O-Yoshi's peasant step-mother, though entirely uneducated, was very much the reverse of a simple woman. She had never loved her step-daughter, but was much too intelligent to be cruel to her without reason. Moreover, O-Yoshi was far from being in her way. O-Yoshi was a faithful worker, obedient, sweet-tempered, and very useful in the house. But the same cool shrewdness that discerned O-Yoshi's merits also estimated the girl's value in the marriage market. Okazaki never suspected that he was going to deal with his natural superior in cunning. O-Tama knew a great deal of his history. She knew the extent of his wealth. She was aware of his unsuccessful attempts to obtain a wife from various families, both within and without the village. She suspected that O-Yoshi's beauty might have aroused a real passion, and she knew that an old man's passion might be taken advantage of in a large number of cases. O-Yoshi was not wonderfully beautiful, but she was a really pretty and graceful girl, with very winning ways; and to get another like her, Okazaki would have to travel far. Should he refuse to pay well for the privilege of obtaining such a wife, O-Tama knew of younger men who would not hesitate to be generous. He might have O-Yoshi, but never upon easy terms. After the repulse of his first advances, his conduct would betray him. Should he prove to be really enamored, he could be forced to do more than any other resident of the district could possibly afford. It was therefore highly important to discover the real strength of his inclination, and to keep the whole matter, in the mean time, from the knowledge of O-Yoshi. As the reputation of the nakodo depended on professional silence, there was no likelihood of his betraying the secret.
The policy of the Miyahara family was settled in a consultation between O-Yoshi's father and her step-mother. Old Miyahara would have scarcely presumed, in any event, to oppose his wife's plans; but she took the precaution of persuading him, first of all, that such a marriage ought to be in many ways to his daughter's interest. She discussed with him the possible financial advantages of the union. She represented that there were, indeed, unpleasant risks, but that these could be provided against by making Okazaki agree to certain preliminary settlements. Then she taught her husband his role. Pending negotiations, the visits of Tarō were to be encouraged. The liking of the pair for each other was a mere cobweb of sentiment that could be brushed out of existence at the required moment ; and meantime it was to be made use of. That Okazaki should hear of a likely young rival might hasten desirable conclusions.
It was for these reasons that, when Tarō's father first proposed for O-Yoshi in his son's name, the suit was neither accepted nor discouraged. The only immediate objection offered was that O-Yoshi was one year older than Tarō, and that such a marriage would be contrary to custom,—which was quite true. Still, the objection was a weak one, and had been selected because of its apparent unimportance.
Okazaki's first overtures were at the same time received in such a manner as to convey the impression that their sincerity was suspected. The Miyahara refused to understand the nakodo at all. They remained astonishingly obtuse even to the plainest assurances, until Okazaki found it politic to shape what he thought a tempting offer. Old Miyahara then declared that he would leave the matter in his wife's hands, and abide by her decision.
O-Tama decided by instantly rejecting the proposal, with every appearance of scornful astonishment. She said unpleasant things. There was once a man who wanted to get a beautiful wife very cheap. At last he found a beautiful woman who said she ate only two grains of rice every day. So he married her; and every day she put into her mouth only two grains of rice; and he was happy. But one night, on returning from a journey, he watched her secretly through a hole in the roof, and saw her eating monstrously,—devouring mountains of rice and fish, and putting all the food into a hole in the top of her head under her hair. Then he knew that he had married the Yama-Omba.
O-Tama waited a month for the results of her rebuff,—waited very confidently, knowing how the imagined value of something wished for can be increased by the increase of the difficulty of getting it. And, as she expected, the nakodo at last reappieared. This time Okazaki approached the matter less condescendingly than before; adding to his first offer, and even volunteering seductive promises. Then she knew she was going to have him in her power. Her plan of campaign was not complicated, but it was founded upon a deep instinctive knowledge of the uglier side of human nature; and she Felt sure of success. Promises were for fools; legal contracts involving conditions were traps for the simple. Okazaki should yield up no small portion of his property before obtaining O-Yoshi.
