Daughters of Nijo: A Romance of Japan
to you, nor hear your voice. That night when, in the bamboo grove, we
kept the tryst, I watched you pass from out my life with one whose name
I cannot even write. The blackness of my fate closed down upon me then,
blinding me to all light of earth or sky. For days, for nights, I
wandered about the streets of Tokyo. I could not eat, nor sleep, nor
think. I barely lived. My brain was scorched with but one name—my
Sado-ko, my lotos maiden, my goddess of the sun! My father sent to seek
me in the capital. But I was waiting there for you. Then rumor somehow
pierced the gloom of my dark mind. It was said that you had gone to
Kamakura, and would not come to Tokyo. It was my own dear home as well,
and there I hastened, Sado-ko. They thought—my parents—that I came home
at their solicitation. But no! I wandered by your palace walls. My
fevered mind dreamed only of the time when chance might give me passing
sight of you. Then one black night I heard you journeying from out the
gate. I touched your norimono, and in the night I cried your name aloud;
but, oh, alas! though I would have heard a whisper from your lips, you
did not answer me—you made no sign, O Princess! Since then, in
bitterness of spirit, I have lingered here in Tokyo, sometimes with
harsh thoughts upon our love, but longing all the time for sight of
you—for one small glimpse! ‘As beat the restless waves on Biwa’s
strand,’ so does my heart break for Sado-ko!”
A maid of honor, holding her long silken train across her arm, came down
the wide stairway (a modern importation) of the Nijo palace, trailed her
noisy skirt of taffeta across the hall, and paused within the doorway of
the reception room.
She stood a moment without speaking, staring with baleful eyes at the
bent head of the artist. Then she spoke softly, and with clearness.
“Good day, Sir Artist. It is an unexpected pleasure to see once more
your august countenance.”
Junzo turned his melancholy eyes upon her mocking face. Painfully he
bowed, feeling in small mood to perform the courtesies of life.
“You are in excellent health, I trust?” she asked.
He bowed in answer. She smiled, and went a step nearer to him.
“I also hope you are still painting pictures just so fine as—”
She laughed derisively, and slowly, languidly unfurled her fan, a
monstrous pinky thing of ostrich feathers.
A slow, dull flush grew upward in the face of Junzo. He did not deign to
answer the taunting of the Lady Fuji-no.
“How is it, may I ask,” she continued, “that you so cruelly deserted us
upon our journey to the capital? It was declared about the court that
you had been engaged by Prince Komatzu to execute a speaking
likeness—such as was the one of Princess Sado-ko—of all the ladies of
our court.”
“Lady,” said Junzo, with a certain scorn within his voice, which caused
his tormentor to blush with angry shame, “I am not here to visit you.
You do me honor in your unsought speech with me. Yet, I pray you, do not
waste your wise and witty words upon a simple artist.”
“Your words are rough, Sir Artist,” she replied, her small eyes
flashing, “yet though you state you did not come to visit me, you are
perhaps mistaken. I am a maid of honor to her Highness Princess Sado-ko,
and in my keeping she has condescended to intrust an answer to your
letter.”
He stared at her in shocked amazement.
“Through _you_!” he cried. “The Princess Sado-ko sent word by you?”
“Just so,” she answered haughtily; “and so I trust you will guard your
tongue in your words to one who is the august messenger of Princess
Sado-ko.”
“Give me her letter then,” the artist said in a husky voice.
She laughed lightly.
“It is within my head, not hands, Sir Artist. The princess bade me state
that she will condescend to grant your wish this evening. There will be
a special ball within the palace, for his Majesty has sent his son, the
young Crown Prince, but lately come of age, as guest to Nijo. The
Princess Sado-ko bade me state you are invited.”
She paused, watching with narrowed eyes the paling face of Junzo.
“For my part,” she said, “I do not know the tenor of your letter, nor
the request you dared to make of her Highness; but this I know, Sir
Artist: to-night, if you accept this invitation, though you look at her
with the keen eyes of love, you scarce will recognize your Princess
Sado-ko.”
“She is so changed?”
“So changed? Well, no and yes. Changed not in looks, artist, for beauty
such as hers fades only with old age, but changed in ways, in action,
speech, in very thought. You sighed, Sir Artist.”
“You have keen ears,” he said bitterly.
“Perhaps,” she said, “your sighs will be much louder, artist, after you
have seen her Highness. You will note the folly of illusions. You will
not trace the change in Sado-ko to yourself, but to a master hand more
royal.”
“Lady, your words are veiled. I do not understand them.”
“You will to-night. Had I more pity in my nature than the gods have
given me, I could almost counsel just now: Stay in that dull world to
which you rightfully belong and trust not all the words of Sado-ko. Nay,
do not scowl. Your ancestors, I learn, were samurai. To-day you are a
citizen—an artist-man. I am a lady of the court, cynical and little apt
to trust my kind. Yet, artist, I think you will recall the words of Fuji
when you are able to see with your own eyes the actions of her Highness
with her new lover, the noble Prince Komatzu.”
He spoke with sneering, cutting scorn:—
“Lady, your ambition ever trips before you. It is said you would gladly
bring about the marriage of some noble persons for your own small ends.
That union, I doubt not, will soon be consummated.” He paled perceptibly
even while he spoke the words, but continued with defiant bravery: “Yet
do not waste your efforts in defaming to a poor artist one he trusts
completely.”
