The Lady and Sada San
A Sequel to
The Lady of the Decoration
By
Frances Little
New York
The Century Co.
1912
Copyright, 1912, by
THE CENTURY CO.
Published, October, 1912
TO
ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE
AND
CHARLOTTE SMITH
MY FELLOW WANDERERS THROUGH THE ORIENT
The Lady and Sada San
ON THE HIGH SEAS. June, 1911.
_Mate_:
You once told me, before you went to Italy, that after having been
my intimate relative all these years, you had drawn a red line
through the word surprise. Restore the abused thing to its own at
once. You will need it when the end of this letter is reached. I
have left Kentucky after nine years of stay-at-home happiness, and
once again I am on my way to Japan--this time in wifely
disobedience to Jack's wishes.
What do you think that same Jack has "gone and done"! Of course he
is right. That is the provoking part of Jack; it always turns out
that he is in the right. Two months ago he went to some place in
China which, from its ungodly name, should be in the furthermost
parts of a wilderness. Perhaps you have snatched enough time from
guarding the kiddies from a premature end in Como to read a
headline or so in the home papers. If by some wonderful chance,
between baby prattle, bumps and measles, they have given you a
moment's respite, then you know that the Government has grown
decidedly restless for fear the energetic and enterprising bubonic
or pneumonic germ might take passage on some of the ships from the
Orient. So it is fortifying against invasion. The Government,
knowing Jack's indomitable determination to learn everything
knowable about the private life and character of a given germ,
asked him to join several other men it is sending out to get
information, provided of course the germ doesn't get them first.
Jack read me the official-looking document one night between puffs
of his after-dinner pipe.
Another surprise awaits you. For once in my life I had nothing to
say. Possibly it is just as well for the good of the cause that
the honorable writer of the letter could not see how my thoughts
looked.
I glanced about our little den, aglow with soft lights; everything
in it seemed to smile. Well, as you know it, Mate, I do not
believe even you realize the blissfulness of the hours of quiet
comradeship we have spent there. With the great know-it-all old
world shut out, for joyful years we have dwelt together in a
home-made paradise. And yet it seemed just then as if I were
dwelling in a home-made Other Place.
The difference in the speed of time depends on whether love is your
guest or not.
The thought of the briefest interruption to my content made me feel
like cold storage. A break in happiness is sometimes hard to mend.
The blossom does not return to the tree after the storm, no matter
how beautiful the sunshine; and the awful fear of the faintest echo
of past sorrow made my heart as numb as a snowball. To the old
terror of loneliness was added fear for Jack's safety. But I did
not do what you naturally would prophesy. After seeing the look on
Jack's face I changed my mind, and my protest was the silent kind
that says so much. It was lost! Already Jack had gone into one of
his trances, as he does whenever there is a possibility of bearding
a brand-new microbe in its den, whether it is in his own country or
one beyond the seas. In body he was in a padded chair with all the
comforts of home and a charming wife within speaking distance. In
spirit he was in dust-laden China, joyfully following the trail of
the wandering germ. Later on, when Jack came to, we talked it
over. I truly remembered your warnings on the danger of
impetuosity; for I choked off every hasty word and gave my consent
for Jack to go. Then I cried half the night because I had.
We both know that long ago Jack headed for the topmost rung of a
very tall scientific ladder. Sometimes my enthusiasm as chief
booster and encourager has failed, as when it meant absence and
risk. Though I have known women who specialized in renunciation,
till they were the only happy people in the neighborhood, its
charms have never lured me into any violent sacrifice. Here was my
chance and I firmly refused to be the millstone to ornament Jack's
neck.
You might know, Mate? I was hoping all the time that he would find
it quite impossible to leave such a nice biddable wife at home.
But I learn something new about Jack every day. After rather
heated discussion it was decided that I should stay in the little
home. That is, the heat and the discussion was all on my side.
The decision lay in the set of Jack's mouth, despite the tenderness
in his eyes. He thought the risks of the journey too great for me;
the hardships of the rough life too much. Dear me! Will men never
learn that hardship and risk are double cousins to loneliness, and
not even related to love by marriage?
But just as well paint on water as to argue with a scientist when
he has reached a conclusion.
Besides, said Jack, the fatherly Government has no intention that
petticoats, even hobbled ones, should be flitting around while the
habits and the methods of the busy insect were being examined
through a microscope or a telescope. The choice of instrument
depending, of course, upon the activity of the bug.
Black Charity was to be my chief-of-police and
comforter-in-general. Parties--house, card and otherwise--were to
be my diversion, and I was to make any little trips I cared for.
Well, that 's just what I am doing. Of course, there might be a
difference of opinion as to whether a journey from Kentucky to
Japan is a _little_ trip.
I am held by a vague uneasiness today. Possibly it 's because I am
not certain as to Jack's attitude, when he learns through my
letter, which is sailing along with me, that I am going to Japan to
be as near him as possible. I hope he will appreciate my
thoughtfulness in saving him all the bother of saying no. Or it
might be that my slightly dampened spirits come from the discussion
I am still having with myself whether it 's the part of a dutiful
wife to present herself a wiggling sacrifice to science, or whether
science should attend to its own business and lead not into
temptation the scientifically inclined heads of peaceful households.
