A Bride of Japan

Chapter I

The soul of the goddess Inari, when in her most benevolent mood she showers bless ings upon the rice-fields, looked out from the clear brown eyes of Sasa-San. The sun, dropping away westward beyond the slopes of Fuji-Yama, the great fire mountain, saw something in those pure eyes which made him linger there. He played about her hair ; he tipped with scarlet the full lips; he set the blood dancing beneath the clear olive skin. The coral hairpins flushed a brighter red ; those of mother-of-pearl shone like gold. Wrapped was she in sunshine, and fanned with the fragrance of the plum-blossoms from the adjacent orchard. I a 3Brtoe of Japan. 2 Sasa-San leant on the upper rail of the orchard gate and stared dreamily into the sun. Her chin was sunk in her little pink palms, her attitude causing the wide sleeves of the kimono to lay bare her dainty rounded arms with their bracelets of silver and of jade.

The sunbeams saw and kissed her to the elbows, and flirted round the curves of her neck until they lost themselves in the warm shadows of her breast. But she thought not of these things; her heart was full of sorrow, her brain distraught with thinking. For the happy days of child hood had passed away, and the deeper dreams of womanhood were soon to follow. In the future there would be no more idle dreaming, no more castles of sunbeams and fleecy clouds ; for Sasa-San had reached her seventeenth year, and her parents had found a husband for her in the honourable Daidai, the lord of many rice-fields. But though, from a worldly point of view, her marriage with that august potentate left little to be desired, it so happened that Daidai was old and wrinkled, and possessed of a reputation which did not H Bribe of Japan. 3 smell sweet in the neighbourhood.

No one spoke well of him ; he lived alone, meanly, superintending his rice-fields, but taking no one into his confidence. Yet all this was as nothing compared with the rich presents he brought her parents ; and had he been Tats- Maki himself, the fearful dragon of the typhoons, they would have made low obeisance to him, and whined of his honourable condescension in taking their unworthy child. And in this way was Sasa-San betrothed to Daidai, and though, being a true Oriental, she never dreamt of resisting the will of her parents, yet her heart was sad and her brain grew weary with much thinking. From child hood she had seen and known Daidai; had listened to the strange tales that were told of him, until in her thoughts she had asso ciated him with all that was evil and ugly. His wrinkled face, his bent figure, the light ning glances from his little slits of eyes, were all a source of terror to her ; and when she saw him coming she would run and hide for fear his evil eye should light upon her.

Yet, in spite of all, fate had reserved her for him, H 3Brioe of Japan. 4 and in less than a month he would hold her to him, and turn his little beady eyes into hers, and breathe upon her and call her his! Sometimes in her dull, vague way she wept ; sometimes she thought seriously of the honourable hara-kiri; again she would pray earnestly before the kamidana, or altar of household gods. But the deities were deaf, or her prayers rebellious; and Daidai's presents to her parents grew richer and more costly, and all her friends envied her the great good fortune which a benevolent fate had prepared for her. But the colour in her cheeks began to fade, and about the corners of her red mouth a dark line appeared which added a tone of ineffable sadness to the face. Her education had been such as to deprive her of the remotest wish for independence ; yet, though she might never dream of questioning the right of her parents to dispose of her as they thought fit, there was an undercurrent of revolt running through her of which she her self was entirely ignorant.

And so in her mute, dull way she sank her face in her hands and stared into the sunshine, and saw nothing there but the wrinkled features of Daidai. Vainly the birds sang of happiness, vainly the sunbeams sought to warm her blood ; in vain the rich blossoms shed their fragrance about her. In less than a month Daidai would come to claim her. His shadow fell between her and the sun. Presently she was aroused from her dream ing by hearing the crunch of wheels and the loud laughter of women, and on looking up she beheld a rickshaw rapidly approaching in which were seated two girls. They passed quite close to her, and turned upon her with insolent looks and laughter. Then one struck a few wild notes on her samisen as the little carriage with its human beast of burden dashed by. Sasa-San drew back with a shudder, and did not even look the way the insolent ones had gone.

For the two were geisha, out casts, the bond-children of vice, returning from a tea-house of indifferent fame. Vam pires, degenerates, she thought them ; creatures who, to the degradation of women, danced the shameless chon kina. But relapsing once more into thought, some strange imaginings beset her. It was odd, but those wretched outcasts, those pariahs of the tea-houses, decked with a mantle of shame, weighted with the guilt of countless sins, could laugh ; while she who was without sin could do nothing but weep. What then was the life of a geisha, what the lewd dance of the kina, what the slavery, the degradation of which she had heard so much ? Better that than mate with the hideous toad-man, Daidai. Her heart palpitated, her pulse beat high ; excitement flushed her face until the flow of blood sweetened the clear skin.

