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diff --git a/22884.txt b/22884.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..48f61dd --- /dev/null +++ b/22884.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4997 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Dragon Painter, by Mary McNeil Fenollosa, +Illustrated by Gertrude McDaniel + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Dragon Painter + + +Author: Mary McNeil Fenollosa + + + +Release Date: October 4, 2007 [eBook #22884] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DRAGON PAINTER*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 22884-h.htm or 22884-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/8/8/22884/22884-h/22884-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/8/8/22884/22884-h.zip) + + + + + +[Illustration: Cover artwork] + +THE DRAGON PAINTER + +by + +MARY McNEIL FENOLLOSA + +Author of "Truth Dexter," "The Breath of the Gods," + "Out of the Nest: A Flight of Verses," + etc. + +Illustrated by Gertrude McDaniel + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "Another step, and she was in the room."] + + + +Boston +Little, Brown, and Company +1906 + +Copyright, 1905, +By P. F. Collier & Son. + +Copyright, 1906, +By Little, Brown, and Company. +All rights reserved + +Published October, 1906 + + + + + The story of "The Dragon Painter," in + a shorter form, was originally published in + "Collier's." It has since been practically + rewritten. + + + + +TO + +KANO YEITAN + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"Another step, and she was in the room" . . . _Frontispiece_ + +"With the soft tuft of camel hair he blurred against the + peak pale, luminous vapor of new cloud + +"He walked up and down, sometimes in the narrow room, + sometimes in the garden" + +"'Come, Dragon Wife,' he said, 'come back to our little home'" + +"Ume-ko leaned over instantly, staring down into the stream" + +"Then a little hand, stealing from a nun's gray sleeve, + slipped into his" + + + + +THE DRAGON PAINTER + + +I + +The old folks call it Yeddo. To the young, "Tokyo" has a pleasant, +modern sound, and comes glibly. But whether young or old, those whose +home it is know that the great flat city, troubled with green hills, +cleft by a shining river, and veined in living canals, is the central +spot of all the world. + +Storms visit Tokyo,--with fury often, sometimes with destruction. +Earthquakes cow it; snow falls upon its temple roofs, swings in wet, +dazzling masses from the bamboo plumes, or balances in white strata +along green-black pine branches. The summer sun scorches the face of +Yeddo, and summer rain comes down in wide bands of light. With evening +the mist creeps up, thrown over it like a covering, casting a spell of +silence through which the yellow lanterns of the hurrying jinrikishas +dance an elfish dance, and the voices of the singing-girls pierce like +fine blades of sound. + +But to know the full charm of the great city, one must wake with it at +some rebirth of dawn. This hour gives to the imaginative in every land +a thrill, a yearning, and a pang of visual regeneration. In no place +is this wonder more deeply touched with mystery than in modern Tokyo. + +Far off to the east the Sumida River lies in sleep. Beyond it, temple +roofs--black keels of sunken vessels--cut a sky still powdered thick +with stars. Nothing moves, and yet a something changes! The darkness +shivers as to a cold touch. A pallid haze breathes wanly on the +surface of the impassive sky. The gold deepens swiftly and turns to a +faint rose flush. The stars scamper away like mice. + +Across the moor of gray house eaves the mist wavers. Day troubles it. +A pink light rises to the zenith, and the mist shifts and slips away in +layers, pink and gold and white. Now far beyond the grayness, to the +west, the cone of Fuji flashes into splendor. It, too, is pink. Its +shape is of a lotos bud, and the long fissures that plough a mountain +side are now but delicate gold veining on a petal. Slowly it seems to +open. It is the chalice of a new day, the signal and the pledge of +consecration. Husky crows awake in the pine trees, and doves under the +temple eaves. The east is red beyond the river, and the round, red +sun, insignia of this land, soars up like a cry of triumph. + +On the glittering road of the Sumida, loaded barges, covered for the +night with huge squares of fringed straw mats, begin to nod and preen +themselves like a covey of gigantic river birds. Sounds of prayer and +of silver matin bells come from the temples, where priest and acolyte +greet the Lord Buddha of a new day. From tiny chimneyless kitchens of +a thousand homes thin blue feathers of smoke make slow upward progress, +to be lost in the last echoes of the vanishing mist. Sparrows begin to +chirp, first one, then ten, then thousands. Their voices have the +clash and chime of a myriad small triangles. + +The wooden outer panels (amado) of countless dwellings are thrust +noisily aside and stacked into a shallow closet. The noise +reverberates from district to district in a sharp musketry of sound. +Maid servants call cheerily across bamboo fences. Shoji next are +opened, disclosing often the dull green mosquito net hung from corner +to corner of the low-ceiled sleeping rooms. Children, in brilliant +night robes, run to the verandas to see the early sun; cocks strut in +pigmy gardens. Now, from along the streets rise the calls of flower +peddlers, of venders of fish, bean-curd, vegetables, and milk. Thus +the day comes to modern Tokyo, which the old folks still call Yeddo. + +On such a midsummer dawn, not many years ago, old Kano Indara, sleeping +in his darkened chamber, felt the summons of an approaching joy. +Beauty tugged at his dreams. Smiling, as a child that is led by love, +he rose, drew aside softly the shoji, then the amado of his room, and +then, with face uplifted, stepped down into his garden. The beauty of +the ebbing night caught at his sleeve, but the dawn held him back. + +It was the moment just before the great Sun took place upon his throne. +Kano still felt himself lord of the green space round about him. On +their pretty bamboo trellises the potted morning-glory vines held out +flowers as yet unopened. They were fragile, as if of tissue, and were +beaded at the crinkled tips with dew. Kano's eyelids, too, had dew of +tears upon them. He crouched close to the flowers. Something in him, +too, some new ecstacy was to unfurl. His lean body began to tremble. +He seated himself at the edge of the narrow, railless veranda along +which the growing plants were ranged. One trembling bud reached out as +if it wished to touch him. + +The old man shook with the beating of his own heart. He was an artist. +Could he endure another revelation of joy? Yes, his soul, renewed ever +as the gods themselves renew their youth, was to be given the inner +vision. Now, to him, this was the first morning. Creation bore down +upon him. + +The flower, too, had begun to tremble. Kano turned directly to it. +The filmy, azure angles at the tip were straining to part, held +together by just one drop of light. Even as Kano stared the drop fell +heavily, plashing on his hand. The flower, with a little sob, opened +to him, and questioned him of life, of art, of immortality. The old +man covered his face, weeping. + +The last of his race was Kano Indara; the last of a mighty line of +artists. Even in this material age his fame spread as the mists of his +own land, and his name was known in barbarian countries far across the +sea. Tokyo might fall under the blight of progress, but Kano would +hold to the traditions of his race. To live as a true artist,--to die +as one,--this was his care. He might have claimed high position in the +great Art Museum recently inaugurated by the new government, and housed +in an abomination of pink stucco with Moorish towers at the four +corners. He might even have been elected president of the new Academy, +and have presided over the Italian sculptors and degenerate French +painters imported to instruct and "civilize" modern Japan. Stiff +graphite pencils, making lines as hard and sharp as those in the faces +of foreigners themselves, were to take the place of the soft charcoal +flake whose stroke was of satin and young leaves. Horrible brushes, +fashioned of the hair of swine, pinched in by metal bands, and wielded +with a hard tapering stick of varnished wood, were to be thrust into +the hands of artists,--yes,--artists--men who, from childhood, had +known the soft pliant Japanese brush almost as a spirit hand;--had felt +the joy of the long stroke down fibrous paper where the very thickening +and thinning of the line, the turn of the brush here, the easing of it +there, made visual music,--men who had realized the brush as part not +only of the body but of the soul,--such men, indeed,--such artists, +were to be offered a bunch of hog bristles, set in foreign tin. Why, +even in the annals of Kano's own family more than one faithful brush +had acquired a soul of its own, and after the master's death had gone +on lamenting in his written name. But the foreigners' brushes, and +their little tubes of ill-smelling gum colored with dead hues! Kano +shuddered anew at the thought. + +Naturally he hated all new forms of government. He regretted and +deplored the magnanimity of his Emperor in giving to his people, so +soon, a modern constitution. What need had Art of a constitution? + +Across the northern end of Yeddo runs the green welt of a table-land. +Midway, at the base of this, tucked away from northern winds, hidden in +green bamboo hedges, Kano lived, a mute protest against the new. +Beside himself, of the household were Ume-ko, his only child, and an +old family servant, Mata. + +Kano's garden, always the most important part of a Japanese dwelling +place, ran out in one continuous, shallow terrace to the south. A +stone wall upheld its front edge from the narrow street; and on top of +this wall stiff hedges grew. In one corner, however, a hillock had +been raised, a "Moon Viewing Place," such as poets and artists have +always found necessary. From its flat top old Kano had watched through +many years the rising of the moon; had seen, as now, a new dawn possess +a new-created earth,--had traced the outlines of the stars. By day he +sometimes loved to watch the little street below, delighting in the +motion and color of passing groups. + +For the garden, itself, it was fashioned chiefly of sand, pebbles, +stones, and many varieties of pine, the old artist's favorite plant. A +small rock-bound pond curved about the inner base of the moon-viewing +hill, duplicating in its clear surface the beauties near. A few +splendid carp, the color themselves of dawn, swam lazily about with +noses in the direction of the house whence came, they well knew, +liberal offerings of rice and cake. + +Kano had his plum trees, too; the classic "ume," loved of all artists, +poets, and decent-minded people generally. One tree, a superb specimen +of the kind called "Crouching-Dragon-Plum," writhed and twisted near +the veranda of the chamber of its name-child, Ume-ko, thrusting one +leafy arm almost to the paper shoji of her wall. Kano's transient +flowers were grown, for the most part in pots, and these his daughter +Ume-ko loved to tend. There were morning-glories for the mid-summer +season, peonies and iris for the spring, and chrysanthemums for autumn. +One foreign rose-plant, pink of bloom, in a blue-gray jar, had been +pruned and trained into a beauty that no western rose-bush ever knew. + +Behind the Kano cottage the rise of ground for twenty yards was of a +grade scarcely perceptible to the eye. Here Mata did the family +washing; dried daikon in winter, and sweet-potato slices in the summer +sun. This small space she considered her special domain, and was at no +pains to conceal the fact. Beyond, the hill went upward suddenly with +the curve of a cresting wave. Higher it rose and higher, bearing a +tangled growth of vines and ferns and bamboo grass; higher and higher, +until it broke, in sheer mid-air, with a coarse foam of rock, thick +shrubs, and stony ledges. Almost at the zenith of the cottage garden +it poised, and a great camphor tree, centuries old, soared out into the +blue like a green balloon. + +Behind the camphor tree, again, and not visible from the garden below, +stood a temple of the "Shingon" sect, the most mystic of the old +esoteric Buddhist forms. To the rear of this the broad, low, +rectangular buildings of a nunnery, gray and old as the temple itself +brooded among high hedges of the sacred mochi tree. This retreat had +been famous for centuries throughout Japan. More than once a Lady +Abbess had been yielded from the Imperial family. Formerly the temple +had owned many koku of rich land; had held feudal sway over rice fields +and whole villages, deriving princely revenue. With the restoration of +the Emperor to temporal power, some thirty years before the beginning +of this story, most of the land had been confiscated; and now, shrunken +like the papal power at Rome, the temple claimed, in land, only those +acres bounded by its own hedges and stone temple walls. There were the +main building itself, silent, impressive in towering majesty; +subordinate chapels and dwellings for priests, a huge smoke-stained +refectory, the low nunnery in its spreading gardens and, down the +northern slope of the hill, the cemetery, a lichen-growth, as it were, +of bristling, close-set tombs in gray stone, the splintered regularity +broken in places by the tall rounded column of a priest's grave, set in +a ring of wooden sotoba. At irregular intervals clusters of giant +bamboo trees sprang like green flame from the fissures of gray rock. + +Even in humiliation, in comparative poverty, the temple dominated, for +miles around, the imagination of the people, and was the great central +note of the landscape. The immediate neighborhood was jealously proud +of it. Country folk, journeying by the street below, looked up with +lips that whispered invocation. Children climbed the long stone steps +to play in the temple courtyard, and feed the beautiful tame doves that +lived among the carved dragons of the temple eaves. + +In that gray cemetery on the further slope Kano's wife, the young +mother who died so long ago that Ume-ko could not remember her at all, +slept beneath a granite shaft which said, "A Flower having blossomed in +the Night, the Halls of the Gods are fragrant." This was the Buddhist +kaimyo, or priestly invocation to the spirit of the dead. Of the more +personal part of the young mother, her name, age, and the date of her +"divine retirement," these were recorded in the household shrine of the +Kano cottage, where her "ihai" stood, just behind a little lamp of pure +vegetable oil whose light had never yet been suffered to die. Through +this shrine, and the daily loving offices required by it, she had never +ceased to be a presence in the house. Even in his passionate desire +for a son to inherit the name and traditions of his race, old Kano had +not been able to endure the thought of a second wife who might wish the +shrine removed. + +Ume-ko and her father were well known at the temple, and worshipped +often before its golden altars. But Mata scorned the ceremony of the +older creed. She was a Shinshu, a Protestant. Her sect discarded +mysticism as useless, believed in the marriage of priests, and in the +abolition of the monastic life, and relied for salvation only on the +love and mercy of Amida, the Buddha of Light. + +Sometimes at twilight a group of shadowy human figures, gray as the +doves themselves, crept out from the nunnery gate, crossed the wide, +pebbled courtyard of the temple and stood, for long moments, by the +gnarled roots of the camphor tree, staring out across the beauty of the +plain of Yeddo; its shining bay a great mirror to the south, and off, +on the western horizon, where the last light hung, Fuji, a cone of +porphyry, massive against the gold. + + +For a full hour, now, Kano had delighted in the morning-glories. At +intervals he strolled about the garden to touch separately, as if in +greeting, each beloved plant. Except for the deepening fervor of the +sun he would have kept no note of time. The last shred of mist had +vanished. Crows and sparrows were busy with breakfast for their +nestlings. + +It was, perhaps, the clamor of these feathered parents that, at last, +awoke old Mata in her sleeping closet near the kitchen. She turned +drowsily. The presence of an unusual light under the shoji brought her +to her knees. The amado in the further part of the house were +undoubtedly open. Could robbers have come in the night? And were her +master and Miss Ume weltering in gore? + +She was on her feet now, pushing with shaking fingers at the sliding +walls. She peered at first into Ume's room for there, indeed, lay the +core of old Mata's heart. A slender figure on the floor stirred +slightly and a sound of soft breathing filled the silence. All was +well in Ume's room. She knocked then on Kano's fusuma. There was no +response. Cautiously she parted them, and met an incoming flood of +morning light. The walls were opened. Through the small square +pillars of the veranda she could see, as in a frame, old Kano standing +in the garden beside the fish-pond. Even as she gazed, incredulous at +her own stupidity in sleeping so late, the temple bell above boomed out +six slow strokes. Six! Such a thing had never been known. Well, she +must be growing old and worthless. She had better fill her sleeve with +pebbles and cast herself into the nearest stream. She hurried back, a +tempestuous protest in every step. + +"Miss Ume,--Ume-ko!" she called. "Ma-a-a! What has come to us both? +The Danna San walks about as if he had been awake for hours. And not a +cup of tea for him! The honorable fire does not exist. Surely a demon +of sleep has bewitched us." + +She had entered the girl's room, and now, while speaking, crossed the +narrow space to fling wide, first the shoji, and then the outer amado. + +Ume moved lazily. Her lacquered pillow, with its bright cushion, +rocked as she stirred. "No demon has found me, Mata San," she +murmured, smiling. "No demon unless it be you, cruel nurse, who have +dragged me back from a heavenly dream." + +"Baku devour your dream!" cried Mata. "I say there is no fire beneath +the pot!" + +Ume sat up now, and smoothed slowly the loops of her shining hair. The +yellow morning sun danced into the corners of her room, rioted among +the hues of her silken bed coverings, and paused, abashed, as it were, +before the delicate beauty of her face. + +As Mata scolded, the girl nestled back among her quilts, smiling +mischievously. She loved to tease the old dame. "No, nurse," she +protested, "that cannot be. The baku feeds on evil dreams alone, and +this was not evil. Ah, nurse, it was so sweet a dream----" + +"I can give no time to your honorable fooling," cried Mata, in +pretended anger. "Have I the arms of a Hundred-Handed Kwannon that I +can do all the household work at once? Attire yourself promptly, I +entreat: prepare one of the small trays for your august parent, and get +out two of the pickled plums from the blue jar." + +Ume, with an exaggerated sigh of regret, rose to her feet. Quilt and +cushions were pushed into a corner for later airing. Her toilet was +swift and simple. To slip the bright-colored sleeping robe from her +and toss it to the heaped-up coverlids, don an undergarment of thin +white linen and a scant petticoat of blue crepe, draw over them a day +robe of blue and white cotton, and tie all in with a sash of brocaded +blue and gold,--that was the sum of it. For washing she had a shallow +wooden basin on the kitchen veranda, where cold water splashed +incessantly from bamboo tubes thrust into the hillside. Hurriedly +drying her face and hands on a small towel that hung from a swinging +bamboo hoop, she ran into the kitchen to assist the still grumbling +Mata. + +By this time old Kano had again seated himself at the edge of his +veranda. The summer sun grew unpleasantly warm. The morning-glories +on their trellises had begun to droop. A little later they would hang, +wretched and limp, mere faded scraps of dissolution. Overhead the +temple bell struck seven. Kano shuddered at this foreign marking out +of hours. A melancholy, intense as had been his former ecstacy, began +to enfold his spirit. Perhaps he had waited too long for the simple +breakfast; perhaps the recent glory had drained him of vital force. A +hopelessness, alike of life and death, rose about him in a tide. + +Ume prostrated herself upon the veranda near him. "Good morning, +august father. Will you deign to enter now and partake of food?" + +Her voice and the morning face she lifted might have won a smile from a +stone image. Kano turned sourly. "Why," he thought, "in Shaka's name, +could n't she have been a son?" + +He rose, however, shaking off his wooden clogs so that they remained +upon the path below, and followed Ume to the zashiki, or main room of +the house, with the best view of the garden. + +The tea was delicious in its first delicate infusion; the pickled plums +most stimulating to a morning appetite. + +"Rice and fish will soon honorably eventuate," Ume assured him as she +went back, smiling, into the kitchen. + +Kano pensively lifted a plum upon the point of a toothpick and began +nibbling at its wrinkled skin. Yes, why could she not have been a son? +As it was, the girl could paint,--paint far better than most women even +the famous ones of old. But, after all, no woman painter could be +supreme. Love comes first with women! They have not the strong heart, +the cruelty, the fierce imagination that go to the making of a great +artist. Even among the men of the day, corrupted and distracted as +they are by foreign innovations, could real strength be found? Alas! +Art was surely doomed, and his own life,--the life of the last great +Kano, futile and perishable as the withering flowers on their stems. + +He ate of his fish and rice in gloomy silence. Ume's gentle words +failed to bring a reply. When the breakfast dishes were removed the +old man continued listlessly in his place, staring out with unseeing +eyes into his garden. + +A loud knock came to the wooden entrance gate near the kitchen. Kano +heard a man's deep tones, Mata's thin voice answering an enquiry, and +then the soft murmur of Ume's words. An instant later, heavy +footsteps, belonging evidently to a wearer of foreign shoes, came +around by the side of the house toward the garden. Kano looked up, +frowning with annoyance. A fine-looking man of middle age appeared. +Kano's irritation vanished. + +"Ando Uchida!" he cried aloud, springing to his feet, and hurrying to +the edge of the veranda. "Ando Uchida, is it indeed you? How stout +and strong and prosperous you seem! Welcome!" + +"A little too stout for warm weather," laughed Ando, as laboriously he +removed his foreign shoes and accepted his host's assistance up the one +stone step to the veranda. + +"Welcome, Ando Uchida," said Kano again, when they had taken seats. +"It is quite five years since my eyes last hung upon your honorable +face." + +"Is it indeed so long?" said the other. "Time has the wings of a +dragon-fly!" + +Ando had brought with him a roll, apparently of papers, tied up in +yellow cloth. This parcel he put carefully behind him on the matted +floor. He then drew from his kimono sleeve a pink-bordered foreign +pocket-handkerchief, and began to mop his damp forehead. Kano's +politeness could not hide, entirely, a shudder of antipathy. He +hurried into new speech. "And where, if it is not rude to ask, has my +friend Ando sojourned during the long absence?" + +"Chiefly among the mountains of Kiu Shiu," answered the other. + +"Kiu Shiu," murmured the artist. "I wandered there in youth and have +thought always to return. The rocks and cliffs are of great beauty. I +remember well one white, thin waterfall that flung itself out like a +laugh, but never reached a thing so dull as earth. Midway it was +splintered upon a sunbeam, and changed into rainbows, pearls, and +swallows!" + +"I know it excellently well," said Uchida. "Indeed I have been zealous +to preserve it, chiefly for your sake." + +"Preserve it? What can you mean?" + +"I have become a government inspector of mines," explained Uchida, in +some embarrassment. "I thought you knew. There is a rich coal deposit +near that waterfall." + +"Ando! Ando!" groaned the old man, "you were once an artist! The +foreigners are tainting us all." + +"I love art still," said Ando, "but I make a better engineer. And--I +beseech you to overlook my vulgarity--I am getting rich." + +Kano groaned again. "Oh, this foreign influence! It is the curse of +modern Japan! Love of money is starting a dry rot in the land of the +gods. Success, material power, money,--all of them illusions, miasma +of the soul, blinding men to reality! Surely my karma was evil that I +needed to be reborn into this age of death!" + +Ando looked sympathetic and a little contrite. "Since we are indeed +hopelessly of the present," ventured he, "may it not be as well to let +the foreigners teach us their methods of success?" + +"Success?" cried Kano, almost angrily. "What do they succeed in except +the grossest material gains? There is no humanity in them. Love of +beauty dies in the womb. Shall we strive to become as dead things?" + +"The love of beauty will never perish in this land," said Ando more +earnestly than he had yet spoken. "A Japanese loves Art as he loves +life. Our rich merchants become the best patrons of the artists." + +"Patrons of the artists," echoed Kano, wearily. "You voice your own +degradation, friend Ando. In the great days, who dared to speak of +patronage to us. Emperors were artists and artists Emperors! It was +to us that all men bowed." + +"Yes, yes, that is honorably true," Ando hastened to admit. "And so +would they in this age bow to you, if you would but allow it." + +"I am not worthy of homage," said Kano, his head falling forward on his +breast. "None knows this better than I,--and yet I am the greatest +among them. Show me one of our young artists who can stand like Fudo +in the flame of his own creative thought! There is none!" + +"What you say is unfortunately true of the present Tokyo +painters,--perhaps equally of Kioto and other large cities,--but----" +Here Ando paused as if to arouse expectancy. Kano did not look up. +"But," insisted the other, "may it not be possible that in some place +far from the clamor of modern progress,--in some remote mountain +pass,--maybe----" + +Kano looked up now sharply enough. Apathy and indifference flared up +like straws in a sudden flame of passion. He made a fierce gesture. +"Not that, not that!" he cried. "I cannot bear it! Do not seek to +give false life to a hope already dead. I am an old man. I have hoped +and prayed too long. I must go down to my grave without an heir,--even +an adopted heir,--for there is no disciple worthy to succeed!" + +"Dear friend, believe that I would not willingly add to a grief like +this. I assure you----" Ando was beginning, when his words were cut +short by the entrance of Ume-ko. She bore a tray with cups, a tiny +steaming tea-pot, and a dish heaped with cakes in the forms and tints +of morning-glories. This offering she placed near Uchida; and then, +retiring a few steps, bowed to the floor, drawing her breath inaudibly +as a token of welcome and respect. Being merely a woman, old Kano did +not think of presenting her. She left the room noiselessly as she had +come. Ando watched every movement with admiration and a certain +weighing of possibilities in his shrewd face. He nodded as if to +himself, and leaned toward Kano. + +"Was that not Kano Ume-ko, your daughter?" + +"Yes," said the old man, gruffly; "but she is not a son." + +"Fortunately for the eyes of men she is not," smiled Ando. "That is +the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and I have seen many. She +welcomed me at the gate." + +Kano, engaged in pouring tea, made no reply. + +"Also, if current speech be true, she has great talent," persisted the +visitor. "One can see genius burning like a soft light behind her +face. I hear everywhere of her beauty and her fame." + +"Oh, she does well,--even remarkably well for a woman," admitted Kano. +"But, as I said before, she is a woman, and nothing alters that. I +tell you, Ando!" he cried, in a small new gust of irritation, +"sometimes I have wished that she had been left utterly untouched by +art. She paints well now, because my influence is never lifted. She +knows nothing else. I have allowed no lover to approach. Yet, some +day love will find her, as one finds a blossoming plum tree in the +night. In every rock and tree she paints I can see the hint of that +coming lover; in her flowers, exquisitely drawn, nestle the faces of +her children. She knows it not, but I know,--I know! She thinks she +cares only for her father and her art. When I die she will marry, and +then how many pictures will she paint? Bah!" + +"Poor child!" murmured Ando, under his breath. + +"Poor child," mocked the artist, whose quick ears had caught the +whisper. "Poor Nippon, rather, and poor old Kano, who has no better +heir than this frail girl. Oh, Ando, I have clamored to the gods! I +have made pilgrimages and given gifts,--but there is no one to inherit +my name and the traditions of my race. Nowhere can I find a Dragon +Painter!" + +Ando put his hand out quickly behind him, seized the long roll tied in +yellow cloth, and began to unfasten it. + +Kano was panting with the vehemence of his own speech. He poured +another little cup of tea and drained it. He began now to watch Ando, +and found himself annoyed by the deliberation of his friend's motions. +"Strange, strange----" Ando was murmuring. An instant later came the +whisper, "very, very strange!" + +"Why do you repeat it?" cried Kano, irritably. "There was nothing +strange in what I said." + +The parcel was now untied. Ando held a roll of papers outward. +"Examine these, Kano Indara," he said impressively. "If I do not +greatly mistake, the gods, at last, have heard your prayer." + +Kano went backward as if from fire. "No! I cannot,--I must not hope! +Too long have I searched. Not a schoolboy who thought he could draw an +outline in the sand with his toe but I have fawned on him. I dare not +look. Ando, to-day I am shaken as if with an ague of the soul. +I--I--could not bear another disappointment." He did indeed seem +piteously weak and old. He hid his face in long, lean, twitching +fingers. + +Ando was sincerely affected. "This is to be no disappointment," said +he, gently. "I pray you, listen patiently to my clumsy speech." + +"I will strive to listen calmly," said Kano, in a broken voice. "But +first honorably secrete the papers once again. They tantalize my +sight." + +Uchida put them down on the floor beside him and threw the cloth +carelessly above. He was more moved than he cared to show. He strove +now to speak simply, directly, and with convincing earnestness. Kano +had settled into his old attitude of dejection. + +"One morning, not more than six weeks ago," began Uchida, "the +engineering party which I command had climbed some splintered peaks of +the Kiu Shiu range to a spot quite close, indeed, to that thin +waterfall which you remember----" + +"One might forget his friends and relatives, but not a waterfall like +that!" interrupted Kano. + +"Suddenly a storm, blown down apparently from a clear sky, caught up +the mountain and our little group of men in a great blackness." + +"The mountain deities were angered at your presumption," nodded Kano, +well pleased. + +"It may be," admitted the other. "At any rate, the winds now hurried +in from the sea. Round cloud vapors split sidewise on the wedges of +the rocks. Voices screamed in the fissures. We clung to the +scrub-pines and the sa-sa grass for safety." + +"I can see it all. I can feel it," whispered old Kano. + +"We wished to descend, but knew no way. I shouted for aid. The others +shouted many times. Then from the very midst of tumult came a +youth,--half god, half beast, with wild eyes peering at us, and hair +that tossed like the angry clouds." + +"Yes, yes," urged Kano, straining forward. + +"We scrambled toward him, and he shrank back into the mist. We called, +beseeching help. The workmen thought him a young sennin, and falling +on their knees, began to pray. Then the youth approached us more +deliberately, and, when we asked for guidance, led us by a secluded +path down into a mountain village." + +"And you think,--you think that this marvellous youth," began Kano, +eagerly; then broke off with a gesture of despair. "I must not +believe, I must not believe," he muttered. + +Ando's hand was once more on the roll of papers. He went on smoothly. +"We questioned of him in the village. He is a foundling. None knows +his parentage. From childhood he has made pictures upon rocks, and +sand beds, and the inner bark of trees. He wanders for days together +among the peaks, and declares that he is searching for his mate, a +Dragon Princess, withheld from him by enchantment. Naturally the +village people think him mad. But they are kind to him. They give him +food and clothing, and sometimes sheets of paper, like these here." +With affected unconcern he raised the long roll. "Yes, they give him +paper, with real ink and brushes. Then he leaps up the mountain side +and paints and paints for hours, like a demon. But as soon as he has +eased his soul of a sketch he lets the first gust of wind blow it away." + +Kano was now shivering in his place. On his wrinkled face a light +dawned. "Shall I believe? Oh, Ando, indeed I could not bear it now! +Unroll those drawings before I go mad!" + +Uchida deliberately spread out the first. It was a scene of mountain +storm, painted as in an elemental fury. Inky pine branches slashed and +hurled upward, downward, and across a tortured gray sky. A cloud-rack +tore the void like a Valkyrie's cry made visible. One huge talon of +lightning clutched at the flying scud. + +Kano gave a glance, covered his face, and began to sob. Uchida blew +his nose on the pink-bordered foreign handkerchief. After a long while +the old man whispered, "What name shall I use in my prayer?" + +"He is called," said Ando, "by the name of 'Tatsu.' 