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MADAME BUTTERFLY

MADAME BUTTERFLY.

MADAME BVTfitRFJ-Y PYRPJJc EYE*

JOHK UWttER UJNS

JVfiW YOJ^R

TttE

Copyright, 1895, by L. R. HAMERSLEY & Co. Copyright, 1895, by the JENSON PRESS. Copyright, 1898, by THE CENTURY Co. Copyright, 1898, by JOHN LUTHER LONG.

All rights reserved.

OE VINNE PRESS.

I_ %555

-m

TO

THOSE EXQUISITE HANDS

WHOSE TOUCH GIVES PEACE, WITHOUT WHICH THESE, SUCH AS THEY ARE, WOULD NOT BE— SUCH AS THEY ARE

CONTENTS

PAGE

MADAME BUTTERFLY i

PURPLE-EYES ..... 89

A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN AND A LADY . 133

KITO ....... 159

GLORY ...... 207

MADAME BUTTERFLY

MADAME BUTTERFLY

SAYRE'S PRESCRIPTION

JAYRE had counseled him on the voyage out (for he had re- pined ceaselessly at what he called their banishment to the Asiatic station) to wait till they arrived. He had never regarded ser- vice in Japanese waters as banishment, he said, and he had been out twice before.

Pinkerton had just come from the Medi- terranean.

" For lack of other amusement," continued Sayre, with a laugh, " you might get yourself married and — "

2 MADAME BUTTERFLY

Pinkerton arrested him with a savage snort.

" You are usually merely frivolous, Sayre ; but to-day you are silly."

Without manifest offense, Sayre went on :

" When 1 was out here in 1890 — "

" The story of the Pink Geisha ? "

"Well— yes," admitted Sayre, patiently.

" Excuse me, then, till you are through." He turned to go below.

" Heard it, have you ? "

"A thousand times— from you and others."

Sayre laughed good-naturedly at the gal- lant exaggeration, and passed Pinkerton his cigarette-case.

" Ah — ever heard who the man was ? "

"No." He lighted his cigarette. "That has been your own little mystery— appa- rently."

" Apparently ? "

" Yes; we all knew it was yourself."

"It was n't," said Sayre, steadily. "It was my brother." He looked away.

"Oh!"

" He 's dead."

" Beg pardon. You never told us that."

" He went back; could n't find her."

MADAME BUTTERFLY 3

" And you- advise me also to become a subject for remorse ? That 's good of you."

" It is not quite the same thing. There is no danger of you losing your head for — " he glanced uncertainly at Pinkerton, then ended lamely — " any one. The danger would probably be entirely with— the other person."

"Thanks," laughed Pinkerton; "that 's more comforting."

"And yet," mused Sayre, "you are hard to comfort— humanly speaking." \

Pinkerton smiled at this nai've but quite exact characterization of himself.

"You are," continued Sayre, hesitating for the right word—" impervious."

"Exactly," laughed Pinkerton. "I don't see much danger to myself in your prescrip- tion. You have put it in rather an attractive light. The idea cannot be entirely disrepu- table if your brother Jack used it. We lower- class fellows used to call him Agamemnon, you remember."

"It is not my prescription," said Sayre, briefly, leaving the deck.

MADAME BUTTERFLY

MR. B. F. PIKKERTON— AND HIS WAY

BUT Pinkerton not only got himself mar- ried; he provided himself with an establish- ment—creating his menage in quite his own way and entirely for his own comfort. . With the aid of a marriage-broker, he found both a wife and a house in which to keep her. This he leased for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. Not, he explained to his wife later, that he could hope for the felicity of residing there with her so long, but because, being a mere "barbarian," he could not make other legal terms. He did not mention that the lease was determinable, nevertheless, at the end of any month, by the mere neglect to pay the rent. Details were distasteful to Pinkerton; besides, she would probably not appreciate the humor of this.

Some clever Japanese artisans then made the paper walls of the pretty house eye- proof, and, with their own adaptations of American hardware, the openings cun- ningly lockable. The rest was Japanese.

Madame Butterfly laughed, and asked him

MADAME BUTTERFLY 5

why he had gone to all that trouble— in Japan!

" To keep out those who are out, and in those who are in," he replied, with an amor- ous threat in her direction.

She was greatly pleased with it all, though, and went about jingling her new keys and her new authority like toys,— she had only one small maid to command, — until she learned that among others to be excluded were her own relatives.

There had been what her husband called an appalling horde of these at the wedding (they had come with lanterns and banners and disturbing evidences of good will), and he asked her, when she questioned him, whether she did not think they would be a trifle wearisome.

" You thing so ? " she asked in turn.

"Emphatically," said her husband.

She grew pale; she had not expected quite such an answer. A Japanese would have said no, but would have left an interroga- tion in one's mind.

He laughed consolingly.

" Well, Ane-San " (which meant only "elder sister": there are no terms of en- dearment in the Japanese language), "you

6 MADAME BUTTERFLY

will have to get along without ancestors. Think of the many people who would like to do that, and be comforted."

" Who ? " She had never heard of such a thing.

" People, for instance, whose ancestors have perished on the gallows, or, in America, have practised trades."

She did not understand, as often she did not, and he went on :

" I shall have to serve in the capacity of ancestors, — let us say ancestors-at-large, — and the real ones will have to go— or rather not come."

Again he had the joke to himself; his wife had gone away to cry.

At first she decided to run away from him. But this, she reflected, would not probably please her relatives, since they had unanimously agreed upon the marriage for her. Besides, she preferred to remain. She had acquired a strange liking for Pinkerton and her new way of life. Finally she under- took a weak remonstrance— a very strong one, in fact, for a Japanese wife; but Pinker- ton encouraged her pretty domestic auton- omy. Her airs of authority were charming. And they grew more and more so.

MADAME BUTTERFLY 7

"Mr. B. F. Pikkerton,"— it was this, among other things, he had taught her to call him,— "I lig if you permit my august ancestors visit me. I iig ver' moach if you please permit that unto me."

Her hair had been newly dressed for the occasion, and she had stuck a poppy in it. Besides, she put her hand on his arm (a brave thing for her to do), and smiled wist- fully up at him. And when you know what Cho-Cho-San's smile was like, — and her hand— and its touch,— you will wonder how Pinkerton resisted her. However, he only laughed at her,— good-naturedly al- ways, — and j>aid no.

" We can't adopt a whole regiment of back numbers, you know. You are back number enough for me."

And though he kissed her, she went away and cried again; and Japanese girls do not often cry.

He could not understand how important this concession was to her. It must be confessed that he did not try to understand. Sayre, with a little partizanship, explained to him that in Japan filial affection is the paramount motive, and that these "ances- tors," living and dead, were his wife's sole

8 MADAME BUTTERFLY

link to such eternal life as she hoped for. He trusted that Pinkerton would not forget this.

He would provide her a new motive, then, Pinkerton said,— perhaps meaning himself,— and a new religion, if she must have one— himself again. So when she, at his motion, diffidently undertook to clothe on the phantoms which made up her " reli- gion," Pinkerton expounded what he called the easier Western plan of salvation— seri- ously, too, considering thai all his commu- nications to her were touched with whimsy. This was inevitable— to Pinkerton. After all, she was quite an impossible little thing, outside of lacquer and paint. But he struck deeper than he knew ; for she went secretly to the church of the missionary who served on the opposite hill, and heard the same thing, and learned, moreover, that she might adopt this new religion at any time she chose— even the eleventh hour.

She went out joyously; not to adopt his religion, it is true, but to hold it in reserve if her relatives should remain obdurate. Pin- kerton, to his relief, heard no more of it.

MADAME BUTTERFLY 9

III

A MOON-GODDESS TRULY

BUT his wife's family (the word has a more important application there than here) held a solemn conference, and, as the result of it, certain of them waited upon Lieutenant Pin- kerton, and, with elaborate politeness, inti- mated that his course had theretofore been quite unknown in Japan. This was their oblique way of saying that it was unsatis- factory. They pointed out with pati&nt gravity that he would thus limit his wife's opportunities of reappearing on earth in a higher form of life.

Pinkerton smilingly remarked that he was not sure that it would be best for his wife to reappear on earth in a higher form. She would probably accomplish mischief enough in this very charming one— as she was in fact doing.

"Do you know," he continued to the spokesman, "that you look exactly like a lacquered tragedy mask 1 have hanging over my desk ? '

io MADAME BUTTERFLY

One must have seen one of these masks to appreciate this.

But they all laughed good-naturedly, as their host had designed, and quite forgot their errand. And Pinkerton labored that they should remember it no more. This was quite Japanese. In the politest way possible he made them drink his liquors and smoke his tobacco (in the generous Western fash- ion), either of which operations was certain to make a Japanese very ill. This was thor- oughly like Pinkerton.

They 'protested a deal of friendship for Pinkerton that night; but at the final con- ference, where Cho-Cho-San was solemnly disowned, none were more gloomily un- friendly than they who had eaten and drunken with him.

" I did the very best I could for you, little moon-goddess," said Pinkerton to his wife; " but they were proof against my best wine and tobacco."

She bent her head in reflection a moment.

"Ah, you mean— I begin learn you, Mr. B. F. Pikkerton ! You mean they not proof. Aha!"

And Pinkerton delightedly embraced her.

"You are no longer a back number, " hesaid.

MADAME BUTTERFLY n

"Aha! Tha' 's what / thing. Now I bed you I know what is that bag nomber! "

" Well ? "

" People lig I was."

"Exactly."

" But not people lig I am ? "

"No; you are up-to-date."

" I egspeg 1 ought be sawry ? " She sighed hypocritically.

" Exactly why, my moon-maid ? "

" Account they outcasting me. Aevery- body thing me mos' bes' wicked in all Japan. Nobody speak to me no more — they all outcast me aexcep' jus' you; tha' 's why I ought be sawry."

She burst into a reckless laugh, and threw herself like a child upon him.

" But tha' 's ezag' why I am not! Wha' 's use lie ? It is not inside me — that sawry. Me ? I 'm mos' bes' happy female woman in Japan— mebby in that whole worl'. What you thing ? "

He said honestly that he thought she was, and he took honest credit for it.

12 MADAME BUTTERFLY

IV TROUBLE— MEANING JOY

AND after his going, in the whimsical delight they had practised together, she named the baby, when it came, Trouble. Every Japanese baby begins with a tem- porary name; it may be anything, almost, for the little time. She was quite sure he would like the way she had named him Trouble— meaning joy. That was his own oblique way. As for his permanent name, — he might have several others before,— that was for him to choose when he returned. And this event was to happen, according to his own words, when the robins nested again.

And spring and the robins had come.

ALL this to explain why Madame Butterfly and her baby were reclining on the immacu- late mats in attitudes of artistic abandon, instead of keeping an august state, as all other Japanese mothers and babes were at this moment doing. American women, we are told, assume more fearless attitudes

MADAME BUTTERFLY . i?

in the security of their boudoirs than else- where. Japanese women, never. Their conduct is eternally the same. It must be as if some one were looking on — always. There is no privacy for them short of the grave. They have no secure boudoirs.

But Madame Butterfly (through the cour- tesy of her American husband) had both these. It will therefore be argued, perhaps, that she is not a typical Japanese woman. But it is only Lieutenant Pinkerton's views about which we are presently concerned. He called her an American refinement of a Japanese product, an American improve- ment in a Japanese invention, and so on. And since he knew her best, his words con- cerning her should have a certain ex-cathedra authority. I know no more.

AND she and the maid, and the baby too, were discussing precisely the matters which have interested us hitherto — Pinkerton, his baby, his imminent return, etc.

Cho-Cho-San, with a deft jerk that was also a caress, brought the baby into her lap as she sat suddenly up.

" Ah, you— you think he is just like any other baby. But — he is a miracle! Yes!"

i4 MADAME BUTTERFLY

she insisted belligerently. " The Sun-God- dess sent him straight from the Bridge of Heaven! Because of those prayers so early — oh, so very early — in the morning. Oh, that is the time to pray! " She turned the baby violently so that she might see his eyes. " Now did any one ever hear of a Japanese baby with purple eyes ? "

She held him over against the dwarfed wistaria which grew in a flat bronze koro at the tokonoma, full of purple blossoms. She addressed the maid Suzuki, who stood by, happy as herself, apparently aware that this subject must always be discussed vehe- mently.

"As purple as that! Answer me, thou giggler; is it not so ? Speak! I will have an answer! "

Then the maid laughed out a joyous no. If she cherished the Eastern reservations con- cerning blue eyes and pink cheeks, it was a less heinous offense to lie about it a little than to assert it impolitely. Besides, neither she nor any one else could resist the spirits of her pretty mistress. And these spirits had grown joyously riotous since her mar- riage and its unfettering.

" Nor yet so bald of his head ? Say so!

MADAME BUTTERFLY 15

Quickly! " she insisted, with the manner of Pinkerton— such is example!

The maid also agreed to this.

And then Cho-Cho-San flung the kicking youngster high above her, turned aban- donedly over on her back (in charming, if forbidden, postures), and juggled with him there.

"But ah! you will have hair, will you not?— as long and glittering as that of th« American women. I will not endure the* else." She became speciously savage. "Speak, thou beggar, speak!"

"Goo-goo," said the baby, endeavoring diligently to obey.

She shook him threateningly.

"Ah-h-h! You making that non-sen^e with your parent ? Now what is that you speaking with me ? Jap'nese ? If it is, I—" She threatened him direly. But he had evidently already learned to understand her; he gurgled again. "Listen! No one shall speak anything but United States' lan- guages in these house! Now! What you thing? You go'n' go right outside shoji firs' thing you do that! " She resumed her own English more ostentatiously,— she forgot it herself sometimes,— and pretended

16 MADAME BUTTERFLY

to pitch the baby through the fragile paper wall.

"Also, tha' 's one thing aeverybody got recomleck— account it is his house, his wife, his bebby, his maiden, his moaney— oh,— aeverythmg is his! An' he say, those time he go'n' 'way, that aexcep' we all talking those United States' languages when he come, he go'n' bounce us all. Well! I don' git myself bounce, Mr. Trouble! An' you got loog out you don', aha ! Sa-oy, me ? I thing if we doing all those thing he as' us, he go'n' take us at those United States America, an' live in his castle. Then he never kin bounce us, aha! "

A SONG OF SORROW— AND DEATH— AND HEAVEN

A BIRD flew to the vine in the little porch.

"Ah, Suzuki!"

But the maid had withdrawn. She clapped her hands violently for her to return.

MADAME BUTTERFLY 17

" Now why do you go away when " — her momentary anger fled, and she laughed— "when birds flying to the wistaria? Go quickly, little maiden, and see if he is a robin, and if he has completed his nest- quickly."

The maid returned, and said that he was indeed a robin, but that he had no nest there as yet.

"Oh, bow he is slow! Suzuki, let us fine 'nother robin, one that is more indus- tri-ous— an' domes-tic, aha, ha, ha!"

" They are all alike, " said thegirl, cynically.

" They — not! Say so ! "

Suzuki giggled affirmatively. When her mistress took so violently to English she preferred to express herself in this truly Japanese fashion.

" Inform me, if you please, how much nearer beggary we are to-day than yester- day, Suzuki."

The girl had exact information for her on this subject. She said they had just seven- teen yen, fifty-four sen, two rin.

"Alas— alas! How we have waste his beau-tiful moaneys! Tha' 's shame. But he will not permit that we starve— account he know we have no one aexcep' him. We

1 8 MADAME BUTTERFLY

all outcasted. Now loog bow that is bad! So jus' when it is all gone he will come with more — lig the stories of ole Kazabu. Ohf lig story of Uncombed Ronin, who make a large oath that he go'n' be huge foo-el if he dress his hair until his lord arrive back from the banishment. Lo! when they cutting his hade off him, account he don' comb his hair, his lord arrive back, an' say, ' What they doing with him ? '—an' reward him great deal, account he constant ontil he 'mos' dead. So, jus' when we go'n' out on the street,— mebby to fine him,— you with Trouble on your back, me with my samisen, standing up bifore all the people, singing funeral songs, with faces, oh, 'bout 'mos' so long,"— she illustrated liberally,— "sad gar- ments, hair all ruffled — so, dancing liddle — so,"— she indicated how she should dance, — "an' saying out ver' loud, 'O ye people! Listen, for the loave of all the eight hundred thousan' gods and goddesses! Behole, we, a poor widow, an' a bebby what got purple eyes, which had one hosban', which gone off at United States America, to naever return no more — naever! 4excep' you have seen him? No? See! This what I thing. Oh, how that is mos' tarrible ! We giving up all

MADAME BUTTERFLY 19

our august ancestors, an' gods, an' people, an' country,— oh, awerything,— jus' for him, an' now he don' naever come no more ! Oh, bow that is sad ! Is it not ? Also, he don' even divorce us, so that we kin marry with 'nother mans an' git some food. He ? He don' even thing 'bout it! Not liddle bit! He forgitting us— alas! But we got keep his house nine hundred an' ninety-nine year! Now thing 'bout that! An' we go'n' starve bifore, aexcep' you giving us — ah-ah-##/ jus' one sen! two sen! mebby fi' sen! Oh, for the loave of sorrow, for the loave of constancy, for the loave of death, jus'— one —sen! Will you please pity us? In the name of the merciful Kwannon we beg. Loog! To move your hearts in the inside you, we go'n' sing you a song of— sorrow— an' death — an' heaven."

She had acted it all with superb spirit, and now she snatched up her samisen, and dramatized this also; and so sure was she of life and happiness that this is the song of sorrow and death she sang:

" Hikari nodokeki haru no nobe, Niwo sakura-no-hana sakari, Mure kuru hito no tanoshiki ni, Shibashi uki yo ya wasururan.

20 MADAME BUTTERFLY

" Sunshine on a quiet plain in spring, The perfume of the blooming cherry-blossoms, The joy of the gathering crowd, Filled with love, forget the care of life."

And then, as always, abandonment and laughter.

"Aha, ha, ha! Aha, ha, ha! What you thing, liddle maiden ? Tha' 's good song 'bout sorrow, an' death, an' heaven ? Aha, ha, ha! What — you — thing? Speak! Say so!"

She tossed the samisen to its place, and sprang savagely at the maid.

"If that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton see us doing alig those—" ventured the maid, in the hu- mor of her mistress.

"O-o-o! You see his eye flame an' scorch lig lightening! O-o-o! He snatch us away to the house— so— so— so!"

The baby was the unfortunate subject for the illustration ofthis. He began to whimper.

" Rog-a-by, bebby, off in Japan, You jus' a picture off of a fan."

This was from Pinkerton. She had been the baby then.

" Ah, liddle beggar, he di'n' know he go'n' make those poetries for you! He don' sus-

MADAME BUTTERFLY 21

pect of you whichever. Well! I bed you we go'n' have some fun when he do. Oh, Suzuki! Some day, when the emperor go abroad, we will show him. You got say these way " — she changed her voice to what she fancied an impressive male basso: " ' Behole, Heaven-Descended-Ruler-Ever- lasting-Great-Japan,the first of your subjecks taken his eye out those ver' blue heaven whence you are descend!' Hence the emperor loog on him; then he stop an' loog; he kin naever git enough loogs. Then he make Trouble a large prince! An' me ? He jus' say onto me: ' Continue that you bring out such sons.' Aha, ha, ha! What you thing ? "

The maid was frankly skeptical.

" At least you kin do lig the old nakodo wish you— for you are most beautiful."

Cho-Cho-San dropped the baby with a reckless thud, and sprang at her again. She gripped her throat viciously, then flung her. laughing, aside.

" Speak concerning marriage once more, an' you die. An' tha' 's 'nother thing. You got know at his United States America, if one is marry one got stay marry — oh, for aever an' aever! Yaes! Nob'y cannot git him-

22 MADAME BUTTERFLY

self divorce, aexcep' in a large court-house an' jail. Tha' 's way with he— that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton— an' me— that Mrs. B. F. Pikker- ton. If he aever go'n' divorce me, he got take me at those large jail at that United States America. Tha' 's lot of trouble; hence he rather stay marry with me. Also, he lig be marry with me. Now loog! He leave me a 'mos' largest lot money in Japan; he give me his house for live inside for nine hundred an' ninety-nine year. I cannot go home at my grandmother, account he make them outcast me. Sa-ay, you liddle foolish ! He coming when the robins nest again. Aha! What you thing? Say so! "

The maid should have been excused for not being always as recklessly jubilant as her mistress ; but she never was. And now, when she chose silence rather than speech (which was both more prudent and more polite), she took it very ill.

