 | Ojio-San |  |
I.
The preparations for the marriage had begun, and Yuri had ceased to sing. The coolies who worked for her father missed the bright voice, and looked at each other with serious faces. The little garden with the sacred stones and the wild wisteria took on a dull and lonely look. The very flowers seemed to miss the sunny little figure who was wont to linger among them. For everything about Yuri was beautiful, from the crown of her little head with its golden combs to the tips of her tiny feet. She was so small that you could have lifted her up with one hand with the greatest ease, but she was so pretty and dainty and good to look at, that you would wish to put both arms about her.
* * *
With a hot flush on her face, and her two little hands clutched fiercely under the soft omeshi, [1] she remained indoors. The sun might be shining and the birds singing deliriously, but Yuri heard and saw them not. Her little heart was in a wild rebellion, and she was thinking of two things that clashed piteously together; one was the marriage they had prepared for her, the other was Ichiro Omi, her old playmate and sweetheart. Where was he? Why did he not come? She wrung her little hands feverishly and tried to think calmly. She was ojio-san (a noble's daughter), and in her inmost soul she rebelled against it, for she belonged therefore not to herself, but to her male relatives, the seven brothers, who had hitherto, because she was their only sister and was without father and mother, petted and loved her and allowed her to have her own way in all things, until some older relatives whispered that Yuri was no longer a child. Whereat the seven brothers drew together and spoke seriously, though sadly, of parting with their little sister, and securing a husband for her. Then a professional nakoda (or matchmaker) had arrived on the scene with an offer of marriage from one of the richest men of Kyushu, who had seen Yuri a few times and had taken a fancy to her. The brothers turned eager ears to the proposal, for although they were of samurai and noble blood, yet they were not rich men, and well they knew the advantage that would accrue to them in marrying Yuri to Shimoda Otama, the suitor; and the nakoda pressed his client's suit and the brothers eagerly agreed to the contract, and little Yuri was betrothed.
It was in a firm way that the brothers broke the news to her and bade her prepare for marriage. She was too stunned at first to understand, and when finally it dawned on her that she was to be taken away from her beautiful home, from her birds and flowers, and, above all, from Omi, to a large city to live in a stately shiro (palace) and be the wife of one of the cold, learned, and polished samurai of Kyushu, a feeling of intense anger and rebellion took possession of her. Truly she had always a known she was ojio-san, but why had she been brought up like the other children of the village? Why had she been allowed from childhood to have her own way in all things—to think for herself; to love whom she chose and hate whom she chose? Had the care bestowed on the "daughters of nobles," from earliest childhood, been given her, she would never have met Ichiro Omi; she would never have learned to love him, as she admitted to herself passionately she did. And Omi was away from the village at that time. He was at a big college in Kyushu where he was studying to become a sensei (teacher). Yuri felt utterly helpless. She loved the peasants; she liked to linger and gossip with the women of the village, and play on the blue hills and fields with the children, and she did not wish to be ojio-san. She was at heart a peasant, she told herself, and as she looked with wistful, misty eyes at the blue and golden fields about her, she made up her mind with all the stubbornness of a samurai that she would never, never, never marry Shimoda, but would become the wife of Omi, the child of the peasants, and for his sake she, too, would become as one of them. It was a stupendous task she had set herself—stupendous for a Japanese girl of samurai blood—that of crossing the will of her brothers—her guardians by law and nature.
One of the brothers entered the room, his arms full of blue flowers, and he set them down, looking very tenderly at her, but she turned her head away. The other brothers also came into the room, but she ignored them also, and they watched her with sad eyes, for they loved her very dearly and really had her welfare at heart. Suddenly Yuri turned toward them, and said very sweetly, "Ah, I see the brothers! Have they come to sell the sister?" Her voice grew more scornful and a hot blush flew over her face.
The brothers frowned. "Ha!" said the eldest one, "what means this? Forgot thyself hast thou, foolish child- sister?"
Yuri laughed softly, but there was no mirth in her laughter.
"Ah, no—man-brothers," she said mockingly with a graceful half prostration, "surely your child-sister knows she is ojio-san. Surely she knows—"
The eldest brother interrupted her sternly.
"Hsh," he said, talking a step toward her. "Thy behavior unbecoming is. It is our place and pleasure to provide for thy future, ungrateful one, and thou art not acting as becomes thy sex, but as a mere baby. Have thou no duty sense?"
Yuri became very still during this speech. Then she said very quietly, "Surely, I am willing to obey the will of my protectors in all things. I am ojio-san—not a peasant."
She turned her back on them, and they, thinking she had become resigned, left her to herself. She had not shed a single tear, but this was not because she did not feel keenly. It was because she had the hardy, stubborn blood of the samurai in her veins, which made her hide her true feelings, so that although she spoke in scorn of her marriage, yet she did not let the brothers see how keenly she was suffering.
As her maid brushed her hair that evening till it shone bright and glossy as the shining jade that she placed before the stone Buddha when she visited the Kwannon [2] temple on the hill, Yuri said very quietly, "Oyoshi-san, how much dost thou love me?" The maid did not answer, but she passed her hand lovingly across the little black head. Yuri was satisfied. She shook the hair from the maid's hands and bade her kneel before her. Then she told her all her trouble—of the harshness of the brothers in wishing to wed her to a man who was old and whom she did not and never could love. The sympathetic face of the maid invited further confidence, and she unfolded to her a plan so daring and dangerous for a Japanese girl to think of attempting that the maid started back in horror. Although but a common woman by birth, she had worked for samurai families for so long that she had acquired some of that absolute devotion to duty so conspicuous in their daughters. "Oa! mistress-san," she said imploringly, "lamentable would that be."
Yuri laughed gaily, and shook the kneeling maid by the shoulder, forcing her to her feet, and bade her bind up her hair, for truly if they wished to accomplish that which she intended surely to do, they must make haste while yet it was night, so that her brothers would not miss her. She was deaf to the maid's pleading, silencing her with a petulant little imperiousness in her voice that the maid did not dare gainsay. Without further parley she gathered the rich tresses together, and pushing aside the sliding fusuma [3] screens, brought from another apartment robes for herself and mistress to slip over their omeshi. Then, very silently, the two stepped out of the house, and crossing the rice fields, passed swiftly down to the new railway, which barbarians from the West had recently built.
| Ojio-San | |