Part 1

A JAPANESE NIGHTINGALE

_by_

ONOTO WATANNA

ILLUSTRATED BY GENJIRO YETO

NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS M-C-M I-I

Copyright, 1901, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

_All rights reserved._ October, 1901.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE STORM DANCE 1

II. IN WHICH WOMAN PROPOSES AND MAN DISPOSES 16

III. AN APPOINTMENT 34

IV. IN WHICH MAN PROPOSES 46

V. IN WHICH THE EAST AND THE WEST ARE UNITED 57

VI. THE ADVENTURESS 66

VII. MY WIFE! 81

VIII. YUKI'S HOME 94

IX. THE MIKADO'S BIRTHDAY 107

X. A BAD OMEN 121

XI. THE NIGHTINGALE 131

XII. TARO BURTON 137

XIII. IN WHICH TWO MEN LEARN OF A SISTER'S SACRIFICE 148

XIV. A STRUGGLE IN THE NIGHT 165

XV. THE VOW 177

XVI. A PILGRIM OF LOVE 188

XVII. YUKI'S WANDERINGS 203

XVIII. THE SEASON OF THE CHERRY BLOSSOM 215

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE STORM DANCE _Frontispiece_

THE NIGHTINGALE SONG _Facing p_. 134

"THE THOUSAND PETALS OF CHERRY BLOSSOMS WERE FALLING ABOUT THEM" " 224

A JAPANESE NIGHTINGALE

I

THE STORM DANCE

The last rays of sunset were tingeing the land, lingering in splendor above the bay. The waters had caught the golden glow, and, miser-like, seemingly made effort to keep it with them; but, inexorably, the lowering sun drew away its gilding light, leaving the waters a dark green. The shadows began to darken, faint stars peeped out of the heavens, and slowly, unwillingly, the day's last ray followed the sunken sun to rest; and with its vanishment a pale moon stole overhead and threw a seraphic light over all things.

Out in the bay that the sun had left was a tiny island, and on this a Japanese business man, who must also have been an artist, had built a tea-house and laid out a garden. Such an island! In the sorcerous moonlight, one might easily believe it the witch-work of an Oriental Merlin. Running in every direction were narrow jinrikisha roads, which crossed bewildering little creeks, spanned by entrancing bridges. These were round and high, and curved in the centre, and clinging vines and creeping, nameless flowers crawled up the sides and twined about the tiny steps which ascended to the bridges. After crossing a bridge shaped thus, a straight bridge is forever an outrage to the eye and sense. And all along the beach of this island was pure white sand, which looked weirdly whiter where the moonbeams loitered and played hide-and-seek under the tree-shadows.

The seekers of pleasure who made their way out to the little island on this night moored their boats here in the shadows beneath the trees, and drove in fairy vehicles, pulled by picturesque runners, clear around the island, under the pine-trees, over miniature brooks, into the mysterious dark of a forest. Suddenly they were in a blaze of swinging, dazzling lights, laughter and music, chatter, the clattering of dishes, the twang of the samisen, the ron-ton-ton of the biwa. They had reached the garden and the tea-house.

Some pleasure-loving Japanese were giving a banquet in honor of the full moon, and the moon, just over their heads, clothed in glorious raiment, and sitting on a sky-throne of luminous silver, was attending the banquet in person, surrounded by myriad twinkling stars, who played at being her courtiers. Each of the guests had his own little mat, table, and waitress. They sat in a semicircle, and drank the sake hot, in tiny cups that went thirty or more to the pint; or the Kyoto beer that had been ordered for the foreigners who were the chief guests this evening. This is the toast the Japanese made to the moon: "May she with us drink a cup of immortality!" and then each wished the one nearest him ten thousand years of joy.

Now the moon-path widened on the bay, and the moon itself expanded and grew more luminous as though in proud sympathy and understanding of the thousand banquets held in her honor this night. All the music and noise and clatter and revel had gradually ceased, and for a time an eloquent silence was everywhere. Huge glowing fire-flies, flitting back and forth like tiny twinkling stars, seemed to be the only things stirring.

