Daughters of Nijo: A Romance of Japan
Junzo knelt on one knee a short distance from her. His face was sad and
serious.
“Princess Sado-ko,” he said, “you have not heard of a most lamentable
happening.”
“If,” said she, still smiling, “you allude to the noisy chatter of my
ladies, you are mistaken. I have heard.”
He looked half unconsciously toward the now covered canvas. She followed
his glance, and still she smiled.
“I have seen, too,” she said.
He regarded her dumbly, marvelling at the trembling happiness which
seemed to lurk within her eyes and about her small red lips.
“Come a pace nearer to me, if you please,” she urged. His obedience
brought him so close that he could have touched her. She put out a
little hand toward him, and spoke his name.
“Junzo!” she said.
He scarcely dared to look at her. She said:—
“I pray you, look at me a space.”
Their eyes met fully now, and then he saw that despite the smile within
them, hers were shining with undropped tears. In an agony of feeling he
turned from her. He heard her tremulous voice, thrilling now with that
strange laughing quality but accentuating the pleading underneath.
“Do not even the birds chatter? Permit my ladies the same pastime.”
“It is of you I think,” he said huskily.
“That is all very well. I—I would not have you think of—of another,” she
replied.
“Princess, the gossip of the ladies does injury to your sweet name.”
“If that were so,” she said, “there would be no such name as Sado-ko
left in the world. Do you not know that I am the most unpopular princess
in Japan?”
“But this late matter, princess, is not merely female resentment at your
refusal to accept the Western mode of life within your household. But
this new slan—”
“Do not speak the word,” she said quietly.
She took her fan from Natsu-no, and arising crossed the room until she
stood before the easel. Pensively she looked at the covered canvas.
Junzo had followed her and now stood by her side. There was deep emotion
in his voice:—
“Princess, will it please you to sit to-day?”
She turned to raise her eyes to his.
“But,” she said, “you do not paint upon the canvas. You have told me
so.”
“I am a sculptor, but I have also attempted the other—”
She interrupted him.
“It would hurt your fame,” she said. “It cannot be.”
“And what does it matter whether I have fame or not?”
“Artist, it was not for that work I bade you stay,” she said.
“But it was thought so by the others, princess.”
“I—I had a desire to learn more of—of Kamakura—of people there—and so I
begged you to remain.”
“You did command,” he said in a low voice.
“No,” raising her eyes appealingly, “say that I did beseech you.”
“You did command,” he repeated.
“Well, have it so. I commanded and you obeyed. It was the reason of your
staying. Why suggest employment now?”
“To spare the name of the most noble princess in the realm.”
She held her little head proudly.
“Who is it that slanders Sado-ko,” she asked scornfully, and then
quickly answered herself. “A few small biting insects, who but sting,
not kill, Sir Artist.”
He turned away from her and stood by the garden shoji, from whence he
stared moodily without. She followed him with softest step.
“I pray you, do not look without. The sky is gray. The sun is fading.”
She put her hand upon his arm with timid touch. He turned with sudden
impulse, and seized it in both his own.
“The sun, O princess, is within,” he cried, “and, O sweet Sado-ko, it is
too dazzling bright for such as I to gaze upon.”
When he would have dropped her hand, she held it within his own. Her
face filled him with a vague longing. He trembled at her touch. He felt
the wavering of her head toward him, then its touch against his arm,
where now it rested. A remnant of reason remaining within him, he sought
to draw apart from her.
“Do not—do not so,” she cried, clinging to him.
“My touch profanes you, Sado-ko,” he whispered hoarsely.
“It does not,” she denied, with tears in her appealing voice. “Pray you,
do not draw your arm away.”
“Princess!”
“I do command again,” she said. After that he did not speak.
Suddenly the silent, immovable figure of the maid seemed to take upon
itself the first signs of life. She arose and moved toward her mistress.
At a respectful distance she spoke.
“Noble princess!” she said.
Sado-ko, still holding the arm of her lover close about her, turned
toward the maid.
“What is your honorable desire, maiden?”
“The chamber darkens, O princess. Will your Highness deign to permit the
honorable light?”
“I am quite satisfied,” said Sado-ko, and rested her head contentedly
against the artist’s arm. The maid did not move.
“Will not the noble princess permit her evening meal?” she asked in
trembling tones.
“I am not hungry,” said the Princess Sado-ko. She smiled up at her
lover’s now adoring face.
“Princess, the hour of—”
Sado-ko turned toward the maid with the first show of impatience.
“Pray return to your seat, Natsu-no,” she said, “and when I need your
service, I will so advise you.”
Without replying, Natsu-no slowly moved to her seat; but she kept her
face toward those two figures now silhouetted in the twilight of the
room.
“You still are uneasy?” asked the Princess Sado-ko. “Do you not like the
touch of me?”
“It makes me faint with ecstasy,” he said. “Yet, Sado-ko, I am fearful.”
“Oh, be not fearful,” she said.
“On my knees I could adore you, but—”
“But? You do not finish.”
“Princess!”
“Do not call me princess. Forget for but a little while that I am such.
I, too, would forget, my Junzo.”
