  Copyright, 1906, Norwood Press
CONTENTS
TADAIMAI thought I saw the bronze god Asamra (he who may speak but once in a thousand years, and whose friendship I keep by making time stand still for him in the stopping of the clock and its turning back) shake his head in doubt as I put the manuscript into its wrappings and addressed it to the publisher. "Well?" I inquired, testily. "Suppose They do not like it?" sighed the god. "Why should They not?" demanded I, loftily. "It has, among other unusualities, (I hope you like the gentleness of the word!) those dashes which—You ought to have learned by this time that They don't like to read over dashes." "Why not?" asked I, again. "I like them. And, they are my own!" "Well, you know a dash necessitates lucubration. It stands for something which you trust your reader to supply. That is unfair. If you are writing a book and receiving an honorarium for it, do not expect him to do it. It is a bit like eating. One does not go to a restaurant, and pay for his food, then cook it himself." "I have seen it done," cried I, "by particular people!" "Ahem!" murmured the polite god: more polite on this day than I had recently observed him—which meant some sort of propaganda. "It is not an ahem!" I went on in the unregenerate heat which the friction of the god often engendered in me. "Have you never seen it done?" "I have," admitted the effigy, "seen a waiter sorely vexed to bring the materials for a salad—" "Aha!" cried I, triumphantly. "Gomen nasai," begged the deity, "I had not finished. I have seen a waiter, I say, sorely vexed to bring the materials for a salad which the maker has—spoiled!" "Then," demanded I, with icy coldness, "you think that if I permit Them to supply a few thoughts to carry Them over the dashes They will—" "Think something you did not think; perhaps something worse," the effigy finished, calamitously. "Or better?" I suggested, bitterly. "Or better," agreed the god. "There is a small number of people (but, extremely small) who like to supply in full what you suggest in dashes. It tickles Them tremendously to think that you couldn't have done it so well; that you trust Them to do it better. Often They are certain that They have helped you over a place you could not help yourself over—hence the dash." "Sometimes," I mused, diffidently, "that is true." "Ha, ha!" laughed the image, and our mood became more human. "But, do you mean to say," I asked, "that if I leave John and Jane in the upper hall, and take them up again in the lower hall, I must acquaint Them with the fact that John and Jane have been obliged to traverse the stairway to get away from the one and to reach the other? Am I permitted no ellipsis in so patent a matter as that?" "They will expect the stairway," sighed the god. "And a page for each step, I suppose! How can They differ from me? What other thought can They have than that John and Jane descended the stairway to reach the lower hall?" "There may be a back stairway, or a fire escape," chuckled the deity. "Then, I suppose, I must spend some pages in telling Them not only that John and Jane descended the stair, but that they did not descend by the back stair or the fire escape!" "It would be better," said the idol. "They can skip it. But They cannot deny that it is there, as They can if it is not. They would rather skip what you supply than supply what you skip. One is Their judgment of your mental caliber—usually too small—the other is your judgment of Theirs—usually too generous. Ahem! There is a golden mean." "Besides, however bad for literature it may be," laughed I, "at so much a word, it is good for me!" "Well," ventured god, in doubt, "are novels literature?" "I am not the one to say," I retorted, with some asperity. "I manufacture them. But I can swear that they are better literature—if literature at all—than some of the criticisms of them—if literature at all." "Have I touched a broken, perhaps often mended, place in your armor?" laughed the god. "Well," I admitted, crustily, "I have read criticisms of English—no matter whose—the English of which was eminently criticisable. Here is one. The gentleman makes no distinction in the uses of 'which' and 'that,' and he has not a 'who' in his vocabulary." "I have my eye on it," laughed the image, "and I admit that a few whiches and whos for thats, and—even—er—pardon!—a few of your dashes, would make its teaching more grateful." "God," adjured I, happily, "thank you! Now do please stop and think! No speech, no thought, goes on without dashes. When we write the speech which flows mellifluous, we do violence to nature. And in all art the tendency is toward nature." "Recently," began the deity, in that high tone which always meant checkmate to me, "I have seen the statue of an alleged athlete, in which his bunions were reproduced!" "I saw it, too," I laughed. Indeed, the god and I had stared at it together. "Well," the effigy went on, "that was certainly nature!" "There is a golden mean," I re-quoted. "An artistic attitude toward all manifestations of art. If one has this one will appreciate—er—whether to reproduce the bunions. They may, of course, be picturesque bunions. Why, god, if one should reproduce human speech, as it is spoken, there would be a dash after every third word! Mine are quite within bounds." "It would look queer," said the god, "and you would be called eccentric instead of original. Please don't do it! In fact stop it! Placate both your readers and your critics." "Oh, as to that," said I, airily, "the labor would all be lost. Anything which is unusual to the superficial experience of the average person is glibly dubbed eccentric. You know how it is. A reader likes to find