Part 19
We have left the streets at last; on either hand stand railed-in squares of growing trees; the road is wide and smooth, the busy thousands in the streets drop out of sight and sound. My _kurumaya_ runs more swiftly.
Here is neither shop nor house, nor passer-by, the restless hum of life itself has ceased. It is quieter than a forest, for in these artificial squares of railed-in trees nothing stirs. Men’s gardens are always three parts dead.
The broad road widens still; white as fuller’s earth and hard, it stretches like an avenue between high walls of smooth white brick, laid flat and thin as Roman tiles, on thick layers of pale white mortar. Two carefully paved-in streams of fresh grey water run between wall and road. And streams and road and walls go on and on. It is the Palace of the Heir Apparent.
The walls are twelve feet high, the stream is three feet wide; and still my _kurumaya_ runs. The pale white walls stretch down the road like parallels in Euclid. It is the Palace of the Princes of the Blood.
And still he runs. The pale white walls, thin tiles set in their thick layers of mortar, run as he runs.
I have lost sense of the city now, lost memory of the gardens, lost belief in life itself. The world is a dead white road between white walls. This is the Palace of the Son of Heaven, one speck of brown breaks the interminable line of white, the carved gateway whence the great _Tenshisama_ issued once a year to visit the temple. One other speck, the gate by which he returned. And then the pale white walls, thin tiles set in thick layers of mortar, stretch out of sight.
Inside these miles of walls, in his artificial solitude, year in, year out, the Son of Heaven dwelt. The life of the city, surging through its streets, surged up in vain; he could not see it, hear it, nor conceive it. Lord of a world he did not know, the Son of Heaven lived, while all around the sons of earth fought and toiled, were born and died, and not a murmur of their being passed his Palace walls. Shut up in his rose-garden world, fictitious, quite unreal, the Son of Heaven augustly ruled. And while the thousands in the city and the millions in the land held him divine, so that whoso looked upon his face did surely die, the men who looked usurped his power, crowned or deposed him; ruled in his name, but reigned supreme, and fought to reign. The history of Japan lies there. War and worship, divine unquestioned right and civil strife, never rebellion, each army fighting in the name of the ever-sacred Son of Heaven, to use victory for its own ends.
And the living son of these dead Emperors, brought up as they, Son of Heaven still, though without the walls, a modern monarch holding levees and cabinet councils, does that fictitious rose-garden world lie about him yet shutting out the real?
* * * * *
“And always in Japan,” says my _kurumaya_, “the Son of Heaven augustly rules.”
And he sings:
“Kimi ga yo wa Chiyo ni yachiyo ni Sazaré ishi no Iwaho to narité Koké no musu madé.”
“The descendants of the Emperor shall live for a thousand times ten thousand years, until the little stones are grown great rocks, until the great rocks are all green with moss.”
XI
AND SHE WAS A WIDOW
_O Mmé San_ looked into her son’s eyes and saw that they were sad.
It was in the month of the plum-blossom, when throughout the length and breadth of Japan the soldiers of the Empire were daily leaving for the front; for the war with Russia had been declared, and the rich were giving of their wealth, the poor of their poverty, and every one of his sons. In Tokyo the rival newspapers had agreed to bury their political differences until the war was over. An Osaka merchant had offered his priceless art treasures for sale. On the western coast the poor fishermen, forbidden to fish in the sea of Japan because of the danger, sent a petition to the Government asking to be allowed to go out “as scouts.” Noble students on the far-off banks of the Sungari were risking an ignominious death as they crouched beneath dark bridges with dynamite in their hands. Everywhere, every one was giving, giving, giving. Even in this remote country town each day mothers saw their sons march away, and bid them a last “_Sayonara_.”
O Mmé San had been waiting many days, expecting, hoping, dreading, and to-night in the sad eyes of her son she read the long delayed summons. “He has heard at last,” she thought. And for one moment her heart grew very tender over this, her fatherless son, her only boy.
