jewel-box. The pile of bills grew larger. He no longer refused her
requests for money. The fund was quite large now. The last time he had
counted it there were four hundred dollars. He took a whim to make it
five hundred, and that same day gave her a clear hundred dollars.
She had given him a solemn promise never to leave him again without his
knowledge and consent, and for a whole month she had kept steadfastly at
home. It was the happiest month in his life, a month that spelled naught
else but joy and sunshine.
But the day after he had given her the hundred dollars she came to him
and begged very humbly to be permitted to visit her old father and
mother and seventeen little brothers and sisters. She still kept up this
deception. He refused her almost gruffly. He had grown selfish and
spoiled under her care. All the day, however, he watched her
suspiciously, fearful lest she should slip away. And he was right. In
the evening, when she had left him for a moment, he saw her leaving the
house. He took his hat, and, keeping at a good distance from her, but
never losing sight of her for a moment, he followed her.
Twilight was falling. Softly, tenderly, the darkness swept away the
exquisite rays of red and yellow that the departing sun had left behind,
for it was crossing the waters, until, far in the distance, it dipped
deep down as though swallowed up by the bay.
Yuki was walking rapidly towards Tokyo. It was only a short distance,
but nevertheless the thought of her little tender feet treading it
alone, and at such an hour, unnerved her husband. Whatever her mission,
wherever she was going, he would follow her. She belonged to him
completely. She should never escape him now, he told himself.
She seemed to know her way, and showed no hesitation or fear when once
in Tokyo, but bent her steps quickly and with assurance, until finally
they were before the great terminal station at Shimbashi. They had now
come a long distance. The girl looked tired: weary shadows were under
her eyes, as she passed into the railway enclosure and bought a ticket
for a town suburb a short distance from Tokyo.
Her husband went to the window, inquired where the girl was going, and
bought a ticket for the same place.
Then began the long journey in the uncomfortable train, where there were
no sleeping accommodations whatever. Yuki found a seat, and sat very
quietly staring out at the flying darkness. After a time she put her
head back against the seat and, despite the jolting of the train, fell
asleep.
Her husband was close to her now--in the next seat, in fact. He could
have touched her, as he so longed to do, but would not for fear of
disturbing or frightening her.
When they reached the little town, the banging of the doors, the blowing
of whistles, and shouts of the conductors awakened her. She came to life
with a start, gathered her little belongings together, and left the
train, her husband still following her.
It was a refined and beautiful little town they had arrived at,
apparently the home of the exclusive and cultivated Japanese. Its
atmosphere was grateful and pleasing after the crowded city of Tokyo,
with its endless labyrinth of narrow streets and grotesque signboards,
and ceaseless noises.
Yuki had not far to walk. Only a few steps from the little station, and
then she was before one of those old-fashioned, pretentious palaces once
affected by the nobles. There were signs of neglect about the house and
gardens, which had fallen out of repair. No coolies or servants were in
sight. At the garden gate Yuki paused a moment, leaning wearily against
it, ere she opened and passed through, up the garden walk, and
disappeared into the shadows of the palace.
Her husband stood for a long time as though rooted to the spot. Then
very slowly he retraced his steps to the railway station, bought his
ticket, and returned to Tokyo. He felt sure she would come back to him.
And she did, hardly two days later. He was very gentle to her this time.
There were no more questions asked, and she vouchsafed no explanation.
But she came back to him strangely docile and submissive. All the old
mockery and folly had vanished. She was angelic in her sweet tenderness
and solicitude. But once he found her in tears. She protested they had
come there because she had laughed so hard. Another time, when he
offered her money, she refused passionately to accept it. It was the
first time since she had lived with him. Thereafter she refused to take
even the regular weekly allowance agreed upon. He looked in her little
jewel-box, and found the money all gone.
Her docility and gentleness strengthened his confidence in her. He was
sure she would never leave him again. He even told her of this belief,
and she did not deny it. But her eyes were tearful. With boyish
insistence he teased her.
"Tell me so--that you will never leave me again."
"Never?" she said, but the word slipped her lips as a question.
"Repeat it after me," he demanded.
"Say: 'I--shall--never--never--leave you again.'"
"Ah, you makin' fun ad me," she protested, begging the question.
But he still persisted, and made her repeat slowly after him, word by
word, that she would remain with him till death should part them.