You 'll say the decision of what was best lay with Jack. Honey,
there 's the error of your mortal mind! In a question like that my
spouse is as one-sided as a Civil War veteran. Say germ-hunt to
Jack and it 's like dangling a gaudy fly before a hungry carp.
I saw Jack off at the station, and went hack to the little house.
Charity had sent the cook home and with her own hands served all
the beloved dainties of my long-ago childhood, trying to coax me
into forgetfulness. As you remember, Mate, dinner has always been
the happiest hour of the day in our small domain. Now? Well,
everything was just the same. The only difference was Jack. And
the half circle of bare tablecloth opposite me was about as
cheerful as a snowy afternoon at the North Pole. I wandered around
the house for awhile, but every time I turned a corner there was a
memory waiting to greet me. Now the merriest of them seemed to be
covered with a chilly shadow, and every one was pale and ghostly.
All night I lay awake, playing at the old game of mental solitaire
and keeping tryst with the wind which seemed to tap with unseen
fingers at my window and sigh,
"Then let come what come may
. . . . . .
I shall have had my day."
Is it possible, Mate, that my glorious day, which I thought had
barely tipped the hour of noon, is already lengthening into the
still shadows of evening?
It was foolish but, for the small comfort I got out of it, I turned
on the light and looked inside my wedding-ring. Time has worn it a
bit but the letters which spell "My Lady of the Decoration,"
spelled again the old-time thrill into my heart.
What 's the use of tying your heartstrings around a man, and then
have ambition slip the knot and leave you all a-quiver?
Far be it from me to stand in Jack's way if germ-stalking is
necessary to his success. Just the same, I could have spent
profitable moments reading the burial service over every microbe,
home-grown and foreign.
Really, Mate, I 've conscientiously tried every plan Jack proposed
and a few of my own. It was no use. That day-after-Christmas
feeling promptly suppressed any effort towards contentment.
At first there was a certain exhilaration in catching pace with the
gay whirl which for so long had been passed by for homier things.
You will remember there was a time when the pace of that same whirl
was never swift enough for me; but my taste for it now was gone,
and it was like trying to do a two-step to a funeral march. For
once in my life I knew the real meaning of that poor old
worn-to-a-frazzle call of the East, for now the' dominant note was
the call of love.
I heard it above the clink of the teacups. It was in the swish of
every silk petticoat. If I went to the theater, church or concert,
the call of that germ-ridden spot of the unholy name beat into my
brain with the persistency of a tom-tom on a Chinese holiday.
Say what you will, Mate, it once took all my courage to leave those
I loved best and go to far-away Japan. Now it required more than I
could dig up to _stay_--with the best on the other side of the
Pacific.
The struggle was easy and swift. The tom-tom won and I am on my
way to be next-door neighbor to Jack. Those whom it concerned here
were away from home, so I told no one good-by, thus saving
everybody so much wasted advice. If there were a tax on advice the
necessities of life would not come so high. Charity followed me to
the train, protesting to the last that "Marse Jack gwine doubt her
velocity when she tell him de truf bout her lady going a-gaddin'
off by herse'f and payin' no mind to her ole mammy's
prosterations." I asked her to come with me as maid. She refused;
said her church was to have an ice-cream sociable and she had "to
fry de fish." This letter will find you joyfully busy with the
babies and the "only man." Blest woman that you are.
But I know you. I have a feeling that you have a few remarks to
make. So hurry up. Let us get it off our minds. Then I can
better tell you what I am doing. Something is going to happen. It
usually does when I am around. I have been asked to chaperone a
young girl whose face and name spell romance. If I were seeking
occupation here is the opportunity knocking my door into splinters.
STILL AT SEA. June, 1911.
Any time you are out of a job and want to overwork all your
faculties and a few emotions, try chaperoning a young room-mate
answering to the name of Sada San, who is one-half American dash,
and the other half the unnamable witchery of a Japanese woman; a
girl with the notes of a lark in her voice when she sings to the
soft twang of an old guitar.
If, too, you are seeking to study psychological effect of such a
combination on people, good, middlin' and otherwise, I would
suggest a Pacific liner as offering fifty-seven varieties, and then
some.
The last twinge of conscience I had over coming, died a cheerful
death. I 'd do it again. For not only is romance surcharging the
air, but fate gives promise of weaving an intricate pattern in the
story of this maid whose life is just fairly begun and whom the
luck of the road has given me as traveling mate. Now, remembering
a few biffs fate has given me, I have no burning desire to meddle
with her business. Neither am I hungering for responsibility. But
what are you going to say to yourself, when a young girl with a
look in her eyes you would wish your daughter to have,
unhesitatingly gives you a letter addressed at large to some
"Christian Sister"! You read it to find it's from her home pastor,
requesting just a little companionship for "a tender young soul who
is trying her wings for the first time in the big and beautiful
world"! I have a very private opinion about reading my title clear
to the Christian Sister business, but no woman with a heart as big
as a pinch of snuff could resist giving her very best and much more
to the slip of a winsome maid, who confidingly asks it--especially
if the sister has any knowledge of the shadows lurking in the
beautiful world.
