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A Japanese Nightingaleetc.
For fourteen consecutive days she had remained before the shrine, eating no food, drinking little water, sleeping not. Mechanically she went through the monotonous motions, bending her body back and forth, until it seemed like some mechanical puppet, working clock-like back and forth, her parched, weary lips uttering only the feeble common prayer of the devout Buddhist:
(Save us, Eternal Buddha!
)
A venerable Namu, Amida Butsu!
Many years before, hundreds of monks had congregated before this same, then
A
In this retreat, the broken-spirited
Not even the people from the nearest village visited the deserted temple, save when rare pilgrimages were made to the place; and then they who went told, with shudders, of the unspeakably old, blind
It was summer. The bees had made a hive in one of the out- jutting eaves of the temple. The world was saffron colored, the hills, the skies, the fields, dim purple. A traveler pushed his way through the tangled brushwood, and paused before the ruined temple. He stood like one lost in the meshes of a strange dream. So deserted and still seemed this refuge he had sought that at first he wondered dazedly whether indeed there was life within.
Then he saw the sliding of the window screen, and Tokiwa leaned far out. She reached up a slim bamboo rod, poked at the eave and dislodged the hive. A moment of retreat from the angry bees, and then she cautiously slipped the
A sunbeam came through an opening door and fell like a searchlight upon her little startled face. She thought of the reverend
Art thou Tokiwa?
When she had recovered from her human amazement, she answered that she was indeed, miserably, that sinful and guilty worm, Tokiwa, grandchild of the temple And thou?
To which replied the boy, with a smile strangely sad:
Like thyself, a poor exile and fugitive, seeking an asylum from Shinran, the
.
Now Tokiwa knew nothing of the history of the times. She knew little indeed of her own history, save that in some former state she had sinned grievously, hence her expiation in this present life. Of the state of unrest and oppression, of civil war, of intriguing factions, of intolerable humiliation of the
Now here, apparently, stood before her another sinner like herself, one who said he too had been driven into exile. They were kindred spirits, twins in suffering.
She went toward him slowly, wide-eyed, her cheeks and lips red as the poppies tossed at the feet of the great Buddha, for Tokiwa was too poor to make a richer offering. With small hands crossed upon her bosom, like some fascinated creature, she stood in silence, looking at him, very near to him—so near,
Tokiwa!
he whispered lowly, and now he reached and touched the little crossed hands upon her bosom. They did not unclasp, but they trembled under the warm touch of his hand.
She began upon her prayers, but her voice caught upon the words. She could not finish them. Never in her life before had a human hand held her own; never had she looked into the eyes of a fellow mortal. The stone gaze of the Buddhas was calm, with a wisdom past understanding, but never they smiled, and always the touch of their feet, where daily she put her small meek head, was cold. Unconsciously her own lips and eyes caught the infection of the boy’s smiling gaze, and, as she smiled, again he spoke:
Tokiwa, how beautiful thou art. Pray thee, smile again!
Some vague feeling of unrest stirred within her. She clutched her heart tightly, as if to stay its tumultuous beating.
Hush!
she whispered, Buddha will hear!
He followed her, catching at her fluttering sleeve, as, soundlessly, she fled across the great room of worship and disappeared into an interior apartment.
He was seventeen, a youth born and bred in the refined, slavishlavish
.
From day to day he wandered about the dusty, silent temple, bowing mechan-
But no longer Tokiwa danced for the gods; no longer her graceful little body prostrated itself before the shrine. No longer she touched the great foot of the stone Buddha with her small meek brow.
The wind-bells tinkled. A hummingbird flew under its glass. Under the sun the lotus in the unmoving water opened their white fingers, revealing the golden heart within. A hand, white as the lotus itself, pushed its flat-shaped leaves aside and over the clear mirror of the water thus revealed, a girl’s eager face looked and looked.
What instinct had guided her to the pool? How could she know the water alone in all this deserted wilderness would show her her beauty? Maybe at some time before the coming of Prince Go-Yoshi she had dreamily watched the slim outline of her small, reflected hand upon the water and thus had learned of nature’s mirror.
However it be, for seven days she had obeyed the injunction of the reverend
Tokiwa! How beautiful thou art! Pray thee, smile again
.
Now, in the dawn, she had come to the pool, irresistibly drawn there by the eternal feminine within her, to prove him.
As she looked, whispering mechanically the recurring words of her prayer, she saw that other face coming beside her own, there in the water beneath. For a moment she did not stir. Then as he spoke her name, his lips almost touching the small pink shell of her ear, she turned to him throbbingly:
(Thou at last!)
Where hast thou been, beloved?
A caress was upon every word he spoke.
I have been praying
, she faltered.
For what?
he asked.
My sins
, she said.
At that he smiled.
She caught her breath as if she could not find the words she wished:
—for I am not like thee, exalted one!
Suddenly she remembered to whom she spoke, and slipping down tremulously from the wall of the pool, she put her head at his feet, beginning her wistful prayer:
Stooping, he lifted her to her feet. She found herself held in the curve of his arm, his cheek against her own.
They spoke not at all, only moving step by step, about the old, overgrown temple gardens.
Summer had left only its last touches of deep bronze upon the land. Earth was sighing with its too swift departure. Already the trees had begun to drop their glorified freight. Like our best hopes which elude us, they slipped one by one from the branches, leaving them bare, hungry, naked! But still the nightingale poured forth its passionate heart to the starlit nights.