One day he found her laboriously occupied at her small writing-desk. Her
little hand flew down the page, rapidly drawing the strange characters
of her country's letters.
"What are you doing? You look as wise and solemn as a female Buddha."
Yuki carefully blotted and covered her letter. She did not answer him.
Instead she held up her little stained fingers, to show him the ink on
them. He sat down beside her, kissing the tips of her fingers.
"To whom were you writing, fairy-sage?" he said.
"To whom? My brudder."
"Your brother! Ah, you have a brother, have you? And where is he?"
She still hesitated, and he watched her keenly.
"He live ad Japan," she said, after a long moment.
"Japan is quite a big place," remarked her husband, suggestively. "He
has rather large quarters for one fellow, don't you think?"
"Japan liddle bit country," she argued, trying to change the subject.
"America, perhaps, grade big place, big as half the whole worl'--"
"Not quite," interposed her husband, smiling.
"Well, big's one-quarter of the worl', anyhow," she declared. "Bud
Japan! Mos' liddle bit insignificant spot on all the beautiful maps."
"What part of Japan does your family live in?"
"Liddle bit town two hundled miles north of Tokyo."
"Indeed."
She had spoken the truth, he knew.
"Why doesn't your brother come to see you?"
Now that he had commenced it, he stuck to his catechism doggedly.
"He don't know where I live," she said.
"Don't know! That's strange. Why doesn't he?"
"I 'fraid tellin'."
"Afraid of what?"
"Afraid he disowning me forever."
"Why should he do that?"
He was getting interested. He disliked wringing her secrets from her in
this wise. He wanted her confidence unsolicited; but his curiosity had
the better of him. "Why should he disown you?" he repeated.
"Because I marrying--" she paused, somewhat piteously, holding one of his
hands closely between her own small ones, and entreatingly pressing it
as though begging him not to pursue his questions.
"Well?" he said--"because you married--"
"You," she finished.
"Oh!" His ejaculation was rueful. Then he laughed, and squared his
shoulders, and shook his finger at her.
"What's the matter with me? Am I not good enough?"
"Too honorably good," she declared, humbly.
"Then why does your family object to receiving me into its bosom, eh?"
"Because you jus' barbarian," she said, apologetically, and then swiftly
tried to make amends. "Barbarian mos' nize of all. Also _I_ am liddle
bit barbarian. I god them same barbarous eyes an' oogly hair--"
"Loveliest hair in the world," he said, stroking it fondly. "But never
mind, dearie. Don't look so distressed. It's not your fault, of course,
that your people disapprove of me."
"They don' dis'prove," she interrupted him, her distress deepening.
"They don' never seen you even."
"But I thought you said--"
"I jus' guess. Tha's why I don' tell thad brudder. Mebbe he dis'prove
you when he see you grade big barbarian. Tha's bedder nod tell unto
him."
"But where does he think you are all the time?"
"He?" She lost her head a moment. "Likewise," she continued, "he also
travel from home. Perhaps he also marrying with beautiful barbarian
leddy. Tha's whad I dunno."
"I don't quite understand," said her husband. "But never mind. If you
don't like the subject, and it's plain you don't, you sha'n't be
bothered with it."
"Thangs," she said, gratefully.
On another day, as she sat opening his American mail with her small
paper-knife, a picture of a young American girl fell from the envelope.
Yuki picked it up, and regarded it with dilated eyes and lips that
quivered. It was the first shock of jealousy she had experienced. One of
his own country-women then must love him. No Japanese girl would send
her picture to any man save her lover.
Her first impulse was to tear the picture across. She did not want him
to see it. Perhaps even the pictured face might win him back, she
thought jealously. But she did not destroy it. She hid it in the sleeve
of her kimono, and for a whole week she tortured herself with drawing it
forth from its hiding-place and studying the face whenever she was alone
a moment, comparing it with her own exquisite one in her small mirror.
Then conscience, or perhaps natural feminine curiosity to know who her
rival was, prompted her to make humble confession to her husband of her
theft.
He took the matter gayly, and seemed exuberantly happy at the idea of
her being jealous, for she could not well hide this fact from him. He
gloated over this apparent evidence of her love for him.
"Isn't she lovely?" he asked, enthusiastically, pointing to the picture,
and then pretending to hug it to him.
