Lafcadio Hearn's Japan (21 page)

There has just occurred, not far from the city, at the village called Sugikamimura, one of those tragedies which are difficult to understand. The chief actors were, Narumatsu Ichir
ō
,
a young shopkeeper; his wife, O-Noto, twenty years of age, to whom he had been married only a year; and O-Noto's maternal uncle, one Sugimoto Kasaku, a man of violent temper, who had once been in prison. The tragedy was in four acts.

A
CT
I.
Scene: Interior of public bathhouse. Sugimoto Kasaku in the bath. Enter Narumatsu Ichir
ō
, who strips, gets into the smoking water without noticing his relative, and cries out,—

“
Aa!
as if one should be in Jigoku, so hot this water is!”

(The word “Jigoku” signifies the Buddhist hell; but, in common parlance, it also signifies a prison,—this time an unfortunate coincidence.)

(Each eyes the other for a spring, but each hesitates, although things no Japanese should suffer himself to say have been said. They are too evenly matched, the old and the young.)

So far everything is clear enough. Then Ichir
ō
hurries home, caresses his wife, assures her of his love, tells her all, and sends her, not to Kasaku's house, but to that of her brother. Two days later, a little after dark, O-Noto is called to the door by her husband, and the two disappear in the night.

A
CT
II.
Night scene. House of Kasaku closed: light appears through chinks of sliding shutters. Shadow of a woman approaches. Sound of knocking. Shutters slide back.

(Bows, and slips off into the darkness, and becomes a shadow again, which joins another shadow. The two shadows remain motionless.)

A
CT
III.
Scene: Bank of a river at night, fringed by pines. Silhouette of the house of Kasaku far away. O-Noto and Ichir
ō
under the trees, Ichir
ō
with a lantern. Both have white towels tightly bound round their heads; their robes are girded well up, and their sleeves caught back with tasuki cords, to leave the arms free. Each carries a long sword.

It is the hour, as the Japanese most expressively say, “when the sound of the river is loudest.” There is no other sound but a long occasional humming of wind in the needles, of the pines; for it is late autumn, and the frogs are silent. The two shadows do not speak, and the sound of the river grows louder.

Suddenly there is the noise of a splash far off,—somebody crossing the shallow stream; then an echo of wooden sandals,—irregular, staggering,—the footsteps of a drunkard, coming nearer and nearer. The drunkard lifts up his voice: it is Kasaku's voice. He sings,—

“Suita okata ni suirarete;
Ya-ton-ton!”
⁵

—a song of love and wine.

Immediately the two shadows start toward the singer at a run,—a noiseless flitting, for their feet are shod with waraji. Kasaku still sings. Suddenly a loose stone turns under him; he wrenches his ankle, and utters a growl of anger. Almost in the same instant a lantern is held close to his face. Perhaps for thirty seconds it remains there. No one speaks. The yellow light shows three strangely inexpressive masks rather than visages. Kasaku sobers at once,—recognizing the faces, remembering the incident of the bathhouse, and seeing the swords. But he is not afraid, and presently bursts into a mocking laugh.

“Hé! hé! The Ichir
ō
pair! And so you take me, too, for a baby? What are you doing with such things in your hands? Let me show you how to use them.”

But Ichir
ō
, who has dropped the lantern, suddenly delivers, with the full swing of both hands, a sword-slash that nearly severs Kasaku's right arm from the shoulder; and as the victim staggers, the sword of
the woman cleaves through his left shoulder. He falls with one fearful cry,
“Hitogoroshi!”
which means “murder.” But he does not cry again. For ten whole minutes the swords are busy with him. The lantern, still glowing, lights the ghastliness. Two belated pedestrians approach, hear, see, drop their wooden sandals from their feet, and flee back into the darkness without a word. Ichir
ō
and O-Noto sit down by the lantern to take breath, for the work was hard.

The son of Kasaku, a boy of fourteen, comes running to find his father. He has heard the song, then the cry; but he has not yet learned fear. The two suffer him to approach. As he nears O-Noto, the woman seizes him, flings him down, twists his slender arms under her knees, and clutches the sword. But Ichir
ō
, still panting, cries, “No! no! Not the boy! He did us no wrong!” O-Noto releases him. He is too stupefied to move. She slaps his face terribly, crying, “Go!” He runs,—not daring to shriek.

Ichir
ō
and O-Noto leave the chopped mass, walk to the house of Kasaku, and call loudly. There is no reply;—only the pathetic, crouching silence of women and children waiting death. But they are bidden not to fear. Then Ichir
ō
cries:—

“Honorable funeral prepare! Kasaku by my hand is now dead!”

“And by mine!” shrills O-Noto.
Then the footsteps recede.

A
CT
IV.
Scene: Interior of Ichir
ō
's house. Three persons kneeling in the guest-room: Ichir
ō
, his wife, and an aged woman, who is weeping
.

