The village stands on the bank of a broa_"Out of the East": Reveries and Studies in New Japan

stony bed of which is completely covered with water only during the

rainy season. The river traverses an immense level of rice-fields,

open to the horizon north and south, but on the west walled in by a

range of blue peaks, and on the east by a chain of low wooded hills.

The village itself is separated from these hills only by half a

mile of rice-fields; and its principal cemetery, the adjunct of a

Buddhist temple dedicated to Kwannon-of-the-Eleven-Faces, is situated

upon a neighboring summit. As a distributing centre, the village

is not unimportant. Besides several hundred thatched dwellings of

the ordinary rustic style, it contains one whole street of thriving

two-story shops and inns with handsome tiled roofs. It possesses also

a very picturesque ujigami, or Shintō parish temple, dedicated to

the Sun-Goddess, and a pretty shrine, in a grove of mulberry-trees,

dedicated to the Deity of Silkworms.

There was born in this village, in the seventh year of Meiji, in the

house of one Uchida, a dyer, a boy called Tarō. His birthday happened

to be an aku-nichi, or unlucky day,--the seventh of the eighth month,

by the ancient Calendar of Moons. Therefore his parents, being

old-fashioned folk, feared and sorrowed. But sympathizing neighbors

tried to persuade them that everything was as it should be, because

the calendar had been changed by the Emperor's order, and according

to the new calendar the day was a kitsu-nichi, or lucky day. These

representations somewhat lessened the anxiety of the parents; but when

they took the child to the ujigami, they made the gods a gift of a very

large paper lantern, and besought earnestly that all harm should be

kept away from their boy. The kannushi, or priest, repeated the archaic

formulas required, and waved the sacred gohei above the little shaven

head, and prepared a small amulet to be suspended about the infant's

neck; after which the parents visited the temple of Kwannon on the

hill, and there also made offerings, and prayed to all the Buddhas to

protect their first-born.

When Tarō was six years old, his parents decided to send him to the new

elementary school which had been built at a short distance from the

village. Tarō's grandfather bought him some writing-brushes, paper, a

book, and a slate, and early one morning led him by the hand to the

school. Tarō felt very happy, because the slate and the other things

delighted him like so many new toys, and because everybody had told him

that the school was a pleasant place, where he would have plenty of

time to play. Moreover, his mother had promised to give him many cakes

when he should come home.

As soon as they reached the school,--a big two-story building with

glass windows,--a servant showed them into a large bare apartment, where

a serious-looking man was seated at a desk. Tarō's grandfather bowed

low to the serious-looking man, and addressed him as Sensei, and humbly

requested him to teach the little fellow kindly. The Sensei rose up,

and bowed in return, and spoke courteously to the old man. He also put

his hand on Tarō's head, and said nice things. But Taro became all at

once afraid. When his grandfather had bid him good-by, he grew still

more afraid, and would have liked to run away home; but the master took

him into a large, high, white room, full of girls and boys sitting on

benches, and showed him a bench, and told him to sit down. All the boys

and girls turned their heads to look at Tarō, and whispered to each

other, and laughed. Tarō thought they were laughing at him, and began

to feel very miserable. A big bell rang; and the master, who had taken

his place on a high platform at the other end of the room, ordered

silence in a tremendous way that terrified Tarō. All became quiet, and

the master began to speak. Tarō thought he spoke most dreadfully. He

did not say that school was a pleasant place: he told the pupils very

plainly that it was not a place for play, but for hard work. He told

them that study was painful, but that they must study in spite of the

pain and the difficulty. He told them about the rules which they must

obey, and about the punishments for disobedience or carelessness.

When they all became frightened and still, he changed his voice

altogether, and began to talk to them like a kind father,--promising

to love them just like his own little ones. Then he told them how the

school had been built by the august command of His Imperial Majesty,

that the boys and girls of the country might become wise men and good

women, and how dearly they should love their noble Emperor, and be

happy even to give their lives for his sake. Also he told them how they

should love their parents, and how hard their parents had to work for

the means of sending them to school, and how wicked and ungrateful it

would be to idle during study-hours. Then he began to call them each by

name, asking questions about what he had said.

Tarō had heard only a part of the master's discourse. His small mind

was almost entirely occupied by the fact that all the boys and girls

had looked at him and laughed when he had first entered the room. And

the mystery of it all was so painful to him that he could think of

little else, and was therefore quite unprepared when the master called

his name.

"Uchida Tarō, what do you like best in the world?"

Tarō started, stood up, and answered frankly,--

"Cake."

All the boys and girls again looked at him and laughed; and the master

asked reproachfully, "Uchida Tarō, do you like cake more than you like

your parents? Uchida Tarō, do you like cake better than your duty to

His Majesty our Emperor?"

Then Tarō knew that he had made some great mistake; and his face became

very hot, and all the children laughed, and he began to cry. This only

made them laugh still more; and they kept on laughing until the master

again enforced silence, and put a similar question to the next pupil.

Tarō kept his sleeve to his eyes, and sobbed.

The bell rang. The master told the children they would receive their

first writing-lesson during the next class-hour from another teacher,

but that they could first go out and play for a while. He then left the

room; and the boys and girls all ran out into the school-yard to play,

taking no notice whatever of Tarō. The child felt more astonished at

being thus ignored than he had felt before on finding himself an object

of general attention. Nobody except the master had yet spoken one word

to him; and now even the master seemed to have forgotten his existence.

He sat down again on his little bench, and cried and cried; trying all

the while not to make a noise, for fear the children would come back to

laugh at him.

Suddenly a hand was laid upon his shoulder: a sweet voice was speaking

to him; and turning his head, he found himself looking into the most

caressing pair of eyes he had ever seen,--the eyes of a little girl

about a year older than he.

"What is it?" she asked him tenderly.

Tarō sobbed and snuffled helplessly for a moment, before he could

answer: "I am very unhappy here. I want to go home."

"Why?" questioned the girl, slipping an arm about his neck.

"They all hate me; they will not speak to me or play with _me_."

"Oh no!" said the girl. "Nobody dislikes you at all. It is only because

you are a stranger. When I first went to school, last year, it was

just the same with me. You must not fret."

"But all the others are playing; and I must sit in here," protested

Tarō.

"Oh no, you must not. You must come and play with me. I will be your

playfellow. Come!"

Taro at once began to cry out loud. Self-pity and gratitude and the

delight of newfound sympathy filled his little heart so full that he

really could not help it. It was so nice to be petted for crying.

But the girl only laughed, and led him out of the room quickly, because

the little mother soul in her divined the whole situation. "Of course

you may cry, if you wish," she said; "but you must play, too!" And oh,

what a delightful play they played together!

But when school was over, and Tarō's grandfather came to take him home,

Tarō began to cry again, because it was necessary that he should bid

his little playmate good-by.

The grandfather laughed, and exclaimed, "Why, it is little

Yoshi,--Miyahara O-Yoshi! Yoshi can come along with us, and stop at

the house a while. It is on her way home."

At Tarō's house the playmates ate the promised cake together; and

O-Yoshi mischievously asked, mimicking the master's severity, "Uchida

Tarō, do you like cake better than me?"

III

O-Yoshi's father owned some neighboring rice-lands, and also kept a

shop in the village. Her mother, a samurai, adopted into the Miyahara

family at the time of the breaking up of the military caste, had

borne several children, of whom O-Yoshi, the last, was the only

survivor. While still a baby, O-Yoshi lost her mother. Miyahara was

past middle age; but he took another wife, the daughter of one of his

own farmers,--a young girl named Ito O-Tama. Though swarthy as new

copper, O-Tama was a remarkably handsome peasant girl, tall, strong,

and active; but the choice caused surprise, because O-Tama could

neither read nor write. The surprise changed to amusement when it was

discovered that almost from the time of entering the house she had

assumed and maintained absolute control. But the neighbors stopped

laughing at Miyahara's docility when they learned more about O-Tama.

She knew her husband's interests better than he, took charge of

everything, and managed his affairs with such tact that in less than

two years she had doubled his income. Evidently, Miyahara had got a

wife who was going to make him rich. As a step-mother she bore herself

rather kindly, even after the birth of her first boy. O-Yoshi was well

cared for, and regularly sent to school.

While the children were still going to school, a long-expected and

wonderful event took place. Strange tall men with red hair and

beards--foreigners from the West--came down into the valley with a

great multitude of Japanese laborers, and constructed a railroad.

It was carried along the base of the low hill range, beyond the

rice-fields and mulberry groves in the rear of the village; and almost

at the angle where it crossed the old road leading to the temple of

Kwannon, a small station-house was built; and the name of the village

was painted in Chinese characters upon a white signboard erected on a

platform. Later, a line of telegraph-poles was planted, parallel with

the railroad. And still later, trains came, and shrieked, and stopped,

and passed,--nearly shaking the Buddhas in the old cemetery off their

lotus-flowers of stone.

The children wondered at the strange, level, ash-strewn way, with its

double lines of iron shining away north and south into mystery; and

they were awe-struck by the trains that came roaring and screaming and

smoking, like storm-breathing dragons, making the ground quake as they

passed by. But this awe was succeeded by curious interest,--an interest

intensified by the explanations of one of their school-teachers, who

showed them, by drawings on the blackboard, how a locomotive engine was

made; and who taught them, also, the still more marvelous operation of

the telegraph, and told them how the new western capital and the sacred

city of Kyoto were to be united by rail and wire, so that the journey

between them might be accomplished in less than two days, and messages

sent from the one to the other in a few seconds.

Taro and O-Yoshi became very dear friends. They studied together,

played together, and visited each other's homes. But at the age of

eleven O-Yoshi was taken from school to assist her step-mother in the

household; and thereafter Tarō saw her but seldom. He finished his own

studies at fourteen, and began to learn his father's trade. Sorrows

came. After having given him a little brother, his mother died; and

in the same year, the kind old grandfather who had first taken him to

school followed her; and after these things the world seemed to him

much less bright than before. Nothing further changed his life till he

reached his seventeenth year. Occasionally he would visit the home of

the Miyahara, to talk with O-Yoshi. She had grown up into a slender,

pretty woman; but for him she was still only the merry playfellow of

happier days.

One soft spring day, Tarō found himself feeling very lonesome, and the

thought came to him that it would be pleasant to see O-Yoshi. Probably

there existed in his memory some constant relation between the sense of

lonesomeness in general and the experience of his first schoolday in

particular. At all events, something within him--perhaps that a dead

mother's love had made, or perhaps something belonging to other dead

people--wanted a little tenderness, and he felt sure of receiving the

tenderness from O-Yoshi. So he took his way to the little shop. As he

approached it, he heard her laugh, and it sounded wonderfully sweet.

