Daughters of Nijo: A Romance of Japan

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,...

FROM a poor but honored farmer of Echizen, Yamada Kwacho had grown to be a rich and prominent merchant of Tokyo. At the advice of the Lord of Echizen, Kwacho had gone to Tokyo s...

ON the shore of Hayama, in a little village two hours’ ride by train from Tokyo, there stood a sumptuous villa, the summer residence of the Prince of Nijo, though Nijo himself w...

THE palace Nijo, the resort of West-desiring nobility and court, was possibly the oddest if most expensive residence in Tokyo. Originally it had been a Yashiki of the Daimio of...

ALONE in the quiet guest room of the Yamada house they sat. Convention demanded a light, but it was of the dimmest—a dull and flickering andon. Yet the night was clear. By the s...

IT wanted but a few hours before the noon wedding when Sado-ko, appearing on her balcony, looked down into the garden, where her lover waited. Down the little flight of stairs s...

“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?”

IT was such another moonlight night as that on which the Princess Sado-ko kept her last tryst with the artist Junzo, but in the Nijo gardens no sight was reminiscent of the flow...

SADO-KO stepped from out the shadow of the bamboo grove into the moon-lit path, and seemingly pensive, made her way toward the two at the gate. She paused before them silently f...

“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.”

WHILE the ladies of the household of the Princess Sado-ko, and guests of her cousin the Prince Komatzu, were gossiping over their noonday tea, Kamura Junzo, alone, was wandering...

THE Kamura house was built on a hill slope. Of all the houses of the suburb, it was nearest to the palace Aoyama. Shortly after the Restoration the elder Kamura had been a retai...

He raised his head sharply. She had not heard, then! The maid pushed the shojis to either side, thus exposing the apartment to the full view of any without. This was a daily cus...

THE following morning dawned clear and bright, not a remnant of mist or fog remaining to recall the previous night. A bright yellow sun arose from behind the hills and beat away...

THOUGH samurai by birth, the Kamura family were of gentler nature than their stern ancestors, and so no feeling of anger or bitterness had been cherished against their son Junzo...

THERE were marsh lands and boggy rice-fields in the valley country along the Hayama, and during the season of White Dew (end of August) the river was low and scarcely seemed to...

IT was a happy day in the Kamura household when the cheerful and rapid-moving foreign doctor pronounced the patient strong enough to leave his room to sit a little while upon th...

IN the palace Nijo the latest royal proclamation came like an earthquake shock. The Emperor at last had kept his word to his dead mother. Through word to Nijo, he authorized the...

WHILE the Princess Sado-ko was sitting ruefully among the folded bed things, and pondering upon the weighty question of their disposal, Kwacho and Ohano arrived home in jinrikis...

THE ladies persisted, though the artist was obdurate. He stood in their path directly before the covered picture on the foreign easel. His eyes wandered gravely over the various...

ON a cold morning in the month of January the Empress Dowager died. She had returned from a ceremony of the thirtieth anniversary of the death of her late consort. Exhausted, br...

THE following morning an early messenger brought a letter to the Kamura residence. The family were at breakfast, but as the messenger came from the elder Kamura’s old Echizen fr...

IT was the month of Kikuzuki (Chrysanthemum). Summer was dying,—not dead,—and in her latter moments her beauty was ethereal, though passionate. The leaves were brown and red. Th...

Sado-ko lifted the andon and carried it across the room. Holding it in her hand on a level with her eyes, she examined the wall, and found a sliding panel. This she pushed aside...

“Loathe thought of union with Junzo!” she repeated, then laughed with almost childish joy. “It is not strange—in you, perhaps. Now listen once again, and pray you, answer me.”

IT was early afternoon. The ladies in the Komatzu palace were taking their noon-day siesta, and idly discussing the work of the artist, Kamura Junzo. Since he had become a favor...

Her voice broke the spell of silence. The visitor bowed her head simply but eloquently. Masago went a nervous step toward her. There was fear in both her face and voice as she b...

There was silence for a moment, as the maid passed into the adjoining room and leaning from the casement looked toward the front part of the palace. Soon her voice, raised and m...