the dear old situations in advance of him so that he knows what he is approaching. There is the same fear of the terra incognita in literature that there is in nature. A book or a play which is too novel a tax upon the faculties of a client is not to his liking." "Who, pray, do you write books for?" asked the effigy, with the suspicion of a yawn. "The people who read them," said I, cockily. "Do They include the critics?" "Oh, no," said I, hastily. "Aren't they 'people who read them'?" "Why, they are critics," cried I. "How can they?" "That is hard doctrine," said the god, dully. "If you write for the people who read, you must submit to their verdict. And the critics are a part of them." "A small part. But they pretend to speak for the whole. Permit me to explain—" The god politely waited. "Your critic approaches a book as a lawyer does his case—temperamentally—not judicially—with an opinion of it in advance or upon the first pages, which the book must either justify or fail to justify. The result appears in his published estimate. He states his view as if it were the only one. And, being delivered ex cathedra, the multitude take it as they do their preaching—for the gospel of Literature! But how would you like that in your judge? Who is sworn to decide upon the evidence adduced alone? "So it happens that every book is well cursed and well blessed, according to the humor of the dissector. And the cursing and blessing are usually about equal." "There does seem to be something wrong about criticism which can be unanimous both ways," laughed the god. "There ought to be some tribunal to which criticism could be referred upon appeal as lawsuits are," said I. "But," I went on, hastening a bit to my climax as the god seemed to doze, "the most terrible of all criticism is the modern humorous kind—" "I have heard an odious term used to characterize those who make it," whispered the deity. "The man who can do nothing else—and usually he can do nothing else—can poke fun. It is a peculiarly tasteful form of iconoclasm." Said the god:— "If I should sleep, do not forget to stop the clock." He pretended to do so. That is his way when I have tired him. IMPRIMISFour times on earth and once elsewhere Shijiro Arisuga thought the happiest moment of his life had come. But you are to be warned, in two proverbs, concerning the peril of the thing called happiness, in Japan. One has it that happiness is like the tai, the other that it has in it the note of the uguisu. Now, the tai is a very common fish, and the uguisu is a rare bird of one sad note, reputed to be sung only to O-Emma, god of death, in the night, most often when there is a solemn moon. Which, again, is much the same as saying that, in Japan, at least, happiness is the common lot, and easy to get as to catch the lazy perch; but that it has its sad note, which may have to be sung in the darkness, alone, to death. For in the East one is taught to be no more prodigal with one's joy than with one's sorrow. The sum of both joy and sorrow, it is said, are immutably the same in the world from eternity. And of these each soul born is allotted its reasonable share as the gods adjudge it. So that if one takes too much joy out of the common lot, some one, perhaps many ones, must receive less than they ought. Thus, one not only limits the rights of his fellow-men, who has no warrant to do so, but impiously exercises the prerogatives of the gods, than which nothing can be more heinous. For this larceny of joy, therefore, the culprit must suffer more than his share of woe, until the heavenly balance is once more restored. And that may be in this life or another, in this world or another. So you observe that in Japan, among those who yet believe in the old ways of the gods (and they are many!), it is perilous to be over-happy. For one is almost certain to pay for it with over-woe. And this is the happy catching of the tai and the melancholy note of the uguisu which wind through the carols of one's joy in the East. Yet, when one is always happy, as Shijiro Arisuga was before we knew him, it seems difficult to say that here or there was a happier moment. Therefore, you are to learn of each of these five occasions in their order, according to your patience, and, quite at the end, you are to be left to judge for yourself, which was, indeed, the happiest moment of Shijiro Arisuga's life. There will come a time, too,—at the end,—when you will know nothing of Shijiro Arisuga's own views upon the subject: he will not be there to tell them. I shall try to interpret for him. But you are not to be prejudiced by this judgment of mine, since you cannot know Shijiro Arisuga as well as I do until the end is reached—quite the end. And it is nothing—the little story—you are, further, warned, until the woman enters. Indeed; nothing is anything—no story—until woman enters. Try to fancy Eden without Eve! Not that Star-Dream is another Eve; nor that this is like the first love story. But there is a Garden and a Serpent; an Apple and a Woman. And, from that Garden, Shijiro Arisuga is driven with a sword which flames. But here my story differs entirely from that of the first love story. For the woman is left in the garden—alone! And it is eternal night. And she can hardly stay there alone. For the uguisu sings. I wonder if Eve could have been happy in Eden alone? With the singing of the death-bird? You will remember that though they were driven forth, it was together: comrades in misfortune as in joy—yet comrades! NIPPON DENJII | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| "Yell of metal, |
| Strake of flame! |
| Death-wound spurting |
| In my face! |
| Hail Red Death!" |
"Banzai!" cried Jokichi.