"No," said Yuki, proudly. "Mos' oogly girl in all the whole worl'. Soach
silliest things on her haed. I don' keer tha's hat or nod. Flowers,
birds, beas', perhaps, an' rollin' her eyes this-a-way--"
"This is my sister," said Jack, gravely. "I am sorry you don't like her,
Yuki. She'd be just the sort of girl to love you."
Her little spurt of temper flickered out pitifully.
"Ah, _pray_ forgive me," she implored. "I mos' silliest _mousmè_ in all
Japan. She jus' _lovely_, mos' sweet beautiful girl in all the whole
worl'. Jus' like you, my lord."
IX
THE MIKADO'S BIRTHDAY
The mellow summer was gone. With the dawn of the autumn the languor of
the country seemed to increase. Now that the weather was cooler,
however, they made frequent trips to the city, visiting the
chrysanthemum shows, loitering through Uyeno park, the Shiba temples,
and bazaars. And one day Jack shook gayly before her eyes a really
awe-inspiring document. It was, in fact, an invitation, written in fine
French, from a Japanese person of high rank, inviting him to attend a
very important function, which was to be given at the Hôtel Imperial on
the Mikado's birthday, which function was to be honored by the presence
of "les princes et les princesses."
"We are going, of course," he told her. "It will be a change, and,
besides, I want to show you off to my friends. There'll be hosts of them
there, you know."
But she protested. First she set forth as excuse the fact that she was
only an honorably rude and insignificant humble geisha girl, who would
be out of place in so great and extraordinary an assemblage.
Then her husband quite seriously reproved her, and reminded her forcibly
that she was anything but an insignificant geisha girl. She was, in
fact, a very important person--his wife.
Ah, yes, she admitted that she had indeed grown in caste since her
marriage with him; nevertheless, they had lived so honorably secluded
together that she had forgotten all the polite mannerisms of society,
which she had never been acquainted with at all, being only a crude girl
of humble parentage. She would surely disgrace not only both of them by
her behavior, but doubtless the whole assemblage. She would not know how
to act, how to look, and when to speak.
Then Jack insisted, with affected selfishness, that she should look at
and speak to no one but himself. He would commit hari-kari, or joshi, or
any old kind of Japanese suicide, otherwise. And as for her manners,
they were lovely, perfect, just right.
"Ah, bud you--" she deprecated. "You don' understan', you big barbarian.
Those same honorable monsters, Japanese princes, whad, before all the
gods, they goin' to thing of me?"
"That you are absolutely adorable. How could they help thinking so,
unless they are stone blind. Besides, this isn't a Japanese affair at
all. It's at a European hotel, and there'll be all sorts and conditions
of people there. I was lucky to get the invitations. They aren't for
every one, you know. This is a big thing."
"_You_ so big," she said, proudly.
"Well, no. It had really nothing to do with my size. You see, I have a
half-Jap friend in America, and of course it's through him I'm favored."
"Ah, thad half-Jap, he was very high-up man ad Japan, perhaps?"
"Well, he was connected with some of the big families, though he was
quite poor."
"Thad," said Yuki, with sudden vehemence, "is no madder ad Japan. Money!
Who has thad money? Nod the ole families, the flower of the country;
jus' the shop-keepers and the politicians."
Her husband was startled at her outbreak. He was astonished at her
knowledge of existing conditions in her country. But she did not pursue
the subject, saying she disliked it.
And the ball? What about that?
Well, she would not go with him. He must go to that all alone, for the
million big reasons she had given him. Moreover, all the ladies would
wear Parisian toilettes. It would be a disgrace for his wife to go in a
kimono.
Again he was astonished at her. How did she know that on such occasions
the ladies, Japanese included, dressed in European gowns?
Apparently she knew more concerning such matters than he had imagined.
It was becoming plainer to him every day that his wife was of no
ordinary family. And then the memory of the old rambling palace,
doubtless her home, in the exquisite, aristocratic little town where he
had followed her, supported this idea. Who was his wife, after all? Who
were her people, and why had none of them come near her during all these
months? What was the meaning of the mystery in which she had surrounded
herself ever since he had known her. And now, when there was scarcely a
doubt left in his mind of her love for him, why had he failed to win her
confidence?
