The Lady and Sada San by Frances Little
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Frances Little >> The Lady and Sada San
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In America the girl's way would not have been so hard because her
novel charm would have carried her far. But _hear me_: in Japan,
the very wave in her hair and the color of her eyes will prove a
barrier to the highest and best in the land. Even with youth and
beauty and intelligence, unqualified recognition for the Eurasian
is as rare as a square egg.
Another thought hits me in the face as if suddenly meeting a cross
bumblebee. Will the teachings of the woman, who lived with her
head in the clouds, hold hard and fast when Uncle puts on the
screws?
The Seeker says it is the fellow who thinks first that wins. He
speaks feelingly on the subject. Right now I am going to begin
cultivating first thought, and try to be near if danger, whose name
is Uncle, threatens the girl who has walked into my affections and
made herself at home.
Later.
All the very good people are in bed. The very worldly minded and
the young are on deck reluctantly finishing the last dance under a
canopy of make-believe cherry blossoms and wistaria. I am on the
deck between, closing this letter to you which I will mail in
Yokohama in a few hours.
In a way I shall be glad to see a quiet room in a hotel and hie me
back to simple living, free from the responsibilities of a
temporary parent. I am not promising myself any gay thrills in the
meantime. What 's the use, with Jack on the borderland of a
sulphurous country and you in the Garden of Eden? His letters and
yours will be my greatest excitement. So write and keep on writing
and never fear that I will not do the same. You are the
safety-valve for my speaking emotions, Mate; so let that help you
bear it.
Please mark with red ink one small detail of Sada's story. When I
was fastening her simple white gown for the dance her chatter was
like that of a sunny-hearted child. Indeed, she liked to dance.
Susan did not think it harmful. She said if your heart was right
your feet would follow. When Miss West could spare her she always
went to parties with _Billy_, and oh, how he could dance if he was
so big and had red hair.
So! there was a Billy? I looked in her face for signs. The way
was clear but there was a soft little quiver in her voice that
caused me carefully to label the unknown William, and lay him on a
shelf for future reference. Whatever the coming days hold for her,
mine has been the privilege of giving the girl three weeks of
unclouded happiness.
Outside I hear the little Prince pacing up and down, yielding up
his soul to holy meditations. I 'd be willing to wager my best
piece of jade his contemplations are something like a cycle from
Nirvana, and closer far to a pair of heavily fringed eyes. Poor
little imitation Buddha! He is grasping at the moon's reflection
on the water. Somewhere near I hear Dolly's soft coo and
deep-voiced replies. But unfinished packing, a bath and coffee are
awaiting me.
Dawn is coming, and already through the port hole I see a dot of
earth curled against the horizon. Above floats Fuji, the base
wrapped in mists, the peak eternally white, a giant snowdrop
swinging in a dome of perfect blue. The vision is a call to
prayer, a wooing of the soul to the heights of undimmed splendor.
After all, Mate, I may give you and Jack a glad surprise and
justify Sada handing me that letter addressed to a Christian Sister.
YOKOHAMA, July, 1911.
Now that I am here, I am trying to decide what to do with myself.
At home each day was so full of happy things and the happiest of
all was listening for Jack's merry whistle as he opened the street
door every night. At home there are always demands, big and
little, popping in on me which I sometimes resent and yet being
free from makes me feel as dismal as a long vacant house with the
For Rent sign up, looks. In this Lotus land there is no _must_ of
any kind for the alien, and the only whistles I hear belong to the
fierce little tugs that buzz around in the harbor, in and out among
the white sails of the fishing fleet like big black beetles in a
field of lilies. But you must not think life dull for me. Fate
and I have cried a truce, and she is showing me a few hands she is
dealing other people. But first listen to the tale I have to tell
of the bruise she gave my pride this morning, that will show black
for many a day.
I joined a crowd on the water 's edge in front of the hotel to
watch a funeral procession in boats. Recently a hundred and eighty
fishermen were sent to the bottom by a big typhoon, and the wives
and the sweethearts were being towed out to sea to pay a last
tribute to them, by strewing the fatal spot with flowers and paper
prayers. White-robed priests stood up in the front of the boats
and chanted some mournful ritual, keeping time to the dull thumping
of a drum. The air was heavy with incense. A dreamy melancholy
filled the air and I thought how hallowed and beautiful a thing is
memory. From out that silent watching crowd came a voice that sent
my thoughts flying to starry nights of long ago and my first trip
across the Pacific; soft south winds; vows of eternal devotion that
kept time with the distant throbbing of a ship's engine. I fumed.
