Part I
Part I
PART I
IT was around the tolling of the fifth hour in the early evening that a fish monger, of the next street, in a flush of drink and a rush of self-imposed urgency, sped into the pawn-broking shop of Suruga-ya on one of his visits, which were more regular than his financial programme ever seemed to be. He jingled money in his breast pocket, singled forth two silver pieces, quite bright and new, just given him, as he explained, by an officer living in the Ginza way, and asked back such of his dress things as he was evidently to need for the New Year’s holidays,—livery coat, outer gown, and so forth, now neglected for three months in pledge. After he left, the business part of the Suruga-ya, usually so lively, was again to remain quiet without a single more caller to break the stillness, a thing probably accountable by the bad weather that evening. Shinsuké who had been buried in reading, his face between his hands, just behind the counter railing, literature served in a yellow paper cover of no more importance than itsauthor, now remembered the little brazier under his nose and, trying to stir up the fire, well-nigh gone out, muttered to himself, “What a cold evening!” Then, reaching out his hand to the apprentice boy, sitting two or three feet off, dozing away in an undisturbed nap, Shinsuké pulled his ear.
“Shota, wake up for a moment. Sorry to send you out in this sleeting miserable weather, but I want you to run over like a good boy to the macaroni house, on the Muramatsu-cho[1], and tell them to bring two bowls of hot boiled macaroni with fried fish for me,—and take for yourself whatever you like, too; it’s our bargain.”
“That’s fine! Now that I’m awake, I feel cold and a little hungry. Before the Master comes back, I’ll let you treat me to something warm and nice.”
The youngster bestirred himself, tucking up the lower part of his clothes and, snatching down a broad-brimmed rain hat hung near the entrance, sailed out into the sleet and cold.
In the meantime, Shinsuké straightened up thethings on the counter, put the padlock on the store-house, and closed the main entrance door on the street. “We shall be late coming home to-night, may even have to stay over till to-morrow morning;—see carefully that the doors are all fastened, and everything is in order”: said his master in the early evening, when he was leaving with his wife, on their visit to a relative over in Yotsuya, just gone into mourning. Remembering this parting order, Shinsuké, a lantern in hand, set out looking carefully around, from the kitchen door to the back entrance gate, up the flight of steps leading from the maids’ quarters, to the doors on the balcony perched on the roof for clothes line, making sure of bars and bolts everywhere. As he retraced his way down the steps, his lantern threw its dim light bringing out of the darkness the faces of two servant maids, slumbering away so comfortably under heavy bed-clothes.
“Are you already asleep, O-Tami don[2]?” His query, though voiced in a tone raised above theordinary, received no response. Softening his footfalls even more carefully, through the hallway, whose wood floor was so cold for his bare feet to hug, he came round to look over a train of sliding panels that screened the verandah from a space of inner garden.
The verandah led to one of the best rooms of the house, where a bed-room lantern shed an elfish light upon the paper doors. It was generally used by the master and mistress for their living room, fitted as it was, with the family mortuary shrine, a large sized brazier, a tea cupboard, and other articles of householdparaphernalia. To-night, Tsuya, the young mistress, had evidently taken it for herself and gone to bed there.
“Ah, how warm and snug it must be in that room there!” As the thought flashed through his mind, suddenly he seemed to find himself face to face with the miseries of his own wretched self, of the life meted out to a man in menial servitude; his eyes, aglow with envy, lingered on the soft glow on the paper.
He had now for a full year nursed a deep love for Tsuya whose feeling toward him was as tender and enduring. However madly they might love one another, his master’s daughter was out of hisreach. Had he been born to a family of name and means, he would claim this beautiful Tsuya as his own. It was his wont thus to lament his own misfortunes in life.
It must have been close upon midnight. The cold air relentlessly oozed its way into the house. While at a pause in the verandah hall, Shinsuké shivered as he had to feel the cold draughts coming in between the sliding doors. Out of the warm depths of his bosom, he pulled out his hand to take the lantern and relieve his right hand, which was now chilled to the aching point, and on which he kept blowing his warm breath. He could feel his thighs so bare and chilly in their touch against each other, as if they were not his own. His shivers, however, may not have been accountable by the cold only.
“Is that you. Shin don?” hailed Tsuya, just as he was going past outside the sleeping room. She either awoke just then, or had been awake throughout. Then, she apparently opened the shade over the globe-shaped lantern to turn it toward the hall, for the glow on the paper outside was thrown into a brighter light.
“Yes, it is myself. The master’s late, and I thought I should go around to make sure aboutthe doors.”
“You’re ready to turn in, now?”
