III

For a long interval the two men sat in silence. Kano leaned forward

from time to time, filling the small cup which Tatsu--half in revery it

seemed--had once more drained. The old servant now and again crept in

on soundless feet to replace with a freshly heated bottle of sakè the

one grown cold. So still was the place that the caged cricket hanging

from the eaves of Umè's distant room beat time like an elfin metronome.

Two of the four walls of the guest-room were of shoji, a lattice

covered with translucent rice-paper. These opened directly upon the

garden. The third wall, a solid one of smoke-blue plaster, held the

niche called "tokonoma," where pictures are hung and flower vases set.

The remaining wall, opening toward the suite of chambers, was fashioned

of four great sliding doors called fusuma, dull silver of background,

with paintings of shadowy mountain landscape done centuries before by

one of the greatest of the Kanos. It was in front of these doors that

Mata now placed two lighted candles in tall bronze holders.

Outside, the garden became a blur of soft darkness. Within, the

flickering yellow light of the candles danced through the room,

touching now the old face, now the young, each set hard in its own

lines of concentrated thought. Weird shadows played about the

mountains on the silver doors, and hid in far corners of the matted

floor.

All at once the two central fusuma were apart. No slightest sound had

been made, yet there, in the narrow rectangle, stood a figure,--surely

not of earth,--a slim form in misty gray robes, wearing a crown of

intertwisted dragons, with long filigree chains that fell straight to

the shoulders. In one hand was held an opened fan of silver.

Tatsu gave a convulsive start, then checked himself. He could not

believe the vision real. Not even in his despairing dreams had the

Dragon Maid appeared so exquisite. As he gazed, one white-clad foot

slid a few inches toward him on the shining floor. Another step, and

she was in the room. The fusuma behind her closed as noiselessly as

they had opened. Tatsu shivered a little, and stared on. With equal

intensity the old man watched the face of Tatsu.

The figure had begun to sway, slightly, at full length, like long bands

of perpendicular rain across the face of a mountain. A singing voice

began, rich, passionate, and low, matching with varying intonation the

marvellous postures of fan and throat and body. At first low in sound,

almost husky, it flowered to a note long held and gradually deepening

in power. It gathered up shadows from the heart and turned them into

light.

Umè-ko danced (or so she would have told you) only to fulfil her

father's command; yet, before she had reached the room, she knew that

it would be such a dance as neither she nor the old artist had dreamed

of. That first glimpse of Tatsu's face at the gate had registered for

her a notch upon the Revolving Wheel of Life. His first spoken word

had aroused in her strange mystic memories from stranger hiding places.

Karma entered with her into the little guest-room where she was to

dance and charged the very air with revelation. The words of the old

classic poem she had in her ignorance believed familiar, she knew that

she was now for the first time really to sing.

"Not for one life but for the blossoming of a thousand lives, shall I

seek my lover, shall I regain his love," she sang. No longer was it

Umè-ko at all, but in actual truth the Dragon Maid, held from her lover

by a jealous god, seeking him through fire and storm and sea, peering

for him into the courts of emperors, the shrines of the astonished

gods, the very portals of the under-world.

And Tatsu listened without sound or motion; only his eyes burned like

beacons in a windless night. Kano wriggled himself backward on the

matting that the triumph of his face might not be seen. Now and again

he leaned forward stealthily and filled Tatsu's cup.

The unaccustomed fluid was already pouring in a fiery torrent through

the boy's vivid brain. His hands, slipped within the tattered blue

sleeves, grasped tightly each the elbow of the other arm. His ecstacy

was a drug, enveloping his senses; again it was a fire that threatened

the very altar of his soul. Through it all he, as Umè-ko, realized

fulfilment. Here in this desert of men's huts he had gained what all

the towering mountains had not been able to bestow. Here was his

bride, made manifest, his mate, the Dragon Maid, found at last through

centuries of barren searching! Surely, if he should spring now to his

feet, catch her to him and call upon his mountain gods for aid, they

would be hurled together to some paradise of love where only he and she

and love would be alive! He trembled and caught in his breath with a

sob. Kano glided a few feet nearer, and struck the matting sharply

with his hand.

