Читать книгу The Breath of the Gods - Sidney McCall - Страница 7

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The Todd household slept until late the morning after the party. Next to the efficient hirelings—those ball-bearing sockets of domestic ease—the senator himself was first to awake.

He came slowly into the day, as though passing from a fair garden into one more fair. That sense of some great good, new-garnered, and in the warm sweet haze of sleep not quite recalled, caressed his smiling lips. In spite of dalliance, the shining consciousness drew near. His appointment had been given! Ah, that was the new glory! He was in effect, at that instant, "Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary" to a Wonderland! It was not the honor that thrilled him, but the opportunity. He would have a niche near the breathing heart of that strange country. Proving himself worthy, he might go deeper, drinking at that spiritual fountain of eternal youth.

Lying now on his rich, canopied bed, with all the luxury of modern Occidental life heaped close, Todd told himself that, because of the success, he was all the more a soul, an individual, with better things to seek. He scorned to be a pampered animal, possessed by its possessions. He envied anew the clean, sweet poverty of the samurai's code.

He was now at that elevation in life where past events take proper place, as in a landscape, and vistas begin. Yesterday was his fiftieth year. By another coincidence—those clashings of star-beams in his career—his birthday fell on that of the Japanese Emperor.

Looking back now, he could see where streams of tendency, taking rise in boyhood, had worked steadily, though through seeming deviations, towards this one great tide of purpose. His lonely interest in rice-culture had been a hidden spring; his coming to Washington, where Japan's development was a living topic instead of a solitary reader's dream, a winding stream of fate. Yuki herself was a deep well of inspiration. Now at last had come his opportunity to serve, in one life-giving effort, his own beloved country—and Japan. The future widened for him into a deep harbor where great fleets of achievement might find safe anchorage.

Yuki entered for the ten o'clock breakfast in full street costume. At Mrs. Todd's lifted eyebrows of inquiry, Gwendolen, who was just behind her friend, explained.

"She has an appointment at eleven with her Hindoo idol. Baron Kanrio said last night that dad was to go too. Yuki thought she might be allowed to accompany him, if she were very good."

"Of course!" said the senator, heartily. "Glad to have her. Prince Haganè gave me the date, eleven, a. m., but he didn't mention Yuki."

"Oh, how could you think it?" drawled saucy Gwendolen. "She's only a girl. He wouldn't notice a girl."

"It rather looks as if he had noticed her," retorted Mr. Todd. "A definite appointment! They say his daily average of callers is about two hundred."

"It is only for my father's sake. He will give me a message," explained Yuki, hastily. "Gwendolen is right. So great a man do not think much of girls."

"Humph," said Gwendolen, "that doesn't go! He stared at you as if you were a candied cherry-petal, and he wanted to swallow you at a gulp. Pierre Le Beau saw it, too. Heavens, how he scowled! A regular Medusa! I expect all the chrysanthemums are turned to yellow onyx by his glare."

Yuki gave a start, and then flushed with painful intensity. "Please! Please!" she was beginning, when Mrs. Todd unconsciously interrupted with an exclamation of delight.

After her methodical pouring of the coffee, the good lady had plunged into the morning papers. "Ah, Gwendolen, these notices are splendid!—better than I could have hoped. Society reporters are usually so touchy and carping!"

"There was one youthful Mr. Dooley that I made sure of," said Gwendolen, calmly, as she cracked an egg. "I had the orchestra strike up 'Call me thine own!' while I took him to a corner and plied him with Louis Roederer, Carte Blanche!"

Little Yuki and the senator drove off together. Each had things to think of, though not much to say. The carriage bowled smoothly along asphalt thoroughfares. At close intervals small parks were passed, some round, some angular, but all like emeralds in a web of silver-tinted streets. Now and then the great meerschaum-colored dome of the Capitol came into sudden view, with its suggestion of purpose and of majesty.

The girl's neat fawn-tinted dress was now supplemented by furs, and a wide hat of brown velvet, with a silver chain about the crown, and nodding feathers. Her hair, puffed round her face in recent fashion, completed the Americanizing of her attire. From the dainty gloves, thrust deep into her muff, to the soft brown boots, she was modern, chic, Occidental.

At the Japanese Legation, both Baron Kanrio and the prince's secretary, Hirai, were awaiting them. The eyes of the latter shone with eagerness at sight of his young compatriot. Kanrio sent them, chattering already of Japan, into the drawing-room to await Yuki's summons. With a slight gesture he beckoned to Todd, and they went together along the hall to the well-known den.

