The Dragon Painter/Chapter 4
IV
The pebbles of the garden were slippery and cold under the feet that pressed them. Also they hurt a little. Umè longed to return for her straw sandals, but this freedom of the night was already far too precious for jeopardy. She caught her robe about her throat and was glad of the silken shawl of her long hair. How thickly shone the stars! It must be close upon the hour of their waning, yet how big and soft; and how companionable! She stretched her arms up to them, moving as if they drew her down the path. They were more real, indeed, than the dim and preternatural space in which she walked.
She looked slowly about upon that which should have been commonplace and found the outlines alone to be unaltered. There were the hillock, the house, the thick hedge-lines square at the corners with black bars hard as wood against the purple night; there were the winding paths and little courts of open gravel. She could have put her hand out, saying, "Here, on this point, should be the tall stone lantern; here, in this sheltered curve, a fern." Both lantern and fern would have been in place; and yet, despite these evidences of the usual, all that once made the sunlit garden space an individual spot, was, in this dim, ghostly air, transformed. The spirit of the whole had taken on weird meaning. It was as if Mata's face looked suddenly upon her with the old abbot's eyes. Fantastic possibilities crouched, ready to spring from every shadow. The low shrubs held themselves in attitudes of flight. This was a world in which she had no part. She knew herself a paradox, the violator of a mood; but the enchantment held her.
She had reached now the edge of the pond. It was a surface of polished lacquer, darker than the night, and powdered thick with the gold of reflected stars. Leaning over, she marvelled at the silhouette of her own slim figure. It did not seem to have an actual place among these frail phantasmagoria. As she stared on she noticed that the end of the pond farthest from her, to the west, quivered and turned gray. She looked quickly upward and around. Yes, there to the east was the answering blur of light. Dawn had begun.
She ran now to the top of the moon-viewing hill. The earth was wider here; the dawn more at home. Below her where the city used to be was no city, only a white fog-sea, without an island. The cliff, black at the base, rising gradually into thinner gray, drove through the air like the edge of a coming world. A chill breeze swept out from the hollow, breathing of waking grasses and of dew. The girl shivered, but it was with ecstacy. "I climb this hillside for my couch, to-night!" Was he too waking, watching, feeling himself intruder upon a soundless ritual? There was a hissing noise as of a fawn hurrying down a tangled slope. The hedge near the cliff end of the garden dipped and squeaked and shook indignant plumes after a figure that had desecrated its green guardianship, and was now striding ruthlessly across the enclosure.
Umè heard and saw; then wrung her hands in terror. It was he, of course,—the Dragon Painter; and he would speak with her. What could she do? Family honor must be maintained, and so she could not cry for help. Why had her heart tormented her to go into the night? Why had she not thought of this possibility? Because of it, life, happiness, everything might be wrecked, even before they had dared to think of happiness by name!
Tatsu had reached her. Leaning close he set his eyes to her face as one who drinks deep and silently.
"I must not remain. Oh, sir, let me pass!" she whispered.
He did not speak or try to touch her. A second gust of wind came from the cliff, blowing against his hand a long tress of her hair. It was warm and perfumed, and had the clinging tenderness of youth. He shivered now, as she was doing, and stood looking down at his hand. Umè made a swift motion as if to pass him; but he threw out the barrier of an arm.
"I have been calling you all the night. Now, at last, you have come. Why did you never answer me upon the mountains?"
"Indeed, I could not. I was not permitted. As you must see for yourself, lord, in this incarnation I am but a mortal maiden."
"I do not see it for myself," said Tatsu, with a low, triumphant laugh. "I see something different!" Suddenly he reached forward, caught the long ends of her hair and held them out to left and right, the full width of his arms. They stood for a moment in intense silence, gazing each into the face of the other. The rim of the dawn behind them cut, with its flat, gold disc, straight down to the heart of the world. "You a mortal!" said the boy again, exultantly. "Why, even now, your face is the white breast of a great sea-bird, your hair, its shining wings, and your soul a message that the gods have sent to me! Oh, I know you for what you are,—my Dragon Maid, my bride! Have I not sought you all these years, tracing your face on rocks and sand-beds of my hills, hanging my prayers to every blossoming tree? Come, you are mine at last; here is your master! We will escape together while the stupid old ones sleep! Come, soul of my soul, to our mountains!"
