as though
they were the hands of one dead, and drew back.
"I won't do it!" he almost shouted. "Never!" Then he thought what must
be the feelings of the little girl whose yoke of marriage he was
refusing, and softened. "I wasn't thinking when I said I would. I don't
want to marry a Japanese girl. I don't want to marry any girl. I
wouldn't be doing right, and it wouldn't be fair to you." He paused, and
then added, lamely, "I think I'd like you awfully, though, if I only
knew you."
"But--" spoke up the nakoda, anxiously, who found his dream of a large
fee fading into thin air.
Jack turned upon him quickly and gave him a sharp look, whereat he
retired hurriedly.
A look of relief had come over the girl's face when Jack had cried out
that he would not marry her, and at this he wondered much. This relief
in her face, however, was succeeded almost instantly by disappointment.
But she spoke no further word. She gave him a single hurried glance from
beneath fluttering eyelashes, courtesied until her head was almost on a
level with his knees, and left him.
III
AN APPOINTMENT
Jack Bigelow regarded the attempt of the nakoda and little Miss ---- (he
had not even thought to ask her name) as an incident closed by the
retirement of the one aspiring to wifehood from his sight. But in
passing from his house she had not passed from his mind. This she
occupied in spite of him, though it must be said that Jack made no
effort to eject her.
He had been approached by many nakodas, who had the disposal of some
most excellent wives, so they had told him, but never before had he
consented to see one of their offerings; so the sensation of being asked
in marriage by a girl whom he had only seen once before, and that under
circumstances which prevented his seeing her clearly, was altogether
new. That he, John Hampden Bigelow, A.B.--he was very proud of that
A.B., it had not cost him any particular labor--should be so sought out
was not at all displeasing to his vanity, a quality that he prided
himself on not possessing; this, notwithstanding the fact that he knew
he had been approached because he had money.
He chuckled at the event several times during the day. He would keep
this incident in mind, with all its detail, and make use of it now and
then after he had returned home, when he was called upon to talk of his
experiences in other lands. Of course, he would exaggerate a bit here
and tone down a bit there, and would make the girl much prettier. No,
the girl was pretty enough. This part of the incident could not be
improved upon.
Jack mused about the morning's episode during the entire day, and twice
exploded into such laughter at the idea of his being asked for a husband
that his little man hurried in to see if the gay-eyed barbarian was
taking leave of his senses. In the evening he grew restless, and, having
nothing else to do--so he told himself--he went out to the tea-garden on
the little island which he had visited a few nights before. For an hour
he waited for something--for something that did not appear. Finally,
when the proprietor chanced to pass him, he asked in the manner of one
casually interested:
"The girl who danced and sang the other night--is she here?"
She was not, for which the proprietor humbly asked pardon. She had not
visited his poor place since the night the American had seen her.
For some reason Jack suddenly lost interest in the house and gardens,
and returned to his home. But the next night--again because he had
nothing else to do--found him once more a guest at the tea-garden. This
time he did not leave at the end of an hour; possibly because a weird
dance was performed and a weird song sung by a girl with vivid blue
eyes. He could not see their color from where he sat, but he knew they
were blue.
After that he fell into the habit of visiting the gardens every
night--these were dull times in Tokyo--never anything else to do. Most
of the evenings so spent were intensely wearisome, but some few of them
were not. It may only have been a series of coincidences, but it so
happened that on the enjoyable evenings there was a weird dance and a
weird song, and on the others there were not the graceful swayings of a
little body, nor the wonderful music of a wonderful voice.
One evening, immediately after the song had been ended, he found himself
striding down the same road he had taken with the excited theatrical
manager, and this without consciously having decided upon such a course.
But he came down to the beach without seeing man or woman, and, though
he would not acknowledge to himself that he was seeking any one, he
carried away with him a keen sense of disappointment.