Mate, these steamers as they sail from shore to shore are like
giant theaters. Every trip is an impromptu drama where comedy,
farce, and often startling tragedy offer large speaking parts. The
revelation of human nature in the original package is funny and
pathetic. Amusement is always on tap and life stories are just
hanging out of the port-hole waiting to attack your sympathy or
tickle your funny bone. But you 'd have to travel far to find the
beginning of a story so heaped up with romantic interest as that of
Sada San as she told it to me, one long, lazy afternoon as I lay on
the couch in my cabin, thanking my stars I was getting the best of
the bare tablecloth and the empty house at home.
Some twenty years ago Sada's father, an American, grew tired of the
slow life in a slow town and lent ear to the fairy stories told of
the Far East, where fortunes were made by looking wise for a few
moments every morning and devoting the rest of the day to samisens
and flutes. He found the glorious country of Japan. The beguiling
tea-houses, and softly swinging sampans were all too distracting.
They sang ambition to sleep and the fortune escaped.
He drifted, and at last sought a mean existence as teacher of
English in a school of a remote seaside village. His spirit broke
when the message came of the death of the girl in America who was
waiting for him. Isolation from his kind and bitter hours left for
thought made life alone too ghastly. He tried to make it more
endurable by taking the pretty daughter of the head man of the
village as his wife.
My temperature took a tumble when I saw proofs of a hard and fast
marriage ceremony, signed and counter-signed by a missionary
brother who meant business.
You say it is a sordid tale? Mate, I know a certain spot in this
Land of Blossoms, where only foreigners are laid to rest, which
bears testimony to a hundred of its kind--strange and pitiful
destinies begun with high and brilliant hopes in their native land;
and when illusions have faded, the end has borne the stamp of
tragedy, because suicide proved the open door out of a life of
failure and exile.
Sada's father was saved suicide and long unhappiness by a timely
tidal-wave, which swept the village nearly bare, and carried the
man and his wife out to sea and to eternity.
The child was found by Susan West who came from a neighboring town
to care for the sick and hungry. Susan was a teacher-missionary.
Not much to look at, if her picture told the truth, but from bits
of her history that I 've picked up her life was a brighter jewel
than most of us will ever find in a heavenly crown. Instead of
holding the unbeliever by the nape of the neck and thrusting a
not-understood doctrine down his unwilling throat, she lived the
simple creed of loving her neighbor better than herself. And the
old pair of goggles she wore made little halos around the least
speck of good she found in any transgressor, no matter how warped
with evil.
When she was n't helping some helpless sinner to see the rainbow of
promise at the end of the straight and narrow way, Susan spent her
time and all her salary, giving sick babies a fighting chance for
life. She took the half-drowned little Sada home with her, and
searched for any kinsman left the child. There was only one, her
mother's brother. He was very poor and gladly gave his consent
that Miss West should keep the child--as long as it was a girl!
Susan had taught the man English once in the long ago and this was
his chance to repay her.
Later on when the teacher found her health failing and headed for
home in America, Uncle Mura was still more generous and raised no
objections to her taking the baby with her.
Together they lived in a small Western town. The missionary reared
the child by rule of love only and went on short rations to educate
her. Sada's eager mind absorbed everything offered her like a
young sponge, and when a few months ago Susanna folded her hands
and joined her foremothers, there was let loose on the world this
exquisite girl with her solitary legacy of untried ideals and a
blind enthusiasm for her mother's people.
Right here, Mate, was when I had a prolonged attack of cold
shivers. Just before Miss West passed along, knowing that the
Valley was near, she wrote to Uncle in Japan and told him that his
niece would soon he alone. Can't you imagine the picture she drew
of her foster child who had satisfied every craving of her big
mother heart? Fascinating and charming and so weighted with
possibilities, that Mura, who had prospered, leaped for his chance
and sent Sada San money for the passage over.
Not a mite of anxiety shadowed her eyes when she told me that Uncle
kept a wonderful tea-house in Kioto. He must be very rich, she
thought, because he wrote her of the beautiful things she was to
have. About this time the room seemed suffocating. I got up and
turned on the electric fan. The only thing required of her, she
continued, was to use her voice to entertain Uncle's friends. But
she hoped to do much more. Through Miss West she knew how many of
her mother's dear people needed help. How glorious that she was
young and strong and could give so much. Susan had also talked to
her of the flowers, the lovely scenery, the poetry of the people
and their splendid spirit--making a dreamland where even man was
perfect. How she loved it! How proud she was to feel that in part
it was her country. Faithfully would she serve it. Oh, Susanna
West! I 'd like to shake you till your harp snapped a string. It
's like sending a baby to pick flowers on the edge of a bottomless
pit.
What could I say! The missionary-teacher had told the truth. She
simply failed to mention that in the fairy-land there are
cherry-blossom lanes down which no human can wander without being
torn by the brier patches.
The path usually starts from a wonderful tea-house where Uncles
have grown rich. Miss West didn't mean to shirk her duty. In most
things the begoggled lady was a visionary with a theory that if you
don't talk about a thing it does not exist; and like most of her
kind she swept the disagreeables into a dust heap and made for the
high places where all was lovely. And yet she had toiled with the
girl through all the difficulties of the Japanese language; and, to
give her a musical education, had pinched to the point of buying
one hat in eight years!