He would have seized her, but a quick, passionate gesture of repulsion kept him back. "I am the child of Kano Indara," she said. "He, too, has power of the gods, and I obey him. Oh, sir, believe that you, as I, are subject to his will, for if you set yourself against him—"
"Kano Indara concerns me not at all," cried Tatsu, half angrily. "It is with you,—with you alone, I speak!"
Umè poised at the very tip of the hill. "Look, sir,—the plum tree," she whispered, pointing. So sudden was the change in voice and manner that the other tripped and was caught by it. "That longest, leafy branch touches the very wall of my room," she went on, creeping always a little down the hill. "If you again will write such things to me, trusting your missive to that branch, I shall receive it, and—will answer. Oh, it is a bold, unheard-of thing for a girl to do, but I shall answer."
"I should like better that you meet me here each morning at this hour," said Tatsu.
The girl looked about her swiftly, gave a little cry, and clasped her hands together. "See, lord, the day comes fast. Mata, my old nurse, may already be astir. I saw a flock of sparrows fly down suddenly to the kitchen door. And there, above us, on the great camphor tree, the sun has smitten with a fist of gold!"
Tatsu gazed up, and when his eyes returned to earth he found himself companionless. He threw himself down, a miserable heap, clasping his knees upon the hill. No longer was the rosy dawn for him. He found no timid beauty in the encroaching day. His sullen look fastened itself upon the amado beneath the plum tree. The panels were now tightly closed. The house itself, soundless and gray in the fast brightening space, mocked him with impassivity.
A little later, when the neighborhood reverberated to the slamming of amado and the sharp rattle of paper dusters against taut shoji panes; when fragrant faggot smoke went up from every cottage, and the street cries of itinerant venders signalled domestic buying for the day, Mata discovered the wild man in the garden, and roused her sleeping master with the news. She went, too, to Umè's room, and was reassured to see the girl apparently in slumber within a neat bed, the andon burning temperately in its corner, and the whole place eloquent of innocence and peace.
Kano shivered himself into his day clothes (the process was not long), and hurried out to meet his guest.
"O Haiyo gozaimasu!" he called. "You have found a good spot from which to view the dawn."
"Good morning!" said Tatsu, looking about as if to escape.
"Come, enter my humble house with me, young sir. Breakfast will soon be served."
Tatsu rose instantly, though the gesture was far from giving an effect of acquiescence. He shook his cramped limbs with as little ceremony as if Kano were a shrub, and then turned, with the evident intention of flight. Suddenly the instinct of hunger claimed him. Breakfast! That had a pleasant sound. And where else was he to go for food! He wheeled around to his waiting host. "I thank you. I will enter!" he said, and attempted an archaic bow.
Mata brought in to them, immediately, hot tea and a small dish of pickled plums. Kano drew a sigh of relief as he saw Tatsu take up a plum, and then accept, from the servant's hands, a cup of steaming tea. These things promised well for future docility.
It could not be said that the meal was convivial. Umè-ko had received orders from her father not to appear. Tatsu's eyes, even as he ate, roamed ever along the corridors of the house, out to the garden, and pried at the closed edges of the fusuma. This restlessness brought to the host new apprehension. Such tension could not last. Tatsu must be enticed from the house.
After some hesitation and a spasmodic clearing of the throat, the old man asked, "Will you accompany me, young sir, upon a short walk to the city?"
"Why should I go to the city?"
"Ah—er—domo! it is, as you know, the centre of the universe, and has many wonderful sights,—great temples, theatres, wide shops for selling clothes—"
"I care nothing for these things."
"There are gardens, too; and a broad, shining river. Shall we not go to the autumn flowering garden of the Hundred Corners?"
