Part 6

But presently the glory faded (alas! nothing fades more quickly than glory!) and Arisuga thought again of Hoshiko. Yet it was still good to be back among those whose trade like his own was war. And there were pretty words to listen to--which made the heart swell--and friends joyously to caress one, and others to recount one's courage--for at least two weeks: then all was as before, and Arisuga had only his medal as a surety that all the heroic splendor of Miyagi Field had ever been. It was then that he began not only to think of but to wish for Hoshiko--her hands--her voice--her laughter. In another week he would have given it all for these! And he had sworn to go back. But how could he--now? It was like open treason. Yea, so it is! Glory may fill our lives for a while, but presently it becomes smaller than a woman's steadfast love--as it is smaller. Then he began to think of bringing Hoshiko to Japan. There was that theory, you will remember, that in the army there were neither samurai nor eta--only soldiers. Only sons of the emperor! Understand what that means--to be a son of the emperor. Yet no one but a Japanese can. Remember that the emperor is a god!

The yearning for Hoshiko grew upon him until he knew that he must do something definitive. Either she must come to him, or he must go to her, or he must forget her. Forget her! For three nights he strove to keep her out of his thoughts. When she came he would sing--shout madly. But she came quite easily through the songs. Then he cursed--everything which had conspired to bring about his unhappy status, pausing only before the emperor. She came smiling, seductive, through the curses.

Then he remembered the kindly face of the emperor and took a moment's hope. He would understand, and perhaps permit him to live in China. But when he told Zanzi his hope, that officer grew savage:--

"What! After the emperor has decorated you, touched you, you want--actually _want_--to go away from him? Adopt another country? Sir, if he should know that you have such small purposes, I think he would recall your medal."

Then he thought it might be looked at differently, if they knew that he was married. Especially if they could see Hoshiko. Of course this was impossible, since she could not come to Japan. But he felt that, if he could interest his colonel in the facts, he could give him an adequate description of Hoshiko. No one, he thought, need know that she was an eta. Having secured so much, he would intimate that he had no intention of adopting another country, but that the air of China was necessary for his recovery; that the retrogression in his convalescence, which all noticed and spoke of, was because of the now unaccustomed air of Japan.

He told Colonel Zanzi tentatively, not that he was married--but that he wished to marry. Zanzi was opposed to marriage for soldiers.

"I am sorry," grinned the colonel, with a shrug. "Why must you many? It is peace. Are the yoshiwara and Geisha street empty?"

"I have given my promise," said Arisuga.

"Oh, well," replied the colonel, with the air of dismissing a hopeless and useless topic, "if she is a samurai--"

"I have not inquired concerning that," said the color-bearer, untruthfully.

"But you must," said the officer, sharply.

"The old order is no more," quoted Arisuga against him. "I have heard you say yourself, Colonel Zanzi, that in the army there is neither eta nor samurai,--only sons of the emperor."

"In time of war, yes," finished the colonel. "We need them all then. But, these are times of peace. And the old order lives always. I have never said otherwise. You, sir, the son of a samurai who died at Jokoji, even if he died on the wrong side, ought not to need to be told that. Sir, no member of this regiment marries below his caste! If you are thinking of such a thing, I regret it. Your decision lies between this woman and the emperor, who gives you life, and who, when he accepts you as his son, takes back that life again to himself to dispose of at his will. You cannot have forgotten the samurai obligation,--not to live under the same heavens nor to tread the same earth with the enemy of your lord. You must leave it, or the enemy must. This woman, sir, puts herself in opposition to your emperor. She is, therefore, his enemy, and consequently yours. Nevertheless the emperor is gracious. He leaves the choice to his sons. But they must take the consequences. Good morning, sir."

But the color-bearer did not move. He stood there still with his hand to his forehead.

"Good morning!" thundered the colonel.

And even that could not frighten him. He was momentously deciding between the emperor and Hoshiko.

"I desire to say, sir, that I shall not marry," said Arisuga.

"I am glad to hear it. The soldier who marries is a fool."