"Teikoku Banzai!" yelled Asami.
And, after the tumult, Yasuki, the reserved, himself said:—
"By Shaka, it is the very Yamato Damashii itself! The spirit of young Japan."
"Nippon Denji!" laughed jolly Kitsushima.
"Yes! The Boys in Blue—as they called them in America in 1864."
Matsumoto had been to Princeton. But the thought of war—giving his soul for his emperor—made him as mad as they who had never left their native soil.
"I take all back," cried Nijin, into the tumult.
"And I," yelled Yasuki, who had agreed with him.
"Let him in!" shrilled Matsumoto and Jokichi together. "If he can write songs—"
"And let him sing! Let him sing war-songs!" adjured Kitsushima!
Still, the happy Nijin, out of propriety of his office, as recruiting-major, pretended to wish to stem the current started by the song.
"One moment!" he cried.
But they laughed him down and again started the war-song.
"I will have a moment!"
"Take two!" shouted Jokichi.
"Singing and fighting are two very different occupations."
"No, they are precisely the same," laughed Kitsushima.
"I deny it!"
It was a fierce yell from Nijin, who was happiest, to pretend tremendous anger.
"I affirm it!" laughed Jokichi, into his face.
"Pretender!" cried Asami, shaking a happy fist at his superior.
Asami and Nijin stood with Zanzi for his admission.
Still, Nijin said in thunder:—
"Remember! poets never practise their preaching."
Nevertheless, if he had entered then, Arisuga would have been chosen, by acclaim, because of his song.
But enthusiasm cools rapidly, and these stoical orientals could be moved to enthusiasm by but this one thing—war.
So that after a month—two—it required another word from grizzled Zanzi, who had been in the war of the Restoration, to let Shijiro in.
"Jokoji!" That was the word. "His father is at Jokoji!"
And they demanded, and he told, the story of Jokoji—which, pardon me, I do not mean to tell. Save this little, so that you may understand, that it was that last terrible stand of Saigo behind the hills of Kagoshima, where the Shogunate perished and the empire was born again in 1868. And the shoguns you may care to know were that mighty line of feodal chieftains who had usurped the throne from the time of Yoritomo, to that of Keiki. For all these years the imperial power had rioted at Yedo, in the hands of two generals, while the emperor, a prisoner in his palace-hermitage in Kyoto, had been but the high priest of his people.
They are there yet, at Jokoji, to the last man, Saigo and his gallant rebels, in a great trench, without their heads, a warning to future rebels.
After that other word—Jokoji—Arisuga was chosen.
Observe that they finally took him because of his father—though he died a rebel. Indeed, those old insurgents, of 1868, are gradually being canonized with crimson death-names, because they neither knew dishonor, no, nor suffered it.
THE FLYING OF THE AUGUST CARP
II
THE FLYING OF THE AUGUST CARP
There was a time, of course, when Shijiro was too young to think of being a soldier—save of the tin-sworded and cocked-hatted kind. And it must be confessed, nay, it was confessed, by his uncles with profound sorrow, that he cared little enough for even that. It is quite true that lighted paper lanterns gleaming in the night, and morning glories with first sun on them, and his small samisen, pleased him more. All this was quite heinous to his samurai uncles and they did what they could to correct it and instil into the little mind of the boy that love for the glory of combat which they had. But, as often happens, their care and their prayers availed them nothing, while their carelessness and their repinings availed much. Of that I shall stop and tell: the picture—the flying of the carp—how all the life of the little boy was changed in one night,—so that he thought no more of YonÉ, the lanterns and the flowers, but only of being a soldier.
It was that day when he was ten. All his relatives were present and they flew a tremendous number of paper carp. For you are to know that this is the way the gods have of telling one on one's birthday in Japan, whether one is to be as strong and virile as the open-mouthed carp in a swift wind, or as flaccid as they when there is no wind. The gods were kind and sent a propitious day. The carp stood out, straining upon their poles so that some of them broke loose and whirled cloud-ward—whereat the multitude of Arisuga's relatives shouted with joy. For this was an august omen of great good. Arisuga cared nothing for the omen. But the carp eddying upward, and those straining on their poles, were very fine.
The tired, happy little boy had been put early to bed, while his uncles remained to smoke and gossip. For one was from KobÉ and the other was from Osaka, and they did not meet as often as they could have wished.
