CHAPTER XXV

THE EVE OF A WEDDING

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. The grass was warmer colored than at any other time of year. The glorious chrysanthemum, queen of all the flowers in Japan, lent golden color to the landscape. The skies were deeply blue. Sometimes, when the sinking sun was slow in fading, its ruddy tints upon the blue made of the heavens a purple canopy, enchanting to the sight. Yet with all its beauty November is the month of tears, for Death, however beautiful, must always wring the heart. So lovers are pensive and melancholy in their happiness at this sweet, sad season of the year.

It was the eve before the wedding of the artist and the maid Masago. Junzo’s artful insistence that he was not strong enough to do without the helpful nursing of his fiancée had kept her for many days a guest within his father’s house. Now it wanted but the passing of one night before the day when the wedding would take place at the house of Kwacho. Hence the lovers were on their way from the Kamura residence. It was twilight. The two loitered in their steps along the way, pausing on every excuse within the woods, the meadow fields, and even on the open highway. They spoke but little to each other, and then only at intervals. But when they had approached quite near the house, the girl said tremulously:—

“When we are married, Junzo, I want to make a little trip with you—alone.”

“Where, Masago?”

She stopped, looking toward the hills. Then, with one hand on his arm and the other lifted from her sleeve, she pointed:—

“Look, Junzo, how the royal sun lingers on the palace turrets. It seems to love Aoyama.”

Junzo surveyed the golden peaks of the palace, shining red in the sunset glow. His thoughts prevented speech. His mind dwelling on that one who had once made her home within the palace, he forced his eyes away to turn them on the dreamy face of his Masago.

“You spoke of a little trip, Masago. Where shall it be, then?”

“Yonder,” she said, still pointing toward the palace.

His face was troubled.

“I do not understand. You do not mean—”

Slowly she nodded her head.

“Yes, I mean to Aoyama, just up there on the hills, my Junzo. It would be a little journey, and I—I want just once again in my life to loiter in the gardens.”

“You have already been there, then?” he asked, with some astonishment.

She caught her breath, then simply bowed her head.

“I have been there in fancy, Junzo, or perhaps it was in dreams,” was her reply. “Will you not go with me sometime, in fact?”

He hesitated, and moved uncomfortably.

“I do not understand your fancy,” he said.

“Well, make the little journey with me, will you not?”

“The palace is not public property,” he answered.

As she did not respond at once, he seized the opportunity to continue their walk, thinking in this way to divert her. It was growing softly darker. In the twilight her face was so ethereal and perfect that the artist could not take his eyes from it. Suddenly she said quite simply:—

“You have fame at court, and so you could obtain a pass to enter the grounds.”

“Why, have you so strange a fancy, Masago?”

“Is it strange?” she asked, and stopped again. In the dusk of the woodland lane, her upturned face appeared timid, wistful.

“Yes, it is strange for a maiden of our class, Masago, to wish to enter royal gardens.”

“Are they not beautiful?” she asked wistfully.

“Beautiful? Perhaps, to some eyes, but to my mind not of that more desirable beauty nature gives to our more simple gardens.”

“Once you thought the gardens peerless,” she said; “have you forgotten, Junzo?”

He started violently. Suddenly his hand fell upon her arm. In the dimly fading light he bent to see her face.

“How can you know of—Masago, your words are strange.”

She laughed in that soft way so reminiscent to him always of that other one.

“They are not strange, indeed,” she said, “for I have often heard that you declared the palace grounds were beautiful. But then,” she sighed, and resumed the walk, “an artist is no less a man, and therefore fickle.”

They did not speak again until they reached Yamada’s house. At the little garden gate they paused.

“How quiet all the world seems to-night!” she said.

“You say that in a melancholy tone of voice, Masago.”

“Yes, I am a little melancholy. It is the season and the night. Have you forgotten, Junzo, that to-morrow—”

He did not let her finish, but seized both her hands.

“How can you ask that question? I think of that to-morrow every second. To-night I will not sleep.”

“Nor I,” she said.

“What will you do? Tell me, sweet Masago, and I will engage the night in the same way.”

She nestled against his arm, looking toward the stars.

“To-night,” she said, “I’ll sit beside my shoji doors and I will watch the moon. I’ll tell my heart that I am keeping tryst with you, and think that it is so, that you and I, my Junzo, are alone in some sweet garden, keeping a moon tryst.”

He dropped her hands. She could hear his quickened breath. In the shadow he could not see her face. How could he have guessed that Sado-ko was jealous of her very self?

“Why did you drop my hands?” she asked.

He seemed to be in painful thought. His voice was husky when he spoke:—

“Your words, Masago, start bitter recollections in my mind.”

“Bitter?” she repeated softly.

“Bitter, bitter,” he replied.

She broke his thought, with a timid question.

“Junzo, this is our wedding-eve. Confide in me.”

He moved from her a step, and stood in indecisive silence. Then:—

“There is nothing to confide.”

“You told me once there was a tale that you would tell me.”

With an impetuous motion he once again seized her hands.

“You are too good, too pure to hear the story of one both false and base.”

In the strangest, most piteous of voices she answered:—

“Perhaps there was another time when you called her by another name.”

Her strange words rendered him quite speechless. She put her hand upon his arm. There was a pleading quality in her voice:—

“Junzo, do not think or speak unkindly of poor Sado-ko,” she said.

He repeated the name in a low, despairing voice:—

“Sado-ko!”

The very name recalled his anguish of the past.

“You love her still?” she asked. Now a note of fear was in her voice. She could not bear that he should speak or think unkindly of the Princess Sado-ko, yet the very thought that he should love one who was no longer herself, rendered this paradox of women distracted.

“You love her still?” she asked, catching his arm and shaking it with her childish jealousy.

“No, no,” he said, as though the very thought was loathsome, “’tis you alone I love, my own Masago.”

Her tone was sharply tart.

“You do not love Sado-ko?”

“I love Masago,” he said.

She sighed.

“I would not have it otherwise,” she said, and laughed happily.

“Masago,” he said earnestly, “ask the consent of your honored parent that I may come indoors. We will spend a portion of the night together. I will then tell you all you wish to know concerning that passion of the heart I once have felt, which you have suspected. It is better you should know.”