Daughters of Nijo: A Romance of Japan
“You did not love him?” asked the princess, in a timid, most beseeching
voice.
“I did not even look upon him,” returned Masago, impatiently. “He was my
father’s choice, not mine. I—see, look here, O princess!” She held
before the eyes of Sado-ko the printed picture of the Prince Komatzu,
then continued swiftly, with passionate vehemence:—
“This was my hero! I went up to Kyoto not to study.”
She arose and began to walk across the chamber, clasping and unclasping
her hands as she spoke.
“I saw the noble palaces of my ancestors,—yes, mine! I lingered,
wandered in the streets outside—think of it!—outside the walls! I
watched at every gate, and saw the cortèges and the trains of the nobles
and the princes pass and repass back and forth; and oh! while I must
fall upon my face—I! And once, just once, I touched the august sword of
Prince Komatzu. Thus! It was thus I did so.”
She swung her long sleeve till it barely grazed the head of Sado-ko, in
illustration.
“’Twas in a public place he spoke. They set him up like any common man!
He was so noble, so great. O princess! he spoke to all that gaping herd
like man to man, with less of condescension than the lordly politicians
of the capital,—he whose august feet should not have deigned to touch
the earth.”
“Nay,” interposed the princess, smiling quietly, “Komatzu is a modern.
The times have changed, Masago. No longer are the royal ones called
gods.”
“Yet like unto a god he was,” declared the girl, “for I saw with these
eyes.”
“Which love had sweetly blinded,” smiled the princess, sympathetically.
She, also, arose, and put her hand upon Masago’s arm, leaning against
her.
“Masago,” she said, in her low, winning voice, “if you could do so,
would you change your simple home for the royal court and all its
glamour?”
“Ask the birds if they prefer the wide, free sky to the dark sea.”
“Would you, then, exchange your state for—mine, Masago?”
Slowly the girl turned her face and looked into the pleading eyes of
Sado-ko. Her voice was hoarse. She said:—
“You give me wilful pain, O princess. Why? You know full well that could
not be.”
“Why not?” asked Sado-ko, whisperingly.
“No, no!” Masago recoiled, her incredulous eyes fixed as if fascinated
on the face of Sado-ko. The princess placed her hands on the shoulders
of Masago, and brought her face close to hers.
“Look into the mirror—Sado-ko,” said she.
“Sado-ko! You call me by your name!”
“And pray you, call me—Masago.”
“Oh, no! Oh, no!”
“You will not change with me?”
“Oh, oh!” Masago had become white as death, as though she were about to
faint.
“Will you not do so?” still pleaded the now almost despairing voice of
Sado-ko.
“I dare not—dare not,” she murmured.
There was silence now in the room. The dim sounds of the world about
them did not reach the ears of these two. Masago had reached out a
trembling hand to support herself against the framework of the wall.
Sado-ko watched her with a yearning, melancholy expression in her face.
Suddenly she turned away.
“You were right, Masago,” she said slowly. “It could not be.” She
paused, then, sighing, moved with drooping head toward the doors of the
corridor.
“Sayonara—sister,” she softly breathed.
That word of farewell broke the tension of the dazed Masago. She sprang
with a cry after the departing one. Both of the princess’s sleeves were
in her grasp.
“Go not yet!” she cried. “Do not go!”
She fell grovelling upon her knees, still clinging to the long sleeves
of the princess, and hid her face in the folds of Sado-ko’s kimono.
Then, with her face muffled in the gown, she spoke:—
“I could not grasp the meaning of your words—My heart leaped up and
burst—I could not think. I pray you, do not take my joy away while yet I
barely grasp it in my hands, Princess Sado-ko!”
“You do consent!” said Sado-ko, bending over her, while a strange light
of excitement came into her eyes.
“Consent! On my knees I could pray to you, as to a god, to grant this
thing you suggest for a caprice.”
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CHAPTER XV
THE CHANGE
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CHAPTER XV
THE CHANGE
“HUSH! Do not speak so loudly, Masago!”
“How you tremble, Sado-ko.”
“We have once more mistaken our names,” said she who was the Princess
Sado-ko.
“Oh, true. Now call me Sado-ko! No, call me noble princess, most divine,
exalted, august, royal princess! Call me so!”
“A princess is not so addressed,” replied the other, smiling, “save
sometimes by a servile, ignorant one.”
“I fear I will be sure to make the most absurd mistakes.”
“So! Then the whole court will call it ‘A new caprice of the foolish
Princess Sado-ko.’”
“Again, if you please—call me Sado-ko.”
“Princess Sado-ko!”
“Masago!”
“Nay, call me simply ‘sister,’” said the other, in a trembling voice.
“Sister—there! Does not this beauteous robe become me well?”
“As though it were made alone for you, Masago.”
“No, no,—Princess Sado-ko!”
“I bow my humble head unto the dust, most royal Princess Sado-ko!”
In mock humility the new Masago bowed before the old Masago.
“Yet,” said the latter, with her red lips pursed in thought, “they say
it is the latest fashion of the court to wear the foreign style of
dress. Is it not so?”
“Yes. It is so.”
“Oh, joyful! Such beautiful and gorgeous gowns as I shall wear. I will
send at once to all the most famous foreign cities. Let me see,—to
Holland, and to—”
“The Princess Sado-ko never liked the foreign gown,” interrupted the
other, shaking her head a trifle sadly.