For a long time there was no sound save the tapping of their pipes against the metal rim of the hibachi as they were emptied of their ashes to be filled again. This is still much the way of ceremonious old men in Japan. They have learned the comradeship of silence.
Presently this sound of the tapping pipes woke the little boy from his dreaming; and hearing whisperings in the room beyond he crept from his futons to the fusuma, which he silently parted to look and listen.
His small eyes grew greater as he saw that his two uncles were still there, and greater yet as he observed that they gesticulated in the direction of the picture of "The Great Death" while they whispered.
Now this was a thing which had always troubled him: that they whispered together about that picture, and that, somehow, he was included in the mystery. It had hung there at the tokonoma since he could remember. He had been taught to reverence it; for nowhere have pictures more influence than in Japan.
It was divided in the horizontal middle into two panels. In that below was carnage amazing. On the one side were the hosts of the emperor under the brocade banner (the most ancient Japanese flag of war), yet armed with guns and using cannon. On the other side were the rebel hosts of Saigo with ancient halberds and spears and in bamboo armor, depending upon the gods alone. Dying upon one of the cannon, with a shout upon his lips and ecstasy upon every feature, was a soldier in the uniform of the ancient Imperial Guards. The panel above showed one of the heavens far toward nirvana. There this same soldier appeared glorified and on the way to his reward in Shaka's bosom. Of course! He had died for the emperor! The artist had not spared the glory when he came to write the picture. And yet he had preserved a certain family likeness, so that little Arisuga presently came to know, by the subtle presence and teaching of his uncles, that this was Jokoji, the graveyard-battlefield in Satsuma, and that the figure informed with the ecstasy of the great red death for the emperor, was his father!
That no part of the lesson might be lost, the artist had also shown, in that lower panel, the obverse of the reward of fealty. Those who had fought against the emperor were being tossed like dogs into a trench. Their heads were off. And the little boy had been taught to have no pity upon them. Of course! He had none. They had impiously rebelled against that god whose other name is Mutsuhito, Mikado!
Moreover, in the lower corner of this panel, in an amazing opening among clouds with blazing edges, was that part of the hells reserved for the souls of traitors; and there the enemies of the emperor, who had died at Jokoji, were being variously tortured, in the intervals of their reincarnations.
A GOOD LIE
III
A GOOD LIE
Said Namishima, Arisuga's uncle from KobÉ, to Kiomidzu, his uncle from Osaka:—
"The flying of the august carp has been honorably auspicious and doubtless the gods now design to make him, in spirit, unlike his regretted father."
"It was the gods' punishment upon him for fighting against his emperor—that his son should miserably be an onna-jin," whispered Kiomidzu.
"Nevertheless the honorable picture has aided greatly in making him adore the emperor," protested Namishima.
"Yes, the money for its painting was augustly well spent," agreed Kiomidzu, wisely shaking his head.
"Some day he will know, notwithstanding, that his father was a rebel. Others know. It cannot unhappily be kept from him always."
"No."
"Perhaps then we shall be augustly dead—"
Both bowed and murmured again.
"And beyond his most excellent vengeance."
"Nevertheless," said Namishima, finally, "the august conscience within informs me that we have brought him up honorably well!"
"There is excellently no doubt of it!" agreed Kiomidzu.
They bowed to each other.
For a while there was silence and the tapping of the pipes. Then they spoke of a new and weightier matter.
Said Namishima—and here the little boy's eyes bulged:—
"If the soul of our brother continues to wander in the Meido, it will not be chargeable, now, in the heavens, to us, but to him. We have kept the lamps alight. We have taught him honor."
"We are too aged, also," agreed Kiomidzu, "to redeem him forth unto the way to the heavens by dying in his stead the great death. It is for his son!"
"In us, besides," Namishima went on, "the gods could not be augustly deceived. But the child has his name."
"Therefore, should he die the great death, the merciful gods may be deceived by the name into thinking it he who died at Jokoji. In that case he would not only be redeemed to the way to the heavens, but on this earth his name would be graciously added to honor."
So said he from KobÉ. And he from Osaka:—
"For the gods are merciful!"
"So merciful, I sometimes abjectly think, that they desire to be deceived, for our peace of mind."
"Or, at least," mended Kiomidzu, to whom this was a trifle too much, "they will close their eyes while we augustly do it."
Namishima disliked a trifle the correction of his brother:—
"Do not the gods so act upon the minds of their creatures that they remember or forget? Well, then! It is true that now others know that our brother died on the rebel side at Jokoji. But do we not know that, in the course of much time, the gods can make this to be forgotten, and make to be remembered that he died on the emperor's side?"
"Yea, if his son should die for the emperor."
"Yea! For the name is the same!"