Now it is all done and Sada is launched on the high seas of life
with a pleasure-house for a home and an unscrupulous Uncle with
unlimited authority for a chaperon. Shades of Susan! but I am
hoping guardian angels are "really truly," even if invisible.
Good night, Mate. This game of playing tag with jarring thoughts,
new and old, has made six extra wrinkles. I am glad I came and you
and Jack will have to be, for to quote Charity, "I 'se done
resoluted on my word of honah" to keep my hands, if possible, on
Sada whose eyes are as blue as her hair is black.
PACIFIC OCEAN.
Since morning the sea has been a sheet of blue, streaked with the
silver of flying fish. That is all the scenery there is; not a
sail nor a bird nor an insect. Either the unchanging view or
something in the air has stimulated everybody into being their
nicest. It is surprising how quickly graciousness possesses some
people when there is a witching girl around. Vivacious young men
and benevolent officers have suddenly appeared out of nowhere,
spick and span in white duck and their winningest smiles.
Entertainments dovetail till there is barely time for change of
costume between acts.
But let me tell you, Mate, living up to being a mother is no idle
pastime, particularly if it means reviving the lost art of managing
love-smitten youths and elderly male coquettes. There is a
specimen of each opposite Sada and me at table who are so generous
with their company on deck, before and after meals, I have almost
run out of excuses and am short on plans to avoid the heavy
obligations of their eager attentions.
The youth is a To-Be-Ruler of many people, a Maharajah of India.
But the name is bigger than the man. Two years ago his father
started the boy around the world with a sack full of rubles and a
head full of ancient Indian lore. With these assets he paused at
Oxford that he might skim through the classics. He had been told
this was where all the going-to-be-great men stopped to acquire
just the proper tone of superiority so necessary in ruling a
country. Of course he picked up a bit on electricity, mechanics,
etc. This accomplished to his satisfaction he ran over to America
to view the barbarians' god of money and take a glance at their
houses which touched the sky. But his whole purpose in living, he
told me, was to yield himself to certain meditations, so that in
his final reincarnation, which was only a few centuries off, he
would return to the real thing in Buddha. In the meantime he was
to be a lion, a tiger and a little white bird. At present he is
plain human, with the world-old malady gnawing at his heart, a pain
which threatens to send his cogitations whooping down a thornier
and rosier lane than any Buddha ever knew. Besides I am thinking a
few worldly vanities have crept in and set him hack an eon or so.
He wears purple socks, pink ties and a dainty watch strapped around
his childish wrist.
When I asked him what impressed him most in America, he promptly
answered with his eyes on Sada, "Them girls. They are rapturous!"
Farewell Nirvana! With a camp stool in one hand and a rosary in
the other, he follows Sada San like the shadow on a sun dial.
Wherever she is seated, there is the stool and the royal youth, his
mournful eyes feasting on the curves and dimples of her face, her
lightest jest far sweeter than any prayer, the beads in his hand
forgotten.
The other would-be swain calls himself a Seeker of Truth.
Incidentally he is hunting a wife. His general attitude is a
constant reminder of the uncertainty of life. His presence makes
you glad that nothing lasts. He says his days are heavy with the
problems of the universe, but you can see for yourself that this
very commercial traveler carries a light side line in an assortment
of flirtations that surely must be like dancing little sunbeams on
a life of gloom.
Goodness knows how much of a nuisance he would be if it were not
for a little lady named Dolly, who sits beside him, gray in color,
dress and experience. At no uncertain age she has found a belated
youthfulness and is starting on the first pleasure trip of her life.
Coming across the country to San Francisco, her train was wrecked.
In the smash-up a rude chair struck her just south of the belt line
and she fears brain fever from the blow. The alarm is not general,
for though just freed by kind death from an unhappy life sentence
of matrimony she is ready to try another jailer.
Whether he spied Dolly first and hoped that the gleam from her many
jewels would light up the path in his search for Truth and a few
other things, or whether the Seeker was sought, I do not know.
However the flirtation which seems to have no age limit has
flourished like a bamboo tree. For once the man was too earnest.
Dolly gave heed and promptly attached herself with the persistency
of a barnacle to a weather-beaten junk. By devices worthy a
finished fisher of men, she holds him to his job of suitor, and if
in a moment of abstraction his would-be ardor for Sada grows too
perceptible, the little lady reels in a yard or so of line to make
sure her prize is still dangling on the hook.
To-day at tiffin the griefless widow unconsciously scored at the
expense of the Seeker, to the delight of the whole table. For
Sada's benefit this man quoted a long passage from some German
philosopher. At least it sounded like that. It was far above the
little gray head he was trying to ignore and so weighty I feared
for her mentality. But I did not know Dolly. She rose like a
doughnut. Looking like a child who delights in the rhythm of
meaningless sounds, she heard him through, then exclaimed with
breathless delight, "Oh, ain't he fluid!"
The man fled, but not before he had asked Sada for two dances at
night.