'Tatsu, the Dragon +Painter.'" + + + + +II + +The sounds and sights of the great capital were dear to Ando Uchida. +In five years of busy exile among remote mountains he felt that he had +earned, as it were, indulgence for an interval of leisurely enjoyment. + +His initial visit to old Kano had been made not so much to renew an +illustrious acquaintance, as to relieve his own mind of its exciting +news, and his hands of a parcel which, at every stage of the journey, +had been an incubus. Ando knew the paintings to be unusual. He had +hoped for and received from Kano the highest confirmation of this +belief. + +At that time, now a week ago, he had been pleased, and Kano irradiated. +Already he was cursing himself for his pains, and crying aloud that, +had he dreamed the consequences, never had the name of Tatsu crossed +his lips! Ando's anticipated joys in Yeddo lay, as yet, before him. +Hourly was he tormented by visits from the impatient Kano. Neither +midnight nor dawn were safe from intrusion. Always the same questions +were asked, the same fears spoken, the same glorious future prophesied; +until finally, in despair, one night Ando arose between the hours of +two and three, betaking himself to a small suburban hotel. Here he +lived, for a time, in peace, under the protection of an assumed name. + +A letter had been dispatched that first day, to Tatsu of Kiu Shiu, with +a sum of money for the defraying of travelling expenses, and the +petition that the youth should come as quickly as possible for a visit +to Kano Indara, since the old man could not, of himself, attempt so +long a journey. After what seemed to the impatient writer (and in +equal degree to the harassed Uchida) an endless cycle of existence, an +answer came, not, indeed from Tatsu, but from the "Mura osa," or head +of the village, saying that the Mad Painter had started at once upon +his journey, taking not even a change of clothes. By what route he +would travel or on what date arrive, only the gods could tell. + +Kano's rapture in these tidings was assailed, at once, by a swarm of +black conjectures. Might the boy not lose himself by the way? If he +attempted to ride upon the hideous foreign trains he was certain to be +injured; if on the other hand, he did not come by train, weeks, even +months, might be consumed in the journey. Again, should he essay to +come by boat! Then there were dangers of wind and storm. Visions of +Tatsu drowned; of Tatsu heaped under a wreck of burning cars; starved +to death in a solitary forest; set upon, robbed, and slain by footpads, +all spun--black silhouettes in a revolving lantern--through Kano's +frenzied imagination. It was at this point that Uchida had hid +himself, and assumed a false name. + +In another week the gentle Ume began to grow pale and silent under the +small tyrannies of her father. Mata openly declared her belief that it +was a demon now on the way to them, since he had power to change the +place into a cave of torment even before arrival. After Uchida's +defection old Kano remained constantly at home. Many hours at a time +he stood upon the moon-viewing hillock of his garden, staring up, then +down the street, up and down, up and down, until it was weariness to +watch him. Within the rooms he was merely one curved ear, bent in the +direction of the entrance gate. His nervousness communicated itself to +the women of the house. They, too, were listening. More than one +innocent visitor had been thrown into panic by the sight of three +strained faces at the gate, and three pairs of shining eyes set +instantly upon them. + +One twilight hour, late in August, Tatsu came. After an eager day of +watching, old Kano had just begun to tell himself that hope was over. +Tatsu had certainly been killed. The ihai might as well be set up, and +prayers offered for the dead man's soul. Ume-ko, wearied by the heat, +and the incessant strain, lay prone upon her matted floor, listening to +the chirp of a bell cricket that hung in a tiny bamboo cage near by. +The clear notes of the refrain, struck regularly with the sound of a +fairy bell, had begun to help and soothe her. Mata sat dozing on the +kitchen step. + +A loud, sudden knock shattered in an instant this precarious calm. +Kano went through the house like a storm. Mata, being nearest, flung +the panel of the gate aside. There stood a creature with tattered blue +robe just to the knees, bare feet, bare head, with wild, tossing locks +of hair, and eyes that gleamed with a panther's light. + +"Is it--is it--Tatsu?" screamed the old man, hurling his voice before +him. + +"It is a madman," declared the servant, and flattened herself against +the hedge. + +Ume said nothing at all. After one look into the stranger's face she +had withdrawn, herself unseen, into the shadowy rooms. + +"I am Tatsu of Kiu Shiu," announced the apparition, in a voice of +strange depth and sweetness. "Is this the home of Kano Indara?" + +"Yes, yes, I am Kano Indara," said the artist, almost grovelling on the +stones. "Enter, dear sir, I beseech. You must be weary. Accompany me +in this direction, august youth. Mata, bring tea to the guest-room." + +Tatsu followed his tempestuous host in silence. As they gained the +room Kano motioned him to a cushion, and prepared to take a seat +opposite. Tatsu suddenly sank to his knees, bowing again and again, +stiffly, in a manner long forgotten in fashionable Yeddo. + +"Discard the ceremony of bowing, I entreat," said Kano. + +"Why? Is it not a custom here?" + +"Yes,--to a lesser extent. But between us, dear youth, it is +unnecessary." + +"Why should it be unnecessary between us?" persisted the unsmiling +guest. + +"Because we are artists, therefore brothers," explained Kano, in an +encouraging voice. + +Tatsu frowned. "Who are you, and why have you sent for me?" + +"Do you inquire who I am?" said Kano, scarcely believing his ears. + +"It is what I asked." + +"I am Kano Indara." The old man folded his arms proudly, waiting for +the effect. + +Tatsu moved impatiently upon his velvet cushion. "Of course I knew +that. It was the name on the scrap of paper that guided me here." + +"Is it possible that you do not yet know the meaning of the name of +Kano?" asked the artist, incredulously. A thin red tingled to his +cheek,--the hurt of childish vanity. + +"There is one of that name in my village," said Tatsu. "He is a +scavenger, and often gives me fine large sheets of paper." + +Old Kano's lip trembled. "I am not of his sort. Men call me an +artist." + +"Oh, an artist! Does that mean a painter of dragons, like me?" + +"Among other things of earth and air I have attempted to paint +dragons," said Kano. + +"I paint nothing else," declared Tatsu, and seemed to lose interest in +the conversation. + +Kano looked hard into his face. "You say that you paint nothing else?" +he challenged. "Are not these--all of them--your work, the creations +of your fancy?" He reached out for the roll that Uchida had brought. +His hands trembled. In his nervous excitement the papers fell, +scattering broadcast over the floor. + +Tatsu's dark face flashed into light. "My pictures! My pictures!" he +cried aloud, like a child. "They always blow off down the mountain!" + +Kano picked up a study at random. It was of a mountain tarn lying +quiet in the sun. Trees in a windless silence sprang straight upward +from the brink. Beyond and above these a few tall peaks stood thin and +pale, cutting a sky that was empty of all but light. + +"Where is the dragon here?" challenged the old man. + +"Asleep under the lake." + +"And where here?" he asked quickly, in order to hide his discomfiture. +The second picture was a scene of heavy rain descending upon a village. +"Oh, I perceive for myself," he hurried on before Tatsu could reply. +"The dragon lies full length, half sleeping, on the soaking cloud." + +Tatsu's lip curled, but he remained silent. + +The old man's hands rattled among the edges of the papers. "Ah, here, +Master Painter, are you overthrown!" he cried triumphantly, lifting the +painting of a tall girl who swayed against a cloudy background. The +lines of the thin gray robe blew lightly to one side. The whole figure +had the poise and lightness of a vision; yet in the face an exquisite +human tenderness smiled out. "Show me a dragon here," repeated Kano. + +Tatsu looked troubled and, for the first time, studied intently the +countenance of his host. "Surely, honored sir, if you are a painter, +as you say you are, its meaning must be plain. Look more closely. Do +you not see on what the maiden stands?" + +"Of course I see," snapped Kano. "She stands among rocks and weeds, +and looks marvellously like----" He broke off, thinking it better not +to mention his daughter's name. "But I repeat, no dragon-thought is +here." + +Tatsu reached out, took the picture, and tore it into shreds. Then he +rose to his feet. "Good-by," he said. "I shall now make a quick +returning. You are of the blind among men. My painting was the Dragon +Maid, standing on the peaks of earth. All my life I have sought her. +The people of my village think me mad because of her. By reason that I +cannot find, I paint. Good-by!" + +"Good-by!" echoed the other. "What do you mean? What are you saying?" +The face of a horrible possibility jeered at him. His heart pounded +the lean ribs and stood still. Tatsu was upon his feet. In an instant +more he would be gone forever. + +"Tatsu, wait!" almost screamed the old man. "Surely you cannot mean to +return when you have but now arrived! Be seated. I insist! There is +much to talk about." + +"I have nothing to talk about. When a thing is to be done, then it is +best to do it quickly. Good-by!" He wheeled toward the deepening +night, the torn and soiled blue robe clinging to him as to the figure +of a primeval god. + +"Tatsu! Tatsu!" cried the other in an agony of fear. "Stop! I +command!" + +Tatsu turned, scowling. Then he laughed. + +"No, no, I did not mean the word 'command.' I entreat you, Tatsu, +because you are young and I am old; because I need you. Dear youth, +you must be hungered and very weary. Remain at least until our meal is +served." + +"I desire no food of yours," said Tatsu. "Why did you summon me when +you had nothing to reveal? You are no artist! And I pine, already, +for the mountains!" + +"Then, Tatsu, if I am no artist, stay and teach me how to paint. Yes, +yes, you shall honorably teach me. I shall receive reproof thankfully. +I need you, Tatsu. I have no son. Stay and be my son." + +The short, scornful laugh came again. "Your son! What could you do +with a son like me? You love to dwell in square cages, and wear smooth +shiny clothes. You eat tasteless foods and sleep like a cocoon that is +rolled. My life is upon the mountains; my food the wild grapes and the +berries that grow upon them. The pheasants and the mountain lions are +my friends. I stifle in these lowlands. I cannot stay. I must +breathe the mountains, and there among the peaks some day--some day--I +shall touch her sleeve, the sleeve of the Dragon Maiden whom I seek. +Let me go, old man! I have no business in this place!" + +In extremes of desperation one clutches at the semblance of a straw. A +last, wild hope had flashed to Kano's mind. "Come nearer, Tatsu San," +he whispered, forcing his face into the distortion of a smile. "Lean +nearer. The real motive of my summons has not been spoken." + +Compelled by the strange look and manner of his host, Tatsu retraced a +few steps. The old voice wheedled through the dusk. "In this very +house, under my mortal control, the Dragon Maiden whom you seek is +hidden." + +Tatsu staggered back, then threw himself to the floor, searching the +speaker's face for truth. "Could you lie to me of such a thing as +this?" he asked. + +"No, Tatsu, by the spirits of my ancestors, I have such a maiden here. +Soon I shall show you. Only you must be patient and very quiet, that +she may manifest herself." + +"I shall be quiet, Kano Indara." + +Kano, shivering now with excitement and relief, clapped hands loudly +and called on Mata's name. The old dame entered, skirting warily the +vicinity of the "madman." + +"Mata, fix your eyes on me only while I am speaking," began her master. +"Say to the Dragon Maid whom we keep in the chamber by the great plum +tree that I, Kano Indara, command her to appear. The costume must be +worn; and let her enter, singing. These are my instructions. Assist +the maiden to obey them. Go!" + +His piercing look froze the questions on her tongue. "And Mata," he +called again, stopping her at the threshold, "bring at once some heated +sake,--the best,--and follow it closely with the evening meal." + +"Kashikomarimashita," murmured the servant, dutifully. But within the +safety of her kitchen she exploded into execrations, muttering +prophecies of evil, with lamentations that a Mad Thing from the +mountains had broken into the serenity of their lives. + +Tatsu, who had listened eagerly to the commands, now flung back his +head and drew a long breath. "My life being spent among wild +creatures," he murmured as if to himself, "little skill have I in +judging the ways of men. How shall I believe that in this desert of +houses a true Dragon Maiden can be found?" Again he turned flashing +eyes upon his host. "I mistrust you, Kano Indara! Your thin face +peers like a fox from its hole. If you deceive me,--yet must I +remain,--for should she come----" + +"You shall soon perceive for yourself, dear Dragon Youth." + +Mata entered with hot sake. "Go! We shall serve ourselves," said +Kano, much to her relief. + +"I seldom drink," observed Tatsu, as the old man filled his cup. "Once +it made of me a fool. But I will take a little now, for I am very +weary with the long day." + +"Indeed, it must be so; but good wine refreshes the body and the mind +alike," replied the other. It was hard to pour the sake with such +shaking hands, harder still to keep his eyes from the beautiful sullen +face so near him, and yet he forced the wrinkled eyelids to conceal his +dawning joy. In Tatsu's strange submission, the artist felt that the +new glory of the Kano name was being born. + + + + +III + +For a long interval the two men sat in silence. Kano leaned forward +from time to time, filling the small cup which Tatsu--half in revery it +seemed--had once more drained. The old servant now and again crept in +on soundless feet to replace with a freshly heated bottle of sake the +one grown cold. So still was the place that the caged cricket hanging +from the eaves of Ume's distant room beat time like an elfin metronome. + +Two of the four walls of the guest-room were of shoji, a lattice +covered with translucent rice-paper. These opened directly upon the +garden. The third wall, a solid one of smoke-blue plaster, held the +niche called "tokonoma," where pictures are hung and flower vases set. +The remaining wall, opening toward the suite of chambers, was fashioned +of four great sliding doors called fusuma, dull silver of background, +with paintings of shadowy mountain landscape done centuries before by +one of the greatest of the Kanos. It was in front of these doors that +Mata now placed two lighted candles in tall bronze holders. + +Outside, the garden became a blur of soft darkness. Within, the +flickering yellow light of the candles danced through the room, +touching now the old face, now the young, each set hard in its own +lines of concentrated thought. Weird shadows played about the +mountains on the silver doors, and hid in far corners of the matted +floor. + +All at once the two central fusuma were apart. No slightest sound had +been made, yet there, in the narrow rectangle, stood a figure,--surely +not of earth,--a slim form in misty gray robes, wearing a crown of +intertwisted dragons, with long filigree chains that fell straight to +the shoulders. In one hand was held an opened fan of silver. + +Tatsu gave a convulsive start, then checked himself. He could not +believe the vision real. Not even in his despairing dreams had the +Dragon Maid appeared so exquisite. As he gazed, one white-clad foot +slid a few inches toward him on the shining floor. Another step, and +she was in the room. The fusuma behind her closed as noiselessly as +they had opened. Tatsu shivered a little, and stared on. With equal +intensity the old man watched the face of Tatsu. + +The figure had begun to sway, slightly, at full length, like long bands +of perpendicular rain across the face of a mountain. A singing voice +began, rich, passionate, and low, matching with varying intonation the +marvellous postures of fan and throat and body. At first low in sound, +almost husky, it flowered to a note long held and gradually deepening +in power. It gathered up shadows from the heart and turned them into +light. + +Ume-ko danced (or so she would have told you) only to fulfil her +father's command; yet, before she had reached the room, she knew that +it would be such a dance as neither she nor the old artist had dreamed +of. That first glimpse of Tatsu's face at the gate had registered for +her a notch upon the Revolving Wheel of Life. His first spoken word +had aroused in her strange mystic memories from stranger hiding places. +Karma entered with her into the little guest-room where she was to +dance and charged the very air with revelation. The words of the old +classic poem she had in her ignorance believed familiar, she knew that +she was now for the first time really to sing. + +"Not for one life but for the blossoming of a thousand lives, shall I +seek my lover, shall I regain his love," she sang. No longer was it +Ume-ko at all, but in actual truth the Dragon Maid, held from her lover +by a jealous god, seeking him through fire and storm and sea, peering +for him into the courts of emperors, the shrines of the astonished +gods, the very portals of the under-world. + +And Tatsu listened without sound or motion; only his eyes burned like +beacons in a windless night. Kano wriggled himself backward on the +matting that the triumph of his face might not be seen. Now and again +he leaned forward stealthily and filled Tatsu's cup. + +The unaccustomed fluid was already pouring in a fiery torrent through +the boy's vivid brain. His hands, slipped within the tattered blue +sleeves, grasped tightly each the elbow of the other arm. His ecstacy +was a drug, enveloping his senses; again it was a fire that threatened +the very altar of his soul. Through it all he, as Ume-ko, realized +fulfilment. Here in this desert of men's huts he had gained what all +the towering mountains had not been able to bestow. Here was his +bride, made manifest, his mate, the Dragon Maid, found at last through +centuries of barren searching! Surely, if he should spring now to his +feet, catch her to him and call upon his mountain gods for aid, they +would be hurled together to some paradise of love where only he and she +and love would be alive! He trembled and caught in his breath with a +sob. Kano glided a few feet nearer, and struck the matting sharply +with his hand. + +Suddenly the dance was over. Ume-ko, quivering now in every limb, sank +to the floor. She bowed first to the guest of honor, then to her +father. Touching her wet eyes with a silken sleeve she moved backward +to the rear of the room where she seated herself upright, motionless as +the wall itself, between the two tall candles. Tatsu's eyes never left +her face. Old Kano, in the background, rocked to and fro, and, after a +short pause of waiting, clapped his hands for Mata. + +"Hai-ie-ie-ie-ie!" came the thin voice, long drawn out, from the +kitchen. She entered with a tray of steaming food, placing it before +Tatsu. A second tray was brought for the master, and a fresh bottle of +wine. Ume-ko sat motionless against the silver fusuma, an ivory image, +crowned and robed in shimmering gray. + +The odor of good food attracted Tatsu's senses if not his eyes. He ate +greedily, hastily, not seeing what he ate. His manners were those of +an untutored mountain peasant. + +"Dragon Maid," purred Kano, "weariness has come upon you. Retire, I +pray, and deign to rest." + +"No!" said Tatsu, loudly. "She shall not leave this room." + +"My concern is for the august maiden who has found favor in your +sight," replied Kano, with a deprecating gesture. "Here, Tatsu, let me +fill your cup." + +Tatsu threw his cup face down to the floor, and put his lean, brown +hand upon it. "I drink no more until my cup of troth with the maiden +yonder." + +Ume-ko's startled eyes flew to his. She trembled, and the blood slowly +ebbed from her face, leaving it pale and luminous with a sort of wonder. + +"Go!" said Kano again, and, in a daze, the girl rose and vanished from +the room. + +Tatsu had hurled himself toward her, but it was too late. He turned +angrily to his host. "She is mine! Why did you send her away?" + +"Gently, gently," cooed the other. "In this incarnation she is called +my daughter." + +"I believe it not!" cried Tatsu. "How came she under bondage to you? +Have I not sought her through a thousand lives? She is mine!" + +"Even so, in this life I am her father, and it is my command that she +will obey." + +Tatsu rocked and writhed in his place. + +"She is a good daughter," pursued the other, amiably. "She has never +yet failed in docility and respect. Without my consent you shall not +touch her,--not even her sleeve." + +"I have sought her through a thousand lives. I will slay him who tries +to keep her from me!" raved the boy. + +"To kill her father would scarcely be a fortunate beginning," said +Kano, tranquilly. "Your hope lies in safer paths, dear youth. There +are certain social conventions attached even to a Dragon Maid. Now if +you will calm yourself and listen to reason----" + +Tatsu sprang to his feet and struck himself violently upon the brow. +The hot wine was making a whirlpool of his brain. "Reason! convention! +safety! I hate them all! Oh, you little men of cities! Farmyard +fowls and swine, running always to one sty, following always one +lead,--doing things in the one way that other base creatures have +marked out----" + +Kano laughed aloud. His whole life had been a protest against +conventionality, and this impassioned denunciation came from a new +world. The sound maddened Tatsu. He leaped to the veranda, now a mere +ledge thrust out over darkness, threw an arm about the slender +corner-post, and strained far out, gasping, into the night. Kano +filled his pipe with leisurely deliberation. The time was past for +fear. + +In a few moments the boy returned, his face ugly, black, and sullen. +"I will be your son if you give me the maiden," he muttered. + +"Come now, this is much better," said Kano, with a genial smile. "We +shall discuss the matter like rational men." + +Tatsu ground his teeth so that the other heard him. + +"Have a pipe," said Kano. + +"I want no pipe." + +"At least make yourself at ease upon the cushion while I speak." + +"I am more at ease without it," said the boy, flinging the velvet +square angrily across the room. "Ugh! It is like sitting on a dead +cat. Kindly speak without further care for me. I am at ease!" + +Kano glanced at the burning eyes, the quivering face and twitching +muscles with a smile. The intensity of ardor touched him. He drew a +short sigh, the look of complacency left his for an instant, and he +began, deliberately, "As you may have gathered from my letter, I am +without a son." + +Tatsu nodded shortly. + +"Worse than this, among all my disciples here in Yeddo there has +appeared none worthy to inherit the name and traditions of my race. +Now, dear youth, when I first saw these paintings of yours, the hope +stirred in me that you might be that one." + +"Do you mean that I should paint things as paltry as your own?" + +"No, not exactly, though even from my poor work you might gain some +valuable lessons of technique." + +"I know not that word," said Tatsu. "When I must paint, I paint. What +has all this to do with the Dragon Maiden?" + +"Softly, softly; we are coming to that now," said Kano. "If, after +trial, I should find you really worthy of adoption, nothing could be +more appropriate than for you to become the husband of my daughter." + +Tatsu dug his nails into the matting of the floor. +"Suitable--appropriate--husband!" he groaned aloud. "Farmyard +cackle,--all of it. Oh, to be joined in the manner of such earthlings +to a Dragon Maid like this! Old man, cannot even you feel the horror +of it? No, your eyes blink like a pig that has eaten. You cannot see. +She should be made mine among storm and wind and mist on some high +mountain peak, where the gods would lean to us, and great straining +forests roar out our marriage hymn!" + +"There is indeed something about it that appeals to me. It would make +a fine subject for a painting." + +"Oh, oh," gasped Tatsu, and clutched at his throat. "When will you +give her to me, Kano Indara? Shall it be to-night?" + +"To-night? Are you raving!" cried the astonished Kano. "It would be +at the very least a month." + +Tatsu rose and staggered to the veranda. "A month!" he whispered to +the stars. "Shall I live at all? Good-night, old man of clay," he +called suddenly, and with a light step was down upon the garden path. + +Kano hurried to him. "Stop, stop, young sir," he called half clicked, +now, with laughter. "Do not go in this rude way. You are my guest. +The women are even now preparing your bed." + +"I lie not on beds," jeered Tatsu through the darkness. "Vile things +they are, like the ooze that smears the bottom of a lake. I climb this +hillside for my couch. To-morrow, with the sun, I shall return!" + +The voice, trailing away through silence and the night, had a tone of +supernatural sweetness. When it had quite faded Kano stared on, for a +long time, into the fragrant solitude. Stars were out now by +thousands, a gold mosaic set into a high purple dome. Off to the south +a wide blur of artificial light hung above the city, the visible +expression, as it were, of the low, human roar of life, audible even in +this sheltered nook. To the north, almost it seemed within touch of +his hands, the temple cliff rose black, formidable, and impressive, a +gigantic wall of silence. The camphor tree overhead was thrown out +darkly against the stars, like its own shadow. The velvety boom of the +temple bell, striking nine, held in its echoes the color and the +softness of the hour. + +Kano, turning at last from the veranda, slowly re-entered the +guest-room, and seated himself upon one of the cushions that had +aroused Tatsu's scorn. A dead cat,--forsooth! Well to old bones a +dead cat might be better than no cushion! Mata had come in very +softly. "I prayed the gods for him," Kano was