VI
Tarō's father earnestly desired his son's marriage with O-Yoshi, and had tried to bring it about in the usual way. He was surprised at not being able to get any definite answer from the Miyahara. He was a plain, simple man; but he had the intuition of sympathetic natures, and the unusually gracious manner of O-Tama, whom he had always disliked, made him suspect that he had nothing to hope. He thought it best to tell his suspicions to Tarō, with the result that the lad fretted himself into a Fever. But O-Yoshi's step-mother had no intention of reducing Tarō to despair at so early a stage of her plot. She sent kindly worded messages to the house during his illness, and a letter from O-Yoshi, which had the desired effect of reviving all his hopes. After his sickness, he was graciously received by the Miyahara, and allowed to talk to O-Yoshi in the shop. Nothing, however, was said about his father's visit.
The lovers had also frequent chances to meet at the ujigami court, whither O-Yoshi often went with her step-mother's last baby. Even among the crowd of nurse-girls, children, and young mothers, they could exchange a Few words without Fear of gossip. Their hopes received no further serious check for a month, when O-Tama pleasantly proposed to Tarō's father an impossible pecuniary arrangement. She had lifted a corner of her mask, because Okazaki was struggling wildly in the net she had spread for him, and by the violence of the struggles she knew the end was not far off. O-Yoshi was still ignorant of what was going on; but she had reason to Fear that she would never be given to Tarō. She was becoming thinner and paler.
Tarō one morning took his child-brother with him to the temple court, in the hope of an opportunity to chat with O-Yoshi. They met; and he told her that he was Feeling afraid. He had found that the little wooden amulet which his mother had put about his neck when he was a child had been broken within the silken cover.
"That is not bad luck," said O-Yoshi. "It is only a sign that the august gods have been guarding you. There has been sickness in the village; and you caught the Fever, but you got well. The holy charm shielded you: that is why it was broken. Tell the kannushi today: he will give you another."
Because they were very unhappy, and had never done harm to anybody, they began to reason about the justice of the universe.
Tarō said: "Perhaps in the former life we hated each other. Perhaps I was unkind to you, or you to me. And this is our punishment. The priests say so."
O-Yoshi made answer with something of her old playfulness : "I was a man then, and you were a woman. I loved you very, very much; but you were very unkind to me. I remember it all quite well."
"You are not a Bosatsu," returned Tarō, smiling despite his sorrow; "so you cannot remember anything. It is only in the first of the ten states of Bosatsu that we begin to remember."
"How do you know I am not a Bosatsu?"
"You are a woman. A woman cannot be a Bosatsu."
"But is not Kwan-ze-on Bosatsu a woman?"
"Tell, that is true. But a Bosatsu cannot love anything except the Kyō."
"Did not Shaka have a wife and a son? Did he not love them?"
"Yes; but you know he had to leave them."
"That was very bad, even if Shaka did it. But I don't believe all those stories. And would you leave me, if you could get me? "
So they theorized and argued, and even laughed betimes: it was so pleasant to be together. But suddenly the girl became serious again, and said:—
Listen! Last night I saw a dream. I saw a strange river, and t
he sea. I was standing, I thought, beside the river, very near to where it flowed into the sea. And I was afraid, very much afraid, and did not know why. Then I looked, and saw there was no water in the river, no water in the sea, but only the bones of the Buddhas. But they were all moving, just like water.
"Then again I thought I was at home, and that you had given me a beautiful gift-silk for a kimono, and that the kimono had been made. And I put it on. And then I wondered, because at first it had seemed of many colors, but now it was all white; and I had foolishly folded it upon me as the robes of the dead are folded, to the left. Then I went to the homes of all my kinsfolk to say good-by; and I told them I was going to the Meido. And they all asked me why; and I could not answer."