And therefore the little color-guard set himself to fight again, and to the end, against the invincible thing called love. It makes me smile as I think of it. Who has ever vanquished it? At first he stubbornly thought of other battles he had fought and won. But he was surprised that this brought no courage to the new kind of conflict. She came in the visions of night, like the sappers and miners, when he was least defended against her, smiling, beckoning. He could see her and touch her, and know that she was at his side.

Now all things mightily conspired to make that thing he had once thought of in China--a temporary alliance,--a going away, an easy forgetting, another marriage, many--to be more fully than he could have hoped.

It was only necessary that he should remain in Japan. Time would do the rest. He used to wonder, in the night, under the stars, how long it would take her to understand, then forget, then to take another husband. He never got over this latter without waking his sleeping comrade by a certain wild violence of passion.

He thought of it with a pitying laugh at himself--now mad to go back where he was denied the going--to have her there who must not come--whose coming would be ruin.

One night he spoke wildly to this comrade:--

"I tell you that she will never forget, never take another: if she did, I would kill her! But I am the liar and the scoundrel--I. She chose me." Concerning which interruptions of his repose his sleeping-mate continued to complain to headquarters.

A dozen times he sat down to write to her. But what comfort was that? It was herself he wanted: the bodily presence which could softly touch him, the voice which could gently speak to him, all the beauty which he might see! A dozen times he threw the unfinished letter from him.

And so, finally, this fight against Hoshiko became a rout. Every night, when he should have slept, it came on--like an enemy who knew the time and place of the weakness of his adversary. If there had only been no nights to fight through! At last his bunk-mates so complained of him that the doctor sent him to live out of the barracks, where he would disturb no one. He had a small house to himself.

But in this new solitude she came and stayed and possessed him. She made him again to possess her. She was there always. The night mattered no more. He saw her eyes in the dusk, heard her voice in daylight. He often parted the shoji--sometimes to find vacancy--when his mood was practical and he had slept well; but often when he had not eaten or slept, and the visions came--to have her swiftly in his arms.

Presently a certain infidelity came and lodged in him, and the knowledge of it spread through the army.

"What a spirit must that be of the emperor--the gods--the augustnesses--even a father waiting in the Meido--which would not permit him to have one small woman!"

That is what he publicly said. And, worse, he had once thought of throwing his medal into the moat near by and of escaping to China. Of deserting the emperor he had doubly sworn to serve. His gods, his father, the shades. Perhaps there was but one thing in the old days, worse than the eta--the deserter. He thought of this and took terrible pause.

Finally it was known in the army that Arisuga was mad--quite mad. The wound in his head had done it. His talk was of a woman: an houri, if ever there was one, should his talk of her be believed. He had cursed the gods, reviled the augustnesses, the spirit of his father, the emperor who had pinned the medal on his coat. Certainly Shijiro Arisuga was mad. He himself heard this, and thought to take a cunning advantage of it. If he were mad, he would be invalided, and then he would see China again.

IN THE ANDON'S LIGHT

XXI

IN THE ANDON'S LIGHT

But one night there came a gentle tapping on his shoji--like the dream. He sat up and listened. There was more tapping--still like the dream. And then a whispered voice--not the dream--which woke him to mutiny:--