I was facing little Germany and five littler Germanys strung out
behind. You surely remember him? and how when I could n't see
things his way he swore to a wrecked heart and a
never-to-be-forgotten constancy. Mate! There was no more of a
flicker of memory in the stare of his round blue eyes than there
would have been in a newly baked pretzel. I stood still, waiting
for some glimmer of recognition. Instead, he turned to the
pincushion on his arm, whom I took to be Ma O., and I heard him say
"Herzallorliebsten." I went straight to the hotel and had it
translated. Thought it had a familiar sound. Would n't it be
interesting to know how many "only ones" any man's life history
records? To think of my imagining him eating his heart out with
hopeless longing in some far away Tibetan Monastery. And here he
was, pudgy and content, with his fat little brood waddling along
behind him. If our vision could penetrate the future, verily
Romance would have to close up shop. Oh, no! I did n't want him
to pine entirely away, but he needn't have been in such an
everlasting hurry to get fat and prosperous over it. Would n't
Jack howl?
I took good care to see that he was not stopping at this hotel.
Then I went back to my own thoughts of the happy years that had
been mine since Little Germany bade me a tearful good-by.
And, too, I wanted to think out some plan whereby I can keep in
touch with Sada and be friendly with her relative.
Before I left the steamer, I had a surprise in the way of Uncles.
Next time I will pause before I prophesy. But if Uncle was a blow
to my preconceived ideas, I will venture Sada startled a few of his
traditions as to nieces. Quarantine inspection was short, and when
at last we cast anchor, the harbor was as blue as if a patch of the
summer sky had dropped into it. The thatched roofs shone russet
brown against the dark foliage of the hills. The temple roofs
curved gracefully above the pink mist of the crepe myrtle.
Sada was standing by me on the upper deck, fascinated by the
picture. As she realized the long dreamed-of fairy-land was
unfolding before her, tears of joy filled her eyes and tears of
another kind filled mine.
Sampans, launches and lighters clustered around the steamer as
birds of prey gather to a feast: captains in gilt braid; coolies in
blue and white, with their calling-cards stamped in large letters
on their backs, and the story of their trade written around the
tail of their coats in fantastic Japanese characters. Gentlemen in
divided skirts and ladies in kimono and clogs swarmed up the
gangway. In the smiling, pushing crowd I looked for the low-browed
relative I expected to see. Imagine the shock, Mate, when a man
with manners as beautiful as his silk kimono presented his card and
announced that he was Uncle Mura. I had been pointed out as Sada's
friend. A week afterwards I could have thought of something
brilliant to say. Taken unawares, I stammered out a hope that his
honorable teeth were well and his health poor. You see I am all
right in Japanese if I do the talking. For I know what I want to
say and what they ought to say. But when they come at me with a
flank movement, as it were, I am lost. Uncle passed over my
blunder without a smile and went on to say many remarkable things,
if sound means anything. However, trust even a deaf woman to prick
up her ears when a compliment is headed her way, whether it is in
Sanskrit or Polynesian. In acknowledgment I stuck to my flag, and
the man's command of quaint but correct English convinced me that I
would have to specialize in something more than first thought if I
was to cope with this tea-house proprietor whose armor is the
subtle manners of the courtier.
Blessed Sada! Only the cocksureness of youth made her blind to the
check her enthusiasm was meant to receive in the first encounter of
the new life. She had always met people on equal terms, most men
falling easy victims. She was blissfully ignorant that Mura, by
directing his conversation to me, meant to convey to her that
well-bred girls in this enchanted land lowered their eyes and
folded their hands when they talked in the presence of a MAN, if
they dared to talk at all.
Not so this half-child of the West. She fairly palpitated with joy
and babbled away with the freedom of a sunny brook in the shadow of
a grim forest. From the man's standpoint, he was not unkind;
unrestraint was to him an incomprehensible factor in a young girl's
make-up; and whatever was to follow, the first characters he meant
her to learn must spell reverence and repression.
They hurried ashore to catch a train to Kioto. I must look
harmless, for I was invited to call. I shall accept, for I have a
feeling in spite of manners and silken robes that the day is not
distant when the distress signals will be flying.
