Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life Part 5

But the wiser mother made answer:--

"Unhappy she is not. It is impossible that she marry again. She has become as a little child, knowing nothing of trouble or sin."

It was true that she had ceased to know real pain. She had begun to show a strange fondness for very small things. At first she had found her bed too large--perhaps through the sense of emptiness left by the loss of her child; then, day by day, other things seemed to grow too large,--the dwelling itself, the familiar rooms, the alcove and its great flower-vases,--even the household utensils. She wished to eat her rice with miniature chop-sticks out of a very small bowl such as children use.

In these things she was lovingly humored; and in other matters she was not fantastic. The old people consulted together about her constantly. At last the father said:--

"For our daughter to live with strangers might be painful. But as we are aged, we may soon have to leave her. Perhaps we could provide for her by making her a nun. We might build a little temple for her."

Next day the mother asked O-Toyo:--

"Would you not like to become a holy nun, and to live in a very, very small temple, with a very small altar, and little images of the Buddhas? We should be always near you. If you wish this, we shall get a priest to teach you the sutras."

O-Toyo wished it, and asked that an extremely small nun's dress be got for her. But the mother said:--

"Everything except the dress a good nun may have made small. But she must wear a large dress--that is the law of Buddha."

So she was persuaded to wear the same dress as other nuns.

IV

They built for her a small An-dera, or Nun's-Temple, in an empty court where another and larger temple, called Amida-ji, had once stood. The An-dera was also called Amida-ji, and was dedicated to Amida-Nyorai and to other Buddhas. It was fitted up with a very small altar and with miniature altar furniture. There was a tiny copy of the sutras on a tiny reading-desk, and tiny screens and bells and kakemono. And she dwelt there long after her parents had pa.s.sed away. People called her the Amida-ji no Bikuni,--which means The Nun of the Temple of Amida.

A little outside the gate there was a statue of Jizo. This Jizo was a special Jizo--the friend of sick children. There were nearly always offerings of small rice-cakes to be seen before him. These signified that some sick child was being prayed for; and the number of the rice-cakes signified the number of the years of the child. Most often there were but two or three cakes; rarely there were seven or ten. The Amida-ji no Bikuni took care of the statue, and supplied it with incense-offerings, and flowers from the temple garden; for there was a small garden behind the An-dera.

After making her morning round with her alms-bowl, she would usually seat herself before a very small loom, to weave cloth much too narrow for serious use. But her webs were bought always by certain shopkeepers who knew her story; and they made her presents of very small cups, tiny flower-vases, and queer dwarf-trees for her garden.

Her greatest pleasure was the companionship of children; and this she never lacked. j.a.panese child-life, is mostly pa.s.sed in temple courts; and many happy childhoods were spent in the court of the Amida-ji. All the mothers in that street liked to have their little ones play there, but cautioned them never to laugh at the Bikuni-San. "Sometimes her ways are strange," they would say; "but that is because she once had a little son, who died, and the pain became too great for her mother's heart. So you must be very good and respectful to her."

Good they were, but not quite respectful in the reverential sense. They knew better than to be that. They called her "Bikuni-San" always, and saluted her nicely; but otherwise they treated her like one of themselves. They played games with her; and she gave them tea in extremely small cups, and made for them heaps of rice-cakes not much bigger than peas, and wove upon her loom cloth of cotton and cloth of silk for the robes of their dolls. So she became to them as a blood-sister.

They played with her daily till they grew too big to play, and left the court of the temple of Amida to begin the bitter work of life, and to become the fathers and mothers of children whom they sent to play in their stead. These learned to love the Bikuni-San like their parents had done. And the Bikuni-San lived to play with the children of the children of the children of those who remembered when her temple was built.

The people took good heed that she should not know want. There was always given to her more than she needed for herself. So she was able to be nearly as kind to the children as she wished, and to feed extravagantly certain small animals. Birds nested in her temple, and ate from her hand, and learned not to perch upon the heads of the Buddhas.

Some days after her funeral, a crowd of children visited my house. A little girl of nine years spoke for them all:--

"Sir, we are asking for the sake of the Bikuni-San who is dead. A very large haka(1) has been set up for her. It is a nice haka.

But we want to give her also a very, very small haka because in the time she was with us she often said that she would like a very little haka. And the stone-cutter has promised to cut it for us, and to make it very pretty, if we can bring the money.

Therefore perhaps you will honorably give something."

"a.s.suredly," I said. "But now you will have nowhere to play."

She answered, smiling:--"We shall still play in the court of the temple of Amida. She is buried there. She will hear our playing, and be glad."

(1) Tombstone.

VI

AFTER THE WAR

I

Hyogo, May 5, 1895.

