The Dragon Painter Part 11

"There 's your jewel of a painter," old Mata, indoors, would say.

"Look at him, master,--a n.o.ble figure, indeed, standing on one leg like a love-sick stork!" And Kano, helpless before his own misery and the old dame's acrid triumph, would keep silence, only muttering invocations to the G.o.ds for self-control.

Often the young wife pretended a sudden desire for her own artistic work. She would go hurriedly to the little painting chamber, gather complex paraphernalia, and a.s.sume the pose of eager effort. Tatsu always followed her but, once within the room, bent such laughing eyes of comprehension that she dared not look into his face. Nevertheless she would paint; tracing, mechanically, the bird and flower studies in which she had once taken delight. Just in the midst of some specially delicate stroke, Tatsu would s.n.a.t.c.h her hands away, press them against his lips, his eyes, his throat, hurl the painting things to the four corners of the room, drag her down to his strong embrace, and triumph openly in the victory of love. The young wife, longing from the first to yield, attempted always to repel him, protesting in the words her father had bade her use, and urging him to rouse himself and paint, as she was doing. Then the young G.o.d would laugh magnificent music, drowning the last pathetic echo of old Kano's remembered voice.

Catching her anew he would crush her against his breast, fondling her with that tempestuous gentleness that surely no mere man of earth could know, would drag up her faint soul to him through eyes and lips until she felt herself but a shred of ecstacy caught in a whirlwind of immortal love.

"So that we be together, Even the h.e.l.l of the Blood Lake, Even the Mountain of Swords, Mean nothing to us at all!"

He would sing, in the words of an old Buddhist folk-song. At such supreme heights of emotion she knew, consciously, that Kano's grief and disappointment were nothing. She did not really care whether Tatsu ever touched a brush again,--whether, indeed, the whole visible world fretted itself into dust. She and Tatsu had found each other! The rest meant nothing at all!

Such moments were, however, the isolated and the exceptional. As the days went by they became less frequent, and, by a strange law of contrasts, with diminution exacted a heavier toll. The strain of antagonisms within the little home became almost unbearable. Neither Kano nor Tatsu would yield an inch, and between them, like a white flower between stones, little Ume-ko was crushed. A new and threatening trouble was that of poverty. Tatsu would not paint; Kano, in his wretchedness could not.

The young wife went often now to the temple on the hill. Tatsu generally went with her, remaining outside in the courtyard or at the edge of the cliff, under the camphor tree, while she was praying within. Her entreaties were all for divine guidance. She implored of the G.o.ds a deeper insight into the cause of this strange trouble now upon them, and besought, too, that in her husband, Tatsu, should be awakened a recognition of his duties, and of the household needs. Kano visited the temple, also, and spent long hours in conference with his personal friend, the abbot. Even old Mata, abandoning for the moment her Protestantism and reverting to the yearning (never entirely stifled) for mystic practises, went to an old charlatan of a fortune-teller, and purchased various charms and powders for driving the demons from the unconscious Tatsu. Ume-ko soon discovered this, and the fear that Tatsu would be poisoned added to a load of anxiety already formidable.

By the end of October, Yeddo's most golden and most perfect month, no hours brought happiness to the little bride but those stolen ones in which she and her husband were wont to take long walks together, sometimes into the country, again through the mazes of the great capital. Even at these times of respite she was only too well aware how Kano and the old nurse sat together at home, lamenting the gross selfishness of the young,--deciding, perhaps, upon the next loved painting or household treasure to be sold for buying rice. Tatsu, now as unreasonable and obstinate as Kano himself, still refused to admit unhappiness or threatened dest.i.tution. He and Ume-ko could go to the mountains, he said. "The mountains were, after all, their true home.

Once there the Sennin and the deities of cloud would see that they did not suffer."

On an afternoon very near the end of the month the young couple took such a walk together. Their course lay eastward, crossing at right angles the main streets of the great city, until they reached the sh.o.r.es of the Sumida River, winding down like a road of gla.s.s. They had emerged into the famous district of Asakusa, where the great temple of Kwannon the Merciful attracts daily its thousands of worshippers.

Here the water course is bounded by fashionable tea-houses, many stories high, and here the great arched bridges are always crowded.

