CHAPTER XII
The Summer slipped by on sleepy wings. Autumn’s mellow, balmy touch was upon the land. By day all Nature was beautiful, but at night the starry skies were cold and chilling. The earth, too, lost its warmth and shivered as if in anticipation of the coming winter.
On a certain night in the month of October, a woman, with a baby on her back, made her weary way through the village of Sanyo. One could see even in the dim light that she was haggard and hollow-eyed. Her small hands, which ever and anon crept nervously toward the little headagainst her neck, were tragically thin. For almost two months Azalea, the wife of the white priest, had been a common mendicant. She had wandered about from place to place, seeking at first employment and later reduced to the begging of alms. The small inland towns of Japan have few industries offering employment to women. Azalea was further hampered by the white child she bore upon her back and the ignominy of her religion, for in some way her history had followed her from town to town. Neither her beauty nor her youth were of avail to her now to earn the pity of those who feared the gods too much to refuse alms to a beggar. The wife of theforeign devil was an outcast of the gods, a pariah, a thing accursed. What respectable Japanese would lend aid to one who had wilfully destroyed the tablets of her ancestors? And so in this land where beggars oft-times grow fat on charity the pariah starved. Sometimes a peasant or farmer, knowing nothing of her history, would give her shelter and food at night, but when the morning light revealed the blue-eyed babe upon her back, they turned her superstitiously away. She hardly knew whither her feet carried her, so many, many had been the days since her wanderings began. Only Nature was compassionate in that the summermonths kept her at least from the chill of exposure. But even Nature has limits to her patience, and Autumn had come. During the first few weeks of her wanderings, the baby had appeared strong and well. The out-door life in the country but strengthened its little frame. The starving of the mother was a gradual process, something which at first did not affect the baby. But as the days and weeks went by and the mother grew weaker, the contagion of her weariness affected the babe. He became peevish and ailing. The round, cunning, gurgling baby, to whom the mother had passionately clung as though for strength, grew thin and cried constantly.Its little face fell into the odd lines of one aged, thin, pinched and anxious; for what nourishment is there in the breast of a starving woman?
After a night of vain effort to keep the baby warm in her arms in the open country, Azalea turned frantically back toward her native village.
She had a vague notion of going once more to the home of her step-mother, this time to beg with her head at the august woman’s feet for shelter and charity. When the latter had turned her from the door, stubborn pride had buoyed the girl up and given her that almost feverish strength which had sustained her this long. Nowthe last strain of pride in her breast was dead. Hope had long lingered, hope and faith in the dimly remembered words of the white God, that he would protect her always—yet now even hope was gone.
And thus it was, then, half clad and almost starving, that Azalea returned to Sanyo. It was night and the streets of the town were almost deserted. But the little houses, like fairy lanterns, glowed in the darkness with light and warmth, and as she passed along she could hear the babble and soft, happy murmur of the contented and housed families. Her hunger gripped at her throat, parching it. The baby was mercifully silent, but its weightwas so heavy that she walked unsteadily and stooped beneath it.
Who would have recognized in this shadow of a woman the exquisitely lovely and dainty girl who, despite her shabby clothes, had bravely held her head so high in the town? Would the white priest himself have recognized her? She had ceased to think of him in these days. She had told herself that he had been but a beautiful spirit whom the gods had sent to bless her for a little time only. Now he was gone. Azalea had forgotten the language he had taught her; had forgotten the God he had told her would comfort. Her own wanderings and the cries of her baby had occupiedher mind to the exclusion of all else. Only sometimes when she slept she dreamed of his great, tender brown eyes watching over and guarding her, and in her sleep she sighed his name.
Now before the door of her step-mother’s home she stood once more. Madame Yamada came and looked at her. With her came to the doorstep her two daughters. Azalea bent so low and humbly that with the weight upon her back she nigh fell to the ground. Her voice was almost too faint to hear.
“One night of shelter, good, dear, kindest of mothers—and a little food!”
Madame Yamada’s voice was as hard as her face.
“So you have returned!” she said. “You are without shame, it seems. This is the house of respectable people. The Kirishitan cannot enter.”
“Kirishitan—Kirishitan!” Azalea repeated the word vaguely, dazedly. “I am not Kirishitan,” she said. “The gods——”
Madame Yamada’s shrill laugh interrupted her.
“What! And you carry the evil book in the front of your obi!”
“That!” Azalea dragged the book from her obi. She held it up with both hands,then with a sudden, wild vehemence dashed it to the ground and put her foot upon it.
“It has brought me evil. Good step-mother, I have cast it from me. Give me shelter,” and she stretched her hands out in piteous appeal. But only the blank wall of shoji faced her now. Madame Yamada and her daughters had closed the doors upon her, even as she renounced her religion.
In a frenzy she beat with her thin hands upon the panelling, and her moaning voice reached those within.
“Oh, hearts of stone, take then the child within. It is dying! dying!”
Her step-mother thrust her fist throughthe paper shoji. One baleful eye was placed at the opening. But she did not speak.
The burst of passion subsided. Azalea’s hands fell to her side; she slowly stiffened and straightened herself. She stood in giddy hesitation a moment, then slowly moved away.
Through half the length of the night she wandered about the hill country and town of Sanyo. Once she came to some water and its murmuring song evoked a momentary response in her. She began to laugh in a soft, mad way as she stepped into it; but the water came only to her ankles and the baby upon her back moved and moanedin its sleep. Something burned within her head. Words, words—words—spoken in that deep voice she had so loved. To take life was an evil and unpardonable thing in the sight of the One God! She stepped upon the bank of the brook in shivering terror. Suddenly she ran from it as though from a great temptation. She sped on from the dark allurement of the country to where the light of the city told her of the warmth and happiness of others. Through street and street she wandered, her feet dragging, her head dropped forward. She lost her sandals and her feet, in the worn and old linen, bled from the touch of the pavement. She had now lost all sense oflocality. Only she knew that thrice she paraded one particular street—an avenue shaded by dark, drooping bamboos, under whose shade houses of exquisite structure and light gleamed out upon the night.
Azalea stopped before one of them—the largest of all. Her hand rested heavily upon the bamboo gate; but she did not attempt to push it open. Now she stood still with a nameless quiet and terror in her heart. Suddenly, as she wavered, the babe upon her back twisted in its wrappings, and weirdly, piercingly cried aloud. A moment later one appeared at the door of the house with a lighted andon in his hand. He came with hasty steps down to thebamboo gate, and there in the dim light of the lifted andon he saw the woman Azalea. He seized her by the arm and drew her up the path and into the house.