Then he saw her serving an old peasant, who seemed to be quite pleased,

and was chatting garrulously. Tarō had to wait, and felt vexed that he

could not at once get O-Yoshi's talk all for himself; but it made him

a little happier even to be near her. He looked and looked at her, and

suddenly began to wonder why he had never before thought how pretty she

was. Yes, she was really pretty,--more pretty than any other girl in

the village. He kept on looking and wondering, and always she seemed

to be growing prettier. It was very strange; he could not understand

it. But O-Yoshi, for the first time, seemed to feel shy under that

earnest gaze, and blushed to her little ears. Then Tarō felt quite sure

that she was more beautiful than anybody else in the whole world, and

sweeter, and better, and that he wanted to tell her so; and all at

once he found himself angry with the old peasant for talking so much

to O-Yoshi, just as if she were a common person. In a few minutes the

universe had been quite changed for Taro, and he did not know it. He

only knew that since he last saw her O-Yoshi had become divine; and as

soon as the chance came, he told her all his foolish heart, and she

told him hers. And they wondered because their thoughts were so much

the same; and that was the beginning of great trouble.

The old peasant whom Tarō had once seen talking to O-Yoshi had not

visited the shop merely as a customer. In addition to his real calling

he was a professional nakōdo, or match-maker, and was at that very

time acting in the service of a wealthy rice dealer named Okazaki

Yaïchirō. Okazaki had seen O-Yoshi, had taken a fancy to her, and had

commissioned the nakōdo to find out everything possible about her, and

about the circumstances of her family.

Very much detested by the peasants, and even by his more immediate

neighbors in the village, was Okazaki Yaïchirō. He was an elderly man,

gross, hard-featured, with a loud, insolent manner. He was said to be

malignant. He was known to have speculated successfully in rice during

a period of famine, which the peasant considers a crime, and never

forgives. He was not a native of the ken, nor in any way related to its

people, but had come to the village eighteen years before, with his

wife and one child, from some western district. His wife had been dead

two years, and his only son, whom he was said to have treated cruelly,

had suddenly left him, and gone away, nobody knew whither. Other

unpleasant stories were told about him. One was that, in his native

western province, a furious mob had sacked his house and his godowns,

and obliged him to fly for his life. Another was that, on his wedding

night, he had been compelled to give a banquet to the god Jizō.

It is still customary in some provinces, on the occasion of the

marriage of a very unpopular farmer, to make the bridegroom feast

Jizō. A band of sturdy young men force their way into the house,

carrying with them a stone image of the divinity, borrowed from the

highway or from some neighboring cemetery. A large crowd follows them.

They deposit the image in the guest-room, and they demand that ample

offerings of food and of saké be made to it at once. This means, of

course, a big feast for themselves, and it is more than dangerous to

refuse. All the uninvited guests must be served till they can neither

eat nor drink any more. The obligation to give such a feast is not only

a public rebuke: it is also a lasting public disgrace.

In his old age, Okazaki wished to treat himself to the luxury of

a young and pretty wife; but in spite of his wealth he found this

wish less easy to gratify than he had expected. Various families had

checkmated his proposals at once by stipulating impossible conditions.

The Headman of the village had answered, less politely, that he would

sooner give his daughter to an oni (demon). And the rice dealer would

probably have found himself obliged to seek for a wife in some other

district, if he had not happened, after these failures, to notice

O-Yoshi. The girl much more than pleased him; and he thought he might

be able to obtain her by making certain offers to her people, whom he

supposed to be poor. Accordingly, he tried, through the nakōdo, to open

negotiations with the Miyahara family.

O-Yoshi's peasant step-mother, though entirely uneducated, was

very much the reverse of a simple woman. She had never loved her

step-daughter, but was much too intelligent to be cruel to her without

reason. Moreover, O-Yoshi was far from being in her way. O-Yoshi was

a faithful worker, obedient, sweet-tempered, and very useful in the

house. But the same cool shrewdness that discerned O-Yoshi's merits

also estimated the girl's value in the marriage market. Okazaki never

suspected that he was going to deal with his natural superior in

cunning. O-Tama knew a great deal of his history. She knew the extent

of his wealth. She was aware of his unsuccessful attempts to obtain a

wife from various families, both within and without the village. She

suspected that O-Yoshi's beauty might have aroused a real passion,

and she knew that an old man's passion might be taken advantage of in

a large number of cases. O-Yoshi was not wonderfully beautiful, but

she was a really pretty and graceful girl, with very winning ways; and

to get another like her, Okazaki would have to travel far. Should he

refuse to pay well for the privilege of obtaining such a wife, O-Tama

knew of younger men who would not hesitate to be generous. He might

have O-Yoshi, but never upon easy terms. After the repulse of his first

advances, his conduct would betray him. Should he prove to be really

enamored, he could be forced to do more than any other resident of

the district could possibly afford. It was therefore highly important

to discover the real strength of his inclination, and to keep the

whole matter, in the mean time, from the knowledge of O-Yoshi. As the

reputation of the nakōdo depended on professional silence, there was no

likelihood of his betraying the secret.

The policy of the Miyahara family was settled in a consultation between

O-Yoshi's father and her step-mother. Old Miyahara would have scarcely

presumed, in any event, to oppose his wife's plans; but she took the

precaution of persuading him, first of all, that such a marriage ought

to be in many ways to his daughter's interest. She discussed with him

the possible financial advantages of the union. She represented that

there were, indeed, unpleasant risks, but that these could be provided

against by making Okazaki agree to certain preliminary settlements.

Then she taught her husband his rôle. Pending negotiations, the visits

of Tarō were to be encouraged. The liking of the pair for each other

was a mere cobweb of sentiment that could be brushed out of existence

at the required moment; and meantime it was to be made use of. That

Okazaki should hear of a likely young rival might hasten desirable

conclusions.

It was for these reasons that, when Tarō's father first proposed

for O-Yoshi in his son's name, the suit was neither accepted nor

discouraged. The only immediate objection offered was that O-Yoshi was

one year older than Taro, and that such a marriage would be contrary to

custom,--which was quite true. Still, the objection was a weak one, and

had been selected because of its apparent unimportance.

Okazaki's first overtures were at the same time received in suck a

manner as to convey the impression that their sincerity was suspected.

The Miyahara refused to understand the nakōdo at all. They remained

astonishingly obtuse even to the plainest assurances, until Okazaki

found it politic to shape what he thought a tempting offer. Old

Miyahara then declared that he would leave the matter in his wife's

hands, and abide by her decision.

O-Tama decided by instantly rejecting the proposal, with every

appearance of scornful astonishment. She said unpleasant things. There

was once a man who wanted to get a beautiful wife very cheap. At last

he found a beautiful woman who said she ate only two grains of rice

every day. So he married her; and every day she put into her mouth only

two grains of rice; and he was happy. But one night, on returning from

a journey, he watched her secretly through a hole in the roof, and saw

her eating monstrously,--devouring mountains of rice and fish, and

putting all the food into a hole in the top of her head under her hair.

Then he knew that he had married the Yama-Omba.

O-Tama waited a month for the results of her rebuff,--waited very

confidently, knowing how the imagined value of something wished for

can be increased by the increase of the difficulty of getting it. And,

as she expected, the nakōdo at last reappeared. This time Okazaki

approached the matter less condescendingly than before; adding to his

first offer, and even volunteering seductive promises. Then she knew

she was going to have him in her power. Her plan of campaign was not

complicated, but it was founded upon a deep instinctive knowledge of

the uglier side of human nature; and she felt sure of success. Promises

were for fools; legal contracts involving conditions were traps for the

simple. Okazaki should yield up no small portion of his property before

obtaining O-Yoshi.

Taro's father earnestly desired his son's marriage with O-Yoshi,

and had tried to bring it about in the usual way. He was surprised

at not being able to get any definite answer from the Miyahara. He

was a plain, simple man; but he had the intuition of sympathetic

natures, and the unusually gracious manner of O-Tama, whom he had

always disliked, made him suspect that he had nothing to hope. He

thought it best to tell his suspicions to Tarō, with the result that

the lad fretted himself into a fever. But O-Yoshi's step-mother had no

intention of reducing Taro to despair at so early a stage of her plot.

She sent kindly worded messages to the house during his illness, and a

letter from O-Yoshi, which had the desired effect of reviving all his

hopes. After his sickness, he was graciously received by the Miyahara,

and allowed to talk to O-Yoshi in the shop. Nothing, however, was said

about his father's visit.

The lovers had also frequent chances to meet at the ujigami court,

whither O-Yoshi often went with her step-mother's last baby. Even among

the crowd of nurse-girls, children, and young mothers, they could

exchange a few words without fear of gossip. Their hopes received no

further serious check for a month, when O-Taina pleasantly proposed to

Tarō's father an impossible pecuniary arrangement. She had lifted a

corner of her mask, because Okazaki was struggling wildly in the net

she had spread for him, and by the violence of the struggles she knew

the end was not far off. O-Yoshi was still ignorant of what was going

on; but she had reason to fear that she would never be given to Tarō.

She was becoming thinner and paler.

Tarō one morning took his child-brother with him to the temple court,

in the hope of an opportunity to chat with O-Yoshi. They met; and he

told her that he was feeling afraid. He had found that the little

wooden amulet which his mother had put about his neck when he was a

child had been broken within the silken cover.

"That is not bad luck," said O-Yoshi. "It is only a sign that the

august gods have been guarding you. There has been sickness in the

village; and you caught the fever, but you got well. The holy charm

shielded you: that is why it was broken. Tell the kannushi to-day: he

will give you another."

Because they were very unhappy, and had never done harm to anybody,

they began to reason about the justice of the universe.

Tarō said: "Perhaps in the former life we hated each other. Perhaps

I was unkind to you, or you to me. And this is our punishment. The

priests say so."

O-Yoshi made answer with something of her old playfulness: "I was a man

then, and you were a woman. I loved you very, very much; but you were

very unkind to me. I remember it all quite well."

"You are not a Bosatsu," returned Taro, smiling despite his sorrow; "so

you cannot remember anything. It is only in the first of the ten states

of Bosatsu that we begin to remember."

"How do you know I am not a Bosatsu?"

"You are a woman. A woman cannot be a Bosatsu."

"But is not Kwan-ze-on Bosatsu a woman?"

"Well, that is true. But a Bosatsu cannot love anything except the kyō."

"Did not Shaka have a wife and a son? Did he not love them?"

"Yes; but you know he had to leave them."

"That was very bad, even if Shaka did it. But I don't believe all those

stories. And would you leave me, if you could get me?"

So they theorized and argued, and even laughed betimes: it was so

pleasant to be together. But suddenly the girl became serious again,

and said:--

"Listen! Last night I saw a dream. I saw a strange river, and the sea.