Leaving this busy heart of things, they sauntered northward, finding lonelier sh.o.r.es, and soon wide fields of green, until they reached a bank whereon grew a single leaning willow. The body of this tree, bending outward, sent its long, nerveless leaves in a perpetual green rain to the surface of the stream, where sudden swarms of minnows, like shivers in a gla.s.s, a.s.sailed the deceptive bait. The roots of the tree--great yellowish, twisted ropes of roots--clutched air, earth, and water in their convolutions. Among them the current, swifter here than in mid-stream, uttered at times a guttural, uncanny sound as of spectral laughter.

Ume-ko stood, one slender arm about the trunk, looking out, with mournful eyes, upon the pa.s.sing river show. On the farther bank grew a continuous wall of cherry trees in yellowing leaf, and above them glowed the first hint of the coming sunset. Rising against the sky a temple roof, tilted like the keel of a sunken vessel, cut sharp lines into the crimson light.

Tatsu flung himself full length upon the bank. He patted the soil with its springing gra.s.ses, and felt his heart flow out in love to it. Then he reached up, caught at the drifting gauze of Ume's sleeve, and made as if to pull her down. Ume clasped the tree more tightly.

"Tatsu," she said, "I implore you not to think always of me. Look, beloved, the thin white sails of the rice-boats pa.s.s, and, over yonder, children in scarlet petticoats dance beneath the trees."

"I have eyes but for my wife," said wilful Tatsu.

Ume-ko drew the sleeve away. She would not meet his smile. "Alas, shall I forever obscure beauty!"

"There is no beauty now but in you! You are the sacred mirror which reflects for me all loveliness."

"Dear lord, those words are almost blasphemy," said Ume, in a frightened whisper. "Look, now, beloved, the light of the sun sinks down. Soon the great moon will come to us."

"What care I for a distant moon, oh, Dragon Maid," laughed Tatsu.

Ume's outstretched arm fell heavily to her side. "Alas!" she said again. "From deepest happiness may come the deepest pain. You dream not of the hurt you give."

"I give no hurt at all that I cannot more than heal," cried Tatsu, in his masterful way. But Ume's lips still quivered, and she turned her face from him.

In the silence that followed, the water among the willow roots gave out a rush and gurgle, a sound of liquid merriment,--perhaps the laugh of a "Kappa" or river sprite, mocking the perplexities of men. Ume-ko leaned over instantly, staring down into the stream.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Ume-ko leaned over instantly, staring down into the stream."]

"How deep it is, and strong," she whispered, as if to her own thought "That which fell in here would be carried very swiftly out to sea."

Tatsu smiled dreamily upon her. In his delight at her beauty, the delicate poise of body with its long, gray drifting sleeves, he did not realize the meaning of her words. One little foot in its lacquered shoe and rose-velvet thong, crushed the gra.s.ses at the very edge of the bank. Suddenly the earth beneath her shivered. It parted in a long black fissure, and then sank, with sob and splash, into the hurrying water. Ume tottered and clung to the tree. Tatsu, springing up at a single bound, caught her back into safety. The very branches above them shook as if in sentient fear. Ume felt herself pressed,--welded against her husband's side in such an agony of strength that his beating heart seemed to be in her own body. She heard the breath rasp upward in his throat and catch there, inarticulate. He began dragging her backward, foot by foot. At a safe distance he suddenly sank--rather fell--to earth bearing her with him, and began moaning over her, caressing and fondling her as a tiger might a rescued cub.

"Never go near that stream again!" he said hoa.r.s.ely, as soon as he could speak at all. "Hear me, Ume-ko, it is my command! Never again approach that tree. It is a goblin tree. Some dead, unhappy woman, drowned here in the self-death, must inhabit it and would entice you to destruction. Oh, Ume, my wife,--my wife! I saw the black earth grinning beneath your feet. I cannot bear it! Come away from this place at once,--at once! The river itself may reach out snares to us."

"Yes, lord, I will come," she panted, trying to loosen the rigid arms, "but I am faint. This high bank is safe, now. And, lord, when you so embrace and crush me my strength does not return."

Tatsu grudgingly relaxed his hold. "Rest here then, close beside me,"

he said. "I shall not trust you, even an inch from me."

The river current in the tree roots laughed aloud.

Across and beyond the road of gla.s.s, the sky grew cold now and blue, like the side of a dead fish. A glow subtle and unmistakable as perfume tingled up through the dusk.