"Ani-San! Beloved! Do you no more wish me? Oh, it is so long--so long! And we have walked--walked--walked. I would rather know and die. At first I thought you dead--you said nothing but that should keep you from me--death! death! And I could not sleep--I never slept! At last I decided to come and get your body, steal it out of the grave, and take it back with me, where I might weep over it and make the offerings--only your dear, dead body I have loved and which has loved me--lain down by my side, held me in its arms! And so I came with Isonna--faithful Isonna is here--and learned that you are not dead, and all the glory. O beloved! My soul swells with joy of you. You, mine, once mine, so glorious in the eyes of our country! For, oh, Ani-San, it is _my_ country, too! They shall not take that from me, though it makes me an outcast. And my feet touch it now. My country! Nippon! Nippon! After all the evil years of exile. My emperor! My gods! Forgive me, beloved, but it must all come out of my heart, or it will burst. I know you are there. I know you listen! I see--touch--adore--your shadow. I have seen _you_! I have hid in the trees--Isonna and me--for three days, until we are very hungry and have begged rice. Three times--on each day--we have seen you. Three nights we have watched your dear shadow. Once it prayed and then rushed upon the outside and spoke loudly to the heavens--words which we could not hear. Were they of me? Were they hate or love? To-night I touch your shadow--put my lips upon it on the paper. For--yes--I know that is all I am ever to have: the shadow of you. You do not wish me! That is what my mother said; and laughed. She struck me and said her words concerning you had all come true. Ah, pardon, lord. What matter that? It is three days! Three days! We could not die until the moon was dark; for some one, passing, might see and find our bodies. But I am glad for those three days. Now the moon is gone--the moon which sees our deeds and tells them to the gods of night; and, lord, only to-night, when the moon was gone, could I come to you to say farewell--Ani-San, to-night we die--Isonna and I. Unless you still wish me? No! Pardon that. But--if you should! Ah! if you should! Speak one word though it be Go! Only one word, that I may die in the blessed sound of your voice! Oh, it has been so lonely! For you first taught me how to be happy--to laugh, to love. And then you went, and took it all away--all, all away. Beloved, you do not wish us--No? so, to-night we die. We shall not harm you, even in our death. As long as this little paper wall is between us you are not contaminated even while we live. No one will know us in this far land; and we shall die where no one will ever find us; only the gods, only the pitying gods. So we do not harm you in coming here. We would not have come had we known you lived. Ani-San, it is finished--all quite finished; you wish me no more. I hear no blessed word. Lo! I listen--listen with my soul--but I hear no word! All the gods in all the skies bless you. All the gods in all the skies make you happy. All the gods in all the skies make you glorious. Ani-San, beloved, farewell, forever and forever, farewell!"

At first the little color-bearer put his hands madly to his ears; but not for long. Could you? And at the end he heard her sink slowly to the earth, slipping, sighing, down the shoji.

At that moment he would have had her if the empire itself had fallen for it. He did not wait to part the shoji. He plunged through them as he had done once before in China. And there at his feet was the pitiful little heap. Too numb she was to be wakened by his tumult.

He carried her within and laid her in the lamplight. The pretty face was ghastly with starvation. The feet were nearly bare, for walking had worn out her sandals. The kimono was one he knew. But it had been in the rain and had trailed many tired miles in the dust. He did not need the light of the andon to tell him of her sufferings. Nor even her voice. And presently when she woke it was not of that she told. Indeed, of that she never spoke. It was all forgotten in that waking in his arms. And all she said--all she ever said of it--was to ask him, with a breath, if she dreamed.

She slept a little, then woke and said with terror:--

"Isonna!"

"Yes, beloved," answered Arisuga. "Where is she? You have slept sweetly."

"Has the clock struck?"

"The clock has struck."

"Then she is dead," whispered Hoshiko. "She was to die first--when the clock struck. And I was sleeping--sweetly, you said. Oh, gods! Go to the moat. I will pray."

At the moat there was nothing but some pebbles dislodged where small feet might have tracked. Some fresh soil was uncovered, where two large stones had been taken. One was gone, the other waited at the edge of the waters. And in this he knew how the manner of their death had been planned. Each was to take a great stone in her small arms and wade into the moat until--At the piteous picture he who had seen death by thousands choked in his throat and followed Isonna into the water.

But it was too late--much too late. And so he left her there, where she had chosen to be, for him and for Hoshiko, quite at rest, with her burden still clasped strongly in her arms, and only a little prayer to Buddha--nembutsu--Isonna!

TADAIMA--TADAIMA!

XXII

TADAIMA--TADAIMA!

It was three days before she could smile. Then she said wanly:--

"What will you do with _me_, Ani-San? Must I die, too? You cannot go back to China with me."

"By all the gods in all the skies we shall part no more! We can die--yes--together--but part never!"

"Alas! that is all we can do now, beloved, for I have harmed you in coming here."

"You have brought me the happiness I do not deserve. I will never again put it in jeopardy."