VI

DIVINE FOOLERY

IF Pinkerton had told her to go home, even though she had no home to go to, she

MADAME BUTTERFLY 23

would have been divorced without more ado. Perhaps she was logical (for she rea- soned as he had taught her— she had never reasoned before) in considering that as he had distinctly told her not to do so, it was an additional surety for his return.

Cho-Cho-San again took up the happier side of the matter. The baby was asleep.

"An' also, what you thing we bedder doing when he come ? "

She was less forcible now, because less certain. This required planning to get the utmost felicity out of it— what she always strove for.

" Me ? — I thing I— dun;/0," the maid con- fessed diplomatically.

"Aha, ha, ha! You dunwo? Of course you dunno whichever! Well— I go'n' tell you." The plan had been born and ma- tured that instant in her active little brain. "Jus' recornleck 't is a secret among you an' me. We don' tell that Mr. Trouble. Hoash! He don' kin keep no secret. Well, listen! We go'n' watch with that spying-glasstill his ship git in. Then we go'n' put cherry- blossoms aevery where; an' if 't is night, we go'n' hang up 'bout 'mos' one thousan' lanterns — 'bout 'mos' one thousan'! Then

24 MADAME BUTTERFLY

we— wait. Jus' when we see him coming up that hill— so— so— so— so,"— she lifted her kimono, and strode masculinely about the apartment,— "then! We hide behine the shoji, where there are holes to peep." She glanced about to find them. "Alas! they all mended shut! But" — she sav- agely ran her finger through the paper— "we soon make some, aha, ha, ha! So!" She made another for the maid. They illus- trated this phase of her mood with their eyes at the holes. " Then we lie quiet lig mice, an' make believe we gone 'way. Bet- ter n't we leave liddle note: ' Gone 'way for- aever. Sayonara, Butterfly ' ? No ; tha' 's too long for him. He git angery those ways on the first word, an' say those remark 'bout debbil, an' hell, an' all kind loud languages. Tha' 's time, bifore he gitting too angery, to rush out, an' jump all roun' his neck, aha!" This was also illustrated.

But, alas ! the maid was too realistic.

" Sa-ayJ not you — jump roun' his neck — jus' me."

Cho-Cho-San paused ecstatically. But the maid would not have it so. She had seen them practise such divine foolery, — very like two reckless children,— but never

. MADAME BUTTERFLY 25

had she seen anything with such dramatic promise as this.

" Oh! an' what he say then," she begged, with wild interest, "an' what he do?"

Madame Butterfly was reenergized by the maid's applause.

" Ah-h-h! " she sighed. " He don' say— jus' he kiss us, oh, 'bout three— seven— ten — a thousan' time! An' amberace us two thousan' time 'bout 'mos'— tha' 's wha! he do— till we got make him stop, aha, ha, ha! account he might— might— kill us ! Tha' 's ver' bad— to be kill kissing."

Her extravagant mood infected the maid. She had long ago begun to wonder whether, after all, this American passion of affection was altogether despicable. She remembered that her mistress had begun by regarding it thus; yet now she was the most daringly happy woman in Japan.

"Say more," the maid pleaded.

Cho-Cho-San had a fine fancy, and the nesting of the robins could not, at the long- est, be much longer delayed now; she let it riot.

"Well,"— she was making it up as she went, — "when tha' 's all done, he loog roun' those ways lig he doing 'mos' always,

26 MADAME BUTTERFLY

an' he see sump'n', an' he say: 'Oh, 'e\-lo— el-\o \ Where you got that chile ? ' I say : 'Ah — oh — ahf I thing mebby you lig own one, an' I buy 'im of a man what din' wan' no bebby with those purple eye an' bald hairs.' An' he as' me, 'What you pay?' Americans always as' what you pay. I say : ' Oh, lemme see. I thing, two yen an' two sen. Tha' 's too moach for bald bebby ? ' What you thing ? But tha' 's a time he say- ing: ' I bed you tha' 's a liar; an' you fooling among me.' Then he gitting angery, an' I hurry an' say, one las' time, ' Tha' 's right/ I tole you liddle lie for a fun. I di'n' pay nawth'mg for him, aexcep' — sa-ayf — ' Then I whisper a thing inside his ear,— jus' a liddle thing, — an' he see! Aha, ha, ha! Then he say once more, las' time,— ah, what you thing, Suzuki ? "

But the girl would not diminish her plea- sure by guessing.

" ' Godamighty ! ' Aha, ha, ha! "

" Tha' 's all things you know ? " ques- tioned the maid, reproachfully, " an' all things you do ? "

She had a right to feel that she had been defrauded out of a proper denouement.

" Ah-h-h-h ! What would you have that

MADAME BUTTERFLY- 27

is more ? Jus' joy an' glory foraevermore! Tha' 's 'nough. What you thing? You know that song ?

" 'T is life when we meet, 'T is death when we part. "

Her mistress had grown plaintive in those two lines.

"I hear him sing that," murmured the maid, comfortingly.

Her spirits vaulted up again.

" But ah! You aever hear him sing — ?"

She snatched up the samisen again, and to its accompaniment sang, in the pretty jargon he had taught her (making if as grotesque as possible, the more to amuse him):

" I call her the belle of Japan— of Japan; Her name it is O Cho-Cho-San— Cho-Cho-San; Such tenderness lies in her soft almond eyes, I tell you she 's just ichi ban."

"Tha' 's me — aha, ha, ha! Sa-ay — you thing he aever going away again when he got that liddle chile, an' the samisen, an' the songs, an' all the joy, an'— an' me?" And another richly joyous laugh.

" Oh, you an' the samisen an' joy— poof ! "

28 MADAME BUTTERFLY

said the maid. "But the chile— tha' 's 'nother kind thing, slexcep' be grow up, an' go 'way after his father ? "

She was odiously unsatisfied. She would leave nothing to fate— to heaven— Shaka. But out of her joyous future her mistress satisfied even this grisly doubt.

" Ah-h-h! But we go'n' have more— lig steps of a ladder, up, up, up! An' all purple eyes— oh, aevery one! An' all males! Then, if one go 'way, we got 'nother an' 'nother an' 'nother. Then, how kin he, that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton, ae-ver go 'way? Aha!"

" Yaet, O Cho-Cho-San, if you—"

Was this a new doubt ? It will never be known.

"Stop! Tha' 's 'nother thing. You got call me O Cho-Cho-San, an' Missus Ben-ja- meen Frang-a-leen Pikkerton. Sa-0>v you notize how that soun' gran' when my hos- ban' speaking it that aways ? Yaes ! 'Mos' lig I was a emperess. Listen! I tell you 'nother thing, which is 'nother secret among you an' me jus' : I thing it is more nize to be call that away — jus' Missus Ben-ja-meen Frang-a-leen Pikkerton— than Heaven-De- scended-Female - Ruler-Everlasting-Great-

MADAME BUTTERFLY 29

Japan, aha! Sa-oy; how I loog if I an emperess? What you thing?"

She imitated the pose and expression of her empress very well.

" If your face liddle longer you loog ezag' lig," said the maid.

But her mistress was inclined to be more modest.

" Ah, no. But I tell you who loog lig a' emperor— jus' ezag'— that Mr. B. F. Pikker- ton, when he got that unicorn upon him, with gole all up in front an' down behine!"

And at this gentle treason there was no protest from the patriotic maid.

VII

HOW HE DID N'T UNDERSTAND HER WHICHEVER!

THE baby continued to sleep. He rather justified the praises of his mother. He was as good as a Japanese baby, and as good- looking as an American one.

Somebody was without. There was a polite and subdued clattering of clogs in the entrance.

3o MADAME BUTTERFLY

" Gomen nasai " (" I beg your pardon ").

It was a familiar, deprecatory voice, ac- companied by the clapping of hands.

Cho-Cho-San smiled wearily, and called the maid.

"Oh, Suzuki, Goro the nakodo— he is without. Shaka and all the gods defend us now!"

The two exchanged glances of amuse- ment, and the maid proceeded to admit him.

Madame Butterfly received him with the odious lack of ceremony her independent life with Pinkerton had bred. She was imperially indifferent. The go-between pointed out how sad this was to as beau- tiful a woman as she.

" Is it a trouble to you ? " she asked, perking her head aside.

The nakodo only sighed gloomily.

Madame Butterfly laughed.

"Poor, nize liddle ole man," said she, with specious pity, in politest English ; " do not trouble 'bout me. Do not arrive any more if it pains you."

"I must; you have no parents now — nor anyone. You are outcast."

" Ah-h-h ! But will you not permit me to suffer the lack ? "

MADAME BUTTERFLY 31

" But you will never be married ! "

" Again ? "

"Well— yes, again, then."

"How tarrible! "

He took this quite seriously, and became more cheerful.

" Yes; a beautiful woman like you must have a husband."

"Yaes. Thangs; I got one. Do you perhaps mean more ? "

"I mean a Japanese husband."

" Oh— ah ? That will have me a month, and then divorce me ? And then another, and another, and another ? "

She was becoming belligerent.

" How is it better with you now ? "

She recovered her good humor.

"At America one is married foraever— aexcep' the other die. Aha! What you thing? Your marriages are not so."

She had been speaking indifferently both languages, and now the nakodo, who was not apt at English, begged her to explain this in Japanese. She did so.

" Yamadori has lived long at America, and he says it is not thus. Is it not safe to rely upon his excellent wisdom ? "

"No; for I, which am foolish, are wiser

32 MADAME BUTTERFLY

than both you an' he. / know. You jus' guess. Aeverybody got stay marry at United States America. No one can git divorce, aexcep' he stay in a large court-house, all full judges with long faces, an' bald on their heads, long, longtime; mebby two— four- seven year! Now jus' thing 'bout that — how that is tiresome! Tha' 's why no one don' git no divorce; they too tire' to wait. Firs', the man he got go an' stan' bifore those judge, an' tell all he thing 'bout it. Then the woman she got. Then some lawyers quarrel with those judge ; an' then the judges git jury, an' as' 'em what they thing 'bout it; an' if they don' know they all git put in jail till they git done thinging 'bout it, an' whether they go'n' git divorce or not. Aha! "

" Where did you learn that ? " asked the old nakodo, aghast.

"Oh— ah-that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton "- she assumed a grander air — "that Mr. Ben- ja-meen Frang-a-leen Pikkerton— my hos- ban' — " She smiled engagingly, and held out her pretty hands, as who should say : " Is not that sufficient ? "

It was so evidently the invention of Pin- kerton that it seemed superfluous to make

MADAME BUTTERFLY 33

the explanation. The nakodo said curtly that he did not believe it.

Not believe what Mr. B. F. Pinkerton had said!

Cho-Cho-San was exasperated. The en- gaging smile had been wasted. She flung the blue-eyed baby up before him.

" Well, then, do you believe that?"

She laughed almost malignantly. The marriage-broker gulped down this fearful indignity as best he might. He hoped there were not going to be any more such women in Japan as the result of foreign marriages. Still, even this phase of the situ- ation had been discussed with his client.

" But Yamadori, who was bred to the law, tells me that our law prevails in such a matter, the marriage having taken place here."

She gave a gasp, and cried like a savage wounded animal:

" Yamadori — lies! "

The nakodo was silenced. She crushed the baby so fiercely to her breast that he began to cry.

"Sb!" she commanded harshly. He looked up for an incredulous instant, then burrowed his head affrightedly into her

34 MADAME BUTTERFLY

kimono. She turned upon the nakodo in magnificent scorn.

" Oh—you—foo-el! You thing he naever arrive back. Tha' 's what you thing— in secret! He? He do!"

She snatched a photograph from an easel at the tokonoma, tore the child from his hiding, and held them up together. Her purpose was quite evident.

The nakodo was thoroughly frightened. She recovered her poise— and her control of the situation.

"Now what you thing? Aha, ha, ha! Sa-ay— I bed you all moaneys he go'n' come 'mos' one millions mile for see that chile! Tha' 's what I all times praying Shaka an' the augustnesses for— one chile ezag' lig him. Well, sa-qyf I got him. An' now that Mr. Ben-ja-meen Frang-a-leen Pikker- ton he got come back — hoarry — even if he don' lig. He cannot stand it. But he do

lig."

All her passion was gone now, and her sure gladness returned. She was nai've and intimate and confidential again.

" Sa-ay ! Firs' I pray his large American God,— that huge Godamighty,— but tha' 's no use. He don' know me where I live.

MADAME BUTTERFLY 35

Then I pray Shaka an' all the kaimyo of the augustnesses in the god-house. I thing they don' hear me, account they outcasted me when I marry with that Mr. B. F. Pik- kerton. But"— she smiled at her pretty celestial cajolery — " I pray them so long an' so moach more than they aever been pray with bifore that they feel good all times, an'— an' "—there was finality in this— "an' 7 is use. An' mebby I not all outcasted ! Don' tell him. He — he laugh upon my gods, an' say they jus' wood an' got no works in them. An' he all times call the augustnesses bag nombers! Jus' he don' know till he fine out. Aha, ha, ha! "

" If he returns he will probably take the child away with him— that is his right," chanted the sad-faced nakodo.

But nothing could ruffle Madame Butterfly now. She laughed sibilantly at this owl- like ignorance.

" Oh-h-h ! How you don' know things ! How you don' onderstan' me what I mean, whichever! Of course he take that chile away with him— of course! An' me— me also; an' Suzuki, aha! An' we go an' live in his castle for aever an' aever! "

The improbability of changing the girl's

36 MADAME BUTTERFLY

point of view began to dawn upon the slow intellect of the nakodo.

" At least, Yamadori wishes for a look-at meeting. I have promised him. Will you not grant this ? "

Cho-Cho-San shook her head at him knowingly.

" An' if I do not, he not go'n' pay you one present ? "

She laughed wildly, and the nakodo by a grin admitted the impeachment.

" Well,"— the spirit of mischief possessed the girl,— " sa-ay— I don' keer. Let him come. He lig for see me; I lig for see him. An' if I say I go'n' marry him, he got hoarry an' marry 'me right away. Aha! What you thing 'bout those?"

The nakodo said delightedly .that that was precisely what he sought.

"Yaes; but suppose they put me in a large jail, an' got loog out between bar- so," — she illustrated, — "an' don' git naw- thing for eat; he go'n' stay all times behine my side, an' comforting me ? Hoi' my hand ? Lemme weep upon him ? I dunwo. Mebby they cut my hade off me. Then he got git his hade cut off, too, an' go the road to Meido together— with— without those

MADAME BUTTERFLY 37

hade! Oh, how that is tarrible! An' sup- pose"—she whispered it horridly— " that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton— aha, ha, ha!— arrive?"

The nakodo was not sure how much of this was meant seriously. They were ex- tremely unusual humors to him. But she had consented to the meeting, and he promptly took her at her word.

" When, then, will it please you to have me bring Yamadori ? "

" When you lig— nize liddle ole friend."

The nakodo fixed that day a week.

As he was going, Cho-Cho-San laughingly asked :

" Sa-oy/ How often he been marry ? "

" But twice, " the nakodo replied virtuously.

" An" both times divorce ? "

He admitted that this was the case.

" An' both times jus' on visit from United States America — jus' liddle visit? — so long ? " She spread her hands.

Under her laughing gaze it seemed best to admit it.

" Oh ! be— he jus' marry 'nother for fun— whenever he thing 'bout it. Then he forgit it when he don' thing 'bout it, and marry 'nother. Say so!"

He heard her laugh again as he left the

38 MADAME BUTTERFLY

courtyard; but he had confidence in the ability of Yamadori to accomplish his pur- pose if he could be brought into contact with her. He was one of the modern pen- sioned princes of Japan, a desirable matrimo- nial article, and preternaturally fascinating.

VIII

THE BRIGHT-RED SPOT IN CHO'S CHEEKS

THE look-at meeting came about as planned. There was a distinct air of state about Ma- dame Butterfly's house on that day. The baby, and all the frivolities that attended him, were in banishment. The apartment had been enlarged by the rearrangement of the shoji. At the head of it, statuesque in her most brilliant attire, sat Cho-Cho-San. Japanese women are accomplished actresses ; and looking in upon Cho-Cho-San just at the moment of Yamadori's arrival, one would not have known her. She was as unsmiling, as emotionless, as the Dai-Butsu. The grave ceremonies attending the advent of a candidate for matrimony went forward with almost no recognition from Cho-Cho-San until they had come to the

MADAME BUTTERFLY 39

point where they might seat themselves before her, to inspect and be inspected. Then she struck her fan against her palm, and Suzuki appeared, and set the tobaco-bon between them.

Yamadori suggested somewhat the ready- made clothier— inevitable evidence of his transformation ; otherwise he was the aver- age modern Japanese, with high-gibbeted trousers, high collar, high hat, and eye- glass. He might not converse directly with Cho-Cho-San, especially concerning the business in hand; but he was not pro- hibited from conferring with the nakodo about it in her presence. The rule of deco- rum for such an occasion simply decreed that she should be blind and deaf concerning what went on. The convenience of the ar- rangement is obvious. The nakodo, the rep- resentative of both parties, was happily per- mitted, on the part of the one, to regard what was happening as if it had not happened, and, on the part of the other, as if it had.

"She is quite as beautiful as you said," remarked Yamadori, after a careful inspec- tion with his glass.

The nakodo nodded virtuously, and filled his pipe. His client lighted a cigarette.

4o MADAME BUTTERFLY

Cho-Cho-San did not even smile.

"And her father, you say, was on the emperor's side in the Satsuma rebellion ? "

The marriage-broker satisfied his client to the last particular of her father's bloody sacrificial end at Jokoji.

"And you have told her faithfully of me ? " He paused on the last word to note its effect upon Cho-Cho-San. There was none, and he hastened to add cumulatively, " And my august family ? " He paused again. But again there was no sign from the lady of the house. She was staring out over his head. " And have offered her my miserable presents ? "

To each of these the broker answered lu- gubriously yes.

"Then why, in the name of the -gods, does she wait ? "

The nakodo explained with a sigh that she had declined his presents.

" I will send her others. They shall be a thousand times more valuable. Since I have seen her I know that the first must have been an affront."

She kept her eyes up, but Yamadori un- questionably smiled in the direction of Cho- Cho-San— as if she were a woman of joy!

MADAME BUTTERFLY 41

The light of battle came into the stony eyes of the girl. She clapped her hands almost viciously. The little maid appeared.

" Tea! " she said.

The maid brought the tea; and with that splendid light of danger still in her eyes, Cho-Cho-San served it. With the air of a princess she put on in an instant all the charms of a mousmee. She gave back smile for smile now, and jest for jest. She begged Yamadori, with the most charming upward inflections, to put away his cigarette and take her shippo pipe, and he did it. That was Japanese, she said, her cigarettes were not. Was it not so ?— with a resistless movement toward him. She let him touch her hands in the passage of the cups. She enveloped him with the perfume of her garments. She possessed him wholly in one dizzy instant.

" I will give her a castle to live in," said Yamadori, breathlessly.

The nakodo sighed. Cho-Cho-San refilled his pipe with an incomparable grace.

"Ah!" she permitted her lips to breathe —very softly.

"She shall have a thousand servants."

There was no audible response from the nakodo, but his eyes gleamed avidly.

42 MADAME BUTTERFLY

Cho-Cho-San returned the pipe, smiling dazzlingly. It seemed almost yes with her.

"Everything her heart can wish!" cried Yamadori, recklessly.

The nakodo turned beseechingly toward the girl. She lifted her eyebrows. He did not understand. As she passed him she laughed.

" Is it enough ? "

Still he did not understand.

" Have we earned the present ? " she whispered.

"I will give a solemn writing," added Yamadori, fervidly.

" She still fancies herself perhaps married to the American," sighed the nakodo.

Yamadori laughed disagreeably.

"If your Excellency would condescend to explain — "

" Oh, she is not serious. A sailor has a sweetheart in every port, you know."

Cho-Cho-San whispered something to the nakodo. She still smiled.

"But she is perhaps his wife," answered he, obediently.

"Yes," said Yamadori, as if they were the same.

Cho-Cho-San whispered again.

MADAME BUTTERFLY 43

11 But the child — there is a most accom- plished child ? " said the nakodo.

"Yes," said the traveled Japanese, with the same smile and the same intonation.

There was a distinct silence. Cho-Cho- San smiled more vividly. But her nostrils moved rapidly in and out. The nakodo grew anxious. Yamadori cast his eyes toward the ceiling, and continued:

" A sailor does not know the difference. In no other country are children esteemed as they are here. In America it is different. People sometimes deny them. They are left in a basket at some other person's door. But the person does not receive them. They are then cared for by the municipality as waifs. It is shameful to be such a child. There are great houses and many officers in each city for the care of these. They are an odious class by themselves, and can never rise above their first condition."

The nakodo glanced askance at his client. He had not the slightest objection to a man who would lie a little to win his cause, but to lie too much was to lose it.