“No, I shall just stay up all night until the Master comes home.”
As he spoke those words, he lowered himself on his knees outside the room, placing his hands down, correctly putting himself in an attitude of respect due to the daughter of the family. Almost at the same instant, the screen doors were pushed back, opening about a foot wide.
“It is cold out there; come in and shut the doors behind.” Combing back her stray hair, she sat up amidst the silk quilts, her long-lashed eyes fixed, in open adoration, on the face of the man, which, even in a subdued light, appeared so white and handsome.
“They have all gone to bed, I suppose?”
“No, young mistress, I expect Shota back from his errand every second. As soon as he comes, he shall be sent to bed, and until then—”
“Oh, patience and more patience until I shall have no more!— When we have got to-night such a chance as we can ever hope for! Now, listen, Shin don, I hope you, after all this time, are ready to-night, with your mind made up?”
Tsuya, covered only by her under-robe of brightred dappled crepe which clung close to the lines of her form, sat unmindful of her white feet peeking out, in their dainty arrangement, from under the quilts, as she put her hands together, as in the manner of prayer offering.
“Whatever do you mean by being ready and so forth, my young mistress?”
Overcome by the force of the beauty before him, a force that seemed to sweep away his soul, the man lifted his eyes in a stare almost too frank and childlike for his twenty years, and waited for the very answer he was afraid to give to himself.
“Run away with me to Fukagawa, to-night. That’s all I’m going to say. See how I pray you!”
“Impossible,” he said; but he was really troubled to think how he might steel himself against what seemed to tempt him with a stupendous force of voluptuous bewitchery. Since he came into the service here, as a young lad of fourteen, he had got on so well that his master had come to repose in him so much confidence as he would do in few young men. A year or two more of patience and good work, and his master would set him up in business and, if he could not have the happiness of marrying the lovely Tsuya, he would be on his way to whateverfortune and name he might desire. What, then, would be the happiness of his old parents who were living only in hopes of such time? The idea of taking advantage of a girl still too young, the daughter of his own master, was preposterous; he could not—he should not do it; repeatedly he told himself.
“So, Shin don, you’ve forgotten what you promised me the other day, have you? Yes, now I see it all through. It was only a plaything you meant to make of me. And when it came to that, you would throw me away. It is as plain as I would ever care to see it.”
“It is nothing of the sort that—”
He was about to extend his comforting hands to Tsuya who was heaving her shoulders with half-stifled sobs, when there came a loud and persistent knocking on the front door. Taken aback by the youngster’s announcement of himself, Shinsuké suddenly sprang to his feet, lantern in hand, a picture of consternation.
“Later, then, I shall be sure to come when Shota has been sent to bed, and we shall talk it over, as you please. If you are of so strong a mind as you say, I will think once again, and—”
It was after some moments of a tender strugglethat he coulddetachhimself from Tsuya’s clinging hands. Returning to the front part of the house, again fully composed, he hastened to open the small side-door.
“Oh, I’m frozen!” cried the boy, as he darted in, almost head over heels.
“It’s turned to snow. Shin don,” he reported, brushing off the snow on the broad hat. “It looks sure like going to pile up thick to-night.”
It was about an hour later that the young apprentice, having done justice to his share of the mid-night repast, crawled into bed and fell asleep. The wind seemed to have blown itself out; but the snow was evidently going on, for a dead stillness had settled outside on the streets whence all life had been driven off to slumber. Shinsuké came back with a few lumps of charcoal which he had taken out of the trap in the kitchen floor. When they were fed to the fire in his brazier, he crouched down because he knew no better, a helpless, lone figure in a corner of the shop. Even as he remained at such a pause, his thoughts went out to the back quarters of the house where the young mistress must be awaiting him, with no thought of sleep. Withthose things racing through his mind, he felt himself besieged by the force of his own fate—a fate that seemed to come on and over him now to determine the course of his life for all time. If only his master would come back soon, this dreadful temptation would of itself pass away; his thoughts would, in some moments, take on such complexion.
There was in back a faint noise of screens being slid, to be followed by what seemed to be a stealthy tread in the verandah hall. Shinsuké suddenly leapt to his feet and stole his way toward the room where he had left her. It was done out of his fear lest the young mistress, petulant as she was, should make a scene that was to be averted at all costs. The two found each other where the hall had a turn.
“Are you all ready, Shin don? I have brought with me enough money to carry us on for some time. I’ll let you take care of this purse and everything.”
Tsuya pulled her hands back into her sleeves, and,bulgingout the black satin trimmings across her breast, took out of the depths of her bosom a purse of yellow cloth which was almost thrust into his hands. Its weight could not beof less than ten large gold pieces[3].