Haganè sat in it, alone. The disposition of the few stiff chairs bespoke recent visitors. The library table, covered with green leather, had maps upon it, letters and papers, besides a Japanese smoking outfit and a tray with tea and some small cups.

As they entered, the great man slowly rose. He wore again his plain dark native robes. In the relentless daylight he appeared older, more sallow, and at the same time more impressive. His hand-grasp for the senator was cordiality itself. His deep eyes lighted pleasantly, as he said, "Welcome, your Excellency!"

Todd started, and then flushed like a boy, at the title. Kanrio grinned with delight.

"Oh—er—beg pardon; but it's the first time. Rather knocked me off my pins. Thanks, your Highness! I feel it a good omen to have it come from you."

"Shall we be seated?" asked Haganè.

"Gomen—nasai," (excuse me) murmured Kanrio, with a gesture. He removed the soiled cups from the table to the top of a low bookcase, then rang for fresh cups and a new pot of tea. He and Haganè took a few sips, Japanese fashion; Todd declined.

"I understand, your Excellency, that your appointment as envoy to our small island has come the very recent time?"

"Only last night, your Highness." Todd's eyes met in unembarrassed candor those of Haganè. "Of course I've worked for it. My heart was set on it. The Baron here has been an inspiration!"

"My dear sir, don't trouble to recall my unimportant service," deprecated Kanrio.

"I understand," said Haganè, slowly, "that for some time you have honored our—country—with your studious—interest. If it is not impertinence, may I venture to inquire what—circumstances, what—a—unfamiliar categories—first stung your thought to the pursuit of Far Eastern knowledge?" He spoke very slowly, slurring neither vowel nor consonant, and choosing, it would seem, from a rich vocabulary. Nevertheless he pieced the words together with a slight effort.

Todd knitted his brows, not in lack of understanding, but from desire to answer definitely and concisely the comprehensive question.

Haganè may have mistaken the silence, for he added immediately, "My English is—stiff—not well—manœuvred. My meanings perhaps become involved. Shall not Baron Kanrio stand as—interpreter—for my heavy thought?"

"No, no," said Todd, eagerly. "Do not think it, your Highness! I understand perfectly. Your very misuse of some of our slippery old timeworn words is illuminating. It was your question that made me pause, not your way of putting it."

"My dear sir," protested Haganè, "I desire you to feel no obligations to answer. I intended, perhaps, a thinner meaning than your own mind has seized. Was it Japanese Art, as with Frenchmen? Statistics, Sociology, Political Economy?" Todd noted the greater ease with which these abstract and philosophic terms were employed.

"None of these, your Highness—and yet all! My study—you will think me presumptuous, I fear—might not be called less than—the ultimate destiny of your race!"

Haganè's smouldering eyes leaped into sudden fire. He looked down quickly, as if to deny the flame. Todd felt the air stir and tingle with a new vibration.

"Yes, your Excellency, we are attempting to employ valuable hints from various representative governments of your enlightened West," said he, conventionally.

"Hints!" echoed Todd; "that is just the wonder of you! They are hints in reality, thoughts to be absorbed only just so far as you need them, and the rest chucked. You don't stick them on like plaster to cover up a mediæval birthmark. You have quite as much to give as we, and you know it. Haven't I watched and studied, with Kanrio here to coach? You Japanese alone can combine the best of the two civilizations. You can best fuse the experience, character, insight, humanity—of both long-suffering hemispheres. We Americans are just ourselves; but you are we, and all the rest of it! That's why your old gods set you on the fighting line. You are a whole laboratory experiment in sociology, all to yourselves!"

"I perceive that you have been thinking carefully upon us," said Haganè, still conventional, contained; but his one upward look, instantly withdrawn, had the "swish" of a scythe.

"It isn't all admiration, you know!" exclaimed Todd, with an impulsiveness far more flattering than reserve. "You have made, it seems to me, some thundering bad mistakes—like the dropping of Port Arthur at the first growl of that bear, Russia. But you've got your second wind all right. You Japanese know, better than any American or Englishman, that Russian preponderance in China means a walled continent of tyranny, the gates guarded by Greek fire. If you conquer, your best interests are at one with the progress of an enlightened twentieth-century world. Now, your Highness, deny it if you can!" He leaned back, his thin face aglow. Haganè apparently had difficulty in keeping eyes upon the table.

"You—er—pass through the waving branches," said he, very slowly, "and cleave to the heart of the tree. So only are the rings of epochs counted. Do others of your countrymen think thus?"

"Well," said Todd, "to be honest, I judge that most of my countrymen would prefer sitting on the bough, stealing apples, rather than counting concentric rings. I guess love of the East must have been born with me."