Suddenly the dance was over. Umè-ko, quivering now in every limb, sank

to the floor. She bowed first to the guest of honor, then to her

father. Touching her wet eyes with a silken sleeve she moved backward

to the rear of the room where she seated herself upright, motionless as

the wall itself, between the two tall candles. Tatsu's eyes never left

her face. Old Kano, in the background, rocked to and fro, and, after a

short pause of waiting, clapped his hands for Mata.

"Hai-ie-ie-ie-ie!" came the thin voice, long drawn out, from the

kitchen. She entered with a tray of steaming food, placing it before

Tatsu. A second tray was brought for the master, and a fresh bottle of

wine. Umè-ko sat motionless against the silver fusuma, an ivory image,

crowned and robed in shimmering gray.

The odor of good food attracted Tatsu's senses if not his eyes. He ate

greedily, hastily, not seeing what he ate. His manners were those of

an untutored mountain peasant.

"Dragon Maid," purred Kano, "weariness has come upon you. Retire, I

pray, and deign to rest."

"No!" said Tatsu, loudly. "She shall not leave this room."

"My concern is for the august maiden who has found favor in your

sight," replied Kano, with a deprecating gesture. "Here, Tatsu, let me

fill your cup."

Tatsu threw his cup face down to the floor, and put his lean, brown

hand upon it. "I drink no more until my cup of troth with the maiden

yonder."

Umè-ko's startled eyes flew to his. She trembled, and the blood slowly

ebbed from her face, leaving it pale and luminous with a sort of wonder.

"Go!" said Kano again, and, in a daze, the girl rose and vanished from

the room.

Tatsu had hurled himself toward her, but it was too late. He turned

angrily to his host. "She is mine! Why did you send her away?"

"Gently, gently," cooed the other. "In this incarnation she is called

my daughter."

"I believe it not!" cried Tatsu. "How came she under bondage to you?

Have I not sought her through a thousand lives? She is mine!"

"Even so, in this life I am her father, and it is my command that she

will obey."

Tatsu rocked and writhed in his place.

"She is a good daughter," pursued the other, amiably. "She has never

yet failed in docility and respect. Without my consent you shall not

touch her,--not even her sleeve."

"I have sought her through a thousand lives. I will slay him who tries

to keep her from me!" raved the boy.

"To kill her father would scarcely be a fortunate beginning," said

Kano, tranquilly. "Your hope lies in safer paths, dear youth. There

are certain social conventions attached even to a Dragon Maid. Now if

you will calm yourself and listen to reason----"

Tatsu sprang to his feet and struck himself violently upon the brow.

The hot wine was making a whirlpool of his brain. "Reason! convention!

safety! I hate them all! Oh, you little men of cities! Farmyard

fowls and swine, running always to one sty, following always one

lead,--doing things in the one way that other base creatures have

marked out----"

Kano laughed aloud. His whole life had been a protest against

conventionality, and this impassioned denunciation came from a new

world. The sound maddened Tatsu. He leaped to the veranda, now a mere

ledge thrust out over darkness, threw an arm about the slender

corner-post, and strained far out, gasping, into the night. Kano

filled his pipe with leisurely deliberation. The time was past for

fear.

In a few moments the boy returned, his face ugly, black, and sullen.

"I will be your son if you give me the maiden," he muttered.

"Come now, this is much better," said Kano, with a genial smile. "We

shall discuss the matter like rational men."

Tatsu ground his teeth so that the other heard him.

"Have a pipe," said Kano.

"I want no pipe."

"At least make yourself at ease upon the cushion while I speak."

"I am more at ease without it," said the boy, flinging the velvet

square angrily across the room. "Ugh! It is like sitting on a dead

cat. Kindly speak without further care for me. I am at ease!"

Kano glanced at the burning eyes, the quivering face and twitching

muscles with a smile. The intensity of ardor touched him. He drew a

short sigh, the look of complacency left his for an instant, and he

began, deliberately, "As you may have gathered from my letter, I am

without a son."

Tatsu nodded shortly.

