CHAPTER XXI
“YOU ARE NOT SADO-KO!”
IT was such another moonlight night as that on which the Princess
Sado-ko kept her last tryst with the artist Junzo, but in the Nijo
gardens no sight was reminiscent of the flowering gardens of Komatzu. No
bamboo grove offered inviting lanes for loitering lovers, no stately
camphor trees threw their flickering shadows of mystery upon the moonlit
grass.
The lawns about the palace Nijo were quite bare of trees, and even by
the wing of the Princess Sado-ko’s apartments the new and ruthless
carpenters, not gardeners, had torn up the bright flowering trees and
shrubs to put in their places painted boxes, filled with foreign ferns
and flowers of priceless value,—gifts from diplomats to the flattered
Japanese.
Junzo and Fuji-no kept within the shadow of the princess’s balcony,
there being no trees or foliage at hand to screen them otherwise.
The new-laid path which led from the front of the palace to Sado-ko’s
wing, was white in the moonlight, hence Junzo was quick to see a shadow
fall upon it. He leaned so far forward to gaze along the path, that Lady
Fuji drew him backward.
“The light is on your head. Be careful, artist, if you please. Pray have
some patience. They are quite close at hand.”
Too close they seemed just then to Junzo, as they came along the broad,
white path with slow and loitering steps. The tall soldier-prince bent
to her who turned her face to his, like a flower to the sun.
When they had come quite close to Sado-ko’s veranda they paused a
moment, seeking some new excuse for lingering.
She made a childish movement, naïve yet eloquent. An artful shudder
slipped her wrap to the ground. Her shining shoulders, bare and white,
were revealed in the moonlight. The prince stooped quickly to the
ground, picked up the cloak, and, hesitating a moment, held it in his
hand. She shivered purposely. Then with a sudden movement he wrapped the
cloak around her, and somehow in the doing his arms stayed for a space
about her. Her face was close to his. Softly her loosened hair brushed
now against his lips. While still his lingering arm was drooping on her
shoulder, she said, in a low, wooing voice:—
“Komatzu, pray you hold my garment on me for a space, for I would take
these long and stupid gloves from my arms.”
“Let me do so,” he begged eagerly; and, taking one of her small hands in
his, slowly drew the glove away, then still held the hand clasped in his
own.
“It is my hand—all mine!” he whispered. Stooping, he kissed the soft,
white flesh, in the emotional French way.
“All yours, Komatzu!” Junzo heard her sigh in answer. The artist did not
move. Like a man turned suddenly to stone, he simply stared out at the
scene, with fixed eyes. He heard as in a dream the voice of this proud
prince whispering again to her, who but so lately clung to him, the
lowly artist, with such piteous tears and prayers.
“To-morrow,” said the prince, “his Majesty will come to Tokyo. I will
present myself before him and importune him to seal our betrothal. His
ministers are all in favor of my suit, but the sanction of his Majesty
is needed. That, I am sure, he intends to give, for I have heard that he
made promise to our august grandmother, the Empress Dowager, that he
would make sweet Sado-ko the highest princess in the land. Next to the
Crown Prince of Japan, I am the highest prince.”
She smoothed with little restless hand the foreign fabric of his coat.
Her voice was somewhat faint:—
“If his Majesty should not consent, Komatzu?”
“Why even dream of such a thing?” he asked. “Am I not the very one most
fitted for your husband, and have I not served well his Majesty?”
She seized his hand and held it close against her face.
“Komatzu, were I not of equal rank with you,—if I were but a simple
maiden of humble parentage,—would you still love me?”
“I do not love your rank, sweet cousin, but your own self.”
“But if I were not of your rank, what then?”
“Capricious Sado-ko, why ask such foolish questions?”
“Would you still marry me if I were not a royal princess?”
“I still would love you, Sado-ko. I could not marry you in that event.
Why, you turn your face away! The tears are in your eyes. Cousin, you
are too fanciful.”
“Love makes me so,” she said, and sighed.
“How strange,” he said, “that we should speak so freely of our love. A
little while ago the subject would have been deemed indecent. Now it is
a foreign fashion and we Japanese speak out our love without the
smallest blush of shame. ’Tis strange, indeed!”
“It is not only fashion,” she protested; “love is not a new thing,—a
caprice, a whim, like such and such a dress, a hat or shoe or fan.”
“It is a new device of speech in our Japan,” the prince declared,
thoughtfully.
With childish petulance she turned toward the balcony.
“Which you do not approve, Komatzu?”
“Why, yes, I do approve it, Sado-ko. It is most beautiful and pure,
moreover. But, cousin, as you know, I never spoke it yet—this love—till
lately. Then, somehow, when you came back from the palace Aoyama, a
something in your eyes seemed to beckon me to you and force the words of
love to overrun my lips.”