"Interesting, interesting!" murmured Haganè. "And yet, your Excellency, though indigenous, something must have fed the growth. Every development possess, I think, allotted kind of nourishment."

"Oh, events contributed, I presume. Now and then things turned up just when they were wanted." Todd was surprised at his own ease in the great man's presence. He drew inspiration, not awe, from the intelligent eyes and slow, suggestive smile. "Yes, things came! I planted your Forty-Seven Ronin into my biggest field of wheat! And my old mule, Kuranosukè, did me better work than any span of horses. Then, your Highness, the baron here—oh, you needn't shake your finger, Baron!—pointed me to heavenly manna; and the child Yuki, my daughter's friend, led me into paths that adult eyes could never have seen."

Haganè crushed the red ash of his cigarette, and leaned farther back in his chair. The expression of his face altered slightly—softened, one might say, were it not still so impressive. If waves of strength and influence had flowed from him before, they ebbed now, leaving consciousness a little thin and dry. Yet all three men smiled faintly, as at a pleasant thought.

"Ah, little Onda Yuki-ko, the child of my old kerai."

"It is a term meaning 'feudal retainer,'" put in Kanrio, amiably, to Mr. Todd.

"Yes," went on Haganè, "I was encouraged last night to see her so strong to look at, and so—pardon vulgarity, your Excellency—so inoffensive to the eye in personal appearance."

Todd flung back his head and laughed outright. "Inoffensive—that's a good one! Why, your Highness, Yuki is quoted as a beauty here in Washington. Artists beg to paint her, and swell photographers to pose. If she intended casting in her lot with us, she could have the pick and choice of half the young bloods here." He sent a merry glance to Kanrio, as for corroboration, but was met by a stare so blank, so baffling, that his smile faded.

The prince was carefully, very carefully, lighting a fresh cigarette. "Pardonnez moi!" he mumbled, between coaxing, initial puffs. "It is I who am the stupidity! 'Pick and choice—young bloods'—I fear I do not quite—er—apprehend."

"Your Highness," Kanrio broke in, "Mr. Todd speaks in the idiomatic phrases of society. He desired to transmit the impression that Miss Onda is thought to be beautiful."

"Ah, is that it? And—young bloods?"

"Young men, I should have said. Pardon my slang. Merely young men, your Highness," explained Cyrus, feeling suddenly quite ill at ease.

"Ah, yes," muttered Haganè to himself. "I have a recollection. Last night—" he broke off. His voice was higher and a little careless, as he asked of Todd, directly, "Is Onda Yuki-ko to sail with your family?"

"Yes. She had not intended returning till next spring. She wanted to take an extra course in French or something. But she wouldn't stay behind, now that we are going. She and my daughter are like sisters." Todd rose, muttering words to the effect that he had trespassed too long. Haganè rose also. Todd felt resentful, though he could have assigned no definite cause. "Good-morning, your Highness, or, as Miss Yuki has taught me to say, 'Sayonara'! I thank you for the honor of this interview."

The word "Sayonara" brought Haganè sharply to himself. "The thanks belong not to me, Excellency," he smiled and stretched out a powerful hand. "Seldom do I so deeply enjoy a conversation with one met for the first time. I consider that Nippon, and our-Sacred Emperor"—(he paused, and the two Japanese bowed deeply,) "are to receive the congratulation."

Power and purpose thrilled in his hand-clasp. Todd tingled anew with it. "What a man! What a bottled genius hauled up from a sea of fate!" he said to Kanrio, as they descended the stairs.

"Prince Sanètomo is one who does his duty," admitted Kanrio, in an impassive tone.

Hirai accompanied Yuki to the office door. They went a little slowly, considering the rank of the summoner, and talked hurriedly in the hall-ways, each reluctant to release a topic so dear. There had been not only Japan and childhood to gloat upon, but, already, reference could be made to a past—twelve hours old. "Do you remember," and "As you were saying last evening," are potent introductory clauses. Both young people had been born in Tokio, and though unnamed to each other before, soon established unity of class, training, inherited ideals, and childish experiences. The secretary had often heard of Sir Onda Tetsujo, Yuki's father, a knight of the old school, famed for his stern rectitude and his loyalty to a vanished past. With some hesitation Hirai ventured to suggest that he should consider it a privilege to be allowed to call upon Sir Tetsujo and his lady, in their Tokio home. Yuki urged this eagerly. She could send by the younger man messages that seemed too trivial for transmission through Prince Haganè. "Yes, yes—please call upon them—dō-zo! They will receive you so happily. Ah, and to think that you will see them long, long before I can come! You will reach Nippon before the maples have quite burned themselves away, or Fuji lowered upon her opal cone the full white robe of winter. How am I to endure the waiting? I wish I were to start with the suite of Prince Haganè to-morrow!"