"That is good," responded Tarō; "it is very lucky to dream of the dead. Perhaps it is a sign we shall soon be husband and wife."
This time the girl did not reply; neither did she smile.
Tarō was silent a minute ; then he added: "If you think it was not a good dream, Yoshi, whisper it all to the nanten plant in the garden: then it will not come true."
But on the evening of the same day Tarō's father was notified that Miyahara O-Yoshi was to become the wife of Okazaki YaIchirō.
VII
O-Tama was really a very clever woman. She had never made any serious mistakes. She was one of those excellently organized beings who succeed in life by the perfect ease with which they exploit inferior natures. The full experience of her peasant ancestry in patience, in cunning, in crafty perception, in rapid foresight, in hard economy, was concentrated into a perfect machinery within her unlettered brain. That machinery worked faultlessly in the environment which had called it into existence, and upon the particular human material with which it was adapted to deal,—the nature of the peasant. But there was another nature which O-Tama understood less well, because there was nothing in her ancestral experience to elucidate it. She was a strong disbeliever in all the old ideas about character distinctions between samurai and heimin. She considered there had never been any differences between the military and the agricultural classes, except such differences of rank as laws and customs had established; and these had been bad. Laws and customs, she thought, had resulted in making all people of the former samurai class more or less helpless and foolish; and secretly she despised all shizoku. By their incapacity for hard work and their absolute ignorance of business methods, she had seen them reduced from wealth to misery. She had seen the pension bonds given them by the new government pass from their hands into the clutches of cunning speculators of the most vulgar class. She despised weakness; she despised incapacity; and she deemed the commonest vegetable seller a much superior being to the ex-Karo obliged in his old age to beg assistance from those who had formerly cast off their footgear and bowed their heads to the mud whenever he passed by. She did not consider it an advantage for O-Yoshi to have had a samurai mother: she attributed the girl's delicacy to that cause, and thought her descent a misfortune. She had clearly read in O-Yoshi's character all that could be read by one not of a superior caste; among other facts, that nothing would be gained by needless harshness to the child, and the implied quality was not one that she disliked. But there were other qualities in O-Yoshi that she had never clearly perceived,—a profound though well-controlled sensitiveness to moral wrong, an unconquerable self-respect, and a latent reserve of will power that could triumph over any physical pain. And thus it happened that the behavior of O-Yoshi, when told she would have to become the wife of Okazaki, duped her step-mother, who was prepared to encounter a revolt. She was mistaken.
At first the girl turned white as death. But in another moment she blushed, smiled, bowed down, and agreeably astonished the Miyahara by announcing, in the formal language of filial piety, her readiness to obey the will of her parents in all things. There was no further appearance even of secret dissatisfaction in her manner; and O-Tama was so pleased that she took her into confidence, and told her something of the comedy of the negotiations, and the full extent of the sacrifices which Okazaki had been compelled to make. Furthermore, in addition to such trite consolations as are always offered to a young girl betrothed without her own consent to an old man, O-Tama gave her some really priceless advice how to manage Okazaki. Tarō's name was not even once mentioned. For the advice O-Yoshi dutifully thanked her step-mother, with graceful prostrations. It was certainly admirable advice. Almost any intelligent peasant girl, fully instructed by such a teacher as O-Tama, might have been able to support existence with Okazaki. But O-Yoshi was only half a peasant girl. Her first sudden pallor and her subsequent crimson flush, after the announcement of the fate reserved for her, were caused by two emotional sensations of which O-Tama was far from suspecting the nature. Both represented much more complex and rapid thinking than O-Tama had ever done in all her calculating experience.