It is like a funny little curtain-raiser, with jealousy as a
gray-haired Cupid. So far as Sada is concerned, it is admiration
gone to waste. Even if she were not gaily indifferent, she is too
absorbed in the happy days she thinks are awaiting her. Poor
child! Little she knows of the limited possibilities of a Japanese
girl's life; and what the effect of the painful restrictions will
be on one of her rearing, I dare not think.
Once she is under the authority of Uncle, the Prince, the Seeker,
and all mankind will be swept into oblivion; and, until such time
as she can be married profitably and to her master's liking, she
will know no man. The cruelest awakening she will face is the
attitude of the Orient toward the innocent offspring in whose veins
runs the blood of two races, separated by differences which never
have been and never will be overcome.
In America the girl's way would not have been so hard because her
novel charm would have carried her far. But _hear me_: in Japan,
the very wave in her hair and the color of her eyes will prove a
barrier to the highest and best in the land. Even with youth and
beauty and intelligence, unqualified recognition for the Eurasian
is as rare as a square egg.
Another thought hits me in the face as if suddenly meeting a cross
bumblebee. Will the teachings of the woman, who lived with her
head in the clouds, hold hard and fast when Uncle puts on the
screws?
The Seeker says it is the fellow who thinks first that wins. He
speaks feelingly on the subject. Right now I am going to begin
cultivating first thought, and try to be near if danger, whose name
is Uncle, threatens the girl who has walked into my affections and
made herself at home.
Later.
All the very good people are in bed. The very worldly minded and
the young are on deck reluctantly finishing the last dance under a
canopy of make-believe cherry blossoms and wistaria. I am on the
deck between, closing this letter to you which I will mail in
Yokohama in a few hours.
In a way I shall be glad to see a quiet room in a hotel and hie me
back to simple living, free from the responsibilities of a
temporary parent. I am not promising myself any gay thrills in the
meantime. What 's the use, with Jack on the borderland of a
sulphurous country and you in the Garden of Eden? His letters and
yours will be my greatest excitement. So write and keep on writing
and never fear that I will not do the same. You are the
safety-valve for my speaking emotions, Mate; so let that help you
bear it.
Please mark with red ink one small detail of Sada's story. When I
was fastening her simple white gown for the dance her chatter was
like that of a sunny-hearted child. Indeed, she liked to dance.
Susan did not think it harmful. She said if your heart was right
your feet would follow. When Miss West could spare her she always
went to parties with _Billy_, and oh, how he could dance if he was
so big and had red hair.
So! there was a Billy? I looked in her face for signs. The way
was clear but there was a soft little quiver in her voice that
caused me carefully to label the unknown William, and lay him on a
shelf for future reference. Whatever the coming days hold for her,
mine has been the privilege of giving the girl three weeks of
unclouded happiness.
Outside I hear the little Prince pacing up and down, yielding up
his soul to holy meditations. I 'd be willing to wager my best
piece of jade his contemplations are something like a cycle from
Nirvana, and closer far to a pair of heavily fringed eyes. Poor
little imitation Buddha! He is grasping at the moon's reflection
on the water. Somewhere near I hear Dolly's soft coo and
deep-voiced replies. But unfinished packing, a bath and coffee are
awaiting me.
Dawn is coming, and already through the port hole I see a dot of
earth curled against the horizon. Above floats Fuji, the base
wrapped in mists, the peak eternally white, a giant snowdrop
swinging in a dome of perfect blue. The vision is a call to
prayer, a wooing of the soul to the heights of undimmed splendor.
After all, Mate, I may give you and Jack a glad surprise and
justify Sada handing me that letter addressed to a Christian Sister.
YOKOHAMA, July, 1911.
Now that I am here, I am trying to decide what to do with myself.
At home each day was so full of happy things and the happiest of
all was listening for Jack's merry whistle as he opened the street
door every night. At home there are always demands, big and
little, popping in on me which I sometimes resent and yet being
free from makes me feel as dismal as a long vacant house with the
For Rent sign up, looks. In this Lotus land there is no _must_ of
any kind for the alien, and the only whistles I hear belong to the
fierce little tugs that buzz around in the harbor, in and out among
the white sails of the fishing fleet like big black beetles in a
field of lilies. But you must not think life dull for me. Fate
and I have cried a truce, and she is showing me a few hands she is
dealing other people. But first listen to the tale I have to tell
of the bruise she gave my pride this morning, that will show black
for many a day.
I joined a crowd on the water 's edge in front of the hotel to
watch a funeral procession in boats. Recently a hundred and eighty
fishermen were sent to the bottom by a big typhoon, and the wives
and the sweethearts were being towed out to sea to pay a last
tribute to them, by strewing the fatal spot with flowers and paper
prayers. White-robed priests stood up in the front of the boats
and chanted some mournful ritual, keeping time to the dull thumping
of a drum. The air was heavy with incense. A dreamy melancholy
filled the air and I thought how hallowed and beautiful a thing is
memory. From out that silent watching crowd came a voice that sent
my thoughts flying to starry nights of long ago and my first trip
across the Pacific; soft south winds; vows of eternal devotion that
kept time with the distant throbbing of a ship's engine. I fumed.