Then she put away her weakness, for she was the wife and the daughter of _samurai_, and she knew that it was the proudest privilege of a warrior to fight for his lord, that it was the most sacred duty of her race to give her life and her son’s life to the Emperor. So, looking towards the curved swords of the family, which lay on the _tokonoma_, she began to talk of her husband, of the grim old _samurai_ his fathers, and to tell old tales of battle and of death that made her boy’s eyes glisten, and then look sadder than before. But he said nothing, and O Mmé San wondered. She knew that he had been down to the Prefecture that morning. O Kiku San’s two sons had left last week, O Hana’s eldest was going to-morrow. Surely her boy must know when he was leaving, or why did his eyes look so sad?
Then she began to tell him of all the plans she had thought of for managing without him, for they were poor. And at last her son looked up, and said, very gently as he took her hand:
“Honourably trouble not; as for leaving, it is not for me.”
And this time it was O Mmé San’s turn to be silent.
When dinner was over her son went out to his work, and O Mmé San wondered and wondered. The wife and daughter of a _samurai_ she was eager to give, give even her only son for _Dai Nippon_, and the Son of Heaven. And yet her boy was not going, what could it mean?
It was O Hana San who brought the answer. O Hana came in, very proud and pleased to tell all the last news about her eldest and his regiment.
“They say these Russians are seven feet high,” she said, as they sat opposite one another on the kneeling cushions sipping tea, “and that they never wash. And, just think, over there in _Chō-sen_ (Korea) everything is still frozen.”
O Mmé San listened. “A warrior is always warm enough when he fights,” she said, looking at the long curved swords which lay on the _tokonoma_.
O Hana San followed her glance. There were no swords at home on her _tokonoma_.
“Oh! fighting’s very different nowadays,” she said. “My boy hasn’t got a sword at all. They only carry guns now.”
For O Hana was not above a certain feeling of pleasure at getting even with a _samurai_.
O Mmé San bowed, and gently offered more tea.
“That is the Emperor’s will,” she said, in her soft, low voice. “My son will also carry a gun.”
“But your son isn’t going,” cried O Hana San. “Didn’t you know? The Prefect said yesterday something about the law of the Emperor forbidding it. I forget why.” And she gave a little giggle of pride at the idea of her son going to the war when the son of a _samurai_ must stay at home.
O Mmé San’s hands trembled as she poured more tea into the tiny bowls, but her voice was as low and as gentle as ever, and she did not abate one bow or one word of politeness; but how glad she was when O Hana was gone! She sat back on her heels after her last bow, her face flushed with anger. The Emperor would not take her son! O Hana must be mistaken. It could not be true. But “the Prefect said.” Then she would go and ask the Prefect. And O Mmé San got up resolute.
The Prefect was very busy, and refused at first to see her, but, with the softest and gentlest politeness, O Mmé San still persisted, and at last she was admitted into the ugly “foreign” room where the Prefect, in a frock-coat and tweed trousers, sat on a “foreign” chair. O Mmé San sat on the edge of hers and held her _kimono_ tightly with both hands. She was not used to chairs.
“You wish to know when Suzuki Tetsutarō leaves for the front. Honourably please to wait a moment.”
O Mmé San waited. The Prefect, deep in his work, almost forgot her. Something in the tremulous way in which she had spoken made him think she was afraid for her boy; and he was a stern man, with the sternest ideas of duty to the Emperor. So when the answer came back to him, he turned to her somewhat coldly.
“Suzuki Tetsutarō is exempt from service. It is the will of the Emperor that the only son of a widow shall stay and take care of his mother.”
A great light sprang into O Mmé San’s eyes. “Honourably please to say is that the reason?” she asked, bowing low.
The Prefect looked at her, at the strange light shining in her eyes; and in his heart he regretted the old stern times when _samurai_ mothers sent out their sons to fight to victory or to death.
“That is the reason,” he said, and he bowed her out.
* * * * *
That night O Mmé San did not sleep. She sat up looking at the curved swords of her fathers and thinking.
She knew now why her son’s eyes were sad. The Son of Heaven, in his graciousness, had wished to spare the widow’s son, but--but a subject’s duty was to give, give all, give himself, give everything that was most precious to him; above all, a _samurai_ boy must not stay at home when peasants’ sons went out to fight. And in the quiet night, with the blossoming plum-tree stretching like a white wing above the house, Mmé thought.
