Onoto Watanna

“ That laughter alone would have unstrung the nerves of one less cowardly than Madame Yamada. She prostrated herself to the very ground and touched his feet with her head.
“Most Exalted,” she said, “the humble one craves your august pardon and abjectly beseeches you to perceive her distress. That this wretched girl has abandoned you for a vile and horrible barbarian is not the fault of the humblest one, who sought with all her power to bring about her union with you.”
There was an odd quality in the responding voice of Matsuda. ”

“ What! Was the money of this Matsuda paying for the sacred garments of her child! Ah, how terribly blind must have been her husband to accept help from such a source. Her pride scorched her. She suddenly turned and walked swiftly into the house. In a moment, however, she returned, a lacquer box and the tiny garment upon which she had worked in her arms. She set the box at Matsuda’s feet.
“There,” she said, “is what is left of your evil money. Some of it I have already spent upon this garment. ”

“ He has only the instincts of a tradesman, and as such he comes here to buy the daughter of a samurai.”
“Your words are wise, Azalea,” said the step-mother, “and you win my maternal affection. Matsuda is not the fit husband for a warrior’s daughter. Yet, Azalea, bear in mind that Yuri, your sister, had for 65father one less elevated than a samurai—one, indeed, who was a mere tradesman. She is well fitted to be the wife of Matsuda Isami. Therefore, you can help or hinder this our ambition.”
“I will neither help nor hinder,” said Azalea, crossing the room, and looking through the shoji. ”

“ In some manner the girl must be sent away. Matsuda should then be told that she preferred the life of gayety in Tokyo to marriage with him. After that, Yuri-san, the oldest daughter, would console and win him. Azalea had always appeared passive 46and obedient by nature. This sudden impulse of stubbornness was as unexpected as it was disturbing to her step-mother. What if this slim young girl, with her childish face of innocence, should develop the strong will of her samurai parent? Madame Yamada smiled unpleasantly at the prospect, and her smile boded no good for the young girl. ”

“ Madame Yamada, left alone, grew repulsive in aspect. Her powdered face was white and long drawn. She had thrust her hands mechanically through her hair and it stood up from her head in stiff disorder. In the hope of securing Matsuda for her own daughter she had herself assisted in putting the girl she hated beyond her reach. Now she realized how utterly vain was this last hope. Her very action but brought upon her head the implacable enmity of 113the man himself, who she knew was not deceived in her. The gods alone knew to what extent he would carry his malicious vengeance upon her. ”

“ He is always expected.”
“You are a most estimable wife,” said Matsuda sneeringly. “Yet has it never occurred to you that your faithfulness is old-fashioned and fit only for a Japanese woman? You, the wife of a foreigner, should not entertain such feeling.”
“Is not faithfulness esteemed by all nations?” she asked quickly.
“No. The Westerners make light of its qualities. Have you not heard how many of these foreigners who marry in Japan leave their wives never to return?”
“My husband is different,” she said. ”

“ Just as a Caucasian child might shrink in fear at the thought of suddenly being taken from his safe little cot and transplanted among the savage tribes of Africa, so the little Japanese girl dreaded the thought of life in the questionable and unknown land of America. ”

“ The indifferent silence of the girl was not encouraging, and the Summer sun was very hot and uncomfortable upon his back. However, he was not to be conquered by a woman’s unnatural silence and the heat of the Lord of Day.
“I perceive, Madame Azalea,” he continued, “that the gods have been good to you. You have a child.” ”

“ Suddenly Madame Yamada flung the girl’s arm from her.
“Did my touch hurt, then?” she inquired.
“Yes,” said Azalea briefly, her arm still sore, though released.
50“Yet,” said her step-mother, “the pain inflicted by a woman, who is weak, is nothing to that inflicted by a man. What will you do when your husband beats you?”
“I do not know,” said Azalea mechanically, and then added slowly, “but I should not weep, mother-in-law. I would not give him that pleasure. But—” she paused; “all husbands do not beat their wives. Perhaps the gods will favor me with a kind one. ”