I was facing little Germany and five littler Germanys strung out
behind. You surely remember him? and how when I could n't see
things his way he swore to a wrecked heart and a
never-to-be-forgotten constancy. Mate! There was no more of a
flicker of memory in the stare of his round blue eyes than there
would have been in a newly baked pretzel. I stood still, waiting
for some glimmer of recognition. Instead, he turned to the
pincushion on his arm, whom I took to be Ma O., and I heard him say
"Herzallorliebsten." I went straight to the hotel and had it
translated. Thought it had a familiar sound. Would n't it be
interesting to know how many "only ones" any man's life history
records? To think of my imagining him eating his heart out with
hopeless longing in some far away Tibetan Monastery. And here he
was, pudgy and content, with his fat little brood waddling along
behind him. If our vision could penetrate the future, verily
Romance would have to close up shop. Oh, no! I did n't want him
to pine entirely away, but he needn't have been in such an
everlasting hurry to get fat and prosperous over it. Would n't
Jack howl?
I took good care to see that he was not stopping at this hotel.
Then I went back to my own thoughts of the happy years that had
been mine since Little Germany bade me a tearful good-by.
And, too, I wanted to think out some plan whereby I can keep in
touch with Sada and be friendly with her relative.
Before I left the steamer, I had a surprise in the way of Uncles.
Next time I will pause before I prophesy. But if Uncle was a blow
to my preconceived ideas, I will venture Sada startled a few of his
traditions as to nieces. Quarantine inspection was short, and when
at last we cast anchor, the harbor was as blue as if a patch of the
summer sky had dropped into it. The thatched roofs shone russet
brown against the dark foliage of the hills. The temple roofs
curved gracefully above the pink mist of the crepe myrtle.
Sada was standing by me on the upper deck, fascinated by the
picture. As she realized the long dreamed-of fairy-land was
unfolding before her, tears of joy filled her eyes and tears of
another kind filled mine.
Sampans, launches and lighters clustered around the steamer as
birds of prey gather to a feast: captains in gilt braid; coolies in
blue and white, with their calling-cards stamped in large letters
on their backs, and the story of their trade written around the
tail of their coats in fantastic Japanese characters. Gentlemen in
divided skirts and ladies in kimono and clogs swarmed up the
gangway. In the smiling, pushing crowd I looked for the low-browed
relative I expected to see. Imagine the shock, Mate, when a man
with manners as beautiful as his silk kimono presented his card and
announced that he was Uncle Mura. I had been pointed out as Sada's
friend. A week afterwards I could have thought of something
brilliant to say. Taken unawares, I stammered out a hope that his
honorable teeth were well and his health poor. You see I am all
right in Japanese if I do the talking. For I know what I want to
say and what they ought to say. But when they come at me with a
flank movement, as it were, I am lost. Uncle passed over my
blunder without a smile and went on to say many remarkable things,
if sound means anything. However, trust even a deaf woman to prick
up her ears when a compliment is headed her way, whether it is in
Sanskrit or Polynesian. In acknowledgment I stuck to my flag, and
the man's command of quaint but correct English convinced me that I
would have to specialize in something more than first thought if I
was to cope with this tea-house proprietor whose armor is the
subtle manners of the courtier.
Blessed Sada! Only the cocksureness of youth made her blind to the
check her enthusiasm was meant to receive in the first encounter of
the new life. She had always met people on equal terms, most men
falling easy victims. She was blissfully ignorant that Mura, by
directing his conversation to me, meant to convey to her that
well-bred girls in this enchanted land lowered their eyes and
folded their hands when they talked in the presence of a MAN, if
they dared to talk at all.
Not so this half-child of the West. She fairly palpitated with joy
and babbled away with the freedom of a sunny brook in the shadow of
a grim forest. From the man's standpoint, he was not unkind;
unrestraint was to him an incomprehensible factor in a young girl's
make-up; and whatever was to follow, the first characters he meant
her to learn must spell reverence and repression.
They hurried ashore to catch a train to Kioto. I must look
harmless, for I was invited to call. I shall accept, for I have a
feeling in spite of manners and silken robes that the day is not
distant when the distress signals will be flying.
I waved good-by to the girl as the little launch made its way to
land. She made a trumpet of her hands and called a merry
"sayonara." The master of her future folded his arms and looked
out to sea.
The next day I had a lonely lunch at the hotel. When I saw two
lovery young things at the table where Jack and I had our wedding
breakfast, so long ago, I made for the other end of the room and
persistently turned my back. But I saw out of the corner of my eye
they were far away above food, and, Mate, believe me, they did n't
even know it was hot, though a rain barrel couldn't have measured
the humidity.
Of course Jack and I were much more sensible, but that whole
blessed time is wrapped in rosy mists with streaks of moonlight to
the tune of heavenly music, so it 's futile to try to recall just
what did happen. I ought to have gone to another hotel, but the
chain of memory was too strong for me.