"Worse than this, among all my disciples here in Yeddo there has

appeared none worthy to inherit the name and traditions of my race.

Now, dear youth, when I first saw these paintings of yours, the hope

stirred in me that you might be that one."

"Do you mean that I should paint things as paltry as your own?"

"No, not exactly, though even from my poor work you might gain some

valuable lessons of technique."

"I know not that word," said Tatsu. "When I must paint, I paint. What

has all this to do with the Dragon Maiden?"

"Softly, softly; we are coming to that now," said Kano. "If, after

trial, I should find you really worthy of adoption, nothing could be

more appropriate than for you to become the husband of my daughter."

Tatsu dug his nails into the matting of the floor.

"Suitable--appropriate--husband!" he groaned aloud. "Farmyard

cackle,--all of it. Oh, to be joined in the manner of such earthlings

to a Dragon Maid like this! Old man, cannot even you feel the horror

of it? No, your eyes blink like a pig that has eaten. You cannot see.

She should be made mine among storm and wind and mist on some high

mountain peak, where the gods would lean to us, and great straining

forests roar out our marriage hymn!"

"There is indeed something about it that appeals to me. It would make

a fine subject for a painting."

"Oh, oh," gasped Tatsu, and clutched at his throat. "When will you

give her to me, Kano Indara? Shall it be to-night?"

"To-night? Are you raving!" cried the astonished Kano. "It would be

at the very least a month."

Tatsu rose and staggered to the veranda. "A month!" he whispered to

the stars. "Shall I live at all? Good-night, old man of clay," he

called suddenly, and with a light step was down upon the garden path.

Kano hurried to him. "Stop, stop, young sir," he called half clicked,

now, with laughter. "Do not go in this rude way. You are my guest.

The women are even now preparing your bed."

"I lie not on beds," jeered Tatsu through the darkness. "Vile things

they are, like the ooze that smears the bottom of a lake. I climb this

hillside for my couch. To-morrow, with the sun, I shall return!"

The voice, trailing away through silence and the night, had a tone of

supernatural sweetness. When it had quite faded Kano stared on, for a

long time, into the fragrant solitude. Stars were out now by

thousands, a gold mosaic set into a high purple dome. Off to the south

a wide blur of artificial light hung above the city, the visible

expression, as it were, of the low, human roar of life, audible even in

this sheltered nook. To the north, almost it seemed within touch of

his hands, the temple cliff rose black, formidable, and impressive, a

gigantic wall of silence. The camphor tree overhead was thrown out

darkly against the stars, like its own shadow. The velvety boom of the

temple bell, striking nine, held in its echoes the color and the

softness of the hour.

Kano, turning at last from the veranda, slowly re-entered the

guest-room, and seated himself upon one of the cushions that had

aroused Tatsu's scorn. A dead cat,--forsooth! Well to old bones a

dead cat might be better than no cushion! Mata had come in very

softly. "I prayed the gods for him," Kano was muttering aloud, "and I

thank them that he is here. To-morrow I shall make offering at the

temple. Yet I have thanks, too, that there is but one of him. Ah,

Mata,--you? My hot bath, is it ready? And, friend Mata, do you recall

a soothing draught you once prepared for me at a time of great mental

strain,--there was, I think, something I wished to do with a picture,

and the picture would not allow it. I should like a draught like that

to-night."

"Kashikomarimashita. I recall it," said old Mata, grimly, "and I shall

make it strong, for you have something worse than pictures to deal with

now."

"Thanks. I was sure you would remember," smiled the old man, and Mata,

disarmed of her cynicism, could say no more.

Umè remained in her chamber. She had not been seen since the dance.

All her fusuma and shoji were closed. Mata, in leaving her master,

looked tentatively toward this room, but after an imperceptible pause

kept on down the central passageway of the house to the bathroom, at

the far end. The place smelled of steam, of charcoal fumes, and cedar

wood. With two long, thin iron "fire-sticks," Mata poked, from the

top, the heap of darkening coals in the cylindrical furnace that was

built into one end of the tub. For the protection of the bather this

was surrounded with a wooden lattice which, being always wet when the

furnace was in use, never charred. The tub itself was of sugi-wood.