This gentle, soft-voiced woman, tender as the white blossoms overhead from which she took her name, was delicate as they; but in her soul there dwelt that subtle, untouched fragrance, the sense, of sacrifice and duty, which, like the scent of the blossoming plum-tree, penetrated all things. Brought up on the “greater” and “the lesser learning,” in the strict rule of the three obediences--to father, husband, son--O Mmé San had lived her simple life, a loving, tender woman, exquisite in grace and courtesy; but in her heart there burned that ecstatic faith and fealty which we have never truly known, but call by the cold name of loyalty. So she sat there and thought in the still, dark night, and all the thoughts and feelings of the dead, all their resolutions and impulses, stirred back to life in her all the long line of her _samurai_ fathers, who had fought and died, the yet longer line of patient mothers, who had endured and given their sons, husbands, fathers, called to her. They were not dead nor sleeping. They were alive in her. She sat and listened as their lives thrilled through her in the silence, and their voices spoke aloud within her soul. It seemed a simple thing to sacrifice herself. She had no fear of death, rather a great desire. No haunting fear of Purgatory or Hell beset her. Even the all-loving Buddha was forgotten; she trusted to the older gods to-night--Amaterasu, the great Sun-Goddess, from whom the Son of Heaven himself descended. Beyond the shadow of this life the great gods lived, and all the long line of her fathers stood waiting to welcome her. When she slipped into that light her son’s father himself would stoop to take her hand, content that she had proved herself worthy to be a warrior’s wife.
The snow-white _mmé_, the blossoming plum-tree, stirred in the cold night wind. “Chastity, purity and strength, womanly strength,” it whispered, and its pale soft blossoms sighed. The fragrance of them floated by in the chill spring air; floated wide from end to end of Great Japan.
“Strength, womanly strength,” it said, and O Mmé San looked up and smiled, a little sad, sweet smile. For the strength of a woman lies in the sacrifice of herself. And getting up she went to look at her boy tossing in his sleep.
Then she too slept, for she knew what she had to do; and Shinigawa, the Lord of Death-Desire, drew near and touched her as she slept.
* * * * *
It was nearly dusk the next evening before everything was prepared. All her son’s clothes mended and ready, the house put straight, the letter written, telling her boy quite simply that, having learned the reason why the Emperor in his graciousness would not take him for his soldier, she had taken her own life that he might be free to fight. On her knees she thanked the gracious _Tenshisama_, but her son and her son’s life were his not hers.
Then she sharpened her dagger, and when O Mmé San felt its edge was keen enough, she knelt down on the matting, took off her long silken under-girdle, and tied it carefully around her knees, for a _samurai_ woman must lie modestly even in death. Then she felt in her throat for the artery, and with one quick thrust drove the dagger home.
* * * * *
The Prefect was sitting with his family that evening when Suzuki Tetsutarō came to the house. He carried a paper in his hand, and he was trembling.
“Honourably please to take notice,” he said, “that I am qualified to serve, for my mother is dead.” And he handed the Prefect the paper.
When he had read it the stern official turned to the lad.
“The detachment has not yet left for headquarters,” he said, writing rapidly as he spoke. “Go straight to the station. Give this card to the officer in charge. I will bury your mother and perform the rites.”
Then he laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Suzuki Tetsutarō,” he said, “your mother was worthy of her race. Go, that her spirit may have peace.”
So Suzuki Tetsutarō went straight to the front.
GLOSSARY
=Aino.= The aboriginal inhabitants of Japan, only found now in the North Island. A remarkably hairy, remarkably dirty race, with the flattened shin-bone only occurring in skeletons of the cave-men. They are great hunters and fishers.
=Amado.= Sliding wooden walls which are drawn all round a Japanese house at night, completely enclosing it.
=Amaterasu=, _lit._ “Heaven-Shiner.” The Sun-Goddess, born from the right eye of the Creator Izanagi.
=Amida Butsu.= Buddha as Amida. Originally Amida was an abstraction, the ideal of boundless light.
=Benten.= One of the seven Deities of Luck, frequently represented riding on a serpent. Her shrines are mostly on islands, and from her connection with the sea she has certain points of resemblance with Venus. Benten always has a white face.