I was standing, I thought, beside the river, very near to where it

flowed into the sea. And I was afraid, very much afraid, and did not

know why. Then I looked, and saw there was no water in the river, no

water in the sea, but only the bones of the Buddhas. But they were all

moving, just like water.

"Then again I thought I was at home, and that you had given me a

beautiful gift-silk for a kimono, and that the kimono had been made.

And I put it on. And then I wondered, because at first it had seemed of

many colors, but now it was all white; and I had foolishly folded it

upon me as the robes of the dead are folded, to the left. Then I went

to the homes of all my kinsfolk to say good-by; and I told them I was

going to the Meido. And they all asked me why; and I could not answer."

"That is good," responded Tarō; "it is very lucky to dream of the

dead. Perhaps it is a sign we shall soon be husband and wife." This

time the girl did not reply; neither did she smile.

Tarō was silent a minute; then he added: "If you think it was not a

good dream, Yoshi, whisper it all to the nanten plant in the garden:

then it will not come true."

But on the evening of the same day Taro's father was notified that

Miyahara O-Yoshi was to become the wife of Okazaki Yaïchirō.

VII

O-Tama was really a very clever woman. She had never made any serious

mistakes. She was one of those excellently organized beings who

succeed in life by the perfect ease with which they exploit inferior

natures. The full experience of her peasant ancestry in patience, in

cunning, in crafty perception, in rapid foresight, in hard economy,

was concentrated into a perfect machinery within her unlettered brain.

That machinery worked faultlessly in the environment which had called

it into existence, and upon the particular human material with which it

was adapted to deal,--the nature of the peasant. But there was another

nature which O-Tama understood less well, because there was nothing in

her ancestral experience to elucidate it. She was a strong disbeliever

in all the old ideas about character distinctions between samurai and

heimin. She considered there had never been any differences between

the military and the agricultural classes, except such differences

of rank as laws and customs had established; and these had been bad.

Laws and customs, she thought, had resulted in making all people

of the former samurai class more or less helpless and foolish; and

secretly she despised all shizoku. By their incapacity for hard work

and their absolute ignorance of business methods, she had seen them

reduced from wealth to misery. She had seen the pension bonds given

them by the new government pass from their hands into the clutches of

cunning speculators of the most vulgar class. She despised weakness;

she despised incapacity; and she deemed the commonest vegetable

seller a much superior being to the ex-Karō obliged in his old age to

beg assistance from those who had formerly cast off their footgear

and bowed their heads to the mud whenever he passed by. She did not

consider it an advantage for O-Yoshi to have had a samurai mother: she

attributed the girl's delicacy to that cause, and thought her descent

a misfortune. She had clearly read in O-Yoshi's character all that

could be read by one not of a superior caste; among other facts, that

nothing would be gained by needless harshness to the child, and the

implied quality was not one that she disliked. But there were other

qualities in O-Yoshi that she had never clearly perceived,--a profound

though well-controlled sensitiveness to moral wrong, an unconquerable

self-respect, and a latent reserve of will power that could triumph

over any physical pain. And thus it happened that the behavior of

O-Yoshi, when told she would have to become the wife of Okazaki, duped

her step-mother, who was prepared to encounter a revolt. She was

mistaken.

At first the girl turned white as death. But in another moment she

blushed, smiled, bowed down, and agreeably astonished the Miyahara

by announcing, in the formal language of filial piety, her readiness

to obey the will of her parents in all things. There was no further

appearance even of secret dissatisfaction in her manner; and O-Tama was

so pleased that she took her into confidence, and told her something of

the comedy of the negotiations, and the full extent of the sacrifices

which Okazaki had been compelled to make. Furthermore, in addition to

such trite consolations as are always offered to a young girl betrothed

without her own consent to an old man, O-Tama gave her some really

priceless advice how to manage Okazaki. Tarō's name was not even once

mentioned. For the advice O-Yoshi dutifully thanked her step-mother,

with graceful prostrations. It was certainly admirable advice. Almost

any intelligent peasant girl, fully instructed by such a teacher as

O-Tama, might have been able to support existence with Okazaki. But

O-Yoshi was only half a peasant girl. Her first sudden pallor and her

subsequent crimson flush, after the announcement of the fate reserved

for her, were caused by two emotional sensations of which O-Tama was

far from suspecting the nature. Both represented much more complex

and rapid thinking than O-Tama had ever done in all her calculating

experience.

The first was a shock of horror accompanying the full recognition

of the absolute moral insensibility of her step-mother, the utter

hopelessness of any protest, the virtual sale of her person to that

hideous old man for the sole motive of unnecessary gain, the cruelty

and the shame of the transaction. But almost as quickly there rushed

to her consciousness an equally complete sense of the need of courage

and strength to face the worst, and of subtlety to cope with strong

cunning. It was then she smiled. And as she smiled, her young will

became steel, of the sort that severs iron without turning edge. She

knew at once exactly what to do,--her samurai blood told her that; and

she plotted only to gain the time and the chance. And she felt already

so sure of triumph that she had to make a strong effort not to laugh

aloud. The light in her eyes completely deceived O-Tama, who detected

only a manifestation of satisfied feeling, and imagined the feeling due

to a sudden perception of advantages to be gained by a rich marriage.

It was the fifteenth day of the ninth month; and the wedding was to be

celebrated upon the sixth of the tenth month. But three days later,

O-Tama, rising at dawn, found that her step-daughter had disappeared

during the night. Tarō Uchida had not been seen by his father since the

afternoon of the previous day. But letters from both were received a

few hours afterwards.

VIII

The early morning train from Kyōto was in; the little station was full

of hurry and noise,--clattering of geta, humming of converse, and

fragmentary cries of village boys selling cakes and luncheons: "_Kwashi

yoros--!_" "_Sushi yoros--!_" "_Bentō yoros--!_" Five minutes, and the

geta clatter, and the banging of carriage doors, and the shrilling of

the boys stopped, as a whistle blew and the train jolted and moved.

It rumbled out, puffed away slowly northward, and the little station

emptied itself. The policeman on duty at the wicket banged it to, and

began to walk up and down the sanded platform, surveying the silent

rice-fields.

Autumn had come,--the Period of Great Light. The sun glow had suddenly

become whiter, and shadows sharper, and all outlines clear as edges

of splintered glass. The mosses, long parched out of visibility by

the summer heat, had revived in wonderful patches and bands of bright

soft green over all shaded bare spaces of the black volcanic soil;

from every group of pine-trees vibrated the shrill wheeze of the

tsuku-tsuku-bōshi; and above all the little ditches and canals was a

silent flickering of tiny lightnings,--zigzag soundless flashings of

emerald and rose and azure-of-steel,--the shooting of dragon-flies.

Now, it may have been due to the extraordinary clearness of the morning

air that the policeman was able to perceive, far up the track, looking

north, something which caused him to start, to shade his eyes with his

hand, and then to look at the clock. But, as a rule, the black eye of

a Japanese policeman, like the eye of a poised kite, seldom fails to

perceive the least unusual happening within the whole limit of its

vision. I remember that once, in far-away Oki, wishing, without being

myself observed, to watch a mask-dance in the street before my inn,

I poked a small hole through a paper window of the second story, and

peered at the performance. Down the street stalked a policeman, in

snowy uniform and havelock; for it was midsummer. He did not appear

even to see the dancers or the crowd through which he walked without so

much as turning his head to either side. Then he suddenly halted, and

fixed his gaze exactly on the hole in my shōji; for at that hole he had

seen an eye which he had instantly decided, by reason of its shape, to

be a foreign eye. Then he entered the inn, and asked questions about my

passport, which had already been examined.

What the policeman at the village station observed, and afterwards

reported, was that, more than half a mile north of the station, two

persons had reached the railroad track by crossing the rice-fields,

apparently after leaving a farmhouse considerably to the northwest of

the village. One of them, a woman, he judged by the color of her robe

and girdle to be very young. The early express train from Tōkyō was

then due in a few minutes, and its advancing smoke could be perceived

from the station platform. The two persons began to run quickly along

the track upon which the train was coming. They ran on out of sight

round a curve.

Those two persons were Tarō and O-Yoshi. They ran quickly, partly to

escape the observation of that very policeman, and partly so as to meet

the Tōkyō express as far from the station as possible. After passing

the curve, however, they stopped running, and walked, for they could

see the smoke coming. As soon as they could see the train itself, they

stepped off the track, so as not to alarm the engineer, and waited,

hand in hand. Another minute, and the low roar rushed to their ears,

and they knew it was time. They stepped back to the track again,

turned, wound their arms about each other, and lay down cheek to cheek,

very softly and quickly, straight across the inside rail, already

ringing like an anvil to the vibration of the hurrying pressure.

The boy smiled. The girl, tightening her arms about his neck, spoke in

his ear:--

"For the time of two lives, and of three, I am your wife; you are my

husband, Tarō Sama."

Tarō said nothing, because almost at the same instant, notwithstanding

frantic attempts to halt a fast train without airbrakes in a distance

of little more than a hundred yards, the wheels passed through

both,--cutting evenly, like enormous shears.

The village people now put bamboo cups full of flowers upon the single

gravestone of the united pair, and burn incense-sticks, and repeat

prayers. This is not orthodox at all, because Buddhism forbids jōshi,

and the cemetery is a Buddhist one; but there is religion in it,--a

religion worthy of profound respect.

You ask why and how the people pray to those dead. Well, all do not

pray to them, but lovers do, especially unhappy ones. Other folk only

decorate the tomb and repeat pious texts. But lovers pray there for

supernatural sympathy and help. I was myself obliged to ask why, and I

was answered simply, "_Because those dead suffered so much._"

So that the idea which prompts such prayers would seem to be at once

more ancient and more modern than Buddhism,--the Idea of the eternal

Religion of Suffering.

A WISH FULFILLED

Then, when thou leavest the body, and comest into the free ether, thou

shalt be a God undying, everlasting;--neither shall death have any more

dominion over thee.--The Golden Verses.

The streets were full of white uniforms, and the calling of bugles,

and the rumbling of artillery. The armies of Japan, for the third

time in history, had subdued Korea; and the Imperial declaration of

war against China had been published by the city journals, printed on

crimson paper. All the military powers of the Empire were in motion.

The first line of reserves had been summoned, and troops were pouring

into Kumamoto. Thousands were billeted upon the citizens; for barracks

and inns and temples could not shelter the passing host. And still

there was no room, though special trains were carrying regiments north,

as fast as possible, to the transports waiting at Shimonoseki.

Nevertheless, considering the immensity of the movement, the city was

astonishingly quiet. The troops were silent and gentle as Japanese boys

in school hours; there was no swaggering, no reckless gayety. Buddhist

priests were addressing squadrons in the courts of the temples; and a

great ceremony had already been performed in the parade-ground by the

Abbot of the Shin-shū sect, who had come from Kyōto for the occasion.