Hyogo, this morning, lies bathed in a limpid magnificence of light indescribable,--spring light, which is vapory, and lends a sort of apparitional charm to far things seen through it. Forms remain sharply outlined, but are almost idealized by faint colors not belonging to them; and the great hills behind the town aspire into a cloudless splendor of tint that seems the ghost of azure rather than azure itself.

Over the blue-gray slope of tiled roofs there is a vast quivering and fluttering of extraordinary shapes,--a spectacle not indeed new to me, but always delicious. Everywhere are floating--tied to very tall bamboo poles--immense brightly colored paper fish, which look and move as if alive. The greater number vary from five to fifteen feet in length; but here and there I see a baby scarcely a foot long, hooked to the tail of a larger one. Some poles have four or five fish attached to them at heights proportioned to the dimensions of the fish, the largest always at the top. So cunningly shaped and colored these things are that the first sight of them is always startling to a stranger. The lines holding them are fastened within the head; and the wind, entering the open mouth, not only inflates the body to perfect form, but keeps it undulating,--rising and descending, turning and twisting, precisely like a real fish, while the tail plays and the fins wave irreproachably. In the garden of my next-door neighbor there are two very fine specimens. One has an orange belly and a bluish-gray back; the other is all a silvery tint; and both have big weird eyes. The rustling of their motion as they swim against the sky is like the sound of wind in a cane-field. A little farther off I see another very big fish, with a little red boy clinging to its back. That red boy represents Kintoki, strongest of all children ever born in j.a.pan, who, while still a baby, wrestled with bears and set traps for goblin-birds.

Everybody knows that these paper carp, or koi, are hoisted only during the period of the great birth festival of boys, in the fifth month; that their presence above a house signifies the birth of a son; and that they symbolize the hope of the parents that their lad will be able to win his way through the world against all obstacles,--even as the real koi, the great j.a.panese carp, ascends swift rivers against the stream. In many parts of southern and western j.a.pan you rarely see these koi. You see, instead, very long narrow flags of cotton cloth, called n.o.bori, which are fastened perpendicularly, like sails, with little spars and rings to poles of bamboo, and bear designs in various colors of the koi in an eddy,--or of Shoki, conqueror of demons,--or of pines,--or of tortoises,--or other fortunate symbols.

II

But in this radiant spring of the j.a.panese year 2555, the koi might be taken to symbolize something larger than parental hope, --the great trust of a nation regenerated through war. The military revival of the Empire--the real birthday of New j.a.pan--began with the conquest of China. The war is ended; the future, though clouded, seems big with promise; and, however grim the obstacles to loftier and more enduring achievements, j.a.pan has neither fears nor doubts.

Perhaps the future danger is just in this immense self-confidence.

It is not a new feeling created by victory. It is a race feeling, which repeated triumphs have served only to strengthen. From the instant of the declaration of war there was never the least doubt of ultimate victory. There was universal and profound enthusiasm, but no outward signs of emotional excitement. Men at once set to writing histories of the triumphs of j.a.pan, and these histories--issued to subscribers in weekly or monthly parts, and ill.u.s.trated with photo-lithographs or drawings on wood--were selling all over the country long before any foreign observers could have ventured to predict the final results of the campaign. From first to last the nation felt sure of its own strength, and of the impotence of China. The toy-makers put suddenly into the market legions of ingenious mechanisms, representing Chinese soldiers in flight, or being cut down by j.a.panese troopers, or tied together as prisoners by their queues, or kowtowing for mercy to ill.u.s.trious generals. The old-fashioned military playthings, representing samurai in armor, were superseded by figures--in clay, wood, paper, or silk--of j.a.panese cavalry, infantry, and artillery; by models of forts and batteries; and models of men-of-war. The storming of the defenses of Port Arthur by the k.u.mamoto Brigade was the subject of one ingenious mechanical toy; another, equally clever, repeated the fight of the Matsushima Kan with the Chinese iron-clads. There were sold likewise myriads of toy-guns discharging corks by compressed air with a loud pop, and myriads of toy-swords, and countless tiny bugles, the constant blowing of which recalled to me the tin-horn tumult of a certain New Year's Eve in New Orleans. The announcement of each victory resulted in an enormous manufacture and sale of colored prints, rudely and cheaply executed, and mostly depicting the fancy of the artist only, -but well fitted to stimulate the popular love of glory. Wonderful sets of chessmen also appeared, each piece representing a Chinese or j.a.panese officer or soldier.

Meanwhile, the theatres were celebrating the war after a much more complete fashion. It is no exaggeration to say that almost every episode of the campaign was repeated upon the stage. Actors even visited the battlefields to study scenes and backgrounds, and fit themselves to portray realistically, with the aid of artificial snowstorms, the hardships of the army in Manchuria.

