Japanese Literature Part 49

SERVANT.--I fear it will be uncomfortable, but I must ask you to put your head under this.

WIFE.--Please arrange me so that he cannot possibly know the difference between us.

SERVANT.--He will never know. It will do very nicely like this.

WIFE.--Will it?

SERVANT.--Yes.

WIFE.--Well, then! do you go and rest.

SERVANT.--Your commands are laid to heart.

[_He moves away._

WIFE.--Wait a moment, Taraukuwazhiya!

SERVANT.--Yes, ma'am.

WIFE.--It is scarcely necessary to say so, but be sure not to tell him that it is I.

SERVANT.--Of course not, I should not think of telling him.

WIFE.--It has come to my ears that you have been secretly wis.h.i.+ng for a purse and silk wrapper.[174] I will give you one of each which I have worked myself.

SERVANT.--I am extremely grateful for your kindness.

WIFE.--Now be off and rest.

SERVANT.--Yes, ma'am.

_Enter husband, singing as he walks along the road._

Why should the lonely sleeper heed The midnight bell, the bird of dawn?

But ah! they're sorrowful indeed When loosen'd was the damask zone.

Her image still, with locks that sleep Had tangled, haunts me, and for aye; Like willow-sprays where winds do sweep, All tangled too, my feelings lie.

As the world goes, it rarely happens even with the most ardent secret love; but in my case I never see her but what I care for her more and more:--

'Twas in the spring-time that we first did meet, Nor e'er can I forget my flow'ret sweet.

Ah well! ah well! I keep talking like one in a dream, and meantime Taraukuwazhiya is sure to be impatiently awaiting me. I must get home.

How will he have been keeping my place for me? I feel a bit uneasy.

[_He arrives at his house._] Halloo! halloo! Taraukuwazhiya! I'm back!

I'm back! [_He enters the room._] I'm just back. Poor fellow! the time must have seemed long to you. There now! [_Seating himself._] Well, I should like to tell you to take off the "abstraction blanket"; but you would probably feel ashamed at being exposed.[175] Anyhow I will relate to you what Hana said last night if you care to listen. Do you?

[_The figure nods acquiescence._] So you would like to? Well, then, I'll tell you all about it: I made all the haste I could, but yet it was nearly dark before I arrived; and I was just going to ask admittance, my thoughts full of how anxiously Hana must be waiting for me in her loneliness, saying, perhaps, with the Chinese poet[176]:--

He promised but he comes not, and I lie on my pillow in the fifth watch of the night:-- The wind shakes the pine trees and the bamboos; can it be my beloved?

when there comes borne to me the sound of her voice, humming as she sat alone:--

"The breezes through the pine trees moan, The dying torch burns low; Ah me! 'tis eerie all alone!

Say, will he come or no?"

So I gave a gentle rap on the back door, on hearing which she cried out: "Who's there? who's there?" Well, a shower was falling at the time. So I answered by singing:--

Who comes to see you Hana dear, Regardless of the soaking rain?

And do your words, Who's there, who's there?

Mean that you wait for lovers twain?

to which Hana replied:--

"What a fine joke! well, who can tell?

On such a dark and rainy night Who ventures out must love me well, And I, of course, must be polite, And say: Pray sir, pa.s.s this way."

And, with these words, she loosened the ring and staple with a cling-a-ring, and pushed open the door with a crick-a-tick; and while the breeze from the bamboo blind poured towards me laden with the scent of flowers, out she comes to me, and, "At your service, sir,"

says she, "though I am but a poor country maid." So in we went, hand in hand, to the parlor. But yet her first question, "Who's there?" had left me so doubtful as to whether she might not be playing a double game, that I turned my back on her, and said crossly that I supposed she had been expecting a number of lovers, and that the thought quite spoiled my pleasure. But oh! what a darling Hana is! Coming to my side and clasping tight my hand, she whispered, saying:

"If I do please you not, then from the first Better have said that I do please you not; But wherefore pledge your troth, and after turn Against me? Alas! alas!

"Why be so angry? I am playing no double game." Then she asked why I had not brought you, Taraukuwazhiya, with me; and on my telling her the reason why you had remained at home, "Poor fellow!" said she, "how lonely he must be all by himself! Never was there a handier lad at everything than he, though doubtless it is a case of the mugwort planted among the hemp, which grows straight without need of twisting, and of the sand mixed with the mud, which gets black without need of dyeing,[177] and it is his having been bound to you from a boy that has made him so genteel and clever. Please always be a kind master to him." Yes, those are the things you have said of you when Hana is the speaker. As for my old vixen, she wouldn't let as much fall from her mug in the course of a century, I'll warrant! [_Violent shaking under the blanket._] Then she asked me to pa.s.s into the inner room to rest awhile. So in we went to the inner room, hand in hand. And then she brought out wine and food, and pressed me to drink, so that what with drinking one's self, and pa.s.sing the cup to her, and pressing each other to drink, we kept feasting until quite far into the night, when at her suggestion another room was sought and a little repose taken.

But soon day began to break, and I said I would go home. Then Hana exclaimed:--

"Methought that when I met thee, dearest heart!

I'd tell thee all that swells within my breast:-- But now already 'tis the hour to part, And oh! how much still lingers unexpress'd!

Please stay and rest a little longer!" "But no!" said I, "I must get home. All the temple-bells are a-ringing." "And heartless priests they are," cried she, "that ring them! Horrid wretches to begin their ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, when it is still the middle of the night!" But for all her entreaties, and for all my own regrets, I remembered that "meeting is but parting," and,

Tearing me loose, I made to go; farewell!

Farewell a thousand times, like ocean sands Untold! and followed by her distant gaze I went; but as I turn'd me round, the moon, A slender rim, sparkling remain'd behind, And oh! what pain it was to me to part!

[_He sheds tears._] And so I came home. Oh! isn't it a pity? [_Weeping again._] Ah well! out of my heart's joy has flamed all this long history, and meanwhile you must be very uncomfortable. Take off that "abstraction blanket." Take it off, for I have nothing more to tell you. Gracious goodness! what a stickler you are! Well, then! I must pull it off myself. I _will_ have it off, man! do you hear me?

[_He pulls off the blanket, and up jumps his wife._

WIFE.--Oh! how furious I am! Oh! how furious I am! To hoax me and go off to Hana in that manner!

HUSBAND.--Oh! not at all, not at all! I never went to Hana. I have been performing my devotions, indeed I have.

WIFE.--What! so he means to come and tell me that he has been performing his devotions? and then into the bargain to talk about "things the old vixen would never have let drop"! Oh! I'm all ablaze with rage! Hoaxing me and going off--where? Going off where?

[_Pursuing her husband round the stage._

HUSBAND.--Not at all, not at all! I never said anything of the kind.

Do, do forgive me! do forgive me!

WIFE.--Oh! how furious I am! Oh! how furious I am! Where have you been, sir? where have you been?