the girl from the overbold scrutiny of those with whom they daily came
in contact. It was many months, however, before she learned her history.
In fact, it was only a few days before their expected departure for
America, the great country in the west, which seemed to Yuki as far
distant as the stars above her.
As the time for their departure, which had been delayed already much
longer than the manager had anticipated, drew nearer, Yuki grew more
depressed and restless, so that to the exaggerated fancy of the American
woman she seemed to be fading away and entering into what she
emphatically called "the last stages of consumption."
She cornered the girl relentlessly, and finally wrung from her the whole
pitiful, tragic story of her life. How homesick and weary she had been
ever since she had left Japan, how her heart seemed to faint whenever
she thought of that final interview with her brother, and of the
immeasurable longing for the man she loved, and whom she had married
"for jus' liddle bid while."
All the big, romantic heart of the American woman went out to her as she
took her into her arms and mingled her own honest tears with Yuki's.
"You sha'n't go to America," she said, drying her eyes with a tiny piece
of lace which served as a handkerchief. "You are going right back to
Japan, bag and baggage of you. I'm going with you, to see you get there
O.K."
"Bud--" began Yuki, weakly.
"Never mind, now. I know he expects to sail in a week. I don't. I'm
boss! See!"
XVIII
THE SEASON OF THE CHERRY
BLOSSOM
In summer the fields of Japan are alive with color--burning flat
lowlands shimmering with the dazzling gleam of the natane and azalea
blossoms. In autumn the leaves, as well as the blossoms, have caught all
the tints of heaven and earth, and in winter the gods are said to be
resting after their riotous ramblings during the warm months. But in the
spring-time they awake, and in their lavish renewed youth bless hill and
dale and meadow and forest with an abandon unlike any other time of
year. It is the season of the cherry blossom, of the mating of the
birds, the babbling of the brooks, and the chattering and unfolding anew
of all the beauties of nature.
It was two years from the day when Jack and Yuki had married each other
in the spring-time. And Jack was back in Tokyo. Recalled thither by a
telegram from the police headquarters, he was preparing to depart for
America, where the police claimed they had positive evidence that Yuki
had gone. He was staying at an American hotel in the city proper, and
his heart on this day sickened and yearned for the little house only a
few miles away that he longed and yet dreaded to see again.
Now that he contemplated leaving Japan, the dread possibility that Yuki
might still be in the country and that he would be placing the distance
of thousands and thousands of miles of land and water between them,
depressed and weighed on his mind, despite the really plausible proof
the police board had that she had gone to America with a theatrical
company--that of the very man he himself had witnessed coaxing her to go
with him.
The afternoon previous to the day set for sailing, his melancholy and
morbidness grew in intensity. With no fixed purpose in view he started
out from his hotel, tramped half-way across Tokyo, then hailed a
jinrikisha and gave the runner orders to take him to the little house
that had formerly been his home, and which he had struggled against
visiting ever since his return to Tokyo.
As in a dream the interminable stretch of rice-fields, blue mountains,
and valleys and hamlets, stretching away into misty outlines, flashed by
him, and he noted only half absently how the heels of his runner were
all worn hard just as if they had dried in the sun. Yuki once had called
his attention to this.
"The honorable soles are the same," she had said. "It is the perpetual
running. The gods have mercifully protected the feet from pain."
The landscape about him, familiar as the face of a mother, gave him no
pain now. He was conscious only of a sense of ineffable rest and peace,
as a traveller who has wandered long feels when nearing home. And soon
the runner had stopped with a jerk, and was doubling over and waiting
for his pay.
Should he humbly wait for his excellency to condescend to return to the
city?
"Just for a little while," Jack told him absently. And he went through
the little garden gate and up the pebbled adobe path, now arched on
either side by two rows of cherry-blossom trees, that met at the top and
made a bower under which to walk.
When he had pushed the door backward and stepped inside he paused
irresolute, his heart paining him with its rapid beating. Coming from
out the blaze of the out-door light into the shadowed room, his vision
dazzled him. But gradually the objects inside grew upon his
consciousness, and a rosy pain, an ecstasy that stung him with its
sweetness, shot upward like a dawn through all his being.
He scarcely dared breathe, so potent was the influence of the place upon
him. He feared to stir, lest the spell, ghostly and entrancing as the
influence of a magic hand, might vanish into mistland, for with all the
immeasurable pain that rushed to his heart in a flame was mingled a
tentative, exquisite pleasure--a survival of the old joy he had once
known.
And there came back to his mind whisperings of the old mysterious
romances she had been wont to ramble into. What was that tale of the
spirit which haunted and was felt but never seen? Was there not behind
it all some mysterious possibility of such a spirit? For the very
furnishings of the room, the mats, the vases, the old broken-down
hammock, and his big tobacco-bon, each and all of them suddenly assumed
a personality--the personality of one he loved.