"And I have had a sign in a dream," said Kiomidzu, lowering his voice a little more. "Before me stood a tall god—"
They both bowed and rubbed their hands.
"—I knew neither his august name nor his presence. But his face shone as the sun, so that it is certain he was a god who can see the end from the beginning, and all between. And thus he spake: 'Rise and light the lamps and burn the sweet and bitter incense. For Shijiro Arisuga, he who died at Jokoji, shall have a crimson death-name.'"
"How shall that come to pass, augustness?" I asked upon my face.
"'Through his son,'" said the god. "'The names are the same. Arise and light the lamps and burn the bitter incense.'"
"And the augustness only vanished with the light of the new lamps I lighted before Shijiro's tablet."
"Yet," doubted Namishima, though a deity had spoken, "the vengeance of the gods must also first be accomplished—yea, satisfied full! And until he is redeemed by this unhappy onna-jin, must our brother wander in the dark Meido—so think I! The new lamps will be sacrilege."
"Nevertheless, one cannot honorably tell," argued the milder uncle from Osaka, himself not convinced by his vision. "His father was no taller nor of a greater spirit than he. He may not always be an onna-jin. And, also, any day the vengeance of the gods may be satisfied and they will permit him to redeem both his own and the spirit of his father. For I believe it true that he was not beheaded by the victors at Jokoji, and cast into the ditch as dogs are cast, but committed the honorable seppuku upon himself. That he would do."
"Let it be hoped so. This is our one blot wherefore we cannot speak of our ancestors."
And they chafed a prayer from between their hands that it might all be so.
The little boy parted the fusuma yet more and looked. He had been taught that his face must always be as expressionless as if it were always under observation. And these old uncles had, more than others, taught him so. Yet now they were not observing their own precepts. Their faces were unmasked, and showed terror and anxiety. And this communicated itself to the boy as he looked.
"Does it matter to the gods," asked Kiomidzu, "how fealty to the heaven-born-one is augustly inculcated?"
"'The way does not matter when one is arrived!'" said Namishima.
"And 'a lie which doeth good,'" quoted Kiomidzu, "'is, manifestly, a good lie.'"
"Happy is he," said Namishima, "who, being a liar for the truth, is willing, like us, to abide by its consequences from the unenlightened, to whom there is but one office in a lie—evil!"
"Nembutsu!" agreed the brother of Namishima, his hard hands rasping with his prayer as do the soles of worn sandals.
And then they went on, to the end of the story of this picture of "The Great Death," which had been painted and hung at the tokonoma when Arisuga was a child to deceive him into thinking that his father had honorably fought and died for his emperor instead of against him, that his soul was probably in Buddha's bosom instead of wandering in the alien dark Meido, unredeemed, that his body had been burned on a pyre instead of left to rot in that great ditch in Jokoji. This these old imperialists fancied their duty. The little boy sobbed there behind the shoji.
"Sh!" whispered the uncle from Osaka.
"Sh!" echoed the uncle from KobÉ. "He wakes. If he should hear, all would be of no avail."
They covered the fire of the hibachi and caused a darkness in which they stole away.
YET—A LIE LOOSENS FEALTY
IV
YET—A LIE LOOSENS FEALTY
The little boy slept no more. He got forth from his small room and made the offerings, and lighted the incense which he had forgotten that tired, joyous day, and then he took down his father's ihai, and touching to it his forehead, pledged all his lives to make true that which had been made false. For, yes, their names were the same, his father's and his, and the gods are easily deceived—Shijiro Arisuga should be upon the brass of those who had died for the emperor! The gods would attend to the forgetting which must follow.
But this was not enough. The filial sin they had let him commit vexed his little soul.
Where he had made a dim wisp of fibre to burn in oil before the tablet of his father, he rubbed a prayer from between his small pink palms.
"Father and all the augustnesses, I did not know," he said childishly, "that your spirit waited in the dark Meido for me to set it free. There were lies!"
Then he stopped and waited, for the tears ran down his face and choked his voice.
"It would have been better to teach me truth than lies. For they have not made me wish to fight and die for the emperor—lies. But this, this that you wait, wait always in the cold dark Meido for me to set you on your way to the sleep in Buddha's bosom, this it is which makes me promise, here, now, by all the eight hundred thousand, by my own soul's reincarnations, all of them, that you shall be free; that your name shall yet stand among those on the brass who are not forgotten."
"I did not know," he sobbed again. "And so I sang songs and made poems while you wandered there. I did not know. I was only a little boy. But now I am at once a man. It is true, august father, I must not lie to you, that I would rather be at Shiba with YonÉ; I would rather walk on the hills with her hand in mine; I would rather sing as she plays the samisen; but I will be a soldier."