She looked round as if she would call the geisha to her, and her eyes encountered, not the painted faces of gay iniquity, but the stranger face of a man — a foreigner. If her cheeks flushed before, they now grew crimson. Encountering his ardent gaze her eyelids quivered and drooped, and she began nervously to fumble her little hands into the wide sleeves of her kimono. Then with some difficulty she shuffled one foot into her sandal, and after much desperate struggling succeeded in getting into the other. And amid all this confusion the stranger stood looking at her, but spoke no word, nor in any way sought to lessen her em barrassment. It was cruel of him, but the perplexity of the quaint little creature amused him greatly. He saw the flushes chase each other across her face, he noted the delicacy of the skin, the pretty little nose suspiciously tip-tilted ; the bosom that rose and fell bewilderingly.

What he saw of the mouth filled him with wonder. But her embarrassment none the less ap pealed to his generosity, and so without further prolonging his triumph he sought to put an end to it. "Ohayo," he said, which is the common word of greeting. Again the blood whirled to her face; but nevertheless she succeeded in stammering out, her eyes still fixed upon the ground, "Ohayo." "Look up, Plum-Blossom," he said. "I will not harm you." It was some little time before she ventured to act upon his suggestion, and then slowly her eyes travelled from his feet to his face, and her look was full of wonder. He was tall, with the dark, pale skin of the foreigner; his face was clean-shaven save for a moustache into which the sun crept, and which it set on fire. But his eyes were stranger still, misty and grey like the clouds which some times swept the great brow of Fuji.

She looked and saw them fathomless ; or like the mighty spaces beyond the mountain which have no beginning and no end. He saw the look and smiled, and in that strange, musical voice of his began to apologize. What he said she could not have repeated had the world been offered her, and in reality he said it very badly, being anything but an adept at the language ; but in her ears his voice lingered as no voice had ever lingered before, and she thought her native tongue had never so sweet a sound. The stranger was most surprisingly polite, eschewing the usual free-and-easy manner of his compatriots. This was no geisha or mousmee, but a delightful little bit of palpi tating humanity, flushing innocence from head to foot. He even thought her grey kimono, with its quaint designs in blue, just the neatest thing in kimonos that he had ever seen.

With one keen glance he seemed to take her in, from her snow-white tabi to the pale pink of her peeping chemisette. No detail, however minute, escaped him. But he was careful to check the ardour of his gaze lest he should frighten her; for was he not of that all-devastating white race who preach the brotherhood of man, yet spare neither brother nor sister? Henry Tresilian was no saint, but he was a sinner with limitations. Of the latent good that was in him he was half-ignorant, and would have been half-ashamed of it had he realized its significance. To him goodness had lost much of its old Cornish meaning; that rigid, pure, clear meaning he had known as a boy. Indeed, so little of it had he seen of late that he frequently doubted its existence. Yet in a feeble way it still dominated him, and he looked upon her with generous, thoughtful eyes.

She was graceful, pleasing ; a delicately dainty morsel of orientalism just stepped out of a silk kakemono. Only there was nothing grotesque in the design. She was a real woman, a daughter of the sun, with the blood of her sire dancing in her veins. Once her nervousness wore off it was curious how she prattled and giggled and blushed; while he too smiled and laughed, and stumbled in a delightfully awkward way with her language. At least she thought it was delightful, though truth to tell he made a sad muddle of things. But neither was critical just then, for each had found a new sensation. She told him who she was. That Wakura the market-gardener was her father ; that the orchard behind her was his property, and that he and his had belonged to the samurai from time immemorial. She also told him her age, how many there were of her family, and sundry other things equally unimportant ; but she never told him why the shadows had saddened the corners of her mouth, nor why the pathos of life looked out from her clear brown eyes.

Yet when he left her and went on his way, a sudden yearning followed him, and eagerly she watched his figure until a bend in the road hid him from view. Then all at once it seemed to Sasa-San as if the sun had sunk behind the mountain, and as if he would rise again no more. She shivered, and the sound of voices awoke her from her dreaming.