Some one snuffed the candles in the lanterns, and threw a large mat in the centre of the garden, and dusted it extravagantly with rice flour. Then a shaft of light, that might have been the combination of a thousand moonbeams, was flashed on the mat from an opening in the upper part of the house, and out of the shadows sprang on to the mat a wild, vivid little figure, clad in scintillating robes that reflected every ray of light thrown on them; and, with her coming, the air was filled with the weird, wholly fascinating music of the koto and samisen.

She pirouetted around on the tips of the toes of one little foot, clapped her hands, and courtesied to the four corners of the earth. Her dance was one of the body rather than of the feet, as back and forth she swerved. There was a patter, patter, patter. Her garments seemed endowed with life, and took on a sorrowing appearance; the lights changed to accompany her; the music sobbed and quivered. It had begun to rain! _She_ was raining! It seemed almost as if the pitter-patter of her feet were the falling of tiny raindrops; the sadness of her garments had increased, and now they seemed to be weeping, at first gradually, then faster and still faster, until finally she was a storm--a dark, blowing, lightning storm. From above the light shot down in quick, sharp flashes, the drums clashed madly, the koto wept on, and the samisen shrieked vindictively.

Suddenly the storm quieted down and ceased. A blue light flung itself against the now lightly swaying figure; then the seven colors of the spectrum flashed on her at once. She spread her garments wide; they fluttered about her in a large half-circle, and, underneath the rainbow of the gown, a girl's face, of exquisite beauty, smiled and drooped. Then the extinction of light--and she was gone.

A common cry of admiration and wonder broke out from Japanese and foreigners alike. They called for her, clapped, stamped, whistled, cheered. One man's voice rose above the clatter of noises that had broken loose all over the gardens. He was demanding excitedly of the proprietor to tell him who she was.

The proprietor, smirking and bowing and cringing, nevertheless would not tell.

The American theatrical manager lost his head a moment. He could make that girl's fortune in America! He understood it was possible to purchase a geisha for a certain term of years. He stood ready on the spot to do this. He was ready to offer a good price for her. Who was she, and where did she live?

Meanwhile the nerve-scraping dzin, dzin, dzin of a samisen was disturbing the air with teasing persistence. There is something provoking and still alluring in the music of the samisen. It startles the chills in the blood like the maddening scraping of a piece of metal against stone, and still there is an indescribable fascination and beauty about it. Now as it scratched and squealed intermittently and gradually twittered down to a zoom, zoom, zoom, a voice rose softly, and gently, insinuatingly, it entered into the music of the samisen. Only one long note had broken loose, which neither trembled nor wavered. When it had ended none could say, only that it had passed into other notes as strangely beautiful, and a girl was singing.

Again the light flashed down and showed her standing on the same mat on which she had danced, her hands clasped, her face raised. She was ethereal, divinely so. Her kimono was all white, save where the shaft of moonbeams touched the silk to silvery brilliance. And her voice! All the notes were minors, piercing, sweet, melancholy--terribly beautiful. She was singing music unheard in any land save the Orient, and now for the first time, perhaps, appreciated by the foreigners, because of that voice--a voice meant for just such a medley of melody. And when she had ceased, the last note had not died out, did not fall, but remained raised, unfinished, giving to the Occidental ears a sense of incompleteness. Her audience leaned forward, peering into the darkness, waiting for the end.

The American theatrical manager stalked towards the light, which lingered a moment, and died out, as if by magic, as he reached it. But the girl was gone.

"By Jove! She's great!" he cried out, enthusiastically. Then he turned on the proprietor. "Where is she? Where can I find her?"

The man shook his head.

"Oh, come, now," the American demanded, impatiently, "I'll pay you."

"I don' know. She is gone."

"But you know where she lives?"

The proprietor again answered in the negative.