muttering aloud, "and I +thank them that he is here. To-morrow I shall make offering at the +temple. Yet I have thanks, too, that there is but one of him. Ah, +Mata,--you? My hot bath, is it ready? And, friend Mata, do you recall +a soothing draught you once prepared for me at a time of great mental +strain,--there was, I think, something I wished to do with a picture, +and the picture would not allow it. I should like a draught like that +to-night." + +"Kashikomarimashita. I recall it," said old Mata, grimly, "and I shall +make it strong, for you have something worse than pictures to deal with +now." + +"Thanks. I was sure you would remember," smiled the old man, and Mata, +disarmed of her cynicism, could say no more. + +Ume remained in her chamber. She had not been seen since the dance. +All her fusuma and shoji were closed. Mata, in leaving her master, +looked tentatively toward this room, but after an imperceptible pause +kept on down the central passageway of the house to the bathroom, at +the far end. The place smelled of steam, of charcoal fumes, and cedar +wood. With two long, thin iron "fire-sticks," Mata poked, from the +top, the heap of darkening coals in the cylindrical furnace that was +built into one end of the tub. For the protection of the bather this +was surrounded with a wooden lattice which, being always wet when the +furnace was in use, never charred. The tub itself was of sugi-wood. +After years of service it still gave out unfailingly its aromatic +breath, and felt soft to the touch, like young leaves. Sighing +heavily, the old servant bared her arm and leaned over to stir the +water, to draw down by long, elliptical swirls of motion the heated +upper layers into cold strata at the bottom. She then wiped her arm on +her apron and went to the threshold of the guest-room to inform the +waiting occupant. "In ten minutes more, without fail, the water will +be at right heat for your augustness." + +Now, in the kitchen, a great searching among jars and boxes on high +shelves told of preparation for the occasional brew. Again she thought +of calling Ume. Ume could reach the highest shelf without standing on +an inverted rice-pot, or the even more precarious fish-cleaning bench. +And again, for a reason not quite plain to herself, Mata decided not to +call. She threw a fresh handful of twigs and dried ferns to the +sleeping ashes of the brazier, set a copper skillet deep into the +answering flame, and began dropping dried bits of herbs into the +simmering water. Instantly the air was changed,--was tinged and +interpenetrated with hurrying, spicy fumes, with hints of a bitter +bark, of jellied gums, of resin, and a compelling odor which should +have been sweet, but was only nauseating. The steam assumed new colors +as it rose. Each sprite of aromatic perfume when released plunged into +noiseless tumult with opposing fumes. The kitchen was a crucible, and +the old dame a mediaeval alchemist. The flames and smoke striving +upward, as if to reach her bending face, made it glow with the hue of +the copper kettle, a wrinkled copper, etched deep with lines of life, +of merriment, perplexity, of shrewd and practical experience. + +As she stirred, testing by nose and eye the rapid completion of her +work, she was determining to put aside for her own use a goodly share +of the beneficent fluid. The coming of the wild man had unnerved her +terribly. In the threatening family change she could perceive nothing +but menace. Apprehension even now weighed down upon her, a +foreshadowing of evil that had, somehow, a present hostage in the deep +silence of Ume's room. Of what was her nursling thinking? How had it +seemed to her, so guarded, and so delicately reared, this being +summoned like a hired geisha to dance before a stranger,--a ragged, +unkempt, hungry stranger! Even her father's well-known madness for +things of art could scarcely atone to his child for this indignity. + +Kano had gone promptly to his bath. He was now emerging. His bare +feet grazed the wooden corridor. Mata ran to him. "Good! Ah, that +was good!" he said heartily. "Five years of aches have I left in the +tub!" Within his chamber the andon was already lighted, and the long, +silken bed-cushions spread. Mata assisted him to slip down carefully +between the mattress and the thin coverlid. She patted and arranged +him as she would a child, and then went to fetch the draught. "Mata, +thou art a treasure," he said, as she knelt beside him, the bowl +outstretched. He drained the last drop, and the old friends exchanged +smiles of answering satisfaction. Before leaving him she trimmed and +lowered the andon so that its yellow light would be a mere glimmer in +the darkness. + +She moved now deliberately to Ume's fusuma, tapping lightly on the +lacquered frame. "Miss Ume! O Jo San!" she called. Nothing answered. + +Mata parted the fusuma an inch. The Japanese matted floor, even in +darkness, gives out a sort of ghostly, phosphorescent glow. Thus, in +the unlit space Mata could perceive that the girl lay at full length, +her Dragon Robe changed to an ordinary house dress, her long hair +unbound, her face turned downward and hidden on an outstretched arm. +It was not a pose of grief, neither did it hint of slumber. + +"Honorable Young Lady of the House," said Mata, now more severely, "I +came to announce your bath. The august father having already entered +and withdrawn, it is your turn." + +This time Ume answered her, not, however, changing her position. "I do +not care to take the bath to-night. You enter, I pray, without further +waiting. I--I--should like to be left alone, nurse. I myself will +unroll the bed and light the andon." + +Mata leaned nearer. Her voice was a theatrical whisper. "Is it that +you are outraged, my Ume-ko, at your father's strange demand upon you? +I was myself angered. He would scarcely have done so much for a Prince +of the Blood,--and to make you appear before so crude and ignorant a +thing as that--" + +Ume sat upright. "No, I am angered at nothing. I only wish to be +alone. Ah, nurse, you have always spoiled me,--give me my way." + +Mata went off grumbling. She wished that Ume had shown a more natural +indignation. The hot bath, however, notwithstanding Kano's five lost +years of pain presumably in solution, brought her ease of body, as did +the soothing potion, ease of mind. + +All night long the old folks heavily slept; and all night long little +Ume-ko drifted in a soft, slow rising flood of consciousness that was +neither sleep nor waking, though wrought of the intertwining strands of +each. Again she saw the dark face in the gateway. It was a mere +picture in a frame, set for an artist's joy. Then it seemed a summons, +calling her to unfamiliar paths,--a prophecy, a clew. Again she heard +his voice,--an echo made of all these things, and more. She tried to +force herself to think of him merely as an artist would think; how the +lines of the shoulders and the throat flowed upward, like dark flame, +to the altar of his face. How the hair grew in flame upon his brow, +how the dark eyes, fearless and innocent with the look of primeval +youth, indeed, held a strange human pain of searching. The mere +remembered pictures of him rose and fell with her as sea-flowers, or +long river grass; but when there came remembered shiver of his words, +"I drink no more until my cup of troth with the maiden yonder!" then +all drifting ceased; illusion was at an end. With a gasp she felt +herself falling straight down through a swirling vortex of sensation, +to the very sand-bed of the stream. Now she was sitting upright (the +sand-bed had suddenly become the floor of her little room), her hands +pressing a heart that was trying to escape, her young eyes straining +through the darkness to see,--ah!--she could see nothing at all for the +shining! + +She listened now with bated breath, thinking that by some unconscious +cry she might have aroused the others. No, Kano breathed on softly, +regularly, in the next room; while from the kitchen wing came +unfaltering the beat of Mata's nasal metronome. + +In one such startled interval of waking her caged cricket had given out +its plaintive cry. All at once it seemed to Ume-ko an unbearable thing +for any spark of life to be so prisoned. She longed to set him free, +but even though she opened wide her shoji, the outer night-doors, the +amado stretched, a relentless opaque wall, along the four sides of the +house. + +She lay quiet now for a long time. "I will return with the sun," he +had said. She wished that the cricket were indeed outside, and could +tell her of the first dawn-stirring. It was very close and dark in the +little room. She had not lighted the andon after all. It could not be +so dark outside. With very cautious fingers she began now to separate +the shoji that opened on the garden side. A breath of exquisite night +air rushed in to her from the lattices above the amado. It would be a +difficult matter to push even one of these aside without waking the +house. Yet, there were two things in her favor; the unusually heavy +sleep of her companions and the fact that the amado had a starting +point in their long grooves from a shallow closet very near her room. +So instead of having to remove the whole chain, each clasping by a +metal hand, its neighbor, she had but to unbar the initial panel, coax +it noiselessly apart just far enough to emit a not too bulky form, and +then the night would be hers. + +There had been in the girl's life so little need of cunning or of +strategy that her innocent adventure now brought a disturbing sense of +crime. She had unlatched the first amado in safety, and had her white +arms braced to push it to one side, when, suddenly she thought, "I am +acting like a thief! Perhaps I am feeling like a thief! This is a +terrible thing and must displease the gods." Her hands dropped limply, +she must not continue with this deed. Somewhere near her feet the +cricket gave out an importunate chirp. She stooped to him, feeling +about for the little residence with tender, groping hands. She must +give him freedom, though she dared not take it for herself. Yet it +would be sweet to breathe the world for its own sake once more before +he--and the sun--returned. + +The amado went back as if of itself. In an instant Ume's face was +among the dew-wet leaves of the plum tree. Oh, it was sweet! The +night smelled of silence and the stars. She threw back her head to +drink it like a liquid. She lifted the insect in its cage. By holding +it high, against a star of special brightness, she could see the tiny +bit of life gazing at her through its bars. She opened the door of the +cage, and set it among the twigs of the plum. Then barefooted, +ungirdled, with hair unbound, she stepped down upon the stone beneath +the tree, and then to the garden path. + + + + +IV + +The pebbles of the garden were slippery and cold under the feet that +pressed them. Also they hurt a little. Ume longed to return for her +straw sandals, but this freedom of the night was already far too +precious for jeopardy. She caught her robe about her throat and was +glad of the silken shawl of her long hair. How thickly shone the +stars! It must be close upon the hour of their waning, yet how big and +soft; and how companionable! She stretched her arms up to them, moving +as if they drew her down the path. They were more real, indeed, than +the dim and preternatural space in which she walked. + +She looked slowly about upon that which should have been commonplace +and found the outlines alone to be unaltered. There were the hillock, +the house, the thick hedge-lines square at the corners with black bars +hard as wood against the purple night; there were the winding paths and +little courts of open gravel. She could have put her hand out, saying, +"Here, on this point, should be the tall stone lantern; here, in this +sheltered curve, a fern." Both lantern and fern would have been in +place; and yet, despite these evidences of the usual, all that once +made the sunlit garden space an individual spot, was, in this dim, +ghostly air, transformed. The spirit of the whole had taken on weird +meaning. It was as if Mata's face looked suddenly upon her with the +old abbot's eyes. Fantastic possibilities crouched, ready to spring +from every shadow. The low shrubs held themselves in attitudes of +flight. This was a world in which she had no part. She knew herself a +paradox, the violator of a mood; but the enchantment held her. + +She had reached now the edge of the pond. It was a surface of polished +lacquer, darker than the night, and powdered thick with the gold of +reflected stars. Leaning over, she marvelled at the silhouette of her +own slim figure. It did not seem to have an actual place among these +frail phantasmagoria. As she stared on she noticed that the end of the +pond farthest from her, to the west, quivered and turned gray. She +looked quickly upward and around. Yes, there to the east was the +answering blur of light. Dawn had begun. + +She ran now to the top of the moon-viewing hill. The earth was wider +here; the dawn more at home. Below her where the city used to be was +no city, only a white fog-sea, without an island. The cliff, black at +the base, rising gradually into thinner gray, drove through the air +like the edge of a coming world. A chill breeze swept out from the +hollow, breathing of waking grasses and of dew. The girl shivered, but +it was with ecstacy. "I climb this hillside for my couch, to-night!" +Was he too waking, watching, feeling himself intruder upon a soundless +ritual? There was a hissing noise as of a fawn hurrying down a tangled +slope. The hedge near the cliff end of the garden dipped and squeaked +and shook indignant plumes after a figure that had desecrated its green +guardianship, and was now striding ruthlessly across the enclosure. + +Ume heard and saw; then wrung her hands in terror. It was he, of +course,--the Dragon Painter; and he would speak with her. What could +she do? Family honor must be maintained, and so she could not cry for +help. Why had her heart tormented her to go into the night? Why had +she not thought of this possibility? Because of it, life, happiness, +everything might be wrecked, even before they had dared to think of +happiness by name! + +Tatsu had reached her. Leaning close he set his eyes to her face as +one who drinks deep and silently. + +"I must not remain. Oh, sir, let me pass!" she whispered. + +He did not speak or try to touch her. A second gust of wind came from +the cliff, blowing against his hand a long tress of her hair. It was +warm and perfumed, and had the clinging tenderness of youth. He +shivered now, as she was doing, and stood looking down at his hand. +Ume made a swift motion as if to pass him; but he threw out the barrier +of an arm. + +"I have been calling you all the night. Now, at last, you have come. +Why did you never answer me upon the mountains?" + +"Indeed, I could not. I was not permitted. As you must see for +yourself, lord, in this incarnation I am but a mortal maiden." + +"I do not see it for myself," said Tatsu, with a low, triumphant laugh. +"I see something different!" Suddenly he reached forward, caught the +long ends of her hair and held them out to left and right, the full +width of his arms. They stood for a moment in intense silence, gazing +each into the face of the other. The rim of the dawn behind them cut, +with its flat, gold disc, straight down to the heart of the world. +"You a mortal!" said the boy again, exultantly. "Why, even now, your +face is the white breast of a great sea-bird, your hair, its shining +wings, and your soul a message that the gods have sent to me! Oh, I +know you for what you are,--my Dragon Maid, my bride! Have I not +sought you all these years, tracing your face on rocks and sand-beds of +my hills, hanging my prayers to every blossoming tree? Come, you are +mine at last; here is your master! We will escape together while the +stupid old ones sleep! Come, soul of my soul, to our mountains!" + +He would have seized her, but a quick, passionate gesture of repulsion +kept him back. "I am the child of Kano Indara," she said. "He, too, +has power of the gods, and I obey him. Oh, sir, believe that you, as +I, are subject to his will, for if you set yourself against him--" + +"Kano Indara concerns me not at all," cried Tatsu, half angrily. "It +is with you,--with you alone, I speak!" + +Ume poised at the very tip of the hill. "Look, sir,--the plum tree," +she whispered, pointing. So sudden was the change in voice and manner +that the other tripped and was caught by it. "That longest, leafy +branch touches the very wall of my room," she went on, creeping always +a little down the hill. "If you again will write such things to me, +trusting your missive to that branch, I shall receive it, and--will +answer. Oh, it is a bold, unheard-of thing for a girl to do, but I +shall answer." + +"I should like better that you meet me here each morning at this hour," +said Tatsu. + +The girl looked about her swiftly, gave a little cry, and clasped her +hands together. "See, lord, the day comes fast. Mata, my old nurse, +may already be astir. I saw a flock of sparrows fly down suddenly to +the kitchen door. And there, above us, on the great camphor tree, the +sun has smitten with a fist of gold!" + +Tatsu gazed up, and when his eyes returned to earth he found himself +companionless. He threw himself down, a miserable heap, clasping his +knees upon the hill. No longer was the rosy dawn for him. He found no +timid beauty in the encroaching day. His sullen look fastened itself +upon the amado beneath the plum tree. The panels were now tightly +closed. The house itself, soundless and gray in the fast brightening +space, mocked him with impassivity. + +A little later, when the neighborhood reverberated to the slamming of +amado and the sharp rattle of paper dusters against taut shoji panes; +when fragrant faggot smoke went up from every cottage, and the street +cries of itinerant venders signalled domestic buying for the day, Mata +discovered the wild man in the garden, and roused her sleeping master +with the news. She went, too, to Ume's room, and was reassured to see +the girl apparently in slumber within a neat bed, the andon burning +temperately in its corner, and the whole place eloquent of innocence +and peace, Kano shivered himself into his day clothes (the process was +not long), and hurried out to meet his guest. + +"O Haiyo gozaimasu!" he called. "You have found a good spot from which +to view the dawn." + +"Good morning!" said Tatsu, looking about as if to escape. + +"Come, enter my humble house with me, young sir. Breakfast will soon +be served." + +Tatsu rose instantly, though the gesture was far from giving an effect +of acquiescence. He shook his cramped limbs with as little ceremony as +if Kano were a shrub, and then turned, with the evident intention of +flight. Suddenly the instinct of hunger claimed him. Breakfast! That +had a pleasant sound. And where else was he to go for food! He +wheeled around to his waiting host. "I thank you. I will enter!" he +said, and attempted an archaic bow. + +Mata brought in to them, immediately, hot tea and a small dish of +pickled plums. Kano drew a sigh of relief as he saw Tatsu take up a +plum, and then accept, from the servant's hands, a cup of steaming tea. +These things promised well for future docility. + +It could not be said that the meal was convivial. Ume-ko had received +orders from her father not to appear. Tatsu's eyes, even as he ate, +roamed ever along the corridors of the house, out to the garden, and +pried at the closed edges of the fusuma. This restlessness brought to +the host new apprehension. Such tension could not last. Tatsu must be +enticed from the house. + +After some hesitation and a spasmodic clearing of the throat, the old +man asked, "Will you accompany me, young sir, upon a short walk to the +city?" + +"Why should I go to the city?" + +"Ah--er--domo! it is, as you know, the centre of the universe, and has +many wonderful sights,--great temples, theatres, wide shops for selling +clothes--" + +"I care nothing for these things." + +"There are gardens, too; and a broad, shining river. Shall we not go +to the autumn flowering garden of the Hundred Corners?" + +"To such a place as that I would go alone,--or with her," said the boy, +his disconcerting gaze fixed on the other's face. "When is the Dragon +Maiden to appear?" + +Kano looked down upon the matting. He cleared his throat again, +drained a fresh cup of tea, and answered slowly, "Since she and I are +of the city,--not the mountains,--and must abide in some degree by the +city's social laws, you will not see her any more at all, unless it be +arranged that you become her husband." + +"And then,--if I become what you say,--how soon?" the other panted. + +"I shall need to speak with the women of my house concerning this," +said Kano in a troubled voice. He too, though Tatsu must not dream it, +chafed at convention. He longed to set the marriage for next +week,--next day, indeed,--and have the waiting over. Kano hated, of +all things, to wait. Something might befall this untrained citizen at +any hour,--then where would the future of the Kano name be found? + +He had scarcely noted how the boy crouched and quivered in his place, +as an animal about to spring. This indecision was a goad, a barb. Yet +he was helpless! The memory of Ume's whispered words came back: "He, +too, has power of the gods. . . . Believe, sir, that you, as I, are +subject to his will." How could it be permitted of the gods that two +beings like themselves,--fledged of divinity, touched with ethereal +fire,--were under bondage to this wrinkled fox! + +Tatsu flung himself sidewise upon the floor, and made as if to rise; +then, in a dull reaction, settled back into his place. "You say she is +not to come before me in this house to-day?" + +"No, nor on other days, until your marriage." + +"Then I go forth into the city,--alone," said the boy. He rose, but +Kano stopped him. + +"Wait! I shall accompany you, if but a little way. You do not know +the roads. You will be lost!" + +"I could return to this place from the under-rim of the world," said +Tatsu. "Bound, crippled, blindfold,--I should come straight to it." + +"Maybe, maybe," said Kano, "nevertheless I will go." + +Tatsu would have defied him, outright, but Ume's words remained with +him. Nothing mattered, after all, if he was some day to gain her. He +must be patient, put a curb upon his moods! This was a fearful task +for one like him, but he would strive for self-control just as one +throws down a tree to bridge a torrent. After the Dragon Maid was +won,--well then,--this halting insect man need not trouble them. They +left the house together, Tatsu in scowling silence at the unwelcomed +comradeship, Kano hard put to it to match his steps with the boy's +long, swinging mountain stride. + +"What am I to do with this wild falcon for a month?" thought Kano, half +in despair, yet smiling, also, at the humor. "He must be clothed,--but +how? I would sooner sheathe a mountain cat in silks! The one hope of +existence during this interval is to get him engrossed in painting; but +where is he to paint? I dare not keep him in the house with Ume, nor +with old Mata, neither, for she might poison him. If only Ando Uchida +had not gone away, leaving no address!" + +Meantime, in the Kano home, Mata and Ume moved about in different +planes of consciousness. The elder was still irritated by the +morning's event. She considered it a personal indignity, a family +outrage, that her master should walk the streets of Yeddo with a +vagabond possessing neither hat nor shoes, and only half a kimono. + +Each tended, as usual, her allotted household tasks. There was no +change in the outer performance of the hours, but Mata remained alert, +disturbed, and the girl tranquilly oblivious. The old face searching +with keen eyes the young noted with troubled frown the frequent smile, +the intervals of listless dreaming, the sudden starts, as by the prick +of memory still new, and dipped in honey. There seemed to be in Ume-ko +a gentle yearning for a human presence, though, to speak truly, Mata +could not be certain that she was either heard or seen for fully one +half of the time. The hour had almost reached the shadowless one of +noon. Ume-ko's work was done. She had taken up her painting, only to +put it listlessly to one side. The pretty embroidery frame met the +same indignity. She sat now on the kitchen ledge, while Mata made the +fire and washed the rice, toying idly with a white pebble chosen for +its beauty from thousands on the garden path. Something in the +childlike attitude, the placid, irresponsible face, brought the old +servant's impatience to a climax. She deliberately hurled a dart. + +"I suppose you know, Miss Ume, that your father may actually adopt this +goblin from Kiu Shiu!" + +"Ah, do you mean Sir Tatsu? Yes, I know. He, my father, has always +longed to have a son." + +"A son is desirable when the price is not too great," said the old +dame, nodding sagely. "You are old enough to realize also, Miss Kano +Ume-ko, what is the meaning of adoption into a family where there is a +daughter of marriageable age." + +Ume's face drooped over until the pebble caught a rosy glow. The old +servant chuckled. "Eh, young mistress, you know what I mean? You are +thinking of it?" + +"I am trying very hard not to think of it," said Ume. + +"Ma-a-a! And I have little wonder for that fact! Your father will +sacrifice you without a tear,--he cares but for pictures. And Mata is +helpless,--Mata cannot help her babe! Ara! It is a world of dust!" + +"How old was my mother when she came here, Mata?" + +"Just eighteen. Younger than you are now, my treasure." + +"She was both beautiful and happy, you have said." + +"Yes, both, both! Ah, how time speeds for the old. It seems but a +short year or more that we two entered here together, she and I. From +childhood I had nursed her. I thought your father old for her, in +spite of his young heart and increasing fame. But he loved her truly, +and has mourned for her. Even now he prays thrice daily before her +ihai on the shrine. And she loved him,--almost too deeply for a woman +of her class. She loved him, and was happy!" + +"Only one year!" sighed Ume. "But it must be a great thing to be happy +even for one year. Some people are not happy ever at all." + +"One must not think of personal happiness,--it is wicked. Does not +even your old mumbling abbot on the hill tell you so much? And now, of +all times, do not start the dreaming. You will be sacrificed to art," +said Mata, gloomily. + +"Do I look like my mother, Mata San?" + +The old dame wiped her eyes on her sleeve that she might see more +clearly. Something in the girl's pure, upraised face caught at her +heart, and the tears came afresh. "Wait," she whispered; "stay where +you are, and you shall see your mother's face." She went into her tiny +chamber, and from her treasures brought out a metal mirror given her by +the young wife, Uta-ko. "Look,--close," she said, placing it in Ume's +hand. "That is the bride of nineteen years ago. Never have you looked +so like her as at this hour!" + + +Kano came back alone,--tired, dusty, and discouraged. Tatsu had +escaped him, he said, at the first glimpse of the Sumida River. There +was no telling when he might return,--whether he would ever return. To +attempt control of Tatsu was like caging a storm in bamboo bars. +Mata's eyes narrowed at this recital. "Yet I fervently thank the gods +for him," said the speaker, sharply, in defiance of her look. + +Restored to comparative serenity, Kano, later in the afternoon, sent +for his daughter, and condescended to unfold to her those plans in +which she played a vital part. + +"Ume-ko, my child, you have always been a good and obedient daughter. +I shall expect no opposition from you now," he began, in the manner of +a patriarch. + +Ume bowed respectfully. "Thank you, dear father. What has arisen that +you think I may wish to oppose?" + +"I did not say that I expected you to oppose anything. I said, on the +contrary, it was something I expected you not to oppose." + +"I await respectfully the words which shall tell me what it is I am not +to oppose," said Ume-ko, quite innocently, with another bow. Kano put +on his horn-rimmed spectacles. There was something about his daughter +not altogether reassuring. His prearranged sentences began to slip +away, like sand. + +"I will speak briefly. I wish you to become the wife of the Dragon +Painter, that we may secure him to the race of Kano. He has no name of +his own. He is the greatest painter since Sesshu!" The speaker waved +his hands. All had been said. + +In the deep, following silence each knew that old Mata's ear felt, like +a hand, at the crevice of the shoji. + +"Father, are you sure,--have you yet spoken to--to--him," Ume-ko +faltered at last. "Would he augustly condescend?" + +"Condescend!" echoed the old man with a laugh. "Why, he demanded it +last night, even in the first hour of meeting. He was angered that I +did not give you up at once. He says you are his already. Oh, he is +strange and wild, this youth. There are no reins to hold him, but--he +is a painter!" + +A grunt of derision came from the kitchen wall. Ume sat motionless, +but her face was growing very pale. + +"Well," said her father with impatience, "do you agree? And what is +the earliest possible date?" + +"I must consult with Mata," whispered the girl. + +"She listens at the crack. Consult her now," said Kano. + +The old dame threw aside the shoji like an armor, and walked in. "Yes, +ask me what I think! Ask the old servant who has nursed Miss Ume from +her birth, managed the house, scrubbed, haggled, washed, and broken her +old bones for you! This is my advice,--freely given,--make of the +youth her jinrikisha man, but not her husband!" + +"Impertinent old witch!" cried Kano. "You are asked for nothing but +the earliest possible date for the marriage!" + +"Do you give yourself so tamely to a dangerous wild creature from the +hills?" Mata demanded of the girl. + +"Yes, yes, she'll marry him," said Kano, before her words could come. +"The date,--the earliest possible hour! Will two weeks be too soon?" + +"Two weeks!" shrieked the old dame, and staggered backward. "Is it of +the scavenger's daughter that you speak?" + +"Four weeks, then,--a month. It cannot be more. I tell you, woman, +for a longer time than this I cannot keep the