 | The Diary of Dewdrop |  |
The Diary of Dewdrop
Smart Set 10.2 (June 1903): 37-42.
By Onoto Watanna
The Fifth Day of the Eighth Moon of the Thirty-third Year of Meiji
“On the day of my betrothal, I shall begin a little journal of my insignificant life.”This, I many a time told myself. “By that time,” I thought, “I shall have ceased to be a child, and must exchange the laugh of girlhood for the serious problems of the woman.”
To-day I am fifteen years old, and to-day I was betrothed. Pray, why is it, then, my honorable diary, that save for the tears I have wept this day my heart is still the heart of a child?
I can remember right back to my seventh birthday. I was then a tiny, small creature, with a flower ornament in my hair, and a red crêpe kimono tied about with a purple obi. My father took me by the hand, and together we crossed the fields until we came to the old-fashioned, but always beautiful, home of Count Kaneko. His little boy, Ido, who was but three years older than I, ran out to meet us, and pretended to chase me, so that I hid behind my father's hakama, and peeped at him with shy, glad eyes, for even at that early age I loved Kaneko Ido. All morning, we two played joyfully together, whilst our fathers smoked and talked.
On our way home, I begged my father to bring me more often to the Kaneko home, and I remember well the words with which my father answered me.
“Yes, little Dewdrop,” he said, “you shall play as much as you wish with Ido. Some day, I shall give you to him for a bride.”
I danced with delight at the prospect.
And the years of our childhood passed like a glad song, and each of my succeeding birthdays, and, indeed, all the days between, were spent with my playmate and little lover, Ido. But, one day, a dreadful thing happened. My dear old father died, and trouble thereafter took up its abode with us; for, scarcely three years later, my beautiful mother married again, and I became the honorable stepdaughter of Yoshimori Genjiro, who was proud and cold and stern. From that day to this, I was kept under surveillance, for my stepfather disapproved of freedom in the life of a young girl; he banished Ido from our house, declaring that as he was a boy he was no fit companion for me, and bade me cultivate such qualities as humility, meekness, obedience, grace and gentleness. Shortly afterward, Ido left the town to attend some big college in Kumamoto; but he wrote me a sweet love-letter before leaving, swearing that he would return someday, and claim me as his little bride, as our fathers had promised.
And I waited days and weeks and months, and then years for him, but he came not back to me, though I prayed to all the gods that they would give me back again my little high-born lover. Yesterday, my august stepfather said to me:
“The honorable Shinobu family have formally asked for thy unworthy hand to be given in marriage to their honorable son, Shinobu Taro. Tomorrow, you shall accompany me to their august palace, where the family
“But,” protested my mother, with some surprise, and despite her respect and fear of her lord, “the Shinobu family are of low caste, and Dewdrop's father was a descendant of one of the proudest families in Japan.”
“Just because our family is of the nobility,” said my father, coldly, “that is the reason the Shinobu family wish to be allied with us. They own hundreds of rice-fields, and are the richest parvenus in the country. Our poverty is unbecoming to our rank. Our unworthy daughter shall restore us to our rightful splendor.”
After making this long speech, my stepfather glared at us icily, and then added, turning directly to me:
“You are a very fortunate girl.”
I bowed, obediently, before him, murmuring my filial submissiveness to his will; but to myself I was saying over and over again:
“What shall I do? What shall I do?” For I was thinking of Ido. And, when my august stepfather gave me permission to return to my room, I crept from his presence like one whose spirit is broken, and I fell down before the little shrine in my room, and, stretching my hands imploringly upward to the pitying face of Kwannon, I begged that she would have mercy upon me.
This morning, my old dear servant, Madame Summer, awoke me with her weeping. She had come to dress me for the odious meeting which I was to have that day with my future husband. The poor old woman wept bitterly, for she feared that, like my mother, I might marry some one who was taciturn and unkind.
“Do not weep, dear my old friend,” I consoled her in my sweetest voice; “wherever I go, I shall have you always with me. Now, dress me, and be sure, dear Madame Summer, that you make me very beautiful, for this is my betrothal morn, and, besides, I am fifteen years old to-day.” And with that I fell to laughing; but my mirth ended in tears.
Shinobu Taro, my future lord, lives in a big, ugly palace, overcrowded with costly new furniture. His mother has cruel eyes. I shall be her slave, doubtless, when once I become her daughter-in-law. His father has a big, coarse, red face, and little, keen eyes that look at me in the same calculating fashion in which, I am sure, he regards the wares in his stores. Shinobu Taro himself is perfumed and greased all over, just as if he were some geisha girl or actor; and he has sly, proprietary eyes, like his father, and a cruel mouth, like his mother. He paid me extravagant compliments as to my beauty and virtue, but his compliments were as ungraceful as himself. We exchanged marriage presents, I giving him a sword of one of my ancestors, and he presenting me with a priceless kimono of the brightest red and yellow shades. Besides this, his family surfeited us with countless other gifts, so that we were forced to borrow five of their servants to carry them home with us.
After all the foolish compliments had been exchanged between us, we returned to our home, my stepfather in high spirits, my mother meek and timid as ever, and I in pale silence.
It is raining now, and summer rain always makes me melancholy and sad. Such sweet, soft, slow, oppressive rain! I opened a sliding door of my chamber, and looked out at it with a miserable face. My little garden, with the drops like tears upon the leaves and flowers, seemed to look up at me pityingly in the twilight, for, despite the rain, mellow sunset had tinged the sky, and it was still quite light.
I suddenly began to weep, in thought that I must so soon leave my dear home, and my tears were like the rain--quiet, subdued, unavailing.
| The Diary of Dewdrop | |