And then a strange thing happened—and you must not fail to remember that stranger things happen in Japan than here—there came a crackling, ripping noise at the last word of that prayer, and the upper panel of the false picture loosed itself from the brocade to which it was attached and, falling, covered completely the lower panel and blotted out the whole. And that night yet, the little boy got his father's seal, and, where it fell, there he sealed it fast.
So that when his uncles again saw it they grew troubled, kowtowed and made a prayer. For suddenly, also, Arisuga, from a child, at ten had become man. All he said to them when they diffidently undertook a question was:—
"I know the samurai commandment: 'Thou shalt not live under the same heavens nor upon the same earth with the enemy of thy lord!'"
"The commandments are not for children," said the uncle from Osaka, gently.
"That I know well," answered Arisuga. "For I am not a child."
Said the terrified one from KobÉ, "It does not mean that you must quit the earths and the heavens—"
"But, rather," supplemented the one from Osaka, "that they shall—"
"That you shall kill many enemies of your lord and live yourself—my child—"
"Cease! I am not a child," said Arisuga again, haughtily, "and I know the commandments!"
"Nevertheless that," said the one, "is a manifestation from the gods!"
He pointed to the picture.
"There have been many such," said the other. "It means something."
"Yes," said the little boy, significantly, "it means something!"
"But were you present when the gods obscured the picture?" ventured Kiomidzu.
"I was present," said Arisuga.
"And is it that which has changed you?" further ventured Namishima.
"No," declared Arisuga, looking upon them both sternly, and without an honorific for either.
"I trust," whined Kiomidzu, "that all is well between us?"
"All is as well as it ever will be," said the boy.
Then, after a silence, he added:—
"And the sun is setting!"
Which meant, indeed, that they were driven from the door of their brother's house by his son!
When they were in their going the boy said:—
"If I have sinned against the honorable hospitality, remember that a lie loosens fealty!"
And when they were in the way, one said to the other:—
"He knows!"
After some thought he who was addressed answered:—
"I think it very well. I have no regret. Our brother will now be released from the Meido. He will die for the emperor."
"However, we shall be unwelcome in his presence, so that I shall come less often."
To this his brother agreed with melancholy.
"Our work is now done."
Thus, Shijiro was much more alone than before, and had many more thoughts. But all were of war and the great red death, and none of YonÉ.
And then, presently, he came to join the haughty Imperial Guards, who had never dreamed of being a soldier, but only of poetry, and cherry-blossoms, and his samisen, and the soft satin hand of the little YonÉ. For it was true, as Nijin said, and as they all agreed, Arisuga among them, that he was not the stuff out of which the empire made its Imperial Guards—quite.
It was in this time, in the presence of the obscured picture, that he wrote his song of "The Great Death."
And his years grew faster than his inches.
YAMATO DAMASHII
V
YAMATO DAMASHII
And, slowly, that fantasy of a great death which infects every Japanese crept into the life and thought of Shijiro Arisuga. Though it came to him, in whom it had lain latent, hardly. But, perhaps for that reason, as is the case with certain diseases, it came with greater certainty and severity than if it had been always with him.
Yet the Yamato Damashii outstripped them both: the spirit of war—the ghost of Japan!
He still went with little YonÉ to Mukojima sometimes, though less frequently. And the small heart of the small girl wondered and grew hurt at this. So that she asked him one day:—
"Little lord, why is it that we so seldom come here and that you no more sing, no more carry your samisen, and are grown too suddenly for your years a man with a face as serious as the unlaughing barbarians of the West—why is it?"
They were at Shiba. And Shijiro laughed again, as he had used to laugh, while he answered:—
"Sing no more! Listen!"
| "Reign on for a thousand years of peace! |
| Reign on for a myriad years of ease! |
| Till the pebbles are boulders, |
| Moss grows to our shoulders, |
| O heaven-born lord of Nippon!" |
"The Kimi Gayo!" said the little girl. "You sing the Imperial Hymn with that light in your face who never sang it before—whose face was never before so lighted? You answer my fear with fears."
"I sing a war-song, little moon-maid, because I am now a soldier," cried Arisuga, with a certain fanatical ecstasy in spite of his gayety. "I am going to die for the emperor the great death! I am going to set my father free to pursue his way to the heavens or another reincarnation! Think! The gods will love me for such a holy thing! Why do not you?"
"Oh, yes," whispered the little girl, "the gods will love you. And I. But who, then, will come with me here? And who will hold my hand?"
"My spirit, I promise you that!"
A little chill crept over the girl.
"Yes," she answered doubtfully, "if I cannot have your body."
Shijiro still laughed.