"To such a place as that I would go alone,—or with her," said the boy, his disconcerting gaze fixed on the other's face. "When is the Dragon Maiden to appear?"
Kano looked down upon the matting. He cleared his throat again, drained a fresh cup of tea, and answered slowly, "Since she and I are of the city,—not the mountains,—and must abide in some degree by the city's social laws, you will not see her any more at all, unless it be arranged that you become her husband."
"And then,—if I become what you say,—how soon?" the other panted.
"I shall need to speak with the women of my house concerning this," said Kano in a troubled voice. He too, though Tatsu must not dream it, chafed at convention. He longed to set the marriage for next week,—next day, indeed,—and have the waiting over. Kano hated, of all things, to wait. Something might befall this untrained citizen at any hour,—then where would the future of the Kano name be found?
He had scarcely noted how the boy crouched and quivered in his place, as an animal about to spring. This indecision was a goad, a barb. Yet he was helpless! The memory of Umè's whispered words came back: "He, too, has power of the gods. … Believe, sir, that you, as I, are subject to his will." How could it be permitted of the gods that two beings like themselves,—fledged of divinity, touched with ethereal fire,—were under bondage to this wrinkled fox!
Tatsu flung himself sidewise upon the floor, and made as if to rise; then, in a dull reaction, settled back into his place. "You say she is not to come before me in this house to-day?"
"No, nor on other days, until your marriage."
"Then I go forth into the city,—alone," said the boy. He rose, but Kano stopped him.
"Wait! I shall accompany you, if but a little way. You do not know the roads. You will be lost!"
"I could return to this place from the under-rim of the world," said Tatsu. "Bound, crippled, blindfold,—I should come straight to it."
"Maybe, maybe," said Kano, "nevertheless I will go."
Tatsu would have defied him, outright, but Umè's words remained with him. Nothing mattered, after all, if he was some day to gain her. He must be patient, put a curb upon his moods! This was a fearful task for one like him, but he would strive for self-control just as one throws down a tree to bridge a torrent. After the Dragon Maid was won,—well then,—this halting insect man need not trouble them. They left the house together, Tatsu in scowling silence at the unwelcomed comradeship, Kano hard put to it to match his steps with the boy's long, swinging mountain stride.
"What am I to do with this wild falcon for a month?" thought Kano, half in despair, yet smiling, also, at the humor. "He must be clothed,—but how? I would sooner sheathe a mountain cat in silks! The one hope of existence during this interval is to get him engrossed in painting; but where is he to paint? I dare not keep him in the house with Umè, nor with old Mata, neither, for she might poison him. If only Ando Uchida had not gone away, leaving no address!"
Meantime, in the Kano home, Mata and Umè moved about in different planes of consciousness. The elder was still irritated by the morning's event. She considered it a personal indignity, a family outrage, that her master should walk the streets of Yeddo with a vagabond possessing neither hat nor shoes, and only half a kimono.
Each tended, as usual, her allotted household tasks. There was no change in the outer performance of the hours, but Mata remained alert, disturbed, and the girl tranquilly oblivious. The old face searching with keen eyes the young noted with troubled frown the frequent smile, the intervals of listless dreaming, the sudden starts, as by the prick of memory still new, and dipped in honey. There seemed to be in Umè-ko a gentle yearning for a human presence, though, to speak truly, Mata could not be certain that she was either heard or seen for fully one half of the time. The hour had almost reached the shadowless one of noon. Umè-ko's work was done. She had taken up her painting, only to put it listlessly to one side. The pretty embroidery frame met the same indignity. She sat now on the kitchen ledge, while Mata made the fire and washed the rice, toying idly with a white pebble chosen for its beauty from thousands on the garden path. Something in the childlike attitude, the placid, irresponsible face, brought the old servant's impatience to a climax. She deliberately hurled a dart.
"I suppose you know, Miss Umè, that your father may actually adopt this goblin from Kiu Shiu!"
"Ah, do you mean Sir Tatsu? Yes, I know. He, my father, has always longed to have a son."