" I myself knew a man whose child be- came a cripple. He sent him to the mayor of the city, saying that as the cars of the

44 MADAME BUTTERFLY

city had injured him, the city must bring him up. He was sent to the poorhouse, and afterward to the stone-quarries. It was a most piteous sight."

Cho-Cho-San bent again to the ear of the old man. There was a tremor in her voice now.

" Had he eyes of purple ? " asked the nakodo.

"He was beautiful of face; but surely eyes of purple are not desirable ? " Yama- dori brought his own down from the ceiling and leveled them at Cho-Cho-San. She still smiled, but there was a bright-red spot in each cheek now. " But he was misshapen, and he was never known to laugh. I saw many such. I saw a child whose father had deserted it, and the mother—"

Madame Butterfly clapped her hands again. The maid appeared promptly; she had expected the summons.

" Suzuki— good Suzuki, the excellent gentlemen — the august" — she swept a royal gesture toward them—" who have done us the honor to call, they wish to go hurriedly. Their shoes— will you not hasten them ? "

With a final brilliant smile she turned her back upon them and left the room.

MADAME BUTTERFLY 45

"YouR story of the rejected child did it," reproached the nakodo, on the way.

"I had not got to the worst," said his client, ruefully. " I meant to cite an exam- ple exactly to suit her own case."

" Lucky she turned us out when she did, then."

' ' What do you mean, sir ?" demanded the suitor, in sudden wrath.

"Oh," said the broker, in polite haste, "I was beginning to feel — ill."

The irony of this escaped the client. Still, Goro would have had a less opinion of Yama- dori if, having lied once, he had not lied again in defense of the first.

Though Yamadori came no more, he had brought the serpent to Madame Butterfly's Eden.

IX

"'BOUT BIRDS"

ONE day she took her courage, and the maid's too, for that matter, in both hands, and called upon the American consul. She saw the vice- consul. There was a west wind, and it was warm at Nagasaki. He was dozing. When

46 MADAME BUTTERFLY

he woke, Madame Butterfly was bowing before him. At a little distance was the maid with the blond baby strapped to her back. He was unable to account for them imme- diately.

" Goon night, "said Cho-Cho-San, smiling amiably.

The consul glanced apprehensively about.

"Night! Not night, is it?"

They both discovered the error at the same instant.

"Ah! no, no, no! Tha' 's mis-take. Me — I 'm liddle raddle'. Aexcuse us. Tha' 's not nize, mak' mis-take. We got call you good morning, I egspeg, or how do ? What you thing?"

"Whichever you like," he answered, without a smile.

Then Cho-Cho-San waited for something further from the consul. Nothing came. She began to suspect that it was her busi- ness to proceed instead of his.

"I — I thing mebby you don' know me ? " she questioned, to give him a chance.

" Oh, yes, I do," declared the consul. In fact, everybody knew her, for one reason and another — her baby, her disowning, her beauty, her "American" marriage. "You

MADAME BUTTERFLY 47

areO Cho-Cho-San,the daughter — " he for- got her father's name, though he had often heard it. "You used to dance, did you not?"

"Aha! See! Tha' 's what I thing. You don' know me whichaever. I nobody's daughter; jus' Missus Ben-ja — no! Missus Frang-a-leen Ben-ja-meen — no, no, no! Missus Ben-ja-meen Frang-a-leen Pikkerton. Aeverybody else outcast me. Aha, ha, ha! I liddle more raddle'."

"Oh!" The consul was genuinely sur- prised, and for the first time looked with interest at the child. Cho-Cho-San, to aid him, took Trouble from the maid. Finally he politely asked her what he could do for her.

"I got as' you a thing."

She returned the baby to the maid.

"Proceed," said the consul.

" You know 'bout birds in your country? "

"Yes, something."

"Ah! tha' 's what I thing. You know aeverylhing. Tha' 's why your country sen' you here — account you ver' wise."

"You do me too much honor," laughed the consul.

' ' You — don' — know ? "

She was distinctly alarmed.

48 MADAME BUTTERFLY

"Everything? No; only a few things."

'"Bw/you know 'bout birds — robins — jus' liddle robins ? "

Her inflections denounced it a crime not to know. He was not proof against this, or against these.

"Oh, yes," he said; "of course."

"Aha! Of course. Tha' 's what I all times thinging. Tha' 's mis-take, by you ? "

They could laugh together now.

" Ah ! Tell me, then, if you please, when do those robin nest again ? Me ? .1 thing it is later than in Japan, is it not ? Account — jus' account the robin nesting again jus' now in Japan."

The consul said yes because the girl so evidently desired it — not because he knew.

"Aha! Tha' 's what I thing. Later — moach later than in Japan, is it not?"

Again her fervid emphasis obliged him to say yes, somewhat against his conscience.

' ' An' — sa-ay f When somebody gitting marry with 'nother body at your America, don' he got stay, marry ? "

"Usually — yes; decidedly yes; even sometimes when he does n't wish to."

" An' don' madder where they live ?"

"Not at all."

MADAME BUTTERFLY 49

" Ah-h-h! How that is nize! Sa-ay ; you know all 'bout that. What you thing ?"

"Well, I know more about that than about ornithology. You see, I 've been mar- ried, but I 've never been a — a robin."

The joke passed quite unnoticed. She put her great question:

"An' no one can't git divorce from 'nother aexcep' in a large court-house full judge ?"

' ' Yes, " laughed the consul ; ' ' that is true. "

" An* that take a ver' long time ?"

"Yes; nearly always. The law's de- lay-"

" An' sometimes they git inside a jail ? "

She was so avid that she risked the very great discourtesy of an interruption — and that, too, without a word of apology. Su- zuki was, for an instant, ashamed for her.

"Occasionally that happens, too, I be- lieve."

Every doubt had been resolved in her favor.

' ' An' if they got a nize bebby yaet — don' they — ah, don' aeverybody lig that ? "

" I did, very much. Mine is a fine boy."

" Sa-ayJ He loog lig you — purple eye, bald hairs, pink cheek ? "

"I'm afraid he does."

50 MADAME BUTTERFLY

"'Fraid?"

"Glad, then."

"Oh! 'Fraid mean glad ? Yaes. Tha' 's way Mr. B. F. Pikkerton talking — don' mean what he say an' don' say what he mean — ezag'."

The consul laughed, but he could not quite understand the drift of her questioning.

"If people have a nize bebby alig that, they don' give him away, not to nob'y — ndb'y — they don' lig? What you thing?"

" I should think not ! " For a moment he looked savage as a young father can.

Cho-Cho-San's face glowed. She stood consciously aside, that the consul might the better see the baby on Suzuki's back. He understood, and smiled in the good-fellow- ship of new parenthood. He made some play with the child, and called him a fine fellow.

" Ah ! You naever seen no soach bebby, I egspeg?"

In the largess of his fellowship he de- clared that he had not. He had only recently been engaged in putting the same question to his friends. She had hoped, indeed, that he would go on from that and say more, the subject so abundantly merited it; but

MADAME BUTTERFLY 51

she now remembered that, in her haste to satisfy her doubts, she had neglected all those innumerable little inquiries which go to make up the graceful game of Japanese courtesy. Though she might neglect them with Pinkerton, she must not with a stranger who was obliging her.

GENTLE LYING

"An! How is that health? Also, I am sawry I woke you up, excellent, an' that I interrup' your languages. That is not a happy for the most exalted health — to be wake up an' interrup'. Therefore, I pray your honorable pardon. An' — how is that health?"

The consul said that he was quite well.

" Ah, bow that is nize! An' you always sleeping well, most honorable ?"

He nodded.

" Yaes — 1 hear you sleep. Oh! Tha' 's not joke! No, no, no!"

He had laughed, but she would never do that.

' ' But I do— snore, I believe— sometimes. "

52 MADAME BUTTERFLY

He was not proud of even this, of course.

<( Ob ! Jus' lig gen-tie bree-zes."

He said that he could not do better than adopt this charming euphemism.

" Also, how ole you gitting ver' soon ? "

"Thirty."

A Japanese always adds a few years. She therefore thought him younger, and her veneration abated accordingly. But he was in fact older.

"Tha' 's also nize — ver' nize. I wish I so ole. That Mr. B. F. Pikkerton he lig me more if I older, I thing." She sighed.

"I don't know about that. The Ameri- can point of view differs." But he would not meddle. " How old are you, pray ? "

This was only the proper return for her courtesy. Besides, the consul was enjoy- ing the usually dull game of decorum to-day. The girl was piquant in a most dazzling fashion.

' ' Me ? I 'bout — 'bout — " (what he had said made her doubt a little the Japanese idea) '"bout 'mos' twenty-seven when the chrysanthemum blooms again."

She was seventeen.

"Yaes, 'bout 'mos' — twenty-seven — " with a barely perceptible rising inflection.

MADAME BUTTERFLY 53

He acquiesced in the fiction, but smiled at the way she hung her head and blushed; this was not the Japanese way of telling one's age (or any other gentle lie).

"You got a grandmother?" she pro- ceeded.

"Two," alleged the consul. " Tha' 's ver' splen-did. An' is she well in her healths also ?" "Which one?"

She passed the joke, if she saw it. No Japanese will make his parent the subject of one.

"The oleone — always the ole one firs'."

The consul felt queerly chidden.

"She was well at last accounts."

"Tha' 's nize. An' the young one ? "

"The same. And now, about yours?"

"Alas! I have not that same happiness

lig you. I got not ancestors whichever.

They all angery account that Mr. B. F. Pik-

kerton, so they outcast me out the family.

He don' lig that they live with him, account

they bag nombers. He an' me go'n' be only

bag nomber, he say. He big boss bag nom-

ber, me jus' liddle boss bag nomber. Me ?

I don' got ancestors before me nor behine

me now. Hence they don' show me the

54 MADAME BUTTERFLY

way to Meido when I die. Well, me ? I don' keer whichever. I got hosban' an bebby tha' 's mos' bes' nize in Japan, mebby in the whole wotT. An' I kin go at Nirvana by 'nother road, aha! if I moast."

The kindly consul better than she under- stood both the effect of this separation of her from her ''ancestors," and the tempera- ment of Pinkerton. He undertook, not- withstanding his resolution not to meddle, a tentative remonstrance. She listened po- litely, but he made no impression.

" You must not break with your relatives. If Pinkerton should not, should — well, die, you know, you would indeed be an out- cast. If your own people would have nothing to do with you, nobody else would. It must, of course, be known to you that your — marriage with Pinkerton has put -you in unfortunate relations with every- body; the Japanese because you have of- fended them, the foreigners because he has. What would you do in such a case ? "

"Me? I could — dance, mebby, or — or die?".

But she laughed as she said it. Then she acknowledged his rebuking glance.

" 4 excuse me, tha' 's not — nize? Well,

MADAME BUTTERFLY 55

it is not so easy to die as it was — bifore he came." She sighed happily.

The consul was curious.

"Why?" he asked.

' ' Why ? — He make my life more sweet. "

"But that is no reason for quarreling with your family."

" But they don' wan' me, because my hosban' don' wan' them ! Henceforth I got go 'way from my hosban' if I wan' them ; an' if I wan' him more bedder, I got go 'way from them. No madder whichever, I got go 'way from some one. Well, I wan' those hosban' more bedder than any. Sa-ay f Tha' 's a foanny! They make me marry with him when / don' wish him; now I am marry with him, they don' wish him. Jus', after my father he kill hisself sticking with short sword, tha' 's how we gitting so poor — oh, ver' poor ! Me ? I go an' dance liddle, so we don' starve. Also, I thing if some- body wish me I git married for while, ac- count that grandmother got have food an' clothings. Well, those ver' grandmother she as' the ole nakodo 'bout it ; she lig me git marry with some one. He say mans jus' as' him other day kin he git him nize wife, an' he don' know none nizer."

56 MADAME BUTTERFLY

She paused to let the consul make sure of this fact, which he did, and then acknow- ledged the appreciation she had provoked with a charming smile.

"Whichever, he say he thing I don' lig him, account he America-jin, he. also re- marking with me that he a barbarian an' a beas'. Well, me? — I say I don' wan' him. I 'fraid beas'. 'But aevery one else they sayyaes — yaes, ah, yaes — he got moaney, an' for jus' liddle while I got endure him. So I say, 'Bring me that beas'.' An' lo! one day the ole nakodo he bringing him for look-at meeting. Well! — "

She paused to laugh, and so infectious was it that the consul adventurously joined her.

"At firs' I thing him a god, he so tall an' beautiful, an' got on such a blue clothes all full golden things. An' he don' sit 'way, 'way off, an' jus' — talk ! "

She laughed abandonedly.

" He make my life so ver' joyous, I thing I naever been that happy."

She had an access of demureness.

"Oh, jus' at firs' I frighten'; account he sit so close with me — an' hoi' my han' — an' as' if it made satin. Aha, ha, ha ! Satin ! Loog!"

MADAME BUTTERFLY 57

She gave them both to him. They were deliciously pretty; but the consul was em- barrassed by his possession of them. She began slowly to withdraw them, and then he let them go with regret.

" I beg your august pardon. I jus' thing- ing in the inside me, an' speaking with the outside. Tha' 's not nize. You don' keer nothing — 'bout — that — those ? "

"What?"

He thought she meant the hands — and perhaps she did.

"Jus" those — liddle — story."

"Yes, I do," declared the consul, with some relief; " it is a charming story." And it was, for Cho-Cho-San's eyes and hands took part in its telling as well as her lips.

"You mean — you lig hear more?"

"Yes." She reflected an. instant. "I thing there is no more. Jus' — yaes, jus' after while I naever git frighten' no more — no madder how close, nor how he hoi' my hand."

"But then you — I beg pardon — you were married ? I think you said so ?"

"Oh, yaes," she replied, as if that had made little difference in their situation; "I marry with him."

58 MADAME BUTTERFLY

" I think his ship was then ordered to — "

She nodded.

"Alas! he got go an' serve his country. But he go'n' come back, an' keep on being marry with me. What you thing ? "

The consul contrived to evade the inter- rogation.

"Is that why you asked about the robins ?"

"Yaes; he go'n' come when the robins nest again. He ? He don' naever egspeg we got this nize bebby, account I don' tell him. I don' kin tell him. I don' know where he is. But — me? I don' tell if I know, account he rush right over here, an' desert his country, an' henceforth git in a large trouble — mebby with that President United States America, an' that large God- dess Liberty Independence! What you thing ?"

XI

"THE MOS' BES' NIZE MAN"

IT was quite superfluous to point out such of her ideas as had birth in the fertile brain of Pinkerton. Certainly he had enjoyed his

MADAME BUTTERFLY 59

married life with her, but it was for another reason than hers. The consul could observe, he thought, how exquisitely amusing it had been. It was, too, exactly in Pinkerton's line to take this dainty, vivid, eager, form- less material, and mold it to his most wan- tonly whimsical wish. It was perhaps for- tunate for her that his country had had need of him so soon after his marriage.

However, the consul informed her that her fears of trouble for Pinkerton from the sources mentioned were entirely groundless. But this, to his surprise, was not pleasing intelligence. She liked to believe (as he had let her believe) that Pinkerton occupied a large space in the affairs of his country; that he was under the special patronage of the President, and the Goddess of Liberty was, perhaps, her own corollary. But it fitted his character as she had conceived it. To her he was a god, perhaps. But let it be understood that a Japanese god is neither austere nor immaculate.

" Well, whichever," she said, in some dis- appointment, "tha' 's a so'prise on him when he come. He all times joking with me; I make one joke upon him. Tha' 's good joke. What you thing?"

60 MADAME BUTTERFLY

The consul shook his head. The matter began to have a sinister look. But the girl's faith was sublime.

"Ah-h-h! You?" Her inflection was one of pity for his ignorance. " Tha' 's account you don' know him, you shaking your nize head. He joking alrtimes. Some- time I dunno if he joking, aexcep' he stop, look solemn, an' laugh. Then he make the house raddle! Oh, mebby you thing I don' joke too, also ? Well, tha' 's wws-take. I make joke jus' lig him — jus' bad. One time I make joke with him 'bout run 'way to that grandmother, account I don' keer for him no more. Well — what you thing? He say ' 'Ello! Less see how you kin run fas'.' Aha, ha, ha! Tha' 's liddle joke upon me. Now I go'n' have the larges' joke upon him. Sa-ay — you got tell him, if you please, augustness, that I could n't wait, it was so long — long — long! I got tire'. So — lam marry with a great an' wise prince name' Yamadori Okyo, an' live in a huge castle with one thousan' servants, an' — an' all my hearts kin wish! Aha, ha, ha! Also, that I go'n' away to his castle with his purple-eye' bebby, to naever return no more — naever. You go'n' tell him that?" > «

MADAME BUTTERFLY 61

"I would prefer not to have a hand in any further — that is, any deception," the consul objected gravely.

The girl was amazed 'and reproachful.

"Ah-h-h! Don' you lig joke? I thing aevery American do. Tha' 's not nize for me. I got be sawry I telling you all those. Alas! How that would be nize for you! You see him git angery so quick." She smote her hands together. "An' then he say those remark 'bout debbil an' hell, an' rush up the hill this away."

She again lifted her kimono, and acted it recklessly across the apartment.

" But, my dear madame — "

She came at him with a voice and move- ment that were resistlessly caressing. He perceived how useless it would be to pro- test further. He acknowledged her protean fascination.

" Ah-h-h ! Please, augustness, to tell him ? It will be that ni%e for me! Ah, you go'n' do it ? — Yaes ? Say so ! "

The consul had c-apitulated to her voice and eyes. This was evident to her.

"Ah— thangs, most excellent. You the mos' bes' nize man in the worl'— "

She paused guiltily; even this purely

62 MADAME BUTTERFLY

Japanese euphemism might be conjugal treason.

" Except ? " laughed the consul.

"4excep'," confessed the girl, with droop- ing head.

A smile began to grow upon her lips; when she raised her face it was a splendid laugh.

" How we have fun seeing him rush up that hill at the house"— she was frankly dissembling— "so!" She illustrated again —back and forth across the apartment. "After that— ah— after thai— well— I make aeverything correc'."

She was radiantly certain that she could.

The consul remembered the saying of the professor of rhetoric that no comedy could succeed without its element of tragedy. Well, Pinkerton might have meant to re- turn to her. Any other man probably would. He would not have been quite cer- tain of himself. Only, that stuff about the robins sounded like one of his infernal jokes. He probably supposed that she knew what he meant— farewell ; but she had not so con- strued it. Unless Pinkerton had changed, he had probably not thought of her again — except as the prompt wife of another man.

MADAME BUTTERFLY 63

He never explained anything. It was his theory that circumstances always did this for one; it was therefore a saving of energy to permit circumstances to do it. There was a saying in the navy that if any one could forget a played game or a spent bottle more quickly than Pinkerton, he had not yet been born. Providing her with a house and money meant nothing. He would probably have given her all he had, whether it were a dollar or a thousand. But, on the other hand, if she had been one of the sudden and insane fancies which occasionally visited him, the case was altogether different, and altogether like Pinkerton; for in the person of a fascinating woman the emotion might survive the absence in question. For him- self, he was quite sure— had he been Pinker- ton, of course — that it would have survived something greater. And finally his own views prevailed with him as if they were Pinkerton's, and he believed that he would be delighted to return and resume his charm- ing life with her on Higashi Hill.

He thereupon told her that Lieutenant Pinkerton's ship was under orders to stop at Nagasaki, the government rendezvous for the navy, about the first of September, to

64 MADAME BUTTERFLY

observe and report the probabilities of war with China; and he was instantly glad that he had told her.

The girl's superb joy was expressed in a long, indrawn sigh, and then silence.

But something had to be said— or done.

" I— I lig as' you 'nether thing—" again dissembling, as if the talk were still at the trivialities where it began.

" Certainly," said the consul, with a smile. " But won't you have a chair ? "

He had noticed that she was trembling. She sat up unsteadily on the edge of it. And then she forgot what she had meant to ask!

"Sa-ayf — " She was still at sea. But suddenly a thought flashed in her eyes. " All bebbies at your America got those purple eye ? "

" A— yes, very many of them," said the consul, with a little surprise at her direction.

" An'— an' also bald of their head ? "

"All of them, I believe, at first."

He smiled, and the girl smiled back at him engagingly.

" Sa-ay, augustness, he go'n' come for see those bebby? What you thing?" Her words were like caresses.

But the rapture growing surely in the girl's

MADAME BUTTERFLY 65

face now was not reflected in that of the consul. Concern for her outweighed her fascinations for the moment.

"I— I hope so— '

She cut off his doubting incontinently.

" Sa-ay! Mebby you also don' thing he go'n' take us live in his large castle at United States America ? " she challenged reproachfully.