Chapter II

The next day, at the same hour, she stood by the old gate, and with anxious eyes watched eagerly the road that led to the settlement. With the advent of every figure her poor little heart fluttered in a way that was wholly strange and sad; and yet the sadness was so sweet that she would not willingly have surrendered one pang. Suddenly a flush of hope would dart to her face, her eyes would brighten; and then, asthefigureloomedinview, the bitter sickness of disappointment would follow. Would he come — would he come? The shadows lengthened, slowly the sun dropped behind the great mountain ; but her patient eyes saw nothing but the dusty road that wound among the rice-fields, and she watched it with a dog-like pathos. But he never came, and gradually the shadows fell H Bribe of Japan. 13 until they blotted out the road.

Then she moved away as one in a dream, her dumb soul struggling to articulate. Though she knew it not, though she could define it in no way, she had conceived that which she should bear with infinite pain. The next day came, and the same hour found her at her post. It was the hour in which he had first broken in upon her dreaming, and she knew that when he did come it would be at this most appropriate period. In her hand she bore a sprig of plum-blossom ; in her eyes, which were feverish in their brightness, expectancy shone with irresistible radiance. He would come to-day, — yes, he would surely come to-day. She pressed her face into the sweet bloom and to herself prayed softly. Indefinite as was her thought, vague as was her wish, she coupled the eagerness of the woman with the ignorance of the child.

What would happen when he came she did not stay to think. There was joy in the thought of his coming ; despair if he did not come. That was all. He had called her Plum-Blossom, because he loved it best of all the blooms ; and she had brought this spray, the loveliest she could find, as an offering to her lord. The full meaning of the act she scarcely compre hended; but in her struggling soul a vague significance awoke, and instinct told her he would be pleased. But once more Fuji flung his gaunt sha dows across the land, and with a sigh she turned away. He would not come — he had forgotten. What was she that he should come to her ? What cause had she in her vanity to hope for his honourable condescension ? She had not lived so close to the treaty port without learning something of the ways of the foreigner, or hearing of the rigid line of caste and colour.

And as the Eastern woman has none of the self-importance of her Western sister, her training does not permit her to take refuge in pride. Having a due knowledge of her own unworthiness, her only consolation is to be found in an intense humility. If he did not come the fault was hers, and on her alone should the blame be laid. Had she been more worthy the gods would have rewarded her. And yet that night she prayed to Tengon, the god of dreams, and the next day she repaired once more to the trysting-place ; for the deity had been merciful, and had caused her to dream sweet dreams. And while she stood there with the same patient look in her eyes, Tresilian, who had a mercantile house of fair proportions, lounged back in his chair at his office in Yokohama, lit a cheroot and lazily began to puff.

He had been working hard the last two days, shipping off a large consignment of the new season's tea, and he now felt a decided inclination to dawdle. Vaguely he watched the smoke ascend, a delicate and fantastic tracing of blue, his brain holding fast to no particular thought. Then suddenly out of the smoke he saw the mountain, the blos soming orchard, and the girl in the grey kimono. True, he had thought of her before, but only in a casual sort of way. Now, in some unaccountable fashion, her memory lingered. He could not rid himself of the quaint little figure in grey, the pathetic smile, the imploring pathos of the brown eyes. As he drew in a long breath he smelt the plum blossoms. He started and somewhat nervously looked about him, but could discover no trace of the bloom. Then he laughed rather oddly, looked at his watch and put on his hat.

It was an absurd fancy, but she might be there. At all events, a walk would do him good ; and he would like to see — just for the fun of the thing. She had waited long, so long that her heart grew cold and sick. Desolate as death seemed the long stretch of rice-fields; Fuji towered up like a scowling fiend. The sun laden air chilled the blood ; the delicate perfume of the orchard filled her with a languishing despair. He would not come; he would not come! Yet when she saw his tall figure come swinging down the road she dared not credit her senses. Then a mischievous mist blurred her vision and made the nerves tingle at the back of her eyes. Almost before she had realized it he had approached, had taken her by the hand, and was looking at her with those strange, spacious eyes which had haunted her so long.

She flushed and murmured words of gratitude for his honourable conde scension, and nervously presented him with the spray of plum-blossom which she held. He took it very gravely, and bowed over it with quite oriental solemnity ; but as he did so the perfume stole into his brain, and when he looked at her again there was a new light in his eyes. He saw the blood leap to her face; he watched it dye her neck and disappear beneath the bosom of her kimono. Then a sudden wild tremor shook him, and the dying sunlight, dropping fair into his eyes, lit them so bril liantly that they dazzled her, and she hung her head. He drew nearer to her, and she yielded herself to him with a strange sobbing cry. Neither noticed the shadows fall nor the night come. He would not have believed that a simple little native girl could have held him so long in thrall; that he could have been content to treat her with that courtesy which custom imposes upon us in the presence of women of our own race.