Listen
, said the Prince Go-Yoshi, I will tell you my dream of last night. Once, many moons ago, in the season of White Dew, you and I met and loved. You were a white butterfly drowsing on the heart of a wild poppy. I was a
She shivered slightly, and he slipped his arm out of the sleeve of his
The Son of Heaven cannot sin!
Nay, beloved. The gods belong not to Earth. Not even the
.
Her lips could not frame the words, her eyes speaking the language he longed to hear. Suddenly a cloud passed over her face. She pushed herself free, holding him back with her hands upon his breast.
When they shall come for thee!
she said.
Tokiwa!
Thou hast told me of thy father’s wrongs, and Oh! the sufferings of thy people!
The old blind
Son of Heaven!
he cried, his voice gaining a strange power from the emotion deep-seated within him, The time has come at last!
He put the dispatch brought by a courier into the boy’s trembling hand. It slipped from his nerveless fingers ere he could read it, and fell fluttering to the ground. An aimless wind caught the wisp of paper and blew it against the
Go!
she throbbingly whispered. Thy father calls thee. Thy people need thee!
Suddenly the ancient
(Glory to Hachiman, the Incarnation of Buddha!
)
The Prince Go-Yoshi caught his breath in a sobbing gasp. But he had turned about at last. He did not look back.
Always the parent comes first. Duty is higher than love. Thus from the suffocating struggle of heart and mind,
These were the troublous times of the Hojo rule, when for the first time in the history of Japan the emperor’s condition was so deplorable that often he knew not the bodily comfort of an ordinary citizen. At the cruel mercy of the warlords, their condition was pitiable. One boy Emperor was set up only to be deposed for another, often his own infant son. So rapid was the change from one boy Emperor to another, that princes of the true blood and direct line were now nearly exhausted. Yet this was the rule of Hojo. Infant sovereigns, divine figure-heads in the eyes of the world! And the real
Now Go-Yoshi’s turn had come; but not as a puppet went the boy back to the great capital. His father, already banished to Oki, needed succor. The Prince Go-Yoshi heeded the impassioned promise of the gallant little army which had rallied to his support. He planned to assist his father to recover the imperial power, and this at the price of his own forfeit of the throne as a puppet of
Not easily was the mighty power of the Hojo to be overthrown. In the delirium of defeat, there in the besieged and burning fortress of Kasagi in Yamato, Go-Yoshi gave himself up to despair.
A
Where the road from Kamakura meets the beach, a vision of extraordinary loveliness entrances the beholder. Here the fairest of all islands shows its face of eternal green. The ocean tosses its waters upon Enoshima’s shore like a great, playful mother, washing her best-loved child. In the distance the mountains of Idzu are dimly seen, and, as if enthroned as Queen of the World, above all, Fuji-yama raises her head of snow.
Along this road where nature seemed to show only her gentlest and kindest aspects, the hosts of Hojo traveled. Whither? There was no enemy to be met and destroyed hereabouts. The lately rebellious
Hands tied behind him, lest he do himself injury, his eyes bound about with a cloth, the Prince Go-Yoshi, upon his knees in his palanquin, was carried under guard of the soldiers of the Hojo; for as a hostage should he be held until the
Suddenly the cortege halted. Seemingly in the heart of the woods, it had come upon a curious sight, one seen only near the habitations of men. But here no dwelling, no meanest hut, nor smallest cot, told of human abode. Yet hidden only by the giant pines, centuries old, a few flowing invocation!
Only a sheet of cotton, suspended upon four sticks driven into the ground! How eloquent its meaning! How effective upon even the roughest, the hardest-hearted of the warriors of the bloodthirsty Hojo.
One stooped to the little brook hard by, and offering a prayer with the aid of his rosary, poured the water over the cloth, waiting patiently for it to strain through, ere he passed the dipper to a brother soldier. One by one, solemnly in
How significant to them this simple sheet of cotton! It told of mother love and mother pain. Mutely it appealed to the passersby for the love of all the gods, to shorten the sufferings of one in agony. Thus the mother who dies in childbirth, guilty of some awful offense in a previous existence, or in this life, must travel through the darkness of the lowest Hades, until through the compassion of the passers-by the cloth is worn out by the water poured upon it.
Here in the woods, far from the dwelling-place of men, who should there be to shorten the period of suffering of the child Tokiwa, mother of a new Emperor of Japan? Did not the fourteen days of penance at the altar, ere the coming of the child, suffice?
The flowing invocation
, and the reverent, silenced warriors about it. Only they saw the grizzled walls of the old Kamakura temple; and something welled up and stirred within the frozen heart of the poor defeated one—captive in the hands of the dreaded Hojo. The bloody days of soul torture, of physical suffering, of fire, starvation, humiliation, and surrender—all that had written their record in letters of fire upon the mind of the Prince Go- Yoshi—forgotten! A woman’s face—nay, but a child’s—came back to his memory’s eyes.
Tokiwa!
he suddenly cried aloud, dashing against the door of the temple, and plunged into its deserted interior. There, in the sunlight admitted by the opened door, a moment he lingered, where little Tokiwa had danced for the gods! He ran from room to room, fleeing up the eight flights of stairs, like one pursued rather than pursuing. His voice vibrated with his struggling emotions, now hopeful joy, now fear, unknown:
Tokiwa! Tokiwa! Tokiwa!
And then at last:
Oh, my beloved!
He had come upon her in the great hall of the nuns. Here where once hundreds of maiden souls had rested from their prayers, Tokiwa slept alone, her still pure and innocent face thrown back upon the wooden pillow, as if she looked upward at the faces of the compassionate gods on the great vaulted ceiling overhead.