" Did he tell you that he would— that he had one? "

"No; he don' tell me — nawth'mg. He laugh, when I as' him, lig the house go'n' fall down. But— what you thing ? "

The consul answered her quite briefly. He knew that he hurt her, but his impotent anger was at Pinkerton; he had not thought him capable of that.

" If I were to advise, I should ask you to consider seriously Yamadori's proposal, if he has really offered himself. It is a great and unusual opportunity for you — for any girl— in— in Japan."

" You— thing— those— ? You ? "

She looked at him for an amazed and re- proachful instant; then gathered her kimono in her hand, and pushed her feet into her clogs.

"Go before, Suzuki," she said gently to

66 MADAME BUTTERFLY

the maid; to the consul, sorrowfully, " Goon night."

At the door she turned with a ceremonial sweep of her draperies, looked, and came hurrying back. All the joy had returned to her face at the sincere regret — almost pain — she saw upon his. She impulsively grasped his hands— both of them.

"Once more— different— goon night, au- gustness." And her voice was very soft. "Aha, ha, ha! Me? I jus' a foo-el— yaes. You?— you the mos' bes' nize man in all the whole worl'— "

She paused— smiling up at him. He un- derstood that she wished to repeat their pretty play upon the phrase.

" Except ? "

She nodded and laughed.

" Aexcep' — Ha, ha, ha!"

She hurried after the maid, laughing back at him confessingly as she went.

And, after all, the consul was glad it had ended thus. For joy is better than sorrow —always and everywhere.

WHEN they again reached the pretty house on the hill, Cho-Cho-San looked ruefully back over the steep road they had come.

MADAME BUTTERFLY 67

" Oh, how that was tiresome, Suzuki ! But be— when he comes, it will be jus'— one— two— three great strides! How he will rush up that hill it cost us so much sweat to climb! Lig storm with lightening and thunder! Flash ! flash ! flash ! Bourn! bourn! bourn ! An' here he is— all for jus' liddle me ! Then how he will stamp about— not remov- ing his boots— spoiling the mats — smashing the fusuma— shaking the house lig earth- quake animal! 'Where is she? Hah! Mans tole me she gone an' marry with a fool Yamadori! Gone me my purple-eye' bebby away.' Then I jump roun' his neck bifore he gitting too angery, an' hole his han', an' say, close with his ears: ' How do, Mr. B. F. Pikkerton ? ' Aha, ha, ha! What you thing, Suzuki ? " And Suzuki said, in English, too: " Tha' 's mos' bes' nize thing laever see ! "

XII

LIKE A PICTURE OF BUNCHOSAI

FROM that time until the seventeenth of Sep- tember not a ship entered the harbor but under the scrutiny of the glass that Lieuten-

68 MADAME BUTTERFLY

ant Pinkerton had left at the little house on Higashi Hill to read his signals aboard. And there were very many of them, for the war was imminent. Faith had begun to strain a little with unfaith, after the first. It was very long; but on the seventeenth his ship came into the bay. So like a great bird did she come that the glass did not find her until her white-and-gold mass veered to make an anchorage. Then, all at once, the gilt name on her bow was before Cho-Cho-San's eyes. It was tragically sudden. With a hurtling cry, she fell to the floor. The little maid, with Eastern intuition, understood; but she said nothing, and did— what was best. Both she and her mistress— and all the world, for that matter— knew the comfort of this speechless, sympathetic service. And pres- ently she was better, and could talk.

" I— I di'n' know I so— glad, " softly laughed Cho-Cho-San.

But the maid had known what to expect.

" You go'n' res' liddle now, please, Oku- San! You go'n' sleep liddle— please, jus' liddle— res'— sleep ? "

She drew her mistress's eyelids down, and lightly held them. Cho-Cho-San shook her off, and sprang up, revivified.

MADAME BUTTERFLY 69

"Res'! Sleep! Not till he come! "

" Res'— peace— sleep— beauty," chanted the maid, persuasively. But her mistress would not.

" Now, hasten lig you got eagle's wings an' a thousan' feet! It will not be one hour —not one half— till he will be here. My pink kimono— widest obi— kanzashi for my hair— an' poppies. I will be more beautiful than I have aever been. Flowers — alas! there are no cherry-blossoms. How that is sad! Seem lig we cannot be gay without them. In the month of the cherry-blossoms we were marry ! But chrysanthemums— all of them ! An' lanterns if it be black night — 'mos' one thousan'! Aha, ha, ha! His house shall be gayer than it has aever been. There shall naever again be such good occa- sion."

"Res' is beauty," urged the maid, hold- ing up the mirror to her.

" Ah, Suzuki ! I am beautiful— as beautiful as when he went away ? "

The maid was silent— the Japanese silence which is not assent.

Cho-Cho-San snatched the metallic mirror out of her hand.

" I am ! " she cried savagely. " Say so! "

7o MADAME BUTTERFLY

She brandished the heavy mirror over the girl's head.

" I as' you to res'— peace— sleep. Tha' 's way git beautiful once more."

"Oh-h-h! 'Once more'!" The mirror crashed to the floor, and she burst into tears.

"Jus' — you been too trouble'. Now you go'n' res' liddle," urged the comforting maid.

"Oh, all the gods! I cannot!— I cannot till he come. I shall die bifore."

She sorrowfully recovered the mirror.

"No— no; pitiful Kwannon, I am no longer beautiful! Waiting an' doubting make one soon sad an' old. An' how long we have wait!— how long! Oh, Shaka! But now I am happy— happier than I have aever been. Therefore shall I be more beautiful than I have aever been again. For happiness also is beauty. Ah, Suzuki, be kine with me! " She got on her knees to the maid, and laid her head at her feet. An ecstatic thought came to her. " Suzuki, you shall make me beautiful to-day, an' to-mor- row the gods shall. Now we have not even time to pray them— not time to res'. Will you not? Can you not? Ah-h-h! You moast!"

MADAME BUTTERFLY 71

She pulled the girl down to her, and whispered the last words in her ear— with her arms about her.

And the girl did. Let us not inquire how. She had never yet withstood that tone and that caress. There was a certain magic in her deft fingers, and her mistress had it all. No daintier creature need one ever wish to see than this bride awaiting anew the com- ing of her husband.

And when it was all done, they each took a final delighted look into the mirror. It was too small to show the whole figure, but they moved it up and down and round about until every portion had been seen. They both pronounced it very good.

"Stan' jus' that way," begged the maid, going the length of the apartment to observe. "Jus' lig those new porcelains of Kinkozan ! " she declared.

"Jus" lig those ole picture of Bunchosai!" retorted Cho-Cho-San— meaning anything but that.

But— in the way of women the world over — a few more touches were necessary —and it was finished.

" Now the flowers for his room ! Take them all — oh, aevery one! We shall not

72 MADAME BUTTERFLY

need them again. Go— go— go! Aha, ha, ha! An' Trouble— make a picture of him! He will be Trouble no longer after to-day. He go'n' git new name — mebby Joy! — Joy!"

HER commands were obeyed. Within the appointed hour the house was decked as for a festival, and not a flower remained upon its stem. The baby had indeed become a picture; and so had Cho-Cho-San and the maid and the house.

Then they hid behind the shoji, recklessly making peep-holes with their dampened fin- gers, as they had planned. There was one very low down for the baby, so that he could sit on the mats,— which he did not choose to do, — and one each for the others.

Cho-Cho-San sang as she fixed herself at her peep-hole—so as not to disarrange her finery :

" Rog-a-by, bebby, off in Japan, You jus' a picture off of a fan."

The maid tossed the baby like a ball into her lap.

" Aha, ha, ha!" laughed Madame Butterfly once more.

MADAME BUTTERFLY 73

Everything was at last quite as they had planned it.

"Now let him come," she said, in a charming defiance— ' ' let him come— quickly —an'— then— "

The hour passed. Then two— four. Night fell. They ceased to chatter. Later came perfect silence ; then that other silence of the dead of the night. The pulses of terror quickened. Suzuki noiselessly lighted the lanterns. Later, at a shivering gesture from her mistress, she lighted the andon in their room; then the hibachi. She had grown very cold. All night they watched. He had the careless habit of the night. But he did not come.

And all the next day they watched, and many after, quite silent now, always. The baby wondered at this, and would look in- quiringly from one to the other. It was very strange to him, this new silence. The house had been full always of their laughter and chatter— the patter of their feet— the sighing of the shoji. They did nothing now but watch— and eat a little, sleep a little— less and less of these. Finally Cho-Cho-San could no longer hold the glass. She lay on the mats with the baby, while the faithful

74 MADAME BUTTERFLY

handmaid watched. Every day the faded flowers were replaced by purchased ones- cheaper and cheaper ones. Their last money went for this and the candles which renewed the lights of the lanterns each night. These were not a thousand— were not a dozen- now.

She did not think of going to him. In destroying her Japanese conventions this was the one thing that had been left. In "Onna Yushoku Mibea Bunko" ("The Young Ladies' Old Book of Decorum ") she had read that the only woman who seeks a male is a yujo, a courtezan.

IN a week a passenger-steamer came into the bay. They took no interest in her. But the next day, quite by accident, they saw him for the first time. He was on the deck of the strange ship. A blonde woman was on his arm. They watched quite sleep- T lessly all that night. A few more lanterns were lighted.

On the following morning the war-ship had disappeared from the harbor.

Cho-Cho-San was frightened. The sink- ing at her heart she now knew to be black doubt. Her little, unused, frivolous mind

MADAME BUTTERFLY 75

had not forecast such a catastrophe. There might have been a reason, she had con- ceived, for his detention aboard his ship. He was never very certain. She had not been sure that he was with her until the day before; the position of the vessel had been unfavorable for observation.

XIII

THE GOOD CONSUL'S COMPASSIONATE LYING

DEMORALIZATION set in. Even the comfort of the maid was dulled. They decided that Cho-Cho-San should go to see the good con- sul, while the maid and the baby remained at home to welcome him if, perhaps, he had not gone with the war-ship. They had al- ready created this hope.

The maid helped her down the steepest part of the hill. Nevertheless, when she arrived at the consulate she was quite breath- less. The consul was alone. There were no frivolities now. Each knew that the other understood.

" Me ? I got— liddle heart-illness, I thing," the girl panted in excuse of her lack of cere-

76 MADAME BUTTERFLY

mony and the consul's pitying stare. She looked very ill; but her smile was still tragically bright.

The consul placed her a chair. She de- clined it. There was a moment of conscious silence. Then he went hesitatingly to his desk, and got an envelop containing money —a large sum. He silently handed her this.

She looked at him in appealing inquiry, but she did not take the money.

"It is only— only in remembrance of the — the past. He wishes you to be always happy— as— he says he is. He confidently hopes for your good wishes and congratu- lations."

There was moisture in the consul's eyes, only questioning in hers. He suddenly saw that she did not understand. He decided that she never should. He did not speak again, nor did she for a space. Then :

" Happy— happy ? " she murmured dizzily. '''But— how kin / be happy if he do not come ? How kin he be— happy— if— he do not come ? "

The consul was silent. He still held the money toward her. She tried to smile a little, to make him think she was indifferent

MADAME BUTTERFLY 77

concerning his answer to the question she was about to ask.

" Ah— oh— ah! You tole him 'bout— 'bout that joke— that liddle joke we make on him ? "

The consul pretended ignorance. She explained:

" That 'bout me go'n' marry with Yama- dori, an' take his bebby 'way ? "

He had to answer now:

" Oh, that was— too— too foolish to talk about seriously."

Pinkerton had been glad to hear it.

" But— you — tole him ? "

She hoped now he had not.

"Well-"

He looked out of the window. He would not strike, but she would be struck.

" But— you— you tole him ? " She had raised her voice piteously.

" Yes," answered the consul, dully, won- dering what he could say next.

She gasped, and wiped her dry lips.

" Yaes; tha' 's— right. Tha' 's— what I— as' you do. An' — an' what he — say?" she questioned huskily.

The consul was willing to lie as deeply as the occasion might demand. The woe in the

78 MADAME BUTTERFLY

girl's face afflicted him. He saw in her at- tire the pitiful preparations to welcome the husband he now knew to be a craven, and in her face what it had cost to wait for him. But in specie the lie was difficult.

" Well," he began uncertainly, " we— it all happened about as you had supposed. He got very angry, and would have rushed right up the hill, as you thought, only- only — " What next ? The wish to lie had grown upon him wondrously as he went on. But invention flagged. The despatches on his desk caught his eye. " Only— he was not permitted a moment's leave while in the harbor. He had all these despatches to pre- pare—for—for his government— the war, you know. All in cipher."

He showed them to her. A brilliant thought came into his head.

" See! They are all in his handwriting."

He had not written a line of them.

" His ship was ordered away suddenly to China; but he '11 be back here some of these fine days, and then — "

The rest was for her. At any rate, he could lie no more.

" All— all the gods in heaven bless— you," she said, sinking with the reaction.

MADAME BUTTERFLY 79

She reeled, and he put her into the chair. Her head fell limply back, and her pallid face looked up at him with the weary eyes closed. But there was rest and peace on it, and it was still very beautiful.

Some one was approaching in haste, and he drew a screen before her.

XIV

THE BLONDE WOMAN

A WOMAN entered. " Mr. Sharpless— the American consul ? "

she asked, while crossing the threshold. The consul bowed. " Can you reach my husband at Kobe— by

telegraph ? "

" I think so. Who is your husband ? " He took up a writing-pad as he spoke.

" Lieutenant Pinkerton of the ."

" One moment, for God's sake!"

It was too late. The eyes of the little

woman in the chair were fixed on his.

They even tried to smile a little, wearily, at

the poor result of his compassionate lying.

She shook her head for silence.

80 MADAME BUTTERFLY

"I beg your pardon; I 'm— I am— ready — " said the consul, roughly. He made no other explanation. "Proceed."

" I should like you to send this telegram : 'Just saw the baby and his nurse. Can't we have him at once ? He is lovely. Shall see the mother about it to-morrow. Was not at home when I was there to-day. Expect to join you Wednesday week per Kioto Marti. May I bring him along ? ADELAIDE.' "

As she advanced and saw Cho-Cho-San, she stopped in open admiration.

"How very charming— how lovely— you are, dear! Will you kiss me, you pretty— plaything! "

Cho-Cho-San stared at her with round eyes — as children do when afraid. Then her nostrils quivered and her lids slowly closed.

"No," she said, very softly.

"Ah, well," laughed the other, "I don't blame you. They say you don't do that sort of thing— to women, at any rate. I quite forgive our men for falling in love with you. Thanks for permitting me to interrupt you. And, Mr. Sharpless, will you get that off at once? Good day!"

She went with the hurry in which she had

MADAME BUTTERFLY 81

come. It was the blonde woman they had seen on the deck of the passenger-steamer.

They were quite silent after she was gone —the consul still at his desk, his head bowed impotently in his hands.

Cho-Cho-San rose presently, and stag- gered toward him. She tried desperately to smile, but her lips were tightly drawn against her teeth. Searching unsteadily in her sleeve, she drew out a few small coins, and held them out to him. He curiously took them on his palm.

" They are his, all that is left of his beau- tiful moaney. I shall need no more. Give them to him. I lig if you also say I sawry — no, no, no! glad — glad — glad!" She humbly sighed. " Me ? I— I wish him that happiness same lig he wish for himself — an'— an'— me. Me? I shall— be happy— mebby. Tell him I — shall be — happy."

Her head drooped for a moment. When she raised it she was quite emotionless, if one might judge from her face.

" Thang him — that Mr. B. F. Pikkerton — also for all that kineness he have been unto me. Permit me to thang you, augustness, for that same. You— you"— she could smile a little now at the pretty recollection

82 MADAME BUTTERFLY

—then the tears came slowly into her eyes—

"you — the mos' bes' nize man — in all the —

whole— wort'." She closed her eyes a moment, and stood

quite still. The consul said below his breath :

" Pinkerton, and all such as he!"

"Goon night," said Cho-Cho-San, and at

the door looking back, "Sayonara," and

another tired smile. She staggered a little as she went out.

"ALAS, you also have seen her!" wailed the intuitive little maid, as she let her mistress in.

" An' she is more beautiful than the Sun- Goddess," answered Cho-Cho-San.

The maid knelt to take off her shoes.

"She — she thing me — jus' a — plaything."

She generously tried to smile at the maid, who was weeping. She touched her hair caressingly as she knelt.

" Don' weep for me, liddle maiden — ac- count I disappoint— a liddle— disappoint— Don' weep for me. That liddle while ago you as' me to res'— peace— sleep," she said after a while, wearily. " Well, go 'way, an' I will— res'. Now I -wish to res'— sleep. Long — long sleep. An' I pray you, loog,

MADAME BUTTERFLY 83

when you see me again, whether I be not again beautiful— again as a bride."

The maid did not go. Once more she understood her mistress.

"But—I thing you loave me? "

The girl sobbed.

" Therefore go— that I suffer no more. Go, that I res'— peace— sleep. Long— beautiful sleep! Go, I beg."

She gently took her hands and led her out.

" Farewell, liddle maiden," she said softly, closing the shoji. " Don' weep."

XV

WHEN THE ROBINS NEST AGAIN

SHE sat quite still, and waited till night fell. Then she lighted the andon, and drew her toilet-glass toward her. She had a sword in her lap as she sat down. It was the one thing of her father's which her rela- tives had permitted her to keep. It would have been very beautiful to a Japanese, to whom the sword is a soul. A golden dragon writhed about the superb scabbard. He had eyes of rubies, and held in his mouth a sphere

84 MADAME BUTTERFLY

of crystal which meant many mystical things to a Japanese. The guard was a coiled ser- pent of exquisite workmanship. The blade was tempered into vague shapes of beasts at the edge. It was signed, " Ikesada." To her father it had been Honor. On the blade was this inscription :

To die with Honor — i- When one can no longer live with Honor.

It was in obscure ideographs ; but it was -f also written on her father's kaimyo at the shrine, and she knew it well.

"To die with honor—' She drew the blade affectionately across her palm. Then she made herself pretty with vermilion and powder and perfumes; and she prayed, humbly endeavoring at the last to make her peace. She had not forgotten the mission- . ary's religion; but on the dark road from death to Meido it seemed best now to trust herself to the compassionate augustnesses, who had always been true.

Then she placed the point of the weapon at that nearly nerveless spot in the neck known to every Japanese, and began to press it slowly inward. She could not help a little gasp at the first incision. But presently

MADAME BUTTERFLY 85

she could feel the blood finding its way down her neck. It divided on her shoulder, the larger stream going down her bosom. In a moment she could see it making its way daintily between her breasts. It began to congeal there. She pressed on the sword, and a fresh stream swiftly overran the other —redder, she thought. And then suddenly she could no longer see it. She drew the mirror closer. Her hand was heavy, and the mirror seemed far away. She knew that she must hasten. But even as she locked her fingers on the serpent of the guard, something within her cried out piteously. They had taught her how to die, but he had taught her how to live— nay, to make life sweet. Yet that was the reason she must die. Strange reason ! She now first knew that it was sad to die. He had come, and / substituted himself for everything; he had gone, and left her nothing — nothing but this.

THE maid softly put the baby into the room.

She pinched him, and he began to cry. " Oh, pitiful Kwannon ! Nothing ? " The sword fell dully to the floor. The

stream between her breasts darkened and

86 MADAME BUTTERFLY

stopped. Her head drooped slowly forward. Her arms penitently outstretched themselves toward the shrine. She wept.

"Oh, pitiful Kwannon!" she prayed.

The baby crept cooing into her lap. The little maid came in and bound up the wound.

WHEN Mrs. Pinkerton called next day at the little house on Higashi Hill it was quite empty.

PURPLE-EYES

PURPLE-EYES

THE FEVER JAPONICA

ARLAND was charmed with his reception. Before he could open his head (in his own per- haps too picturesque phrase) the two girls had buried their delightful noses in the mats, and were bob- bing vividly up and down, sibilating honorif- fics at him in the voice and manner used only to personages. The mother joined them an instant later, making a phalanx; and she was nearly as beautiful, and quite as graceful, as her daughters. So that at one moment he would have presented to him the napes of 89

9o PURPLE-EYES

three pretty necks, and at the next, with a conjurer's quick change, three pairs of eyes that smiled always, and three mouths that did their best (which was very well indeed) to assist the eyes. At first, I say, he was charmed, then a little bewildered, then be- witched. And perhaps it was well that his conversation-book was the only thing about him that spoke Japanese; for Garland's vocabulary, even when it was fairly ac- curate, had grown indiscreet since coming to Japan.