"I want to know just who you are, my little wife," he suddenly said. "I
do not believe that tale about your people. I know you are not a geisha
girl. You are not, are you?"
"No," she said, very softly.
"Then tell me. Who are your people? It is only right I should know
this."
She looked up at him with intense seriousness. Then her eyes fluttered,
and she went rambling into one of her fairy tales of nonsense.
"My people? Who they are? My august ancestors came from the moon. My one
hundled grade-grandfathers fight and fight and fight like the lion, and
conquer one-half of all Japan--fight the shogun, fight the kazoku, fight
each other. They were great Samourai, cutting off the haeds of aevery
humble mans they don' like. So much bloodshed displeased the gods. They
punishing all my ancestors, bringin' them down to thad same poverty of
those honorable peebles killed by them. Then much distress an' sadness
come forever ad our house. All pride, all haughty boasting daed forever.
Aeverybody goin' 'bout weepin' like ad a funeral. Nobody habby. What
they goin' do git bag thad power an' reeches ag'in? Also one ancestor
have grade big family to keep from starving, an' one daughter beautiful
as the moon of her ancestors. He weep more than all the rest of those
ancestors, weep an' weep till he go blind like an owl ad day-time. Then
the gods begin feel sawry. One of them mos' sawry of all. He also is
descendant of the Sun. Well, thad sun-god he comin' down ad Japan, make
big raddle an' noise, an' marrying with thad same beautifullest daughter
of thad ole blind ancestor. Thad sun-god my fadder. Me? I am the
half-moon-half-sun offspring."
She had promised to accompany him, at all events, to see the review from
the American-legation tent, but at the last moment she backed out. She
had seen it many times before, she declared. She was tired of it.
At first he swore he would not go without her. Why, the "show," he
declared, would be nothing to him without her to see it with him. Half
the pleasure--nay, all of it--would be gone. He was really keenly
disappointed, but she coaxed and wheedled and petted around him, till,
before he knew that he was aggrieved at her backsliding, he was well on
his way.
The streets were thronged with a motley crowd of people. Jinrikishas
were scurrying hither and thither, and little bits of humanity, in the
shape of small men, small women, small children, and small dogs and
cats, were colliding and jostling against the many ramshackle vehicles
in the road. Gay flags and bunting were displayed everywhere, and the
town presented a gala appearance.
Jack got out of his jinrikisha and pushed his way through the crowd
until he came up to the parade-grounds. He found his way to the proper
tent, and, with a half-score of former acquaintances about him, he was
soon drawn into the babble and gush of small talk and jokes that
tourists meeting each other in foreign lands usually indulge in.
Once on the parade-grounds, where infantry, cavalry, and artillery were
forming themselves, it seemed as if he had suddenly left Japan
altogether, and was once more in the modern Western world, of which he
had always been a part.
There was nothing Oriental in this brave display of the imperial army.
There was nothing Oriental in this bustling, noisy crowd of foreigners,
each trying to outdo the other in importance and precedence. Only the
skies and the little winds, and, in the distance, the sinuous outlines
of the mountains and forests beyond, and the disks on the national flag
displayed everywhere, were Japanese. And after his long seclusion in the
country the glitter dazzled him.
There were seven thousand men in the field, and the Mikado, surrounded
by his generals, body-guard, outriders, and standard-bearers, reviewed
the troops; and then, amid a great flourish, and hoarse cheering
drowning the national hymn, which was being played by all the bands at
once, he left the grounds.
Jack did not return after the parade to his home, much as he would have
liked to do so. Some acquaintances who had crossed on the same steamer
with him on his way to Japan carried him off triumphantly to their
hotel, and that night he went with them to the imperial ball.
It was very late when he went home to Yuki. There was a faint light
burning in the zashishi, and he wondered with some concern whether she
were sitting up waiting for him. He did not see her at first when he
entered the room, for the light of the andon had fluttered down dimly,
and it was more the grayness of the approaching dawn which saved the
room from complete darkness. Crossing the room, he came upon her. She
had fallen asleep on the floor. She was lying on her back, her arms
encircling her head. He was suddenly struck with her extreme youth. She
seemed little more than a tired child, who had grown weary and had
fallen asleep among her toys, for beside her on a tiny foot-high table
was the little supper she had prepared for him, and which was now quite
cold. On the other side of her were her tiny drum and samisen, with
which she had been attempting doubtless to pass the evening by pulling
from the strings some of that weird music he knew so well now.