But you are to understand that even that, dying together, perhaps, with her obi binding them close to each other, walking arm in arm, into the sea, or the moat, until they could but dimly know that the sun was yet in the heavens, on through the green water, more and more dim unto darkness, peace, sleep--you are to understand that this, death with him, was next in its sweetness to life with him.

He meant to go to the colonel; but not yet. You remember how she raped those few days of happiness out of the very hand of fate in China. So now Arisuga said Tadaima! Wait!

For again his little wife had to have a trousseau, and she was yet very weak and tired. And on the way she had sold her pretty hair-pins for food--these had to be replaced. But so potent is happiness, that it was not three days more till all her loveliness had returned and bloomed again--just in time to be adorned by the new kimono of blue crepe, and the new kanzashi of tortoise-shell and gold.

Still it was Tadaima!

For three days more Arisuga lived in his paradise and then went resolutely to the colonel.

"I am married," he said bluntly, with his salute.

"What?" roared the colonel.

"I was married when I was here before."

Finally the officer smiled. That is the way he would have been likely to do it at the color-bearer's age.

"I remember that you said you did not mean to marry! You _were_ married! Well, well, if she is a samurai--"

"She is an eta," said Arisuga. "That one in China."

"Ah! After a little while you can divorce her. No one need know of it."

"I beg your pardon."

"You will not?"

"I cannot."

"You understand your position the moment this becomes public?"

"You cannot make me an eta in the army. I am a soldier."

"You will ask for a furlough. Time indefinite upon recall. It will be granted," said Zanzi, coldly.

This was the color-bearer's dismissal from the regiment. For a moment he could not speak.

"You are too ill for service," continued the colonel, less coldly. "If, however, you should think it best to take my advice, let me know of your recovery."

"I thank you, sir," said Arisuga, chokingly, "it is impossible. The flag--my flag--?" he begged.

"Good morning," said the officer; "I will find some one for the flag."

But, after he was gone the colonel determined to see what manner of woman this was who could make Arisuga give up his flag. Orojii had said, in China, that she was pretty! He pictured her an Amazon, with tremendous force, and painted cheeks, who had enslaved the little color-bearer, and he meant to exhibit his authority against hers and save Arisuga from her.

"It is always so," he was thinking as he arrived at the little house, in some haste to be ahead of Arisuga, "a little fellow like Shijiro is sure to choose some woman twice his size for a wife, and to be under her thumb ever after."

You may fancy, therefore, his surprise, when a little flower of a maiden pushed aside the door for him, and, to his question, announced that she was Shijiro's wife. For a moment the colonel did not speak. Tremendous readjustment was necessary. In the meantime she had led him within.

"Sit down," she said. "I will bring you some tea. My husband will be here very soon. He has gone to see his colonel. Alas! you must sit on the floor in the Japanese fashion. We have none of the new foreign chairs!"

In an instant she had the tea before him.

"I do not care for tea," said the soldier. "I am Colonel Zanzi."

"His colonel!" gasped the little wife. "And--and--you have come to be--"

"As kind to you as I can be," said the soldier, hastily. "Be at peace!"

"Oh! Is it true?" The tears ran over her eyes at once. "You know? And yet you will be kind? Oh, Jizo--that is my favorite goddess--look upon you! But you will smoke a little? See, here is my own pipe." She cleansed it and filled it and put it to his lips, and he who smoked only cigars smoked Hoshi's little metal pipe. "And he is not disgraced? I have not ruined him? No! Or you would not be here smoking my pipe. You would be savage. You would wish to kill me. Oh, I know he is the emperor's and you, also, even me! I know how that is. Everything for the emperor! Wives! Children! Even parents! Why, was it not Akima Chinori who killed his child, which was too small to be left alone, so that he might obey the call? 'I have given you life,' so says the imperial call, 'now give it back to me.' But I will not harm him. I will help him to be a soldier. Oh, I am brave! You cannot think how brave. It is only waiting, waiting, waiting, that I cannot endure. Do you know that we were married away down there? And that Arisuga-Sama left me to go to the emperor? Did you know that? And that it was I came to him? He did not bring me. I meant to die here without harm to him. But only Isonna died. He is not to blame."