Every gallant deed was dramatized almost as soon as reported. The death of the bugler Shirakami Genjiro(1); the triumphant courage of Harada Jiukichi, who scaled a rampart and opened a fortress gate to his comrades; the heroism of the fourteen troopers who held their own against three hundred infantry; the successful charge of unarmed coolies upon a Chinese battalion,--all these and many other incidents were reproduced in a thousand theatres.

Immense illuminations of paper lanterns, lettered with phrases of loyalty or patriotic cheer, celebrated the success of the imperial arms, or gladdened the eyes of soldiers going by train to the field. In Kobe,--constantly traversed by troop-trains,--such illuminations continued night after night for weeks together; and the residents of each street further subscribed for flags and triumphal arches.

But the glories of the war were celebrated also in ways more durable by the various great industries of the country. Victories and incidents of sacrificial heroism were commemorated in porcelain, in metal-work, and in costly textures, not less than in new designs for envelopes and note-paper. They were portrayed on the silk linings of haori(2), on women's kerchiefs of chirimen(3), in the embroidery of girdles, in the designs of silk shirts and of children's holiday robes,--not to speak of cheaper printed goods, such as calicoes and toweling. They were represented in lacquer-ware of many kinds, on the sides and covers of carven boxes, on tobacco-pouches, on sleeve-b.u.t.tons, in designs for hairpins, on women's combs, even on chopsticks.

Bundles of toothpicks in tiny cases were offered for sale, each toothpick having engraved upon it, in microscopic text, a different poem about the war. And up to the time of peace, or at least up to the time of the insane attempt by a soshi(4) to kill the Chinese plenipotentiary during negotiations, all things happened as the people had wished and expected.

But as soon as the terms of peace had been announced, Russia interfered, securing the help of France and Germany to bully j.a.pan. The combination met with no opposition; the government played jiujutsu, and foiled expectations by unlooked-for yielding. j.a.pan had long ceased to feel uneasy about her own military power. Her reserve strength is probably much greater than has ever been acknowledged, and her educational system, with its twenty-six thousand schools, is an enormous drilling-machine.

On her own soil she could face any foreign power. Her navy was her weak point, and of this she was fully aware. It was a splendid fleet of small, light cruisers, and splendidly handled. Its admiral, without the loss of a single vessel, had annihilated the Chinese fleet in two engagements, but it was not yet sufficiently heavy to face the combined navies of three European powers; and the flower of the j.a.panese army was beyond the sea. The most opportune moment for interference had been cunningly chosen, and probably more than interference was intended. The heavy Russian battle-ships were stripped for fighting; and these alone could possibly have overpowered the j.a.panese fleet, though the victory would have been a costly one.

But Russian action was suddenly checked by the sinister declaration of English sympathy for j.a.pan. Within a few weeks England could bring into Asiatic waters a fleet capable of crushing, in one short battle, all the iron-clads a.s.sembled by the combination. And a single shot from a Russian cruiser might have plunged the whole world into war.

But in the j.a.panese navy there was a furious desire to battle with the three hostile powers at once. It would have been a great fight, for no j.a.panese commander would have dreamed of yielding, no j.a.panese ship would have struck her colors. The army was equally desirous of war. It needed all the firmness of the government to hold the nation back. Free speech was gagged; the press was severely silenced; and by the return to China of the Liao-Tung peninsula, in exchange for a compensatory increase of the war indemnity previously exacted, peace was secured. The government really acted with faultless wisdom. At this period of j.a.panese development a costly war with Russia could not fail to have consequences the most disastrous to industry, commerce, and finance. But the national pride has been deeply wounded, and the country can still scarcely forgive its rulers.

(1) At the battle of Song-Hwan, a j.a.panese bugler named Shirakami Genjiro was ordered to sound the charge (suzume). He had sounded it once when a bullet pa.s.sed through his lungs, throwing him down.. His comrades tried to take the bugle away, seeing the wound was fatal. He wrested it from them, lifted it again to his lips, sounded the charge once more with all his strength, and fell back dead. I venture to offer this rough translation of a song now sung about him by every soldier and schoolboy in j.a.pan:--

SHIRAKAMI GENJIRO

(After the j.a.panese military ballad, Rappa-no-hibiki.) Easy in other times than this Were Anjo's stream to cross; But now, beneath the storm of shot, Its waters seethe and toss.

In other time to pa.s.s that stream Were sport for boys at play; But every man through blood must wade Who fords Anjo to-day.

The bugle sounds;--through flood and flame Charges the line of steel;-- Above the crash of battle rings The bugle's stern appeal.

Why has that bugle ceased to call?

Why does it call once more?