Yet so it was, and while he marvelled much, he thrilled with the delight of a great discovery. Her tenderness, her warmth, and beyond and above all, her innocent confidence, amazed him and filled him with a vague, fearful kind of joy. As for Sasa-San, it may be doubted if she thought at all ; or if she did she was conscious only of a dreamy, delightful languor which she hoped would never end. He had come to her out of her dreams, come to her fragrant of the plum-blossom, with the gold of the sun in his eyes, and she moved in a dim, delightful world she did not understand. Be fore her stretched the magnificence of space, mystically calm and sweet, yet made odorous by the presence of her beloved bloom, and filled with the spirit of her lover. Though vast the space, the distance infinite; though it was peopled with strange shadows which moved dimly before her, she felt never a thrill of fear; for his arms were about her, and not even the mighty Tametomo, he of the bow which no two men could bend, could force those arms asunder.

As Tresilian pensively walked back to his bungalow he grew exceedingly troubled in mind, for he realized that this sudden passion for Sasa-San was a new and an irksome thing. It frightened him somewhat ; at the first blush he thought it almost unnatural. Seriously in love with a native woman ! No mere desire, no fleeting fancy. But love — such love as he had hoped one day to give to a woman of his own race ! Incredible ! The thing was absurd ; it simply could not be. Love ! The thought tickled him and he laughed. Yet the laugh died upon his lips, and left in the muscles of his face a thoughtful aching. No doubt the jest was good in its way, but he utterly lacked the power to appreciate it. Love ! He confidently assured himself that the thought was too ridiculous to be enter tained by a serious-minded man.

How could he be in love with an ignorant little thing who possessed no thought in common with him ? No thought ? He swung his cane furiously, angered greatly. Suggestion at tacked him on either hand ; eluded him when he charged, and advanced again when he halted to take breath. And this persistent army of suggestion was led by that dogged master of tactics, General Why Not. And still another thought troubled him, and this was perhaps the most serious of all : What would the fellows say? In fancy he saw the looks, he heard the titters. He had been chaffed often enough for his forbearance, for choosing his own style of living : life under the new conditions would be simply intolerable. Of course one must know that there are such things as native women ; but one must never forget one's racial superiority.

Naturally he was heartily ashamed of his weakness. Yet the weakness was of such a quality that it afforded him a mysterious sense of delight — a delight to be shared only by himself, to be hugged in secret. He called himself some hateful names; he argued odiously from the standpoint of his own class. He tried to see the matter as it would be seen by the little world of the settlement. To be sure it was a contemptible little world, and at times he cordially des pised it ; but all the same it was of as much consequence to him as the greater world is to greater folk. He knew the ethics of the place, and he detested them. Yet there they stood in all their smug, hypocritical import ance ; a hateful Gesler's cap to which he must bend the knee, or suffer. And what, after all, was a native woman ?

Sentimentalists may rave ; but morality is a prerogative of the whites. Who among his friends would have hesitated to sacrifice the girl ? Not one — not one. He laughed rather excitedly as he lit a cigar. Then again he saw the mocking smile, the look of ridicule, and he blushed at his own weakness. But there was more good in him than even he suspected. When he saw her again the sweet warmth of her welcome quite discon certed him. Truly she was a woman, a woman in the first perfect flower of youth, yet with the heart and the intelligence of a child. He knew he had but to raise his finger and call her to him, and she was his, body and soul; but he could not do it, though the temptation was almost greater than he could bear. As well destroy the lily by the wayside and hope to gain pleasure from the triumph.

So, finding a curiously-satisfying delight in her prattle, he led her on to talk about herself, and for the first time he heard of her betrothal to Daidai. Then he suddenly grew hot with jealousy, then sickeningly cold and feeble — a feeling which not even her most fervent protestations could repress. Daidai was as the filth of the gutter, as the dogs of the street; the vermin that dwell in unspeakable places ! All this she said to him, her hands clasping his, her eyes straining up through the deepening shadows to catch the love glow in his. But he answered not, or but moodily, for he was much perplexed and knew not how to act. Yet the name of Daidai buzzed painfully in his ears, and he liked not the thought of losing her. Selfish to this degree was he, that he could have left her with her future shrouded in mystery, but he could not leave her to Daidai.