He perceived, however, by a surreptitious glance at the conversation-book when the napes of the necks were in view, that they were addressing him as " Augustness " and " Excellency," and that the mother was in- sisting that he should take immediate pos- session of her "miserable" house and its contents. He wondered dreamily— and he drifted into dreams with the most curious ease— whether the girls would be included.

Finally he began to feel it his duty to be tired of this fawning, as his refluent Ameri- can democracy insisted upon naming it — though, personally, he liked it— and all the clever pretenses of the Japanese. He sat bolt upright, and frowned. But the charm-

PURPLE-EYES 91

ing kotowing did not in the least abate. He had heard somewhere that the only way to stop this sort of thing short of apoplexy was to compete in it.

He tried to reach the mats with his own nose. It seemed easy, but it was a disaster. There is a trick in it. He plunged forward helplessly almost into the lap of one of his hostesses. Garland sat up, with their joint assistance, very red in the face, but quite cheerful; for though the mother looked greatly pained, the girls were smiling like two Japanese angels. (The phrase is again Garland's: there are no Japanese angels.) Garland had the instant intelligence to per- ceive that this had at once stopped the kotow- ing, and precipitated a piquant intimacy.

"I say," said he, idiomatically, "I nearly broke my neck trying to say howdy-do in your way. Now won't you kindly say it in mine, without the least danger to life and limb ? "

He held out his hand invitingly, and the one on his right went into debate as to which one to give him. She knew there was some foreign etiquette in the matter.

"In doubt, shake both," said Garland, doing it.

92 PURPLE-EYES

The one on his left emulated her sister to the last particular (the mother had retired for refreshments), but he noticed that the hands she gave him were long and white. He glanced up, and found himself looking into a pair of blue eyes. He followed the forehead to the brassy hair above. Then he began furiously to turn the leaves of the conversation-book. The one on his right laughed a little, and said:

" What you lig as', please ? "

Garland closed the book, and stared. He did not ask what he had meant to, because of something he saw in the questioner's face.

"Ah, if you lig more bedder for do so, speak the English," she said, with a quiet flourish that was lost upon Garland.

He flung the conversation-book into a corner. Black-Eyes, as he had mentally named her, in despair of her Japanese name, which was Meadowsweet, smiled ecstatically.

"Ah-h-h! You lig those— those Eng- lish ? "

" Like it? It 's heavenly!. I say, fancy, if you can,— but you can't,— depending upon a dictionary for your most sacred sentiments for three months."

PURPLE-EYES 93

Wherein it will be perceived that Garland had learned the whole art of Japanese polite- ness—gentle prevarication.

"How that is nize!" breathed the blue- eyed one, fervently.

Garland turned suddenly upon her, then questioned her with his eyes. She under- stood.

" Those — thing— you — speak-ing," she barely breathed once more, in explanation.

"Oh!" said Garland. But it meant more than print can express. " Tell me, if you please, what your name is."

It was Miss Purple-Wistaria; but the Japa- nese of this was quite as impossible as the other.

" Do you mind me calling you Blue- Eyes ? " asked Garland. " When it comes to Japanese proper names— I have already taken the liberty of mentally calling your sister Black-Eyes, and if you don't mind — "

" You call those blue-eye ? " asked Miss Meadowsweet.

"Why, yes," said Garland. "What do you call them ? "

"Purple-eye."

"Well, I like that better, anyhow. It shall be Purple-Eyes."

94 PURPLE-EYES

"She got other already English name," confided Black-Eyes, with the manner for her sister he did not like.

"Oh! What is it?"

" Sarann, " laughed the dark one. " Tha' 's jus' joke her fadder. He all times joke upon her."

Garland did not quite understand. He decided that he did not wish to, for the blue- eyed one looked very uncomfortable.

"I shall call her Purple-Eyes," he said.

The disagreeableness of the other con- tinued.

" Yaes; tha' 's good name— for her," she added, with an intention that was distinctly odious.

" In America that would be the most beau- tiful name a man could give to a beautiful woman," said Garland, severely.

The dark one looked a bit frightened. The blonde one gave him the merest horizon of her eyes as she raised her head. Grati- tude was in them.

" Now, won't you go on, and tell me how you knew me before I opened my blooming head ? "

He had again addressed himself to Purple- Eyes; but Black-Eyes answered:

PURPLE-EYES 95

"What is that— open you' head, an' blooming you' head ? "

Garland informed her.

" Oh-h-h ! " laughed the dark one. " Tba' 's way know yo' 'fore open you' bloom-ing head!"

She suddenly reached into the bosom of the kimono of the blue-eyed one, and brought forth a photograph of Garland; whereat Garland got red again, and again the blue-eyed one drooped her head.

"Oh, I say," Garland began, without a very distinct idea of what he was going to say, " Brownie sent you that— aha, ha, ha!" —he had happily drifted into the very thing, — " and wrote you that I would arrive with a letter from him ; so that you would know me— you know; and of course when I ar- rived—of course when I arrived — why, of course— oh, hang it!"

They both waited breathlessly upon his words.

"Of course," echoed Black-Eyes, sym- pathetically— " of course— tha' 's correc', an' tha' 's also — niqe. Of course — you arrive when you arrive."

Garland wondered whether she was guy- ing him.

96 PURPLE-EYES

"Yes— why, of course," said he once more, and a laugh en masse cleared the air.

Garland, in a panic, was searching his pockets.

"What lot pockets!" sighed Black-Eyes, insidiously desiring to compose his nerves.

"Sixteen," admitted Garland. "I wish they were only one, just now. By Jove, I've lost that letter!"

The graceful mother arrived with the tobaco-bon (there appeared to be no ser- vant), and Garland, professing an igno- rance which seems problematical after three months in Japan, desired to be initiated into the art and mystery of the Japanese pipe. The tender was made to Purple-Eyes, but Black-Eyes undertook it.

"So," she said, rolling a pellet of the tobacco, and putting it into the pipe; "an' so," as she fearlessly put a live coal upon it with her fingers; "so," as she put it to her own lips and sent out a tiny puff; " an'— an' — an' so! " as she laughed and put it to his. And yet Garland found himself wishing that the other one had done it, and believing that she could do it better! And this, you per- ceive, was already perilous business.

It was afternoon when Garland arrived,

PURPLE-EYES 97

and the mother's actions, though covered by diplomatic entrances and exits, with a view to impressing him to the contrary, indicated to him that she was cooking. And presently Purple-Eyes got up and lighted the andon. Garland, who delighted in her grace of mo- tion, had not yet learned that each movement was the result of much study and the prac- tice of many stoical rules of decorum. However, he rose as far as his knees, and said he must go. A glance of alarm passed between the girls, and both stiffened in consternation.

"Sa-ay— tha' 's not nize for us," accused the dark one, with valor. " Brownie he write unto us that you so kine with him, you give him you' las' pair boots, an' go naked on you' both feet. Tha' 's way we got do you. But— account you go'n' go 'way, we cannot. Hence we got be always 'shamed 'fore Brownie — an' aevetybody. Tha' 's not nize— for us." Garland had not risen above his knees, and she came hopefully forward. " Please don' go 'way ! " She turned to Purple-Eyes in the peremptory way that Garland resented. " Sa-ay— why you don' as' him stay among us ? Sa-ay — don' you wish ? "

98 PURPLE-EYES

Garland's eyes followed. Unconsciously they besought her.

"We lig—tt you stay— among us," said Purple-Eyes, haltingly.

But there was something else— just the timid lifting of an eyelid. Garland answered this with a rift of pleasure which shot across his face.

" Me ? / lig also if you stay among us —I."

But now it was spoken to the mats. There was the edge of a smile visible, never- theless, and Garland felt the courage it took for this.

"Well, if you like," said Garland,— he laughed suddenly, — " / like too."

"Thangs!"

They both said it at once; but some splendid reward passed from Purple-Eyes to Garland.

So presently they had a feast, in which four little tables stood in a circle— one for each. There would have been only three had not Garland insisted that the mother should dine with them. He had not the least idea how fearfully he had disarranged domestic matters, for the mother, of course, instantly did as he requested. And then the

PURPLE-EYES 99

three of them served him, and cunningly joined in engaging him while one or the other prepared the viands. But finally it was a very joyous meal; and only when the Osaka beer came on did Garland at all sus- pect how much out of the ordinary it was for them. They had forgotten to be taught how to open the bottles!

THE SHADOW ON THE SHOJI

AND he went to sleep that night, when sleep came, on a floor that was as dainty as any bed, in a huge wadded overcoat called a futon, on a wooden pillow that rocked and screeched a little (as if afraid to screech more) when he turned. An andon burned dimly behind a screen, and he was aware of the slumberous aroma Japonica, as he characterized it. But he could not sleep — of course not. For, less than six feet away, behind the translucent walls of paper, he could hear the melodious dithyrambics of the three voices. He could catch a sleepy word now and then, which he knew came from

ioo PURPLE-EYES

the blue-eyed one. They were much fewer than those of the other two. Some vague picture of those eyes, patiently sad, as he had conceived them, kept itself between him and sleep, until finally it was sudden morn- ing, and the splendid light of Japan, subdued by the shoji, was shining in his face.

He lay indolently awake for a long time. Presently a noise not much greater than the alighting of a fly upon a stretched screen drew his attention. He perceived a damp- ened finger slowly working against the other side of the shoji, until presently the paper parted, and the finger came through. It was very pink at the tip. Slowly it reamed the hole larger, then disappeared, to be replaced by an eye. And the eye was blue. Garland nearly laughed aloud, until he remembered that he was the objective of the eye. Then unconsciously he arranged his hair a little, and began to pose. But the humor of it came down upon him again, and he laughed. The eye instantly disappeared, and he could see the shadow of its owner gliding away. In a panic of regret, Garland called out:

"Don't go, Purple-Eyes!"

The shadow hesitated, and then returned.

" How you know tha' 's Purple-Eyes ? "

PURPLE-EYES 101

" By her own confession— now."

Her pretty laugh sifted through the shoji.

" You want me come unto you ? " asked the voice beyond. " Tha' 's what I dunno."

Garland was (in his own phrase again) quite paralyzed. He might have thought, but he did not, that she was only tendering the offices of the servant they did not have; but he called out, with a mixture of bravado and trembling which alarmed them both:

"Yes; come in!"

The damaged shoji slid haltingly aside, and she entered very slowly and softly, and he thought of the pictures of the returning Sun-Goddess ^ as she came through the opening and down the burst of light it let in. As she prostrated herself Garland noticed that her hair had been newly dressed (an operation of several hours), and that she wore a dainty blue kimono, too gay for any but a geisha to wear. But it became her royally.

" You look more than ever like a picture on a fan," greeted Garland, with even more admiration in his eyes than in his voice.

Instead of being pleased, as any other Japanese girl would have been, Purple- Eyes slowly shook her head.

102 PURPLE-EYES

" Alas ! you naever see no picture on fan lig unto me."

" But I have," insisted Garland.

She shook her head again.

" Well, then, if not, why not ? "

" They got not those purple eye — an' pink face— an' flaming hair—"

She sighed, and looked askance at Gar- land. He seemed fully to agree with her. She changed her tone to one of resigned solicitude and ceremony.

" You sleeping well— all those night ? "

" Well, by the great Jehovah and the Con- tinental Congress, if I were a Japanese artist, that is the kind of eyes and face and hair they should all have ! Yessir ! — every blamed one of them ! "

The girl caught her breath, and something flamed up her face and lighted her splendid eyes anew. She dared to look at him. It had all sounded quite true. Wistfully she dissembled— this at least was truly Japa- nese.

"You sleeping well all"— she lost her purpose for a moment— "all those night —all ? "

" Blue eyes for me, every day in the week."

PURPLE-EYES

103

" You sleeping well ? " Joy was all too plainly in her voice now — irrepressible joy.

He laughed, and caught her hands raptur- ously. She did not deny him, and he kissed them.

"Oh, you are delightful!" said he.

" Me ? / don' sleep— moach."

." You look as fresh as new porcelain."

" Yaes; I been fix up."

She consciously let him look her over.

"No; I did n't sleep at first. I was listen- ing to your voice," Garland confessed, quite without reservation.

The girl was confused a little.

" You don' lig be annoy with those voice ? "

"Why, it is divine!"

A white shaft of fear crossed her face.

" Tha' 's — jus' — fun — I egspeg? "

"Tha' 's ver' earnest," he gaily mocked.

He was pleasing her now. She even went with his mood a little way. Joy was such a beautiful and tempting and elusive thing!

" Lig goddess, mebby ? "

Garland nodded seriously.

"Tha' 's nize— for me."

"An' for me" — in quite her own manner.

,04 PURPLE-EYES

" But not the goddesses ? "

They laughed together, and she drew confidently a little closer to him.

"Listen; I go'n' tell you a thing. You not in fun— not?"

"I mean every word," declared Garland, " and more than I have words to mean."

"An" you lig be tell?"

"That is what I am waiting so impa- tiently for— to be tell."

" Tha' 's nize. Eijinsan 'most always fun. Nobody but you aever lig those hair an' eye. Aeverybody hate me. Why? Ac- count they say I b'long pink-face people. Account my fadder he sei yo jin— a west- ocean mans. / di'n' do so unto those hair an' eye ! I cannot help. Me ? When I see you got those purple eye lig unto me, an' also those yellow hairs, an' all pink in the face, 1 thing mebby you go'n' lig me liddle — lig I was brodder an' fadder with you. Also, I thing mebby you go'n' take me away with you — beyond those west-ocean, where pink-face people live. Me? Don' you thing those pink-face people lig me liddle if I come unto them ? "

" God bless you — yes," said Garland, with something suspiciously tender in voice and

PURPLE-EYES 105

eyes. He still had her hands, delighting in them, caressing them. The girl's face was irradiated. She poured out all her soul for him.

"Me? Listen 'nother time. Before I know you' eyes purple an' you' hair yellow lig unto me, I lig you! Me? Sa-ay — I lig jus' your picture! " She laughed, confessed, and shifted a little closer. " You don' hate me account 1 doing those ? "

" No," said Garland, guiltily—" no, I don't hate you."

" Sa-ay— you go'n' take me at those pink- face people ? "

Garland was silent.

" If you don', I got go myself. Me ? I got go ! "

Garland nodded, and she understood him to have assented. This was wrong. But her joy was superb, and Garland had a very soft heart.

" Oh— bow that is nize! Me? I got go. I dunno — all times seem lig I b'long 'cross west-ocean. Seem lig I different from aeverybody else. Me ? I got have some- body lig me— somebody touch me— hole my hands — so — so — so! " She illustrated fer- vidly.

io6 PURPLE-EYES

Garland, alarmed at her dynamic emotion, released them. She returned them to him.

" But — nobody don' wish. Others — Japan people— they don' lig be ligued. But me ? I got be— else I got pain in my heart an' am ill. You aever have those pain at you' heart —lig you all times falling down— down- down ? Tha' 's mos' tarrible. Tha' 's lone- some-ness.' Me? I thing I go'n' die some- time account that. Tha' 's lone-some-ness to cross west-ocean to pink-face people. Yaes; tha' 's why I got do those. Oku- Sama — tha' 's my modder — she saying 'most all times, 'Jus' lig pink-face people. Always got be lig by 'nother— touch by 'nother— speak sof by 'nother.' An' tha' 's you — yaes! You lig me, an' you touch me, an' you speak sof unto me the ver' first time I seeing you. Me? I know, those time I first seeing you, that you don' hate me account I got those pink face upon me."

"No," admitted Garland, seriously.

"How that is nize! It make something rest— go 'sleep inside me. I got that peace. Jus' when you touch my hand at first I got some happiness. But now— I got that peace."

She began regretfully to detach herself.

PURPLE-EYES 107

Garland detained her. She was very dainty and very confiding— very wise. She had unconsciously got very close to him. And Garland had vanquished his alarm of her.

" Me ? I don' wish ; but I got git you somethings eat. Soon you starve. I got."

But Garland would not let her go— and she was a willing captive, though she dis- sembled an urgent necessity.

"Where is Black-Eyes— and your mo- ther ? " asked Garland.

The girl seemed reluctant, but told him that they all worked in the neighboring silk- mill, the pulsations of which he had heard in the night.

"Never mind. I 'd rather famish," said the impulsive Garland, with a strange re- morse. " Will you assist ? "

" Yaes," laughed the girl. " Me ? I been famish— many times."

" Heavens!" breathed Garland, inventory- ing all her daintiness once more. " How much do your mother and sister earn ? "

The girl seemed quite indifferent as to this.

" Sometime fi' sen; sometime ten— fifteen; one times, twenty-two."

" And you ? "

io8 PURPLE-EYES

"Me? Oh, jus' liddle."

She earned more than the other two.

" And what does it cost you to live ?"

" Live? Half those fi'— ten— fifteen sen."

" And you save the rest ? That is very prudent."

The girl looked bewildered ; then she ex- plained:

" Other half sen' Brownie."

He suddenly let her go. She leaned over him bewitchingly.

" Firs' some breakfas' ; then I go'n' help you famish — all day! What you thing?"

She came back in a moment. The sleeves of her kimono were tucked out of the way, and there was rice-flour on her pretty arms.

" You go'n' to naever tell— 'bout those fi' — ten — fifteen sen, an' all those ? "

"No," said Garland; "I will never tell."

" Else they go'n' kill me," she threatened gaily.

"I prefer to have you live," he laughed, as brightly as he could.

" Tha' 's secret among jus' you an' me ? "

"Yes," said Garland.

She started away, then came back.

" Me ? I lig— I lig— have secret among jus' you an' me." With a radiant face she fled.

PURPLE-EYES 109

AND here was Brownie's poor little skele- ton stripped naked. He had lived at the university like a gentleman. He was still living in Philadelphia like a gentleman. Garland wondered whether it would make any difference in Philadelphia if it were known that it was the pitiful "fi'— ten- fifteen sen" that his mother and sisters earned each day that supported him. A great disgust for Brownie and a great pity for Purple-Eyes were the immediate postu- lates. And is not pity akin to love ?

THE DANCE OF THE RED MAPLE-LEAVES

THE question of making one's toilet in the interior of Japan is still a serious one for the American who lives behind closed doors and cherishes his divine right of privacy. Gar- land had solved the vexation for all his contemporaries (according to Garland) by making his toilet as to half or quarter of his sacred person at a time (depending some- what upon the danger of surprise), thus re- ducing the chances of exposure by one half

no PURPLE-EYES

or three quarters. Purple-Eyes brought him the requisites for his toilet, and the moment she was gone he bared his shoulders and chest, and plunged into the delightful water, perfumed, like everything else, with the aroma Japonica. But his pretty hostess re- appeared through the movable walls at an unwatched place.

He abandoned a momentary impulse to scuttle behind the screen because of the ad- miration he saw in her eyes, and then he half turned that she might see the muscles of his back.

"How you are beau-ti-f ul ! " she said slowly, as her eyes traveled, quite without embarrassment, over his athletic uppers.

"Thanks," he laughed, with pleasure in the little incident.

Garland turned a little farther, and raised his arms above his head in the way of athletes.

She handed him a towel he had dropped.

""I thing I come tell you we got large tub for bath," she said then.

"Where is it?" asked Garland, suspi- ciously.

"There."

She pointed.

PURPLE-EYES 1 1 1

" That 's what I thought. You must ex- cuse me. I can't perform that sacred rite in the fierce light that beats upon a front porch."

" Yaes ? Eijinsan don' lig ? " She did not understand.

"No," admitted Garland.

" Also, you lig for me go 'way liddle ? "

Garland said yes, and she went.

When she returned, it was with a delight- ful breakfast of fish, rice, and persimmons. She put the little table between them, and on her knees, on the other side, taught him how to eat as a Japanese should. This is really not difficult, except the chopsticks; and with these she had to help him so often that <heir fingers were in almost constant contact. Alas ! Garland made it as difficult as possible. And, alas! Garland was glad of the chop- sticks !

Her joy overflowed the mouth and eyes which it seemed should know nothing but tears.

Afterward he helped her, with masculine joy of his own ineptitude, to reform the apartment, and secrete the things which had made it successively a reception-room, sleep- ing-chamber, and breakfast-room. You may

ii2 PURPLE-EYES

judge whether or not this was delightful to a fellow like Garland, and also whether it was perilous.

IT is not often that one has the felicity of ending one's breakfast with a song, and then of ending the song with a dance. Purple- Eyes brought her samisen quite without suggestion from Garland, and said with naivete :

" I go'n' sing you a song. You lig me sing ? "

"Try me!" challenged Garland, with an admiration in his eyes which pleased her greatly.

" Long down behine the Suwanee River" was the curious song she sang, in Japanese English.

Garland laughed.

" Don' you lig those ? " she pouted. " I learn it for you."