Thousands had been placed by him under the protection of Amida; the

laying of a naked razor-blade on each young head, symbolizing voluntary

renunciation of life's vanities, was the soldier's consecration.

Everywhere, at the shrines of the older faith, prayers were being

offered up by priests and people to the shades of heroes who fought

and died for their Emperor in ancient days, and to the gods of armies.

At the Shintō temple of Fujisaki sacred charms were being distributed

to the men. But the most imposing rites were those at Honmyōji, the

far-famed monastery of the Nichiren sect, where for three hundred years

have reposed the ashes of Kato Kiyomasa, conqueror of Korea, enemy

of the Jesuits, protector of the Buddhists;--Honmyōji, where the

pilgrim chant of the sacred invocation, Namu-myō-hō-renge-kyō, sounds

like the roar of surf;--Honmyōji, where you may buy wonderful little

mamori in the shape of tiny Buddhist shrines, each holding a minuscule

image of the deified warrior. In the great central temple, and in all

the lesser temples that line the long approach, special services were

sung, and special prayers were addressed to the spirit of the hero for

ghostly aid. The armor, and helmet, and sword of Kiyomasa, preserved in

the main shrine for three centuries, were no longer to be seen. Some

declared that they had been sent to Korea, to stimulate the heroism

of the army. But others told a story of echoing hoofs in the temple

court by night, and the passing of a mighty Shadow, risen from the dust

of his sleep, to lead the armies of the Son of Heaven once more to

conquest. Doubtless even among the soldiers, brave, simple lads from

the country, many believed,--just as the men of Athens believed in the

presence of Theseus at Marathon. All the more, perhaps, because to no

small number of the new recruits Kumamoto itself appeared a place of

marvels hallowed by traditions of the great captain, and its castle

a world's wonder, built by Kiyomasa after the plan of a stronghold

stormed in Chösen.

Amid all these preparations, the people remained singularly quiet.

From mere outward signs no stranger could have divined the general

feeling.[1] The public calm was characteristically Japanese; the race,

like the individual, becoming to all appearance the more self-contained

the more profoundly its emotions are called into play. The Emperor had

sent presents to his troops in Korea, and words of paternal affection;

and citizens, following the august example, were shipping away by every

steamer supplies of rice-wine, provisions, fruits, dainties, tobacco,

and gifts of all kinds. Those who could afford nothing costlier were

sending straw sandals. The entire nation was subscribing to the war

fund; and Kumamoto, though by no means wealthy, was doing all that both

poor and rich could help her do to prove her loyalty. The check of the

merchant mingled obscurely with the paper dollar of the artisan, the

laborer's dime, the coppers of the kurumaya, in the great fraternity

of unbidden self-denial. Even children gave; and their pathetic

little contributions were not refused, lest the universal impulse of

patriotism should be in any manner discouraged. But there were special

subscriptions also being collected in every street for the support

of the families of the troops of the reserves,--married men, engaged

mostly in humble callings, who had been obliged of a sudden to leave

their wives and little ones without the means to live. That means the

citizens voluntarily and solemnly pledged themselves to supply. One

could not doubt that the soldiers, with all this unselfish love behind

them, would perform even more than simple duty demanded.

And they did.

[1] This was written in Kumamoto during the fall of 1894. The

enthusiasm of the nation was concentrated and silent; but under that

exterior calm smouldered all the fierceness of the old feudal days.

The Government was obliged to decline the freely proffered services

of myriads of volunteers,--- chiefly swordsmen. Had a call for such

volunteers been made I am sure 100,000 men would have answered it

within a week. But the war spirit manifested itself in other ways

not less painful than extraordinary. Many killed themselves on being

refused the chance of military service; and I may cite at random a

few strange facts from the local press. The gendarme at Söul, ordered

to escort Minister Otori back to Japan, killed himself for chagrin at

not having been allowed to proceed instead to the field of battle.

An officer named Ishiyama, prevented by illness from joining his

regiment on the day of its departure for Korea, rose from his sick-bed,

and, after saluting a portrait of the Emperor, killed himself with

his sword. A soldier named Ikeda, at Ōsaka, having been told that

because of some breach of discipline he might not be permitted to go

to the front, shot himself. Captain Kani, of the "Mixed Brigade," was

prostrated by sickness during the attack made by his regiment on a fort

near Chinchow, and carried insensible to the hospital. Recovering a

week later, he went (November 28) to the spot where he had fallen, and

killed himself,--leaving this letter, translated by the _Japan Daily

Mail_: "It was here that illness compelled me to halt and to let my

men storm the fort without me. Never can I wipe out such a disgrace in

life. To clear my honor I die thus,--leaving this letter to speak for

me."

A lieutenant in Tōkyō, finding none to take care of his little

motherless girl after his departure, killed her, and joined his

regiment before the facts were known. He afterwards sought death on the

field and found it, that he might join his child on her journey to the

Meido. This reminds one of the terrible spirit of feudal times. The

samurai, before going into a hopeless contest, sometimes killed his

wife and children the better to forget those three things no warrior

should remember on the battle-field,--namely, home, the dear ones, and

his own body. After that act of ferocious heroism the samurai was ready

for the shini-mono-gurui,--the hour of the "death-fury,"--giving and

taking no quarter.

Manyemon said there was a soldier at the entrance who wanted to see me.

"Oh, Manyemon, I hope they are not going to billet soldiers upon

us!--the house is too small! Please ask him what he wishes."

"I did," answered Manyemon; "he says he knows you."

I went to the door and looked at a fine young fellow in uniform, who

smiled and took off his cap as I came forward. I could not recognize

him. The smile was familiar, notwithstanding. Where could I have seen

it before?

"Teacher, have you really forgotten me?"

For another moment I stared at him, wondering: then he laughed gently,

and uttered his name,--

"Kosuga Asakichi."

How my heart leaped to him as I held out both hands! "Come in, come in!"

I cried.

"But how big and handsome you have grown! No wonder I did not know you."

He blushed like a girl, as he slipped off his shoes and unbuckled his

sword. I remembered that he used to blush the same way in class, both

when he made a mistake, and when he was praised. Evidently his heart

was still as fresh as then, when he was a shy boy of sixteen in the

school at Matsue. He had got permission to come to bid me good-by: the

regiment was to leave in the morning for Korea.

We dined together, and talked of old times,--of Izumo, of Kitzuki, of

many pleasant things. I tried in vain at first to make him drink a

little wine; not knowing that he had promised his mother never to drink

wine while he was in the army. Then I substituted coffee for the wine,

and coaxed him to tell me all about himself. He had returned to his

native place, after graduating, to help his people, wealthy farmers;

and he had found that his agricultural studies at school were of great

service to him. A year later, all the youths of the village who had

reached the age of nineteen, himself among the number, were summoned

to the Buddhist temple for examination as to bodily and educational

fitness for military service. He had passed as ichiban (first-class)

by the verdicts of the examining surgeon and of the recruiting-major

(_shōsa_), and had been drawn at the ensuing conscription. After

thirteen months' service he had been promoted to the rank of sergeant.

He liked the array. At first he had been stationed at Nagoya, then at

Tōkyō; but finding that his regiment was not to be sent to Korea, he

had petitioned with success for transfer to the Kumamoto division. "And

now I am so glad," he exclaimed, his face radiant with a soldier's

joy: "we go to-morrow!" Then he blushed again, as if ashamed of having

uttered his frank delight. I thought of Carlyle's deep saying, that

never pleasures, but only suffering and death are the lures that draw

true hearts. I thought also--what I could not say to any Japanese--that

the joy in the lad's eyes was like nothing I had ever seen before,

except the caress in the eyes of a lover on the morning of his bridal.

"Do you remember," I asked, "when you declared in the schoolroom that

you wished to die for His Majesty the Emperor?"

"Yes," he answered, laughing. "And the chance has come,--not for me

only, but for several of my class."

"Where are they?" I asked. "With you?"

"No; they were all in the Hiroshima division, and they are already

in Korea. Imaoka (you remember him, teacher: he was very tall), and

Nagasaki, and Ishihara,--they were all in the fight at Söng-Hwan. And

our drill-master, the lieutenant,--you remember him?"

"Lieutenant Fujii, yes. He had retired from the army."

"But he belonged to the reserves. He has also gone to Korea. He has had

another son born since you left Izumo."

"He had two little girls and one boy," I said, "when I was in Matsue."

"Yes: now he has two boys."

"Then his family must feel very anxious about him?"

"_He_ is not anxious," replied the lad. "To die in battle is very

honorable; and the Government will care for the families of those who

are killed. So our officers have no fear. Only--it is very sad to die

if one has no son."

"I cannot see why."

"Is it not so in the West?"

"On the contrary, we think it is very sad for the man to die who has

children."

"But why?"

"Every good father must be anxious about the future of his children.

If he be taken suddenly away from them, they may have to suffer many

sorrows."

"It is not so in the families of our officers. The relations care well

for the child, and the Government gives a pension. So the father need

not be afraid. But to die is sorrowful for one who has no child."

"Do you mean sorrowful for the wife and the rest of the family?"

"No; I mean for the man himself, the husband."

"And how? Of what use can a son be to a dead man?"

"The son inherits. The son maintains the family name. The son makes the

offerings."

"The offerings to the dead?"

"Yes. Do you now understand?"

"I understand the fact, not the feeling. Do military men still hold

these beliefs?"

"Certainly. Are there no such beliefs in the West?"

"Not now. The ancient Greeks and Romans had such beliefs. They thought

that the ancestral spirits dwelt in the home, received the offerings,

watched over the family. Why they thought so, we partly know; but

we cannot know exactly how they felt, because we cannot understand

feelings which we have never experienced, or which we have not

inherited. For the same reason, I cannot know the real feeling of a

Japanese in relation to the dead."

"Then you think that death is the end of everything?"

"That is not the explanation of my difficulty. Some feelings are

inherited,--perhaps also some ideas. Your feelings and your thoughts

about the dead, and the duty of the living to the dead, are totally

different from those of an Occidental. To us the idea of death is that

of a total separation, not only from the living, but from the world.

Does not Buddhism also tell of a long dark journey that the dead must

make?"

"The journey to the Meido,--yes. All must make that journey. But we

do not think of death as a total separation. We think of the dead as

still with us. We speak to them each day."

"I know that. What I do not know are the ideas behind the facts. If the

dead go to the Meido, why should offerings be made to ancestors in the

household shrines, and prayers be said to them as if they were really

present? Do not the common people thus confuse Buddhist teachings and

Shintō belief?"