“ Physical strength crept back into her wasted body, bringing health, too, to her bewildered mind. Memory—burning, invincible, 187accusing—awoke, told her that she was about to become a thing more outcast than ever, because she would be guilty of that sin the most unpardonable of any a woman of his (her husband’s) people could commit. She could not delude herself with the fancy that she would be the wife of Matsuda Isami, whatever the law might be, for she had pledged an eternal faith to her true husband and the child was the connecting link between them. ”

“ Such employment is not for one of gentle birth. You shall go to Tokyo.”
“What shall I do there?” inquired the girl.
“You have beauty and youth,” said Madame Yamada slowly.
The girl moved uneasily and then catching sight of the expression upon her 44mother’s face, she made as if to arise; but the other held her by the sleeve.
“Why do you start so?” she inquired gruffly. “Do you suppose I referred to the yoshiwara?”
“Yes,” said Azalea, white to the lips. Her voice became passionate. “I will not go, then,” she said. “You shall not sell me. I am the daughter of a samurai.” ”

“ Madame Yamada’s lips fell apart.
“What do you mean?” she inquired roughly.
“That’s right—right!” cried the girl, 92clasping her hands excitedly. “Oh, I am the happiest girl in all Japan!”
Her step-mother extended a long finger and struck it at the girl’s breast.
“What! The foreign devil wants to marry you?”
Madame Yamada was excited, agitated, above all delighted. The gods were favoring her. Here was a solution to all their difficulties. ”

“ The small inland towns of Japan have few industries offering employment to women. Azalea was further hampered by the white child she bore upon her back and the ignominy of her religion, for in some way her history had followed her from town to town. Neither her beauty nor her youth were of avail to her now to earn the pity of those who feared the gods too much to refuse alms to a beggar. The wife of the 170foreign devil was an outcast of the gods, a pariah, a thing accursed. What respectable Japanese would lend aid to one who had wilfully destroyed the tablets of her ancestors? ”

“ By day all Nature was beautiful, but at night the starry skies were cold and chilling. The earth, too, lost its warmth and shivered as if in anticipation of the coming winter.
On a certain night in the month of October, a woman, with a baby on her back, made her weary way through the village of Sanyo. One could see even in the dim light that she was haggard and hollow-eyed. Her small hands, which ever and anon crept nervously toward the little head 169against her neck, were tragically thin. For almost two months Azalea, the wife of the white priest, had been a common mendicant. ”

“ Her friends laughed at her, and she blushed.
“Yes,” she said, “I am avaricious. The gods will despise me truly. I adore money. I would like to have one hundred yen all to myself.”
“What would you do with it?” questioned Ume, the oldest of the four.
“I would leave my step-mother’s house,” said Azalea simply.
15“Here they come!” cried Koto. The girls fell into an excited little line by the church door, one behind the other. Out came the choir—their surplices doffed, their washed faces wide with smiles and their little eyes shining. Five sen rattled in the sleeve of each. ”

“ He changed his tone.
“Madame Azalea, it is well known that 157you are deserted by the barbarian. No one pities you, because it is alleged you insulted your ancestors for the sake of this beast. Now you have become an outcast. Even the beggars will not ask you for charity. Yet I—I, Matsuda Isami, whom you have named ‘dog,’ have compassion upon you.” ”

“ The girl beneath her hands did not stir, nor did she deign to turn her head to where the woman pointed. The shorter sword of the samurai was set close to the patch. It was covered with a white cloth—the cloth of honorable death. The woman had provided the wife of the white priest with a means of escape. Yet she had judged wrongly. Azalea was not merely the 219daughter of samurai. She was the wife of a Christian. Life could not be taken so easily as the woman supposed. The code of the samurai pointed out that death was better than dishonor. The new religion said nothing on this matter. ”