After years of service it still gave out unfailingly its aromatic

breath, and felt soft to the touch, like young leaves. Sighing

heavily, the old servant bared her arm and leaned over to stir the

water, to draw down by long, elliptical swirls of motion the heated

upper layers into cold strata at the bottom. She then wiped her arm on

her apron and went to the threshold of the guest-room to inform the

waiting occupant. "In ten minutes more, without fail, the water will

be at right heat for your augustness."

Now, in the kitchen, a great searching among jars and boxes on high

shelves told of preparation for the occasional brew. Again she thought

of calling Umè. Umè could reach the highest shelf without standing on

an inverted rice-pot, or the even more precarious fish-cleaning bench.

And again, for a reason not quite plain to herself, Mata decided not to

call. She threw a fresh handful of twigs and dried ferns to the

sleeping ashes of the brazier, set a copper skillet deep into the

answering flame, and began dropping dried bits of herbs into the

simmering water. Instantly the air was changed,--was tinged and

interpenetrated with hurrying, spicy fumes, with hints of a bitter

bark, of jellied gums, of resin, and a compelling odor which should

have been sweet, but was only nauseating. The steam assumed new colors

as it rose. Each sprite of aromatic perfume when released plunged into

noiseless tumult with opposing fumes. The kitchen was a crucible, and

the old dame a mediaeval alchemist. The flames and smoke striving

upward, as if to reach her bending face, made it glow with the hue of

the copper kettle, a wrinkled copper, etched deep with lines of life,

of merriment, perplexity, of shrewd and practical experience.

As she stirred, testing by nose and eye the rapid completion of her

work, she was determining to put aside for her own use a goodly share

of the beneficent fluid. The coming of the wild man had unnerved her

terribly. In the threatening family change she could perceive nothing

but menace. Apprehension even now weighed down upon her, a

foreshadowing of evil that had, somehow, a present hostage in the deep

silence of Umè's room. Of what was her nursling thinking? How had it

seemed to her, so guarded, and so delicately reared, this being

summoned like a hired geisha to dance before a stranger,--a ragged,

unkempt, hungry stranger! Even her father's well-known madness for

things of art could scarcely atone to his child for this indignity.

Kano had gone promptly to his bath. He was now emerging. His bare

feet grazed the wooden corridor. Mata ran to him. "Good! Ah, that

was good!" he said heartily. "Five years of aches have I left in the

tub!" Within his chamber the andon was already lighted, and the long,

silken bed-cushions spread. Mata assisted him to slip down carefully

between the mattress and the thin coverlid. She patted and arranged

him as she would a child, and then went to fetch the draught. "Mata,

thou art a treasure," he said, as she knelt beside him, the bowl

outstretched. He drained the last drop, and the old friends exchanged

smiles of answering satisfaction. Before leaving him she trimmed and

lowered the andon so that its yellow light would be a mere glimmer in

the darkness.

She moved now deliberately to Umè's fusuma, tapping lightly on the

lacquered frame. "Miss Umè! O Jo San!" she called. Nothing answered.

Mata parted the fusuma an inch. The Japanese matted floor, even in

darkness, gives out a sort of ghostly, phosphorescent glow. Thus, in

the unlit space Mata could perceive that the girl lay at full length,

her Dragon Robe changed to an ordinary house dress, her long hair

unbound, her face turned downward and hidden on an outstretched arm.

It was not a pose of grief, neither did it hint of slumber.

"Honorable Young Lady of the House," said Mata, now more severely, "I

came to announce your bath. The august father having already entered

and withdrawn, it is your turn."

This time Umè answered her, not, however, changing her position. "I do

not care to take the bath to-night. You enter, I pray, without further

waiting. I--I--should like to be left alone, nurse. I myself will

unroll the bed and light the andon."

Mata leaned nearer. Her voice was a theatrical whisper. "Is it that

you are outraged, my Umè-ko, at your father's strange demand upon you?

I was myself angered. He would scarcely have done so much for a Prince

of the Blood,--and to make you appear before so crude and ignorant a

thing as that--"

Umè sat upright. "No, I am angered at nothing. I only wish to be

alone. Ah, nurse, you have always spoiled me,--give me my way."