He said it was lovely, and begged her to go on.

But his eyes wandered from the fingers on the strings to those on the plectrum, and then away to the lips above; and when she turned into the chorus he joined her with his inconstant eyes still there. It was only an

PURPLE-EYES 113

indifferent tenor, but the girl thought it full of fervor. It was only that it joined and mingled with hers— as she fancied their spirits doing and might always do.

" How that is nize!" she breathed in frank ecstasy, " You got voice lig— lig— "

But there was nothing at hand to compare it with, and she laughed confessingly.

"Nothing," said Garland. "It 's origi- nal."

" Yaes— nothing original," she admitted.

" Sing another," begged Garland, with en- thusiasm.

She did— "When the swallows flying home"; and then still another—"'? is the last rosebud summer,"

" Where did you learn them ? " asked he.

" That day when I got you* picture. Me ? I thing you lig me sing, mebby. Well, I git those song; I make them United States' lan- guage, so you comprehend."

"God bless you!" said Garland.

The girl leaned forward with dewy eyes.

" Sa-ay— you lig me also dance— jus' one — liddle — dance — for you!1 "

She came bewitchingly nearer. Garland glanced again at her geisha-like costume.

1 14 PURPLE-EYES

Had she thought all this out for his enter- tainment, he wondered ?

"Yes," he said.

" But — you naev — naever go'n' tell ? "

She raised her brows, and held up a finger archly.

" On my sacred honor!" laughed Garland.

" No one ? "

"Not a soul."

" Tha' 's go'n' be 'nother secret among jus' you an' me for aever an' aever ? "

" For ever and ever," announced Garland, as if it were the Service.

" Account if you aever do, they go'n' kill me!"

"What! Kill you?"

"Dade!" She nodded ominously.

"Who?"

"Black-Eyes an' those modder."

" Oh!" said Garland. He understood.

He was left to guess that this dainty flower had been taught the arts of a geisha to assist also in keeping up Brownie's state.

"I lig dance for you," confessed the girl, joyously. "Others? No; I do not lig. They as' me, ' Where you got those pink face ? ' Me ? I don' lig those. 1 rather work in those mill. My modder an' my

PURPLE-EYES 115

sister gitting all times an-gery— account I don' dance. But — tha' 's in-sult upon me! I don' lig be insult. So ! Me ? I jus' don' dance for no one — but — but — but — jus' — you! "

She vanished through the shoji, and pres- ently returned, a symphony in autumnal reds and browns.

" I go'n' dance for you that red maple-leaf dance. Me? I am that leaf."

" You look it," said Garland, more ten- derly than he knew.

The girl spread her garments that he might inspect her.

" This is a forest," she went on ; " an' you — sa-ay— you a tree! Aha, ha, ha! "

She laughed, made him a noble courtesy, and murmured a little tune to which she floated down from the top of a maple-tree. For a while she lay quite still, shivering a little. Then the wind stirred her, and she rose, and swept down upon Garland, then back and into a whirl of other leaves. Then hither and thither, merrily, like an autumn leaf, until she shivered down at his feet, with bowed head.

She was making it more and more perilous for Garland.

n6 PURPLE-EYES

IV "HOW THAT IS NIZE!"

THAT night they had a gay little supper, with a tiny servant, who, Garland guessed, with entire accuracy, had been borrowed for the occasion.

" You got nize day ? " asked Black-Eyes.

Garland caught a startled glance from Purple-Eyes, and answered discreetly that he had had— oh, yes; a very pleasant day, giving no damaging particulars.

But Black-Eyes fancied from the blankness of his countenance that he was indulging in the same kind of prevarication with which she would have met such a question. She devoted herself to him all the rest of the evening. As he retired for the night, the last thing she said to him, with a reproach- ful glance at Purple-Eyes, was :

"To-morrow you go'n' have mos' bes' nize times. / go'n' stay home with you!"

And she did, making it a very dreary day for Garland. He could not help thinking of Purple-Eyes at the factory, with her dainty hands begrimed.

PURPLE-EYES 117

But presently, when she returned, there was no grime upon her hands. She was dainty and smiling.

" You got nize day ? " she asked, with her head coyly down. She knew he had not. And she purposely quoted her sister.

" No," he said savagely. " I 'm glad it 's over."

The flame was in her face again. But she kept it down.

"I thing Black-Eyes ver' be-witch-ing."

" But she is not— you," he said.

She looked slowly up. The little weari- ness which had been limned upon her face by the day's drudgery was gone, and in its stead was a vague glory reflected from within.

" How that is nize," she whispered—" for me! "

" For me," said Garland, approaching her threateningly. She did not retreat. She subsided a little toward him — just a little — that he might know she would never retreat from him. Her eyes smiled confidently.

He stopped where he was.

" Who is to be chatelaine to-morrow ? "

" What is that chat—? " she asked.

" Who is to keep the house ? "

1 18 PURPLE-EYES

"Me. Me one day, Black-Eyes next/'

She saw his face lighten.

" You lig that ? "

"I like half of it."

She thought a moment until she under- stood; then she lifted her shining face.

"Ah, Eijinsan, how be-witch-ing you are ! "

THE PLAINTIVE TEMPLE BELLS

THE next day they went up to the temple on the mountain-side the plaintive bells of which Garland had heard. Purple-Eyes was tall, and walked with less difficulty than most Japanese girls, so they walked. It was a day of dreams. Garland remembered afterward the smell of the incense, the voices of the chanting bonzes, that the tea-house on the mountain-side where they rested called itself the House of the Seven Golden Crystals ; the rest was Purple-Eyes— and happiness. Japan had been growing upon him for three months, and now unhappiness made but little impression.

PURPLE-EYES 119

The day remained in his mind with the sum of his dreams — this lotus-eating, nectar- drinking, happy-go-lucky Garland!

Thus it curiously went on. One day it was Black-Eyes, and the true Japan, and the real Garland. The next it was Purple-Eyes, and the ideal Japan, and the lotus-eating Garland. What is more like lotus-eating than being adored ? At first Garland used to smile at the strange dual life which circum- stances had wrought out for him. Then he used to wonder which was better. Later he tried to decide only which he liked better. Now he no longer differentiated at all. His analytical edge was quite dulled. Still, he had heard that this fever of Japan always wore off. Some said it lasted as long as two years, some said five ; no one had said ten. And what then ?

" Why, then ? Me! "

He had spoken the last three words aloud, and they had been answered by the laugh- ing, dewy-eyed subject of them.

He looked at her.

"Well, one ought to be content," he laughed.

" An' you — content ? " she smiled back.

He did not answer at once.

120 PURPLE-EYES

" Do you know that you have been grow- ing more bewitching every day since—"

" Sinzeyou — an' joy — came at Japan ? "

From the opened shoji she flung him the gay greeting he had taught her, and disap- peared ; for it was Black-Eyes' day, and she had yet to dress for her work.

That day he harbored madly the notion of marriage with Purple-Eyes and a residence in Japan. It had quite infected him before night, and was distinctly, but less and less strongly, in his mind for several days. But then came a letter from his elder brother, in answer to his own of a rather confessional and emotional sort, asking him what he meant by living upon three working-women. It told him to go away— to the devil— any- where—but away from there. It was like a cold douche. The fever Japonica, as every one had said, was at last gone. So small a thing as his brother's letter had cured it. Now he smiled. He had meant to write to Miss Warburton, offering to release her.

PURPLE-EYES 121

VI

" SAYONARA " ?

I KNOW not what he said to Purple-Eyes, but with her tears there was a certain buoyancy that had not been there but for some hope. And why not ? For Garland was a very sweet and gentle fellow, who abhorred pain. The three went to see him off, and he tried desperately to be gay; but something was pulling at his heart-strings, and there were tears perilously near his eyes. Black-Eyes did not marvel at this. She had always understood that it was the way of west- ocean men. But they were only too evi- dently ready to be answered by other tears in the dewy eyes that were blue. And this was annoying to Black-Eyes. She made her sister tremble by a look. So she of the blue eyes could only grasp and hold Garland's big hand in both her own exquisite ones when the others looked away. When their eyes returned hers looked off to the big funnels of the ship, though she still held the hand. But when she looked at Garland again he had his handkerchief to his eyes; something in-

122 PURPLE-EYES

side had given way. Then hers came from her sleeve, too. So at last it was quite a little tragedy.

Sad it is that one forgets that one has eaten of the lotus ; but thus it is with the lotus, and thus did Garland.

That night, in bed, Black-Eyes undertook some criticism of Garland. Her sister flared up in a way that was new and superb.

"Tha' 's lie! He 's the mos' bes' nize gent in the whole worl'." . And she fell to sobbing.

" What is the matter ? " asked the mother, who was kinder than Black-Eyes.

"I got that lone-some-ness," sobbed the girl, in answer.

" Poor little pink-face!" said the mother, touching her cheek. "Always must be touch by some one! "

" Me ? " said Purple-Eyes, with a power and assurance which were startling. " I am glad I have that pink face!" She laughed. " And I am glad I have not that brown face! Aha!"

The mother asked in alarm :

" Has the Eijinsan told you strange things ?'f

" The strangest and most beautiful things in all the world! " breathed Purple-Eyes.

PURPLE-EYES 123

" Not told them, but looked them— thought them— to me."

" And you believed ? "

"I believed."

" That is very sad," said the mother. " It is the way of the west-ocean men."

" Ah, it is his way, thank Shaka ! and it is not sad. It is very joyous."

" Shaka grant that it is not, my daughter. To the Eijinsan you are only a plaything, I fear."

" He may have me for a plaything," said the girl, defiantly. "Who has not play- things ? "

" When a plaything becomes shabby—"

" But I am not, and I never shall be."

" In a little while we shall know," said the mother, finally.

" In a little while we shall know," repeated the girl, joyously.

VII

" WHAT YOU BED ? "

LATER they found the letter — in the discarded conversation-book. It said that Garland was having his final outing before becoming a

124 PURPLE-EYES

Benedick; and the missionary on the hil) told them that that meant that he was to be married upon his return to America. Purple- Eyes drew a sharp breath, then faced the other two savagely. She was able to laugh presently; but it was a very piteous laugh.

"Tha' 's what I know! Aha, ha, ha! He— he— tell me all those." But the pitiful lie stuck in her throat, and her lips were dry. " He tell me aeveryihing I Yaes "—to a look of doubt from Black-Eyes — " he go'n' marry that other for jus' liddle— "

"Speak Japanese," said her mother, who was not so clever at English as her daugh- ters; but the request fell like a lash upon Purple-Eyes' heart.

"I will not!" she flamed forth. "I will speak his language. He will come for me. If he do not come, I shall go to him. He go'n' marry that other — if he marry her — // —jus' liddle— Me? He go'n' marry me las' an' foraever! "

Suddenly she became aware that she had betrayed her secret.

" Oh, all the gods in the sky! " she cried in anguish. "Tha' 's lie. He not go'n' marry me. He don' say. Jus' I thing so— jus' I—" She had to debase herself still

PURPLE-EYES 125

further, if she would be shriven. " He not go'n' come for me. I not go'n' go at him. Me? Tha' 's correc', Oku-San; I jus' his liddle plaything. He don' say nawthing. Jus' /thing so."

Her mother nodded.

" And when he tires of the plaything — "

She threw an imaginary something into the air.

" Yaes," whispered Purple-Eyes, humbly bowing her head; but when her face was down she smiled. It was all very sure to her. As she looked up she saw something like malevolence upon the face of her sister.

" But— also he not go'n' marry that other foraever! "

Her sister smiled unbelievingly.

" I bed you he don' ! "

" Ah ! Wbat you bed ? " challenged Black- Eyes.

" That heart in my bosom ! " answered Purple-Eyes.

VIII

LONE-SOME-NESS

GARLAND did not reach the end of his ante- Benedick wanderings until a year later.

i26 PURPLE-EYES

Then he found, among other letters await- ing him, one in a long, dainty envelop ad- dressed in English and Japanese. He knew it was from Purple-Eyes before he opened it. It was seven months old.

As he read, all her little tricks of inflection came back -upon him. He knew that her long white hands were waving emphases at him— very gently. The questioning which her eyes had learned after his coming — as if she were not quite sure of some- thing—was upon him out of the shadows beyond the lamp. The subtle aromas which always exhaled from her garments were distinct enough to startle him. He looked quickly back and about the room. Then he laughed softly. But his face had flushed, and gladness had lit his eyes. The fever Japonica was once more in his veins— and it was his own room — and America — with only her pictured face (fallen from the en- velop) before him — herself on the other side of the world. Unconsciously he read aloud — in her voice and manner.

"That is ledder from me, Miss Purple- Eyes, unto you, Mister J. F. Garland. That is nize day in Japan. I lig if you hoarry soon coming at Japan 'nother time. You

PURPLE-EYES 127

been 'way ver' long time. I lig if you hoarry account aeverybody hating me more an' more. I got those feeling again 'bout somethings I want an' have not got it. That is lone-some-ness. That is to cross west-ocean. You have also got those? Me ? I been that sad aever sinze you gone me away from. I been that ill. I thing mebby I go'n' die soon, sjexcep' you come ? Say you go'n' come, that I don' die ? Black- Eye she all times make amusement 'bout you don' come. That is a liar. She don' know you who you are. She don' know you that you go'n' come soon as you kin. Mebby you go'n' marry with those pink-face for liddle while ? Me ? I study those con- versation-book so I kin write unto you. Also, 1 fine those ledder you lose when you first arrive among us at Japan. You desire those ledder ? Me ? I keep it upon my bosom among those photograph of you. Mister J. F. Garland, I don' keer you do marry those other for liddle while. Then you go'n' marry me las' an' foraever. Jus' hoarry. Yit I am not gay. I cannot be gay until you come again. That is sad for me. Also, you do not lig for me be gay, but lig unto widow till you come. Then, Mister J. F. Garland,

123 PURPLE-EYES

I shall be that happy. Mebby you ill an' cannot come unto me ? Then I come unto you, if you wish me. What you thing ? That is a picture of me lig I promise. I fix up same lig those day you hoi' my hands. How that was nize ! That is first time I aever been my hands hoi' so nize— so sof . Mis- ter J. F. Garland, that is you hoi' my hands that sof. Me ? I don' let no one else do those unto my hands— lig you wishing, mebby. Jus' you. Mister J. F. Garland, you go'n' hoi' my hands all times this after- while ? Say, don' stay marry with that other so ver' long. Account those lone- some-ness. Please sen' me picture of those other you marry unto. If you marry unto them. I lig see how she is that beautiful. Please write me ledder aevery day. Please come back that soon. So I kin be joyous. It is that sad for me."

Every laboriously formed letter, printed like the first copy of a child at school, told him what this had cost her; and the little flourishes at the end, where she had grown more certain, what pride she had in them ! The picture was exquisitely colored, as only the Japanese can color them, and had been very costly to her. He set it before him, and

PURPLE-EYES 129

with his head in his hands studied it. The eyes were very blue, but no bluer than her own. They looked into his half sadly, half gaily, tempting him again. The Japan fever had its way with him, and for a moment — ten— he lived that lotus life with her over again. Then came a great upheaval inside which was yearning. He was tired. He had been tired ever since leaving Japan. In those eyes he saw again the invitation to rest. The hair, with its brassy luster— he could see the sun on it again— smell its perfume — feel it under his hands. The lips were parted a little, as they nearly always were, and within showed the brilliant teeth.

" Oh," he cried out, as he rose, " get thee behind me— moon-goddess— get thee be- hind me! " He laughed woefully, and took up the picture again. " I thought it gone— the fever — the dreaming — the lotus-eating."

There was a knock on the door, and a messenger-boy handed in the answer to a note.

" Yes," it ran ; " I shall be at home at eight — and so glad! "

It was twenty minutes to eight.

Garland hurried into his evening clothes, and hastened away, leaving the rest of the

130 PURPLE-EYES

letters unopened. But he came back, from down the stairs, and again set the picture up before him. Then he strode softly up and down the apartment, a smile half sad, half gay upon his face. The little clock chimed the few notes which told him it was a quar- ter past eight. He smiled — another kind of smile. He had forgotten— that she would be at home at eight and would be glad! He looked again briefly at the picture of Purple-Eyes. There was moisture in his own. Then softly, as if it were sentient, he turned it face down, and went out.

I:

A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN AND A LADY

A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN AND A LADY

I

A DARK-BLACK SHINY THING

HE was in an extremely orator- ical attitude, of the American senatorial fashion (as she con- ceived it after some acquain- tance with the comic weeklies). " ' When— the— Americazan '—igle? " She threw a charming interrogation at Bob without changing a muscle.

" £agle," corrected Bob, sadly, from the newspaper cutting in his hand.

" Thangs. ' When the Americazan eeglz shall have— shall have '— ? " »33

134 A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN

" ' Fraternized with the Japanese dragon, ' " prompted Bob, again.

" ' Shall have frat-ern '— I cannot say that other—' ni-zed ' ? " She darted at the paper. " ' When the Yankees of the East an'— the —same— kind— Yankees?— of the West?— shall lie — down — together ? — asleep ? ' "

A smile forced its way through Bob's joylessness. "No, no! It 's the same old lamb and lion that do the prevaricat- ing."

" ' When those lamb, with the fleece of that in-dus-t\y upon his back, an' those lion with the powers there-o/ inside him—' Aha! Tha' 's right ?"

"Sh!" whispered Bob, pocketing the paper; "here comes the Lord High Ad- miral."

A Japanese naval cadet's uniform slowly appeared at the head of the stairs (it was in the remote " up-stairs " of Mrs. Rawlins's Japanese house), and Kohana-San's speech instantly became a dance. She kept her uplifted hands and eyes precisely where they were, raised one foot, swung half round upon the other (in exact accordance with some twenty or thirty rules upon the subject), courtesied thrice, north, east, and

AND A LADY 135

south, then slowly subsided to the floor with her pretty nose to the mats. Then she recognized her brother.

" Oh, Ani-San, tha' 's you ? "

Her brother (who was inside the uniform) gave her a glance of reproach which would have been chiding but for the presence of Bob. To him the cadet said with extreme politeness— all the more polite because Bob had begun to whistle (it was " See, the Con- quering Hero Comes ") :

" Tha' 's nize day ?"

"It is night, "said Bob, acidly.

"Tha' 's nize night," corrected the cadet, promptly. He turned to his sister. " That Mrs. Rawlins she desire you mos' soon. I egspeg you not dance ? "—this with sever- ity. "1 accomplish you goon night" — to Bob again; and the uniform descended in good order.

"Go on," said Bob, glancing furtively at the stairs, and producing the paper.

" Your modder— she desire me," ventured Kohana-San.

Bob looked utterly hopeless.

"We got liddle time yit," she relented, taking the paper.

" Do you mind me taking off my coat ? "

136 A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN

"I lig you take it off. Don' lig soach dark-black shiny thing."

" You 've got good taste," said Bob,- with a spiteful fling of the garment.

" Oh, bow your modder will be angery ! " She fetched the garment from the corner. " Ob! you gitting it full cob-things."

Which was quite imaginary— there was no such thing as a cobweb in the house.

" Sa-ay ! Tha' 's a foanny kind clothes! " She peered at Bob from between the parted tails. It made Bob laugh a little.

"Ah-h-h! Tha' 's nize. 'When you laugh the demons skeered away.' "

She had rendered the proverb with great freedom.

"Now, then! How you are brave once more! "

For Bob's bearing had grown fearfully determined.

The rehearsal of the speech went ®n.

For, to elucidate a little, the coat was a swallowtail, Bob's first, and the occasion was not merely one of Mrs. Rawlins's Thurs- day "things" (to quote from Bob's and Kohana-San's private vocabulary), but a much more solemn affair — nothing less, in short, than a going-away party for Bob,

AND A LADY 137

who had arrived at the age of one-and- twenty. And his fond mother had set her heart upon having Bob make a speech in response to a toast of the Rev. Dr. Peabody, which she had also inspired. Her husband, a naval officer, had had a theory that to van- quish difficulties one must plunge into the midst of them. Bob was destined to illus- trate this original theory by being thrust suddenly forth into that fierce light which beats upon a personage.

HARKING TO THE TOMBS

Now, Bob had been born in Japan, and he and Kohana-San had been chums time out of mind. He might have remembered insist- ing upon her opening and shutting her eyes from time to time, like " other Japanese dolls"; and she would certainly have re- membered how she had always solemnly done it. But now, as ever (though both had technically " grown up "), they went to each other for comfort in their troubles. And this threatened speech was certainly

138 A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN

the worst they had ever had, Bob insisted. Kohana-San (perhaps it is unnecessary to explain) quite agreed with him ; she always did this, and still— curiously enough— al- ways had her own way.