For two weeks the dulness of Tokyo remained unabated, so that the
evenings offered nothing else to do save to go to the tea-gardens. At
the end of that time, Jack, becoming honest with himself, admitted that
there was nothing else, because there was nothing else he wanted to do,
and while in this frank mood he let it become known to himself that
there was nothing else in all the land of the rising sun that held so
much of interest to him as did the girl who had offered herself to him
for wife--nothing, indeed, in all the other lands of the earth. Why this
was, he did not know, not being one given to searching his own soul or
the souls of others.
While he reclined at his ease one afternoon in the little room in which
he lounged and smoked, he began to place her, in his imagination, here
and there in the house, to try the effect.
He set her in one of his largest chairs, notwithstanding she would have
been much more comfortable on the floor, in this same room, and she
added wonderfully to the appearance of things. He stood her pensively by
the tokonona; he nodded his head--very good! He placed her out beneath a
cherry-tree in his garden; again he nodded approvingly. And a breakfast
with her sitting opposite him! That would be like unto the breakfasts
eaten by the angels in heaven--if angels partake of other than spiritual
nourishment. Yes, she would be wonderfully effective in his little
house, would harmonize with it greatly.
But what an odd figure she would make in an American dress! He thought
of her in a golfing costume, and smiled at his fancy. Nevertheless, even
in the gowns worn by the women of his own country, she would be quaint
and charming, he felt sure. She would be awkward, of course, but would
be graceful even in her awkwardness. And she would transgress every
polite convention, and would make herself all the more delightful in so
doing. He compared her to the wives of some of the men he knew, to many
of the girls he had met since girls had begun to have interest for him,
and his admiration for her grew apace. He would be proud of her, he
knew, for she was pretty and would attract attention; men like their
wives to draw eyes towards them. She was unlike the wife of any of his
countrymen he was likely to meet, and this also was much.
What would his parents think? They'd be angry at first, of course, but
they'd give in; they loved him, and couldn't resist her; no one could
resist her. Anyhow, this prospective trouble was so far ahead that there
was no use in wasting thought upon it now.
Why the deuce hadn't he learned her name? It was very monotonous this
being compelled to think of her only as "she" and "her."
But why had she come to him asking him to marry her? He shook his head
at that; he didn't quite like it. But--oh, well, you know, these Japs
have no end of queer customs. This incident just illustrated one of
them. She was clearly a superior kind of a girl. Not an ordinary geisha
as he had thought when his eyes first fell on her. He had seen enough of
the geishas at the tea-houses to know that she was of a different kind;
to his Occidental eyes these last were most pleasing creatures, but--
Just then his man straggled through the room and brought an end to his
musing. Marry her? He sat up straight. What had he been thinking about?
The idea was absurd. It was absurd for him to think about marrying any
one. He got to his feet, called back his man, and ordered a jinrikisha
to be brought to him. He rode off to Tokyo to forget all about it.
But it would not be forgotten. After he had left the jinrikisha he
caught sight of her on the opposite side of the street, turning a
corner. He hurried after her, but when he reached the corner she was
nowhere to be seen. He looked into all the shops on either side of the
street for a distance of a hundred yards, but saw no one who bore the
least resemblance to her. Then he tramped about the immediate vicinity,
his sense of loss deepening with each minute, until he noticed that the
shop-keepers were eying him with suspicion. He gave up the search and
started back to his jinrikisha.
As he was swinging along disconsolately, his eyes lighted upon another
person whom he knew--Ido, the nakoda--and him Jack did not let escape.
He pounced down upon him, and clapped a hand upon his shoulder.
"Hallo there!" he called out.
Ido started back as if he had been set upon by an enemy. He was unused
to such emphatic greetings. But when he saw who his assailant was he
slipped a smile upon his face, smirked and bowed, and hoped that the
august American's days were filled with joy.
"They'll do," Jack answered. "And how are things with you? Business
good? Making many matches?"
Ido had introduced four persons to incomparable happiness--which was to
say, he had brought about two marriages. Had his lordship come into like
happiness?