Mata went off grumbling. She wished that Umè had shown a more natural

indignation. The hot bath, however, notwithstanding Kano's five lost

years of pain presumably in solution, brought her ease of body, as did

the soothing potion, ease of mind.

All night long the old folks heavily slept; and all night long little

Umè-ko drifted in a soft, slow rising flood of consciousness that was

neither sleep nor waking, though wrought of the intertwining strands of

each. Again she saw the dark face in the gateway. It was a mere

picture in a frame, set for an artist's joy. Then it seemed a summons,

calling her to unfamiliar paths,--a prophecy, a clew. Again she heard

his voice,--an echo made of all these things, and more. She tried to

force herself to think of him merely as an artist would think; how the

lines of the shoulders and the throat flowed upward, like dark flame,

to the altar of his face. How the hair grew in flame upon his brow,

how the dark eyes, fearless and innocent with the look of primeval

youth, indeed, held a strange human pain of searching. The mere

remembered pictures of him rose and fell with her as sea-flowers, or

long river grass; but when there came remembered shiver of his words,

"I drink no more until my cup of troth with the maiden yonder!" then

all drifting ceased; illusion was at an end. With a gasp she felt

herself falling straight down through a swirling vortex of sensation,

to the very sand-bed of the stream. Now she was sitting upright (the

sand-bed had suddenly become the floor of her little room), her hands

pressing a heart that was trying to escape, her young eyes straining

through the darkness to see,--ah!--she could see nothing at all for the

shining!

She listened now with bated breath, thinking that by some unconscious

cry she might have aroused the others. No, Kano breathed on softly,

regularly, in the next room; while from the kitchen wing came

unfaltering the beat of Mata's nasal metronome.

In one such startled interval of waking her caged cricket had given out

its plaintive cry. All at once it seemed to Umè-ko an unbearable thing

for any spark of life to be so prisoned. She longed to set him free,

but even though she opened wide her shoji, the outer night-doors, the

amado stretched, a relentless opaque wall, along the four sides of the

house.

She lay quiet now for a long time. "I will return with the sun," he

had said. She wished that the cricket were indeed outside, and could

tell her of the first dawn-stirring. It was very close and dark in the

little room. She had not lighted the andon after all. It could not be

so dark outside. With very cautious fingers she began now to separate

the shoji that opened on the garden side. A breath of exquisite night

air rushed in to her from the lattices above the amado. It would be a

difficult matter to push even one of these aside without waking the

house. Yet, there were two things in her favor; the unusually heavy

sleep of her companions and the fact that the amado had a starting

point in their long grooves from a shallow closet very near her room.

So instead of having to remove the whole chain, each clasping by a

metal hand, its neighbor, she had but to unbar the initial panel, coax

it noiselessly apart just far enough to emit a not too bulky form, and

then the night would be hers.

There had been in the girl's life so little need of cunning or of

strategy that her innocent adventure now brought a disturbing sense of

crime. She had unlatched the first amado in safety, and had her white

arms braced to push it to one side, when, suddenly she thought, "I am

acting like a thief! Perhaps I am feeling like a thief! This is a

terrible thing and must displease the gods." Her hands dropped limply,

she must not continue with this deed. Somewhere near her feet the

cricket gave out an importunate chirp. She stooped to him, feeling

about for the little residence with tender, groping hands. She must

give him freedom, though she dared not take it for herself. Yet it

would be sweet to breathe the world for its own sake once more before

he--and the sun--returned.

The amado went back as if of itself. In an instant Umè's face was

among the dew-wet leaves of the plum tree. Oh, it was sweet! The

night smelled of silence and the stars. She threw back her head to

drink it like a liquid. She lifted the insect in its cage. By holding

it high, against a star of special brightness, she could see the tiny

bit of life gazing at her through its bars. She opened the door of the

cage, and set it among the twigs of the plum. Then barefooted,

ungirdled, with hair unbound, she stepped down upon the stone beneath

the tree, and then to the garden path.