She brought her beaded slipper sharply down upon the floor.
“You speak the truth, Sir Artist. I would encompass such a union, and
the gods favor my ambition. The Princess Sado-ko is kind to her
affianced lord.”
“They are not publicly betrothed,” he said gloomily.
“Not yet, but the very coming of the Crown Prince indicates that the
time is near. I will confess another weakness, artist. I do dislike your
presence, and I fear it. If eyes and even ears are not deceived, the
Princess Sado-ko loves her cousin Prince Komatzu.”
He made a gesture of denial, but she continued steadily:—
“Yet by your coming I fear that older, wilder claims may reawake within
the heart of the capricious princess.”
“Her heart is steady as the sun,” he said. “She is all nobleness and
truth.”
“You doubt that she has wavered toward her cousin?”
“I do not even think of it.”
“So! You think the sex so true. Well, trust your eyes to-night, Sir
Junzo!”
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CHAPTER XX
AN EVIL OMEN
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CHAPTER XX
AN EVIL OMEN
“ARTIST, you cannot enter the hall!” said the Duchess Aoi, pulling the
sleeve of Junzo’s hakama.
“I am a guest,” he said briefly.
“But you transgress the most stringent rules of the court. His Majesty
commands that no one, save in evening dress, shall appear. The Crown
Prince is the guest of honor to-night.”
Junzo looked with doubtful eyes at his dress, then stared at the
black-coated, white-breasted garb of those within the room.
“It is the Prince of Nijo’s palace; I am well aware that customs are
changed here,” he said.
“You think the Princess Sado-ko still sets the fashions at defiance. Oh,
artist, she is a most abject devotee.”
“I do not understand.”
“Artist, for your own sake, do not look upon this new Sado-ko. Wait till
the night is past, and see her in the morning. She will be then the
princess you have known.”
Both Junzo and the duchess started at a familiar sound of low, mocking
laughter.
“What, dear Duchess Aoi, you deign to touch—to hold the sleeve of the
honorable artist!” exclaimed the Lady Fuji-no.
Aoi’s brown eyes flashed angrily.
“It was an honorable accident,” she said haughtily. “I sought to save
the artist from an error which would prove most humiliating to him. He
is a stranger and does not know the rules as yet; but simply cast your
eyes upon his dress, my lady, and you will see why I restrained him.”
Fuji smiled in a superior, veiled way.
“Artist,” she said, “Aoi is always thoughtful. She speaks the truth
to-night. Pray heed her. If you step within the august hall, and even
gaze at a great distance upon her Highness, you will lose your honorable
head.”
Junzo walked away from them and went upon the veranda of the palace. But
Lady Fuji followed him. She pointed toward the long glass windows of the
ball-room.
“Artist, the Duchess Aoi would prevent your seeing Sado-ko in her new
garb. She clings to the despairing fancy that when her Highness sees you
again, her feelings and also her dress will undergo a change, and that
the old Sado-ko will once again bewitch the artist, and perchance save
Komatzu for the Duchess Aoi.”
“The duchess would prevent the marriage?” asked the artist, quietly.
“She is fairly mad to do so, artist, while I am equally determined to
have it so. Now to which of us do you choose to lend yourself as a
weapon?”
“Lady,” said Junzo, gravely, “there is a Western proverb: ‘Between two
evils, choose the lesser.’ Tell me, which of you is the lesser evil?”
She shrugged her thin, bared shoulders.
“Frankly, I confess of the two evils, Aoi or Fuji, I do not know which
is the worse.”
Junzo frowned gloomily through the windows into the brightly lighted
room, now quickly filling. A trumpet blast, full and clear, resounded
somewhere in the palace.
“Who enters now?” asked Junzo.
“The noble Prince Komatzu. Note the change upon his face, artist. Love
prints her fingers on one’s countenance as clearly as can be.”
“And who comes now?”
“Put close your face against the barbarian pane. You see quite plainly?”
“Quite so.”
“Well, look your full, Sir Artist. It is the Princess Sado-ko who
comes.”
He saw a glittering, spangled gown, low of neck and long of train. So
long, indeed, it was that she who wore it tripped within it, and often
lifted it in awkward style. Little high-heeled French slippers were upon
the feet. The artist’s eyes turned from surveying her strange, gorgeous
gown, to her face, and there for a long, horror-stricken moment they
remained.
Her face was creamy tinted, the eyes long, the brows finely pencilled.
Her tiny lips were tipped with rouge, while her rich, shining hair was
crumpled in a strange and massed coiffure. Wisps of hair, not straight
or silky, but crinkled and curled like the hair of the unintellectual
races, strayed about the face and sometimes fell upon her eyes. Her head
was held straightly and proudly, and she did not deign to look about
her. Her long, bare neck was weighted down with pearls and other
flashing gems. Long, sleek, black gloves shut out the beauty of her
arms.
With eyes distended, Junzo gazed upon her, like one fascinated with some
strange, gliding serpent. He did not hear the loud fanfare of trumpets
signalling the entrance of the young Crown Prince, nor note the sudden
reverent silence within, the ceasing of the stir of fans, the silencing
of voice and movement. Through his bewildered mind he thought he heard
the mocking laughter of the Lady Fuji-no. Then suddenly the band crashed
out, and the imperial ball had opened.
Slowly the artist turned, and in the light streaming from the window he