"Now, wouldn't that make one of this country's squatty little gods groan?" the exasperated manager demanded of a younger man who had followed him forward.

"She'd be a great card in vaudeville," the young man contented himself with saying.

"There's a fortune in her! I'm going to find her if she's on this island. Come on with me, will you?"

Nothing loath, Jack Bigelow fared forth behind the theatrical man, whom he had never seen before that afternoon, and whom he never expected to see again. They hurried down one of the narrow, shadowy roads that almost made a labyrinth of the island. But fortune was with them. A turn in the road, which showed the waters of the bay not fifty yards ahead, revealed just in front of them two figures--two women--both small, but one a trifle taller than her companion.

"Hi there! You!" shouted the manager, who, though among a people whose civilization was older than his own, considered them but heathen, and gave them the scant courtesy deserved by all so benighted in matters theatrical. The two figures suddenly stopped.

"Are you the girl who sang?"

"Yes," came the answer in a clear voice from the taller figure.

The manager was not slow in coming to the point.

"Would you like to be rich?"

Again the positive monosyllable, uttered with much eagerness.

"Good!" The manager's face could not be seen, but his satisfaction was revealed in his voice. "Just come with me to America, and your fortune's made!"

She stood silent, her head down, so that the manager prompted her impatiently: "Well?"

"I stay ad Japan," she said.

"Stay at Japan!" The manager barely controlled himself. "Why, you can never get rich in this land. Now look-a-here--I'll call and see you to-morrow. Where do you live?"

"I don' want you call. I stay ad Japan."

This time the manager, seeing a possible fortune escaping him, and having in mind the courtesy due the heathen, delivered himself of a large Christian oath. "If you stay here, you're a fool. You'll never--"

The young man named Bigelow, who had watched the attempted bargaining in silence, broke in with some indignation. "Oh, let her go! She's got a right to do as she pleases, you know. Don't try to bully her into going to America if she'd rather stay here."

"Well, I suppose I can't use force to make her take a good thing," said the manager, ungraciously. He drew out his card-case and handed the girl his card. "Perhaps you'll change your mind after you think about this a bit. If you do, my name and Tokyo address are on that card; just come round and see me. I'm going down to Bombay to look out for some Indian jugglers. I'll be gone about five months, and will be back in Tokyo before I start out on another trip to China, Corea, and the Philippines, and then off for home."

The girl took the card and listened in silence; when he finished, she courtesied, slipped a hand into that of her companion, and hurried down the narrow road.

After the two Americans had made their way back to the tea-garden, the older one at once sought out the proprietor.

"You know something about that girl. Come, tell us," he said, imperiously.

The proprietor was profusely courteous, but hesitated to speak of the one who had danced and sung. Finally he unbent grudgingly. He told the theatrical man and his companion that he knew next to nothing about her. She had come to him a stranger, and had offered her services. She refused to enter into the usual contract demanded of most geishas, and in view of her talents he could not afford to lose her. She was attracting large crowds to his gardens by her strange dances. Still he disliked and mistrusted her. She came only when it suited her whim, and on _fêtes_ and occasions of this kind he had no means of knowing where she was. It was only by accident she had happened in this evening. Once he had attempted to follow her, but she had discovered him, and made him promise never to do such a thing again, threatening to stay away altogether if he did so. He spoke disparagingly of her:

"Beautiful, excellencies! Phow! You cannot see properly in the deceitful light of this honorable moon. A cheap girl of Tokyo, with the blue-glass eyes of the barbarian, the yellow skin of the lower Japanese, the hair of mixed color, black and red, the form of a Japanese courtesan, and the heart and nature of those honorably unreliable creatures, alien at this country, alien at your honorable country, augustly despicable--a half-caste!"