“But you spoke just now of the caprices of that same Princess Sado-ko.
She has already another one.”
Then up and down the room, in the long, trailing robe of Princess
Sado-ko, walked, peacock-like, the maiden Masago; while close at hand,
with dreamy face and dewy eyes, clad in a simple crêpe kimono, and with
flowers—no longer jewels—in her hair, stood Sado-ko.
“Tell me,” said the vain and eager Masago, “when the noble Prince
Komatzu shall greet me so,”—she bowed with assumed gallantry—“will I bow
thus?” Down to the mat she bent her head.
“Why, no; but thus.” Gracefully, simply she illustrated. “A low, but not
too low, obeisance. You are of equal rank, Masa—princess!”
“So—like this?”
“No; this way.”
“Well, it will take me twenty hours to practise thus. I will not sleep
till I accomplish it.”
“Oh, you will learn. Bow as you will, Masago. Komatzu will declare your
mood has changed, and still insist that you are fair.”
Stooping in her posing, Masago stared a moment at the other.
“Perhaps already he has whispered words of love to you, then?” Her voice
was sharply jealous.
“No, my cousin does not know me quite as yet. You will make him better
acquainted with Princess Sado-ko.”
“Ah, that I will!”
She raised her long, slim arms from out the graceful sleeves. Her hands
she clasped behind her head.
“Oh, what a glorious dream it is!” she said; then, in quick alarm, “A
dream? Say that it is not all a dream.”
But Sado-ko sat staring quietly into the future. When she raised her
eyes, they softly gleamed.
“A dream it is—a dream, and yet—Oh, Kuonnon, let us not awake!”
“Ah, how can you be so glad—you who are to stay here only Masago?”
“Masago,” repeated the other, softly. “That is well.” She raised a
flushing face. “I am like a bird set free, Masago. My very voice is sore
to sing.”
Masago threw herself upon the floor beside her.
“That is how I feel, also,” she said.
They smiled into each other’s faces, then drew closer together, their
sympathy for each other growing.
“Here is some homely counsel,” said Masago. “Confide small matters to my
mother, and lead her on to gossip much with you. She will tell you
everything there is to know. She is so simple—so foolish. A little wit
upon your part will quickly disarm any suspicion she might have. But be
not free in speech with Yamada Kwacho, your new father. A cold and
constrained space has always been between us. Do not let the children
disturb you with their prattle, and oh, also, pray you show some pride
to certain neighbors, for none in all the town have had the same
up-bringing as Masago.”
“And is that all,—these simple facts that I must heed to be Masago?”
“All. It is a dull and simple life.”
“And you. Pray trust not the ladies of my suite. They do most heartily
detest the Princess Sado-ko, who is given to seclusion, which has often
deprived them of much gay pleasures of the new court.”
“But I will change all that,” said Masago.
“That is true.” She sighed. “Well, then, there is nothing else to say.
But stay! My maiden, Natsu-no. Oh, pray you, dear Masago, treat her with
the greatest kindness, will you not?”
“I will.”
“She is even now without this room, waiting for me, with that dear
patience with which she watches and guards me at all times. You know,
Masago, she has been with me since I was but a baby. Alas, I shall
suffer for her loss!”
Tears for a moment dimmed the eyes of Sado-ko.
“What more?” asked Masago, surveying with delight the width and beauty
of her obi.
“What else? Well, Masago, there is one other matter. In the garden of
the Palace Nijo there hangs an open cage, just without my chamber. It is
the home of my dear nightingale.”
“A bird?”
“A little bird. Listen, there is a pretty story you would like to hear.
Once in the spring, while I was yet a little girl, and grieving for my
most beloved grandmother, his Majesty, the Emperor, sent me as a gift of
consolation a nightingale within a golden cage. It sang so sweetly to me
that I was entranced with delight, and when the days were warm would
hang the cage upon my balcony. The garden close at hand was fragrant
with the odor of the cherry and the plum, and allured many other
nightingales to make their home there. The little birds noticed their
play-mate in the cage, and when, at evening, they saw no one in
sight—for I was hidden behind my shoji screen—they would approach the
cage, and sing all merrily together. These honorably sweet serenades
gave me double joy, as you may imagine, and I soon learned to
distinguish the voices without and that one within the cage. At first I
thought the song of my own bird within the cage sounded sweeter even
than those without. Then in a little while it became hard to distinguish
them, and at last I could not hear the voice of my small nightingale at
all.”
She paused a moment, as though in thought, then resumed, her eyes sweet
with moisture.
“I pondered over this odd change, Masago, and then I thought that it
must be because those without enjoyed their freedom in the open air,
while my poor little bird was shut within the narrow limits of its
cage.”
Her eyes became more tender still as she proceeded.
“So I opened wide the door, Masago, and let my little bird go free.”
“Why, then,” spoke the other, “it is gone. How foolish you were,
Sado-ko.”
The princess shook her head.
“I thought, like you, that it would fly far, far away, but no! It only
flew above my head a space, then soft alighted on a cherry tree close
by, and filled the air with its sweet song.”
“But since?”
“Since then, Masago, the cage is always opened wide. Yet still the
nightingale makes its home within.”