First they went to Mrs. Rawlins and begged for Bob's release. This she affec- tionately but firmly refused. Bob, she said, was a man, and he must learn the duties of a man, and among those of an American gentleman was the ability to make a speech. She was then petitioned to provide the speech. This she also declined to do. American gentlemen, she said, must be able to prepare their own speeches. Whereupon Bob and Kohana-San went for a walk among the tombs in Shiba.

" I say, Kohana-San, I shall have to disap- pear," said Bob, with desperate finality. "That 's what everybody does who gets into a hole."

If Bob meant this humorously, consider- ing their whereabouts, it passed quite un- noticed.

Perhaps, however, it spurred Kohana-San to extraordinary effort. The next day she appeared with the speech of one Senator Gopher, clipped from a Chinese newspaper.

AND A LADY 139

" Tha' 's mos' bes' nize speech / aever see! " she declared. She read a little of it. "Jus'///// igles, dragons, Goddess Liberty, an' Suffering Freedom In-de-pen-dence f I got not a speech inside my hade, you got not inside your hade. What you go'n' do ? Why, tha' 's mos' nize speech ! "

She put it at him, and, being at the end of his wits, and thus tempted, he fell.

With a feeling of guilt acknowledged by both, but excused by the condign necessity, they set about editing the speech to suit the occasion, and then took up its rehearsal. But Bob was dissatisfied.

" Kohana-San," he protested, "those are not my sentiments. I don't believe in the eagle-and-dragon business."

"No!" cried Kohana-San, tragically, "I don', too. But — what you go'n' do ? You got have sentiments. An' if you got not some of your own — sa-ay — what kin you do ? Why! git some sentiments on outside your hade. Aha! Tha' 's a pity you got deceive your modder— yaes. But— if you don' deceive her, you go'n' break her heart —break her heart all up! Me? I thing tha' 's mos' bes'. If you break her heart, she go'n' die. If you deceive her liddle, she

1 40 A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN

go'n' live. Mebby she don' fine out. Mebby she don' keer if she do fine out. Sa-ay— you got speak those speech 'bout igles an' suffering i'ree-dom. Me ? I 'm sawry— ver' sawry. But — what km you do ? "

Well, Bob did not see any more than Kohana-San what he could do. But fate seemed inscrutable. He looked, as he had so often done, at the brave little girl in won- der and admiration.

"You 're not bashful, nor— nor— a chump!" he accused, then.

"No, "confessed Kohana-San, with down- dropped head.

Now it happened that this was a very charming pose for her.

"Only bewitching," said Bob.

" Yaes," confessed the girl, again.

" I wish I were like you," sighed Bob.

" Be-witch-ing ? "

" You could make that speech."

" Yaes," sighed Kohana-San, " but I could not wear those coat."

"No; the whole silly business goes together"; and he ruefully regarded his faultlessly gloved hands. Kohana-San did the same.

" Leviathan, are n't they ? "

AND A LADY 141

" Le-vi-a— wha' 's that ? " questioned Ko- hana-San, in some alarm.

"Big as a house."

She held up her own satiny small ones. Bob inclosed both of them in his one.

The naval cadet was heard, like a machine, on the stairs.

Bob glared in that direction ferociously— and let go the hands.

" Come— come— comefcried Kohana-San, panically, rearranging the kanzashi in her hair. She was to make the tea, in the Japanese fashion.

" Yes," said Bob, with a frightful thump- ing in the cardiac region; "I might as well get it over. This coat — will you give me a lift ? "

This was to the cadet, who stood like a graven image at the head of the stairs ; but Kohana-San had him inside of it in a jiffy.

"Go on, Admiral!" said Bob. "We 're coming."

The cadet threw one hand to his chest, dropped the other at his side, faced about, and started down, processionally.

" An' me ? I take your arm, this away ? " Kohana-San did it with a gay grace.

Bob immediately lost his transient gaiety.

143 A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN

" But— you lig escort me ? "

"Of course," said Bob, gallantly.

" Then why you that sad ? " Kohana-San pouted a moment, then dropped his arm.

" Go before, then, Mister Bashful Bob, an' I come behine, lig I jus' a slave, an' you a prince."

But Bob had already repented.

" In America it is ladies first."

He stood aside with the finest bow she had ever seen him make.

" Sa-ay," she said, with the confidence of a chum, "you not Bashful Bob."

"Yes, I am," groaned Bob.

"You not," insisted Kohana-San.

" I am. I 'm afraid of girls, and pretty fellows,— like your brother,— as well as speeches."

"Ah, yaes; but— you brave— an' strong; an' Ani-San is jus' — "

" Pretty ? " said Bob, with distinct inward gratitude. " He could make that speech, too, and get enjoyment out of it, I suppose. I 'm in a perspiration."

"An' it is col' weather!" laughed his chum.

" Sa-ay, I will as' the Sun-Goddess to help us!"

AND A LADY 143

She announced it as a triumph of subtlety.

"Do," counseled Bob; "and if she 's the sort of a goddess she ought to be, she '11 send an earthquake, or something of that sort, at the right moment." He stopped with his coat half off again. " I 'd rather be shot, slightly, than make that speech. Look here, Kohana-San ; I believe I '11 steal a march on mama, and just thank them in the good old American fashion for their patronage, or words to that effect, and hoping for a con- tinuance of the same— don't you know ? "

"Tha' 's mos' bes' nize of aeny! " declared the girl, comfortingly. " But— your modder she lig you say those 'bout Goddess Liberty an' Suffering Freedom In-de-pen-dencef an' 'bout the igle."

" Yes," sighed the victim of circumstance.

The white uniform began to appear again, and they descended behind it.

Ill

OH, ROBINSON CRUSOE!

BOB found long coat-tails even more of a nuisance than he had supposed he should. He discovered presently that the Japanese

144 A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN

tailor had deliberately neglected to put pockets in the trousers.

" What the deuce does he expect a fellow to do with his hands ? " he asked Kohana- San, as if she were to blame for it. She could not make him believe that the tailor had probably forgotten it, and she did not much comfort him by the information that Ani-San never had any pockets in his uni- form.

" That 's the reason I want pockets in mine," said Bob. " But say; I never knew before that there was such an intimate rela- tion between pockets and hands." He re- flected a moment. " Look here; I 've heard that they do that sometimes to divorce a fellow's hands from his pockets ! Well, I '11 do with my hands precisely as I please! And the next uniform of this kind I get, I will have pockets all over it, just for spite."

"How that will be nize! " said Kohana- San.

Bob's mother was very proud of him that night, and looking down upon her white hair and pretty figure, Bob was conscious of heroic pride in being sacrificed for her.

" Or otherwise there would be no speech to-night by Robinson Crusoe Rawlins," said

AND A LADY 145

he, within himself. Bob had once or twice thought that it was this name of his that made him so bashful. It was so much like a joke. He had been born on a nearly desert island,— Yezo,— and his father, in the ill- ness of his mother, had attended to his christening. The evidence, to Bob, though circumstantial, was complete. She called him Robert; but Bob, whenever it came to a question of his name, gave it in full, and in defiance.

His mother took admirable care of him in the crush of guests who presently came, and Bob was delighted to find more and more use for his hands, and that his gloves were becoming more and more soiled.

His mother was as pleased as he, except as to the condition of his gloves.

"Robert," she said, "only a very little confidence in yourself, and a little self-for- getfulness, and you can do anything."

But she had to leave him then, and his spirits fell. Kohana-San, released from her duties by Mrs. Rawlins, came up behind him.

" You not bashful. You deceiving me all times," she accused reproachfully. "Me? I see you doing so — so — so! " She illus- trated: "'Tha' 's nize evening, Mrs. Willing.

,46 A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN

Yaes, ma'am.' 'Tha' 's nize day, Mrs. Fin- ley. Yaes, ma'am. How your health is ? . Yaes. An' the health of your large family ? Ma'am? Ah, thangs.' Me? / cannot be 50 be-witch-ing. You deceiving me all times ! Tha' 's not nize for me."

She dramatized his debut with the most charming inflections and gestures, and meant it to be vastly encouraging; but it brought up Bob's specter again.

" Oh," he groaned, " I had forgotten fora moment. I believe if it were not for that I should enjoy myself, in spite of these clothes, with your help."

He glanced fearfully around, and found Dr. Peabody's smile upon him, as who should say, " Be of good cheer. " He dragged Kohana-San precipitately behind a screen, and once more fished the paper out of his pocket.

" You got have it your hade," admonished Kohana-San, forcibly.

" I have, somewhere. But I can never lay hands upon it when I want it. Now! "

They went over it again, and returned, and at last Bob's hour arrived. Dr. Peabody was getting to his feet, and polishing his glasses.

AND A LADY 147

IV

WHEN THE LAMB AND THE LION SHALL LIE

"FRIENDS," he began, "if this is not the happiest moment of my life, it is one of them. Our young friend here," — he turned directly upon Bob, and so did everybody else, — "I say, our young friend here is about to return to his native land, to take his part in the responsibilities of the grand- est government on earth. From the land of the Sun-Goddess to the land of the Goddess of Liberty— from the place where freedom has been born anew to the one where lib- erty and independence, one and inseparable, had their first baptism of fire! Ladies and gentlemen, ties have grown up between that country and this which have more than a moral significance. This nation is destined to blaze the way in the East to a new birth of civilization and freedom, as that did in the West more than a hundred years ago. And our young friend here is but another who shall assist in bringing these mighty forces together. When the American eagle and the Japanese dragon shall have frater-

148 A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN

nized, and the Yankee of the East and the Yankee of the West shall join hands across the sea in one commercial brotherhood, the salvation of the nations is assured. And when the lamb, with the fleece of industry, and the lion, with its power, shall, not lie down together in idle slumber, but go forth together in joyous and enlightened toil, then indeed is the millennium almost come. In his presence it is not proper to speak of his sterling young manhood. You all know him as I do, and perhaps that is enough. But I cannot forbear to venture this much, even to his face: if I were asked for a model upon which to build the nascent citizenship of the great country to which he goes on the 2Oth instant by the Empress of India, I should point with pride to our young friend, Mr. Robinson Crusoe Rawlins! "

Dr. Peabody had spoken Senator Gopher's speech without editing, and with his own horrid improvisations.

During the applause nobody thought of Bob. But he dazedly saw his mother hasten- ing from the other end of the room toward him, while between he encountered the stony stare of the cadet; and then he heard some- thing like a sob behind him. He reached

AND A LADY 149

back and touched the comforting little hand he found in his way. Then he rose. His feet were unsteady, and his face was very pale. He saw his mother pause perplexed in the crowd on the right. The stare of the cadet was like a lodestone to his eyes. He tried to smile at him carelessly, but knew it was a ghastly sham. He determined grimly that he would be heard, if only by way of a savage yell; that, bethought, would at least be American. But when he opened his mouth his tongue clacked against the roof of it. Kohana-San put a glass of water into his hand ; but he was too far gone in panic now to know what to do with it. The action loosed something within that welled up into his throat and choked and blinded him. He suddenly dropped into his chair, and covered his face with his hands.

Kohana-San placed herself before him. She too was very pale, and while one hand was waving itself out toward her audience very prettily, and quite according to rule, the other was clenched desperately on the edge of the table.

" Tha' 's account he too mod-es' to listen 'bout hisse'f. That breaking his heart. 'Bout some other he kin make speech all

1 5o A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN

day an' all night. He got nize speech 'bout igle an' dragon also. Me ? How I know ? I see it. But— he break his heart. He lig thang you 'bout your pat-ron-ages, an' hop- ing that you con-tinue same for aever an' aever. You got to henceforth aexcuse him ; an' me — you got aexcuse me."

The company promptly recovered from the death-like horror of his own fiasco, and thundered its approval of Kohana-San. And Bob had the guilty consciousness that he liked the applause more than any one else. He reached under the table and caught again the little brown hand he found there.

" God bless you," he said; " I '11 never for- get-- But his eyes gave way to a sound. A curious rumbling detached itself from the noise of hands and voices. It caught an ear as keen for " signs " of this sort as an Indian's for those of another sort. Bob had been born to this noise, and he knew it. It grew. No one else seemed to have noticed it.

His mother, with a grave and remorseful face, was approaching him; but he did not see her.

"Bob," she was saying contritely, "you must try and forgive me. I know you did

AND A LADY 151

it for me. It was a foolish ambition of mine. If I had at all suspected—"

"Git out! " shouted Bob, with a sudden leap upon the table into the midst of dishes and viands. "Git out— all of you! " He caught the large beam which crossed the apartment just as it was leaving its mortise. Those who had not understood at first knew now what it meant. The sickening rock of the earthquake followed.

THE NICE EARTHQUAKE

PRESENTLY some one made a light. Bob looked down from where he was holding the beam from doing destruction, like an- other young Atlas. All his good humor had returned.

" Oh, Kohana-San! That 's lucky. You 're worth the whole lot of them. That you, mother? Excuse me for frightening you, but there was no time for talk." Bob grinned good-naturedly. " That beam had to be stopped, and talk would n't do it. Kohana-San, did you run ? "

152 A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN

: " You— thing — I go'n' 'way— while — you making— such—mzQ— speech ! "

Bob was not quite sure whether she was sobbing or laughing.

"Speech! What speech? I must have been unconscious."

"That 'Gz'/out!'"

It was certain that she was laughing now ; but it was also certain that Mrs. Rawlins's nerves had broken, and that she was cry- ing.

" Now, wait a minute, mother, till I get down here, and I '11 fix it all right with you. I can't make a speech."

" But— you— kin— hole up— a— house! "

Kohana-San's words were disjointed by her struggles to get some of the fusuma out of their grooves and under the threatening beam.

The cadet carefully inserted his head be- tween the fusuma to see if things were done falling. In Japanese houses occupied by Japanese there is seldom anything to fall; but it is quite the other way in Japanese houses occupied by foreigners.

" Come in ! " shouted Bob. " Everything is down— but me; and I want to get down. Say, be useful, for once, won't you ? Help

AND A LADY 153

your little sister to prop this beam, and give me a rest. Never mind your trousers."

But the cadet got himself carefully inside, rolled up his trousers, pulled his sleeves out of the way, and then did as he was told with great efficiency.

Bob jumped down, and caught his mother up in his arms.

"I say, little mammy," Bob began, "I 'm as sorry as I possibly can be—"

"I 'm not," sobbed his mother, savagely.

" What ? " shouted Bob, giving her an ecstatic hug. " Thanks ! "

" It was very foolish of me, and vulgar. I don't want you to make speeches."

" Second the motion," said Bob.

" Except like that one."

" ' Get out ' ? "

"You said 'git'!"

"Oh, well," laughed Bob.

His mother, for once, did n't seem to care a particle about the style of his language.

" I want you to be able to do things."

"That 's all right," said Bob, confidently.

" And to be brave," said his mother.

"That 's harder," confessed Bob. "Ko- hana-San ? " He looked about, but she and the Admiral had quietly slipped out, fearing

154 A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN

one of those American manifestations of emotion which are so embarrassing to the Japanese. " I meant her to respond to that toast, mammy, because she does it so well and she is brave."

His mother wound an arm about him, and called him a rogue. Bob presently disen- tangled himself to show her the gloves, split through the palms, and the coat, split up the back. To Bob's surprise, his mother smiled, and he, encouraged thereby, laughed.

" I say, little mammy, I never thought I could be so happy in these garments."

" You are not very much in them," sighed his mother.

" I '11 wear them hereafter with pleasure," laughed Bob.

VI

WELL, IS HE EVER COMING BACK ?

FROM the deck of the Empress of India Bob at last saw a small gray figure arrive upon the pier. He thought it looked just a little woeful. He dashed down the gang-plank and almost over it.

AND A LADY 155

" I knew you 'd come!" he cried.

She seemed frightened by his ardor.

" House is all fixed up again."

He saw by her face that she knew this.

" I say, it was good of you and Amaterasu to bring on that earthquake just at the right moment, and give me a chance."

" You got make speech then ! "

Bob shouted joyously. He had about ex- hausted his small talk.

" Tha' 's mos' bes' nize speech of all."

" An' that the mos' bes' nize earthquake of all."

"Me? I also lig gents what kin do things."

"Me? I also lig girls what kin say things."

The ship was giving its last warning.

"Well — "began Bashful Bob, with an- other such uprising in his throat as on the night of his party, holding out his hands. But she was looking down, and did not see them.

" Sa-qy, you aever coming back at Japan 'nother time? Me? I thing I git that lonely— if you don'," was what she was murmuring.

It was her most charming pose again.

156 A GENTLEMAN OF JAPAN

" Am I ever coming back ? Oh, say, look up here!"

She did it; and Bob, who had seen a man on his right snatch a kiss and run up the gang-plank, did the same— such is the bane of example.

And all down the bay Bob kept his handker- chief going, and Kohana-San kept answer- ing it, till long after he was out of sight. Then she turned happily away.

"Tha' 's firs' time I aever been kiss," she mused, as she went. " Tha' 's— tha' 's mos' bes' nize — " she thought a moment, " tha' 's mos' bes' nize—" She came into collision with a jinriki-man a moment later. She looked up with the little dream still in her eyes, and murmured: "Tha' 's mos' bes' nize — " The jinriki-man grinned. Kohana- San smiled. " Gomen nasai " (" I beg your pardon "), she said, still smiling, as she went on her way.

The man turned to look after her. Then he too changed his grin for a smile.

KITO

KITO

A POOR DEVIL

F, ten years and more ago, you were arriving in the city of Tokio by rail, you would get down at the station in the Shimbashi-dori— Street of the New Bridge. Then you would select a 'rikisha. There would be plenty of these to choose from. But (if you were minded like me) you would seek out one Kito. The rest of his name you might never learn— and it would matter little that you did not. To him, after the brief conflict which every foreigner has with his Western repugnance

160 KITO

to such frail conveyance and such intelligent motive power, you would surrender your- self, feeling, I trust, that you had done well. But, if you should, unwisely, ask yourself afterward why you had chosen him rather than one of his more goodly fellows, you would be a little puzzled for a reason— if you cared for reasons. It was not because he would carry you for less than they, — whatever you chose to give,— and with greater despatch (were you minded to hurry rather than kill the lazy days). These you would not at that time have learned. You would, in fact, be left without an adequate motive. And this, if you must always have motives, would be vexatious. For there would be left you but an indefina- ble sense of faithfulness, and a vague, necessitous beseeching which Kito had somehow inspired. And perhaps you noted this the more because he did not solicit you —only looked at you as a vagrant dog looks. You would probably end by declar- ing a truce to sentiment, which you found persistently attaching itself to your coolie, — entirely without his connivance, you would admit, — and you would not keep the truce. Nothing is so insidious as sentiment. And

KITO 161

when its object is before you it is often in- sistent.

Kite's departures from the mood and habitude of his sprightly fellows were so many that he was quite alien among them. Mere physical differences you would proba- bly have noticed first in your perambulatory acquaintance. As you drowsed along be- hind him, day after day, in the air that has always the languor of afternoon, you would be driven by the mere fact of having him constantly in your eye, and your eye con- stantly reacting upon an Eastern vacuity of mind (which you were surprised to find yourself acquiring in spite of yourself), to a comparison of your coolie with others you met, passed, and traveled with; for his kind are legion. These comparisons, even though your analytical edge were somewhat dulled by the lotus air, would inevitably be unfa- vorable to Kito. Perhaps you were on the lookout for the picturesque in Japan, where it is fondly fancied to be indigenous? Well, Kito was commonplace— repellent. You probably adored Truth? But — there were certain contradictions about your 'riki'-man which struck you with the disfavor of de- tected prevarication. Thus, if you regarded

1 62 KITO

his appearance only, he was quite a patriarch among his short-lived fellows. If you pressed him to tell his age and not lie, — for it is a very gentle infamy of the Japanese to add other years to their own, — he would confess, with such shamefacedness as dis- armed your just indignation, that he was but little more than thirty— how much more he would leave you to guess, hoping you would fix it near forty. Again, you would be surprised to see him, now and then, straighten up into a man tall enough to do credit to his Satsuma ancestry, while you had settled it irrevocably that he was below even the medium Japanese stature. And, once more: maybe you had fancied from his humility that his extraction was humble. Not so. He was a samurai. The sole adornment of his severe physiognomy (and perhaps you did not regard it as an adorn- ment at all, nor his physiognomy worth adorning) was the queue which was the badge of his caste. Part of his small earnings went for the regular shaving of his head and the care of this excrescence upon it. He might have worn two swords ! He had tnemathome— wherever that was— to wear. But then he could not have been your

KITO 163

riki'-man. They were long Kio blades— not such as the Tokio fops carried, but swords that were heavy enough to cleave a skull if they were but let fall. Old swords. And they had done this grisly office. They were nicked in a way any samurai under- stood. But of that a little later. At first the queue might have struck you as not only another ambiguity, but an arrogance. There was nothing " military " or stalwart about the poor devil. His calves were knubby and fluctuating. His bowed legs, instead of strength, spoke of feebleness. His coloring was a mere matter of patch- work, from the African blackness of his sunken cheeks to the ivory ghastliness of the frontal bones where the tight-drawn skin outlined the sutures. And he had no pride— that thing which no samurai ever before lacked.