“ You will turn convert?”
“I am already. I wish already to be so,” said the girl simply.
An idea flashed swiftly across the mind of Madame Yamada—a brilliant idea.
“Good!” she said. “It is well for a maiden to be of the same religion as the man she marries. But do not let it be 95known till the ceremony is over. Then throw away your ancestral tablets. You will have no further use for them.”
Azalea paled a trifle. She was not ignorant of the effect of such an action. One who renounces the tablets of his ancestor she knew is in popular opinion forever lowered. ”

“ Matsuda pushed open the shoji door. The house and furniture were his. He would enter when he pleased.
She was standing behind the shoji, as though awaiting his coming. Her baby was strapped to her back and she held something clasped close to her heart. It was a large black book. Matsuda recognized it. She spoke in unfaltering accents.
“Pray you walk in, Matsuda Isami. The 161furniture is waiting to be taken. Truly an empty house will be of more comfort than one dressed in what belongs to you.” ”

“ Meanwhile Azalea continued to look out dreamily through the opened shoji toward the hill, upon whose slope stood the little peaked mission house. The words of the minister kept repeating themselves in her head.
“There is only one true God. He it 47was who created the world—and you. He loves you, and will watch over and care for you always.” ”

“ One might attend the church meetings of the Kirishitans, one might even affiliate with the foreigners; but it is only when one has openly declared oneself for the new religion and, in defiance of the old, destroyed the sacred symbols, the ancestral tablets, that one becomes an outcast. ”

“ Why, what would a little girl like you do all alone with a wee baby and no husband to care for both of you.”
She struck her hands passionately together.
“Tha’s why!” she said. “Jus’ why I doan want go. I am ’fraid for that liddle bit bebby.”
Argument and persuasion seemed useless at this time, for Azalea could neither understand 121the one, nor would she yield to the other. Even when Richard Verley returned from Tokyo, where he had found money cabled for two passages by his missionary society, Azalea would not consider the journey. ”

“ Azalea’s fan fluttered closed. She bowed her head upon it.
“Excellency is very faithful.”
“Once,” said Matsuda, looking at her with half closed eyes, “your august samurai father deigned to call me ‘Dog.’ You will learn, maiden, that I shall prove my title to ‘Dog’ by my watchfulness and faithfulness. I have sworn to possess you, and possess you I will.”
64The moment he was gone Azalea turned toward her step-mother, upon whose countenance a look of sweetest benevolence toward her step-daughter was slowly appearing.
“Mother-in-law,” said the girl, “you need not fear that I will marry him. ”

“ All the joyful searching with her husband as teacher in the books of his people had failed to cure her of this innate sense of fear of the foreigner, a fear inculcated since childhood, when she had listened to the weird and horrible tales of an old grandfather who had once lived in one of the open ports and 117whose imagination was livelier than his memory. ”

“ Sometimes a baby, grown restless, laughed and crowed aloud.
On this particular Sunday, however, the 8minister, who appeared unusually happy, had introduced an innovation. As its nature had been whispered about the village, the service in consequence was well attended. Behind the minister’s small sandal-wood pulpit a bench had been placed, upon which the people saw seated five of the most disreputable waifs of the town. At first they were hardly recognizable. From smudgy-faced, soiled and tattered bits of flotsam, they were transformed in garments of white—miniature surplices they were. ”

“ She turned away from Gonji and he resumed his way down the hill.
Azalea walked listlessly back to the mission house. When she had reached it, she paused irresolute. A sudden idea had come to her. Why should she not pretend to be converted? When the barbarian priest had paid her she would go to the shrine of 24Kwannon and confess her lie. She would give half of the money to the gods, who would forgive her; she was hungry and ill-treated and she wished to leave the home of her step-mother, who was cruel to her. If money could be earned by a little lie, why should she not earn it? ”

“ Sometimes a peasant or farmer, knowing nothing of her history, would give her shelter and food at night, but when the morning light revealed the blue-eyed babe upon her back, they turned her superstitiously away. ”