=Biwa.= A musical instrument with four strings, something like a lute.
=Boy.= Term universal among foreigners in the Far East for a male servant, of whatever age.
=Bot’chan.= A little boy; baby; Japanese baby language. Derived from _bōsan_, a Buddhist priest (bonze). Japanese babies, like Buddhist priests, having completely shaven heads.
=Bushi.= Warrior.
=Bushidō.= Way of the warrior.
=Cha-no-yu.= Tea ceremony, from _cha_, tea. The people of Tokyo and the initiated call it _chanoyī_. This ceremony, religious in its inception, has in the course of the 600 or 700 years of its existence passed through a medico-religious, a luxurious, and an æsthetic stage. A little of the religious element still clings to it, tea enthusiasts usually joining the Zen sect of Buddhism, while diplomas of proficiency are obtained from the abbot of Daitokuji at Kyoto.
=Cha-ya.= Tea-house.
=Cloisonné.= A species of mosaic, its characteristic feature being a network of copper, brass, or silver wire soldered on to a solid foundation of the same metal. The _cloisons_, or spaces between the network, are then filled in with enamel paste.
=Daimyō=, _lit._ Great name; a feudal lord. Before the Restoration of 1868 Japan was divided into provinces, each ruled by a _daimyō_. Every _daimyō_ was the head of a clan of armed retainers, the _samurai_, and all _samurai_ had to belong to some _daimyō_. Shortly after the Restoration the _daimyō_ voluntarily gave up their lands, powers, and possessions to the Emperor.
=Fuji.= Usually translated as “The Peerless Mountain,” from the two Chinese characters with which, in poetry, it is usually written, meaning “not two,” “unrivalled.” In prose it is generally written with Chinese characters meaning “rich _samurai_.” It can also be written with ideographs meaning “not dying” and so “deathless.” Most probably Fuji is derived from the Aino word _push_, to burst forth.
=Futon.= A sort of eiderdown quilt made of silk wadding. The Japanese spread one of these on the matting at night to sleep on, using a second as a covering. The native pillow is a shaped and padded piece of wood or lacquer which supports the neck.
=Geisha.= Girls trained to the profession of dancing, singing, playing, and socially entertaining. They are the usual accompaniment to a Japanese dinner.
=Gheta.= A sort of wooden clogs kept on by straps passing between the big and second toes. _Gheta_ are only worn in the street, and are left outside houses, temples, or other buildings. It would be as disrespectful to enter a house or a temple with your _gheta_ on as for a man to walk into a church, or a drawing-room, in his hat.
=Godown.= A fire-proof building for storing valuables. Derived from Malay word _gādong_, a warehouse.
=Hakama.= A divided skirt of either cotton or silk, pleated into a broad stiff band in big pleats. Worn by the _samurai_ on official or ceremonial occasions. Always worn by both teacher and pupil in the classrooms. Also worn nowadays by the girl students.
=Hibachi.= A brazier in the shape of a lidless box of wood or bronze containing charcoal, the warming apparatus of Japanese houses.
=Holland.= Considered as a tributary kingdom of Japan during the Tokugawa shōgunate, because the Dutch shut up in the island of Deshima, near Nagasaki, sent yearly presents to the _shōgun_.
=Ijin San.= Barbarian; foreigner; or perhaps simply “strange man,” and so foreigner.
=Iyeyasu.= _B._ 1542, _d._ 1616. The founder of the Tokugawa shōgunate, which lasted from 1603 to 1868. Iyeyasu was one of the greatest generals and perhaps the very greatest ruler, Japan has ever produced. He went to school in the Temple of Rinzaki (p. 17), and the room where he learnt to write, his ink-slab and other belongings, are still preserved. Iyeyasu founded Yedo, now Tokyo, making it his capital. He died at Shizuoka, and was first buried at Kunō-san (Between Earth and Heaven, p. 36), and afterwards at Nikkō.
=Izanagi= and =Izanami=. The Creator and the Creatress of Japan. It was during the purification of Izanagi after his descent into Hades in search of Izanami, a legend which has many points of resemblance with that of Orpheus, that Amaterasu, the Sun-Goddess, was born.