youth at bay. Is a month +decent in convention's eyes?" + +Mata began to sob loudly in her upraised sleeve. + +"I see that it is at least permissible," said Kano, grimly. "What a +weak set of social idiots we are, after all. Tatsu is right to scorn +us! Well, well, a month from this date, deep in the golden heart of +autumn, will the wedding be." + +"If the day be propitious and the stars in harmony," supplemented Mata. +"She shall not be married in the teeth of evil fortune, if I have to +murder the Dragon Painter with my fish-knife!" + +"Oh, go; have the stars arranged to suit you. Here's money for it!" +He fumbled in his belt for a purse of coin, threw it to the mats, and, +over the old dame's stooping back, motioned Ume-ko permission to +withdraw. The girl went swiftly, thankful for the release. + +"A good child,--a daughter to thank the gods for," chuckled Kano, as +she left. + +Mata looked sharply about, then leaned to her master's ear. "You are +blind; you are an earth-rat, Kano Indara. This is not the usual +submission of a silly girl. Ume is thinking things we know nothing of. +Did you not see that her face was as a bean-curd in its whiteness? She +kept so still, only because she was shaking in all directions at once. +There, look at her now! She is fleeing to the garden with the +uncertain step of one drunk with deep foreboding!" + +"Bah! you are an old raven croaking in a fog! Go back to your pots. I +can manage my own child!" + +"You have never yet managed her or yourself either," was the spoiled +old servant's parting shaft. + +Kano sat watching the slender, errant figure in the garden. Yes, she +had taken it calmly,--more calmly than he could have hoped. How +beautiful was the poise, even at this distance, of the delicate throat, +and the head, with its wide crown of inky hair! Each motion of the +slow-strolling form in its clinging robes was a separate loveliness. + +Kano drew a long sigh. He could not blind himself to Tatsu's savagery. +This was not the sort of husband that Ume had a right to expect from +her father's choice,--a youth not only penniless, and without family +name, but in himself unusual, strange, with look, voice, gesture, +coloring each a clear contrast to the men that Ume-ko had seen. He +could not bear the thought of her unhappiness, and yet, at any +sacrifice, Tatsu must be kept an inmate of their home. + +The girl had stopped beside the sunlit pond, leaning far over. She did +not seem to note the clustering carp at all, but rather dwell upon her +own image, twisted and shot through with the gold of their darting +bodies. Now, with dragging feet she went to the moon-viewing hill, +remaining in the shadow of it, and pausing for long thought. Her eyes +were on the cliff, now raised to the camphor tree. Suddenly she +shivered and hid her face. What was the tumult of that ignorant young +breast? + +The old man rose and went to an inner room where hung the Butsudan, the +shrine. He stood gazing upon the ihai of his wife. His lips moved, +but the breath so lightly issued that the flame on the altar did not +stir. "She, our one child, has come now to the borders of that +woman-land where I cannot go with her," he was saying. "Thou art the +soul to guide, and give her happiness, thou, the dear one of my +life,--the dead young mother who has never really died!" He folded his +hands now, and bowed his head. The small flame leaned to him. "Namu +Amida Butsu, Namu Amid a Butsu," murmured the old man. + +Out by the hill, a butterfly, snow white, rested a moment on the young +girl's hair. She was again looking at the cliff, and did not notice it. + + + + +V + +Ando Uchida, from his green seclusion among the bamboo groves of Meguro, +sent, from time to time, a scout into the city. First an ordinary hotel +kotsukai or man-servant was employed. This experiment proved costly as +well as futile. The kotsukai demanded large payment; and then the +creature's questions to Mata were of a nature so crude and undiplomatic +that they aroused instant suspicion, causing, indeed, the threat of a +dipper of scalding water. + +The next messenger was an insect peddler, Katsuo Takanaka by name. It +was the part of this youth to search daily among the bamboo stems and +hillside grasses of Meguro for the musical suzu-mushi, the hataori, and +the kirigirisu. These he incarcerated in fairy cages of plaited straw, +threaded the cages into great hornets' nests that dangled from the two +ends of his creaking shoulder-pole, and started toward the city in a +perfect storm of insect music. The noise moved with him like a cloud. +It formed, as it were, a penumbra of fine shrilling, and could be heard +for many streets in advance. This itinerant merchant was commissioned to +haunt the Kano gate until impatience or curiosity should fling it wide +for him. Then, after having coaxed old Mata into making a purchase, he +was to engage her in conversation, and extract all the domestic +information he could. Unfortunately for the acquisition of paltry news, +it was Ume-ko, not Mata, who came out to purchase. The seller, watching +those slim, white fingers as they fluttered among his cages, the delicate +ear bent to mark some special chime, forgot the words of Ando Uchida, +otherwise, Mr. S. Yetan, of Chikuzen, forgot everything, indeed, but the +beauty of the girlish face near him. + +He left the house in a dream more dense than the multitudinous clamor of +his burden. "Alas!" thought Katsuo, as he stumbled along, unheeding the +beckoning hands of mothers, or the arresting cries of children in many +gateways, "Had I been born a samurai of old, and she an humble maiden! +Even as an Eta, an outcast, would I have loved and sought her. Now in +this life I am doomed to catch insects and to sell them. Perhaps in my +coming rebirth, if I am honest and do not tell to the ignorant that a +common mimi is a silver-voiced hataorimushi,--perhaps----" + +Ando's third envoy was chosen with more thoughtful care. This time it +was none other than a young priest from the temple of Fudo-Bosatsu in +Meguro. He was an acolyte sent forth with bowl and staff to beg for aid +in certain temple repairs. Ando promised a generous donation in return +for information concerning the Kano family. Being assured that the +motive for this curiosity was benevolent rather than mischievous, the +priest consented to make the attempt. He reached the Kano gate at noon, +within a few days after Tatsu's arrival. Mata opened to his call. Being +herself a Protestant, opposed to the ancient orders and their methods, +she gave him but a chilly welcome. Her interest was aroused, however, in +spite of herself, by the fact that he neither chanted his refrain of +supplication nor extended the round wooden bowl. + +"I shall not entreat alms of money in this place," he said, as if in +answer to her look of surprise, "I am weary, and ask but to rest for a +while in the pleasant shade of your roof." + +Without waiting for Mata's rejoinder, Ume-ko, who had heard the words of +the priest, now came swiftly to the veranda. "Our home is honored, holy +youth, by your coming," she said to him. "Enter now, I pray, into the +main guest-room, where I and my father may serve you." + +The priest refused this homage (much to Mata's inward satisfaction), +saying that he desired only the stone ledge of the kitchen entrance and a +cup of cold water. + +After his first swift upward look he dared not raise his eyes again. The +sweetness of her young voice thrilled and troubled him. But for his +promise to Uchida he would have fled at once, as from temptation. +Ume-ko, seeing his embarrassment, withdrew, but not until she had made an +imperious gesture to old Mata, commanding her to serve him with rice and +tea. + +After a short struggle with himself the priest decided to accept the +offer of food. Old Mata, he knew, was to be his source of information. +The old dame served him in conscious silence. Her lips were compressed +to wrinkled metal. The visitor, more accustomed to old women than to +young, smiled at the rigid countenance, knowing that a loquacity +requiring so obvious a latch is the more easily freed. He planned his +first question with some care. + +"Is this not the home of an artist, Kano by name?" + +Mata tossed her gray hair. "Of the only Kano," she replied, and shut her +lips with a snap. + +"The only Kano, the only Kano," mused the acolyte over his tea. + +"So I said, young sir. Is it that your hearing is honorably +non-existent?" + +"Then I presume he is without a son," said the priest as if to himself, +and stirred the surmise into his rice with the two long wooden chopsticks +Mata had provided. + +The old dame's muscles worked, but she kept silence. + +Ume-ko, now in her little chamber across the narrow passage, with a bit +of bright-colored sewing on her knees, could hear each word of the +dialogue. Mata's shrill voice and the priest's deep tones each carried +well. The girl smiled to herself, realizing as she did the conflict +between love of gossip and disapproval of Shingon priests that now made a +paltry battlefield of the old dame's mind. The former was almost sure to +win. The priest must have thought this, too, for he finished his rice in +maddening tranquillity, and then stirred slightly as if to go. Mata's +speech flowed forth in a torrent. + +"My poor master has no son indeed, no true son of his house; but +lately,--within this very week----" She caught herself back as with a +rein, snatched up the empty tea-pot, hurried to the kitchen and returned +partly self-conquered, if not content. She told herself that she must +not gossip about the master's affairs with a beggarly priest. +Determination hardened the wrinkles of her face. + +If the priest perceived these new signs of taciturnity, he ignored them. +"Your master being verily the great artist that you say, it is a thing +doubly to be regretted that he is without an heir," persisted the +visitor, with kind, boyish eyes upon old Mata's face. The old woman +blinked nervously and began to examine her fingernails. "Alas!" sighed +he, "I fear it is because this Mr. Kano is no true believer, that he has +not prayed or made offerings to the gods." + +Mata had a momentary convulsion upon the kitchen floor, and was still. + +The priest kept gravity upon his mouth, but needed lowered lids to hide +the twinkles in his eyes. "True religion is the greatest boon," he +droned sententiously. "Would that your poor master had reached +enlightenment!" + +Ume-ko in her room forgot her sewing, and leaned a delicate ear closer to +the shoji. + +Old Mata's wall of reserve went down with a crash. "He believes as you +believe!" she cried out shrilly. "All your Shingon chants and +invocations and miracles he has faith in. Is that not what you call +enlightenment? He and Miss Ume worship together almost daily at the +great temple above us on the hill. The two finest stone lanterns there +are given in the name of my master's dead young wife. Her ihai is in +this house, and an altar, and they are well tended, I assure you! My +master is a true believer, poor man, and what has his belief brought him? +Ma-a-a! all this mummery and service and what has come of it?" + +"I perceive with regret that you are not of the Shingon sect," remarked +the priest. + +"Me? I should say not!" snorted Mata. "I am a Protestant, a good +Shinshu woman,--that's what I am, and I tell you so to your face! When I +pray, I know what I am praying for. I trust to my own good deeds and the +intercession of Amida Butsu. No muttering and mummery for me!" + +"Ah!" said the priest, a most alluring note of interest now audible in +his voice, "your master has so zealously importuned the gods, and, you +say, with no result?" + +"Ay, a result has come," answered the old dame, sullenly. "Within this +week the gods--or the demons--have heard my master, for a wild thing from +the hills is with us!" + +"Wild thing? Do you mean a man?" + +"A semblance of a man, though none such will you see in the streets of a +respectable town." + +"But does your master----" began the priest, in some perplexity. + +Mata cut him short. "Because he can smear ink on paper with a brush, my +master dotes on him and says he will adopt him!" + +The woman's fierce sincerity transmitted vague alarm. Slipping his hands +within his gray sleeves, the acolyte began fingering his short rosary as +he asked, "Is the--wild man now under this very roof?" + +"Not under a roof when he can escape it, you may be sure! He comes to us +only when driven by hunger of the stomach or the eyes. Doubtless at this +moment he wallows among the ferns and sa-sa grass of the mountain side, +or lies face down in the cemetery near my mistress' grave. He is mad, my +master is mad, and Miss Ume, if she really gives herself in marriage to +the mountain lion, madder than all the rest!" + +"That beautiful maiden whom I saw will be given to such a one?" asked the +priest, in a startled way. + +"Such are the present plans," said the other in deep despair, and huddled +herself together on the floor. + +Ume-ko, in her room across the hallway, had half risen. It really was +time to check the old servant's vulgar garrulity. But the silence that +followed the last remark checked her impulse. After all, what did it +matter? No one could understand or needed to understand. + +Meanwhile Mata, at first unconscious of anything but her own dark +thoughts, became gradually aware of a strange look in the face of the +priest. He, on his part, was wondering whether, indeed, the beauty of +Ume-ko were not the sole cause of his patron's interest in the Kano +family. After watching him intently for a few moments the old woman +wriggled nearer and whispered in a tone so low that Ume could not catch +the words, "Perhaps, after all, Sir Priest, you, being of their belief, +perceive this to be a case where charms and spells are advisable. I am +convinced that this house is bewitched, that the Dragon Painter has a +train of elementals in attendance. Now, if we could only drive him +forever from the place. Have you, by any chance, a powder, or an amulet, +or a magic invocation you could give me?" + +"No, no! I dare not!" said the other, in an agitated voice. He reached +out for his bowl and, with a single leap, was down upon the earth. Mata +caught him by his flying skirts. "See here," she entreated, "I will make +it worth your while, young sir, I will give donations to your temple----" + +"I dare not. I have no instructions to meddle with such things. Let me +now give the house a blessing, and withdraw. But I can tell you for your +comfort," he added, seeing the disappointment in her wrinkled face, "if, +as you assure me, this is a house of faith, no presence entirely evil +could dwell within it." + +He got away before she could repeat her importunities; and the old dame +returned to the kitchen, muttering anathemas against the mystic powers +she had just attempted to invoke. + + +On the priest's return, Ando questioned him eagerly. He gained, almost +with the first words, certainty of his own freedom. With Tatsu safely +arrived, and the betrothal to Kano Ume-ko an outspoken affair, then had +the time come for him--Ando Uchida--to reassume the pleasant role of +friend and benefactor. + +He moved into Yeddo before nightfall. His first visit was, of course, to +Kano. Elaborately he explained to the sympathetic old man how he had +been summoned by telegram into a distant province to attend the supposed +death-bed of a relative, how that relative had, by a miracle, recovered. +"So now," he remarked in conclusion, "I am again at your service, and +shall take the part not only of nakodo in the coming marriage, but of +temporary father and social sponsor to our unsophisticated bridegroom." + +Certainly nothing could have been more opportune than Uchida's +reappearance, or more welcome than his proposed assistance. Mata, +indeed, hastened to give a whole koku of rice to the poor in +thank-offering that one sensible person besides herself was now +implicated in the wedding preparations. + +Uchida justified, many times over, her belief in him. In the district +near the Kano home he rented, in Tatsu's name, a small cottage, paying +for it by the month, in advance. With Mata's assistance, not to mention +a small colony of hirelings, the floors were fitted with new mats, the +woodwork of the walls, the posts, and veranda floors polished to a +mirror-like brightness, and even the tiny garden set with new turf and +flowering plants. Tatsu was lured down from the mountain side and +persuaded to remain at night and part, at least, of each day, in this +little haven of coming joy. + +A secluded room was fitted up as a studio, for his sole use. Here were +great rectangles of paper, rolls of thin silk, stretching frames, water +holders, multitudinous brushes, and all the exquisite pigment that +Japanese love of beauty has drawn from water, earth, and air; delicate +infusions of sea-moss, roots, and leaves, saucers of warm earth ground to +a paste, precious vessels of powdered malachite, porphyry, and lapis +lazuli. But the boy looked askance upon the expensive outlay. His wild +nature resented so obvious a lure. It seemed unworthy of a Dragon +Painter to accept this multitude of material devices. He had painted on +flakes of inner bark, still quivering with the life from which he had +rudely torn them. Visions limned on rock and sand had been the more +precious for their impermanence. Here, every stroke was to be recorded, +each passing whim and mood registered, as in a book of fate. + +For days the little workroom remained immaculate. Kano began to fret. +Ando Uchida, the wise, said, "Wait." It was Mata who finally +precipitated the crisis. One rainy morning, being already in an ill +humor over some trifling household affair, she was startled and annoyed +by the sudden vision of Tatsu's head thrust noiselessly into her kitchen. +Rudely she had slammed the shoji together, calling out to him that he had +better be off doing the one thing he was fit to do, rather than to be +skulking around her special domain. Tatsu had, as rudely, reopened the +shoji panels, tearing a large hole in the translucent paper. "He had +come merely for a glimpse of the Dragon Maid," he told the angry dame. +"In a few days more she was to be his wife, and this maddening convention +of keeping him always from her was eating out his vitals with red fire," +so declared Tatsu, and let the consuming passion blaze in his sunken eyes. + +But Mata, undismayed, stood up in scornful silence. She was gathering +herself together like a storm, and in an instant more had hurled upon him +the full terror of her vocabulary. She called him a barbarian, a +mountain goat,--a Tengu,--better mated to a fox spirit or a she-demon +than to a decent girl like her young mistress. She denounced her +erstwhile beloved master as a blind old dotard, and the idolized Ume, she +declared a weak and yielding idiot. Tatsu's attempts at retort were +swept away with a hiss. For a while he raged like a flame upon the +doorstep, but he was no match for his vigorous opponent. It was +something to realize his own defeat. Gasping, he turned to the friendly +rain and would have darted from the gate when, with a swoop like a +falcon, Mata was bodily upon him. He threw his right arm upward as if to +escape a blow, but the old dame did not belabor him. She was trying to +thrust something hard and strange into his other hand. He glanced toward +it. The last indignity of an umbrella! "Open it, madman!" she cried +shrilly after him, "and hold your robe up; it is one of your new silk +ones!" + +Tatsu had never used an umbrella in his life. Now he opened it eagerly. +Anything to escape that frightful voice! In the windy street he clutched +at his fluttering skirts as he had seen other men do, and, with a last +terrified backward glance, ran breathlessly toward the haven of his +temporary home. + +The little house was empty. Tatsu was thankful for so much. The rooms +were already pre-haunted by dreams of Ume-ko. Tatsu felt the peace of it +sink deep into his soul. Instinctively his wandering feet led him into +the little painting room. As usual, the elaborate display of artist +materials chilled him. After his recent exasperation he longed to ease +his heart of a sketch, but obstinacy held him back. He sat down in the +centre of the space. A bevy of small, squeaking sounds seemed to enclose +him. It took him some moments to recognize them as the irritating +rustling of his silken dress. He sprang to his feet, tore off the new +and expensive girdle of brocade, flung it into one corner and the +offending robe into another, and remained standing in the centre of the +small space clad only in his short white linen under-robe. + +He looked about, now, for a more congenial sheathing. If he could but +find the tattered blue kimono worn during that upward journey from Kiu +Shiu! Stained by berries and green leaves, torn by a thousand graceful +vines,--for laundering only a few vigorous swirls in a running stream +with a quick sun-drying on the river stones,--yet how comfortable, how +companionable it was! There had been a blue something folded on the +shelf of his closet. He found it, opened it wide in the air and would +have uttered a cry of joy but for the changed look of it. Even this had +not escaped Mata's desecrating hands! It was mended everywhere. The +white darning threads grinned at him like teeth. Also it was washed and +ironed, and smelled of foreign soap. For an instant he tore at it +angrily, and was minded to destroy it, but the sense of familiarity held +him. He wrapped it about him slowly and, with bent head, again seated +himself upon the floor. + +The rain now fell in quivering wires of dull light. The world was strung +with them like a harp, and upon them the wind played a monotonous +refrain. Against the wall near Tatsu stood a light framework of wood +with the silk already stretched and dried for painting. At his other +hand a brush slanted sidewise from a bowl of liquid ink. The boy's +pulses leaped toward these things even while his lips curled in disdain +at the shallow decoy. "So they expect to trap me, these geese and +jailers who have temporary dominance over my life," thought he, in scorn. +No, even though he now desired it of himself, he would not paint! Let +him but gain his bride--then nothing should have power to sting or fret +him. But, oh, these endless days and hours of waiting! They corroded +his very thought as acid corrodes new metal. He felt the eating of it +now. + +A spasm of pain and anger distorted his face. He gave a cry, caught up +suddenly the thick hake brush, and hurled it across the room toward the +upright frame of silk. It struck the surface midway, a little to the +left; pressed and worked against it as though held by a ghost, and then, +falling, dragged lessening echoes of stain. + +Tatsu's mirthless laugh rang out against the sound of dripping rain. The +childish outburst had been of some relief. He looked defiantly toward +the white rectangle he had just defaced. Defaced? The boy caught in his +breath. He thrust his head forward, leaning on one hand to stare. That +bold and unpremeditated stroke had become a shadowed peak; the trailing +marks of ink a splendid slope. Had he not seen just such a one in Kiu +Shiu,--had he not scaled it, crying aloud upon its summit to the gods to +yield him there his bride? + +Trembling now, and weak, he crawled on hands and knees toward the frame. +He had forgotten Kano, Uchida, Mata,--forgotten even Ume-ko. Fingers not +his own lifted the fallen brush. The wonderful cold wind of a dawning +frenzy swept clean his soul. He shivered; then a sirocco of fire +followed the void of the wind. The spot where his random blow had struck +still gleamed transparent jet. He dragged the blackened brush through a +vessel of clear water, then brandished it like the madman Mata thought +him. With the soft tuft of camel hair he blurred against the peak pale, +luminous vapor of new cloud. Turning, twisting sidewise, this way, then +that, the yielding implement, he seemed to carve upon the silk broad +silver planes of rock, until there rose up a self-revealing vision, the +granite cliff from which a thin, white waterfall leaps out. + +[Illustration: "With the soft tuft of camel hair he blurred against the +peak pale, luminous vapor of new cloud."] + +But this one swift achievement only whetted the famished appetite to more +creative ardor. Sketch after sketch he made, some to tear at once into +strips, others to fling carelessly aside to any corner where they might +chance to fall, others, again, to be stored cunningly upon some remote +shelf to which old Kano and Uchida and Mata could not reach, but whence +he, Tatsu, the Dragon Painter, should, in a few days more, withdraw them +and show them to his bride. The purple dusk brimmed his tiny garden, and +yet he could not stop. Art had seized him by the throat, and shook him, +as a prey. Uchida, peering at him from between the fusuma, perceived the +glory and turned away in silence; nor for that day nor the next would he +allow any one to approach the frenzied boy. The elder man had, himself +in youth, fared along the valleys of art, and knew the signals on the +peaks. + +Tatsu, unconscious that the house was not still empty, painted on. +Sometimes he sobbed. Again an ague of beauty caught him, and he needed +to hurl himself full length upon the mats until the ecstacy was past. +Just as the daylight went he saw, upon the one great glimmering square of +silk as yet immaculate, a dream of Ume-ko, the Dragon Maiden, who had +danced before him. This was an apparition too holy to be limned in +artificial light. When the sun came, next day, he knew well what there +was for him to do. He placed the frame upright, where the first pink +beam would find it. Brushes, water vessels, and paints were placed in +readiness, with such neatness and precision that old Kano's heart would +have laughed in pleasure. That night the shoji and amado were not +closed. Tatsu did not sleep. It was a night of consecration. He walked +up and down, sometimes in the narrow room, sometimes in the garden. +Often he prayed. Again he sat in the soft darkness, before the ghostly +glimmer of the silk, tracing upon it visions of ethereal light. When, at +last, the dawn came in, Tatsu bowed to the east, with his usual prayer of +thankful piety, then, with the exaltation still upon him, lifted the +silver thread of a brush and drew his first conscious outline of the +woman soon to be his wife. + +[Illustration: "He walked up and down, sometimes in the narrow room, +sometimes in the garden."] + + + + +VI + +Through all these busy days Ume-ko moved as one but little interested. +Kano and Uchida noticed nothing unusual. To them she was merely the +conventional nonenity of maidenhood that Japanese etiquette demanded. +It never entered their heads that she would not have agreed with equal +readiness to any other husband of their choosing. + +Mata knew her idol and nursling better. Hints of character and of +deep-sea passion had risen now and again to the surface of the girl's +placid life. There were currents underneath that the father did not +suspect. Once, during her childhood, a pet bird had been injured in a +fit of anger by old Kano. Ume-ko, with her ashen face under perfect +control, had killed the suffering creature and carried it, wrapped in +white paper, to her own room. The father, ashamed now, and filled with +genuine remorse, had stormed up and down the garden paths, reviling +himself for an impatient ogre, and promising more restraint in future. +Mata, silent for once, had crept to her child-mistress' close-shut +walls, heard the last sobbing words of a Buddhist prayer for the dead, +and burst through the shoji in scant time to catch back the stroke of a +dagger from the girl's slim, upraised throat. Her terrified screams +summoned Kano and the neighbors as well. A priest hurried down from +the temple on the hill. In time the culprit was reduced to a condition +of tearful penitence, and gave her promise never again to attempt so +cowardly and wicked a thing as self-destruction, unless it were for +some noble and impersonal end. + +The good old priest, to comfort her, chanted a sutra over the bier of +her lost playmate, and bestowed upon it a high-sounding Buddhist kaimyo +which Kano carved, in his finest manner, upon a wooden grave post. In +time, the artist forgot the episode. Mata never forgot. Often in the +long hours she thought of it now as she watched the girl's face bent +always so silently above the bridal sewing. No impatience or regret +were visible in her. Yet, thought Mata, surely no maiden in her senses +could really wish to become the wife of an ill-mannered, untamed +mountain sprite! Could Death be the secret of this pale tranquillity? +Was Ume-ko to cheat them all, at the last, by self-destruction? + +In such wise did the old servant fret and ponder, but no assurance +came. A true insight into art might have opened many doors to her. +Yet, through a life devoted to the externals of it, Mata had been +tolerant of beauty, rather than at one with it. The impractical view +of life which art seemed to demand of its devotees was enough to arouse +suspicion, if not her actual dislike. Uchida was a hero because he had +been bold enough to shake himself free from lethargic influences, and +achieve a shining and substantial success. + +But even had the key of art been thrust into the old dame's groping +hand, and even had her master guided her, there was an inner chamber of +Ume's heart which they could not have found. Ume herself had not known +of it until that first instant when, now three weeks ago, a strange +young face, hung about with shadows, had peered into her father's gate. +With the first sound of his voice, she had entered in, had knelt before +a shrine whereon, wrapped in fire, a Secret lay. Ever since she had +needed to guard that shrine, not, indeed, for fear that the light would +falter, but rather that it might not leap up, and lay waste her being. +As one guards a flame, so Ume-ko, with silence and prayer and +self-enforced tranquillity, guarded the sacred spark from winds of +passion. Each day at dawn, and again at twilight of each day, it +flamed high and was hard to conquer, for with dawn a letter was +hers--held in the night-wet branches of her dragon-plum, and each night +when Mata and her father thought her sleeping, an answer was written, +and committed to the keeping of the tree. + +When Tatsu did not