Kito's attire (like that of his fellows in those days — I have since seen baggy breeches which make a 'riki'-man look like a Zouave) was just as much as, and no more than, modern Japanese virtue enacted into law (after our Western kind) obliged him to cover his former nakedness with. Heaven be praised ! the law was made for the treaty

,64 KITO

ports alone. A loin-cloth ; a wide, ill-fitting shirt of cotton stuff, blue, with some seal- characters in white stamped on its back — his seal. The sleeves, in their infinite length and breadth, carried everything— some of them quite unmentionable. Upon occasion he added to these a spherical hat and a rain- coat—each of straw. But these were also mere concessions to public morals and law. He preferred that the rain should beat upon his body and the sun upon his head. He had a certain kinship with the elements. And there were other occasions, happily in- frequent, when the eyes of the pretty po- lice were sharpened by new orders,— the transportation of a " barbarian " with a tall hat (which was, in those days, taken for earnest of foreign greatness), or of a native aristocrat who wore European attire, or of a woman who wore spectacles,— when he was constrained to don a frail, trouser-like garment and straw sandals, which he kept surreptitiously in his 'rikisha. He was then, if ever, in full dress— and most miserable. At other times he went barefooted, bare- legged, bareheaded— and was a little happier. Curiously enough, Kite's 'rikisha had faithfully acquired his characteristics, and in

KITO 165

a less meliorable form. Its appearance bred, at first, a suspicion of decrepitude. But there was, withal, a worn-out usefulness about it which would appeal to you like an old garment. And, like an old garment, it would reward you with great comfort and entire faithfulness — lacking only beauty and grace. Still, in its grizzled age there were yet traces of brilliant lacquer and glit- tering brass. And you could easily sup- ply, in fancy, the lanterns and streamers which must have hung from the shafts of such an equipage— and all the other finery with which Kito had begun his career. There are no such now. But there were then— and Kito had truly the gayest 'rikisha in all Tokio. For then he had also hope. There was a rich yellow hood, and the cushions were of crimson Kio velvet. And there was no difficulty about fares. For his wheels ran so true, and there was such soft- ness in the springs, that to take passage with Kito was like wooing lotus dreams. Think of that rush down the Tokaido! White- green rice-fields, black-green palms, glitter- ing bamboos, pink cherries, golden temples, red shrines, laughing yadoya, bridges, canals, rivers, people, swiftly as the flight of the

1 66 K1TO

stork. How could he run all day ? Why, he had stouter legs and a stouter heart then. You can measure, if you please, the decline of his hopes, the loss of his joy, very ac- curately by inspecting him and his 'rikisha, and remembering what I have told you, shall tell you. Now, as you chose him, perhaps you perceived that there were holes in the mongrel-tinted hood; the brazen brav- ery had taken on the oxid of many evil years; the lacquer had been wounded by countless shocks and had been healed by artless repairs.

In short, both Kito and his vehicle had fallen into a gaunt and unfriended old age, not of years, but of circumstances — circum- stances which you somehow felt, but could not guess. Both had the appearance of hav- ing all to do that was possible in keeping body and soul together. For things in Japan have souls also.

I have spoken of Kito's brethren. Yet, in a sense other than professional, he had none. And even his professional attachments were tenuous in the extreme. So that those who lived by the same business, and whose com- panionship he could not entirely evade, had finally found a name for him which meant

KITO 167

" silent, sulky fellow " — the harshest in theif polite vocabulary. Yet he was courtesy itself in his intercourse with them. If he had only added to his courtesy comradeship! But their hilarity, songs, dances, races, wrestles, went on without him— without so much as a smile. The Japanese face is made and educated to express nothing. Kito, look- ing always within, could have' taught his fellows something even of this art. As for comradeship— that was impossible.

His foreign fares usually cursed him for his animal-like imperviousness to things human— such, for instance, as laughter. He could n't laugh— though sometimes he piteously tried. They always gave him up after a brief effort, and called him un mis- erable if they were French or Russian, " poor devil" if they were English or American- But in one thing they were curiously alike: none ever failed to add to the pittance of his tariff the rin which came up with the small coin from their pockets.

Take him for all in all, if you had come to Japan, where meekness is soil of the soil, seeking its completest incarnation, Kito and his 'rikisha (for they were but a single entity) must have satisfied you utterly. His humil-

1 68 KITO

ity, by reason of its unobtrusiveness, would have obtruded itself so persistently upon you as at first to give offense. You would has- tily havesuspected him of a habitof vainglory in it— of getting under your feet, like some of those beggars in India, simply to call your attention upon him. You would have noticed that the dogs (and what mongrel curs they are!) took their way leisurely from under his wheels, knowing that he would stop and risk your displeasure rather than run them down. You would come, after a while, nevertheless, to understand that the back bent toward you had other burdens than you to bear — weightier ones. Then you would pity the back. You would respect the humility, —perhaps because there was no whine in it,— and your words to him would take on the emphasis of hope and cheer— as if it were these he needed. And if you had not been a little afraid you would probably have patted him on his bent back and told him to brace up— or something like that— in the cheerful American fashion. And though he would have said nothing and looked little, your words would have com- forted him, and you would somehow know this and be glad you had uttered them. For he had a child's simplicity, and would believe

KITO 169

what you told him because you were " hon- orable " ; that is, entirely worthy of belief. But your speech would have to be quite direct. He drew no inferences, he under- stood no innuendo, he made no analogies. If he comprehended you at all, it was in the way of your very words.

Kito's was a short-lived trade; and he had already (if we speak of his outside only) outlived his time. Yet he held on, sustained by something within, — it must have been, — unsteady, faltering sometimes, sometimes with a gasp of pain at the cardiac region, sometimes overcome by a weariness his will could not entirely subdue— on, silent and gray in the cheer and light about him, to some hopeless goal that no one knew, no one cared to know. Well, your care was simply what it would have been in the hir- ing of a horse. If Kito chose to import into the transaction the human equation, that was his affair, not yours. Sentiment in either case would have been an impudent imposition upon the terms of the contract. You wanted speed. And yet, sentiment would tug hard at your heart as you watched Kito's pitiful back, and you would sometimes forget about speed.

When not " otherwise engaged " (and he

170

KITO

had other engagements, as we shall see) Kito could be found at the railway-station aforesaid.Of At the sacred groves of Shiba -fas- was always " otherwise engaged." To the former place he came only after passing a number of profitless days at the latter. If you asked him why he did not seek a more busy center— the Castle, where the patronage of officialdom was to be had, the great temple of Asakusa, where all the humbler and merrier people were, the improvident, with holiday purses in their sleeves — he would hang his head in confusion ; he would not answer. To answer would be to involve his history, and he would not presume to your very face to the possession of such an absurd thing. To press him would be un- wise; for then he would slink away, and for some days you would not find him at Shiba, or the station in the Shimbashi-dori, or anywhere. And, believe me, you would miss him.

Perhaps you would think of it occasion- ally. The railway-station you would under- stand in one word — money. But Shiba, the wondrous, the beautiful— no money was there, nor anything but silence and awe. Grim and ancient vaults of cryptomeria,

KITO 171

shrines whose charms of color and form in- toxicate one's eyes, tombs of Japan's ancient rulers by the sword, the shoguns, temples where art has lavished itself like libations to the gods of the place, and over all the dead silence which awes one into littleness, and somehow befits the worship of Buddha, Prince of Heaven. And here too was Kito, unhallowed, unbeautiful, like a shade, haunt- ing the beauty. Do you care for the story ? It is like going seriously into the private chronicles of your pack-horse.

THE SOUL OF THE SAMURAI

WELL, then, there was a day when Kito wore the two swords I have mentioned. And yet he did not care for swords, nor honors, nor glory. The only thing he cared for was Owannon. . At this time he had her — but he had her because of the swords. He got his swords, his rank (of samurai), and his wife at the same time. And when vr.e first summons came to attend his lord ii: battle, his wife was reclining across his

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knees. She was laughing up in his face. The baby was between them. The swords were rusting in their chest (he had only seen them once). He had forgotten who his lord was !

Said his wife, with a sigh, after her shiver of fear:

"No samurai, whose soul is the sword, whose watchword is Honor, will disobey his lord. Put on your armor, take your swords, and— go!"

But then she sobbed.

Nevertheless, she dragged the rattling armor from its chest, dropping tears upon it, and put it on him. Then they could stop trembling and laugh a little; for it was a sorry figure indeed that he cut. There was a huge bamboo head-piece with a great golden crest — noble and dignified, but very heavy at the top. There was a casque of many layers of lacquered bamboo. There were greaves which projected above his knees ; for he was too small for the armor. Thus accoutred, Kito, a little later, went out, with Saigo and others accoutred like him, to meet the imperial army with its guns and cannon. The heaven-sent Sword— the Ex-

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calibur of Japan— and the Brocade Banner were also with the army. These were the symbols of righteous war. And Saigo, the rebel, had nothing but those long, ancient swords and bamboo armor.

Kito knew nothing about the quarrel. No rumors of war had reached him in his secluded home. It is doubtful if he knew that he was in rebellion against his sovereign ; for all about him, from his august chieftain to the abjectest ronin, wore the imperial brocade. He made no inquiries. What he wished was to kill the men he supposed it was his duty to kill, whoever they were, and go home. He could not understand why all his comrades had left their homes to fight. He understood a little better after some thought. None of them would have been there if they had had wives and babies such as his, he felt quite sure. To his cov- ert inquiries they answered that they had neither of these. But— and he laughed gladly — of course not! there was not an- other Owannon nor another Yuki in the world. That was the reason. Then he laughed again, and was quite patient for the rest of the campaign.

174

III THE HUGE TRENCH AT JOKOJI

WELL, the agony of revolt was short enough to please even Kito. Saigo and his gallant, fatuous band went to death at Shiroyama with the blood of their first conflict still upon their swords. And there they lie to- day, in the little graveyard of Jokoji, in a huge trench— all of them but Kito. For when they drew their swords for Saigo they swore never to sheathe them until he should command it— all but Kito. And when he did command it they refused, preferring to die with him— all but Kito. They sheathed them deeply in their own bodies and died. He gashed his throat and lay with them.

But at night he stole back over the fire and devastation to his home on the hills of Ka- goshima, only to find, where his rice-fields had been, the imperial tents, and in his dainty house the booted and spurred officers of the imperial army— and not his wife, not his baby.

They were kind to him, these imperial officers. They did not ignominiously kill

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him, as they had the emperor's warrant for doing; they permitted him to kill himself, that he might continue to be accredited (as he now was) to the glorious trench at Jo- koji, which was to live in history forever. Kito assented, felt the edge of his sword, smiled in a ghastly fashion, and— inquired hesitatingly the whereabouts of his wife and child. He cared nothing for the glory of the trench. The officers drove him away from his own door with fierce gibes and strict injunctions to die at once, or —

From a secluded nook in the hills Kito looked down upon his home for many days. Perhaps he shed a few tears, soldier though he was. And who would not ? His rice- fields were dry; his mats, which nothing harsher than his own bared feet had ever touched, were being trodden to shreds by the steel-shod officers; and his tiny garden, with its bamboos, its oranges, its wistaria- covered tea-house, all fashioned by his own hands, was but a pretty booth for sake- drinking.

Yet, could it all have purchased one word of the whereabouts of his wife and child, Kito would have gone away and left it.

Then, one day, as he looked, a sudden

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flame burst from the thatch of the roof. Kito leaped up and ran without thought toward his little house. Every now and then, through the trees, he caught a glimpse of the flames which were eating it up. When he arrived it was but a heap of ashes. The officers were jogging merrily away in the valley below. The rebellion was crushed. Peace had come. Thus they celebrated it.

As he stood there, a man he knew spoke to him.

" Who are you ? " he asked savagely.

"Me?" answered Kito, dizzily. "I am a— man." His beard had grown in his absence.

"Yes," said his neighbor, ironically, "I supposed that. But one of this kind ? " He pointed to the ruins. " If so, may such a fate befall you! "

Everybody was imperialist then.

" What — what is his fate ? " asked Kito.

" He is dead. He is in the trench at Jokoji, with Saigo, more honored than he ought to be. The emperor has taken his house and burned it. He is dead, I say."

" And had he a— a — family? " questioned Kito.

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" He had a wife and child ; both very beautiful— more beautiful than he deserved. When he killed himself with the rest at Shiroyama, they heard of it and disappeared. Some say the Lord Buddha took them. They disappeared— like that smoke." He pointed to it. " They have never been seen since the news came home. As for me, I think they are still on earth. Others think them in heaven. He is dead — do you hear? What can it matter where they are ? "

" Yes," said Kito, softly, " I hear. He is dead. And what can it matter — what can it matter ? "

He turned and went back to the hills, re- peating to himself : "He is dead— he is dead! What can it matter ? "

For many days he sought them there. And when the days had lengthened into weeks, and the weeks into months, he met a woman, one day, who said, with quite an air, that it was nothing more mysterious than a pilgrimage to Ise. It was the season of the cherry-blossoms when they went, and perhaps they meant to renew the god-slips in the kamidana. That was their custom. Perhaps they had gone to supplicate the

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Sun-Goddess for his return. Him ? Her husband, and the father of the child. But he was dead— in the trench at Jokoji. What luck for an undeserving fool ! Did he know that he was dead ? Did he believe it ? There was no doubt of that to her, though there had been a whisper of doubt as to his end. Perhaps she had gone to Jokoji. Per- haps she had heard that whisper.

He was quite sure, upon the instant, that they had gone to Jokoji! Possibly he had just missed them. He hastened back again to the battle-field. He was very sure. Some- times, on the way, he sang. The ghastly trench was green now. There was nothing to remind one of its horrors. They were not there. They had not been there, it seemed. No one had seen them. In the time he spent at Jokoji he wondered some- times whether he were not indeed beneath the green of that trench. Was this himself or another who was so bereft ? He had been very happy at Jokoji. But now it seemed eternities since then. And should he ever be happy again ? There was terror in the doubt.

Then on to Ise, with a little less hope— because the woman had suggested that.

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They were not at the shrines, and the bonzes could tell him nothing. Then, after wearily waiting and searching there, back and forth over all the great roads, looking into every face he could, questioning every one who would bear it.

So all over the empire, until age and weariness began to have their way with him, and all he knew, in a dazed, half-con- scious way, was that he must search on if he would find them. Presently his head went wrong, and he had only the recollection of long and dusty ways, of much turning aside to temples and shrines, of a child's face here, a woman's there. Sometimes there were kind words, sometimes revilings, sometimes neglect — always cold and hunger and less and less joy. And these sap one's life.

Then, one day, he found himself in quiet, sorrowful Shiba, telling, in his half-delirium, his story to the shaven priests. His despair must have moved their sluggish hearts to pity; for, miserable as he was, they took him in and fed and clothed him, then nursed back his wandering mind. Between his ravings and his supplications they learned his history as I have written it— as I write it.

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IV

OWANNON'S BEWITCHING HAND

IN the establishment of the Tokugawa dynasty the daimio to whom Kito's ances- tor owed allegiance lost his head ; whereby Kito's father and his father before him were left to draw their sword for whom they pleased— which meant, in truth, wherever plunder or affection invited. But in the latter years of Kito's father the empire be- gan to draw together, which circumscribed his military usefulness to such an extent that he became, perforce, in his age, a law-abid- ing citizen, coming to live at last by the labor of his son's hands. To see this son of his gathering the beggarly rice which he had once won by a sweep of his halberd was like wormwood to him. And so, one day, after an explosion of wrath, he spat blood and died. But not before he had sent for Madzuri, his neighbor, and had a mysterious conference. After that he said a pleasant farewell to his son and died with satis- faction.

His death made no difference in the affairs

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of Kito, except that life cost less. He began to enlarge his domain.

I have said, I think, that he had adored Owannon, the daughter of Madzuri, from infancy. But his adoration was confined to such shy smiles as he might lavish at their infrequent meetings. He had little enough hope; for her father had managed to keep some of the state of a samurai, and in cir- cumstances was infinitely above his father, who had died a mere ronin.1

But now, when he was ready for his first full sowing, and was splashing delightedly about in his new rice-fields, strewing the grains, singing a little, all in the early morn- ing, who should come down to him, dain- tily picking her way along his dikes, but Owannon! He looked up, and at first thought he had seen a vision. But no; she spoke, hurriedly, with a heart that he could see palpitating in her bosom. And her eyes were full of tears. He knelt to her just where he was— in the water and mud of his rice-field.

Would he get his box of remedies quickly, and hasten to her father, who was

1 A samurai who had lost his lord and become a free- booter.

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suddenly ill ? He was back in a moment with his medicines, — he had been taught some simple rules of healing,— and then Owannon led the way back along his dikes, hallowing them with every step. It was a long walk, and he did not take his eyes off her. And it is to be feared that he thought less of how he was to succor her father than he should have done. She was dressed in the crape and brocade finery of the night's revel at which her father had got his illness, and to his honest eyes was the fairest woman in all the world.

Kite's little skill was of no avail. Madzuri died. And then only it transpired what the compact between the two old samurai had been. Before the death of the last of the two the child of the remaining one was to be adopted, or married to the child of the other, as they should choose, and the Kio blades and the bamboo armor were to be delivered to Kito, who was to swear to stand in the place of the two old samurai, and fight their battles, and avenge their wrongs, and those of all the samurai whose swords the imperial government threatened to take ; and Madzuri had put it off a little too long. But they knew his wishes.

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Kito received the arms and swore the oath. There was nothing else to do. But as to the other, Madzuri died before it could be accomplished. When they were alone he, nevertheless, laid his hands at the feet of Owannon, and his head upon them, and asked:

" Will you have me for your brother or your husband ? "

Owannon looked vastly frightened at first, then, covering her face from him, whispered:

" I will have you for my — brother."

She hesitated just an instant before the last word.

Kito did not move.

" Is that not— best ? " she asked, trem- bling.

Then Kito knew her heart and looked up. There was tenderness infinite in his eyes.

"That is best," he said, "which you desire."

There was a long silence between them.

" I desire that you shall be my—" But she hesitated a long while now. " Yes, I desire that you shall be my— my— brother."

"Your brother," repeated Kito, with his new smile, and he took her beautiful hands.

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He asked nothing more, but was very gentle to her. All through the great funeral he was at her side. And if he was not, she was frightened and found him hastily. They went about hand in hand. She liked this. It was infinitely comforting. If he did not take her hand (sometimes he would pre- tend to forget it) she would slip it into his with a shy smile that had heaven in it to Kito.

And this went on after the funeral, in their walks abroad.

"Without your hand," she would say, "I am lost— brother."

"Without yours I die, sister," he would answer.

Kito himself charged the nostrils of his dead benefactor with the scented vermilion, and covered the patrician face with the fu- neral paint, whispering beatitudes the while to the departed spirit. They might as well have been whispered to Owannon, who sat with bowed head at his side; for they were for the living and not for the dead.

And when the final rite was performed he left her at her door, saying:

"Good night, sister. In the morning I will come."

And she answered:

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"Good night, brother. In the morning come."

" I shall come every morning."

"Yes," she smiled, "every morning— every morning."

And some great joy leaped up within her at that.

But she did not sleep that night. And she sat where she could look over the hills to where he had gone. It was very cold and lonesome. And when he came in the morning, much earlier than she could pos- sibly have expected, she said with great joyousness:

" I did not think I should be so— glad."

" I also did not," he answered, taking the hands she gave him.

" Because I did not sleep," she confessed.

"Nor did I," he smiled.

" / did not wish to sleep," she said.

"Nor I," said he.

"I thought of you."

" And I of you."

" It is very pleasant to have a brother."

"And a sister."

"Such a brother."

" Such a sister."

They said thanks together and laughed.

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When Kito went home that night he laughed and sang and floundered into the water once or twice.

" ' Kio no yume, Osaka no yume,' " l he repeated.

He waited. But he was. very sure— so sure that he built a house dainty enough for the little person he meant to cage in it. And that was dainty indeed. (Pray believe that from her toes to her head she was ex- quisite, immaculate.) There were mats of such softness as Kito had never seen till now. And the shoji were of such exquisite paper that it might be taken for filmy silk. The kamidana (for Owannon was very devout) was crowded with gods