Asano

“ Kira, who was a coward at heart, concealed himself in an outhouse. The ronins found him there, drew him forth, and requested him to kill himself by hara-kiri, as was the privilege of a man of his rank. But he refused out of fear, and the retainers of Asano were forced to kill him as they would have killed a common coolie. Thus did they accomplish their purpose and fulfil the high duty of loyalty to their dead lord, after two years of waiting, most careful planning, and ceaseless vigilance. ”

“ He will not lose his time in taking a nap, but busy himself arranging the flower vines; and his brain will not suffer from the heat if he wear a large hat—on the contrary it will feel better. I have seen many cases of asagao cultivation curing brain illness. And it represents the true spirit of Japanese democracy; it is such an aristocratic flower, like the chrysanthemum. A peer and a heimin will equally enjoy it: at the Himpivokwai (asagao show) people of every station have equal freedom and enjoyment. ”

“ He would tease her about a supposed fondness for rice, for chop-sticks, for paper umbrellas and jiujitsu. She liked him to tease her, just as a child likes to be teased, while all the time on the verge of tears. With Asako, tears and laughter were never far apart.
"Why do you tease me because I am Japanese?" she would sob; "besides,
I'm not really. I can't help it. I can't help it!"
"But, sweetheart," her Captain Geoffrey would say, suddenly ashamed of his elephantine humour, "there's nothing to cry about. I would be proud to be a Japanese. They are jolly brave people. ”

“ She is the plain white paper; let him take his brush and write on it what he will. Asa San is a very sweet girl. She is very easy to manage. She has a beautiful disposition. She does not tell lies without reason. She does not wish to make strange friends. I do not think you will have trouble with her."
"He talks about her rather as if she were a horse," thought Geoffrey.
Murata went on,—
"The Japanese woman is the ivy which clings to the tree. She does not wish to disobey."
"You think Asako is still very Japanese, then?" asked Geoffrey. ”

“ Or some, who are very strong, live until their contract is finished. Then they go back to the country, and marry there and spread disease. But they all die cursing the Fujinami, who have made money out of their sorrow and pain. I think this garden is full of their ghosts, and their curses beat upon the house, like the wind when it makes the shutters rattle!"
"How do you know all these terrible things?" asked Asako.
"It is written in your father's book. I will read it to you. If you do not believe, ask Ito San. He will tell you it is true." ”

“ 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. ”

“ For Aasa, his only child, was like another being in the presence of this stranger; all that weird, forest-like intensity, that wild, half supernatural tinge in her character which in a measure excluded her from the blissful feeling of fellowship with other men, and made her the strange, lonely creature she was,—all this seemed to vanish as dew in the morning sun when Vigfusson’s eyes rested upon her; and with every day that passed, her human and womanly nature gained a stronger hold upon her. ”

“ And Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, "Lord, there is none beside thee to help, between the mighty and him that hath no strength: help us, O Lord our God; for we rely on thee, and in thy name are we come against this multitude. O Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee."
So the Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled. And Asa and the people that were with him pursued them unto Gerar: and there fell of the Ethiopians so many that they could not recover themselves; for they were destroyed before the Lord, and before his host ”

“ In the year 1701 an occurrence took place which terminated in a tragedy, and has ever since been one of the national tales of revenge, which, though it was confined to a few individuals, has conferred on them immortality, and the admiration of their countrymen as heroes. Assano, a Daimio from Ako, in the province of Harima, while within the precincts of the Shiogoon’s palace, was insulted by a Kokay of the name of Kira, when a quarrel and scuffle took place, during which Assano drew his sword. ”

“ So he rambled on in the fashion of servants all the world over, until Asako knew all the ramifications of her relatives, legitimate and illegitimate.
She gathered that the men had all left Tokyo during the hot season, and that only the women were left in the house. This encouraged her to descend from her eyrie, and to endeavour to take up her position in her family, which was beginning to appear the less reassuring the more she learned about its history.
The life of a Japanese lady of quality is peculiarly tedious. ”

“ Asako was deeply moved. In England we love our dead; but we consign them to the care of nature, to the change of the seasons, and the cold promiscuity of the graveyard. The Japanese dead never seem to leave the shelter of their home or the circle of their family. We bring to our dear ones flowers and prayers; but the Japanese give them food and wine, and surround them with every-day talk. The companionship is closer. We chatter much about immortality. We believe, many of us, in some undying particle. ”

“ So it was that as O Sanna San looked out one snowy morning she saw her father coming over the snow with a sleigh, which was like a little house on runners, with a roof, a window and a door. Her mother told her it was to take her to the hospital to see if she could be made well again.
Then they wrapped O Sanna San warm, and laid her in the sleigh, and her father put the ropes from the runners over his shoulders, took the pole in his hand, and away they went. In many places in Japan when one travels one must be either pulled or pushed by a man. ”

“ From early dawn until evening she would roam about in forests and fields, and when late at night she stole into the room and slipped away into some corner, Lage drew a deep sigh and thought of the old tradition.
Aasa was nineteen years old before she had a single wooer. But when she was least expecting it, the wooer came to her.
It was late one summer night; the young maiden was sitting on the brink of the ravine, pondering on the old legend and peering down into the deep below. It was not the first time she had found her way hither, where but seldom a human foot had dared to tread. ”

“ Asako gradually accustomed herself to the noises of the house. First, there was the clattering of the amado, the wooden shutters whose removal announced the beginning of the day, then the gurgling and the expectorations which accompanied the family ablutions, then the harsh sound of the men's voices and their rattling laughter, the sound of their geta on the gravel paths of the garden like the tedious dropping of heavy rain on an iron roof, then the flicking and dusting of the maids as they went about their daily soji (house-cleaning) , their shrill mouselike chirps and their silly giggle ”