I waved good-by to the girl as the little launch made its way to
land. She made a trumpet of her hands and called a merry
"sayonara." The master of her future folded his arms and looked
out to sea.
The next day I had a lonely lunch at the hotel. When I saw two
lovery young things at the table where Jack and I had our wedding
breakfast, so long ago, I made for the other end of the room and
persistently turned my back. But I saw out of the corner of my eye
they were far away above food, and, Mate, believe me, they did n't
even know it was hot, though a rain barrel couldn't have measured
the humidity.
Of course Jack and I were much more sensible, but that whole
blessed time is wrapped in rosy mists with streaks of moonlight to
the tune of heavenly music, so it 's futile to try to recall just
what did happen. I ought to have gone to another hotel, but the
chain of memory was too strong for me.
I was hesitating between the luxury of a sentimental spell and a
fit of loneliness, when a happy interruption came in a message from
Countess Otani, naming the next day at two for luncheon with her at
the Arsenal Gardens at Tokio. How I wished for you, Mate! It was
a fairy-story come true, dragons and all. The Arsenal Garden means
just what it says. Only when the dove of peace is on duty are its
gates opened, and then to but a few, high in command. For across
the white-blossomed hedge that encloses the grounds, armies of men
toil ceaselessly molding black bullets for pale people and they
work so silently that the birds keep house in the long fringed
willows and the goldfish splash in the sunned spots of the tiny
lake.
After passing the dragons in the shape of sentries and soldiers, to
each of whom I gave a brief life-history, I wisely followed my nose
and a guard down the devious path.
The Countess received her guests in a banquet-hall all ebony and
gold, and was not seated permanently on a throne with a diamond
crown screwed into her head as we used so fondly to imagine.
The simplicity of her hospitality was charming. She and most of
her ladies-in-waiting had been educated abroad. But despite the
lure of the Western freedom, they had returned to their country
with their heads level and their traditions intact. But you guess
wrong, honey, if you imagine custom and formality of official life
have so overcome these high-born ladies as to make them lay figures
who dare not raise their eyes except by rule. There were three
American guests, and only by being as nimble as grasshoppers did we
hold our own in the table talk which was as exhilarating as a game
of snowball on a frosty day.
We scampered all around war and settled a few important political
questions. Poetry, books and the new Cabinet vied with the
merriment over comparisons in styles of dress. One delightful
woman told how gloves and shoes had choked her when she first wore
them in America. Another gave her experience in getting fatally
twisted in her court train when she was making her bow before the
German Empress.
A soft-voiced matron made us laugh over her story of how, when she
was a young girl at a mission school, she unintentionally joined in
a Christian prayer, and nearly took the skin off her tongue
afterwards scrubbing it with strong soap and water to wash away the
stain. There wasn't even a smile as she quietly spoke of the many
times later when with that same prayer she had tried to make less
hard the after-horrors of war.
The possibilities of Japanese women are amazing even to one who
thinks he knows them. They look as if made for decoration only,
and with a flirt of their sleeves they bring out a surprise that
turns your ideas a double somersault. Here they were, laughing and
chatting like a bunch of fresh schoolgirls for whom life was one
long holiday. Yet ten out of the number had recently packed away
their gorgeous clothes, and laid on a high shelf all royal ranks
and rights, for a nurse's dress and kit. Apparently delicate and
shy they can be, if emergency demands, as grim as war or as tender
as heaven.
It was a blithesome day and if it had n't been for that "all gone"
sort of a feeling, that possesses me when evening draws near and
Jack is far away, content might have marked me as her own. As it
was I put off playing a single at dinner as long as possible by
calling on a month-old bride whom I had known as a girl. With glee
I accepted the offer of an automobile to take me for the visit, and
repented later. Two small chauffeurs and a diminutive footman
raced me through the narrow, crowded streets, scattering the
populace to any shelter it could find. The only reason we didn't
take the fronts out of the shops is that Japanese shops are
frontless. I looked back to see the countless victims of our
speed. I saw only a crowd coming from cover, smiling with
curiosity and interest. We hit the top of the hill with a
flourish, and when I asked what was the hurry my attendants looked
hurt and reproachfully asked if that wasn't the way Americans liked
to ride.