No, his lordship had not.
"You making gradest mistage you' whole lifetime," Ido assured him. "You
nod yit seen Japanese woman that please you for wife? No? I know nodder
girl you' excellency nod seen yit. Mos' beautiful in Japan. You like see
her?"
"No, I've seen enough. By-the-way, Ido, what's become of the girl you
brought around to my place? Married yet?" Jack put on a look of
indifferent interest.
"No, excellency."
For one disinterested, Jack found much relief in this answer.
"But I thing she going to be," Ido went on, calmly. "Two, three--no, two
odder gents--What you say?--consider--yes, consider her."
These words drove relief from the disinterested Jack's heart, and
instantly set up in its place a raging jealousy. But he compelled
himself to remark, quite easily, "You don't say!"
Ido confirmed his statement with a nod that was almost a bow.
"A very pretty girl," Jack commented, loftily.
Ido's reply was confined to a mere "Yes." There was no use going into
ecstasies when no bargain was in sight.
"I think I'll go around to see her, and congratulate her," Jack went on.
"Where does she live?"
"I regretfully cannot tell."
"Ah, well, let it go then. But, say, I really would like to see her
again before she's married. Rather took a fancy to her, you know.
Couldn't you bring her to call on me to-morrow morning?"
"I going to be very busy to-morrow." Seeing no chance of earning a
marriage-fee, he saw no reason for taking the trip.
"I'll pay you for your trouble--needn't worry about that."
Perhaps Ido could arrange to come; yes, now that he thought again, he
knew he could come.
So it was settled that he and the girl should visit Jack at ten o'clock
the next day.
IV
IN WHICH MAN PROPOSES
The announcement of his man that Ido and his charge had arrived
contained no news for Jack, for he had been watching the road from Tokyo
since nine o'clock, and had seen them while they were yet afar off.
Nevertheless, he did not enter the zashishi until his man came to him
with word that guests from the city were awaiting him, and then he had
no definite idea of what he intended to do.
She was dressed exactly as she had been on her previous visit, and she
made obeisance almost to the floor, in greeting him, as she then had
done. He hastened her recovery from the deep courtesy by taking her
hands and raising her to an upright posture.
"You have come to see me again? I am very glad to see you," he said,
with eager politeness.
"Nakoda say you wish see me. Tha's why I come." There was not a trace of
her former coquetry in her manner.
"Yes, I had to send Ido after you. I don't suppose you would ever have
let me see you again if I had not."
She shrugged her shoulders imperceptibly. "Me you don' wish marrying
with. You send me 'way. What I do?"
"We could be capital friends, even if we didn't care to marry, couldn't
we?"
"Frien'? I don' wan' frien'," she returned, coldly.
"But I'd like to have you for my friend, all the same, though I'm afraid
it's not possible. Ido"--he hesitated--"Ido says you're going to be
married, you know."
She inclined her head.
"You're not married yet, are you?" he asked in alarm, forgetting that he
had put this same question to the nakoda the day before.
"Nod yit."
"Do you--um--like him?"
"Which one, my lord?" She looked up at him innocently.
"Oh, both of them!" He was beginning to get angry. He would find
pleasure in laying violent hands upon the two, one at a time.
"Jus' liddle bit, augustness."
"Better than you do me?" he demanded, jealously.
She shook her head decisively. "You nod so ole, an nod so--hairy-like."
She rubbed her little hands over her face, by which he understood that
the two wore beards. They were doubtless of his own country.
He hardly knew what to say next, and the silence grew embarrassing to
him. She broke it by remarking, very quietly:
"Nakoda inform me you wan' make liddle bit talk ad me."
He turned to the match-maker, who was pretending deep interest in a
framed drawing on the wall. "Say, Ido, just step into the next room a
minute, will you?"
He turned back to the girl, as soon as Ido had obeyed him, with
extravagant alacrity.
"You have never even told me your name," he said.
"Yuki."