II

IN WHICH WOMAN PROPOSES AND MAN DISPOSES

Jack Bigelow was beset by the nakodas (professional match-makers). He was known to be one of the richest foreigners in the city, and the Nekoosa gave him no rest. Though he found them interesting, with the little comedies and tragedies to relate of the matches they had made and unmade, he had remained impregnable to their arts. He naturally shrank from such a union, and in this position he was strengthened by a promise he had made before leaving America to a college chum, his most intimate friend, a young English-Japanese student, named Taro Burton, that during his stay in Japan he would not append his name to the long list of foreigners who for a short, happy, and convenient season cheerfully take unto themselves Japanese wives, and with the same cheerfulness desert them.

Taro Burton was almost a monomaniac on this subject, and denounced both the foreigners who took to themselves and deserted Japanese wives, and the native Japanese, who made such a practice possible. He himself was a half-caste, being the product of a marriage between an Englishman and a Japanese woman. In this case, however, the husband had proved faithful to his wife and children up to death; but then he had married a daughter of the nobility, a descendant of the proud Jakichi family, and the ceremony had been performed by an English missionary. Despite the happiness of this marriage, Taro held that the Eurasian was born to a sorrowful lot, and was bitterly opposed to the union of the women of his country with men of other lands, particularly as he was Westernized enough to appreciate how lightly such marriages were held by the foreigners. It was true, of course, that after the desertion the wife was divorced, according to the law, but that, in Taro's mind, only made the matter more detestable.

For five years, up to their graduation four months before this, the young American and the young half-Japanese had been associated as closely together as it is possible for two young men to be, and a strong and deep affection existed between them.

It had been originally decided that the friends would make this trip together, which in Taro Burton's case was to be his return to the home he had left, and, with Jack Bigelow, was to be the beginning of a year's travel preliminary to entering the business of his father, who was a rich shipbuilder. But for some reason, which he never clearly set forth to his friend, Taro had backed out at almost the last minute; yet he had urged Jack to undertake the trip alone, and, under promise to follow shortly, finally had prevailed. So Jack Bigelow had made the long voyage to Japan, and had taken a pretty house of his own a short distance from Tokyo.

It was unfortunate that Taro could not have accompanied his friend, for, while the latter was not a weak character, he was easy-going, good-natured, and easily manipulated through his feelings.

The young Japanese, had he done nothing else, at least would have kept the Nekoosa and their offerings of matrimonial happiness on the other side of the American's doors. As it was, one of them in particular was so picturesque in appearance, quaint in speech, and persistent in his calls, that the young man had encouraged his visits, until a certain jocular intimacy put their relations with each other on a pleasant and familiar footing.

It was this nakoda (Ido was his name, so he told Jack) who brought an applicant for a husband to his house, one day, and besought him at least to hold a look-at meeting with her.

"She is beautiful like unto the sun-goddess," he declared, with the extravagance of his class.

"The last was like the moon," said the young man, laughing. "Have you any stars to trot out?"

"Stars!" echoed the other, for a moment puzzled, and then, beaming with delighted enlightenment, "Ah, yes--her eyes, her feet, hair, hands, twinkling like unto them same stars! She prays for just a look-at meeting with your excellency."

"Well, for the fun of the thing, then," said the other, laughing. "I'm sure I don't mind having a look-at meeting with a pretty girl. Show her into the zashishi (guest-room) and I'll be along in a moment. But, look here," he continued, "you'd better understand that I'm only going through this ceremony for the fun of the thing, mind you. I don't intend to marry any one--at all events, not a girl of that class."

"Nod for a leetle while whicheven?" persuaded the nakoda.

"Nod for a leetle while whicheven," echoed the young man, but the agent had disappeared.

When Jack, curious to know what she was like, she who was seeking him for a husband, entered the zashishi, he found the blinds high up and the sunshine pouring into the room. His eyes fell upon her at once, for the shoji at the back of the room was parted, and she stood in the opening, her head drooping bewitchingly. He could not see her face. She was quite small, though not so small as the average Japanese woman, and the two little hands, clasped before her, were the whitest, most irresistible and perfect hands he had ever seen. He had heard of the beauty of the hands of the Japanese women, and was not surprised to find even a girl of this class--she was a geisha, of course, he told himself--with such exquisite, delicate hands. He knew she was holding them so that they could be seen to advantage, and her little affected pose amused and pleased him.