"The Lady Moon," whispered Ume, softly. Freeing her little hands she joined them, bent her head, and gave the prayer of welcome to O Tsuki Sama.

Tatsu watched her gloomily. "I pray to no moon," he said. "I pray to nothing in this place."

A huge coal barge on its way to the Yokohama harbor glided close to them along the dark surface of the tide. At the far end of the barge a fire was burning, and above it, from a round black cauldron, boiling rice sent up puffs of white, fragrant steam. The red light fell upon a ring of faces, evidently a mother and her children; and on the broad, naked back of the father who leaned far outward on his guiding pole.

Ume turned her eyes away. "I think I can walk now," she said.

Tatsu rose instantly, and drew her upward by the hands. A shudder of remembered horror caught him. He pressed her once more tightly to his heart. "Ume-ko, Ume-ko, my wife,--my Dragon Wife!" he cried aloud in a voice of love and anguish. "I have sought you through the torments of a thousand lives. Shall anything have power to separate us now?"

"Nothing can part us now, but--death," said Ume-ko, and glanced, for an instant, backward to the river.

Tatsu winced. "Use not the word! It attracts evil."

"It is a word that all must some day use," persisted the young wife, gently. "Tell me, beloved, if death indeed should come--?"

"It would be for both. It could not be for one alone."

"No, no!" she cried aloud, lifting her white face as if in appeal to heaven. "Do not say that, lord! Do not think it! If I, the lesser one, should be chosen of death, surely you would live for our father,--for the sake of art!"

"I would kill myself just as quickly as I could!" said Tatsu, doggedly.

"What comfort would painting be? I painted because I had you not."

"Because--you--had--me--not," mused little Ume-ko, her eyes fixed strangely upon the river.

"Come," said Tatsu, rudely, "did I not forbid you to speak of death?

Too much has been said. Besides, the fate of ordinary mortals should have no potency for such as we. When our time comes for pause before rebirth we shall climb together some high mountain peak, lifting our arms and voices to our true parents, the G.o.ds of storm and wind. They will lean to us, beloved,--they will rush downward in a great pa.s.sion of joy, catching us and straining us to immortality!"

By this they were from sight and hearing of the river, and had begun to thread the maze of narrow city streets in which now lamps and tiny electric bulbs and the bobbing lanterns of hurrying jinrikisha men had begun to twinkle. In the darker alleys the couple walked side by side.

Ume, at times, even rested a small hand on her husband's sleeve. In the broad, well-lighted thoroughfares he strode on some paces in advance while Ume followed, in decorous humility, as a good wife should. Few words pa.s.sed between them. The incident at the willow tree had left a gloomy aftermath of thought.

In the Kano home the simple night meal of rice, tea, soup, and pickled vegetables was already prepared. Mata motioned them to their places in the main room where old Kano was already seated, and served them in the gloomy silence which was part of the general strain. Throughout the whole place reproach hung like a miasma.

This evening, almost for the first time, Tatsu reflected, in full measure, the despondency of his companions. The elder man, glancing now and again toward him, evidently restrained with difficulty a flow of bitter words. Once he spoke to his daughter, fixing sunken eyes upon her. "The crimson lacquered wedding-chest that was your mother's, to-day has been sold to buy us food." Ume clenched her little hands together, then bowed far over, in token that she had heard. There were no words to say. For weeks now they had lived upon such money as this,--namida-kane,--"tear-money" the j.a.panese call it.

Tatsu, helpless in his place, scowled and muttered for a moment, then rose and hurried out, leaving the meal unfinished. Ume watched him sadly, but did not follow. This was so unusual a thing that Tatsu, alone in their chamber, was at first astonished, then alarmed. For ten minutes or more he paced up and down the narrow s.p.a.ce, pride urging him to await his wife's dutiful appearance. In a short while more he felt the tension to be unbearable. A sinister silence flooded the house.

He hurried back to the main room to find that Ume and old Kano were not there. He began searching the house, all but the kitchen.

Instinctively he avoided old Mata's domain, knowing it to be the lair of an enemy. At last necessity drove him to it also. Her face leered at him through a parted shoji. He gave a bound in her direction.

Instantly she had slammed the panels together; and before he could reopen them had armed herself with a huge, glittering fish-knife.

"None of your mountain wild-cat ways for me!" she screamed.