"How will you assure me of this?" demanded she.
"By nothing but my word," said Shijiro, with all his samurai's haughtiness.
"Gods! Gods! How mighty and wise you are, lord!" sobbed Hoshiko, kissing his feet.
"But you will not be satisfied to live in China. You will take her to Japan, where both will be accursed etas," went on the implacable mother.
"You are a soldier."
"I am a soldier," answered Shijiro Arisuga. "In the army there is neither eta nor samurai. All are equal. All are sons of the emperor.
This is Yamato Damashii. The New Japan! And I am Shijiro Arisuga! That is the end!"
And it was the end. Here was a soldier who could vanquish the Medusa mother of Hoshiko by the cold process of words.
"Witnesses! Sake! I will not leave this lady again until she is my wife!"
And so terrible was this Shijiro Arisuga in his wrath that everything happened as he ordered--and they were married. I wish they might have lived happily ever after. But it was only a few glad weeks. Yet, in those little days and hours, she did what she had threatened: crept into his heart so deeply that he was never to dislodge her quite until he died. And it was here Shijiro Arisuga thought for the second time, without suspicion to mar it, that the happiest moment of his life had come.
Fancy the joy of it all! Sure, I cannot tell it. I have no fit words. It was infinitely better than either had dreamed. The dainty little creature known as Hoshiko bloomed into splendor as Madame Shijiro--perhaps because she had no thought--absolutely none--for anything but him. And he was daily more and more amazed at the number of thoughts he spent upon her, who, he had once fancied, he could leave behind for some one else--for many others.
Indeed, it came to such a state that he had little thought for anything but her. The military death was forgotten--Yone was.
"Now if we dream," he laughed to her one day, "take heed that we do not wake. For this dream is such as I have never dreamed before. In it are perfumes and melodies, caresses and touches, passions and calms, sleeps and wakings, and all delights."
"And you," laughed his wife, flinging herself upon him.
"And you," he laughed back, not putting her away.
"And that thing the foreigners call love."
"Grown larger in our sunny East than they know it in their chilly West!"
added her husband.
TO THE EMPEROR
XVIII
TO THE EMPEROR
But the little paradise she had made for him there was one day invaded by two soldiers with some mysterious order, the command of which was that he must rejoin his regiment at once, though there was now no war.
"It is 'on to the emperor,'" laughed Arisuga, "and I must go. I had forgotten--thank _you_! Forgotten the emperor! The death!"
"Is it far to the emperor?" asked his little wife.
"Yes," sighed and laughed Arisuga, rubbing her cheek against his--you know they were of precisely the same height.
"And there is danger?"
"Oh, yes," said her husband, indifferently.
"If you should be killed, you will let me know at once?"
"Certainly, I will tell you myself," laughed he. "For what is that killing to this going away from you!"
"Oh--it is not so sad as waiting--waiting--waiting--for you to come again! Have I made you happy?"
"As a god," he said.
"Then, if you should not be killed--you will come back to be happy again?"
"Nothing but death shall keep me from you!"
"Swear--by your eyes--by your heart--by your soul--by your mother's, your father's memory!"
All of which he did--still laughing.
"What more, beloved one?"
"Only your own sweet word, my beautiful lord, that you will come back.
Say this: 'Beloved who loves me more than the rest in Buddha's bosom, and whom I love as much--' That is true, is it not?"
"That is true," he laughed.
"'I will come back at the first moment of opportunity, if I live, to my--wife!'"
He repeated this after her.
"Now go! The waiting will be ecstasy. Go! The sooner you go, the sooner you will return. I am not afraid. I am your wife. You have said it. Here or there, in the earths or the heavens! For all your lives--all, all!
And I will be no other man's wife while I live! Or after death. And some day you shall have a son--like you in everything!--to keep the lamps alight when you are dead. For there will be for you a soldier's shrine.
Now go or my heart will burst. And remember that in China or America or Germany I am your wife! But in Japan I am an eta--and you. Remember!
Some day there will be a son, some day--_soon_!"
For if nothing else would bring him back, she thought this untrue promise would!
And so they parted--she pulling him back and pushing him off--there by the Sacred City he had helped to win--until she closed her eyes and clenched her hands and flung herself on the ground, face down, and would not touch or speak to him again. When he was out of sight she was sorry, and ran to the roof whence she could see the hills. There he was, walking between the two soldiers! And he turned because she so desperately wished him to--the gods made him do it, of this she was certain--and waved a hand to her; and with both of hers she sent after him all the blessings of the immortal gods.
"I will--I will be brave," she cried terribly to Isonna, who had said nothing. "I will be brave as he!"
"But how can we when all our life has gone yonder!"
And the maid sobbed in utter abandon.