paint, or rest from sheer exhaustion, he was +writing. Ume, bending above his words, shivering at times, or weeping, +marvelled that the tissue had not charred beneath the thoughts burned +into it. Tatsu's phrases were like his paintings, unusual, vital, +almost demoniac in force, shot through and through at times with the +bolt of an almost unbearable beauty. Her own words answered his, as +the tree-tops answer storm, with music. Verse alone could ease the +girl of her ecstacy, and each recorded and triumphed in the demolition +of yet another day. "Another stone, beloved, thrust down from the +dungeon wall that severs us!" + +Swiftly the heap of wedding garments grew. There were delicate +kimonos, as thin and gray as mist, with sunset-colored inner robes of +silk; gowns of linen and cotton for indoor wear; bath and sleeping +robes with great designs of flowers, birds, or landscapes; silken +bed-quilts and bright floor cushions; great sashes crusted like bark +with patternings of gold; dainty toilet accessories of hairpins, +girdles, collarettes, shopping-bags, purses, jewel-cases,--and new +sandals of various sorts, each with velvet thongs of some delicate hue. + +The sewing was, of course, done at home. Mata would have trusted this +sacred rite to no domination but her own. She worked incessantly, +planning, cutting, scolding,--hurrying off to the shopping district for +some forgotten item, conferring with Ando Uchida about the details of +Tatsu's outfit, then returning, flushed with success and importance, to +new home triumphs. + +Ume sewed steadily all day. Her painting materials had been put meekly +aside, and, as a further precaution at old Mata's hands, hidden under +the kitchen flooring. Toward the last it was found necessary to employ +an assistant, a seamstress, known of old to Mata. Her companionship, +as well as her sewing, proved a boon. Seated upon the springy matting, +with waves of shimmering silk tumultuous about them, the old dames +chatted incessantly of other brides and other wedding outfits they had +known. Marvellous were their tales of married life, some of them +designed to cheer, others to warn the silent little third figure, that +of the bride-to-be. As a matter of fact, Ume never listened. The +noise and buzz of incessant conversation affected her pleasantly, but +remotely, as the chatter of distant sparrows. The girl had too much +within herself to think of. + +"May Kwannon have mercy upon my young mistress," sighed the nurse, one +day, as Ume left the room. + +"Does she require mercy? I thought--she appears to me +honorably--er--undisturbed," ventured the seamstress, with one swift +upward look of interest. + +"Yes, she appears,--many of us appear,--but can she be happy? That is +what I wish to know. The creature she is being forced to marry is more +like a mountain-lion than a man!" + +"Ma-a-a! Is he dangerous? Will he bite her?" questioned the other, +hopefully. + +"Amida alone knows what he will do with her," croaked Mata, in a +sepulchral voice. + +The subject was one not to be readily relinquished. "The facts being +honorably as you relate," began the hired seamstress, her needle held +carefully against the light for threading, "how is it that the august +father of the illustrious young lady permits such a marriage?" + +Mata's eyes gleamed sharp and bright as the needle. "Because he is as +mad as the wild man, and all for pictures! They would strip their own +skins off if that made better parchment. Miss Ume has been influenced +by them, and now is to be sacrificed. Alas! the evil day!" and Mata +wiped away some genuine tears on the hem of a night-robe she had +finished. + +"O kinodoku Sama, my spirit is poisoned by your grief," murmured the +other, sympathetically. "Yet, in your place, I should find great +comfort in the outfit of your mistress. Never, even in the sewing +halls of princes, could more beautiful silks be gathered." She looked +about slowly, with the air of a professional who sees something really +worthy of regard. + +Mata's face cleared. "Since the gods allow it, I should not complain," +she admitted. "Indeed, Mr. Uchida and I are doing well by the young +couple in the matter of silks and house furnishings. And--whisper this +not--no one but he and I dream from what source these splendid fabrics +come!" + +Mata had thrust a poisoned arrow of curiosity into her listener, and +knew it. Some day, perhaps the very day before the wedding, she might +reveal it. For the present, as she said, no one but herself and Uchida +knew. + +More than once during sewing hours, Ume-ko herself had wondered how her +father was able to give her silks of such beauty and variety. With the +unthrift of the true artist, Kano was always poor. The old man would +have been as surprised and far angrier than his daughter, had he known +that Tatsu's pictures, stolen craftily by the confederates, Uchida and +Mata, and sold in Yokohama for about a tenth of their true value, were +the source of this sudden affluence. Tatsu remained ignorant, also. +But, provided they took no image of Ume's face, he would not have cared +at all. New garments, new mats, dainty household furnishings, were +showered upon him, too; but they might have been autumn leaves, for all +the interest he showed. + +To gain his Dragon Maid,--to know that in this life she was irrevocably +his,--that was Tatsu's one conscious thought. + +The wedding day came at last. Ume-ko had written no letter on the eve +of it, but all night long she felt that he was near her, leaning on the +breast of the plum tree, scaling the steeps above her, wandering, a +restless ghost of joy, about the moon-silvered cemetery, speaking +perhaps, as equal, to his primeval gods. So close, already were these +two, that even in absence, each felt always something of the other's +mood. It was a sleepless night to the girl, also. She cowered close +about the Secret, until its fierce light scorched her. She pressed +down her lids with strong, white fingers, but the glory streamed +through. So, tortured by intolerable bliss, she suffered, until the +dawn came in. + +Quite early in the day the bride's trousseau and gifts were sent to +Tatsu's home. They made a train that filled the neighbors' eyes with +wonder and Mata's swelling heart with pride. There were lacquered +chests and cases of drawers, all filled with clothing. Each great +square package was covered with a decorated cloth, and swung from a +gilded staff borne on the shoulders of two stout coolies. There were +boxes of cakes, fruit, and eggs; and jinrikishas piled with a medley of +gifts. Even Kano was impressed. Uchida rubbed his two fat hands +together and laughed at everything. Ume-ko, watching the moving +shadows pass under her father's gate-roof, closed her eyes quickly and +caught her breath. The next gift from the Kano home was to be herself. + +By this time autumn was upon the year. A few early chrysanthemums +opened small golden suns in the garden. Dodan bushes and maples hinted +at a crimson splendor soon to follow. The icho trees stood like +pyramids of gold; and suzuki grass upon the hillsides brushed a +cloudless blue sky with silken fingers. In the garden, autumn insects +sang. Ume-ko's kirigirisu which, some weeks before, she had released +from its cage, had, as if in gratitude made a home among the lichens of +the big plum tree. Ume believed that she always knew its voice from +among the rest, no matter how full the chorus of silver chiming. + +She had gone back to her room, and sat now, in the centre of it, +staring toward the garden. Noon had crept upon it, devouring all +shadow. Her eyes saw little but the golden blur. A fusuma opened +softly, and two women, Mata and the attendant seamstress, came mincing +and smirking toward her, each with an armful of white silk. Ume rose +like an automaton. They began her toilet, talking the while in low +voices. They robed her in white with a thin lining-edge of crimson, +and threw over her shining hair a veil of tissue. Some one outside +called that the bride's kuruma was at the gate. Old Kano entered the +room, smiling. His steps creaked and rustled with new silk. Ume +turned for one fleeting glimpse of her plum tree. It seemed to stir +and wave green leaves toward her. With head down-bent, the girl +followed her father through the house. + +Mata helped them into the two new, shining jinrikishas, a dragon-crest +blazoned on the one for Ume's use. She scolded the kuruma men in her +shrill voice, giving a dozen instructions in one sentence, and +pretending anger at their answering jests. On the doorstep stood the +little seamstress ready to cast a handful of dried peas. When Kano and +Ume-ko were off, Mata scrambled excitedly into her own vehicle. Her +human steed, turning round for an impudent and good-natured stare, +drawled out an unprintable remark. The seamstress shrieked "sayonara" +and pelted space with the peas. Afterward she ran on foot down the +slope of the hill and joined the smiling crowd of lookers-on. Soon it +was over. The peddler picked up his pack, and the children their toys. +Gates opened or slid aside in panels to receive their owners. The +jangling of small gate-bells made the hillside merry for an instant, +then busy silence again took possession. + +No one at all was left in the Kano home. The little cottage of Ume's +birth, of her short, happy life and dawning fame, drew itself together +in the unusual silence. Sunshine fell thick upon the garden, and +warmed even the lazy gold-fish in their pigmy lake. In the plum-tree +branch that touched Ume-ko's abandoned chamber, the cricket chirped +softly to himself. He knew the Secret! + + + + +VII + +Six days were gone. The marriage was a thing accomplished, yet old +Kano sat, lean, dispirited, drowned apparently in depths of fathomless +despair, in the centre of his corner room. Mata, busy about her +household tasks, sometimes passed across the matting, or flaunted a +dusting-cloth within a partly opened shoji. At such moments her look +and gesture were eloquent of disdain. Her patience, long tried by the +kindly irritable master, was about at an end. Surely a spoiled old +man-child like the crouching figure yonder would exhaust the +forbearance of Jizo Sama himself! + +Six days ago he had been happy,--indeed, too happy! for he and Uchida +had drunk themselves into a condition of giggling bliss, and had needed +to be taken away bodily from the bridal bower, hoisted into a double +jinrikisha, and driven off ignominiously, still embracing, still +pledging with tears an eternity of brotherhood. Yes, on that day Kano +had hailed the earth as one broad, enamelled sake-cup, the air, a new +infusion of heavenly brew. But now---- + +"Mata!" the thin voice came, "are you certain that this is but the +sixth day of my son's wedding?" + +"It is but the sixth day, indeed, since your daughter's sacrifice to a +barbarian, if that is what you mean," returned Mata, with a belligerent +flourish of her paper duster. + +"That is what I meant," said the other, passively. "Then the week is +not to be finished until to-morrow at noon. Twenty-four hours of +torture to me! I suppose that the ingrates will count time to the last +shadow! Oh, Mata, Mata, you once were a faithful servant! Why did you +let me make that foolish promise of giving them an entire week? A day +would have been ample, then Tatsu and I could have begun to paint." + +"Ara!" said Mata, uttering a sound more forcible than respectful. "Had +it been a decent person thus married to my young mistress, instead of a +mountain sprite, they should have had a month together!" + +Kano groaned under the suggestion. "Then, heartless woman, at the end +of the month you would have been without a master; for surely my +sufferings would, in a month, have shrunk me to an insect gaki chirping +from a tree." + +"It is to me a matter of honorable amazement that in one week you are +not already a gaki, with your incessant complaints," retorted the old +dame, still unrelenting. + +"If I could be sure he is painting all this interminable time," said +Kano to himself, wringing the nervous hands together. + +"You may be augustly sure he is not," chuckled the cruel Mata. + +The old man got hastily to his feet. "Mata, Mata, your tongue is that +of a viper,--a green viper, with stripes. I will go from its reach +into the highway. Of course my son is painting. What else could he be +doing?" + +The old dame's laugh fell like salt upon a wound. Kano caught up a +bamboo cane and, hatless, went into the street. It was odd, how often +during this week he found need of walking; still stranger, how often +his wanderings led him to the dodan hedge enclosing Tatsu's cottage. +He paused at the gate now, tormented by the reflection that he himself +had drawn the bolt. How still it was in there! Not even a sparrow +chirped. Could something be wrong? Suddenly a laugh rang out,--the +low spontaneous laugh of a happy girl. Kano clutched the gate-post. +It was not the sort of laugh that one gives at sight of a splendid +painting. It had too intimate, too personal, a ring. But surely Tatsu +was painting! What else did he live for, if not to paint? The old man +bore a heavy homeward heart. + +Next day, exactly at the hour of noon, the culprits tapped upon Kano's +wooden gate. During the morning the old man had been in a condition of +feverish excitement, but now that the agony of waiting had forever +ceased, he assumed a pose of indifference. + +Tatsu entered first, as a husband should. In mounting the stone which +served as step to the railless veranda, he shook off, carelessly, his +wooden shoes. Ume-ko lifted them, dusted the velvet thongs, and placed +them with mathematical precision side by side upon the flat stone. She +then entered, placing her small lacquered clogs beside those of her +husband. + +Kano, from the tail of his eye, marked with approval these tokens of +wifely submission. From a small aperture in the kitchen shoji, however +(a peephole commanding a full view of the house), dour mutterings might +have been heard, and a whispered lament that "she should have lived to +see her young mistress wipe a Tengu's shoes!" + +When the various genuflections and phrases of ceremonial greeting were +at last accomplished, the old artist broke forth, "Well, well, son +Tatsu, how many paintings in all this time?" + +Tatsu looked up startled, first at the questioner, then at his wife. +She gave a little, convulsive giggle, and bent her shining eyes to the +floor. + +"I have not painted," said Tatsu, bluntly. + +"Not painted? Impossible! What then have you done with all the golden +hours of these interminable days?" + +A sullen look crept into the boy's face. Again he turned questioning +eyes upon his wife. From the troubled silence her sweet voice reached +like a caress: "Dear father, the autumn days, though golden, have held +unusual heat." + +"Heat! What are cold and heat to a true artist? Did he not paint in +August? I am old, yet I have been painting!" + +Again fell the silence. + +"I said that I had been painting," repeated the old man, angrily. + +Ume-ko recovered herself with a start. "I am--er--we are truly +overjoyed to hear it. Shall you deign to honor us with a sight of your +illustrious work?" + +"No, I shall not deign!" snapped the old man. "It is his work that you +now are concerned with." Here he pointed to the scowling Tatsu. "Why +have you not influenced him as you should? He must paint! It is what +you married him for." + +Ume-ko caught her breath. A flush of embarrassment dyed her face, and +she threw a half-frightened look towards Tatsu. Answering her father's +unrelenting frown, she murmured, timidly, "To-morrow, if the gods will, +my dear husband shall paint." + +Tatsu's steady gaze drew her. "Your eyes, Ume-ko. Is it true that for +this--to make me paint--you consented to become my wife?" + +Ume tried in vain to resist the look he gave her. Close at her other +hand, she knew, her father hung upon her face and listened, trembling, +for her words. To him, art was all. But to her and Tatsu, who had +found each other,--ah! She tried to speak but words refused to form +themselves. She tried to turn a docile face toward old Kano; but the +deepening glory of her husband's look drew her as light draws a flower. +Sullenness and anger fell from him like a cloth. His countenance gave +out the fire of an inward passion; his eyes--deep, strange, strong, +magnetic--mastered and compelled her. + +"No, no, beloved," she whispered. "I cannot say,--you alone know the +soul of me." + +A fierce triumph flared into his look. He leaned nearer, with a smile +that was almost cruel in its consciousness of power. Under it her eyes +drooped, her head fell forward in a sudden faintness, her whole lithe +body huddled into one gracious, yielding outline. Even while Kano +gasped, doubting his eyes and his hearing, Tatsu sprang to his feet, +went to his wife, caught her up rudely by one arm, and crushed her +against his side, while he blazed defiant scorn upon Kano. "Come +Dragon Wife," he said, in a voice that echoed through the space; "come +back to our little home. No stupid old ones there, no prattle about +painting. Only you and I and love." + +[Illustration: "'Come, Dragon Wife,' he said, 'come back to our little +home.'"] + +Now in Japan nothing is more indelicate, more unpardonable, or more +insulting to the listener than any reference to the personal love +between man and wife. At Tatsu's terrible speech, Ume-ko, unconscious +of further cause of offense, hid her face against his sleeve, and clung +to him, that her trembling might not cast her to the floor. Kano, at +first, was unable to speak. He grew slowly the hue of death. His +brief words, when at last they came, were in convulsive spasms of +sound. "Go to your rooms,--both. Are you mad, indeed,--this +immodesty, this disrespect to me. Mata was right,--a Tengu, a +barbarian. Go, go, ere I rise to slay you both!" + +The utterance choked him, and died away in a gasping silence. He +clutched at his lean chest. Ume would have sped to him, but Tatsu held +her fast. His young face flamed with an answering rage. "Do you use +that tone to me--old man--to me, and this, my wife," he was beginning, +but Ume put frantic hands upon his lips. + +"Master, beloved!" she sobbed. "You shall not speak thus to our +father,--you do not understand. For love of me, then, be patient. +Even the crows on the hilltops revere their parents. Come there, to +the hills, with me, now, now--oh, my soul's beloved--before you speak +again. Wait there, in the inner room, while I kneel a moment before +our father. Oh, Tatsu, if you love me----" + +The agony of her face and voice swept from Tatsu's mind all other +feeling. He stood in the doorway, silent, as she threw herself before +old Kano, praying to him as to an offended god: "Father, father, do not +hold hatred against us! Tatsu has been without kindred,--he knows not +yet the sacred duties of filial love. We will go from your presence +now until your just anger against us shall have cooled. With the night +we shall return and plead for mercy and forgiveness. No, no, do not +speak again, just yet. We are going, now, now. Oh, my dear father, +the agony and the shame of it! Sayonara, until the twilight." She +hurried back to Tatsu, seized his clenched hand with her small, icy +fingers, and almost dragged him from the room. + +Kano sat as she had left him, motionless, now, as the white jade vase +within the tokonoma. His anger, crimson, blinding at the first +possession, had heated by now into a slow, white rage. All at once he +began to tremble. He struck himself violently upon one knee, crying +aloud, "So thus love influences him! Ara! My Dragon Painter! Other +methods may be tried. Such words and looks before me, me,--Kano +Indara! And Ume's eyes set upon him as in blinding worship. Could I +have seen aright? He caught my child up like a common street wench, a +thing of sale and barter. And she,--she did not scorn, but trembled +and clung to him. Is the whole world on its head? I will teach them, +I will teach them." + +"Have my young mistress and her august spouse already taken leave?" +asked Mata at a crack of the door. + +"Either they or some demon changelings," answered the old man, rocking +to and fro upon the mats. + +The old servant had, of course, heard everything. Feigning now, for +her own purposes, a soothing air of ignorance, she glided into the +room, lifted the tiny tea-pot, shook it from side to side, and then +cocked her bright eyes upon her master. "The tea-pot. It is honorably +empty. Shall I fill it?" + +"Yes, yes; replenish it at once. I need hot tea. Shameless, +incredible; he has, indeed, the manners of a wild boar." + +"Ma-a-a!" exclaimed the old woman. "Now of whom can my master be +speaking?" + +"You know very well of whom I am speaking, goblin! Do you not always +listen at the shoji? Go, fill the pot!" + +Mata glided from the room with the quickness of light and in an instant +had returned. Replacing the smoking vessel and maintaining a face of +decorous interest, she asked, hypocritically, "And was my poor Miss Ume +mortified?" + +"Mortified?" echoed the artist with an angry laugh; "she admired him! +She clung to him as a creature tamed by enchantment. My daughter! +Never did I expect to look upon so gross a sight! Why, Mata----" + +"Yes, dear master," purred the old dame encouragingly as she seated +herself on the floor near the tea-pot. "One moment, while I brew you a +cup of fresh, sweet tea. It is good to quiet the honorable nerves. I +can scarcely believe what you tell me of our Ume-ko, so modest a young +lady, so well brought up!" + +"I tell you what these old eyes saw," repeated Kano. Once more he +described the harrowing sight, adding more details. Mata, well used to +his outbursts of anger, though indeed she had seldom seen him in his +present condition of indignant excitement, drew him on by degrees. She +well knew that an anger put into lucid words soon begins to cool. Some +of her remarks were in the nature of small, kindly goads. + +"Remember, master, the poor creatures are married but a week to-day." + +"Had I dreamed of such low conduct, they should never have been married +at all!" + +"Of course he is n't worthy of her," sighed the other, one eye on +Kano's face. + +"Nonsense! He is more than worthy of any woman upon earth if he could +but learn to conduct himself like a human being." + +"That would take a long schooling." + +"He is the greatest artist since Sesshu!" cried the old man, vehemently. + +Mata bowed over to the tea-pot. "You recognize artists, master; I +recognize fools." + +"Do you call my son a fool?" + +"If that wild man is still to be considered your son, then have I +called your son a fool," answered Mata, imperturbably. + +The new flush left the old man's face as quickly as it had come. +"Mata, Mata," he groaned, too spent now for further vehemence, "you are +an old cat,--an old she-cat. You cannot dream what it is to be an +artist! What one will endure for art; what one will sacrifice, and joy +in the giving! Why, woman, if with one's shed blood, with the barter +of one's soul, a single supreme vision could be realized, no true +artist would hesitate. Yes, if even wife, child, and kindred were to +be joined in a common destruction for art's sake, the artist must not +hesitate. At the thought of one's parents, the ancestors of one's +house, it might be admissible to pause, but at nothing else, nothing +else, whatever! Life is a mere bubble on the stream of art, fame is a +bubble--riches, happiness, Death itself! Would that I could tear these +old limbs into a bleeding frenzy as I paint, if by doing so one little +line may swerve the nearer to perfection! Often have I thought of this +and prayed for the opportunity, but such madness does not benefit. +Only the torn anguish of a soul may sometimes help. And with old +souls, like old trees, they do not bleed, but are snapped to earth, and +lie there rotting. He, Tatsu, the son of my adoption, could with one +strong sweep of his arm make the gods stare, and he spends his hours +fondling the perishable object of a woman, while I, who would give all, +all,--give my own child that he loves,--I remain impotent! Alas! So +topsy-turvy a world are we born in!" + +He bowed his head in a misery so abject that Mata forbore to jibe. She +tried to speak again, to comfort him, but he motioned her away, and +sat, scarcely moving in his place, until the night brought Tatsu and +his young wife home again. + + + + +VIII + +Thus under, as it were, a double ban of displeasure, did the new +generation of Kano, Tatsu and Ume-ko, begin life in the little cottage +beneath the hill. They were given Ume's chamber near which the plum +tree grew, an adjoining room having been previously fitted up for +Tatsu's painting. As in the other cottage, inviting rectangles of +silk, already stretched and sized, stood in blank rows against the +walls. Even the fusuma were of new paper, offering, it would seem, to +any inspired young artist, a surface of alluring possibilities. +Paints, brushes, and vessels without number made an array to tempt, if +only the tempting were not so obvious. + +Ume-ko, watching closely the expression of her husband's face as he was +first led into this room, drew old Kano aside, and urged that more tact +and delicacy be used in leading Tatsu back to a desire for creative +work. She herself, she hinted with deprecating sweetness, might do +much if only allowed to follow her own loving instincts. But Kano had +lost confidence in his daughter and bluntly told her so. Tatsu had +been adopted and married in order to make him paint, and paint he +should! Also it was Ume-ko's duty to influence him in whatever way and +method her father thought best. Let her succeed,--that was her sole +responsibility. So blustered Kano to himself and Mata, and not even +the malicious twinkle of the old servant's eye pointed the way to +wisdom. + +Naturally Ume-ko did not succeed. Tatsu merely laughed at her flagrant +efforts at duplicity. He felt no need of painting, no desire to paint. +He had won the Dragon Maiden. Life could give him no more! There was +no anger or resentment in his feeling toward Kano, or even the old +scourge Mata. No, he was too happy! To lie dreaming on the fragrant, +matted floor near Ume, where he could listen to her soft breathing and +at times pull her closer by a silken sleeve,--this was enough for +Tatsu. Nothing had power to arouse in him a sense of duty, of +obligation to himself, or to his adopted father. He would not argue +about it, and could scarcely be said to listen. He lived and moved and +breathed in love as in a fourth dimension. To the old man's frequent +remonstrances he would turn a gentle, deprecating face. He had +promised Ume-ko never again to speak rudely to their father. Besides, +why should he? The outer world was all so beautiful and sad and +unimportant. A sunset cloud, or a bird swinging from a hagi spray +could bring sharp, swift tears to his eyes. Beauty could move him, but +not old Kano's genuine sufferings. Yet, the old man, bleating from the +arid rocks of age, was doubtless a pathetic spectacle, and must be +listened to kindly. + +Finding the boy thus obdurate, Kano turned the full force of his +discontent on Ume-ko. She endured in silence the incessant railing. +Each new device urged by the distracted Kano she carried out with +scrupulous care, though even with the performance of it she knew +hopelessness to be involved. For hours she remained away from home, +hidden in a neighbor's house or in the temple on the hill, it being +Kano's thought that perhaps, in this temporary loss of his idol, Tatsu +might seek solace in the paint room. But Tatsu, raging against the +conditions which made such tyranny possible, stormed, on such +occasions, through the little house, and up and down the garden, +pelting the terrified gold-fish in their caves, stripping leaves and +tips from Kano's favorite pine-shrubs, or standing, long intervals of +time, on the crest of the moon-viewing hillock, from which he could +command vistas of the street below. + +"There 's your jewel of a painter," old Mata, indoors, would say. +"Look at him, master,--a noble figure, indeed, standing on one leg like +a love-sick stork!" And Kano, helpless before his own misery and the +old dame's acrid triumph, would keep silence, only muttering +invocations to the gods for self-control. + +Often the young wife pretended a sudden desire for her own artistic +work. She would go hurriedly to the little painting chamber, gather +complex paraphernalia, and assume the pose of eager effort. Tatsu +always followed her but, once within the room, bent such laughing eyes +of comprehension that she dared not look into his face. Nevertheless +she would paint; tracing, mechanically, the bird and flower studies in +which she had once taken delight. Just in the midst of some specially +delicate stroke, Tatsu would snatch her hands away, press them against +his lips, his eyes, his throat, hurl the painting things to the four +corners of the room, drag her down to his strong embrace, and triumph +openly in the victory of love. The young wife, longing from the first +to yield, attempted always to repel him, protesting in the words her +father had bade her use, and urging him to rouse himself and paint, as +she was doing. Then the young god would laugh magnificent music, +drowning the last pathetic echo of old Kano's remembered voice. +Catching her anew he would crush her against his breast, fondling her +with that tempestuous gentleness that surely no mere man of earth could +know, would drag up her faint soul to him through eyes and lips until +she felt herself but a shred of ecstacy caught in a whirlwind of +immortal love. + + "So that we be together, + Even the Hell of the Blood Lake, + Even the Mountain of Swords, + Mean nothing to us at all!" + +He would sing, in the words of an old Buddhist folk-song. At such +supreme heights of emotion she knew, consciously, that Kano's grief and +disappointment were nothing. She did not really care whether Tatsu +ever touched a brush again,--whether, indeed, the whole visible world +fretted itself into dust. She and Tatsu had found each other! The +rest meant nothing at all! + +Such moments were, however, the isolated and the exceptional. As the +days went by they became less frequent, and, by a strange law of +contrasts, with diminution exacted a heavier toll. The strain of +antagonisms within the little home became almost unbearable. Neither +Kano nor Tatsu would yield an inch, and between them, like a white +flower between stones, little Ume-ko was crushed. A new and +threatening trouble was that of poverty. Tatsu would not paint; Kano, +in his wretchedness could not. + +The young wife went often now to the temple on the hill. Tatsu +generally went with her, remaining outside in the courtyard or at the +edge of the cliff, under the camphor tree, while she was praying +within. Her entreaties were all for divine guidance. She implored of +the gods a deeper insight into the cause of this strange trouble now +upon them, and besought, too, that in her husband, Tatsu, should be +awakened a recognition of his duties, and of the household needs. Kano +visited the temple, also, and spent long hours in conference with his +personal friend, the abbot. Even old Mata, abandoning for the moment +her Protestantism and reverting to the yearning (never entirely +stifled) for mystic practises, went to an old charlatan of a +fortune-teller, and purchased various charms and powders for driving +the demons from the unconscious Tatsu. Ume-ko soon discovered this, +and the fear that Tatsu would be poisoned added to a load of anxiety +already formidable. + +By the end of October, Yeddo's most golden and most perfect month, no +hours brought happiness to the little bride but those stolen ones in +which she and her husband were wont to take long walks together, +sometimes into the country, again through the mazes of the great +capital. Even at these times of respite she was only too well aware +how Kano and the old nurse sat together at home, lamenting the gross +selfishness of the young,--deciding, perhaps, upon the next loved +painting or household treasure to be sold for buying rice. Tatsu, now +as unreasonable and obstinate as Kano himself, still refused to admit +unhappiness or threatened destitution. He and Ume-ko could go to the +mountains, he said. "The mountains were, after all, their true home. +Once there the Sennin and the deities of cloud would see that they did +not suffer." + +On an afternoon very near the end of the month the young couple took +such a walk together. Their course lay eastward, crossing at right +angles the main streets of the great city, until they reached the +shores of the Sumida River, winding down like a road of glass. They +had emerged into the famous district of Asakusa, where the great temple +of Kwannon the Merciful attracts daily its thousands of worshippers. +Here the water course is bounded by fashionable tea-houses, many +stories high, and here the great arched bridges are always crowded. +Leaving this busy heart of things, they sauntered northward, finding +lonelier shores, and soon wide fields of green, until they reached a +bank whereon grew a single leaning willow. The body of this tree, +bending outward, sent its long, nerveless leaves in a perpetual green +rain to the surface of the stream, where sudden swarms of minnows, like +shivers in a glass, assailed the deceptive bait. The roots of the +tree--great yellowish, twisted ropes of roots--clutched air, earth, and +water in their convolutions. Among them the current, swifter here than +in mid-stream, uttered at times a guttural, uncanny sound as of +spectral laughter. + +Ume-ko stood, one slender arm about the trunk, looking out, with +mournful eyes, upon the passing river show. On the farther bank grew a +continuous wall of cherry trees in yellowing leaf, and above them +glowed the first hint of the coming sunset. Rising against the sky a +temple roof, tilted like the keel of a sunken vessel, cut sharp lines +into the crimson light. + +Tatsu flung himself full length upon the bank. He patted the soil with +its springing grasses, and felt his heart flow out in love to it. Then +he reached up, caught at the drifting gauze of Ume's sleeve, and made +as if to pull her down. Ume clasped the tree more tightly. + +"Tatsu," she said, "I implore you not to think always of me. Look, +beloved, the thin white sails of the rice-boats pass, and, over yonder, +children in scarlet petticoats dance beneath the trees." + +"I have eyes but for my wife," said wilful Tatsu. + +Ume-ko drew the sleeve away. She would not meet his smile. "Alas, +shall I forever obscure beauty!" + +"There is no beauty now but in you! You are the sacred mirror which +reflects for me all loveliness." + +"Dear lord, those words are almost blasphemy," said Ume, in a +frightened whisper. "Look, now, beloved, the light of the sun sinks +down. Soon the great moon will come to us." + +"What care I for a distant moon, oh, Dragon Maid," laughed Tatsu. + +Ume's outstretched arm fell heavily to her side. "Alas!" she said +again. "From deepest happiness may come the deepest pain. You dream +not of the hurt you give." + +"I give no hurt at all that I cannot more than heal," cried Tatsu, in +his masterful way. But Ume's lips still quivered, and she turned her +face from him. + +In the silence that followed, the water among the willow roots gave out +a rush and gurgle, a sound of liquid merriment,--perhaps the laugh of a +"Kappa" or river sprite, mocking the perplexities of men. Ume-ko +leaned over instantly, staring down into the stream. + +[Illustration: "Ume-ko leaned over instantly, staring down into the +stream."] + +"How deep it is, and strong," she whispered, as if to her own thought +"That which fell in here would be carried very swiftly out to sea." + +Tatsu smiled dreamily upon her. In his delight at her beauty, the +delicate poise of body with its long, gray drifting sleeves, he did not +realize the meaning of her words. One little foot in its lacquered +shoe and rose-velvet thong, crushed the grasses at the very edge of the +bank. Suddenly the earth beneath her shivered. It parted in a long +black fissure, and then sank, with sob and splash, into the hurrying +water. Ume tottered and clung to the tree. Tatsu, springing up at a +single bound, caught her back into safety. The very branches above +them shook as if in sentient fear. Ume felt herself pressed,--welded +against her husband's side in such an agony of strength that his +beating heart seemed to be in her own body. She heard the breath rasp +upward in his throat and catch there, inarticulate. He began dragging +her backward, foot by foot. At a safe distance he suddenly +sank--rather fell--to earth bearing her with him, and began moaning +over her, caressing and fondling her as a tiger might a rescued cub. + +"Never go near that stream again!" he said hoarsely, as soon as he +could speak at all. "Hear me, Ume-ko, it is my command! Never again +approach that tree. It is a goblin tree. Some dead, unhappy woman, +drowned here in the self-death, must inhabit it and would entice you to +destruction. Oh, Ume, my wife,--my wife! I saw the black earth +grinning beneath your feet. I cannot bear it! Come away from this +place at once,--at once! The river itself may reach out snares to us." + +"Yes, lord, I will come," she panted, trying to loosen the rigid arms, +"but I am faint. This high bank is safe, now. And, lord, when you so +embrace and crush me my strength does not return." + +Tatsu grudgingly relaxed his hold. "Rest here then, close beside me," +he said. "I shall not trust you, even an inch from me." + +The river current in the tree roots laughed aloud. + +Across and beyond the road of glass, the sky grew cold now and blue, +like the side of a dead fish. A glow subtle and unmistakable as +perfume tingled up through the dusk. + +"The Lady Moon," whispered Ume, softly. Freeing her little hands she +joined them, bent her head, and gave the prayer of welcome to O Tsuki +Sama. + +Tatsu watched her gloomily. "I pray to no moon," he said. "I pray to +nothing in this place." + +A huge coal barge on its way to the Yokohama harbor glided close to +them along the dark surface of the tide. At the far end of the barge a +fire was burning, and above it, from a round black cauldron, boiling +rice sent up puffs of white, fragrant steam. The red light fell upon a +ring of faces, evidently a mother and her children; and on the broad, +naked back of the father who leaned far outward on his guiding pole. +Ume turned her eyes away. "I think I can walk now," she said. + +Tatsu rose instantly, and drew her upward by the hands. A shudder of +remembered horror caught him. He pressed her once more tightly to his +heart. "Ume-ko, Ume-ko, my wife,--my Dragon Wife!" he cried aloud in a +voice of love and anguish. "I have sought you through the torments of +a thousand lives. Shall anything have power to separate us now?" + +"Nothing can part us now, but--death," said Ume-ko, and glanced, for an +instant, backward to the river. + +Tatsu winced. "Use not the word! It attracts evil." + +"It is a word that all must some day use," persisted the young wife, +gently. "Tell me, beloved, if death indeed should come--?" + +"It would be for both. It could not be for one alone." + +"No, no!" she cried aloud, lifting her white face as if in appeal to +heaven. "Do not say that, lord! Do not think it! If I, the lesser +one, should be chosen of death, surely you would live for our +father,--for the sake of art!" + +"I would kill myself just as quickly as I could!" said Tatsu, doggedly. +"What comfort would painting be? I painted because I had you not." + +"Because--you--had--me--not," mused little Ume-ko, her eyes fixed +strangely upon the river. + +"Come," said Tatsu, rudely, "did I not forbid you to speak of death? +Too much has been said. Besides, the fate of ordinary mortals should +have no potency for such as we. When our time comes for pause before +rebirth we shall climb together some high mountain peak, lifting our +arms and voices to our true parents, the gods of storm and wind. They +will lean to us, beloved,--they will rush downward in a great passion +of joy, catching us and straining us to immortality!" + +By this they were from sight and hearing of the river, and had begun to +thread the maze of narrow city streets in which now lamps and tiny +electric bulbs and the bobbing lanterns of hurrying jinrikisha men had +begun to twinkle. In the darker alleys the couple walked side by side. +Ume, at times, even rested a small hand on her husband's sleeve. In +the broad, well-lighted thoroughfares he strode on some paces in +advance while Ume followed, in decorous humility, as a good wife +should. Few words passed between them. The incident at the willow +tree had left a gloomy aftermath of thought. + +In the Kano home the simple night meal of rice, tea, soup, and pickled +vegetables was already prepared. Mata motioned them to their places in +the main room where old Kano was already seated, and served them in the +gloomy silence which was part of the general strain. Throughout the +whole place reproach hung like a miasma. + +This evening, almost for the first time, Tatsu reflected, in full +measure, the despondency of his companions. The elder man, glancing +now and again toward him, evidently restrained with difficulty a flow +of bitter words. Once he spoke to his daughter, fixing sunken eyes +upon her. "The crimson lacquered wedding-chest that was your mother's, +to-day has been sold to buy us food." Ume clenched her little hands +together, then bowed far over, in token that she had heard. There were +no words to say. For weeks now they had lived upon such money as +this,--namida-kane,--"tear-money" the Japanese call it. + +Tatsu, helpless in his place, scowled and muttered for a moment, then +rose and hurried out, leaving the meal unfinished. Ume watched him +sadly, but did not follow. This was so unusual a thing that Tatsu, +alone in their chamber, was at first astonished, then alarmed. For ten +minutes or more he paced up and down the narrow space, pride urging him +to await his wife's dutiful appearance. In a short while more he felt +the tension to be unbearable. A sinister silence flooded the house. +He hurried back to the main room to find that Ume and old Kano were not +there. He began searching the house, all but the kitchen. +Instinctively he avoided old Mata's domain, knowing it to be the lair +of an enemy. At last necessity drove him to it also. Her face leered +at him through a parted shoji. He gave a bound in her direction. +Instantly she had slammed the panels together; and before he could +reopen them had armed herself with a huge, glittering fish-knife. +"None of your mountain wild-cat ways for me!" she screamed. + +In spite of wretchedness and alarm the boy laughed aloud. "I wish not +to hurt you, old fool," he said. "I desire nothing but to know where +my wife is." + +"With her father," snapped the other. + +"Yes, but where,--where? And why did she go without telling me? Where +did he take her? Answer quickly. I must follow them." + +"I have no answers for you," said Mata. "And even if I had you would +not get them. Go, go, out of my sight, you Bearer of Discord!" she +railed, feeling that at last an opportunity for plain speaking had +arrived. "This was a happy house until your evil presence sought it. +Don't glare at me, and take postures. I care neither for your tall +figure nor your flashing eyes. You may bewitch the others, but not old +Mata! Oh, Dragon Painter! Oh, Dragon Painter! The greatest since +Sesshu!" she mimicked, "show me a few of the wonderful things you were +to paint us when once you were Kano's son! Bah! you were given my +nursling, as a wolf is given a young fawn,--that was all you wanted. +You will never paint!" + +"Tell me where she is or I'll--" began the boy, raving. + +"No you won't," jeered Mata, now in a transport of fury. "Back, back, +out of my kitchen and my presence or this knife will plunge its way +into you as into a devil-fish. Oh, it would be a sight! I have no +love for you!" + +"I care not for your love, old Baba, old fiend, nor for your knife. +Where did my Ume go? You grin like an old she-ape! Never, upon my +mountains did I see so vicious a beast." + +"Then go back to your mountains! You are useless here. You will not +even paint. Go where you belong!" + +"The mountains,--the mountains!" sobbed the boy, under his breath. +"Yes, I must go to them or my soul will go without me! Perhaps the +kindlier spirits of the air will tell me where she is!" With a last +distracted gesture he fled from the house and out into the street. +Mata listened with satisfaction as she heard him racing up the slope +toward the hillside. "I wish it were indeed a Kiu Shiu peak he +climbed, instead of a decent Yeddo cliff," she muttered to herself, as +she tied on her apron and began to wash the supper dishes. "But, alas, +he will be back all too soon, perhaps before my master and Miss Ume +come down from the temple." + +In this surmise the old dame was, for once, at fault. Tatsu did not +return until full daylight of the next morning. He had been wandering, +evidently, all night long among the chill and dew-wet branches of the +mountain shrubs. His silken robe was torn and stained as had been the +blue cotton dress, that first day of his coming. At sight of his +sunken eyes and haggard look Ume-ko's heart cried out to him, and it +was with difficulty that she restrained her tears. But she still had a +last appeal to make, and this was to be the hour. + +In response to his angry questions, she would answer nothing but that +she and her father had business at the temple. More than this, she +would not say. As he persisted, pleading for her motives in so leaving +him, and heaping her with the reproaches of tortured love, she suddenly +threw herself on the mat before him, in a passion of grief such as he +had not believed possible to her. She clasped his knees, his feet, and +besought him, with all the strength and pathos of her soul, to make at +least one more attempt to paint. He, now in equal torment, with tears +running along his bronzed face, confessed to her that the power seemed +to have gone from him. Some demon, he said, must have stolen it from +him while he slept, for now the very touch of a brush, the look of +paint, frenzied him. + +Ume-ko went again to her father, saying that she again had failed. The +strain was now, indeed, past all human endurance. The little home +became a charged battery of tragic possibilities. Each moment was a +separate menace, and the hours heaped up a structure already tottering. + +At dawn of the next day, Tatsu, who after a restless and unhappy night +had fallen into heavy slumber, awoke, with a start, alone. A pink +light glowed upon his paper shoji; the plum tree, now entirely +leafless, threw a splendid shadow-silhouette. At the eaves, sparrows +chattered merrily. It was to be a fair day: yet instantly, even before +he had sprung, cruelly awake, to his knees, he knew that the dreaded +Something was upon him. + +On the silken head-rest of Ume's pillow was fastened a long, slender +envelope, such as Japanese women use for letters. Tatsu recoiled from +it as from a venomous reptile. Throwing himself face down upon the +floor he groaned aloud, praying his mountain gods to sweep away from +his soul the black mist of despair that now crawled, cold, toward it. +Why should Ume-ko have left him again, and at such an hour? Why should +she have pinned to her pillow a slip of written paper? He would not +read it! Yes, yes,--he must,--he must read instantly. Perhaps the +Something was still to be prevented! He caught the letter up, held it +as best he could in quivering hands, and read: + + +Because of my unworthiness, O master, my heart's beloved, I have been +allowed to come between you and the work you were given of the gods to +do. The fault is all mine, and must come from my evil deeds in a +previous life. By sacrifice of joy and life I now attempt to expiate +it. I go to the leaning willow where the water speaks. One thing only +I shall ask of you,--that you admit to your mind no thought of +self-destruction, for this would heavily burden my poor soul, far off +in the Meido-land. Oh, live, my beloved, that I, in spirit, may still +be near you. I will come. You shall know that I am near,--only, as +the petals of the plum tree fall in the wind of spring, so must my +earthly joy depart from me. Farewell, O thou who art loved as no +mortal was ever loved before thee. + +Your erring wife, + Ume-ko. + + * * * * * * + +In his fantastic night-robe with its design of a huge fish, ungirdled +and wild of eyes, Tatsu rushed through the drowsy streets of Yeddo. +The few pedestrians, catching sight of him, withdrew, with cries of +fear, into gateways and alleys. + +At the leaning willow he paused, threw an arm about it, and swayed far +over like a drunkard, his eyes blinking down upon the stream. Ume-ko's +words, at the time of their utterance scarcely noted, came now as an +echo, hideously clear. "That which fell here would be carried very +swiftly out to sea." His nails broke against the bark. She,--his +wife,--must have been thinking of it even then, while he,--he,--blind +brute and dotard--sprawled upon the earth feeding his eyes of flesh +upon the sight of her. But, after all, could she have really done it? +Surely the gods, by miracle, must have checked so disproportionate a +sacrifice! Suddenly his wandering gaze was caught and held by a little +shoe among the willow roots. It was of black lacquer, with a thong of +rose-colored velvet. With one cry, that seemed to tear asunder the +physical walls of his body, he loosed his arm and fell. + + + + +IX + +His body was found some moments later by old Kano and a bridge keeper. +It was caught among the pilings of a boat-landing several hundred feet +farther down the tide. A thin, sluggish stream of blood followed it +like a clue, and, when he was dragged up upon the bank, gushed out +terribly from a wound near his temple. He had seized, in falling, +Ume-ko's lacquered geta, and his fingers could not be unclasped. In +spite of the early hour (across the river the sun still peered through +folds of shimmering mist) quite a crowd of people gathered. + +"It is the newly adopted son of Kano Indara," they whispered, one to +another. "He is but a few weeks married to Kano's daughter, and is +called 'The Dragon Painter.'" + +The efficient river-police summoned an ambulance, and had him taken to +the nearest hospital. Here, during an entire day, every art was +employed to restore him to consciousness, but without success. Life, +indeed, remained. The flow of blood was stopped, and the wound +bandaged, but no sign of intelligence awoke. + +"It is to be an illness of many weeks, and of great peril," answered +the chief physician that night to Kano's whispered question. The old +man turned sorrowfully away and crept home, wondering whether now, at +this extremity, the gods would utterly desert him. + +Mata, prostrated at first by the loss of her nursling, soon rallied her +practical old wits. She went, in secret, to the hospital, demanded +audience of the house physician, and gave to him all details of the +strange situation which had culminated in Ume's desperate act of +self-renunciation, and induced Tatsu's subsequent madness. She did not +ask for a glimpse of the sick man. Indeed she made no pretence of +kindly feeling toward him, for, in conclusion, she said, "Now, August +Sir, if, with your great skill in such matters, you succeed in giving +back to this young wild man the small amount of intelligence he was +born with, I caution you, above all things, keep from his reach such +implements of self-destruction as ropes, knives, and poisons. Oh, he +is an untamed beast, Doctor San. His love for my poor young mistress +was that of a lion and a demon in one. He will certainly slay himself +when he has the strength. Not that I care! His death would bring +relief to me, for in our little home he is like the spirit of storm +caged in a flower. Would I had never seen him, or felt the influence +of his evil karma! But my poor old master still dotes on him, and, +with Miss Ume vanished, if this Dragon Painter, too, should die at +once, Kano could not endure the double blow!" The old woman began to +sob in her upraised sleeve, apologizing through her tears for the +discourtesy. The physician comforted her with kind words, and thanked +her very sincerely for the visit. Her disclosures did, indeed, throw +light upon a difficult situation. + +From the hospital the old servant made her way to Uchida's hotel, to +learn that he had gone the day before to Kiu Shiu. With this tower of +strength removed Mata felt, more than ever, that Kano's sole friend was +herself. The loss of Ume was still to her a horror and a shock. The +eating loneliness of long, empty days at home had not yet begun; but +Mata was to know them, also. + +Kano, during the first precarious days of his son's illness, +practically deserted the cottage, and lived, day and night, in the +hospital. His pathetic old figure became habitual to the halls and +gardens near his son. The physicians and nurses treated him with +delicate kindness, forcing food and drink upon him, and urging him to +rest himself in one of the untenanted rooms. They believed the +deepening lines of grief to be traced by the loss of an only daughter, +rather than by this illness of a newly adopted son. In truth the old +man seldom thought of Ume-ko. He was watching the life that flickered +in Tatsu's prostrate body as a lost, starving traveller watches a +lantern approaching over the moor. "The gods preserve him,--the gods +grant his life to the Kano name, to art, and the glory of Nippon," so +prayed the old man's shrivelled lips a hundred times each day. + +After a stupor of a week, fever laid hold of Tatsu, bringing delirium, +delusion, and mad raving. At times he believed himself already dead, +and in the heavenly isle of Ho-rai with Ume. His gestures, his +whispered words of tenderness, brought tears to the eyes of those who +listened. Again he lived through that terrible dawn when first he had +read her letter of farewell. Each word was bitten with acid into his +mind. Again and again he repeated the phrases, now dully, as a wearied +beast goes round a treadmill, now with weeping, and in convulsions of a +grief so fierce that the merciful opiate alone could still it. + +The fever slowly began to ebb. For him the shores of conscious thought +lay scorched and blackened by memory. More unwillingly than he had +been dragged up from the river's cold embrace was he now held back from +death. His first lucid words were a petition. "Do not keep me alive. +In the name of Kwannon the Merciful, to whom my Ume used to pray, do +not bind me again upon the wheel of life!" Although he fought against +it with all the will power left to him, strength brightened in his +veins. Stung into new anguish he prayed more fervently, "Let me pass +now! I cannot bear more pain. I 'll die in spite of you. Oh, icy men +of science, you but give me the means with which to slay myself! I +warn you, at the first chance I shall escape you all!" + +"Mad youth, it is my duty to give you back your life even though you +are to use it as a coward," said the chief physician. + +Once when his suffering had passed beyond the power of all earthly +alleviation, and it seemed as if each moment would fling the shuddering +victim into the dark land of perpetual madness, Kano urged that the +venerable abbot from the Shingon temple on the hill be summoned. He +came in full regalia of office,--splendid in crimson and gold. With +him were two acolytes, young and slender figures, also in brocade, but +with hoods of a sort of golden gauze drawn forward so as to conceal the +faces within. They bore incense burners, sets of the mystic vagra, and +other implements of esoteric ceremony. The high priest carried only +his tall staff of polished wood, tipped with brass, and surmounted by a +glittering, symbolic design, the "Wheel of the Law," the hub of which +is a lotos flower. + +Tatsu, at sight of them, tossed angrily on his bed, railing aloud, in +his thin, querulous voice, and scoffing at any power of theirs to +comfort, until, in spite of himself, a strange calm seemed to move +about him and encircle him. He listened to the chanted words, and the +splendid invocations, spoken in a tongue older than the very gods of +his own land, wondering, the while, at his own acquiescence. Surely +there was a sweet presence in the room that held him as a smile of love +might hold. He was sorry when the ceremony came to an end. The abbot, +whispering to the others, sent all from the room but himself, Tatsu, +and the smaller of the acolytes, who still knelt motionless at the head +of the sick man's couch, holding upward an incense burner in the shape +of a lotos seed-pod. The blue incense smoke breathed upward, sank +again as if heavy with its own delight, encircling, almost as if with +conscious intention, the kneeling figure, and then moved outward to +Tatsu and the enclosing walls. + +"My son," began the abbot, leaning gently over the bed, "I have a +message from--her--" + +"No, no," moaned the boy, his wound opening anew. "Do not speak it. I +was beginning to feel a little peace from pain. Do not speak of her. +You can have no message." + +"I have known Kano Ume-ko her whole life long," persisted the holy man. +"She is worthy of a nobler love than this you are giving her." + +"There may be love more noble, but none--none--more terrible than +mine," wailed out the sick man. "I cannot even die. I am quickened by +the flames that burn me; fed by the viper, Life, that feeds on my +despair. My flesh cankers with a self-renewing sore! Could I but +bathe my wounds in death!" + +"Poor suffering one, this flesh is only the petal fallen from a +perfected bloom! Whether her tender body, or this racked and twitching +frame upon your bed, all flesh is illusion. Think of your soul and its +immortal lives! Think of your wife's pure soul, and for its sake make +effort to defy and vanquish this demon of self-destruction." + +"Was not her own deed that of self-destruction?" challenged Tatsu, his +sunken eyes set in bitter triumph upon the abbot. "I shall but go upon +the road she went." + +"To compare your present motives with your wife's is blasphemy," cried +the other. "Her deed held the glory of self-sacrifice, that you might +gain enlightenment; while you, railing impotently here, giving out +affront against the gods, are as the wild beast on the mountain that +cannot bear the arrow in its side." + +"And it is true," said Tatsu, "I cannot bear the arrow,--I cannot +endure this pain. Show me the way to death, if you have true pity. +Let me go to her who waits me in the Meido-land." + +"She does not wait you there, oh, grief deluded boy," then said the +priest. "The message that I brought is this: bound still to earth by +her great love for you her soul is near you,--in this room,--now, as I +speak, seeking an entrance to your heart, and these wild railings hold +her from you." + +Tatsu half started from his pillow, and sank back. "I believe you not. +You trick me as you would a child," he moaned. + +The priest knelt slowly by the bed. "In the name of Shaka,--whom I +worship,--these words of mine are true. Here, in this room, at this +moment, your Ume-ko is waiting." + +"But I want her too," whispered the piteous lips. "Not only her aerial +spirit! I want her smile,--her little hands to touch me, the golden +echo of her laughter,--I want my wife, I say! Oh, you gods, demons, +preta of a thousand hells!" he shrieked, springing to a sitting posture +in his bed, and beating the air about him with distracted hands. +"These are the memories that whir down and close about me in a cloud of +stinging wasps! I cannot endure! In the name of Shaka, whom you +worship, strike me dead with the staff you hold,--then will I bless you +and believe!" In a transport of madness, he leaned out, clutching at +the staff, clawing down the stiff robes from the abbot's throat, +snarling, praying, menacing with a vehemence so terrible, that the +little acolyte, flinging down the still-burning koro, screamed aloud +for help. + +It was many hours before the nurses and physicians could quiet this +last paroxysm. Exhaustion and a relapse followed. The long, dull +waiting on hope began anew. After this no visitor but Kano was +allowed. He entered the sick chamber only at certain hours, placing +himself near the head of the bed where Tatsu need not see him. He +never spoke except in answer to questions addressed him directly by his +son, and these came infrequently enough. With this second slow return +to vitality, Tatsu's most definite emotion seemed to be hatred of his +adopted father. He writhed at the sound of that timid, approaching +step, and dreaded the first note of the deprecating voice. + +Kano was fully aware of this aversion. He realized that, perhaps, it +would be better for Tatsu if he did not come at all; yet in this one +issue the selfishness of love prevailed. Age and despair were to be +kept at bay. He had no weapons but the hours of comparative peace he +spent at Tatsu's bedside. Full twenty years seemed added to the old +man's burden of life. His back was stooped far over; his feet shuffled +along the wooden corridors with the sound of the steps of one too +heavily burdened. He never walked now without the aid of his friendly +bamboo cane. The threat of Tatsu's self-destruction echoed always in +his ears. Away from the actual presence of his idol it gnawed him like +a famished wolf, and his mind tormented itself with fantastic and +dreadful possibilities. Once Tatsu had hidden under his foreign pillow +the china bowl in which broth was served. Kano whispered his discovery +to the nurse, and when she wondered, explained to her with shivering +earnestness that it was undoubtedly the boy's intention to break it +against the iron bedstead the first moment he was left alone, and with +a shard sever one of his veins. Tatsu grinned like a trapped badger +when it was wrested from him, and said that he would find a way in +spite of them all. After this not even a medicine bottle was left in +the room, and the watch over the invalid was strengthened. + +"But," as old Kano remonstrated, "even though we prevent him for a few +weeks more, how will it be when he can stand and walk,--when he is +stronger than I?" To these questions came no answer. The second +convalescence, so eagerly prayed for, became now a source of increasing +dread. Something must be done,--some way to turn his morbid thoughts +away from self-destruction. The old man climbed often, now, to the +temple on the hill. + +The hospital room, in an upper story, was small, with matted floors, +and a single square window to the east. The narrow white iron bed was +set close to this window, so that the invalid might gaze out freely. +Tatsu did not ask that it be changed though, indeed, each recurrent +dawn brought martyrdom to him. The sound of sparrows at the eaves, the +smell of dew, the look of the morning mist as it spread great wings +above the city, hovering for an instant before its flight, the glow of +the first pink light upon his coverlid, each was an iron of memory +searing a soul already faint with pain. The attendant often marvelled +why, at this hour, Tatsu buried his face from sight, and, emerging into +clearer day, bore the look of one who had met death in a narrow pass. + +At noon, when the window showed a square of turquoise blue, he grew to +watch with some faint pulse of interest the changing hues of light, and +the clouds that shifted lazily aside, or heaped themselves up into +rounded battlements of snow. Quite close to the window a single cherry +branch, sweeping downward, cut space with a thick, diagonal line. +Silvery lichens frilled the upper surface of the bark, and at the tip +of each leafless twig, brown buds--small armored magazines of +beauty--hinted already of the spring's rebirth. Life was all about +him, and he hated life. Why should cherry blooms and sparrows dare to +come again,--why should that old man near him wheeze and palpitate with +life, why--why--should he, Tatsu, be held from his one friend, Death, +when she, the essence of all life and beauty,--she who should have been +immortal,--drifted alone, helpless, a broken white sea-flower, on some +black, awful tide? + +In the midst of such dreary imaginings, old Kano, late in the last +month of the year, crept in upon his son. He was an hour earlier than +his custom. Also there was something unusual,--a new energy, perhaps a +new fear, noticeable in face and voice. But Tatsu, still bleeding with +his visions of the dawn, saw nothing of this. The premature visit +irritated him. "Go, go," he cried, turning his face sharply away. +"This is a full hour early. Am I to have no moments to myself?" + +"My son, my son," pleaded the old man, "I have come a little before +time, because I have brought--" + +"Do not call me son," interrupted the petulant boy. "It is +wretchedness to look upon you. She would be here now, but for you. +You killed her! You drove her to it!" + +"No, Tatsu, you wrong me! As I have assured you, and as her own words +say,--she made the sacrifice from her own heart. It was that her +presence obscured your genius, my son. She was unselfish and noble +beyond all other women. She--went--for your sake--" + +"For my sake!" jeered the other. "You mean, for the sake of the things +you want me to paint! Well, I tell you again, I will neither live +_nor_ paint! Yes, that touches you. Human agony is nothing to your +heart of jade. You would catch these tears I shed to mix a new +pigment! You do not regret her. You would think the price cheap, if +only I will paint. I hate all pictures! I curse the things I have +done! Would that, indeed, I had the tongue of a dragon, that I might +lick them from the silk!" + +"Tatsu, my poor son, be less violent. I urge nothing! The gods must +do with you as they will, but here is something--a letter--" Fumbling, +with shaking fingers, in his long, black sleeve, he drew out a filmy, +white rectangle. The look of it, so like to one pinned to a certain +pillow in the dawn, sent a new thrill of misery through the boy. + +"A letter! Who would write me a letter,--unless souls in the +Meido-land can write! Back, back,--do not touch me, or ere I kill +myself I will find strength to slay you first. I will drag you with me +to the underworld, as I journey in searching for my wife, and fling +your craven soul to devils, as one would fling offal to a dog! Speak +not to me of painting, nor of her!" + +At the sight of extra attendants hurrying in, Tatsu waved them to leave +him, threw himself back, stark, upon the pillow, and closed his eyes so +tightly that the wrinkles radiated in black lines from the corners. He +panted heavily, as from a long race. His forehead twitched and +throbbed with purple veins. + +Flung down cruelly from the exhilaration which a moment before had been +his, old Kano seated himself on a chair directly in sight of Tatsu's +bed. The nurses stole away, leaving the two men together. Each +remained motionless, except for hurried breathing, and the pulsing of +distended veins. A crow, perched on the cherry branch outside the +window, tilted a cold, inquisitive eye into the room. + +Tatsu was the first to move. The reaction of excitement was creeping +upon him, drawing the sting from pain. He turned toward his visitor +and began to study, with an impersonal curiosity, the aspect of the +pathetic figure. Kano was sitting, utterly relaxed, at the edge of the +cane-bottomed foreign chair His head hung forward, and his lids were +closed. For the first time Tatsu noted how scanty and how white his +hair had grown; how thin and wrinkled the fine old face. Something +akin to compassion rose warm and human in the looker's throat. He had +opened his lips to speak kindly (it would have been the first gentle +word since Ume's loss) when the sight of his name, in handwriting, on +the letter, froze the very air about him, and held him for an instant a +prisoner of fear. The envelope dangled loosely from Kano's fingers. +On it was traced, in Ume-ko's beautiful, unmistakable hand, "For my +beloved husband, Kano Tatsu." + +"The letter, the letter," he cried hoarsely, pointing downward. "It is +mine,--give it!" + +Kano raised his head. The reaction of excitement was on him too, and +it had brought for him a patient hopelessness. It did not seem to +matter a great deal just now what Tatsu did or thought. He would never +paint. That alone was enough blackness to fill a hell of everlasting +night. + +"Give it to me," insisted the boy, leaning far out over the bed. "Did +you bring it only to torture me? Quick, quick,--it is mine!" + +"I brought it to give, and you repulsed me. I had found it but this +morning, in your painting room, pinned to a silken frame on which you +had begun her picture! She must have put it there before--before--" + +"If you have a shred of pity or of love for me, give it and go," gasped +the boy. + +Kano rose with slow dignity. "Yes, it is for you, and I will give it +and leave, as you ask, if I can have your promise--" + +"Yes, yes, I promise everything,--anything,--I will not strive to slay +myself,--at least until after your return--" + +"That is enough," said the old man, and with a sigh held the missive +out. Tatsu snatched it through the air. The perfume of plum blossoms +was stealing from it. Once alone he crushed the delicate tissue +against eyes and lips and throat. He rolled upon the bed in agony, +only to press again to his heart this balm of her written words. It +seemed to him, then, that the letter might really have come from the +Meido-land. Could it be true, as the old priest said, that her soul +continually hovered near, waiting only for him to give it recognition? +"Ume, Ume,--my wife! Come back to me!" he cried aloud in an agony so +great that it should drag her backward through that dark +shadow-world,--not only the phantom of what she was, but Ume-ko +herself, with the flower-like body, and the smile of light. He opened +the missive slowly, that not a shred should be torn, and spread the +thin tissue smoothly on his foreign pillow. + +"This, beloved, being the forty-ninth day,--the seven-times-seventh-day +after my passing,--when souls of those departed are given special +privilege to return to earth, I speak thus, dumbly, to my lord. +Although the fingers tracing now these timid lines are not permitted to +touch you, oh, believe that, as you read, I wait at the door of your +heart. O thou who art so dear, give to me, I pray, a shelter and a +habitation. Then, because of my great love, I shall be one with you, +bringing you comfort and myself great blessedness. O thou, who art +still my husband, I beseech you to realize that any act on your part of +violence and self-destruction will hurl our lives apart to the full +width of the ten existences; so that, through another thousand years of +unfulfilment we shall be groping in the dark, like children who have +lost their way, calling ever, each on the name of the other. + +"The birds of the air know, when storms arise, where to find their +nests. Even the fox has shelter in the hill. Shall the soul of Ume-ko +seek and find no shelter? Send me not forth again in lonely travail! +Open your heart to me, O thou who art loved as no man was ever loved +before thee! Ume-ko." + +Kano, listening at the door, thought that the boy had fainted. One +nurse, then another, crept near. At last the old man, unable to endure +the strain, peered through a crevice. He fell back instantly, pressing +both hands upon his mouth to stifle the cry of joy. Tatsu alive, +awake, with eyes opened wide, gazed upward smiling, as into the face of +Buddha. + + + + +X + +The New Year festival, Shogatsu, had come and gone: white-flower buds +gleamed like pearls on the lichen-covered, twisted limbs of the old +"dragon-plum" by Ume's chamber ledge, when Tatsu and his adopted father +entered once more together the little Kano home. If the young husband +had realized, all along, what this coming ordeal might mean, he had +given no sign of it. Kano and the physicians feared for him. The last +test, it was to be, of sanity and of endurance. The actual hour of +departure from the hospital fell late in January. More than once +before a day had been decreed, only to be postponed because of a sudden +physical weakening--mysterious and apparently without cause--on the +part of the patient. + +"I will return with you as soon as I may," Tatsu had assured his father +on the day of reading Ume's letter. "I will try to live, and even to +paint. Only, I pray you, speak not the name of--her I have lost." + +This promise was given willingly enough. Kano's chief difficulty now +was to hide his growing happiness. It was much to his interest that +the subject of Ume be avoided. Even a dragon painter from the +mountains must know something of certain primitive obligations to the +dead, and for Ume not even an ihai had been set up by that of her +mother in the family shrine. When Tatsu learned this he would marvel, +and probably be angry. If by his own condition of silence he were +debarred from attacking Kano, so much the better for Kano. + +It was this disgraceful and unheard-of negligence--a matter already of +common gossip in the neighborhood--that added the last measure of +bitterness to old Mata's grief. Was her master demented through sorrow +that he so challenged public censure, and was willing to cast dishonor +upon the name of his only child? Hour after hour in the lonely house +did the old dame seek to piece together the broken edges of her +shattered faith. The master had always been a religious man, +over-zealous, she had thought, in minute observances. Yet now he was +willing to neglect, to ignore, the very fundamental principles of +social decency. Personally he had seemed wretched enough after Ume's +loss. The kindly neighbors had at first marvelled aloud at his +whitening hair and heavily burdened frame. Mata, pleased at the +sympathy, did nothing to distract it; but in her heart she knew that it +was Tatsu's illness, not his daughter's death, that bore upon old Kano +like the winter snow upon his pines. + +On that most sacred period of mourning, the seven-times-seventh day +after "divine retirement," when the spirit is privileged to enter most +closely into the hearts of those that pray, Mata had believed that, +beyond doubt, the full ceremony would be held. Surely the sweet, +wandering soul was now to be given its kaimyo, was to be soothed by +prayer, and be refreshed by the ghostly essence of tea and rice and +fruit, placed before its ihai upon the shrine! What must the dead +girl's mother have been thinking all this time? Mata woke before the +dawn to pray. Kano, too, was awake early. She hurried to him, her +first words a petition. But, no, he had no thought, even on this day +of all days, for his child. He was off without his breakfast, an hour +earlier than usual, to the hospital, a letter in his hand. Mata +literally fell upon her knees before him, importuning him for the honor +of the family name, if not in love for Ume-ko, to give orders at the +temple for the holding of religious ceremonies. But Kano, himself +almost in tears, eager, excited, though obviously in quite another +whirlpool of emotions, urged her to be patient just a little longer. +"I think all will yet be well," he assured her. "I have some hope +to-day!" + +"All will yet be well!" mocked the old dame through clenched teeth, +watching the bent old figure hurrying from her. "As if anything could +ever again be well, with my young mistress dead, and not even her body +recovered for burial!" + +In spite of her dislike for Tatsu, the lonely woman found herself +watching, with some impatience, for the day of his actual return. +Successive postponements had fretted her, and sharpened curiosity. She +had not seen him since his illness. Upon that January noon when his +kuruma rolled slowly in under the gate-roof, followed by anxious Kano +and one of the male nurses from the hospital, she had turned toward him +the old look of resentment: but, instead of the brief and chilling +glance she had thought to use, found herself staring, gaping, in +amazement and incredulity. She did not believe, for the first moment, +that the wreck she saw was Tatsu. This bowed and shrunken ghost of +suffering,--this loose, pallid semblance of a man, the beautiful, +defiant, compelling demigod of the mountains that had swept down upon +them! No! sorrow could wreak miracles of the soul, but no such +physical transformation as this! + +She continued to watch furtively, in a sort of terror, the tall figure +as it was assisted from the kuruma and led, shambling, through the +house. The three moved on to the wing containing Ume's chamber, and +the painting room. Mata heard the fusuma close gently, the nurse's +voice give admonition to "keep his spirit strong for this last stress," +heard old Kano falter, "Farewell, my son, no one shall disturb you in +these rooms," and had barely time to regain her presence of mind as the +two men, Kano and the nurse, entered her kitchen. The former spoke: +"Mata, your young master is to remain, unmolested, in that part of the +house. Do not offer him rice, or tea, or anything whatever. When he +needs and desires it he will himself emerge and ask for food. Above +all things, do not knock upon his fusuma or call his name. These are +the physician's orders." + +"Exactly!" corroborated the nurse, with a professional air. + +"Kashikomarimashita!" muttered the old dame in sullen acquiescence. +"You need not have feared that I should intrude upon him!" + +For three days and nights Tatsu remained to himself. The anxious +listeners heard at times the sound of restless pacing up and down,--the +thin, sibilant noise of stockinged feet sliding on padded straw. Again +there would be a thud, as of a body fallen, or sunken heavily to the +floor. Kano, on the second day, pale with apprehension, went early to +the hospital for a revocation, or at least a modification of the +instructions. The doctor's mandate was the same, "Do not go near him. +Life, as well as reason, may depend upon this battle with his own +despair. Only the gods can help him." To the gods, then, Kano went as +well; climbing the long, steep road to the temple, where he made +offerings and poured out from his anxious heart the very essence of +loving prayer. + +On the third day, Kano being thus absent, and old Mata alone in her +kitchen as nervous, she would have told you, as a fish with half its +scales off, she heard the fusuma of the distant room shudder, and then, +with a sound of feeble jerks, begin to separate. She knew that it was +Tatsu, and rallied herself for the approach. Through the shaded +corridor came a figure scarcely animate, moving it would seem in answer +to a soundless call. It entered the kitchen halting, and looking about +as one in an unfamiliar place. On a square stone brasier, fed with +glowing coals, the rice-pot steamed. The delicate vapor, tinged with +aroma of the cooking food, made a fine mist in the air. Suddenly he +thrust an arm out toward the fire. "Rice!--I am faint with hunger," he +whispered. As if the few words had taken his last store of strength, +he sank to the floor. Mata sprang to him. He had swooned. His face, +young and beautiful in spite of the centuries of pain upon it, lay +back, helpless, on her arm. She stared strangely down upon him, +wondering where the old antipathy had gone, and striving (for she was +an obstinate old soul, was Mata) consciously to recall it,--but the +core of her hate was gone. Like a true woman she began to make +self-excuses for the change. "It may have been because of this poor +boy and his unhappy karma that my nursling had to die," said she. +"But, look what love has done to him! Death is only another name for +paradise compared with the agony sunken deep into this young face!" + +She placed him gently, at full length, upon the padded floor. She +chafed the flaccid wrists, the temples, the veins about his ears, and +then, leaning over, blew on the heavy lids. "Ume-ko, my wife, my +wife," he whispered, and tried to smile. + +A wave of pity swept from the old dame's mind the last barrier of +mistrust. "Yes, Master, here is Ume's nurse," she said in soothing +tones. "Not Ume-ko,--she has gone away from us,--but the poor old +nurse who loves her. I will serve you for her sake. Here, put your +head upon this pillow,--she has often used it,--and now lie still until +old Mata brings you rice and tea." She bustled off, her hands +clattering busily among the cups and trays. As she worked, thankful, +through her great agitation, for the familiar offices, she fought down, +one by one, those great, distending sobs that push so hard a way upward +through wrinkled throats. + +Tatsu was still a little dazed. His eyes followed her about the room +with a plaintive regard, as if not entirely sure that she was real. +"Did you say that you were--Ume's--nurse," he asked. + +"Yes. Don't you remember me, Master Tatsu? I am Mata, the old +servant, and your Ume's nurse. I--I--was not always kind to you, I +fear. I opposed your marriage, fearing for her some such sorrow as +that which came. But it is past. The gods allowed it. I will now, +for her sake, love and serve you,--my true master you shall be from +this day, because I can see that your heart is gnawed forever by that +black moth, grief, as mine is. Old Kano does not grieve,--he is a man +of stone, of mud!" she cried. "But I must not speak of his sins, yet; +here is the good tea, Master, and the rice." She fed him like a child, +allowing, at first, but a single sip of tea, a grain or two of rice. +He, in his weakness, was gentle and obedient, like a good child, eating +all she bade him, and refraining when she told him that he had enough. +It was a new Tatsu that sorrow had given to the Kano home. + +But more wonderful than the transformation in him was, in Mata's +thought, the complete reversal of her own emotions. Even in the midst +of service she stopped to wonder how, so soon, it could be sweet to +serve him,--to minister thus to the man she had called the evil genius +of the house. In some mysterious way it seemed that through him the +dead young wife was being served. In the smile he bent upon her, the +old nurse fancied that she caught a tenderness as of Ume's smile. +Perhaps, indeed, the homeless soul, denied its usual shelter in the +shrine, made sanctuary of the husband's earthly frame. Perhaps, too, +Kano had hoped for this, and so refused the ihai. However these high +things might be, Mata knew she had gained strange comfort in the very +fact of Tatsu's presence, in the companionship of his suffering. + +When, being nourished, Tatsu insisted on sitting upright, and had +recalled the scene about him, his first question was of Ume's shrine, +where the ihai had been set, and what the kaimyo. This loosened Mata's +tongue, and, with a sensation of deep relief, she began to empty her +heart of its pent-up acrimony. Tatsu listened now, attentively; not as +would have been his way three months before with gesticulations and +frequent interruptions, but gravely, with consideration, as one intent +to learn the whole before forming an opinion. Even at the end he would +say nothing but the words, "Strange, strange; there must be a reason +that you have not guessed." + +"But we will get the ihai, will we not, Master? Together, when you are +strong, we will climb the long road to the temple?" she questioned +tremulously. + +"Indeed we shall," said Tatsu, with his heartrending smile; "for at +best, the thoughts of Kano Indara cannot be our thoughts. He let her +die." + +At this the other burst into such a passion of tears that she could not +speak, but rocked, sobbing, to and fro, on the mats beside him. He +wondered, with a feeling not far from envy, at this open demonstration +of distress. + +"I cannot weep at all," he said. Then, a little later, when she had +become more calm, "Are your tears for me or for Ume-ko?" + +"For both, for both," was the sobbing answer. "For her, that she had +to die,--for you, that you must live." + +"Both are things to weep for," said the boy, and stared out straight +before him, as one seeing a long road. + +Kano, returning later and finding the two together, marking as he did, +at once, with the quick eye of love, how health already cast faint +premonitions of a flush upon the boy's thin face, had much ado to keep +from crying aloud his joy and gratitude. By strong effort only did he +succeed in making his greeting calm. He used stilted, old-fashioned +phrases of ceremony to one recently recovered from dangerous illness, +and bowed as to a mere acquaintance. Tatsu, returning the bows and +phrases, escaped in a few moments to his room, and emerged no more that +day. Kano sighed a little, for the young face had been cold and stern. +No love was to be looked for,--not yet, not yet. + +For a few days Tatsu did nothing but lie on the mats; or wander, +aimlessly, over the house and garden. He came whenever Mata summoned +him to meals, and ate them with old Kano, observing all outer +semblances of respect. But it seemed an automaton who sat there, +eating, drinking, and then, at the last, bowing over to the exact +fraction of an inch, each time, and moving away to its own rooms. The +old artist, mindful of certain professional warnings from the hospital +physicians, never spoke in Tatsu's presence of paintings, or of +anything connected with art. Within a few days it seemed to him that +Tatsu had begun to watch him keenly, as if expecting, every instant, +the broaching of that subject which he knew was always uppermost in the +other's mind. But the old man, for the first time in his whole life, +had begun to use tact. He never followed Tatsu to his rooms, never +intruded into those long conversations now held, many times a day, +between Mata and her young master; never even commented to Mata upon +her change of attitude. About five days after his first appearance in +the kitchen, Tatsu and the old servant left the house together, giving +Kano no hint of their destination. He watched them with a curious +expression on his face. He knew that they were to climb together to +the temple, and that it was a pilgrimage from which he was +contemptuously debarred. They returned, some hours later, and were +busied all the afternoon with the placing and decorations of an +exquisite "butsu-dan," or Buddhist shelf, on which the ihai of the dead +are placed. At the abbot's advice (and yet against all precedent) this +was put, not beside the butsu-dan, where Kano's young wife had for so +many years been honored, but in Tatsu's own bed-chamber, thus making of +it a "mita-yama," or spirit room. + +Kano, visiting it, unperceived, next day, noted with the same curious, +half-quizzical, half-pathetic look that no Buddhist kaimyo or +after-name had been given to his daughter. It was the earth-name, Kano +Ume-ko, which the old abbot had written upon the lacquered tablet of +wood. Added to it, as a sort of title, was the phrase, "To her who +loves much." "That is true enough," thought old Kano, and touched his +eyes an instant with his sleeve. + +During the following week Tatsu, of himself, drew out his painting +materials and tried to work. An instant later he had hurled the things +from him with a cry, had slammed together the walls of his chamber, and +lay in silence and darkness for many hours. At the time of the +night-meal he came forth. Kano, to whom sorrow was teaching many +things, made no comment upon his exclusion; and even old Mata refrained +from searching his face with her keen eyes. + +The next day he made the second attempt. His fusuma were opened, and +Mata could see how his face blanched to yellow wax, how the lips +writhed until they were caught back by strong, cruel teeth, and how the +thin hands wavered. Notwithstanding this inward torture, he persisted. +At first the lines of his brush were feeble. His work looked like that +of a child. + +Through subsequent days of discouragement and brave effort his power of +painting grew with a slow but normal splendor of achievement. His fame +began to spread. The "New Kano" and "The Dragon Painter of Kiu Shiu" +the people of the city called him. Not only his work but his romantic, +miserable story drew sympathy to him, and bade fair to make of him a +popular idol. Older artists wished to paint his portrait. +Print-makers hung about his house striving to catch at least a glimpse +of him, which being elaborated, might serve as his likeness in the +weekly supplement of some up-to-date newspaper. Sentimental maidens +wrote poems to him, tied them with long, shining filaments of hair, and +suspended them to the gate, or upon the bamboo hedges of the Kano home. + +But against all these petty, personal annoyances Tatsu had the double +guard of Kano and old Mata San. The pride of the latter in this "Son +of our house" was unbounded. One would have thought that she +discovered him, had rescued him from death and that it was now through +her sole influence his reputation as an artist grew. Noble patrons +came to the little cottage bearing rolls of white silk, upon which they +entreated humbly, "That the illustrious and honorable young painter, +Kano Tatsu, would some day, when he might not be augustly +inconvenienced by so doing, trace a leaf or a cloud,--anything, in +fact, that fancy could suggest, so that it was the work of his own +inimitable hand. For the condescension they trusted that he would +allow them to give a present of money,--as large a sum as he was +willing to name." + +"A second Sesshu! A second Sesshu!" old Kano would murmur to himself, +in subdued ecstacy. "So did they load his ship with silk, four +centuries ago!" + +Of most of these commissions, Tatsu never heard. Kano did not wish the +boy's work to be blown wide over the great city as it had been blown +along the mountain slopes of Kiu Shiu. Nor did he wish the thought of +gain or of personal ambition to creep into Tatsu's heart. Now he spent +most of the day-lit hours secluded in his little study, painting those +scenes and motives suggested by the keynote of his mood. Of late he +had begun to read, with deep interest, the various essays on art, +gathered in Kano's small, choice library. He would sometimes talk with +his father about art, and let the eager old man demonstrate to him the +different brush-strokes of different masters. The widely diversified +schools of painting as they had flourished throughout the centuries of +his country's social and religious life aroused in him an impersonal +curiosity. He began to try experiments, realizing, perhaps, that to a +genius strong and sane as his even fantastic ventures in technique were +little more than bright images flecking, for an instant, the immutable +surface of a mirror. + +All methods were essayed,--the liquid, flowing line of the Chinese +classics, Tosa's nervous, shattered lightning-strokes of painted +motion, the soft, gray reveries of the great Kano school of three +centuries before, when, to the contemplative mind all forms of nature, +whether of the outer universe or in the soul of man, were but +reflecting mirrors of a single faith; the