Mate, this is a land of contrasts and contradictions. At the
garden all had been life and color. At this home, where the
wrinkled old servitor opened the heavily carved gates for me, it
was as if I had stepped into a bit of ancient Japan, jealously
guarded from any encroachment of new conditions or change of custom.
Like a curious package, contents unknown, I was passed from one
automatic servant to another till I finally reached the
_Torishihimari_ or mistress of ceremonies. By clock-work she
offered me a seat on the floor, a fan and congratulations. This
last simply because I was me. The house was ancient and beautiful.
The room in which I sat had nothing in it but matting as fine as
silk, a rare old vase with two flowers and a leaf in formal
arrangement, and an atmosphere of aloofness that lulled mind and
body to restful revery. After my capacity for tea and sugared
dough was tested, the little serving maid fanning me, bowing every
time I blinked, the paper doors near by divided noiselessly and,
framed by the dim light, sat the young bride, quaint and oriental
as if she had stepped out of some century-old kakemono. In
contrast to my recent hostesses it was like coming from a garden of
brilliant flowers into the soft, quiet shadows of a bamboo grove.
No modern touch about this lady. She had been reduced by rule from
a romping girl to a selfless creature fit for a Japanese
gentleman's wife and no questions asked. Her hair, her dress, and
even her speech were strictly by the laws laid down in a book for
the thirty-first day of the first month after marriage. But I
would like to see the convention with a crust thick enough to
entirely obliterate one woman's interest in another whose clothes
and life belong to a distant land. When I told her I had come to
Japan against Jack's wishes and was going to follow him to China if
I could, she paled at my rashness. How could a woman dare disobey?
Would not my husband send me home, take my name off the house
register and put somebody in my place?
Well now, wouldn't you like to see the scientist play any such
tricks with me--that blessed old Jack who smiles at my follies,
asks my advice, and does as he pleases, and for whom there has
never been but the one woman in the world! I struggled to make
plain to her the attitude of American men and women and the
semi-independence of the latter. As well explain theology to a
child. To her mind the undeviating path of absolute obedience was
the only possible way. Anything outside of a complete renunciation
of self-interest and thought meant ruin and was not even to be
whispered about. I gave it up and came back to her sphere of
poetry and mothers-in-law.
When I said good-by there was a gentle pity in her eyes, for she
was certain her long-time friend was headed for the highroad of
destruction. But instead I turned into the dim solitude of Shiba
Park. I had something to think about. To-day's experiences had
painted anew in naming colors the difference in husbands. How
prone a woman is, who is free and dearly beloved, to fall into the
habit of taking things for granted, forgetting how one drop of the
full measure of happiness, that a good husband gives her, would
turn to rosy tints the gray lives of hundreds of her kind who are
wives in name only. Her appreciation may be abundant but it is the
silent kind. Her bugaboo is fear of sentiment and when it is too
late, she remembers with a heart-break.
I can think of a thousand things right now I want to say to Jack
and while storing them away for some future happy hour, I walked
further into the deep shadows of twilight.
Instantly the spell of the East was over me. Real life was not.
In the soft green silences of mystery and fancy, I found a seat by
an ancient moss-covered tomb. Dreamily I watched a great red
dragon-fly frivol with the fairy blue wreaths of incense-smoke that
hovered above the leaf shadows trembling on the sand. The deep
melody of a bell, sifted through a cloud of blossom, caught up my
willing soul and floated out to sea and Jack far from this lovely
land, where stalks unrestrained the ugly skeleton of easy divorce
for men. The subject always irritates me like prickly heat.
NIKKO, July, 1911.
Summer in Japan is no joke, especially if you are waiting for
letters. I know perfectly well I can't hear from you and Jack for
an age, and yet I watch for the postman three times a day, as a
hungry man waits for the dinner-bell.
The days in Yokohama were too much like a continuous Turkish bath,
and I fled to Nikko, the ever moist and mossy. Two things you can
always expect in this village of "roaring, wind-swept
mountains,"--rain and courtesy. One is as inevitable as the other,
and both are served in quantities.
I am staying in a semi-foreign hotel which is tucked away in a
pocket in the side of a mountain as comfy as a fat old lady in a
big rocker who glories in dispensing hospitality with both hands.