Ichir
ō
. “And now, mother, to leave you alone in this world, though you have no other son, is indeed an evil thing. I can only pray your forgiveness. But my uncle will always care for you, and to his house you must go at once, since it is time we two should die. No common, vulgar death shall we have, but an elegant, splendid death,—
Rippana!
And you must not see it. Now go.”

She passes away, with a wail. The doors are solidly barred behind her. All is ready.

O-Noto thrusts the point of the sword into her throat. But she still struggles. With a last kind word Ichir
ō
ends her pain by a stroke that severs the head.

And then?

Then he takes his writing-box, prepares the inkstone, grinds some ink, chooses a good brush, and, on carefully selected paper, composes five poems, of which this is the last:—

“Meido yori
Yu demp
ō
ga
Aru naraba,
Hayaku an chaku
M
ō
shi okuran.
⁶

Then he cuts his own throat perfectly well.

Now, it was clearly shown, during the official investigation of these facts, that Ichir
ō
and his wife had been universally liked, and had been from their childhood noted for amiability.

The scientific problem of the origin of the Japanese has never yet been solved. But sometimes it seems to me that those who argue in favor of a partly Malay origin have some psychological evidence in their favor. Under the submissive sweetness of the gentlest Japanese woman—a sweetness of which the Occidental can scarcely form any idea—there exist possibilities of hardness absolutely inconceivable without ocular evidence. A thousand times she can forgive, can sacrifice herself in a thousand ways unutterably touching; but let one particular soul-nerve be stung, and fire shall forgive sooner than she. Then there may suddenly appear in that frail-seeming woman an incredible courage, an appalling, measured, tireless purpose of honest vengeance. Under all the amazing self-control and patience of the man there exists an adamantine something very dangerous to reach. Touch it wantonly, and there can be no pardon. But resentment is seldom likely to be excited by mere hazard. Motives are keenly judged. An error can be forgiven; deliberate malice never.

In the house of any rich family the guest is likely to be shown some of the heirlooms. Among these are almost sure to be certain articles belonging to those elaborate tea ceremonies peculiar to Japan. A pretty little box, perhaps, will be set before you. Opening it, you see only a beautiful silk bag, closed with a silk running-cord decked with tiny tassels. Very soft and choice the silk is, and elaborately figured. What marvel can be hidden under such a covering? You open the bag, and see within another bag, of a different quality of silk, but very fine. Open that, and lo! a third, which contains a fourth, which contains a fifth, which contains a sixth, which contains a seventh bag, which contains the strangest, roughest, hardest vessel of Chinese clay that you ever beheld. Yet it is not only curious but precious: it may be more than a thousand years old.

Even thus have centuries of the highest social culture wrapped the Japanese character about with many priceless soft coverings of courtesy, of delicacy, of patience, of sweetness, of moral sentiment. But underneath these charming multiple coverings there remains the primitive clay, hard as iron;—kneaded perhaps with all the mettle of the Mongol,—all the dangerous suppleness of the Malay.

VII

December 28.
Beyond the high fence inclosing my garden in the rear rise the thatched roofs of some very small houses occupied by families of the poorest class. From one of these little dwellings there continually issues a sound of groaning,—the deep groaning of a man in pain. I have heard it for more than a week, both night and day, but latterly the sounds have been growing longer and louder, as if every breath were an agony. “Somebody there is very sick,” says Manyemon, my old interpreter, with an expression of extreme sympathy.

The sounds have begun to make me nervous. I reply, rather brutally, “I think it would be better for all concerned if that somebody were dead.”

Manyemon makes three times a quick, sudden gesture with both hands, as if to throw off the influence of my wicked words, mutters a little Buddhist prayer, and leaves me with a look of reproach. Then, conscience-stricken, I send a servant to inquire if the sick person has a doctor, and whether any aid can be given. Presently the servant returns with the information that a doctor is regularly attending the sufferer, and that nothing else can be done.

I notice, however, that, in spite of his cob-webby gestures, Manyemon's patient nerves have also become affected by those sounds. He has even confessed that he wants to stay in the little front room, near the street, so as to be away from them as far as possible. I can neither write nor read. My study being in the extreme rear, the groaning is there almost as audible as if the sick man were in the room itself. There is always in such utterances of suffering a certain ghastly timbre by which the intensity of the suffering can be estimated; and I keep asking myself, How can it be possible for the human being making those sounds by which I am tortured, to endure much longer?

It is a positive relief, later in the morning, to hear the moaning drowned by the beating of a little Buddhist drum in the sick man's room, and the chanting of the
Namu my
ō
ho renge ky
ō
by a multitude of voices. Evidently there is a gathering of priests and relatives in the house. “Somebody is going to die,” Manyemon says. And he also repeats the holy words of praise to the Lotus of the Good Law.

The chanting and the tapping of the drum continue for several hours. As they cease, the groaning is heard again. Every breath a groan! Toward evening it grows worse—horrible. Then it suddenly stops. There is a dead silence of minutes. And then we hear a passionate burst of weeping,—the weeping of a woman,—and voices calling a name. “Ah! somebody is dead!” Manyemon says.