"After all, a spirit is a safer comrade than a body. The custodians cannot drive it away from the tombs. And will you wait here for my spirit, as you do for my body?"
"Yes," she whispered, in her awe, once more.
But he gayly touched her.
"I will come like that—that—that!"
"I would rather have you so," said the little girl, touching him, as flesh touches flesh, not as spirit touches flesh in the East.
Though she suspected that he was laughing at her, it was in a land where both the spirits which loved one and hated one were believed to be always at one's elbow.
Now that it had all been decided—his career fixed, the way made clear, and he well in it—much of his absorption had passed away, and he was both gayer and gentler with her. But it was not as before.
"There will be others, with bodies," laughed Shijiro.
The small maiden shook her head.
"No, there will not be others. I know. Oh, how differently you speak to me now! You are suddenly grown a man with great thoughts. But you still think of me as a little girl with small thoughts. Well, perhaps I am. Yet I shall wait for you here. I can do that. The gods may not accept your sacrifice for a time. They may not accept it at all. And there may be no war for you to fight and die in. You may have to come back. No one can know the purposes of the gods. And when you do, I, with my small body and small thought, will be here only to make you happy."
"And, suppose," laughed Shijiro, treating her indeed as if he were suddenly become a man and she were still a little girl, "suppose I go away and forget—that often happens—and never come back?"
And Arisuga laughed again.
"I will wait," said the girl.
"What, after I have forgotten?"
"Do not tell me. Let no one tell me. Let me wait. Then your spirit may come. It is cruel to wait, always wait. But it is not so cruel as to be forgotten."
The soldier still laughed.
"The spirit of all the goddesses thrives in you!"
And he touched her gently.
"But the gods may send it to me soon—the great crimson death."
"Then," answered the little girl, "I can die the great death, too, and still be with you—if you should wish!"
"What!" laughed Shijiro, anew, "little you—gentle YonÉ—in the wild glory of the conflict, with a plunge into the fires of all the hells, in the madness of carnage, with a yell frozen on your lips? Shall little you experience that arch esctasy: your death-wound spurting your own warm blood into your own face? Then out, out, out into the eternal solitude and silence of souls awaiting other reincarnations? To that place called Meido? Ha ha, my fragile YonÉ, the great red death—is not for you—not for perfumed little YonÉ's. It is a man's death!"
At this she was reproved, but as he always reproved her, very gently. Yet it was wonderful that his gentleness held here. She understood well her presumption in wishing to die the great death of a man.
"Pardon, small lord," she said humbly. "I spoke when I had not counted three—instead of nine."
He laughed happily.
"Speak whatever comes to your lips. All is good, because it comes from them—which are all good. But when you speak of the things which are a man's, I look at your stature and—laugh! I tell you what is yours—little YonÉ—and what is mine!"
She tried to forget that he was not much taller than she.
"No, forgive me; I must die only the small, white death of women and children. But, until it comes, I shall be here where you and I were happy together. And if you die, still caring for me, your spirit will come and touch me, as you said. That much I know. You have said it! But if you have forgotten, then there will be no touches; then I will still wait until I die. It will not be long."
"Little one," said Arisuga, in pity, "we have lived and loved together here. All has been good. But it is as a splendid summer day which one forgets, in the glow, the madness of glory, the moment the call comes! This we did not know, the madness of glory, and I had never thought to learn. But it has come, and it is greater than all love. Should the call sound now, I would leave you where you stand, and go upon the business of our sovereign. As it is," he laughed, "we shall once more go homeward hand in hand!"
And so they did. But still it was not as before. It never could be. As he had said, this madness of glory had obscured all love.
YONÉ
VI
YONÉ
The war with China got slowly into the air. Troops were mobilizing. The Guards were being fitted with uniforms for a warmer climate. The army was thrilled with that nameless thing which speaks of action to the soldier. Maps and plans of campaign grew over night. Nurses were gathered where they could be most easily requisitioned. Plans for hospital and transportation service were born and matured as certainly now, as if the army had lived in an atmosphere of war instead of peace for many years. But when the actual going came near, Arisuga thought of YonÉ. There would be no more of that. And when it was said, a certain sadness came and stayed with him, when the glory dulled a little. For it had been sweet. And it might be only once again. Marching orders were imminent.
So that, though it was even, and YonÉ might not go out in the even, he found her one day, when the sadness came, and they stole through the house's rear to that tomb of Esas in Shiba, where they had made a seat of stone and moss. They had never before been alone together in the wood at night, and YonÉ was terrified, as a maid ought to be, while Arisuga was brave, as a soldier should be.