After he had looked at her a moment, she subsided to the mats and made her prostration. She was dressed very gayly in a red crêpe kimono, tied about with a purple obi. Her hair was dressed after the fashion of the geisha, with a flower ornament at top and long, pointed daggers at either side; but as she bowed her head to the mats, some pin in her hair escaped and slipped, and then a tawny, rebellious mass of hair, which was never meant to be worn smoothly, had fallen all about her, tumbled into her eyes and over her ears, and literally covered her little crouching form. She shivered in shame at the mishap, and then knelt very still at his feet.

Bigelow was speechless. Never before in his life had he seen such hair. It was black, though not densely so, for all over it, even where it had been darkened with oil, there was a rich red tinge, and it was luxuriously thick and long and wavy.

"Good heavens!" he said, after the little figure had remained absolutely motionless for a full minute; "she'll hurt or cramp herself in that position."

The girl did not rise at the sound of his voice, but crept nearer to him, her hair still enshrouding her. It made him feel creepy, and annoyed and pleased and amused him altogether.

"Don't do that," he said. "Please stand up. Do!"

The nakoda told him to lift her to her feet, and the young man did so, entangling his hands in her hair. When she stood up, he saw her face, which was oval and rosy, the lips very red. She still drooped her eyes, so that her face was incomplete.

"What's your name?" he asked her, gently. "And what do you want with me?"

Now she raised her head and he saw her eyes. They startled him. They were large, though narrow, and intensely, vividly blue. Before, with her hair neatly smoothed and dressed, he had noticed nothing extraordinary about her; now, with that rich red-black hair enshrouding her, and the long, blue eyes looking at him mistily, she was an eerie little creature that made him marvel. A Japanese girl with such hair and eyes! And yet the more he looked at her the more he saw that her clothes became her; that she was Japanese despite the hair and eyes. He did not try to explain the anomaly to himself, but he could not doubt her nationality. There was no other country she could belong to.

"You are Japanese?" he finally asked, to make sure.

She nodded.

"I thought so, and yet--"

She smiled, and her eyes closed a trifle as she did so. She was all Japanese in a moment, and prettier than ever.

"You see--your eyes and hair--" he began again. She nodded and dimpled, and he knew she understood.

"What is it you want with me?" he asked, desiring rather to hear her speak than to learn her object, for this he knew.

She was solemn now. She flushed, and her eyes went down. To explain to him why she had come to him in this wise was a painful task. He could guess that, but she forced the words past her lips.

"To be your wife, my lord," she said in English, and the queer quality of her voice thrilled him strangely.

This was the answer he knew was coming; nevertheless it stirred him in a way he had not expected. To have this wonderfully pretty girl before him, beseeching him to marry her--he who had as yet never dreamed of marriage for himself--was disturbing to his balance of mind. Nay, more--it was revolting. He shrank back involuntarily, wondering why she had come to him, and this wonder he put into words.

"But why do you want to marry me?" he asked.

The expression of her face was enigmatical now. She had ceased to blush and smile, and had become quite white. Suddenly she commenced to laugh--thrilling, elfish laughter, that rang out through the room, startling the echoes of the house.

"Why?" he repeated, fascinated.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I mus' make money," she said.

Of course this was her reason; he knew that before she spoke; but hearing her say so gave him pain. She was such a dainty little body.

"Oh, you need not sell yourself for that," he said, earnestly. "Why, I'll give you some--all you want. You're awfully young, aren't you? Just a little girl. _I_ can't marry you. It wouldn't be fair to you."

Again she shrugged her shoulders, and spoke in Japanese to the nakoda.

"She says some one else will, then," he interpreted.

"All right," said the young man, almost bitterly.

She pretended to go towards the door, and then came back towards Bigelow.

"I seen you before," she announced, ingenuously.