"Perhaps many do. But even by those who are Buddhists only, the

offerings and the prayers to the dead are made in different places

at the same time,--in the parish temples, and also before the family

butsudan."

"But how can souls be thought of as being in the Meido, and also in

various other places at the same time? Even if the people believe the

soul to be multiple, that would not explain away the contradiction. For

the dead, according to Buddhist teaching, are judged."

"We think of the soul both as one and as many. We think of it as of one

person, but not as of a substance. We think of it as something that may

be in many places at once, like a moving of air."

"Or of electricity?" I suggested.

"Yes."

Evidently, to my young friend's mind the ideas of the Meido and of

the home-worship of the dead had never seemed irreconcilable; and

perhaps to any student of Buddhist philosophy the two faiths would not

appear to involve any serious contradictions. The Sutra of the Lotus

of the Good Law teaches that the Buddha state "is endless and without

limit,--immense as the element of ether." Of a Buddha who had long

entered into Nirvana it declares, "Even after his complete extinction,

he wanders through this whole world in all ten points of space." And

the same Sutra, after recounting the simultaneous apparition of all

the Buddhas who had ever been, makes the teacher proclaim, "_All these

you see are my proper bodies, by kotis of thousands, like the sands of

the Ganges: they have appeared that the law may be fulfilled._" But it

seemed to me obvious that, in the artless imagination of the common

people, no real accord could ever have been established between the

primitive conceptions of Shintō and the much more definite Buddhist

doctrine of a judgment of souls.

"Can you really think of death," I asked, "as life, as light?"

"Oh yes," was the smiling answer. "We think that after death we shall

still be with our families. We shall see our parents, our friends. We

shall remain in this world,--the light as now."

(There suddenly recurred to me, with new meaning, some words of a

student's composition regarding the future of a just man: _His soul

shall hover eternally in the universe._)

"And therefore," continued Asakichi, "one who has a son can die with a

cheerful mind."

"Because the son will make those offerings of food and drink without

which the spirit would suffer?" I queried.

"It is not only that. There are duties much more important than the

making of offerings. It is because every man needs some one to love him

after he is dead. Now you will understand."

"Only your words," I replied, "only the facts of the belief. The

feeling I do not understand. I cannot think that the love of the

living could make me happy after death. I cannot even imagine myself

conscious of any love after death. And you, you are going far away to

battle,--do you think it unfortunate that you have no son?"

"I? Oh no! I myself _am_ a son,--a younger son. My parents are still

alive and strong, and my brother is caring for them. If I am killed,

there will be many at home to love me,--brothers, sisters, and little

ones. It is different with us soldiers: we are nearly all very young."

"For how many years," I asked, "are the offerings made to the dead?"

"For one hundred years."

"Only for a hundred years?"

"Yes. Even in the Buddhist temples the prayers and the offerings are

made only for a hundred years."

"Then do the dead cease to care for remembrance in a hundred years? Or

do they fade out at last? Is there a dying of souls?"

"No, but after one hundred years they are no longer with us. Some say

they are born again; others say they become kami, and do reverence to

them as kami, and on certain days make offerings to them in the toko."

(Such were, I knew, the commonly accepted explanations, but I had heard

of beliefs strangely at variance with these. There are traditions that,

in families of exceeding virtue, the souls of ancestors took material

form, and remained sometimes visible through hundreds of years. A

sengaji pilgrim[1] of old days has left an account of two whom he said

he had seen in some remote part of the interior. They were small, dim

shapes, "dark like old bronze." They could not speak, but made little

moaning sounds, and they did not eat, but only inhaled the warm vapor

of the food daily set before them. Every year, their descendants said,

they became smaller and vaguer.)

"Do you think it is very strange that we should love the dead?"

Asakichi asked.

"No," I replied, "I think it is beautiful. But to me, as a Western

stranger, the custom seems not of to-day, but of a more ancient world.

The thoughts of the old Greeks about the dead must have been much like

those of the modern Japanese. The feelings of an Athenian soldier in

the age of Pericles were perhaps the same as yours in this era of

Meiji. And you have read at school how the Greeks sacrificed to the

dead, and how they paid honor to the spirits of brave men and patriots?"

"Yes. Some of their customs were very like our own. Those of us who

fall in battle against China will also be honored. They will be revered

as kami. Even our Emperor will honor them."

"But," I said, "to die so far away from the graves of one's fathers, in

a foreign land, would seem, even to Western people, a very sad thing."

"Oh no. There will be monuments set up to honor our dead in their own

native villages and towns, and the bodies of our soldiers will be

burned, and the ashes sent home to Japan. At least that will be done

whenever possible. It might be difficult after a great battle."

(A sudden memory of Homer surged back to me, with, a vision of that

antique plain where "the pyres of the dead burnt continually in

multitude.")

"And the spirits of the soldiers slain in this war," I asked,--"will

they not always be prayed to help the country in time of national

danger?"

"Oh yes, always. We shall be loved and worshiped by all the people."

He said "we" quite naturally, like one already destined. After a little

pause he resinned:--

"The last year that I was at school we had a military excursion. We

marched to a shrine in the district of In, where the spirits of heroes

are worshiped. It is a beautiful and lonesome place, among hills; and

the temple is shadowed by very high trees. It is always dim and cool

and silent there. We drew up before the shrine in military order;

nobody spoke. Then the bugle sounded through the holy grove, like a

call to battle; and we all presented arms; and the tears came to my

eyes,--I do not know why. I looked at my comrades, and I saw they

felt as I did. Perhaps, because you are a foreigner, you will not

understand. But there is a little poem, that every Japanese knows,

which expresses the feeling very well. It was written long ago by the

great priest Saigyo Hōshi, who had been a warrior before becoming a

priest, and whose real name was Sato Norikyo:--

"'_Nani go to no_

_Owashimasu ka wa_

_Shirane domo_

_Arigata sa ni zo_

_Namida kobururu._'"[2]

It was not the first time that I had heard such a confession. Many of

my students had not hesitated to speak of sentiments evoked by the

sacred traditions and the dim solemnity of the ancient shrines. Really

the experience of Asakichi was no more individual than might be a

single ripple in a fathomless sea. He had only uttered the ancestral

feeling of a race,--the vague but immeasurable emotion of Shintō.

We talked on till the soft summer darkness fell. Stars and the

electric lights of the citadel twinkled out together; bugles sang;

and from Kiyomasa's fortress rolled into the night a sound deep as a

thunder-peal, the chant of ten thousand men:--

Nishi mo higashi mo

Mina teki zo,

Minami mo kita mo

Mina teki zo:

Yose-kura teki wa

Shiranuhi no

Tsukushi no hate no

Satsuma gata.[3]

"You have learned that song, have you not?" I asked.

"Oh yes," said Asakichi. "Every soldier knows it."

It was the Kumamoto Rōjō, the Song of the Siege. We listened, and could

even catch some words in that mighty volume of sound:--

Tenchi mo kuzuru

Bakari nari,

Tenchi wa kuzure

Yama kawa wa

Saicuru tameshi no

Araba tote,

Ugokanu mono wa

Kimi ga mi yo.[4]

For a little while Asakichi sat listening, swaying his shoulders in

time to the strong rhythm of the chant; then, as one suddenly waking,

he laughed, and said:--

"Teacher, I must go! I do not know how to thank you enough, nor to tell

you how happy this day has been for me. But first,"--taking from his

breast a little envelope,--"please accept this. You asked me for a

photograph long ago: I brought it for a souvenir."

He rose, and buckled on his sword. I pressed his hand at the entrance.

"And what may I send you from Korea, teacher?" he asked.

"Only a letter," I said,--"after the next great victory."

"Surely, if I can hold a pen," he responded.

Then straightening up till he looked like a statue of bronze, he gave

me the formal military salute, and strode away in the dark.

I returned to the desolate guest-room and dreamed. I heard the thunder

of the soldiers' song. I listened to the roar of the trains, bearing

away so many young hearts, so much priceless loyalty, so much splendid

faith and love and valor, to the fever of Chinese rice-fields, to

gathering cyclones of death.

[1] A sengaji pilgrim is one who makes the pilgrimage to the thousand

famous temples of the Nichiren sect; a journey requiring many years to

perform.

[2] "What thing (cause) there may he, I cannot tell. But [whenever I

come in presence of the shrine] grateful tears overflow."

[3] This would be a free translation in nearly the same measure:--

Oh! the land to south and north

All is full of foes!

Westward, eastward, looking forth,

All is full of foes!

None can well the number tell

Of the hosts that pour

From the strand of Satsuma,

From Tsukushi's shore.

[4]

What if Earth should sundered he?

What if Heaven fall?

What if mountain mix with sea?

Brave hearts each and all,

Know one thing shall still endure,

Ruin cannot whelm,

Everlasting, holy, pure,--

This Imperial Realm.

III

The evening of the same day that we saw the name "Kosuga Asakichi" in

the long list published by the local newspaper, Manyemon decorated

and illuminated the alcove of the guest-room as for a sacred festival;

filling the vases with flowers, lighting several small lamps, and

kindling incense-rods in a little cup of bronze. When all was finished,

he called me. Approaching the recess, I saw the lad's photograph

within, set upright on a tiny dai; and before it was spread a miniature

feast of rice and fruits and cakes,--the old man's offering.

"Perhaps," ventured Manyemon, "it would please his spirit if the master

should be honorably willing to talk to him. He would understand the

master's English."

I did talk to him; and the portrait seemed to smile through the wreaths

of the incense. But that which I said was for him only, and the Gods.

IN YOKOHAMA

A good sight indeed has met us to-day,--a good daybreak,--a beautiful

rising;--for we have seen the Perfectly Enlightened, who has crossed

the stream.--HEMAVATASUTTA.

The Jizō-Dō was not easy to find, being hidden away in a court behind

a street of small shops; and the entrance to the court itself--a very

narrow opening between two houses--being veiled at every puff of wind

by the fluttering sign-drapery of a dealer in second-hand clothing.

Because of the heat, the shōji of the little temple had been removed,

leaving the sanctuary open to view on three sides. I saw the usual

Buddhist furniture--service-bell, reading-desk, and scarlet lacquered

mokugyō, disposed upon the yellow matting. The altar supported a stone

Jizō, wearing a bib for the sake of child ghosts; and above the statue,

upon a long shelf, were smaller ages gilded and painted,--another

Jizō, aureoled from head to feet, a radiant Amida, a sweet-faced

Kwannon, and a grewsome figure of the Judge of Souls. Still higher

were suspended a confused multitude of votive offerings, including

two framed prints taken from American illustrated papers: a view of

the Philadelphia Exhibition, and a portrait of Adelaide Neilson in

the character of Juliet. In lieu of the usual flower vases before the

horizon there were jars of glass bearing the inscription,--"_Reine

Claude au jus; conservation garantie. Toussaint Cosnard: Bordeaux._"

And the box filled with incense-rods bore the legend: "_Rich in

flavor--Pinhead Cigarettes._" To the innocent folk who gave them,

and who could never hope in this world to make costlier gifts,

these _ex-voto_ seemed beautiful because strange; and in spite of

incongruities it seemed to me that the little temple did really look

pretty.

