CHAPTER VI

THE PRINCESS SADO-KO

WHILE the ladies of the household of the Princess Sado-ko, and guests of

her cousin the Prince Komatzu, were gossiping over their noonday tea,

Kamura Junzo, alone, was wandering aimlessly about the palace gardens.

He was melancholy and restless. Instead of being satisfied with his

success, Junzo was disappointed. He could not have explained why this

was so. His patron had been pleased with his work, he had received

marked attention and favor from those in power at court, and finally was

actually being petted by the ladies. Perhaps it was this latter

enervating thing that rendered the young man disappointed and disgusted.

Court life had not proved, after all, what he had fancied and pictured.

Nobility, such as he had anticipated, was there only in name. Here in

this small court of the noblest prince of the blood, gossip and scandal

buzzed like the swarming of bees.

Junzo did not wonder that the Princess Sado-ko kept herself in seclusion

in her private wing of the palace. In spite of the curious tales he had

heard of her eccentricities, he felt a glow of sympathy for her. Plainly

she disapproved of the life about her.

As he strolled about the castle gardens, Junzo’s memory carried him back

into the days of his childhood. A picture grew up in his mind of a great

stone wall and a cherry tree which drooped above it, and underneath the

cherry tree a small, bewitching creature in a miniature kimono and the

royal kanzashi in her hair.

He was smiling to himself in a tender, unconscious way, when he came to

a bamboo gate, which served as entrance through the hedge of boxwood

which divided the portion of the gardens in which he was from those

Junzo knew were always reserved for the royal ladies of the family. Now

he knew also that Komatzu was an orphan without sisters, and that his

cousin Sado-ko was the only lady who ever occupied this portion of the

palace.

Pausing before the gate, Junzo thought that as a boy he would not have

hesitated to push it open and penetrate into the forbidden territory

beyond. He would like now to take a peep into this garden of Sado-ko. If

he should chance to meet her, might he not crave mercy in the name of

that game they had played as children together in the gardens of the

palace Aoyama? She might be gracious still. So far it had not been his

fortune to see her in the palace Komatzu, for she was seldom in the

public places of the palace. He had an insatiable curiosity to see how

she had changed since childhood.

So he stepped across into the private gardens, making his way toward the

bamboo grove, through which he passed on toward the little river which

he could see in a valley beyond, twisting and babbling like a brook. But

when he came to the other end of the grove he perceived that the garden

was unlike those of the palace Aoyama, which was softly enclosed on all

sides with trees and bushes. Here the walks were sanded and the

landscape scenery was in miniature. There were flower beds and clumps of

bamboo. Stately white jars containing rare ferns were placed at

intervals in the centre of the rounded lawns, while the walks were lined

with pretty sea-shells and white pebbles.

Junzo soon realized that this was not a garden in which he could remain

for long unobserved. He was about to retrace his steps when he perceived

coming toward him along the path a young girl, whose arms were so full

of blossoms that her face was partially hidden. As it was too late for

him now to retreat, he stood where he was, respectfully waiting for her

to approach.

She hastened up the path toward him, and as she appeared to be absorbed

in her own meditations and had not so far glanced in his direction,

Junzo stepped backward toward the grove, hoping she would pass by

without seeing him. This she doubtless would have done had not the young

man, as she came opposite, made an odd exclamation, and then stepped

before her path. What he said was:—

“Masago!”

She raised a startled face to his and stood perfectly still before him

in the path, the blossoms slowly dropping from her arms. That strange

expression of mingled fear and amazement awoke chaotic memories in the

mind of Junzo. It was Masago who stood before him, he felt sure; but

some one other than Masago had once looked up into his face in the same

startled fashion. It must have been a dream or fancy. He repeated her

name:—

“Masago!” And then, “What do you here?”

“Who are you?” she asked in a low voice, her eyes travelling over his

face. “What is your honorable name, and where do you come from?”

The very words had a ring of familiarity to the ears of Junzo. He felt

like one in a dream, and answered almost mechanically:—

“I am Kamura Junzo. I come from—” He made a slight motion toward the

adjoining gardens.

