 | Ojio-San |  |
II.
With a fierce shrill whistle and a loud puffing and blowing the great fiery engine moved out of the village. The maid trembled all over with fear, but Yuri sat up very straight and stiff, though her eyes shone with excitement. She slipped the robe from her shoulders, folded it neatly on the seat, and putting her head back, was soon fast asleep. The train sped on and on, every jerk or sway making the frightened maid shudder more violently. She looked at the placid face of her little mistress and marveled, not realizing that the sleep was due more to exhaustion than calm. Through the long hours of the night the maid could not sleep. Visions of her mistress's [4] seven angry brothers rose before her. She thought of how she had proved herself an unworthy servant and of how she might even be dragged to prison by the irate brothers and jealous lover. Well she knew of the unrelenting spirit of the samurai, and her heart shrank in dread from the exposure that would surely follow. Through all her thoughts, however, never once did she think of failing her little mistress, or doing otherwise than obey her imperious will.
The next morning Yuri seemed still more gay. She laughed and teased the worried maid, and grew enthusiastic over the changing landscape as they whirled by plains yellow with natane [5] blossoms, interminable rice fields and blue hills and skies and water, in one enormous golden glow, This was what the Kyushu landscape presented. But they were nearing their destination, and the air had lost the freshness of the country and the fields became fewer and fewer, until gradually the train began to slacken its speed and passed slowly through a dull, straggling town, with no pretty streets like in the village where Yuri had
The town they had arrived at was Kumommota, the chief city of Kyushu, where the government school was located. Before the Meiji era, such [6] a public school did not exist, and the children of the samurai had select schools of their own, while the children of the common citizens attended primary schools.
Yuri had no trouble in finding the government school, for her brothers had once brought her to Kumommota and they had taken her to see her old playmate Omi, and she had found him a tall, quiet man-youth, whose manners were even, she thought, more polished and gentle than those of her samurai brothers. For although Omi's parents were not wealthy people yet they were ambitious for the welfare of their sons, of whom they had two. They were desirous of giving them a scholarly education, so that one of them should become a merchant in Yokohama, and the other a sensei of Kyushu. And Omi had told Yuri on that visit of all his plans: of how, when he became a little older and when he had completely mastered the foreign languages, he would attend the Imperial University, and he would add with a smile, "Perhaps I shall become as learned and solemn as the old Chinese sensei who teaches us literature." All this Yuri remembered very distinctly, and because she was scarcely more than a child, she wondered in a vague sort of way whether Omi had actually become as he had predicted, for it had been six long months since she had seen him, and she wondered whether she would know him, or perhaps he would not know her, and at that thought the first fear she had felt since leaving her home came over her, and she grew very white and wistful.
They did not go inside the buildings, but stood by the entrance of the parade grounds, which were crowded with students between the ages of eighteen and thirty. The idea of nearly four hundred students taking a recess and indulging in no sports whatever, but talking and arguing quietly and seriously, would, perhaps, have presented a strange appearance to a Westerner, but the students of the colleges of Japan are, as a rule, very serious in deportment. Save what should rather be called a scientific art (jiujutsu), the Japanese students do not enter into games or sports. Each student enters college with a strong personal sense of obligation. That school is a place for study and hard work, and not for pleasure, is, perhaps, the first thing a Japanese child is told by the master. And the students themselves, having the hearts of Japan, seldom crave distractions. The pupils of the Kyushu schools especially, who are for the most part of wealthy parentage, and are sent to school to acquire a certain style peculiar to the old Kyushu samurai, are essentially earnest and taciturn. They cultivate a certain hardness which makes them consider frivolous amusements weak. Thus, for one of them to feel any sentiment or love toward one of the opposite sex, unless already betrothed to her, would be considered extremely weak and, perhaps, vulgar. For it is said to show lack of strength to be unable to wait until the parents shall provide them with a wife.