A screen, with weird figures of Arhats creating dragons, masked the

further chamber; and the song of an unseen uguisu sweetened the hush

of the place. A red cat came from behind the screen to look at us,

and retired again, as if to convey a message. Presently appeared an

aged nun, who welcomed us and bade us enter; her smoothly shaven head

shining like a moon at every reverence. We doffed our footgear, and

followed her behind the screen, into a little room that opened upon a

garden; and we saw the old priest seated upon a cushion, and writing at

a very low table. He laid aside his brush to greet us; and we also took

our places on cushions before him. Very pleasant his face was to look

upon: all wrinkles written there by the ebb of life spake of that which

was good.

The nun brought us tea, and sweetmeats stamped with the Wheel of the

Law; the red cat curled itself up beside me; and the priest talked to

us. His voice was deep and gentle; there were bronze tones in it, like

the rich murmurings which follow each peal of a temple bell. We coaxed

him to tell us about himself. He was eighty-eight years of age, and his

eyes and ears were still as those of a young man; but he could not walk

because of chronic rheumatism. For twenty years he had been occupied in

writing a religious history of Japan, to be completed in three hundred

volumes; and he had already completed two hundred and thirty. The rest

he hoped to write during the coming year. I saw on a small book-shelf

behind him the imposing array of neatly bound MSS.

"But the plan upon which he works," said my student interpreter,

"is quite wrong. His history will never be published; it is full of

impossible stories--miracles and fairy-tales."

(I thought I should like to read the stories.)

"For one who has reached such an age," I said, "you seem very strong."

"The signs are that' I shall live some years longer," replied the old

man, "though I wish to live only long enough to finish my history.

Then, as I am helpless and cannot move about, I want to die so as to

get a new body. I suppose I must have committed some fault in a former

life, to be crippled as I am. But I am glad to feel that I am nearing

the Shore."

"He means the shore of the Sea of Death and Birth," says my

interpreter. "The ship whereby we cross, you know, is the Ship of the

Good Law; and the farthest shore is Nehan,--Nirvana."

"Are all our bodily weaknesses and misfortunes," I asked, "the results

of errors committed in other births?"

"That which we are," the old man answered, "is the consequence of

that which we have been. We say in Japan the consequence of mangō and

ingō,--the two classes of actions."

"Evil and good?" I queried.

"Greater and lesser. There are no perfect actions. Every act contains

both merit and demerit, just as even the best painting has defects and

excellences. But when the sum of good in any action exceeds the sum of

evil, just as in a good painting the merits outweigh the faults, then

the result is progress. And gradually by such progress will all evil be

eliminated."

"But how," I asked, "can the result of actions affect the physical

conditions? The child follows the way of his fathers, inherits their

strength or their weakness; yet not from them does he receive his

soul."

"The chain of causes and effects is not easy to explain in a few words.

To understand all you should study the Dai-jō or Greater Vehicle; also

the Shō-jō, or Lesser Vehicle. There you will learn that the world

itself exists only because of acts. Even as one learning to write,

at first writes only with great difficulty, but afterward, becoming

skillful, writes without knowledge of any effort, so the tendency of

acts continually repeated is to form habit. And such tendencies persist

far beyond this life."

"Can any man obtain the power to remember his former births?"

"That is very rare," the old man answered, shaking his head. "To have

such memory one should first become a Bosatsu [Bodhissattva]."

"Is it not possible to become a Bosatsu?"

"Not in this age. This is the Period of Corruption. First there was

the Period of True Doctrine, when life was long; and after it came the

Period of Images, during which men departed from the highest truth;

and now the world is degenerate. It is not now possible by good deeds

to become a Buddha, because the world is too corrupt and life is

too short. But devout persons may attain the Gokuraku [Paradise] by

virtue of merit, and by constantly repeating the Nembutsu; and in the

Gokuraku, they may be able to practice the true doctrine. For the days

are longer there, and life also is very long."

"I have read in our translations of the Sutras," I said, "that by

virtue of good deeds men may be reborn in happier and yet happier

conditions successively, each time obtaining more perfect faculties,

each time surrounded by higher joys. Riches are spoken of, and strength

and beauty, and graceful women, and all that people desire in this

temporary world. Wherefore I cannot help thinking that the way of

progress must continually grow more difficult the further one proceeds.

For if these texts be true, the more one succeeds in detaching one's

self from the things of the senses, the more powerful become the

temptations to return to them. So that the reward of virtue would seem

itself to be made an obstacle in the path."

"Not so!" replied the old man. "They, who by self-mastery reach such

conditions of temporary happiness, have gained spiritual force also,

and some knowledge of truth. Their strength to conquer themselves

increases more and more with every triumph, until they reach at

last that world of Apparitional Birth, in which the lower forms of

temptation have no existence."

The red cat stirred uneasily at a sound of geta, then went to the

entrance, followed by the nun. There were some visitors waiting; and

the priest begged us to excuse him a little while, that he might attend

to their spiritual wants. We made place quickly for them, and they came

in,--poor pleasant folk, who saluted us kindly: a mother bereaved,

desiring to have prayers said for the happiness of her little dead boy;

a young wife to obtain the pity of the Buddha for her ailing husband; a

father and daughter to seek divine help for somebody that had gone very

far away. The priest spoke caressingly to all, giving to the mother

some little prints of Jizō, giving a paper of blest rice to the wife,

and on behalf of the father and daughter, preparing some holy texts.

Involuntarily there came to me the idea of all the countless innocent

prayers thus being daily made in countless temples; the idea of all

the fears and hopes and heartaches of simple love; the idea of all

the humble sorrows unheard by any save the gods. The student began to

examine the old man's books, and I began to think of the unthinkable.

Life--life as unity, uncreated, without beginning,--of which we know

the luminous shadows only;--life forever striving against death, and

always conquered yet always surviving--what is it?--why is it? A myriad

times the universe is dissipated,--a myriad times again evolved; and

the same life vanishes with every vanishing, only to reappear in

another cycling. The Cosmos becomes a nebula, the nebula a Cosmos:

eternally the swarms of suns and worlds are born; eternally they die.

But after each tremendous integration the flaming spheres cool down and

ripen into life; and the life ripens into Thought. The ghost in each

one of us must have passed through the burning of a million suns,--must

survive the awful vanishing of countless future universes. May not

Memory somehow and somewhere also survive? Are we sure that in ways

and forms unknowable it does not? as infinite vision,--remembrance of

the Future in the Past? Perhaps in the Night-without-end, as in deeps

of Nirvana, dreams of all that has ever been, of all that can ever be,

are being perpetually dreamed.

The parishioners uttered their thanks, made their little offerings to

Jizō, and retired, saluting us as they went. We resumed our former

places beside the little writing-table, and the old man said:--

"It is the priest, perhaps, who among all men best knows what sorrow is

in the world. I have heard that in the countries of the West there is

also much suffering, although the Western nations are so rich."

"Yes," I made answer; "and I think that in Western countries there

is more unhappiness than in Japan. For the rich there are larger

pleasures, but for the poor greater pains. Our life is much more

difficult to live; and, perhaps for that reason, our thoughts are more

troubled by the mystery of the world."

The priest seemed interested, but said nothing. With the interpreter's

help, I continued:--

"There are three great questions by which the minds of many men in the

Western countries are perpetually tormented. These questions we call

'the Whence, the Whither, and the Why,' meaning, Whence Life? Whither

does it go? Why does it exist and suffer? Our highest Western Science

declares them riddles impossible to solve, yet confesses at the same

time that the heart of man can find no peace till they are solved.

All religions have attempted explanations; and all their explanations

are different. I have searched Buddhist books for answers to these

questions, and I found answers which seemed to me better than any

others. Still, they did not satisfy me, being incomplete. From your own

lips I hope to obtain some answers to the first and the third questions

at least. I do not ask for proof or for arguments of any kind: I ask

only to know doctrine. Was the beginning of all things in universal

Mind?"

To this question I really expected no definite answer, having, in the

Sutra called Sabbâsava, read about "those things which ought not to

be considered," and about the Six Absurd Notions, and the words of the

rebuke to such as debate within themselves: "_This is a being: whence

did it come? whither will it go?_" But the answer came, measured and

musical, like a chant:--

"All things considered as individual have come into being, through

forms innumerable of development and reproduction, out of the universal

Mind. Potentially within that mind they had existed from eternity.

But between that we call Mind and that we call Substance there is no

difference of essence. What we name Substance is only the sum of our

own sensations and perceptions; and these themselves are but phenomena

of Mind. Of Substance-in-itself we have not any knowledge. We know

nothing beyond the phases of our mind, and these phases are wrought in

it by outer influence or power, to which we give the name Substance.

But Substance and Mind in themselves are only two phases of one

infinite Entity."

"There are Western teachers also," I said, "who teach a like doctrine;

and the most profound researches of our modern science seem to

demonstrate that what we term Matter has no absolute existence. But

concerning that infinite Entity of which you speak, is there any

Buddhist teaching as to when and how It first produced those two forms

which in name we still distinguish as Mind and Substance?"

"Buddhism," the old priest answered, "does not teach, as other

religions do, that things have been produced by creation. The one and

only Reality is the universal Mind, called in Japanese Shinnyo,[1]--the

Reality-in-its-very-self, infinite and eternal. Now this infinite

Mind within Itself beheld Its own sentiency. And, even as one who in

hallucination assumes apparitions to be actualities, so the universal

Entity took for external existences that which It beheld only within

Itself. We call this illusion Mu-myo,[2] signifying 'without radiance,'

or 'void of illumination.'"

"The word has been translated by some Western scholars," I observed,

"as Ignorance.'"

"So I have been told. But the idea conveyed by the word we use is not

the idea expressed by the term 'ignorance.' It is rather the idea of

enlightenment misdirected, or of illusion."

"And what has been taught," I asked, concerning the time of that

illusion?"

"The time of the primal illusion is said to be Mu-shi, 'beyond

beginning,' in the incalculable past. From Shinnyo emanated the first

distinction of the Self and the Not-Self, whence have arisen all

individual existences, whether of Spirit or of Substance, and all those

passions and desires, likewise, which influence the conditions of being

through countless births. Thus the universe is the emanation of the

infinite Entity; yet it cannot be said that we are the creations of

that Entity. The original Self of each of us is the universal Mind; and

within each of us the universal Self exists, together with the effects

of the primal illusion. And this state of the original Self enwrapped

in the results of illusion, we call Nyōrai-zō,[3] or the Womb of the

Buddha. The end for which we should all strive is simply our return to

the infinite Original Self, which is the essence of Buddha."