I was hesitating between the luxury of a sentimental spell and a
fit of loneliness, when a happy interruption came in a message from
Countess Otani, naming the next day at two for luncheon with her at
the Arsenal Gardens at Tokio. How I wished for you, Mate! It was
a fairy-story come true, dragons and all. The Arsenal Garden means
just what it says. Only when the dove of peace is on duty are its
gates opened, and then to but a few, high in command. For across
the white-blossomed hedge that encloses the grounds, armies of men
toil ceaselessly molding black bullets for pale people and they
work so silently that the birds keep house in the long fringed
willows and the goldfish splash in the sunned spots of the tiny
lake.
After passing the dragons in the shape of sentries and soldiers, to
each of whom I gave a brief life-history, I wisely followed my nose
and a guard down the devious path.
The Countess received her guests in a banquet-hall all ebony and
gold, and was not seated permanently on a throne with a diamond
crown screwed into her head as we used so fondly to imagine.
The simplicity of her hospitality was charming. She and most of
her ladies-in-waiting had been educated abroad. But despite the
lure of the Western freedom, they had returned to their country
with their heads level and their traditions intact. But you guess
wrong, honey, if you imagine custom and formality of official life
have so overcome these high-born ladies as to make them lay figures
who dare not raise their eyes except by rule. There were three
American guests, and only by being as nimble as grasshoppers did we
hold our own in the table talk which was as exhilarating as a game
of snowball on a frosty day.
We scampered all around war and settled a few important political
questions. Poetry, books and the new Cabinet vied with the
merriment over comparisons in styles of dress. One delightful
woman told how gloves and shoes had choked her when she first wore
them in America. Another gave her experience in getting fatally
twisted in her court train when she was making her bow before the
German Empress.
A soft-voiced matron made us laugh over her story of how, when she
was a young girl at a mission school, she unintentionally joined in
a Christian prayer, and nearly took the skin off her tongue
afterwards scrubbing it with strong soap and water to wash away the
stain. There wasn't even a smile as she quietly spoke of the many
times later when with that same prayer she had tried to make less
hard the after-horrors of war.
The possibilities of Japanese women are amazing even to one who
thinks he knows them. They look as if made for decoration only,
and with a flirt of their sleeves they bring out a surprise that
turns your ideas a double somersault. Here they were, laughing and
chatting like a bunch of fresh schoolgirls for whom life was one
long holiday. Yet ten out of the number had recently packed away
their gorgeous clothes, and laid on a high shelf all royal ranks
and rights, for a nurse's dress and kit. Apparently delicate and
shy they can be, if emergency demands, as grim as war or as tender
as heaven.
It was a blithesome day and if it had n't been for that "all gone"
sort of a feeling, that possesses me when evening draws near and
Jack is far away, content might have marked me as her own. As it
was I put off playing a single at dinner as long as possible by
calling on a month-old bride whom I had known as a girl. With glee
I accepted the offer of an automobile to take me for the visit, and
repented later. Two small chauffeurs and a diminutive footman
raced me through the narrow, crowded streets, scattering the
populace to any shelter it could find. The only reason we didn't
take the fronts out of the shops is that Japanese shops are
frontless. I looked back to see the countless victims of our
speed. I saw only a crowd coming from cover, smiling with
curiosity and interest. We hit the top of the hill with a
flourish, and when I asked what was the hurry my attendants looked
hurt and reproachfully asked if that wasn't the way Americans liked
to ride.
Mate, this is a land of contrasts and contradictions. At the
garden all had been life and color. At this home, where the
wrinkled old servitor opened the heavily carved gates for me, it
was as if I had stepped into a bit of ancient Japan, jealously
guarded from any encroachment of new conditions or change of custom.
Like a curious package, contents unknown, I was passed from one
automatic servant to another till I finally reached the
_Torishihimari_ or mistress of ceremonies. By clock-work she
offered me a seat on the floor, a fan and congratulations. This
last simply because I was me. The house was ancient and beautiful.
The room in which I sat had nothing in it but matting as fine as
silk, a rare old vase with two flowers and a leaf in formal
arrangement, and an atmosphere of aloofness that lulled mind and
body to restful revery. After my capacity for tea and sugared
dough was tested, the little serving maid fanning me, bowing every
time I blinked, the paper doors near by divided noiselessly and,
framed by the dim light, sat the young bride, quaint and oriental
as if she had stepped out of some century-old kakemono. In
contrast to my recent hostesses it was like coming from a garden of
brilliant flowers into the soft, quiet shadows of a bamboo grove.
No modern touch about this lady. She had been reduced by rule from
a romping girl to a selfless creature fit for a Japanese
gentleman's wife and no questions asked. Her hair, her dress, and
even her speech were strictly by the laws laid down in a book for
the thirty-first day of the first month after marriage. But I
would like to see the convention with a crust thick enough to
entirely obliterate one woman's interest in another whose clothes
and life belong to a distant land. When I told her I had come to
Japan against Jack's wishes and was going to follow him to China if
I could, she paled at my rashness. How could a woman dare disobey?
Would not my husband send me home, take my name off the house
register and put somebody in my place?
Well now, wouldn't you like to see the scientist play any such
tricks with me--that blessed old Jack who smiles at my follies,
asks my advice, and does as he pleases, and for whom there has
never been but the one woman in the world! I struggled to make
plain to her the attitude of American men and women and the
semi-independence of the latter. As well explain theology to a
child. To her mind the undeviating path of absolute obedience was
the only possible way. Anything outside of a complete renunciation
of self-interest and thought meant ruin and was not even to be
whispered about. I gave it up and came back to her sphere of
poetry and mothers-in-law.