"A son is desirable when the price is not too great," said the old dame, nodding sagely. "You are old enough to realize also, Miss Kano Umè-ko, what is the meaning of adoption into a family where there is a daughter of marriageable age."
Umè's face drooped over until the pebble caught a rosy glow. The old servant chuckled. "Eh, young mistress, you know what I mean? You are thinking of it?"
"I am trying very hard not to think of it," said Umè.
"Ma-a-a! And I have little wonder for that fact! Your father will sacrifice you without a tear,—he cares but for pictures. And Mata is helpless,—Mata cannot help her babe! Arà! It is a world of dust!"
"How old was my mother when she came here, Mata?"
"Just eighteen. Younger than you are now, my treasure."
"She was both beautiful and happy, you have said."
"Yes, both, both! Ah, how time speeds for the old. It seems but a short year or more that we two entered here together, she and I. From childhood I had nursed her. I thought your father old for her, in spite of his young heart and increasing fame. But he loved her truly, and has mourned for her. Even now he prays thrice daily before her ihai on the shrine. And she loved him,—almost too deeply for a woman of her class. She loved him, and was happy!"
"Only one year!" sighed Umè. "But it must be a great thing to be happy even for one year. Some people are not happy ever at all."
"One must not think of personal happiness,—it is wicked. Does not even your old mumbling abbot on the hill tell you so much? And now, of all times, do not start the dreaming. You will be sacrificed to art," said Mata, gloomily.
"Do I look like my mother, Mata San?"
The old dame wiped her eyes on her sleeve that she might see more clearly. Something in the girl's pure, upraised face caught at her heart, and the tears came afresh. "Wait," she whispered; "stay where you are, and you shall see your mother's face." She went into her tiny chamber, and from her treasures brought out a metal mirror given her by the young wife, Uta-ko. "Look,—close," she said, placing it in Umè's hand. "That is the bride of nineteen years ago. Never have you looked so like her as at this hour!"
Kano came back alone,—tired, dusty, and discouraged. Tatsu had escaped him, he said, at the first glimpse of the Sumida River. There was no telling when he might return,—whether he would ever return. To attempt control of Tatsu was like caging a storm in bamboo bars. Mata's eyes narrowed at this recital. "Yet I fervently thank the gods for him," said the speaker, sharply, in defiance of her look.
Restored to comparative serenity, Kano, later in the afternoon, sent for his daughter, and condescended to unfold to her those plans in which she played a vital part.
"Umè-ko, my child, you have always been a good and obedient daughter. I shall expect no opposition from you now," he began, in the manner of a patriarch.
Umè bowed respectfully. "Thank you, dear father. What has arisen that you think I may wish to oppose?"
"I did not say that I expected you to oppose anything. I said, on the contrary, it was something I expected you not to oppose."
"I await respectfully the words which shall tell me what it is I am not to oppose," said Umè-ko, quite innocently, with another bow. Kano put on his horn-rimmed spectacles. There was something about his daughter not altogether reassuring. His prearranged sentences began to slip away, like sand.
"I will speak briefly. I wish you to become the wife of the Dragon Painter, that we may secure him to the race of Kano. He has no name of his own. He is the greatest painter since Sesshu!" The speaker waved his hands. All had been said.
In the deep, following silence each knew that old Mata's ear felt, like a hand, at the crevice of the shoji.
"Father, are you sure,—have you yet spoken to—to—him," Umè-ko faltered at last. "Would he augustly condescend?"
"Condescend!" echoed the old man with a laugh. "Why, he demanded it last night, even in the first hour of meeting. He was angered that I did not give you up at once. He says you are his already. Oh, he is strange and wild, this youth. There are no reins to hold him, but—he is a painter!"
A grunt of derision came from the kitchen wall. Umè sat motionless, but her face was growing very pale.
"Well," said her father with impatience, "do you agree? And what is the earliest possible date?"
"I must consult with Mata," whispered the girl.
"She listens at the crack. Consult her now," said Kano.