heaped-up gold and malachite +of Korin's decoration, sweet realistic studies of the Shijo school, +even down to the horrors of "abura-ye," oil-painting, as it is +practised in the Yeddo of to-day, each had for him its special interest +and its inspiration. He leaned above the treasure-chests of time, +choosing from one and then another, as a wise old jewel-setter chooses +gems. Because ambition, art, existence had come to be, for him, gray +webs spun thin across the emptiness of his days, because all hope of +earthly joy was gone, he had now the power to trace, with almost +superhuman mimicry and skill, the shadow-pictures of his shadow-world. + +Yet gradually it became not merely a dull necessity to paint, the one +barrier that held from him a devastating grief, but also something of a +solace. The room where Ume's ever-lighted shrine was kept came more +and more to seem the expression of herself. This the old priest had +promised; Ume's letter had assured him that thus she would be near. In +the blurred, purple hour of dusk when paints must be laid aside, and +the heart given over to dreaming, the little room became her very +earthly entity, the soft, smoke-tinted walls her breathing, the elastic +matted floor but the remembered echoes of her feet, the sliding sliver +fusuma her sleeves, the butsudan, with its small, clear lamp, its white +wood, and its flowers, her face. + +Now always he kept the walls that used to separate their chamber and +his painting room removed; so that a single essence filled both rooms. +And here, as he worked silently day after day, it seemed to him that +she had learned to come. At first shy, undecided, in some far corner +of the space she watched him; then, taking courage, would drift near. +She leaned now by his shoulder, as he worked. Always it was the left +shoulder. He could feel her breath--colder indeed than from a living +woman--upon his bared throat. Sometimes a little hand, light as the +dust upon a moth's wing, rested the ghost of a moment on his robe. +Once, he could have sworn her cheek had touched his hair. So strong +was this impression that an ague shivered through him, and his heart +stopped, only to beat again with violent strokes. When the physical +tremor was over he arose, took up her round metal mirror, and went to +the veranda to see by strong light whether any trace of the spirit +touch remained. No, there was only, as usual, the tossed, black locks +of hair through which sorrow had begun to weave her silver strands. + +January, with its snows, had passed. The plum-tree buds had opened, +one by one, in the chill, early winds of spring, giving at times +unwilling hospitality to flakes of snow whiter than themselves. In +February, under warmer sunshine, the blossoms showed in constellations, +a myriad on a single branch. Then, all too soon, the falling of wan +petals made a perfumed tragedy of snow upon the garden paths. + +Tatsu grew to love the old dragon plum as Ume-ko had loved it. She was +its name-child, Ume, and he felt its sweetness to be one with her. At +night the perfume crept in to him through crannies of the close-shut +amado and shoji, revivifying, to keen agony, his longing for his wife. +There were moonlit nights he could not rest for it, but would rise, +pacing the cold, wet pebbles of the garden, or wandering, like a +distracted spirit that had lost its way, through the thoroughfares of +the sleeping town. + +His whole life now, since he had cheated death, was blurred and vague. +To himself he seemed an unreal thing projected, like a phantom light, +upon the wavering umbra of two contrasting worlds. The halves of him, +body and animating thought, fitted each other loosely, and had a +strange desire to drift apart. The quiet, obedient Tatsu, regaining +day by day the strength and beauty that his clean youth owed him, was +to the inner Tatsu but a painted shell. The real self, clouded in +eternal grief, knew clarity and purpose only before a certain +flower-set shrine. He believed now, implicitly, that Ume's soul dwelt +near him, was often with him in this room. A resolve half formed, and +but partially admitted to himself,--for things of the other world are +not well to meddle with,--grew slowly in him, to compel, by worship and +never-relaxing prayer, the presence of her self,--her insubstantiate +body, outlined upon the ether in pale light, or formed in planes of +ghostly mist. Others had thus drawn visions from the under-world, and +why not he? + +Even now she was, for him, the one fact of the ten existences. She +knew it and he knew it. Why should not sight be added to the +unchallenged datum of the mind. Living, they had often read each +other's thoughts. They held, he knew, as yet, their separate +intelligences,--still they could bridge a blessed duality by love. +Even now it would have surprised him little to hear the very sound of +her voice echo from the inner shrine, to feel a little white hand pass +like a cloud across his upraised brow. At such moments he told himself +that he was satisfied, she was his until death and beyond. No one +could separate them now! + +These were, alas, the higher peaks of love. There waited for him, as +he knew too well, steep hillsides set with swords, and valleys terrible +with fire. + + "So that we be together, + Even the Hell of the Blood Lake, + Even the Mountain of Swords, + Mean nothing to us at all!" + +So they had sung. So that we be together! Ah, together,--that was the +essence of it, that the key! "And this is what I want!" groaned the +suffering man. "This ghostly resignation is a self-numbing of the +heart. I care not for the ghost, the spirit, however pure. I want the +wife I have lost,--her smile, her voice, her little hands to touch me! +Oh, Ume-ko, my wife, my wife!" If, as the abbot said, this phase of +grief were bestial, were unworthy of the woman who had died for him, +then why did not the listening soul of her shrink? He knew that it was +not repelled, whatever the frenzy of his grief. Indeed, at such times +of agony she leaned down closer, longing to comfort him. If it were +given her to speak she would have cried, "My husband!" Wherever she +might drift,--in the black ocean, in the Meido-land, yes, even in the +smile of Buddha on his throne,--she yearned for her lover as he for +her, with a human love; she stretched out arms of mist to him, and +tinged the pale ether of the spirit world with love's rosy flame. + +One such night, during the time of plum-tree falling, when the boy, +tortured by the almost human sweetness of the flowers, had risen from +his bed to flee memory across the wide, cold plains of night, he had +left, in his hurried going, the doors and shutters of his room spread +wide. Mata and old Kano, accustomed to these midnight sounds, merely +turned on their lacquered pillows, murmured "Poor tormented Tatsu," and +went to sleep again. It had been a day of power for the young artist, +but not a day of peace. The picture he had worked on he would have +called one of his "nightmare fancies." It showed a slender form in +gray with one arm about a willow. She and the tree both leaned above +swift, flowing water, and her eyes were fixed in sombre brooding. On +the bank, in abrupt foreshortening, lay the figure of a man. He looked +at her. From the river, unmarked as yet by either, rose the gray face +and long, red hair of a Kappa, or malicious river sprite. This sketch, +unfinished, for the Kappa was a mere indication of red locks and a +tall, thin form, stood against a pillar of the tokonoma at just the +angle where the soft light of the butsu-dan shed a pale glow across it. +Brushes, paints, and various small saucers littered the floor. Tatsu +had stopped his work abruptly, overcome by the very power of his own +delineation. + +He was absent from the house for several hours. The long walk through +unseen streets and over unnoticed bridges had given the boon, at least, +of physical fatigue. Now, perhaps, he could get to sleep before the +black ants of thought had rediscovered him. Entering the room quietly +he closed the shoji, smoothed the bed-clothes with an impatient hand, +and knelt, for an instant, before the shrine. Perhaps, after all, rest +was not to come. The air was sweet and heavy with Ume-ko. The faint +perfume of sandalwood which, living, always hung about her garments, +flowed in with the odor of the plum. She must be near,--Ume herself, +in mortal garments. In the next room, the veranda, hiding in the +closet to spring out merrily upon him! He groaned and strove to plunge +his mind into prayer. + +The unfinished picture stood close at hand. Suddenly he noticed it, +and, with a gasp, stooped to it. Something had changed; the whole +vibration of its lines were subtly new. There was the girl's figure, +the leaning willow, the man,--content, insensate, sprawling upon the +bank,--but the Kappa! Buddha the Merciful, could it be true? Where he +had left a Kappa, waiting until to-morrow to give the triumph, the +leering satisfaction at the human grief it fed on, rose the white form +and pitying face of Kwannon Sama,--she to whom his Ume loved to pray. +The eyes, soft, humid with compassion, looked directly out to his. +They were Ume's eyes! He caught up one brush after the other. All had +been used, and Ume's touch was upon them. Her aura permeated them. + +He rushed now to the veranda. In leaving the rooms, three hours +before, he had not taken the usual stone step which led into the garden +under the branches of the plum, but had leaped directly from the low +flooring, not caring where he trod. He remembered now that the stone +had been white in the moonlight. It was now swept clean of petals, as +though by the hurried trailing of a woman's dress. Was this the way in +which she was to manifest herself? And would a spirit-robe brush +surfaces so vehemently? And would a ghostly hand use brushes and +pigments of ground-earth? + +Unable to endure the room, he went again into the night, no further +this time than the little garden. In the neighborhood dogs were +barking fiercely, as though in the wake of a presence. By sound he +followed it, and it moved up the hill. The very garden now was tinged +with sandalwood. + +Until the dawn, and after, he walked the pebbled paths, not thinking, +indeed not fearing, hoping, or giving conscious form to speculation. +He was dazed. But the young blood in his veins ran alternate currents +of fire and ice. + +With the first sun-ray he perceived a companion in the dewy solitude. +He had noticed the figure before, but always, until this hour, at +twilight. It was the form of a nun standing, high above him on the +temple cliff, with one arm about a tree. + +After this nothing mysterious broke the quiet routine of his life. The +presence of Ume in the chamber seemed to fade a little, but, for some +reason inexplicable to himself, this brought now no poignant grief. He +did not tell the wonderful thing to Mata or old Kano, but hid the still +unfinished picture where no one but himself could see it. + +So February passed, and March. + + + + +XI + +With April came the cherry-flowers, wistaria, and peonies; with iris in +the bud, and shy hedge-violets; wonder of yama buki shrubs that played +gold fountains on the hills, and the swift, bright contagion of young +grass. Even from old Kano's moon-viewing hillock one might see, in +looking out across the desert of gray city roofs, round tops of cherry +trees rising like puffs of rosy smoke. From out the face of the temple +cliff long, supple fronds of ferns unrolled, bending uncertain arms +toward the garden. The tangled sasa-grass rustled new sleeves of silk; +and the great camphor tree, air-hung in blue, seemed caught in a +jewelled mesh of chrysoprase and gold. + +Down in the lower level of the garden, too, springtime busied itself +with beauty. The potted plants, once Ume-ko's loved charges, had +become now, quite mysteriously to himself, Tatsu's companions and his +special care. Among the more familiar growths a few foreign bushes had +been given place, a rose, a heliotrope, and a small, frightened +cyclamen. Slips of chrysanthemum needed already to be set for the +autumn yield. Tatsu, watering and tending them, thought with wistful +sadness upon these plans for future enjoyment. "We are all bound upon +the wheel of life," he said to them. "Would that with me, as you, the +turning were but for a single season!" + +"My son," the elder man began abruptly, at a certain noonday meal about +the middle of the month, "how is it that you never go with me to the +temple on the hill?" + +Tatsu looked up from his rice-bowl in some surprise. The relations +between these two, though externally kind, had never approached +intimacy. Kano indeed idolized his adopted son with pathetic and +undisguised fervor; but with Tatsu, though other things might have been +forgiven, the old man's continued disrespect to his daughter's memory, +his refusal to join even in the simplest ceremony of devotion, kept +both him and old Mata chilled and distant. The one possible +explanation,--aside from that of wanton cruelty,--was a thing so +marvellous, so terrible in implied suggestion, that the boy's faint +soul could make for it no present home; let it drift, a great luminous +nebula of hope, a little longer on the rim of nothingness. + +The answer now to Kano's question betrayed a hint of the more rational +animosity. + +"You had never seemed to desire it. And I have my place of worship +here." + +"Yes, I know. Of course I knew that!" the other hurried on in some +agitation. Then he paused, as if uncertain how to word the following +thought. "I do wish it!" he broke forth, with an effort. "I make +request now that you go with me, this very day, at twilight." + +"If it is your honorable desire," said Tatsu, bowing in indifferent +acquiescence. A moment later he had finished his meal, and rose to go. + +Kano moved restlessly on the mats. He drew out the solace of a little +pipe, but his nervous fingers fumbled and shook so, that the slim rod +of bamboo tipped with silver escaped him, and went clattering down +among the empty dishes of the tray. Mata's apprehensive face showed +instantly at a parting of the kitchen fusuma. She sighed aloud, as she +noted a great triangle chipped from the edge of an Imari bowl. Only +two of those bowls had remained; now there was but one. + +"Tatsu, my son, may I depend upon you? This day, as soon as the light +begins to fail?" + +Tatsu, in the doorway, paused to look. Evidently the speaker struggled +with a strong excitement. Something in the twitching face, the eager, +shifting eyes, brought back a vision of that meal on the evening that +preceded Ume's death, when she and her father had leaned together, +whispering, ignoring him, and afterward had left the house, giving him +no hint of their errand. He felt with dread a premonition of new +bitterness. + +"I shall be ready at the twilight hour," he said, and went to his room. + +That afternoon Tatsu did little painting. Silent and motionless as one +of the frames against the wall, he sat staring for long intervals out +upon the garden. The sunshine gave no pleasure, only a blurring of his +sight. Beauty was not there for him, this day. He was thinking of +those hours of October sunlight, when the whole earth reeled with joy, +for Ume-ko was of it! Where was she now? And what had there been in +Kano's look and voice to rouse those sleeping demons of despair? Could +any new sorrow await him at the temple? No, his present condition had +at least the negative value of absolute void. From nothing, nothing +could be taken; and to it, nothing be supplied! + +In spite of this colorless assurance it was with something of +reluctance, of shrinking, that he prepared to leave the house. Few +words were spoken between the two. Catching up the skirts of narrow, +silken robes a little higher, they tucked the folds into their belts, +and side by side began the long, slow climbing of the road. + +The city roofs beneath them hurried off to the edge of the world like +ripples left in the gray sand-bed of a stream. Above the plain the +mist drew in its long, horizontal lines of gray. + +About half the distance up the steep the temple bell above them sounded +six slow, deliberate strokes. First came the sonorous impact of the +swinging beam against curved metal, then the "boom," the echo,--the +echoes of that echo to endless repetition, sifting in layers through +the thinner air upon them, sweeping like vapor low along the hillside +with a presence and reality so intense that it should have had color, +or, at least, perfume; settling in a fine dew of sound on quivering +ferns and grasses, permeating, it would seem, with its melodious +vibration the very wood of the houses and the trunks of living trees. + +Reaching at last the temple court, old Kano took the lead, crossed the +wide-pebbled space, and halted with his companion at the edge of the +cliff. A cry of wonder came from Tatsu's lips; that low, inimitable +cry of the true artist at some new stab of beauty. Delicately the old +man withdrew, and hid himself in the shadow of the temple. + +Tatsu stared out, alone. He saw the round bay like a mirror,--like +Ume's mirror; and to the west the peak of Fuji, a porphyry cone against +the sunset splendor. No wonder that the gray nuns came here at this +hour, or that she, the slender, isolated one, lingered to drain the +last bright drop of beauty! He looked about now to discover her tree. +Yes, there it was, quite close; not a willow as he had sometimes +thought, but a young maple, unusually upright of growth. It had been +leafless, but now the touch of spring had lighted every twig with a +pale flame-point of red. He recalled that in the autumn it had made a +crimson heart against the sky; and later had sent down into the Kano +garden frail alms of ruby films. Ume had loved to catch them in her +hands, wondering at their brightness, and trying to make him wonder, +too. Love-letters of the passing year, she called them; songs dyed +with the autumn's heart's-blood of regret that he must yield the sweet, +warm earth to his gray rival, winter. She had pretended that the +small, crossed veinlets of the leaves were Chinese ideographs which it +was given her to decipher. Holding him off with one outstretched arm +she would have read to him,--fantastic, exquisite interpreter of +love,--but he, mad brute, had caught the little hands, the autumn +leaves, and crushed them to one hot glow, crying aloud that nature, +beauty, love were all made one in her. Such grief he must have given +many times. + +He threw his head hack as in sudden hurt, a gesture becoming habitual +to him, and drew a long, impatient, tremulous sigh. As if to cast +aside black thought, he strode over quickly to the maple tree, flung an +arm around it, and leaned over to stare down into his garden with the +gray nun's eyes. There it was, complete, though in miniature;--rocks, +pines, the pigmy pool, the hillock squatting in one corner like an old, +gray garden toad, and in another corner, scarcely of larger size, the +cottage. + +Kano plucked nervously at his sleeve. "You lean too far. Come, Tatsu, +I have a--a--place to show you." + +Tatsu wheeled with a start. Try as he would he shivered and grew +faint, even yet, at the sound of Kano's voice breaking abruptly in upon +a silence. He gave a nod of acquiescence and, with downbent head, +followed his guide diagonally across the temple court, past the wide +portico where sparrows and pigeons fought for night-quarters in the +carved, open mouths of dragons, along the side of the main building +until, to Tatsu's wonder, they stopped before a little gate in the +nunnery wall. + +"I thought it was almost death for a man to enter here!" exclaimed the +boy. + +"For most men it is," said Kano, producing a key of hammered brass +about nine inches long. "But I desired to go the short path to the +cemetery, and it lies this way. As I have told you, the abbot was my +boyhood's friend." + +Within the convent yard,--a sandy space enclosed in long, low buildings +of unpainted wood,--Tatsu saw a few gray figures hurrying to cover; and +noticed that more than one bright pair of eyes peered out at them +through bamboo lattices. Over the whole place brooded the spirit of +unearthly peace and sweetness which had been within the gift of the +holy bishop and his acolytes even at that time of torment in the +hospital cell. The same faint Presence, like a plum tree blossoming in +the dark, stole through the young man's senses, luring and distressing +him with its infinite suggestions of lost peace. + +At the farther wall of the court they came to an answering door. This +was already unlocked and partially ajar. It opened directly upon the +highest terrace of the cemetery which led down steeply in great, +curved, irregular steps to a plain. The crimson light in the west had +almost gone. Here to the north, where rice-fields and small huddled +villages stretched out as far as the eye could see, a band of hard, +white light still rested on the horizon, throwing back among the +hillside graves a pale, metallic sheen. Each shaft of granite was thus +divided, one upright half, blue shadow, the other a gray-green gleam. +All looked of equal height. A gray stone Buddha on his lotos pedestal, +or the long graceful lines of a standing Jizo, only served to emphasize +the uniformity. + +This was a place most dear to Kano, and had been made so to his child. +He even loved the look of the tombs. "Gray, splintered stalagmites of +memory," he had called them, and when the child Ume had learned the +meaning of the simile she had put her little finger to a spot of lichen +and asked, "Then are these silver spots our tears?" + +The old man stepped down very softly to the second tier. A nightingale +was calling low its liquid invocation, "Ho-ren-k-y-y-o-o-o!" Perhaps +old Kano moved so softly that he might not lose the echoes of this cry. +The two men seemed alone in the silent scene. Once Tatsu thought his +eye caught a swift flicker, as of a gray sleeve, but he was not sure. +At any rate he would not think of it, or speculate, or marvel! He was +beginning to tremble before the unknown. The sense of shrinking, of +miracle, of being, perhaps, too small to contain the thing decreed, +bore hard upon him. With it came a keen impression of the unreality of +the material universe,--of Buddhist illusion. Even these adamantine +records of death, rising on every side to challenge him,--even these +might recombine their particles before his very eyes,--might shiver +into mist and float down to the plain to mingle with the smoke of +cooking as it rose from the peasant huts. Anything might happen, or +nothing! + +Kano had stopped short before a grave. For once Tatsu was glad to hear +his voice. + +"Here lie the clean ashes of my young wife, Kano Uta-ko," said the old +man, without preface or explanation. + +"In former days, before--before my illness, I came here often," said +the other. His eyes hung on the written words of the kaimyo. "If you +grieved deeply, it must have been great solace that you could come thus +to her grave," he added wistfully. Then, as Kano still remained +silent, he read aloud the beautiful daishi, "A flower having blossomed +in the night, the Halls of the Gods are Fragrant." + +Kano drew a long sigh. "For nineteen years I have mourned her," he +went on slowly. "As you know, a son was not given to us. She died at +Ume's birth. I could not bring myself to replace her, even in the dear +longing for a son." + +"A son!" Tatsu knew well what the old man meant. He lifted his eyes +and stared out, mute, into the narrowing band of light. The old man +drew his thin form very straight, moved a few feet that he might look +squarely into the other's face, and said deliberately. "So did I mourn +the young wife whom I loved, and so, if I know men, will you mourn, +Kano Tatsu. Of such enduring stuff will be your grief for Ume-ko." + +It was said. The old man's promise had been torn like a leaf,--not to +be mended or recalled,--torn and flung at his listener's feet. Yet +such was the simplicity of utterance, such the nobility of poise, the +beauty of the old face set like a silver wedge into the deepening mist, +that Tatsu could only give him look for look, with no resentment. The +young voice had taken on strangely the timbre of the old as, in equal +soberness, he answered, + +"Such, Kano Indara, though I be burdened with years as many as your +own,--will be the never-ceasing longing for my lost wife, Ume-ko." + +A little sob, loosed suddenly upon the night, sped past them. "What +was it? Who is there?" cried Tatsu, sharply, wheeling round. + +Kano began to shake. "Perhaps--perhaps a night-bird," he stammered out. + +"A bird!" echoed Tatsu. "That sound was human. It is a woman, the +Presence that has hung about me! Put down your arms,--you cannot keep +me back!" + +"Be still!" cried out old Kano in the voice of angry kings. "Nothing +will happen,--nothing, I say, if you act thus like the untamed creature +that you were! Your fate is still in my hands, Kano Tatsu!" + +Tatsu fell down upon his knees, pulling at the old man's sleeves. +"Father, father, have pity! I will be self-controlled and docile as I +have been these long, long months. But now there is a thing so great +that would possess me, my soul faints and sickens. Father, I ask your +help, your tenderness. I think I have wronged you from the first,--my +father!" + +Suddenly the old man hurled his staff away and sank weeping into the +stronger arms. "I fear, I fear!" he wailed. "It may be still too +early. But she said not,--the abbot counselled it! O gods of the Kano +home!" + +"Father," asked Tatsu, rising slowly to his feet, his arms still close +about the other, "can it be joy that is to find me, even in this life?" + +"Wait, you shall see," cried the old man, now laughing aloud, now +weeping, like a hysterical girl. "You shall see in a moment! My dead +wife takes me by the hand and leads me from you,--just a little way, +dear Tatsu, just here among the shadows. No longer are the shadows for +you,--joy is for you. Yes, Uta-ko, I 'm coming. The young love +springs like new lilies from the old. Stand still, my son; be hushed, +that joy may find you." + +He faltered backward and was lost. Upon the hillside came a stillness +deeper than any previous interval of pause. From it the nightingale's +low note thrust out a wavering clew. The day had gone, and a few stars +dotted the vault of the sky. Tatsu threw back his head. There was no +pain in the gesture now; he was trying to make room in his soul for an +unspeakable visitor. The arch of heaven had grown trivial. Eternity +was his one boundary. The stars twinkled in his blood. + +He heard the small human sob again, just at his elbow. All at once he +was frozen in his place; he could not turn or move. His arms hung to +his sides, his throat stiffened in its upward lines. And then a little +hand, stealing from a nun's gray sleeve, slipped into his, and in a +pause, a hush, it was before the full splendor of love's cry, he turned +and saw that it was Ume-ko, his wife. + +[Illustration: "Then a little hand, stealing from a nun's gray sleeve, +slipped into his."] + + * * * * * * + +Yeddo and modern Tokyo alike give entertainment to the traditional nine +days' wonder. Sometimes the wonder does not fade at all, and so it was +with the case of Tatsu and his wife. If he had been an idol, he was +now a demigod, Ume-ko sharing the sweet divinity of human tenderness +with him. + +Had it all happened a century before, the people would have built for +them a yashiro, with altar and a shrine. Here they would have been +worshipped as gods still in the flesh, and lovers would have prayed to +them for aid and written verses and burned sweet incense. + +Being of modern Tokyo, most of this adulation went into newspaper +articles. Old men envied Kano his dutiful daughter, young men envied +Tatsu his beautiful and loving wife. The print-makers, indeed, +perpetrated a series of representations that put old Kano's artistic +teeth on edge. First there was Ume at the willow; then Tatsu, in the +same place, taking his mad plunge for death's oblivion; Ume, the hooded +acolyte, kneeling in the sick chamber at the head of her husband's bed; +Ume, the nun, standing each day at twilight on the edge of the temple +cliff to catch a glimpse of him she loved; and, at the last, Tatsu and +Ume rejoined beside the tomb of Kano Uta-ko. Fortunately these +pictures were never seen by the two most concerned. + +They went away on a second bridal journey, this time to Tatsu's native +mountains in Kiu Shiu. While there, the good friend Ando Uchida was to +be sought, and made acquainted with the strange history of the previous +months. + +Mata and her old master remained placidly at home. They had no fears. +At the appointed date--only a week more now--the two would come back, +as they had promised, to begin the long, tranquil life of art and +happiness. There were to be great pictures! Kano chuckled and rubbed +his lean hands together, as he sat in his lonely room. Then the +thought faded, for a tenderer thought had come. In a year or more, if +the gods willed, another and a keener blessedness might be theirs. + +To dream quite delicately enough of this, the old man shut his eyes. +Oh, it was a dream to make the springtime of the world stir at the +roots of being! A tear crept down from the blue-veined lids, making +its way through wrinkles, those "dry river-beds of smiles." If the +baby fingers came,--those small, fearless fingers that were one's own +youth reborn,--they would press out all fretful lines of age, leaving +only tender traceries. He leaned forward, listening. Already he could +hear the tiny feet echo along the rooms, could see small, shaven heads +bowing their first good morning to the O Ji San,--revered, beloved +patriarch of the home! How old Mata would idolize and scold and pet +them! A queer old soul was Mata, with faults, as all women have, but +in the main, a treasure! Good times were coming for the old folks in +that house! So sat Kano, dreaming, in his empty chamber; and unless we +have eternity to spare, nodding beside him on the mats, we must bow, +murmuring, "Sayo-nara!" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DRAGON PAINTER*** + + +******* This file should be named 22884.txt or 22884.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/8/8/22884 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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