“They were not merely words of lips?”
“No, no. But I, you know, am not completely modern in my thought,
despite my dress, and, too, I am a soldier. So sometimes if my words
seem clumsy—stupid—I fear you must compare them with the flowery
speeches of others.”
“Others, Komatzu? What others could there be?”
His voice was low and nervous. He seemed to hesitate.
“Cousin, have you forgotten the artist-man?”
“The artist-man!” she gave a little cry, then quickly covered up her
lips with her fingers.
“You start! Kamura Junzo his name was. Once I thought you favored him.
So thought all the members of the court. I could not close my ears
against the romance, though I severely disapproved the slander, and
named it such; for I deemed your condescension to the man the idle fancy
of a princess noted for her oddities and caprices. But lately, the mere
thought of him causes my brain to burn with raging and unworthy
jealousy.”
She rested one small hand against the railing of her balcony, then
slowly drew up her slender figure.
“The artist is no more to me,” she said, “than any slave who dresses me,
sings to me, entertains me, comes at my command, or paints for me my
picture.”
“Yet, Sado-ko, the artist did not paint your picture.”
For a moment she stood still in bewilderment, then went a step toward
him. Her words were stammering, then changed to fervent, passionate
appeal.
“Why, yes, he painted—that—assuredly he painted—it does not matter what
the artist did. Komatzu, I have no thought within my mind, nor love
within my heart, for any one in all the world save you.”
He took her hands and drew them upward to his lips, there to hold them
for a space, then let them go again.
“I am quite satisfied,” he said. “Truth itself shines in your face, my
Sado-ko. And now, sweet cousin, we will say good night, for it is late,
and I would not have your beauteous eyes lose one small atom of their
lustre. And so for the night, sayonara!”
Softly and lingeringly she repeated the word. She watched him as he
walked along the path, until he had quite disappeared. Then slowly,
dreamily she ascended the little steps. She stopped in sudden irritation
at the sound of the restless bird within the cage. Moving toward it, she
shook the cage with some nervous violence.
“Be still!” she said. “You break my thoughts, you foolish bird! Be
still, I say!”
The Lady Fuji touched the artist’s arm. He did not stir. Peering up into
his face, she started back at sight of the dull, frozen look. A glimmer
of compassion crossed her breast. She whispered:—
“Artist, come away.”
He did not move.
“Pray come!” urged Fuji.
Masago, standing by the bird-cage on the balcony, thought she heard some
whispering voices close at hand. She leaned over the railing and called,
in fearful voice:—
“Who are the honorable ones below?”
As Fuji sought to draw the artist away, the movement of her effort
reached the ears of her mistress. The latter crossed the veranda with
quick steps, and, leaning down close to the sound, saw those two figures
in the shadow. A moment later the Lady Fuji-no, drawing her cape before
her face, fled along the path, and disappeared.
Moving mechanically to the light, the artist turned his face to Masago.
A muffled cry escaped her lips. She shrank back, still clinging to the
railing of the balcony.
“Kamura Junzo!” she cried. “You!—and here!”
“I do not know your voice,” he said in strange, wondering tones.
“I remember now,” she said. “You wrote a letter to the Princess Sado-ko.
You wished to look—look at her. You—you asked the favor. Well—I—I am
Sado-ko!”
He moved his head and stared upon her face with straining eyes.
“You are not Sado-ko!” he said.
She trembled with fear.
“I do assure you”—she began, her hand going to her throat to stay her
frightened breathing.
“You are not Sado-ko, I say!”
Her voice was raised and shrill.
“I am the Princess Sado-ko,” she cried. “I do defy you, artist-man, to
prove I am not Sado-ko.”
His vague and wandering words recalled her self-possession. She knew
that she had needlessly excited her fears.
“You are not Sado-ko,” he said, “for she was kind and sweet; but you—you
are a nightmare of my Sado-ko. Your face is hers, yet still you are not
Sado-ko. Your soul is false; your heart is dead, for Sado-ko is dead,
and you who once were Sado-ko are but her ghost. You are not Sado-ko.”
She grew afraid of that white, glaring face, and hoarse, wandering
voice. Turning, she hastened to her room, drawing the doors close behind
her.
The artist stood alone. Then suddenly he laughed out wildly, loudly.
Again he paused in silence. Then laughed aloud again, in that wild way.
He heard the noise, the heavy step of palace guards. Then Junzo turned
and fled like the wind, his fleet and sandalled feet carrying him with
more than natural speed onward and onward. Past startled groups of
garden revellers, past loitering lovers, and past guards about the
grounds, and outward through the palace gates he plunged on toward the
city, gleaming out in specks of light below.
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