The old dame threw aside the shoji like an armor, and walked in. "Yes, ask me what I think! Ask the old servant who has nursed Miss Umè from her birth, managed the house, scrubbed, haggled, washed, and broken her old bones for you! This is my advice,—freely given,—make of the youth her jinrikisha man, but not her husband!"
"Impertinent old witch!" cried Kano. "You are asked for nothing but the earliest possible date for the marriage!"
"Do you give yourself so tamely to a dangerous wild creature from the hills?" Mata demanded of the girl.
"Yes, yes, she'll marry him," said Kano, before her words could come. "The date,—the earliest possible hour! Will two weeks be too soon?"
"Two weeks!" shrieked the old dame, and staggered backward. "Is it of the scavenger's daughter that you speak?"
"Four weeks, then,—a month. It cannot be more. I tell you, woman, for a longer time than this I cannot keep the youth at bay. Is a month decent in convention's eyes?"
Mata began to sob loudly in her upraised sleeve.
"I see that it is at least permissible," said Kano, grimly. "What a weak set of social idiots we are, after all. Tatsu is right to scorn us! Well, well, a month from this date, deep in the golden heart of autumn, will the wedding be."
"If the day be propitious and the stars in harmony," supplemented Mata. "She shall not be married in the teeth of evil fortune, if I have to murder the Dragon Painter with my fish-knife!"
"Oh, go; have the stars arranged to suit you. Here's money for it!" He fumbled in his belt for a purse of coin, threw it to the mats, and, over the old dame's stooping back, motioned Umè-ko permission to withdraw. The girl went swiftly, thankful for the release.
"A good child,—a daughter to thank the gods for," chuckled Kano, as she left.
Mata looked sharply about, then leaned to her master's ear. "You are blind; you are an earth-rat, Kano Indara. This is not the usual submission of a silly girl. Umè is thinking things we know nothing of. Did you not see that her face was as a bean-curd in its whiteness? She kept so still, only because she was shaking in all directions at once. There, look at her now! She is fleeing to the garden with the uncertain step of one drunk with deep foreboding!"
"Bah! you are an old raven croaking in a fog! Go back to your pots. I can manage my own child!"
"You have never yet managed her or yourself either," was the spoiled old servant's parting shaft.
Kano sat watching the slender, errant figure in the garden. Yes, she had taken it calmly,—more calmly than he could have hoped. How beautiful was the poise, even at this distance, of the delicate throat, and the head, with its wide crown of inky hair! Each motion of the slow-strolling form in its clinging robes was a separate loveliness.
Kano drew a long sigh. He could not blind himself to Tatsu's savagery. This was not the sort of husband that Umè had a right to expect from her father's choice,—a youth not only penniless, and without family name, but in himself unusual, strange, with look, voice, gesture, coloring each a clear contrast to the men that Umè-ko had seen. He could not bear the thought of her unhappiness, and yet, at any sacrifice, Tatsu must be kept an inmate of their home.
The girl had stopped beside the sunlit pond, leaning far over. She did not seem to note the clustering carp at all, but rather dwell upon her own image, twisted and shot through with the gold of their darting bodies. Now, with dragging feet she went to the moon-viewing hill, remaining in the shadow of it, and pausing for long thought. Her eyes were on the cliff, now raised to the camphor tree. Suddenly she shivered and hid her face. What was the tumult of that ignorant young breast?
The old man rose and went to an inner room where hung the Butsudan, the shrine. He stood gazing upon the ihai of his wife. His lips moved, but the breath so lightly issued that the flame on the altar did not stir. "She, our one child, has come now to the borders of that woman-land where I cannot go with her," he was saying. "Thou art the soul to guide, and give her happiness, thou, the dear one of my life,—the dead young mother who has never really died!" He folded his hands now, and bowed his head. The small flame leaned to him. "Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amid a Butsu," murmured the old man.
Out by the hill, a butterfly, snow white, rested a moment on the young girl's hair. She was again looking at the cliff, and did not notice it.