“To take not only you away, but even my master’s money;—God’s vengeance would be heavy!” His protest, however, went no farther; for he was easily to succumb to her wishes.
“But it seems to be snowing, unfortunately—I shouldn’t mind; but you would be frozen to death, if you were to walk all the way out to Fukagawa, in this terrible weather. So, I say, Tsu chan[4], why not some other time as well?—and a chance there sure will be yet!”
In speaking of Fukagawa, they had in mind the home of a certain boatman living in that part of Fukagawa which is called Takabashi. Seiji, the boatman in case, had been patronized by the Suruga-ya family for ten long years. What with clam-gathering picnics to the sand-bars around the forts of Shinagawa and the customary partiesat the river festivity of Ryogoku, he had made himself familiar with Tsuya and Shinsuké. In addition to the calls he was in custom to make at the time of the “Bon”[5]holidays and just before the New Year, he would occasionally pay his respects to the Suruga-ya. It was his wont as much as his privilege to seat himself, on such occasions, in a corner of the kitchen over a treat of drinks, and plunge into an open admiration of the beautiful daughter of the house.
“Talk of a picture of prettiness, I’ve seen nothing to beat our young lady here,” he would glibly start off. “I don’t care what people say, I say there isn’t anybody in this big town to match with this beautiful thing here. Asking for pardon for me saying this, if she were a geisha girl, I would never stay behind, such as I am, yet not without a stretch of time ahead of me to be as old as fifty.”
As he would harp away in his droll fashion, he would sometimes even allow himself so much liberty as to lay his hold on Tsuya’s sleeve, saying: “Be good, O-Tsu chan, and grant me the wish of my life,—bless me with a cupful from your own hands. Not for a long time—just one cupful, and never more than that—”
And the folk would laugh at what they looked on as a good natured mimicry of one who might make bold to advance on her attention.[6]
A man trading on river traffic, running wherries to carry fares going up to and coming from Yanagibashi, Fukagawa, Sanya, Yoshiwara, the gay quarters clustered along and about the only watercourse of the town, and living mostly within the pale of a world where wine flowed and folks feared not to talk of sins, the boathouse master Seiji was a man of enough understanding,and he may well have sensed, for some time now, the love that had secretly been growing between the young lady of the family and the young man. However, he breathed never a word about it, in any way, if he did know, strangely enough of a man who enjoyed so much to talk. The first time that he ever came out with his knowledge of the affair was about a month ago when he paid one of his casual visits, after what he said had been a trip to Yanagibashi, and gave airing to what had lain in the back of his head. For that day, the family had planned a theatre party, from which Tsuya excused herself under a feigned pretext of illness; for a chance to be alone in the company of Shinsuké was too precious. Not to disappoint the whole family on her sole account, her parents took their two maids instead, and went out to the theatre in the early morning.[7]The shop had been left in charge of the little Shota alone, while Shinsuké had been spending most of his time at the bedside of Tsuya, charged with what was termed as nursing the ill younglady. It was just at one of such times that the boatman Seiji tripped in, his face florid and jolly, as usual, from drinking. He ahemed, smirked, and went straight in to slap the young man on the shoulder.
“Shin don, I wish you all the luck and pleasure! You thought I knew nothing about this, didn’t you? It’s a long time, believe me, since I smelt a rat. People are blind, but mighty hard to pull the wool over my eyes. Not that I mean to speak to our master about it. So, you might as well own up to it, now. And, why couldn’t I be of some help to you, some time? Only natural, I say, that it should come to this, when a beautiful young lady is living in the same house as a boy as handsome as those we see only on the stage. And me,—a funny thing,—for, if I see a young pair like yourselves, madly in love with each other and in trouble, I want to do something just to help them out,—somehow,—I don’t care how much trouble it means,—so I may see them happy together, always. It’s some queer thing in me that does it, I suppose.”
Taken quite off their guard, the young pair helplessly looked at one another, as they felt cold shudders run down their backs. Seiji, however,framed himself in an air of so knowing assurance and worked himself up into voluble exuberance, for the reason he seemed to know the best.
“A man who means to love must never be so weak-kneed. Might as well come out with the whole thing, and why not? You shouldn’t keep such a thing in your young hearts and suffer. It would be a far sight better—a short cut, too, if I were to take the whole thing up with the master and reason him into allowing you both to marry. No flattery, but Shin don ought to be a good enough man, what of his handsomeness, clean mind, and cleverness. I should be surprised if our master wouldn’t agree to it.”