Hirai's fine face echoed this sentiment vividly, but he refrained from speech. He was a correct young man, and had no intention of presuming on the young girl's veneer of Americanism. He left her at the door. It had to her fancy, now, the feeling of a shrine, a Shinto temple, approached through paths of childish memories. She lifted one gloved hand to knock, and her lips twitched at the clamorous instinct to raise both hands, rub the palms together, and clap thrice as before a deity. She controlled herself, however, shaking her head a little wistfully, and murmuring as to a voice, "No, though my soul still is Nipponese, I have become a Christian. I am half American, too. I must remember." She gave now a sharp, determined rap.

"O-idè!" boomed a deep voice from within. Yuki's knees melted. Whatever the rest of her, they were evidently not American. She entered with downcast eyes.

Haganè did not seem to recognize her. He looked hard, and asked, "Is this Onda Yuki-ko?"

She lifted the brim of her hat, and let shy eyes rest upon him. "Your Highness, it is Yuki, a worthless young acquaintance with whom you spoke last night." She used the Japanese language, with the full complement of honorifics.

"An odd eventuation," said the other, dryly. "I thought to summon the child of my old kerai, the maiden of last evening—and, behold, a small, pert shade from the Avenue de l'Opéra!"

"It does not augustly displease your Highness?" murmured the girl, not understanding his full meaning.

"Not at all. It may even prove valuable for Nippon, and Tetsujo could wish no more. But be seated, child. I have scanty moments to dole you, and there are messages."

"Lord," murmured Yuki, seating herself on the hard chair indicated, "it is too much for you to burden your exalted memory for my insignificant satisfaction."

Haganè ignored the deprecating whisper. Taking a seat deliberately, he began, "At the Shimbashi station of Yedo, where, since many notable officers were to accompany me, a great crowd of well-wishers thronged to say farewell, I soon discerned the dark face and the proud head of your father, Onda Tetsujo."

He paused, smiling slightly. The girl said nothing, only bent forward a little, her face full of unconscious excitement.

"Close behind him, gentle, clinging, self-effacing, as a good wife should always be, I saw—"

Yuki, forgetting her breeding, fairly snatched the words from his mouth. "My mother—I know, Lord, it was my dear mother! And the old nurse Suzumè, was she there?"

"There was, indeed, a female something that incessantly bowed, and drew breath with a ferocity that drowned the hissing of the engine. Has that the air of Suzumè?"

"Yes, yes, her very self. Oh, how can I wait to get back home! Ten weeks, Lord, before I am to start!"

"The words uttered by your parents were these—I may not recall the exact terms, but I have their purpose clear. First, Iriya said: 'Tell to our child that empty hearts and a cheerless home ache through this night of absence, for her coming.' Her soft eyes touched my heart, though men call me stern. Ere I could bow assent, your father Tetsujo—ah ha! that old kerai, the unreconstructed feudal knight!—pushed rudely past, and cried to me, 'Taint memory with no such puerile demand, my Lord! Say to the girl that hearts and aches are nothing. As long as I have yen to forward, let her remain until she is fitted, though a woman, to be of some slight service to her land. I pray you, Lord, to judge of her. Should she need to stay full ten years longer, I would not repine. I have no son. She is the substitute. Empty hearts, aching nights, bah! Crumbling barley sugar of a weak spirit! Midzu-amè in a human jar! Good Iriya, my wife, I advise you to cease your prayers before concessive deities, and learn to worship more sincerely our God of War. He is to be the flaming incarnation of this epoch!'"

"I can see—I hear them both," said Yuki. "My father is right—though the tears that must have stung my mother's eyes do now sting mine. Lord, shall you think me fit to go to such a father? I have done what the Americans call—graduate. I have even received prizes for good study."

"Do they offer prizes here for doing duty? An immoral practice, especially for the young—instilling envy, cupidity. But it concerns me not. Your question, Yuki—are you fitted to return? I cannot give myself time to be satisfied entirely with the fitness; but, for other reasons, I am well aware that it is time for you to return. His Excellency, Mr. Todd, spoke of the first of the New Year. I wish it were to-morrow."

"Lord," faltered the girl, "are your august utterances heavy with reproof? Have you charges of misconduct against me?" Her guilty heart ran, as a thief for a hidden treasure, to the thought of Pierre Le Beau and the half-troth her weakness had allowed him to secure. The next words of the great man relieved her strangely.

"Nay, nay, little one, I have heard of no wrong. Look not so fearful; one would think me Emma-O, the Lord of Hell, in the flesh. My thought was chiefly that, just now, even your present acquirements might serve Nippon."