He knew too well what this betrothal meant. As surely as the sun rose on the appointed day, so surely would Sasa- San become the wife of the man her parents had chosen for her. These Orientals conduct their marriage market on sound business principles. The law is with them, and im memorial custom, and the child's doom is fixed once the parents have decided. Faith, daugh ters are troublesome enough in all conscience. A prospective son-in-law is a person to be clung to, and honoured. But after the momentary flush of jealousy he steadied himself somewhat, and tried calmly to look the situation in the face; but try as he would he could not bring a dispassionate mind to bear upon the subject. How could he while he felt her trembling fingers clutch him, while the appealing eyes looked up into his, while every nerve in his body hung trembling between the extremes of irresolution and determination?

On one side of him towered the pillar of self and cynicism, on the other courage and sacrifice, and like a pendulum he swung between the two, now touching one, now the other. Of the latter he was something more than half-ashamed; the former he detested. Yet there was infinite wisdom in one; infinite folly in the other. And again and again the old argument of Self, of Self before the world, sought to beat down his scruples, but with a harsh cry he flung it aside and strode away in the darkness.

Chapter III

A week passed and he went no more to the trysting-place. He meant to prove to his own satisfaction that he was not yet the slave of his passions. What others did was nothing to him. He had his own religion, and, he hoped, sufficient courage to ignore convention. The moral precepts which he had learnt as a boy still lingered in the heart of the man. The pure associations of his old Cornish home, where religion was a glorious truth, and goodness a reality, had not yet abandoned him ; though he had often ignored them, and at times had treated them in famously. Still with him was something of the old reverence of holy things, and he would not have the girl's soul upon his conscience. Her soul! He laughed cynically, for he had dwelt in strange places and had mixed »s with strange men. He laughed as he knew his friends would laugh.

The soul of a native woman ! Was ever a more preposterous theory advanced? Yet he grew heart-sick at the feebleness of his own argument, and could find no excuse for dastardly thought. He knew he was a fool. His own familiar fiend told him so a hundred times, and mocked at him and his pure chivalry; but as he also knew that he was doing God's work, he gagged the tempter and roughly flung him aside. But on the eighth day a letter was left at his office for him, and he read the pathetic scrawl with eyes that grew strangely dim and moist. " O my most honourable Lord, " it began, " the slave whom your most excellent con descension was pleased to call Plum-Blossom, is withering for the nourishing dew of your exalted smiles. Deign therefore, O my august Lord and Master, to turn the sunlight of your glance this way, so that your unworthy slave may see and live.

Come to me, O my Light, for the days are dark and weary beyond endurance, and my heart is heavy and full of grief. " Over and over again he read the words so full of pathos, yet seemingly impregnated with a spirit of hopeful resignation. The letter unnerved him. He had hoped she would forget ; had hoped she would let him forget. He had fought a great battle, he had gained a great victory. He had prided himself upon his moral stamina. Why had fate pressed him like this ? Then into his heart crept a great longing to see her once more. He would console her; would make things clear, and she would understand. She should see that their ways must he apart ; that to her through him there could come nothing but misery. There was a gulf between them which no sentiment could bridge. He was of the white race, she of the yellow, and God has set each within his sphere.

If she would be happy, or gain the happiness of her kind, she must marry Daidai. The thought stung; but he was a strong man, and bore it without flinching. He had taken the right path; nothing should make him swerve aside. The transport of her joy at seeing him was so great that for a long time he had not the courage to broach the real object of his visit. She was madly, deliriously happy, and he shared her happiness to an extent that made him waver. But the thing had to be, and he hardened himself for the task. As he spoke she watched him with eyes full of pathos and terror ; her face grew pale, so pale that but for the pitiful eyes, the fear ful gasping for breath, she might have been stricken dead. Then she began feebly to moan, as a child moans when it is in pain, yet can express itself with no words but sobs.

And still he spoke as though he heard not those sobs, felt not the awful pathos of those eyes, and pointed out, perchance with hesi tancy, which he thought was the better way. But she only moaned and clung to him more frantically, and with convulsive sobbing pressed her face against his breast. And over the orchard and the rice-fields stretched the great shadow of the mountain until it smote on their eyes and their hearts, and filled them with the sadness of death. And he saw, and seeing wavered. Then his soul grew strong with a sudden courage, and his eyes reflected the glory which was new born. Fiercely he crumpled her in his arms, and stooping down kissed her once, twice — a dozen times, full on the mouth, while every nerve of her thrilled with the new delightful madness. And the sun went down in a royal blaze of splendour, and Fuji, flushing with joy, shot his crest into the sky and smiled across the world.