=Jinricksha= or =Jinriksha=. From the Chinese, _lit._ man-power-vehicle; shortened by Europeans into _’ricksha_, by the Japanese to _jinriki_, but usually called in Japan by the native word _kuruma_. A small two-wheeled carriage like a miniature hansom or an old-fashioned perambulator, drawn by a man.
=Kagura.= Sacred _shintō_ dance, whose origin is supposed to be traced back to the time when Amaterasu, angry at the insult offered her by her brother Susa-no-wo, retired to a cavern, thus plunging the world into darkness. She was at last induced to look out by the sound of music and dancing, and finally enticed right out by the sight of her own face in a mirror. The dance performed in front of her cavern is supposed to be the _Kagura_. (Note the “g” here, as all medial “g’s” in Japanese have the sound of “ng” as in English “sing.” So Nang-o-ya, _not_ Na-go-ya. Some dialects, as that of _Satsuma_, say a hard “g.”)
=Kakemono=, _lit._ the hanging-up-thing. A picture painted on either silk or paper, in either monochrome or colour. It is mounted on brocade, and has a roller each end. Roughly and quite untechnically, _kakemono_ can be divided into two classes: those which seek to give only an impression, and those which are a kind of miniature painting.
=Kana.= _Katakana_ and _Hirakana_, popularly supposed to have been invented, the first 772 A.D., the second 835 A.D. In reality they were not inventions, but simplifications of certain common Chinese ideographs. The _kana_ represent sounds, as does our alphabet, but they stand for syllables, not letters. They both consist of forty-seven sounds, which by the addition of dots and other symbols can be considerably increased.
=Kannon=, written K(w)annon, Sanskrit Avalokites-vara, the Goddess of Mercy, who contemplates the world and listens to the prayers of the unhappy. In the opinion of a small minority Kannon belongs to the male sex.
=Kimono.= The long-sleeved robe of Japan, which has no fastening. It is merely folded across on the right-hand side (only grave-clothes are crossed to the left) and kept in place by the folds of the _obi_. Practically the same shaped kimono is worn by men and women, the difference consisting principally in pattern and colour. The number of _kimono_ worn depends entirely on the temperature.
=Kirin.= A fabulous monster answering to our griffin. He degenerates sometimes into a sort of three-cornered dog, and is said not to trample on live insects nor to eat live grass.
=Kitsune.= Fox. It is the fox and the badger in Japan who are credited with supernatural powers. Foxes are able to change themselves into beautiful young women to the undoing of confiding man. The powers of the badger may be comic.
=Kojiki=, or “Record of Ancient Matters.” The oldest literary work of Japan, dating from the year 712 A.D. It is a chronicle partly mythological, partly historical, of the doings of gods, emperors and men.
=Kuruma.= _See_ =Jinricksha=. The Japanese term for _jinricksha_.
=Kurumaya.= The man who draws the _kuruma_.
=Manjū.= A flat round cake of rice paste filled with a brown bean-jam.
=Meiji.= Age of Enlightenment or Progress. The name of the years from 1868 onwards. The privilege of appointing year-names is regarded in the Far East as one of the rights of independent sovereignty, much as coining money with us. In Japan the length of the year-name period has been up to now purely arbitrary, not coinciding with the reign of an emperor as in China.
=Miyajima.= One of the _San-kei_ or “Three Chief Sights” of Japan. An exceedingly beautiful island in the Inland Sea. It contains a temple built on piles, which at high tide seems to float on the water. According to tradition, the first temple was erected about 600 A.D.
=Mma.= The actual pronunciation in the Tokyo district of the word usually Romanised as _Uma_, horse.
=Mmé.= The actual pronunciation in the Tokyo district of the word usually Romanised as _Umé_.
=Musmé= or =Musumé=. Daughter; girl; and so, waiting-girl.
=Namu-myōho-rengekyō.= Sanskrit, _lit._ “O! the Scripture of the Lotus of the Wonderful Law.”
=Nēsan=. _lit._ elder sister miss. Used as a half-polite, half-familiar address to girls; and so, waiting-girl.