 | Karo |  |
III.
Yedo sang all day. She sang almost wildly at times, and sometimes her voice broke down, and she would sit on her cushion with her face in her hands and look at a picture on her knees, and then pull out from her dress a piece of yellow paper and read it over and over, and then she would sing again. That yellow paper was a cablegram from Karo. He was coming, and it was two months before the time they had expected him.
Then at last the day came. Yedo piled her hair up in a most fantastic manner, put little pins in it, tied the great obi, or sash, about her and waited impatiently. Twenty times did she go nervously to the door—then the little gate creaked and a tall young man came up the path. And little Yedo forgot she was a Japanese maiden; she threw propriety to the winds and acted in a most immodest manner and as would only have become one of the barbarian women of America, for she dashed to the door and raising his hands excitedly to her face, she caressed them wildly, saying only, "Karo, Karo, K-a-r-o!"
A strange look of awkward embarrassment had meanwhile come over Karo's face. He cleared his throat. Then he spoke, but Yedo could not understand one word he said, for he spoke in a strange tongue, and she commenced to weep pitifully. Then, seeing Karo did not return her advances, she raised herself proudly.
"Watanabe Karo, you are changed in ways as in face!" she cried in scathing tones. She took pathetically his picture from her dress and put it into his hands, and turned as if to go, thinking Karo would relent. Her poor little heart was too full for further speech. For five long years had she waited, and now he looked at her in painful embarrassment and spoke in a strange language. She thought for a moment. Perhaps he loved one of the barbarian women. Her voice and manner were resentful, but unable to speak further, she entered the house.
Her father came down the path. The supposed Karo raised his hat and said, "I beg your pardon, does Mr. Okasi live here? I am Mr. Watanabe's friend, Howard Clifton."
At that moment Karo arrived, and after he had greeted Okazi Omi with graceful prostrations, and inquired after the welfare of Yedo, he introduced Howard to Omi, who courteously invited him to enter the house. When Karo came into the room and bent low before Yedo, she did not rise from the little stool on which she sat until her father reproved her, and whispered, "Thou foolish child, wilt thou dishonor thy father?" Whereat she arose and welcomed Karo as she would have done an ordinary stranger or friend. And at the back of Karo stood Howard, and he was the image of the picture she had loved for two years. She had carried his face in her bosom, and had looked at it a hundred times a day till she knew every feature by heart.
Howard lingered in Kyoto for some time. He was delighted with the country, the people, and their strange etiquette, and was charmed with the beauty of the landscape and the climate. It seemed such a peaceful, happy land. Moreover, there was still a stronger reason which held him. It was Yedo.
But the time came when Howard must leave, and the day before his departure Karo said: "My friend goes tomorrow. He was betrothed to a lady in his country by their parents, but she knew not what honor meant—they know it not there." Then, he added sternly, "Thou knowest!"
Yedo raised her head.
"I love not you," she said, rising to her feet and lifting her soft round arms out of the great wings. "I love not you—the America—him I love!"
* * *
Karo went to Howard, who was packing his trunk.
"My betrothed loves you," he said, "as your betrothed did love me. As I did act by you, wilt thou by me? I cannot kill you as becometh my honor, for you are my guest, and the guest also of my father."
"If you wish to kill me, Karo," Howard said deliberately, "I'll send you my address when I have ceased to be your guest."
Karo answered gently, "I will not kill you, for you are acting as becomes a man of honor, in leaving our household, as I did leave yours in America."
Then Howard answered bitterly, "I don't know what your laws are. Your ideas of right and wrong are different from mine. If you do not love Yedo, she should be mine."
Karo smiled grimly, "I love Yedo with all my heart, and you forget that I would disobey my parents, did I do what you desire."
"Well, of course, if you love Yedo that's different, " answered Howard, "and yet it seems to me I wouldn't have cared had you taken Edith when
"You say that now," said Karo coldly. "Would you have said the same then?"
"Yes, I would," said Howard, doggedly.
* * *
Night was falling in Kyoto. Slowly, tenderly, the darkness swept away the exquisite rays of red and yellow that the departing sun had left behind it. The streets were deserted, and stillness reigned over the city. Two figures came softly along. They passed through the silent streets, crossed the valley till they came to the hills, and there they sat down to rest, for it had been a tiring journey to climb to the height they had reached. They were man and woman, and the woman rested against the man's breast, and ever and anon, he kissed her lips, the first kisses she had ever known. And scarce five rods behind them was a tall, slim figure, clad in a long, dark dress, with white headgear.
"My little Yedo, my darling!" said the man passionately, "I will take you away, dear, to where no one shall force you to do what you do not wish; where every one is free, and all will love you."
She shrank closer to him, and her frightened eyes seemed to peer into the darkness with an unknown fear.
"Why, Yedo," said the man, "do you fear anything, in my arms?"
"Thou knowest not my people," she answered pitifully, in broken English. "I fear not for me, but for your safety, for well do I love thee, my big America." The last words were intended to be playful, but her teeth were chattering and she shivered with dread, so that they sounded most piteous. Howard bent and kissed her lips.
As they rose to their feet, from out of the shadow of the trees stepped Karo into the broad moonlight. In his hand he carried a long Japanese sword. A sickening fear came over Howard; not for himself, but for Yedo, who had with one gasp slipped to the ground and lay at his feet apparently in a swoon.
Then Karo spoke. "Scarcely one year ago, for your sake and for my honor, did I refuse the love of your betrothed. In my pity for you that she loved you not, I asked you to my home, gave you the hospitality of my poor house, fed you with the bread of friendship, and in return you have forgotten everything, and have seen with the eyes of desire and the heart of selfishness that which I and my father did prize most an earth, my betrothed, which you have stolen from him whom you called friend. Is such honor in thy country? In mine, did I and thee and she now live, my name would be everlastingly disgraced; the little boys would sing it on the street and point at me the finger of derision, for the gods will not be satisfied save with our lives. Therefore, 'tis better to die an honorable death than to live a dishonorable life. For the honor of my parents and my house and name, for the honor of Japan, I kill!"
Howard saw the deadly Japanese sword descend. One thrust only in a vital part, two little white hands upstretched, a sound between a sigh and a moan, and Yedo was dead. And then Howard recovered himself and sprang madly at Karo and tried to wrest the sword from him, but although he was much the larger and stronger of the two men, yet he was no match for the slim, quick Japanese. With one twist the American lay at his feet, and with one stroke he killed him.
Hastening home, he first announced to Omi what he had done, and then went to his father's house. There he changed his dress, robing himself in the finest silk. He wrote a few letters, one to Edith Astor, in Boston. After that, he aroused the house and announced what he had done, and in the presence of his parents, killed himself.
The next day a great and honorable funeral was given to the three dead, and the people of Kyoto brought flowers to lay upon them, for they had loved wrongfully, but died to appease the gods.
| Karo | |