"That means 'Snowflake,' doesn't it? I like it. Well now, Yuki, mayn't I
visit you at your home, before you are married?"
He was anxious to see what her people were like, and how she lived.
"Mos' poor house in all Tokyo--so liddle bit house augustness nod lige
come."
"But I don't care if it is. I want to come anyhow. I want to see you,
not the house. Won't you tell me where you live?"
She shook her head. "No," She said with simple directness, and then
added as an after-thought, "House too small. You altogedder too big to
enter thad liddle bit insignificant hovel."
Her answer gave him offence. He wondered why she should dissemble,
wondered whether she was laughing at him. A glance at her, however, and
his distrust vanished. She seemed such a simple little body, yet he knew
he did not understand her.
Her eyes, which she had kept turned downward, slowly uplifted and looked
questioningly into his own. Such wonderful eyes! Such a simple,
exquisite face! He was suddenly suffused with a great wave of
tenderness, and he bent low, and gently made prisoners of her hands.
However indefinite his purpose had been up to this time, it was definite
enough now.
"So you remember, Yuki, what you asked me when you were here before?"
"Yes." She still gazed at him questioningly.
"Would you like to--would you rather marry me than one of those other
fellows?" he said, softly.
"Yes," again, in the smallest voice this time.
He hesitated, and she asked, quickly, "You _wan_' me do so?"
"That's just what I want, Yuki, dear," he whispered, drawing her hands
to his lips.
"All ride." She trembled--perhaps shivered is the better word--as she
said this, but gave no other sign of emotion.
Before Jack could so much as touch his lips to her forehead, Ido entered
smiling his professional blessing. It was evident that in the other room
he had found no drawing to distract his attention, and a large new
peephole in the immaculate shoji indicated where he had given all his
eyes and ears to what was going on, and he could wait no longer to press
his claim.
Jack, seeing an unpleasant duty before him, and desiring to have done
with it at once, told Yuki that he would be back in a minute, and led
the nakoda into the room out of which he had just come.
Ido immediately began to make terms. This part was loathsome to the
young man.
"Why," he said, hotly, "if we're to be married, she can have all she
wants and needs."
That wouldn't do at all, the nakoda told him, warily. There would have
to be a marriage settlement and a stated allowance agreed upon. He would
have to pay more, also, as she was a maid and not a widow.
When the ugly terms of the agreement were completed, the nakoda bowed
himself out, and Jack went back to Yuki. He found her changed; her
simplicity had left her, and her coquetry had returned. She stood off
from him, and he felt constrained and awkward. After a time she demanded
of him, with a shrewd inflection in her voice:
"You goin' to lige me, excellency?"
"No question of that," he answered promptly, smiling.
"No," she repeated, "tha's sure thing," and then she laughed at her own
assurance, and she was so pretty he wanted to kiss her, but she backed
from him in mock alarm.
"Tha's nod ride," she declared, "till we marry."
"God speed the day!" he said, with devout joyousness. Still approaching
her, as she backed from him, he questioned her boyishly:
"And you? Will you like me?"
She surveyed him critically. Then she nodded emphatically. They laughed
together this time, but when he approached her she grew fearful. He did
not want to frighten her.
"You god nod anudder wife?" she asked.
"No! Good heavens!"
"I god nod anudder hosban'," she informed him, complacently.
"I should hope not."
"Perhaps," she said, "you marrying with girl in Japan thad god marry
before. Me? I _never_."
"No, of course not." He didn't quite understand what she was driving at.
Then she said: "You pay more money ad liddle girl lige me whad nod been
marry before?"
He recoiled and frowned heavily at her.
"I settled that matter with the nakoda," he said, coldly.
Seeing he was displeased, she tried to conciliate him. She smiled at
him, engagingly, coaxingly.
"You don' lige me any more whicheven."
But his face did not clear up. She had hurt him deeply by her reference
to money.
"Perhaps you don' want me even," she suggested, tentatively. "I bedder
go 'way. Leave you all 'lone."
