The Dragon Painter Part 16

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Then a little hand, stealing from a nun's gray sleeve, slipped into his."]

Yeddo and modern Tokyo alike give entertainment to the traditional nine days' wonder. Sometimes the wonder does not fade at all, and so it was with the case of Tatsu and his wife. If he had been an idol, he was now a demiG.o.d, Ume-ko sharing the sweet divinity of human tenderness with him.

Had it all happened a century before, the people would have built for them a yas.h.i.+ro, with altar and a shrine. Here they would have been wors.h.i.+pped as G.o.ds still in the flesh, and lovers would have prayed to them for aid and written verses and burned sweet incense.

Being of modern Tokyo, most of this adulation went into newspaper articles. Old men envied Kano his dutiful daughter, young men envied Tatsu his beautiful and loving wife. The print-makers, indeed, perpetrated a series of representations that put old Kano's artistic teeth on edge. First there was Ume at the willow; then Tatsu, in the same place, taking his mad plunge for death's oblivion; Ume, the hooded acolyte, kneeling in the sick chamber at the head of her husband's bed; Ume, the nun, standing each day at twilight on the edge of the temple cliff to catch a glimpse of him she loved; and, at the last, Tatsu and Ume rejoined beside the tomb of Kano Uta-ko. Fortunately these pictures were never seen by the two most concerned.

They went away on a second bridal journey, this time to Tatsu's native mountains in Kiu s.h.i.+u. While there, the good friend Ando Uchida was to be sought, and made acquainted with the strange history of the previous months.

Mata and her old master remained placidly at home. They had no fears.

At the appointed date--only a week more now--the two would come back, as they had promised, to begin the long, tranquil life of art and happiness. There were to be great pictures! Kano chuckled and rubbed his lean hands together, as he sat in his lonely room. Then the thought faded, for a tenderer thought had come. In a year or more, if the G.o.ds willed, another and a keener blessedness might be theirs.

To dream quite delicately enough of this, the old man shut his eyes.

Oh, it was a dream to make the springtime of the world stir at the roots of being! A tear crept down from the blue-veined lids, making its way through wrinkles, those "dry river-beds of smiles." If the baby fingers came,--those small, fearless fingers that were one's own youth reborn,--they would press out all fretful lines of age, leaving only tender traceries. He leaned forward, listening. Already he could hear the tiny feet echo along the rooms, could see small, shaven heads bowing their first good morning to the O Ji San,--revered, beloved patriarch of the home! How old Mata would idolize and scold and pet them! A queer old soul was Mata, with faults, as all women have, but in the main, a treasure! Good times were coming for the old folks in that house! So sat Kano, dreaming, in his empty chamber; and unless we have eternity to spare, nodding beside him on the mats, we must bow, murmuring, "Sayo-nara!"