The first was a shock of horror accompanying the full recognition of the absolute moral insensibility of her step-mother, the utter hopelessness of any protest, the virtual sale of her person to that hideous old man for the sole motive of unnecessary gain, the cruelty and the shame of the transaction. But almost as quickly there rushed to her consciousness an equally complete sense of the need of courage and strength to face the worst, and of subtlety to cope with strong cunning. It was then she smiled. And as she smiled, her young will became steel, of the sort that severs iron without turning edge. She knew at once exactly what to do,—her samurai blood told her that; and she plotted only to gain the time and the chance. And she Felt already so sure of triumph that she had to make a strong effort not to laugh aloud. The light in her eyes completely deceived O-Tama, who detected only a manifestation of satisfied Feeling, and imagined the Feeling due to a sudden perception of advantages to be gained by a rich marriage.
It was the fifteenth day of the ninth month; and the wedding was to be celebrated upon the sixth of the tenth month. But three days later, O-Tama, rising at dawn, found that her step-daughter had disappeared during the night. Tarō Uchida had not been seen by his father since the afternoon of the previous day. But letters from both were received a Few hours afterwards.
VIII
The early morning train from Kyōto was in; the little station was full of hurry and noise,—clattering of geta, humming of converse, and fragmentary cries of village boys selling cakes and luncheons: "Kwashi yoros—!" "Sushi yoros—!" "Bento yoros —!" Five minutes, and the geta clatter, and the banging of carriage doors, and the shrilling of the boys stopped, as a whistle blew and the train jolted and moved. It rumbled out, puffed away slowly northward, and the little station emptied itself. The policeman on duty at the wicket banged it to, and began to walk up and down the sanded platform, surveying the silent rice-fields.
Autumn had come,—the Period of Great Light. The sun glow had suddenly become whiter, and shadows sharper, and all outlines clear as edges of splintered glass. The mosses, long parched out of visibility by the summer heat, had revived in wonderful patches and bands of bright soft green over all shaded bare spaces of the black volcanic soil; from every group of pine-trees vibrated the shrill wheeze of the tsuku-tsuku-boshi; and above all the little ditches and canals was a silent flickering of tiny lightnings,—zigzag soundless flashings of emerald and rose and azure-of-steel,—the shooting of dragon-flies.
Now, it may have been due to the extraordinary clearness of the morning air that the policeman was able to perceive, far up the track, looking north, something which caused him to start, to shade his eyes with his hand, and then to look at the clock. But, as a rule, the black eye of a Japanese policeman, like the eye of a poised kite, seldom fails to perceive the least unusual happening within the whole limit of its vision. I remember that once, in far-away Oki, wishing, without being myself observed, to watch a mask-dance in the street before my inn, I poked a small hole through a paper window of the second story, and peered at the performance. Down the street stalked a policeman, in snowy uniform and havelock; for it was midsummer. He did not appear e
ven to see the dancers or the crowd through which he walked without so much as turning his head to either side. Then he suddenly halted, and fixed his gaze exactly on the hole in my shoji; for at that hole he had seen an eye which he had instantly decided, by reason of its shape, to be a foreign eye. Then he entered the inn, and asked questions about my passport, which had already been examined.
What the policeman at the village station observed, and afterwards reported, was that, more than half a mile north of the station, two persons had reached the railroad track by crossing the rice-fields, apparently after leaving a farmhouse considerably to the northwest of the village. One of them, a woman, he judged by the color of her robe and girdle to be very young. The early express train from Tokyo was then due in a few minutes, and its advancing smoke could be perceived from the station platform. The two persons began to run quickly along the track upon which the train was coming. They ran on out of sight round a curve.
Those two persons were Tarō and O-Yoshi. They ran quickly, partly to escape the observation of that very policeman, and partly so as to meet the Tokyo express as far from the station as possible. After passing the curve, however, they stopped running, and walked, for they could see the smoke coming. As soon as they could see the train itself, they stepped off the track, so as not to alarm the engineer, and waited, hand in hand. Another minute, and the low roar rushed to their ears, and they knew it was time. They stepped back to the track again, turned, wound their arms about each other, and lay down cheek to cheek, very softly and quickly, straight across the inside rail, already ringing like an anvil to the vibration of the hurrying pressure.
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