“I must remember for us both,” he said. “My honor—O sweet Sado-ko—thy
honor—”
“Sado-ko is ill with honor,” she replied. “Give me for a change a little
of that simple love I have not had since my august grandmother died.”
“O innocent princess!”
She laughed softly.
“Junzo, they say that I was born without a heart, that because I was the
child of gods I could not love as mortals do. Could you not tell them
otherwise, my Junzo?”
The maid was weeping in the darkened room, her sobs clearly audible.
They heard her crawling on her knees across the room, and then the soft
thud of her prostration before the little shrine. Then came the mumbling
words of her prayer:—
“Hear thou the prayer of the most humble one, O mighty Kuonnon. Save
thou the soul of thy innocent descendant, she who—”
Sado-ko dropped the arm of her lover and started toward the maid.
“Natsu-no!” she cried out sharply, as the drone of the woman’s prayer
ended, “for whom do you pray?”
The maid put her head at the princess’s feet.
“For you, O beloved mistress, I pray that the gods will save you from
this artist-man.”
The princess spurned her with her little foot.
“If you make such foolish prayers, the gods may hear you,” she cried.
“If they should grant your prayers and take him from me, why, I should
be bereft of—Oh-h—”
She made a passionate movement toward the shrine, as though she would
destroy it, but strong hands drew her away.
“Do not, Sado-ko, offend the gods! Do not, for my sake!”
She put her hands upon his shoulders and wept against his breast.
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CHAPTER IX
MOON TRYST
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CHAPTER IX
MOON TRYST
LIKE a large lighted lantern the palace Komatzu appeared in the night.
Its transparent shojis revealed the lights within. The sound of soft
tinkling music was constantly heard, an accompaniment to the ceaseless
murmuring of voices. Ever and anon there was the sound of silvery
laughter, and also the soft glide and patter of moving footsteps.
From the garden without one could see the strange flitting and moving of
the figures within, for the court of Japan was enjoying the latest of
Western novelties,—the dance. A square-bearded German had found a place
as leader of the Japanese orchestra, and now a strange medley of dance
music was being wrung from the instruments. The weird tinkling of the
geishas’ instruments floating out from a garden booth close at hand,
added discord to the odd orchestra of the palace. Yet the gentlemen and
ladies of the court glided and tripped back and forth within, and
thought that they were dancing quite in the style of the fashionable
Westerners.
But while all was gay and brilliant in the new ball-room of the palace
Komatzu, that wing of the palace reserved for the Princess Sado-ko was
in blackness.
Sado-ko stood alone in her darkened chamber. She had dismissed her
personal attendant, Natsu-no, though the latter crouched by the inner
shoji, her eye peering into the adjoining room, watching and guarding
her mistress.
It had not been difficult for Sado-ko to retire from the ball, when the
dancing had begun, for her aversion to all such modern pastimes was well
known. She alone of all that company had appeared in the simple though
exquisite garb of her country. In a robe of ancient style, soft flowing,
Sado-ko had never appeared to better advantage among the ladies of the
court, all of whom affected the European style of gown, which ill became
them.
Now in her chamber alone, Sado-ko watched by her shoji. When first she
took her stand, all was black without. No moon had yet arisen to silver
her own gardens and tell her that it was time. It was a long interval
while she stood there, a statue of patience.
Gradually the darkness without became mellowed, and slowly and softly
the tall bamboos and pines became silhouetted against the sky. One small
hand hidden in the folds of her kimono was lifted. She pushed the shoji
a small way apart,—only enough room for her straining eyes to see
clearer without.
It was a white and wistful face she turned appealingly to the skies.
Then that first soft light reflected in her eyes, and sighing with
relief that her waiting now was over, she pushed the sliding doors still
farther apart and then stepped outside. She paused upon her balcony, to
look about her with some fear. There was no sound or stir. Very distant
and far away sounded the music of the palace Komatzu.
With another glance of assurance at the moon floating up from the hills
and trees, she lifted her gown. Down into the garden the princess
stepped.
Almost at the same instant the maiden Natsu-no cautiously pushed back
the shoji the princess had forgotten to close, and keeping some distance
behind, followed her mistress with stealing step.
Meanwhile the Lady Fuji-no had slipped breathlessly from the arms of her
partner, and condemning the atmosphere of the room had sought the wide
verandas. Save for the silent and melancholy figure of the artist the
verandas were deserted. He stood by the steps leading to the gardens,
his arms folded across his breast, his head partly upraised as though he
watched the skies. At the light touch of the Lady Fuji’s hand he started
violently, forgetting his manners in so far as to draw his sleeve
quickly away from her clasp. Her face was in shadow, for it was dark
about them. Only the first glimmer of the moon had yet appeared. Junzo
knew that she was smiling mockingly.
“You watch the stars, Sir Artist?” she asked sweetly.
“Yes,” he replied, without moving.
“So! They are very beautiful to-night.”
“Honorably so,” he replied simply.
“Yet how insignificant will they appear shortly when their august queen
shall arise to dim their little lustre.”
“It is so,” he agreed gravely; “the august moon is queen of the night.”
“You watch for the queen, Sir Artist?”
He turned and looked at her curiously.
“And you, my lady?”