“If that were possible, we should ask him ourselves, without giving you the trouble.”
The young Shinsuké was inveigled, in spite of himself, into giving a full account of the situation they were in. Tsuya was the sole heiress of the family, and he was the only child his old parents had; each was bound to remain in his or her own family. However much they might think, there was no way in which to make their marriage possible.[8]
“I would kill myself, if we couldn’t be together!”
Tsuya broke down on this, after she had followed the rueful account of her beloved one; she sobbed as one no longer able to fight down her rising emotion.
“Calm yourself, young lady, calm yourself,” consoled the boatman. “Now, I know what I could do. Listen to me. You will run away from here and come to my place. It will be just a way to get round the trouble, and I know what I talk about. You can leave the rest to me. I will see the old folks of both sides, and, depend on it, I shall reason it out with them and get them to agree to it!”
In fact, the young lovers had talked of eloping earlier in the very same evening. Seiji’s suggestion came to prompt Tsuya in her ready decision, right then and there. Shinsuké, however, had not been able to see his way quite so clear in his decision to this day, and even to this moment.
“Do you mean to back out, now?”
As she spoke, she clasped the wrists of the manwho still lingered in a pensive attitude, his hands folded and his head drooped low. With her form bent over, like a bamboo bough under a heavy weight, she leaned herself against him. She fidgeted, fretted, and shook him, threatening with “I’ll kill myself, if you don’t come.”
“I give way! I can’t be firm! And let things take care of themselves, for I go with you, as you say.”
Shinsuké quickly went back to the shop, and pulled his own wicker box out of the deep recess of the closet. He took out of it a heavy cotton dress and changed it for the one he had on. It was a gift out of his father’s old wardrobe and the only piece of clothing that had not been given him during these years of service. He felt he could not go off in any of these clothes without his thanks to his master. Then, going to the case at the side entrance, he noiselessly picked out Tsuya’s lacquered pair of rain-clogs which he hugged tightly under his arm, as if he treasured them, in retracing his way to the verandah.
The sight of the girl at a pause there. He was almost aghast to think that she meant to go out in this bitterly cold weather in such attire; her hair bared to be seen in its freshly made coiffure,silk checker dress of bright gold and black, heavy sash of brocaded satin girt just below the breast,—and nothing to cover her feet.[9]She who had always shown, with a woman’s instinct, a partiality for the piquant manner of the geisha, would assert her taste even before such a venture.
“Come, here is our way,” said Shinsuké, as he dropped into the garden, by pushing the doors open two or three feet at the end of the verandah. The snow which had been going on without stir or noise, had already lain to a depth of a few inches. Wattle-fence, shrub-beds, and thewainscotedwalls round the verandah corner were all covered with an alabaster mantle. He felt for the feet of the girl who sat over the edge of the verandah. In the faintest half-light of the snow, he managed to place the soft, but icy, soles of her feet over the bottom of clogs. And it was with tremulous hearts that they measured each step that made a slish-slash as it sank into the snow. At last, they made their way as far as the little gate in the back-side wall. Through this andcrossing a line of board-walk over a sewer passage, cautious of any noise, they stole out into the open street.
The sky was overcast, but the snow, partly spent out, fluttered down in large, occasional flakes. It was warmer than they had expected. Under one umbrella spread over them, the girl held the handle and the young man’s hand closed over hers. By way of the Tachibana-cho, they directed their way to the Hama-cho.
The soft lines of Shinsuké’s appearance belied his strength, for he was a youth of good height, muscular, with a stock of sinewy power above the average. As he felt his nerves gripped by surging emotions, he would oft tighten his clasping hand with such a convulsive force that Tsuya felt as if her right hand, so small and frail and now chilled to freezing point, were about to be crushed out. And she would as oft give a little cry of pain. “Nothing the matter with you, I hope, Shin don?” she would ask at such times, with concern in her voice, lifting her searching eyes into his. And her long-slit eyes glistened even in the dark with a glow, as of a strong mind.
When they had crossed the New Great Bridge, there came eight strokes of midnight. The clangingnote of the bell, floating out and far in its resonant roar, seemed to summon to its wild shriek the soul of the water, now swelled to its full on a flow of sea tide, with its bosom bared to the falling snow, moved on with a chill and stillness of death.
Tsuya who had remained sparing of words till now broke the silence: “That bell is so fascinating,—it’s so much like what we see on the stage!”
“Well, your nerves are stronger than mine,” Shinsuké retorted, showing a grin that was mirthless, and even bitter. They returned to silence after this, and remained so until they reached the boatman’s house, perched on the side of the Onagigawa stream.