"There is another subject of doubt," I said, "about which I much

desire to know the teaching of Buddhism. Our Western science declares

that the visible universe has been evolved and dissolved successively

innumerable times during the infinite past, and must also vanish and

reappear through countless cycles in the infinite future. In our

translations of the ancient Indian philosophy, and of the sacred texts

of the Buddhists, the same thing is declared. But is it not also

taught that there shall come at last for all things a time of ultimate

vanishing and of perpetual rest?"

He answered: "The Shō-jō indeed teaches that the universe has appeared

and disappeared over and over again, times beyond reckoning in the

past, and that it must continue to be alternately dissolved and

reformed through unimaginable eternities to come. But we are also

taught that all things shall enter finally and forever, into the state

of Nehan."[4]

An irreverent yet irrepressible fancy suddenly arose within me. I could

not help thinking of Absolute Rest as expressed by the scientific

formula of two hundred and seventy-four degrees (centigrade) below

zero, or 461°.2 Fahrenheit. But I only said:--

"For the Western mind it is difficult to think of absolute rest as a

condition of bliss. Does the Buddhist idea of Nehan include the idea of

infinite stillness, of universal immobility?"

"No," replied the priest. "Nehan is the condition of Absolute

Self-sufficiency, the state of all-knowing, all-perceiving. We do

not suppose it a state of total inaction, but the supreme condition

of freedom from all restraint. It is true that we cannot imagine a

bodiless condition of perception or knowledge; because all our ideas

and sensations belong to the condition of the body. But we believe that

Nehan is the state of infinite vision and infinite wisdom and infinite

spiritual peace."

The red cat leaped upon the priest's knees, and there curled itself

into a posture of lazy comfort. The old man caressed it; and my

companion observed, with a little laugh:--

"See how fat it is! Perhaps it may have performed some good deeds in a

previous life."

"Do the conditions of animals," I asked, "also depend upon merit and

demerit in previous existences?"

The priest answered me seriously:--

"All conditions of being depend upon conditions preëxisting, and Life

is One. To be born into the world of men is fortunate; there we have

some enlightenment, and chances of gaining merit. But the state of

an animal is a state of obscurity of mind, deserving our pity and

benevolence. No animal can be considered truly fortunate; yet even in

the life of animals there are countless differences of condition."

A little silence followed,--softly broken by the purring of the cat. I

looked at the picture of Adelaide Neilson, just visible above the top

of the screen; and I thought of Juliet, and wondered what the priest

would say about Shakespeare's wondrous story of passion and sorrow,

were I able to relate it worthily in Japanese. Then suddenly, like an

answer to that wonder, came a memory of the two hundred and fifteenth

verse of the Dhammapada: "_From love comes grief; from grief comes

fear: one who is free from love knows neither grief nor fear._"

"Does Buddhism," I asked, "teach that all sexual love ought to be

suppressed? Is such love of necessity a hindrance to enlightenment?

I know that Buddhist priests, excepting those of the Shin-shū, are

forbidden to marry; but I do not know what is the teaching concerning

celibacy and marriage among the laity."

"Marriage may be either a hindrance or a help on the Path," the old

man said, "according to conditions. All depends upon conditions. If

the love of wife and child should cause a man to become too much

attached to the temporary advantages of this unhappy world, then such

love would be a hindrance. But, on the contrary, if the love of wife

and child should enable a man to live more purely and more unselfishly

than he could do in a state of celibacy, then marriage would be a very

great help to him in the Perfect Way. Many are the dangers of marriage

for the wise; but for those of little understanding the dangers of

celibacy are greater. And even the illusion of passion may sometimes

lead noble natures to the higher knowledge. There is a story of this.

Dai-Mokukenren,[5] whom the people call Mokuren, was a disciple of

Shaka.[6] He was a very comely man; and a girl became enamored of him.

As he belonged already to the Order, she despaired of being ever able

to have him for her husband; and she grieved in secret. But at last she

found courage to go to the Lord Buddha, and to speak all her heart to

him. Even while she was speaking, he cast a deep sleep upon her; and

she dreamed she was the happy wife of Mokuren. Years of contentment

seemed to pass in her dream; and after them years of joy and sorrow

mingled; and suddenly her husband was taken away from her by death.

Then she knew such sorrow that she wondered how she could live; and

she awoke in that pain, and saw the Buddha smile. And he said to her:

'Little Sister, thou hast seen. Choose now as thou wilt,--either to

be the bride of Mokuren, or to seek the higher Way upon which he

has entered.' Then she cut off her hair, and became a nun, and in

after-time attained to the condition of one never to be reborn."

For a moment it seemed to me that the story did not show how love's

illusion could lead to self-conquest; that the girl's conversion

was only the direct result of painful knowledge forced upon her,

not a consequence of her love. But presently I reflected that the

vision accorded her could have produced no high result in a selfish

or unworthy soul. I thought of disadvantages unspeakable which the

possession of foreknowledge might involve in the present order of life;

and felt it was a blessed thing for most of us that the future shaped

itself behind a veil. Then I dreamed that the power to lift that veil

might be evolved or won, just so soon as such a faculty should be of

real benefit to men, but not before; and I asked:--

"Can the power to see the Future be obtained through enlightenment?"

The priest answered:--

"Yes. When we reach that state of enlightenment in which we obtain

the Roku-Jindzū, or Six Mysterious Faculties, then we can see the

Future as well as the Past. Such power comes at the same time as the

power of remembering former births. But to attain to that condition of

knowledge, in the present age of the world, is very difficult."

My companion made me a stealthy sign that it was time to say good-by.

We had stayed rather long--even by the measure of Japanese etiquette,

which is generous to a fault in these matters. I thanked the master of

the temple for his kindness in replying to my fantastic questions, and

ventured to add:--

"There are a hundred other things about which I should like to ask you,

but to-day I have taken too much of your time. May I come again?"

"It will make me very happy," he said. "Be pleased to come again as

soon as you desire. I hope you will not fail to ask about all things

which are still obscure to you. It is by earnest inquiry that truth may

be known and illusions dispelled. Nay, come often--that I may speak to

you of the Shō-jō. And these I pray you to accept."

He gave me two little packages. One contained white sand--sand from

the holy temple of Zenkōji, whither all good souls make pilgrimage

after death. The other contained a very small white stone, said to be a

shari, or relic of the body of a Buddha.

I hoped to visit the kind old man many times again. But a school

contract took me out of the city and over the mountains; and I saw him

no more.

[1] Sanscrit: _Bhûta-Tathatâ._

[2] Sanscrit: _Avidya._

[3] Sanscrit: Tathâgata-gharba. The term "Tathâgata" (Japanese Nyōrai)

is the highest title of a Buddha. It signifies "One whose coming is

like the coming of his predecessors."

[4] Nirvana.

[5] Sanscrit: _Mahâmaudgalyâyana._

[6] The Japanese rendering of Sakyamuni.

Five years, all spent far away from treaty ports, slowly flitted by

before I saw the Jizō-Dō again. Many changes had taken place both

without and within me during that time. The beautiful illusion of

Japan, the almost weird charm that comes with one's first entrance into

her magical atmosphere, had, indeed, stayed with me very long, but had

totally faded out at last. I had learned to see the Far East without

its glamour. And I had mourned not a little for the sensations of the

past.

But one day they all came back to me--just for a moment. I was in

Yokohama, gazing once more from the Bluff at the divine spectre

of Fuji haunting the April morning. In that enormous spring blaze

of blue light, the feeling of my first Japanese day returned, the

feeling of my first delighted wonder in the radiance of an unknown

fairy-world full of beautiful riddles,--an Elf-land having a special

sun and a tinted atmosphere of its own. Again I knew myself steeped

in a dream of luminous peace; again all visible things assumed for

me a delicious immateriality. Again the Orient heaven--flecked only

with thinnest white ghosts of cloud, all shadowless as Souls entering

into Nirvana--became for me the very sky of Buddha; and the colors of

the morning seemed deepening into those of the traditional hour of

His birth, when trees long dead burst into blossom, and winds were

perfumed, and all creatures living found themselves possessed of loving

hearts. The air seemed pregnant with even such a vague sweetness, as if

the Teacher were about to come again; and all faces passing seemed to

smile with premonition of the celestial advent.

Then the ghostliness went away, and things looked earthly; and I

thought of all the illusions I had known, and of the illusions of the

world as Life, and of the universe itself as illusion. Whereupon the

name Mu-myo returned to memory; and I was moved immediately to seek the

ancient thinker of the Jizō-Dō.

The quarter had been much changed: old houses had vanished, and new

ones dovetailed wondrously together. I discovered the court at last

nevertheless, and saw the little temple just as I had remembered it.

Before the entrance women were standing; and a young priest I had

never seen before was playing with a baby; and the small brown hands

of the infant were stroking his shaven face. It was a kindly face, and

intelligent, with very long eyes.

"Five years ago," I said to him, in clumsy Japanese, "I visited this

temple. In that time there was an aged bonsan here."

The young bonsan gave the baby into the arms of one who seemed to be

its mother, and responded:--

"Yes. He died--that old priest; and I am now in his place. Honorably

please to enter."

I entered. The little sanctuary no longer looked interesting: all

its innocent prettiness was gone. Jizō still smiled over his bib;

but the other divinities had disappeared, and likewise many votive

offerings--including the picture of Adelaide Neilson. The priest tried

to make me comfortable in the chamber where the old man used to write,

and set a smoking-box before me. I looked for the books in the corner;

they also had vanished. Everything seemed to have been changed.

I asked:--

"When did he die?"

"Only last winter," replied the incumbent, "in the Period of Greatest

Cold. As he could not move his feet, he suffered much from the cold.

This is his ihai."

He went to an alcove containing shelves incumbered with a bewilderment

of objects indescribable,--old wrecks, perhaps, of sacred things,--and

opened the doors of a very small butsudan, placed between glass jars

full of flowers. Inside I saw the mortuary tablet,--fresh black

lacquer and gold. He lighted a lamplet before it, set a rod of incense

smouldering, and said:--

"Pardon my rude absence a little while; for there are parishioners

waiting."