And Omi had lived for four years among men and youths who were brought up to feel, and think in this way, but although he had acquired all the outward grace, and had the cool, unsmiling, unreadable exterior peculiar to Kyushu students, the boy was strangely different from his schoolmates. His mind carried him back to when he was a child, running through the blue fields down to the roadside to meet his father, worn and tired with laboring on the farm of Yuri's father and brothers. His mother had been of gentler birth and it was largely through her influence that his father had amassed some little fortune, which enabled him to send his sons to the government school, and give them all the advantages of the sons of the samurai. But all the love of his heart, pent up because kept in confines by his school life among companions, who were for the most part his superior in rank and birth, companions who were strangely fascinating but still uncongenial for him, he poured out on the lowlier parent—the poor old laboring father. But he carried himself with a dignity and grace that would have done credit to a young noble, and being the cleverest student of his class, he had become a great favorite among them, and none knew of the hungry heart beneath the calm, placid exterior.
A bugle sounded for military exercises and the students began to fall in line.
They were used to curious or casual passersby pausing at the parade gate to watch them, so that they paid little attention to the two women standing timidly in the shadow. Yuri was peering eagerly among them, searching for a familiar form, but her heart sank lower and lower as she caught glimpses of the faces of the passing students and failed to find the one she sought. But although she had been unobserved by most of the students, yet there was one who had seen her almost from the moment when, stepping bravely to the gate, with the trembling maid behind her, she had half started into the grounds, and had then started back again in fear, as the commanding officer in a big voice, and frowning heavily, ordered the students to fall in line.
It was Omi who had seen and recognized her. He wondered how she came to be in Kumommota alone. It was his heart's desire to go up to her and greet her, but would that be practical? Would he not lose caste among the students were he to approach her thus, for she had not come to see him as the female relatives of the others always came—with male relatives. She was looking tired and he noticed that there was something troubled about her. At the bugle call a sudden dazzling came before her eyes and two glistening tears rolled slowly down her face. Omi could stand no more. So quietly and swiftly be crossed to her side that none of the students noticed him. As he came suddenly upon her, whispering her name with piercing tenderness, "Yuri-san," the flood gates of the girl's heart opened and she burst into a passion of tears, pausing but a moment to throw her arms passionately about her lover's neck. Then the maid knew that the girl's calm assurance had been but put on to hide the stronger emotions that lay beneath and that she had been under a terrible strain.
Out from the shadow of the parade grounds—away from the sounds of the patriotic national song that had suddenly burst forth, Omi drew her. Was he weak—cowardly? His very duty was dear and sweet to him in spite of all, and the soft beating and tapping of the drums, mingled sweetly with the call of the bugle and the voices of the students, seemed to be calling him back, and in leaving it all surely the sacrifice would atone for the desertion.
When Yuri was calm enough, and they had entered a more secluded part of the c1ty, she began to tell him why she had come, leaning against his arm like a tired child, and speaking with little catches in her voice. Her innocent confidence in him filled him with pride and delight.
"Yuri-san," he said, trying to speak calmly, though his voice quivered, "how large thy love! Shall we then for the time of all lives be husband and wife?" The maid began to weep bitterly, for she knew that the symbol of such a marriage was death, and she loved her little mistress full well.
Omi turned to her kindly. "It is, indeed, unkind to leave you behind, Oyoshi-san, but no vulgar death shall we meet. "
Yuri left his side to comfort the inconsolable woman.
"Omi-san," she said very sweetly, "at the big school where you have lived so long has no learning come to you? Surely a man-youth can plan and think for a little child-woman?"
Now that the tempest of her heart had been relieved in the outburst of tears, the woman and the coquette in her asserted itself. Unlike most samurai, Yuri could not calmly contemplate death. There was too much vitality in her. She stepped close up to Omi and whispered something in his ear. Although be shook his head and appeared to be horrified at her proposal, yet Yuri had her way, for she stamped her little foot imperiously and frowned and pouted until he relented, and taking her by the hand, said very tenderly, though sadly:
"The heart of selfishness is surely stronger than the soul of sacrifice—and for thy love shall it be so."
| Ojio-San | |