"Ah, it is of war you hint! Here, many believe that it will not come. Is it to come, Lord?" She had drawn very close. Haganè perceived, as one looking at a picture, the exquisite balance of features in the pointed oval face, the pale width of brow under clouds of dusty hair, the refinement, the trembling sensitiveness of lips and chin. His eyes held a certain keen, inscrutable intentness of regard. The corners now wrinkled slightly with a smile.

"A nightingale studies not with a maker of swords," he said slowly. "Yet may the nightingale's note give warning where the sword could not avail. What one has not heard, cannot be told. It is a time when the whispering of leaves is to be shunned, and the fall of the petals counted."

Yuki caught her underlip between her teeth to steady its trembling. Again she felt reproved, though nothing could be kinder than the great man's voice.

"Four years," he mused aloud, "four years! Small space of time to us who are on the heights—but to the young, still wandering happily on flowered-covered slopes, it is long, quite long. Ah, little Yuki, it is but yesterday that you came, as a child, to my Tabata villa. You clung timidly, at first, to Tetsujo's hand; but the serving-maids soon won you to the air. After that, at my request, Tetsujo brought you often. You were a scarlet poppy turned loose in that dim old garden. My eye would follow you through passages of the good Tetsujo's somewhat prosy discourse. You used to perch upon the gray rocks of the pond, and fish for hours, throwing back the small wriggling bits of gold as soon as caught. Do you remember, Yuki?"

"Yes, Lord, well do I remember," said Yuki, her mouth trembling into laughter. The self-consciousness faded. He knew that it would be so. It was for this that he had contrived the long speech of reminiscence. "Once," she went on shyly, "once, into that pond I fell, screaming with terror to think that certainly, now, all the goldfish would make haste to bite their enemy."

"Their best revenge, I take it, was in the cold you caught," laughed the prince.

"Nay, Highness," said she, gravely, "no cold at all did I acquire. The maid-servants and thy divine, pitying princess rescued me. They changed my worthless garments, and urged upon me much hot tea and a small, sweet powder. Indeed, but for the trouble my clumsiness occasioned, I enjoyed more the falling into that august pond than the fishing beside it."

Haganè smiled a little abstractedly. He did not laugh again. He turned to the table and smoothed the corners of a document. "The villa has no princess now, my child. In my many houses I come and go alone."

Yuki looked upon the floor. "My spirit is poisoned by your sorrow, Lord. Forgive my great rudeness in mentioning. I did not know."

He drew a short, impatient sigh. "The princess resides again with her own people in Choshiu. But these matters have interest for none but me. Hark, is that not the hour of noon now striking? I must dismiss you." She rose instantly at his words. He followed with more deliberation. She turned to the door, then wavered back to him, distressed evidently by thoughts she shrank from voicing.

"Speak, child," he said kindly, "no mad haste is necessary. Say what you will."

Still she moved soundless lips. In some inexplicable way she had fallen short. It was not only that she felt she had not reached his highest expectations, but, more definitely, she had failed to reach her own. Her acquired Americanism crackled on her, like a useless husk. She thirsted for new strength. Before her stood one able to give it, yet she could find no words to ask. "It is ten—weeks before I can start home, Lord," she managed at last to articulate. "I am only a girl, but I would die for Nippon, for my Emperor. What—what—" Again she faltered.

Haganè took a small hand in his own and smiled reassurance. "Only the very young and inexperienced think it necessary to state willingness to die for a country. Give me the coming thought."

"In these last weeks what can I do—what can I suffer—how shall I pray—that I may make myself worthy of return?"

The smile on the overhung dark face saddened into a look far tenderer than smiling. Yuki felt virtue, like a fluid, rush through her from his touch. "Keep always to the thought that you are Nipponese—that you guard, in yourself, an immortal spirit, powerful for good or ill. Let not the tendrils of your outreaching soul cling to alien ideals, for, if so, each in the twining means a wrench and a scar, and the unscarred soul is sweeter to the gods. Think nothing of the body—of personal desires, of personal reward. Say to yourself always, 'It is enough to be a Nipponese.'"

Yuki was already stilled and comforted. "Lord," she said, lifting brave eyes, "I think it true that the lowliest among us, through self-striving, may become a god. My little spark of light has slept until this moment. I can never again be quite the same girl who came into this room. I will curve the memory of your words about my spirit, as one shields his candle from a wind."

"In Nippon I see you next, my Yuki. And now, 'Sayonara,' till that time."

"Sayonara," whispered Yuki, and hurried out into a new day.