A slow pink glow grew up into her face and spread even to her little

ears and whitest neck. Her eyes were shining, almost as if there were

tears within them.

“Ah,” she said softly, “I do remember you.”

“We are betrothed,” he said, passing his hand bewilderedly across his

eyes.

“Betrothed?” she repeated in that sweet, low-toned voice.

“Yes, Masago. Do you not remember then?”

“But my name is not Masago,” she said simply.

“Not Masago!” he repeated.

“No. I am the Princess Sado-ko.”

After that there was a long silence between them. They looked into each

other’s faces without speaking. Then the young man found his voice.

“I thought the august sun had touched my brain,” he said. “I knew that

your face was familiar to me, and because you are the image of one to

whom—”

He broke off, flushing under the glance of her soft, searching eyes.

“To whom you are betrothed,” she finished quietly.

“Yes,” he said.

“And her name is Masago?” she asked musingly.

“Yes.”

“And she looks like me?” She raised her face, and looked at him somewhat

wistfully.

“Sweet princess,” he said, carried away by the expression within her

eyes, “her beauty is like unto the moon’s—cold, far, and distant, but

yours—yours warms me like the glow of the sun. You are indeed the child

of the sun-god.”

She smiled faintly.

“Are you the artist-man of whom they speak?” she asked.

He bowed slightly, and she continued:—

“I have admired the very beautiful statue you have made of Prince

Komatzu.”

“I trust that it will please the people,” he said simply.

“Nay, he has presented it as a gift to me,” she said.

Junzo recalled the report of her betrothal to the Prince Komatzu, and he

turned a trifle pale. Possibly she divined his thoughts, for she said:

“We are cousins.”

“And will be—” He did not finish the sentence.

She changed the subject abruptly.

“You will be at the palace long?”

“Two more days.”

“And then?”

“I will return home.”

“Home?” She repeated the word in such a wistful, lingering tone. “You

will go back to Kamakura?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“My dear old home!” she said. And then, “You do not know what memories

your presence recalls to me.”

He could not take his eyes from her expressive face.

“I have not seen it since I was a child,” she said. “Why do you go so

soon?”

“My honorable commission ends.”

“There may be others.”

“I have no other,” he replied simply.

“The ladies of the court would honorably like their pictures painted?”

she essayed almost timidly.

“I do not paint,” he said. “I am but a sculptor.”

They walked slowly up the pebbled path, and through the bamboo grove,

until they came to the little gate over which he had stepped.

“Now we have reached the wall,” she said with childish lightness. “You

are not so brave nowadays, I fancy, as to carry me across by force.”

He vaulted to the other side without speaking, then stood a moment,

looking back at her.

“Yet,” she said, almost tremulously, “the wall is not so high or stone.”

“It has the power to divide, O princess,” he replied in a husky voice.

“Now you are at the other side, you are no longer Kamura Junzo,” she

said. “You have become changed from the little boy I once knew. You are

cruel now—and—and—cold.”

“And you,” he said, “as far away and unattainable as the stars, O

princess.”

“Yet you are betrothed to one whom you called Masago,” she said

suddenly, and raised an almost appealing face to his. He looked into her

eyes and did not speak.

“And am I not like this Masago?” she asked.

“You are like no one in all the world,” he said, “save that sweet,

lovely princess that even as a boy I sought to capture for—my own.”

“You have not tried again,” she said.

“The sun is in my eyes, O princess. I am afraid.”

He turned abruptly from her and walked swiftly away toward the front of

the palace.

“I have been dreaming,” he said, passing his hand across his eyes, “and

living in my dreams. O gods!”

Sado-ko looked after him, leaning over the railing of the gate watching

until he disappeared. Then she turned and walked with dreamy step back

through the bamboo grove. She turned toward a slender, pebbled path

which she followed to a small lawn, in whose centre a stately statue,

white and pure, was set. She stood in silence looking upon it,—a statue

of the Prince Komatzu wrought by the hands of the artist-man. Suddenly

she placed her arms about the statue’s form and pressed her face against

it. Her words were strangely like to his:—

“I have been dreaming, dreaming,” she said, “and, O sweet Kuonnon, let

me not awake!”

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