Yet, notwithstanding these adverse circumstances, it was there—at the tomb of Esas, on this night of nights to YonÉ—that they made together that song of "The Stork-and-the-Moon." And it was on this night, while they sang it (without the samisen, for YonÉ was reposing too snugly against one of Arisuga's arms for him to play, though they had the samisen with them), that the watchman came with lantern and staff and cried out that he had heard a song in that place of sacred tombs—a foolish, worldly song—and adjured the sinners to come forth and be punished.
Now both were frightened suddenly, and YonÉ crept deeply into the arms of her soldier for protection. And she did not vacate her place of safety when the watchman had passed on; Arisuga prevented her.
For he had not in the least fancied how sweet that might be. And her fancies had fallen short of truth. And yet other things passed there at that tomb of Lord Esas which I shall not stop to tell.
Later, perhaps, in this story, there may be occasion to tell what happened there at the tomb of Lord Esas on the seat of stones and mosses they had made: the promises,—if there were any,—the song, and all the joy of that night upon which little YonÉ would have to live until Arisuga came again—for this was indeed all he left to her.
It was a disgraceful hour when they stole forth. And had the watchman seen them then, the gods alone know what the penalty would have been. They passed the walls safely; but there was yet before them the reËntry to the house of YonÉ, which was more terrible. Yet they were strangely happy in their terrors, though YonÉ expected, hoped, to be disowned and driven from home, disgraced in the eyes of the world. But also, in that case, Arisuga would marry her. Chivalry would demand it. Of course he had not exactly said so. In order that he might have the opportunity, YonÉ protested:—
"I do not regret—not a word, not a thing!"
"No, it is my fault—"
"If they drive me from home, outcast me, I shall sing in the streets!"
"You!"
"Or go to Geisha street."
"You!"
"What, then, will I do, lord?"
"You will marry me—a little sooner than we planned, and live with my mother while I fight."
"Yes," breathed YonÉ, quite content with this. It was more than she had expected. Indeed, she was so filled with content that it was all she could say.
Nevertheless, though this event had been arranged there behind the tomb, under the influence of the terror of the watchman, yet its consummation was put a long time off, for the parents of each had to be consulted, cunningly, as if it had not at all been arranged. And this marred YonÉ's happiness a trifle; for, if marriage was anything like that behind the tomb, it could not come too soon. And, however soon it might come, it would not be soon enough, for soon enough was now, and that was passing.
Besides, she hoped it might happen before his sacrifice; for though she would then be his widow and quite sure of his spirit, that first personal contact by the tomb of old Lord Esas had been sweet.
However, there seemed, happily, no way of escape from an outcasting and the consequences they had fixed upon, and this grew upon them more and more as they went homeward, so that as they were yet quite happy in it they came into the vicinity of YonÉ's home. Now, by that time all the details had been arranged: YonÉ was to go to Arisuga's mother, where a complete confession would be made. Then, on the morrow, the consent of the parents would be asked, which, whether it were or were not obtained, would be the signal for the wedding preparations. For in the one case YonÉ would be the daughter of her parents, whose consent would have been obtained, in the other of his whose consent was sure.
Then they looked up to find themselves almost in the midst of a great fire which their absorption had kept them from noticing. And it was at once but too plain that YonÉ's home was in that part of the district already burned clear. Of course there were parents and brothers to think of at once, and in thought of their safety YonÉ forgot the opportunity for her outcasting and the hastening of her happiness. When she remembered, it was too late.
She had been pounced upon by her father, and borne in joy to the rendezvous where all the brothers and sisters, as well as the parents of YonÉ, were now in prosaic safety and little perturbation. Shijiro Arisuga had, upon the appearance of the father, ignominiously disappeared—which, indeed, was the best thing which could have happened for YonÉ, so far as her safety from scandal was concerned, and the worst so far as her wish for an immediate marriage was concerned. There was, now, not the least hope of an outcasting. No one had even seen Shijiro, it appeared, nor knew of their going away or coming back together.
"How did you escape, my pleasant daughter?" cried the happy father, embracing her.
"I do not know," said YonÉ, with some truth, looking furtively about for Arisuga.
"And fully dressed?" asked the father again.
With a sigh of disgust, YonÉ answered again that she did not know.
"It was an interposition of the gods."
"Yes," sighed YonÉ, in her heart, "I suppose it was an interposition of the infernal gods."
For Shijiro was undoubtedly gone, not at once to return.
"The smell of fire has not even passed upon your garments," pursued the delighted parent.
"It is very strange," sighed the daughter.
"The gods love you!" declared her father.
"I suppose so," answered YonÉ, indifferently, thinking of quite another escape and another love.
It happened that the next day the Kowshing was sunk and the Guards started for Ping-Yang.