“ Asako was glad on the whole that she had no visitors. The Fujinami were busy with their New Year preparations. Christmas Day passed by, unheeded by the Japanese, though the personality and appearance of Santa Claus are not unknown to them. He stands in the big shop windows in Tokyo as in London, with his red cloak, his long white beard and his sack full of toys. Sometimes he is to be seen chatting with Buddhist deities, with the hammer-bearing Daikoku, with Ebisu the fisherman, with fat naked Hotei, and with Benten, the fair but frail. ”

“ Next evening, when Asako had spread the two quilts on the golden matting, when she had lit the rushlight in the square andon, when the two girls were lying side by side under the heavy wadded bedclothes, Sadako said to her cousin:
"Asa Chan, I do not think you like me now as much as you used to like me."
"I always like people when I have once liked them," said Asako; "but everything is different now."
"I see, your heart changes quickly," said her cousin bitterly.
"No, I have tried to change, but I cannot change. I have tried to become Japanese, but I cannot even learn the Japanese language. ”

“ Masses were said for the dead; and Asako was introduced to the tablet. But she did not feel the same emotion as when she first visited the Fujinami house. Now, she had heard her father's authentic voice. She knew his scorn for pretentiousness of all kinds, for false conventions, for false emotions, his hatred of priestcraft, his condemnation of the family wealth, and his contempt for the little respectabilities of Japanese life.
* * * * *
A temple in Japan is not merely a building; it is a site. ”

“ She remembered the little temple outside the Yoshiwara on the day she
had gone to see the procession.
"Do you say prayers there?" she asked her companion.
"No, I do not," answered the Japanese, "but the servants light the lamp every evening; and we believe it makes the house lucky. We Japanese are very superstitious. Besides, it looks pretty in the garden."
"I don't like the foxes' faces," said Asako, "they look bad creatures."
"They are bad creatures," was the reply, "nobody likes to see a fox; they fool people." ”

“ If only the real Asako had been with him instead of this enigmatic and disquieting image of her!
The Japanese, who have an innate love for natural beauty, never fail to mark an exceptional view with a little bench or shelter for travelers, whence they can obtain the best perspective. If sight-seers frequent the spot in any number, there will be an old dame en guérite with her picture post-cards and her Ebisu Beer, her "Champagne Cider," her sembei (round and salted biscuits) and her tale of the local legend. ”

“ Twelve hundred years ago a Chinese historian stated that "on the [v] eastern frontier of the land of Japan there is a barrier of great mountains, beyond which is the land of the Hairy Men." These were the Aino, so named from the word in their own language signifying "man." Over most of the country of these rude and helpless indigenes the Japanese have long since spread, only a dwindling remnant of them still inhabiting the island of Yezo. ”

“ The new life appealed to Asako's love of novelty, and the strangeness of it to her child's love of make-believe. The summoning of her parents' spirits awakened in her the desire for a home, which lurks in every one of us; the love of old family things around us, the sense of an inheritance and a tradition. She was tired of hotel life; and she turned for relaxation to playing at Japan with cousin Sadako, just as her husband turned to tennis. ”

“ For those who prefer to enjoy the azaleas in their wilder state, there are many places where they can wander undisturbed and inhale their scent which comes wafted on the breeze. I am thinking now of Kasuga Park at Nara, where great stretches of Azalea sinensis form a brilliant foreground for the wistaria-laden trees. Nature seems to have arranged a veritable picture, almost too beautiful to be real. These gorgeous blossoms shade from delicate yellows and pale pink, through to the brightest orange and flame colour, growing as the woodland scrub. ”

“ The house-master was a friendly man, and much attached to the Ainos. If other officials entrusted with Aino concerns treat the Ainos as fraternally as those of Usu and Lebunge, there is not much to lament. This man also gave them a high character for honesty and harmlessness, and asked if they might come and see me before I left; so twenty men, mostly carrying very pretty children, came into the yard with the horses. They had never seen a foreigner, but, either from apathy or politeness, they neither stare nor press upon one as the Japanese do, and always make a courteous recognition. ”

“ As I examined the Kamo-asi, the three-leaved Asarum, which is the crest of the Shoguns, I was rejoiced to think that I had acquired things that bore that mark—and there in the place of honour in the great temple is a beautiful silken cover with the Tokugawa crest, presented by the Emperor—and I have its counterpart. The crest of the Mikado is, of course, the sixteen-leaved chrysanthemum. Shiba, Ueno, Asakusa, Kwannon—who does not know them now? Ueno—called Kimon, or “the Devil’s Gate,” so famous for its cherry blossom, is regarded as the most unlucky of the whole world. ”

“ The pilgrim or traveler who mounts to the walls of the castle of Kumamoto and looks eastward over the green and gardened city and over the rich plain bordering the bay of Shimabara, off to the mountains that form the backbone of the island, sees the massive, sacred, god-mountain Aso above a long blue chain. ”

“ Asolando is, however, in the main distinctly an autumn gathering, a handful of flowers and fruit belonging to the Indian summer of his genius. The Prologue is a confession, like that of Wordsworth's great Ode, that a glory has passed away from the earth. When first he set eyes on Asolo, some fifty years previously, the splendour of Italian landscape seemed that of
Terror with beauty, like the Bush
Burning yet unconsumed
Now, while the beauty remains, the flame is extinct—"the Bush is bare." ”