For a long time her husband looked at her, and a feeling of intense
isolation about her came over and suddenly possessed him. Why had he
never been able to bridge that strange distance which lay like a pall
between them, the feeling always that she was not wholly his own, that
she had been but a guest within his house, a tiny wild bird that he had
caught in some strange way and caged--caught, though she had come to
him, as it were, for protection? Just as, when a boy, he remembered how
a robin had beaten at his shutters, and he had saved it from an enemy,
and afterwards how he had caged it, and how it had pined for its
freedom.
The thought that he might yet lose Yuki caused him such anguish of mind
it almost stunned him. He knelt down beside her, and drew her up in his
arms, and then, as gently as a mother would have done, he carried her up
the queer spiral stairway which led to their little up-stairs room.
The next day she questioned him anxiously. Were there many ladies more
beautiful than she at the ball? Had he enjoyed himself largely with
them, and how could he live away hereafter from such mirth and gayety?
Why had he come back to little, insignificant her?
And he told her that never in all his life before had he longed so
ardently for any one as he had for her that previous night. That the day
had been endless; the noise and show, the brassy merriment and cheer,
were abhorrent to him, for she had not been there to rob it of its
vulgarity with the charm of her sweet presence. That he had been rude in
his efforts to escape it, had bullied the jinrikimen because they had
seemed to creep, and that happiness and peace had only come back to him
again when he had crossed his own threshold and had taken her in his
arms.
Still the wistful distress in her misty eyes was only in part dispelled.
"Last night," she said, "I broke my liddle jade bracelet. It is a bad
omen."
"I will buy you a dozen new ones," he said.
"One million dozens cannot mend jus' thad liddle one," she returned,
sadly, shaking her head. "It is a bad omen. Mebbe a warning from the
gods."
Of what did they warn her? That she could not say, but she had heard
that such an accident usually preceded the sorrows of love. Perhaps he
would soon pass away from her, and, like the ghost of the fisher-boy
Urashima, who had left his fairy bride to return to his people, he too
would pass out of her life, back into that from which he had come.
X
A BAD OMEN
It was late in November. The parks were dropping their autumn glories
and taking on the browner hues and hints of hoar-frost, black-and-white
vestments, the sackcloth and ashes of winter. The recessional of the
birds was dying away into silence. Soon the final, long-drawn amen of
the north-wind would be breathed out over the deserted woods, where the
anthem of praise had rung out to the worshipping air all through the
golden days and silver nights of summer.
The still beauty of the autumn evening was piercingly melancholy, and,
even with a loving sunset still lingering in the skies, a silken, gentle
rain was falling, as though the gods were weeping over the death of the
autumn, were weeping hopeless tears--the most tragic of all.
The little house that stood alone on the hill faced to the west, its wet
roofs and shingles sparkling and glistening in the rays of the dying
sunset that enveloped it.
Yuki opened a shoji (sliding paper door) of her chamber, and looked out
wistfully at the city of Tokyo, that in the autumn silence was shining
out like a gem, with its many strange lights and colors. She stole
softly out on to a small balcony, and stepped down into the tiny garden
as the night began to spread its mantle of darkness. A few minutes later
her husband called to her:
"Yuki! Yuki!"
He drew her into the room, and closed the shoji behind her.
"You have been crying again!" he said, sharply, and turned her face up
to the light.
"It is the rain on my face, my lord," she answered in the smallest
voice.
"But you mustn't go out in the rain. You are quite wet, dear."
"Soach a little, gentle rain," she said. "It will not hurt jus' me. I
loogin' aeverywhere 'bout for our liddle bit poor nightingale. Gone!
Perhaps daed! Aeverything dies--bird, flowers, mebbe--me!"
He put his hand over her mouth with a hurt exclamation.
"Don't!" he only said.
The maid brought in their supper on a tray, but before she could set it
down Yuki had impetuously crossed the room and taken it from her hands.
"Go, go, honorable maid," she said. "I will with my own hands attend my
lord's honorable appetite."
She knelt at his feet, geisha fashion, holding the tray and waiting for
him to eat, but he took it from her gravely, and put it on the small
table beside them, and then silently, tenderly, he took her small hands
in his own.