So left alone, I looked at the ihai and watched the steady flame of

the tiny lamp and the blue, slow, upcurlings of incense,--wondering if

the spirit of the old priest was there. After a moment I felt as if

he really were, and spoke to him without words. Then I noticed that

the flower vases on either side of the butsudan still bore the name of

Toussaint Cosnard of Bordeaux, and that the incense-box maintained its

familiar legend of richly flavored cigarettes. Looking about the room

I also perceived the red cat, fast asleep in a sunny corner. I went to

it, and stroked it; but it knew me not, and scarcely opened its drowsy

eyes. It was sleeker than ever, and seemed happy. Near the entrance I

heard a plaintive murmuring; then the voice of the priest, reiterating

sympathetically some half-comprehended answer to his queries: "_A woman

of nineteen, yes. And a man of twenty-seven,--is it?_" Then I rose to

go.

"Pardon," said the priest, looking up from his writing, while the poor

women saluted me, "yet one little moment more!"

"Nay," I answered; "I would not interrupt you. I came only to see the

old man, and I have seen his ihai. This, my little offering, was for

him. Please to accept it for yourself."

"Will you not wait a moment, that I may know your name?"

"Perhaps I shall come again," I said evasively. "Is the old nun also

dead?"

"Oh no! she is still taking care of the temple. She has gone out, but

will presently return. Will you not wait? Do you wish nothing?"

"Only a prayer," I answered. "My name makes no difference. A man of

forty-four. Pray that he may obtain whatever is best for him."

The priest wrote something down. Certainly that which I had bidden him

pray for was not the wish of my "heart of hearts." But I knew the Lord

Buddha would never hearken to any foolish prayer for the return of lost

illusions.

YUKO: A REMINISCENCE

MEIJI, xxiv, 5. MAY, 1891

Who shall find a valiant woman?--far and from the uttermost coasts is

the price of her.--_Vulgate._

"_Tenshi-Sama go-shimpai._" The Son of Heaven augustly sorrows.

Strange stillness in the city, a solemnity as of public mourning. Even

itinerant venders utter their street cries in a lower tone than is

their wont. The theatres, usually thronged from early morning until

late into the night, are all closed. Closed also every pleasure-resort,

every show--even the flower-displays. Closed likewise all the

banquet-halls. Not even the tinkle of a samisen can be heard in the

silent quarters of the geisha. There are no revelers in the great inns;

the guests talk in subdued voices. Even the faces one sees upon the

street have ceased to wear the habitual smile; and placards announce

the indefinite postponement of banquets and entertainments.

Such public depression might follow the news of some great calamity or

national peril,--a terrible earthquake, the destruction of the capital,

a declaration of war. Yet there has been actually nothing of all

this,--only the announcement that the Emperor sorrows; and in all the

thousand cities of the land, the signs and tokens of public mourning

are the same, expressing the deep sympathy of the nation with its

sovereign.

And following at once upon this immense sympathy comes the universal

spontaneous desire to repair the wrong, to make all possible

compensation for the injury done. This manifests itself in countless

ways mostly straight from the heart, and touching in their simplicity.

From almost everywhere and everybody, letters and telegrams of

condolence, and curious gifts, are forwarded to the Imperial guest.

Rich and poor strip themselves of their most valued heirlooms, their

most precious household treasures, to offer them to the wounded Prince.

Innumerable messages also are being prepared to send to the Czar,--and

all this by private individuals, spontaneously. A nice old merchant

calls upon me to request that I should compose for him a telegram in

French, expressing the profound grief of all the citizens for the

attack upon the Czarevitch,--a telegram to the Emperor of all the

Russias. I do the best I can for him, but protest my total inexperience

in the wording of telegrams to high and mighty personages. "Oh! that

will not matter," he makes answer; "we shall send it to the Japanese

Minister at St. Petersburg: he will correct any mistakes as to form." I

ask him if he is aware of the cost of such a message. He has correctly

estimated it as something over one hundred yen, a very large sum for a

small Matsue merchant to disburse.

Some grim old samurai show their feelings about the occurrence in a

less gentle manner. The high official intrusted with the safety of

the Czarevitch at Otsu receives, by express, a fine sword and a stem

letter bidding him prove his manhood and his regret like a sa murai, by

performing harakiri immediately.

For this people, like its own Shintō gods, has various souls: it

has its Nigi-mi-tama and its Ara-mi-tama, its Gentle and its Rough

Spirit. The Gentle Spirit seeks only to make reparation; but the Rough

Spirit demands expiation. And now through the darkening atmosphere of

the popular life, everywhere is felt the strange thrilling of these

opposing impulses, as of two electricities.

Far away in Kanagawa, in the dwelling of a wealthy family, there is a

young girl, a serving-maid, named Yuko, a samurai name of other days,

signifying "valiant."

Forty millions are sorrowing, but she more than all the rest. How

and why no Western mind could fully know. Her being is ruled by

emotions and by impulses of which we can guess the nature only in

the vaguest possible way. Something of the soul of a good Japanese

girl we can know. Love is there--potentially, very deep and still.

Innocence also, insusceptible of taint--that whose Buddhist symbol is

the lotus-flower. Sensitiveness likewise, delicate as the earliest

snow of plum-blossoms. Fine scorn of death is there--her samurai

inheritance--hidden under a gentleness soft as music. Religion is

there, very real and very simple,--a faith of the heart, holding the

Buddhas and the Gods for friends, and unafraid to ask them for anything

of which Japanese courtesy allows the asking. But these, and many other

feelings, are supremely dominated by one emotion impossible to express

in any Western tongue--something for which the word "loyalty" were an

utterly dead rendering, something akin rather to that which we call

mystical exaltation: a sense of uttermost reverence and devotion to

the Tenshi-Sama. Now this is much more than any individual feeling.

It is the moral power and will undying of a ghostly multitude whose

procession stretches back out of her life into the absolute night of

forgotten time. She herself is but a spirit-chamber, haunted by a past

utterly unlike our own,--a past in which, through centuries uncounted,

all lived and felt and thought as one, in ways which never were as our

ways.

"_Tenshi-Sama go-shimpai._" A burning shock of desire to give was

the instant response of the girl's heart--desire over powering, yet

hopeless, since she owned nothing, unless the veriest trifle saved from

her wages. But the longing remains, leaves her no rest. In the night

she thinks; asks herself questions which the dead answer for her. "What

can I give that the sorrow of the August may cease?" "Thyself," respond

voices without sound. "But can I?" she queries wonderingly. "Thou hast

no living parent," they reply; "neither does it belong to thee to make

the offerings. Be thou our sacrifice. To give life for the August One

is the highest duty, the highest joy." "And in what place?" she asks.

"Saikyō," answer the silent voices; "in the gateway of those who by

ancient custom should have died."

Dawn breaks; and Yuko rises to make obeisance to the sun. She fulfills

her first morning duties; she requests and obtains leave of absence.

Then she puts on her prettiest robe, her brightest girdle, her whitest

tabi, that she may look worthy to give her life for the Tenshi-Sama.

And in another hour she is journeying to Kyōto. From the train window

she watches the gliding of the landscapes. Very sweet the day is;--all

distances, blue-toned with drowsy vapors of spring, are good to look

upon. She sees the loveliness of the land as her fathers saw it, but as

no Western eyes can see it, save in the weird, queer charm of the old

Japanese picture-books. She feels the delight of life, but dreams not

at all of the possible future preciousness of that life for herself.

No sorrow follows the thought that after her passing the world will

remain as beautiful as before. No Buddhist melancholy weighs upon

her: she trusts herself utterly to the ancient gods. They smile upon

her from the dusk of their holy groves, from their immemorial shrines

upon the backward fleeing hills. And one, perhaps, is with her: he who

makes the grave seem fairer than the palace to those who fear not; he

whom the people call Shinigami, the lord of death-desire. For her the

future holds no blackness. Always she will see the rising of the holy

Sun above the peaks, the smile of the Lady-Moon upon the waters, the

eternal magic of the Seasons. She will haunt the places of beauty,

beyond the folding of the mists, in the sleep of the cedar-shadows,

through circling of innumerable years. She will know a subtler life, in

the faint winds that stir the snow of the flowers of the cherry, in the

laughter of playing waters, in every happy whisper of the vast green

silences. But first she will greet her kindred, somewhere in shadowy

halls awaiting her coming to say to her: "_Thou hast done well,--like a

daughter of samurai. Enter, child! because of thee to-night we sup with

the Gods!_"

It is daylight when the girl reaches Kyōto. She finds a lodging, and

seeks the house of a skillful female hairdresser.

"Please to make it very sharp," says Yuko, giving the kamiyui a very

small razor (article indispensable of a lady's toilet); "and I shall

wait here till it is ready." She unfolds a freshly bought newspaper

and looks for the latest news from the capital; while the shop-folk

gaze curiously, wondering at the serious pretty manner which forbids

familiarity. Her face is placid like a child's; but old ghosts stir

restlessly in her heart, as she reads again of the Imperial sorrow. "I

also wish it were the hour," is her answering thought. "But we must

wait." At last she receives the tiny blade in faultless order, pays the

trifle ashed, and returns to her inn.

There she writes two letters: a farewell to her brother, an

irreproachable appeal to the high officials of the City of Emperors,

praying that the Tenshi-Sama may be petitioned to cease from sorrowing,

seeing that a young life, even though unworthy, has been given in

voluntary expiation of the wrong.

When she goes out again it is that hour of heaviest darkness which

precedes the dawn; and there is a silence as of cemeteries. Few and

faint are the lamps; strangely loud the sound of her little geta. Only

the stars look upon her.

Soon the deep gate of the Government edifice is before her. Into the

hollow shadow she slips, whispers a prayer, and kneels. Then, according

to ancient rule, she takes off her long under-girdle of strong soft

silk, and with it binds her robes tightly about her, making the knot

just above her knees. For no matter what might happen in the instant

of blind agony, the daughter of a samurai must be found in death with

limbs decently composed. And then, with steady precision, she makes in

her throat a gash, out of which the blood leaps in a pulsing jet. A

samurai girl does not blunder in these matters: she knows the place of

the arteries and the veins.

At sunrise the police find her, quite cold, and the two letters, and a

poor little purse containing five yen and a few sen (enough, she had

hoped, for her burial); and they take her and all her small belongings

away.

Then by lightning the story is told at once to a hundred cities.

The great newspapers of the capital receive it; and cynical journalists

imagine vain things, and try to discover common motives for that

sacrifice: a secret shame, a family sorrow, some disappointed love. But

no; in all her simple life there had been nothing hidden, nothing weak,

nothing unworthy; the bud of the lotus unfolded were less virgin. So

the cynics write about her only noble things, befitting the daughter of

a samurai.

The Son of Heaven hears, and knows how his people love him, and

augustly ceases to mourn.

The Ministers hear, and whisper to one another, within the shadow of

the Throne: "All else will change; but the heart of the nation will not

change."

Nevertheless, for high reasons of State, the State pretends not to know.

The village stands on the bank of a broad but very shallow river, the