When I said good-by there was a gentle pity in her eyes, for she
was certain her long-time friend was headed for the highroad of
destruction. But instead I turned into the dim solitude of Shiba
Park. I had something to think about. To-day's experiences had
painted anew in naming colors the difference in husbands. How
prone a woman is, who is free and dearly beloved, to fall into the
habit of taking things for granted, forgetting how one drop of the
full measure of happiness, that a good husband gives her, would
turn to rosy tints the gray lives of hundreds of her kind who are
wives in name only. Her appreciation may be abundant but it is the
silent kind. Her bugaboo is fear of sentiment and when it is too
late, she remembers with a heart-break.
I can think of a thousand things right now I want to say to Jack
and while storing them away for some future happy hour, I walked
further into the deep shadows of twilight.
Instantly the spell of the East was over me. Real life was not.
In the soft green silences of mystery and fancy, I found a seat by
an ancient moss-covered tomb. Dreamily I watched a great red
dragon-fly frivol with the fairy blue wreaths of incense-smoke that
hovered above the leaf shadows trembling on the sand. The deep
melody of a bell, sifted through a cloud of blossom, caught up my
willing soul and floated out to sea and Jack far from this lovely
land, where stalks unrestrained the ugly skeleton of easy divorce
for men. The subject always irritates me like prickly heat.
NIKKO, July, 1911.
Summer in Japan is no joke, especially if you are waiting for
letters. I know perfectly well I can't hear from you and Jack for
an age, and yet I watch for the postman three times a day, as a
hungry man waits for the dinner-bell.
The days in Yokohama were too much like a continuous Turkish bath,
and I fled to Nikko, the ever moist and mossy. Two things you can
always expect in this village of "roaring, wind-swept
mountains,"--rain and courtesy. One is as inevitable as the other,
and both are served in quantities.
I am staying in a semi-foreign hotel which is tucked away in a
pocket in the side of a mountain as comfy as a fat old lady in a
big rocker who glories in dispensing hospitality with both hands.
Just let me put my head out of my room door and the hall fairly
blossoms with little maids eager to serve. A step toward the
entrance brings to life a small army of attendants bending as they
come like animated jack-knives on a live wire. One struggles with
the mystery of my overshoes, while the Master stands by and begs me
to take care of my honorable spirit. As it is the only spirit I
possess I heed his advice and bring it back to the hotel to find
the entire force standing at attention, ready to receive me. I
pass on to my room with a procession of bearers and bearesses
strung out behind me like the tail of a kite, anything from a
tea-tray to the sugar tongs being sufficient excuse for joining the
parade.
When dressing for dinner, if I press the button, no less than six
little, picture maids flutter to my door, each begging for the
honor of fastening me up the back. How delighted Jack would be to
assign them this particular honor for life. Such whispers over the
wonders of a foreign-made dress as they struggle with the curious
fastenings! (They should hear my lord's fierce language!) Each
one takes a turn till some sort of connection is made between hook
and eye. All is so earnestly done I dare not laugh or wiggle with
impatience. I may sail into dinner with the upper hook in the
lower eye and the middle all askew, but the service is so
graciously given, I would rather have my dress upside down than to
grumble. Certainly I pay for it. I tip everything from the
proprietor to the water-pitcher. But the sum is so
disproportionate to the pleasure and the comfort returned that I
smile to think of the triple price I have paid elsewhere and the
high-nosed condescension I got in return for my money. Japanese
courtesy may be on the surface, but the polish does not easily wear
off and it soothes the nerves just as the rain cools the air. It
goes without saying that I did not arrive in Nikko without a
variety of experiences along the way.
Two hours out from Yokohama, the train boy came into the coach, and
with a smile as cheerful as if he were saying, "Happy New Year,"
announced that there was a washout in front of us and a landslide
at the back of us. Would everybody please rest their honorable
bones in the village while a bridge was built and a river filled
in. The passengers trailed into a settlement of straw roofs,
bamboo poles and acres of white and yellow lilies. I went to a
quaint little inn--that was mostly out!--built over a fussy brook;
and a pine tree grew right out of the side of the house. My room
was furnished with four mats and a poem hung on the wall. When the
policeman came in to apologize for the rudeness of the storm in
delaying me, the boy who brought my bags had to step outside so
that the official would have room to bow properly. I ate my supper
of fish-omelet and turnip pickle served in red lacquer bowls, and
drank tea out of cups as big as thimbles. Jack says Japanese
teacups ought to be forbidden; in a moment of forgetfulness they
could so easily slip down with the tea.
It had been many a year since I was so separated from my kind and
each hour of isolation makes clearer a thing I 've never doubted,
but sometimes forget, that the happiest woman is she whose every
moment is taken up in being necessary to somebody; and to such,
unoccupied minutes are like so many drops of lead. That, with a
telegram I read telling of the increasing dangers of the plague in
Manchuria, threatened to send me headlong into a spell of anxiety
and the old terrible loneliness.