"Who was Isonna?" asked the soldier.

"She was my little maid. She was to die first when the clock struck, die there in the moat--then I. But first I came to see his shadow on the shoji--touch it. Say farewell. To hear a word, if there were one. I am afraid I wept, fainted with hunger, and he heard me and took me in and kept me. He _did_ wish me! He _did!_ But Isonna was dead. Yes, while I slept in his arms! Dead for us. The tea is very good, excellency?"

And because she put it into his hands with that fear in her great eyes, and because of that shaking of the little hand, and that chattering story in the quavering voice, and those tears, he drank the tea, who drank only hot brandy.

"Do you mean to say that Isonna killed herself so that--so that--"

Even the grizzled soldier choked at the thought.

"So that no disgrace might come to him. And I--I, also, should have died--before he knew. Then he would not have been harmed. As long as the thin paper was between us he was safe--safe as if I were yet in China. But you do not know how sweet that was--to sleep in his arms, to wake in his arms--with the words he spoke that night he married me again in my ears? But while I slept the clock struck. Ah, you know him only as a soldier! I know him as a lover! A husband! A god!"

Still this soldier, brought up to the religion of sacrifice, thought of the serving-woman sacrificially dead there in the moat.

"Was Isonna an eta, too?"

"She was an eta, too," said Hoshiko.

"Gods! And we think you lack spirit--courage--devotion!"

"No! We are brave!" she said piteously. "We are as ready as you to die for the emperor! If you will only learn to let us!"

"I believe you!" said Zanzi.

"Shall I tell you?" she begged. "He is not at fault. Let me plead for him!"

"Yes, tell me," he said.

But she could only repeat the old story:--

"We came because we thought he was dead--he said that only death should keep him from us--to take his body back with us--only his dear, dead body. That would have been no disgrace. For the Lord Buddha does not permit any one to disgrace the dead who cannot help themselves. But when we knew that he was alive, we knew also that, by coming to Japan, we had harmed him. Then we meant to die without him knowing, keeping always the thin wall between us. Where no one could find us after. But I could not without one word of farewell to his shadow--only his shadow! And one word from him--if there was one. That would not harm him. Oh, yes, I knew that I must not touch his body in Japan! But his shadow! Was that harm? And one word? Would not you have touched his shadow? And he _did_ wish me--he _did_! And then--I woke in his arms!

"But the clock had struck while I slept. Eight. And that was the signal for Isonna to take a stone in her arms and walk into the moat. And Isonna was faithful. For there he found her afterward, asleep, with the gods, the great stone in her arms. And that one I was to take is still there, on the edge of the moat, waiting. But now I cannot die. He has made my life sweet again. Would you die with life all sweet again, as the morning glories in the morning? So the stone must wait there. Perhaps he and I shall carry it together. For, so he says, we shall die, together, rather than part again."

"You shall not part. Would you like to go to America?" asked the officer.

"No. Nowhere but here."

For America to her was the country of the barbarians--a horrid waste, where no flowers grew.

"But if your husband should go there?"

"Yes!"

It did not matter then.

The colonel rose.

"Tell him to come to see me again."

"And you will be as kind to him as you have been to me?"

"No," smiled the colonel. "He doesn't deserve it. He doesn't deserve you." But, then, seeing that she did not quite understand his pleasantry, he added: "I shall be as kind to him as I can be, as I am permitted to be, for your sake. And you are to tell him that!"

"Shaka, and all the augustnesses bless you!"

He held the tiny hands a moment at parting.

"Once I knew a little lady like you. It was long ago, and there is a tomb for her in Asakusa. Perhaps she was _not_ like you, not as lovely. But so it seems now--after the years. If she had not died, I would not have been a soldier."

And no one had ever heard the grizzled colonel's voice so soft.

She sent Arisuga back. But she did not tell him that.

THE PITY OF THE GODS

XXIII

THE PITY OF THE GODS

There seemed little kindness in Colonel Zanzi's greeting when Arisuga arrived. He did not even look up.