She turned and was making her way slowly out of the room, when he sprang
impetuously after her.
"Don't, Yuki!" he cried, and caught her eagerly in his arms. She yielded
herself to his embrace, though she was trembling like a little
frightened child. For the first time he kissed her.
* * * * *
After she had left him, he stared with some wonder at the reflection of
himself in a mirror. So he was to be married, was he? Yes, there was no
getting out of it now. As for that, he didn't want to get out of it--of
this he was quite sure. He was very well content--nay, he was
enthusiastically happy with what the future promised.
But his happiness might have been felt in less measure if his eyes,
instead of staring at his mirrored likeness, could have been fixed on
Yuki. She had borne herself with a joyous air to the jinrikisha, but
once within it, and practically secure from observation, the life had
seemingly gone out of her. The brown of her skin had paled to gray, and
all the way to Tokyo her eyes shifted neither to right nor left, but
stared straight ahead into nothingness, and once, when Ido looked down,
he found that they were filled with tears.
V
IN WHICH THE EAST AND THE
WEST ARE UNITED
A few days later they were married. It was a very quiet little
tea-drinking ceremony, and, unlike the usual Japanese wedding, there was
not the painful crowd of relatives and friends attendant. In fact, no
one was present, besides themselves, save Jack's man and maid and the
nakoda, while Yuki herself sang the marriage song.
They started housekeeping in an ideal spot. Their house, a bit of art in
itself, was built on the crest of a small hill. On all sides sloped and
leaned green highlands, rich in foliage and warm in color. Beyond these
smaller hillocks towered the jagged background of mountain-peaks, with
the halo of the skies bathing them in an eternal glow. A lazy, babbling
little stream dipped and threaded its way between the hillocks,
mirroring on its shining surface the beauty of the neighboring hills and
the inimitable landscapes pictured on the canvas of God--the skies--and
seeming like a twisted rainbow of ever-changing and brilliant colors.
But no surges disturbed its waters, even far beyond where it emptied
into the mellow Bay of Tokyo.
From their elevation on the hill they could see below them the beautiful
city of Tokyo, with its many-colored lights and intricate maze of
streets. And all about them the hills, the meadows, the valleys and
forests bore eloquent testimony to the labor of the Color Queen.
Pink, white, and blushy-red twigs of cherry and plum blossoms, idly
swaying, flung out their suave fragrance on the flattered breeze, the
volatile handmaid of young May, who had freed all the imprisoned
perfumes, unhindered by the cynic snarl of the jealous winter, and with
silent, pursuasive wooing had taught the dewy-tinctured air to please
all living nostrils. So from the glowing and thrilling thoughts that
tremble on the young tree of life is love distilled and, unmindful of
the assembling of the baffled powers of cold caution and warning fear,
the heart is filled with fountain tumults it cannot dissemble.
Jack Bigelow was fascinated and bewildered at the turn events had taken.
He was very good and gentle to her, and for several days after the
ceremony she seemed quite happy and contented. Then she disappeared, and
for a week he saw nothing of her.
He greatly missed her--his little bride of three or four days. He longed
ardently for her return, and her absence alarmed him. Her little arts
and witcheries had grown on him even in this short period of their
acquaintance.
Towards the end of the week she slipped into the house quietly, and went
about her household duties as though nothing unusual had occurred. She
did not offer to tell him where she had been, and he felt strangely
unwilling to force her confidence.
Instead of becoming better acquainted with her, each day found him more
puzzled and less capable of knowing or understanding her. Now she was
clinging, artless, confiding, and again shrewd and elfish. Now she was
laughing and singing and dancing as giddily as a little child, and again
he could have sworn she had been weeping, though she would deny it
stoutly, and pooh-pooh and laugh away such an idea.
He asked her one day how she would like to be dressed in American
clothes. She mimicked him. She mimicked everything and every one, from
the warbling of the birds to the little man and maid who waited on them.