Stepping on tip-toe, he crossed the room and stooped to touch the little
drum, the sticks of which were snapped in twain. And then he suddenly
remembered how she had broken them because he had complained one day
that her drum disturbed him. He had liked the koto and the samisen; the
drum she had beaten on when she mocked him. Now the sight of it beat
against his brain and heart.
He could not bear the sight of those little broken sticks. He tried to
cover them with his handkerchief, as if they were the evidence of a
crime.
"The place is haunted!" he said, and scarce knew his own hollow voice,
which the echoes of the silent room mocked back at him.
"I shall go mad," he said, and again the echoes repeated, "Mad! mad!
mad!"
Then he covered his eyes, and sat in the silence, motionless and still.
* * * * *
From afar off there came to him the melancholy sweetness of the bells of
a neighboring temple. They caused his hearing exquisite pain. What
memories were recalled by them! But now every toll of the bells, slow
and muffled, seemed to speak of baffled hope and despair. There was no
balm in their sweet monotone. Would they never cease? Why were they so
loud? They had not been so formerly. Now they filled all the land with
their ringing. What were they tolling for, and, ah, why had the ghostly
visitants of his house caught up the tone, and softly, sweetly, with
piercing cadence, chanted back and echoed the sighing of the bells?
The house was full of music, inexpressibly dear and familiar. He started
to his feet, trembling like one afflicted with ague. And gradually
words, in a fairy language that he had learned to love, began to form
themselves into the melody of a voice.
Slowly, painfully, like one led by unseen, subtle, persuasive hands, he
went forward, and up and up the spiral stairs till he had reached her
chamber, and there he stood, like one who has come far and can go no
farther.
One other presence besides himself was within. This he knew, and still
could not comprehend. He could see her plainly, just as she had been in
life--her little, shining head, her dear, small hands, the long, blue,
misty eyes, and the small mouth with the little pathetic droop that had
come to it in the last few days they had been together. She stood with
her hands raised, dreamily loitering before a mirror, putting cherry
blossoms in her hair on either side of her head. But at the prolonged
silence that ensued she turned slowly about, and then she saw the man
standing silently in the doorway.
She was not a girl to scream or faint, but she went gray with fear, and
stood perfectly still there in the middle of the room. Then gradually
her eyes travelled upward to the man's face, and there they remained
transfixed.
For a long while they faced each other thus, both with hearts that
seemed not to beat. Then the man made a movement towards her, a
passionate, wild movement, and she had dropped the flowers from her
hands, and had gone to meet him. The next moment he was crushing her to
him. When he released her but a moment, it was to hold her again and yet
again, as though he feared to find her gone, and his arms empty once
more, as they had been for so long. He could only breathe her
name--"Yuki! Yuki! My wife! My wife!"
Neither tried to explain. There was time enough for that. They were
absorbed alone in the fact that they were together at last.
Some one noisily entered the house and whirled up the stairs. It was the
American girl. She gazed in upon them with eyes and mouth agape in
amazement.
"Well, I never!" she ejaculated, and went out and down the steps,
sobbing aloud.
"Such a romance! Such a nice, big fellow, too! And, oh, dear me, I've
lost her sure enough now forever! Bother men, anyhow!" and she jumped
into Jack's jinrikisha and bade the man take her on the instant to
Tokyo.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the lovers had wandered out into the open air. He was holding
both her hands in his, and his eyes were straying hungrily over her
face; her eyes bewitched him; her lips thrilled him.
[Illustration: "THE THOUSAND PETALS OF CHERRY BLOSSOMS WERE FALLING
ABOUT THEM"]
The thousand petals of cherry blossoms were falling about them, and the
birds had all flown to their garden and were twittering and bursting
their little throats with melody. A fugitive wind came up from the bay
and tossed the little scattering curls about her ears and temples. A
strand of her hair swept across his hand. He stooped and kissed it
reverently, and she laughed and thrilled under the touch of his lips.
"I love you with all my soul," he said. "Do not laugh at me now."
She said, "Dear my lord, I will never laugh more ad you. I laugh only
for the joy ad being with you."
"I will take you to my home," he said.
"I will follow you to the end of the world and beyond," said she.
"And we will come back here again, love. We will take up the broken
threads of our lives and piece them together."
"They shall never again be broken," she said. But he must needs spoil
her divine faith. "Till death do us part," he added.
"No, no. We will have the faith of our simple peasant folk. We are
weded for ever an' ever."
"Yes, forever," he repeated.
THE END
Transcriber Notes:
Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.
Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.
Throughout the dialogues, there were very many words used to mimic
accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.
Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
unless otherwise noted.
In the frontispiece, a closing bracket was added after "See p. 8".
On page 22, "craêpe" was replaced with "crêpe".
On page 122, "balony" was replaced with "balcony".
On page 159, the period before "and later," was replaced with a comma.
On page 160, "pursuasion" was replaced with "persuasion".
On page 226, "weded" was replaced with "wedded".
End of Project Gutenberg's A Japanese Nightingale, by Winnifred Eaton