Just let me put my head out of my room door and the hall fairly
blossoms with little maids eager to serve. A step toward the
entrance brings to life a small army of attendants bending as they
come like animated jack-knives on a live wire. One struggles with
the mystery of my overshoes, while the Master stands by and begs me
to take care of my honorable spirit. As it is the only spirit I
possess I heed his advice and bring it back to the hotel to find
the entire force standing at attention, ready to receive me. I
pass on to my room with a procession of bearers and bearesses
strung out behind me like the tail of a kite, anything from a
tea-tray to the sugar tongs being sufficient excuse for joining the
parade.
When dressing for dinner, if I press the button, no less than six
little, picture maids flutter to my door, each begging for the
honor of fastening me up the back. How delighted Jack would be to
assign them this particular honor for life. Such whispers over the
wonders of a foreign-made dress as they struggle with the curious
fastenings! (They should hear my lord's fierce language!) Each
one takes a turn till some sort of connection is made between hook
and eye. All is so earnestly done I dare not laugh or wiggle with
impatience. I may sail into dinner with the upper hook in the
lower eye and the middle all askew, but the service is so
graciously given, I would rather have my dress upside down than to
grumble. Certainly I pay for it. I tip everything from the
proprietor to the water-pitcher. But the sum is so
disproportionate to the pleasure and the comfort returned that I
smile to think of the triple price I have paid elsewhere and the
high-nosed condescension I got in return for my money. Japanese
courtesy may be on the surface, but the polish does not easily wear
off and it soothes the nerves just as the rain cools the air. It
goes without saying that I did not arrive in Nikko without a
variety of experiences along the way.
Two hours out from Yokohama, the train boy came into the coach, and
with a smile as cheerful as if he were saying, "Happy New Year,"
announced that there was a washout in front of us and a landslide
at the back of us. Would everybody please rest their honorable
bones in the village while a bridge was built and a river filled
in. The passengers trailed into a settlement of straw roofs,
bamboo poles and acres of white and yellow lilies. I went to a
quaint little inn--that was mostly out!--built over a fussy brook;
and a pine tree grew right out of the side of the house. My room
was furnished with four mats and a poem hung on the wall. When the
policeman came in to apologize for the rudeness of the storm in
delaying me, the boy who brought my bags had to step outside so
that the official would have room to bow properly. I ate my supper
of fish-omelet and turnip pickle served in red lacquer bowls, and
drank tea out of cups as big as thimbles. Jack says Japanese
teacups ought to be forbidden; in a moment of forgetfulness they
could so easily slip down with the tea.
It had been many a year since I was so separated from my kind and
each hour of isolation makes clearer a thing I 've never doubted,
but sometimes forget, that the happiest woman is she whose every
moment is taken up in being necessary to somebody; and to such,
unoccupied minutes are like so many drops of lead. That, with a
telegram I read telling of the increasing dangers of the plague in
Manchuria, threatened to send me headlong into a spell of anxiety
and the old terrible loneliness.
Happily the proprietor and his wife headed it off by asking me if I
would be their guest for this evening to see the Bon Matsuri, the
beautiful Festival of the Dead. On the thirteenth day of the
seventh month, all the departed spirits take a holiday from Nirvana
or any other seaport they happen to be in and come on a visit to
their former homes to see how it fares with the living. Poor
homesick spirits! Not even Heaven can compensate for the
separation from beloved country and friends. As we passed along,
the streets were alight with burning rushes placed at many doors to
guide the spiritual excursionists. Inside, the people were
praying, shrines were decorated and children in holiday dress
merrily romped. Why, Mate, it was worth being a ghost just to come
back and see how happy everybody was. For on this night of nights,
cares and sorrows are doubly locked in a secret place and the key
put carefully away. You couldn't find a coolie so heartless as to
show a shadow of trouble to his ghostly relatives when they return
for so brief a time to hold happy communion with the living. He
may be hungry, he may be sick, but there is a brave smile of
welcome on his lips for the spirits.
The crazy old temple at the foot of the mountain, glorified by a
thousand lights and fluttering flags, reaped a harvest of _rins_
and _rens_ paid to the priests for paper prayers and bamboo
flower-holders with which to decorate the graves. The cemetery was
on the side of the hill, and every step of the way somebody stopped
at a stone marker to fasten a lantern to a small fishing-pole and
pin a prayer near by. This was to guide the spirit to his own
particular spot.
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