Part 47 (2/2)

_Namu my[=o]h[=o] renge ky[=o]_.

Asako's relatives spent the day in eating, drinking and gossiping to the rhythm of the interminable prayer.

It was a perfect day of autumn, which is the sweetest season in j.a.pan.

A warm bright sun had been s.h.i.+ning on the sumptuous colours of the waning year, on the brilliant reds and yellows which clothed the neighbouring hills, on the broad brown plain with its tesselated design of bare rice-fields, on the brown villas and cottages huddled in their fences of evergreen like birds in their nests, on the red trunks of the cryptomeria trees, on the brown carpet of matted pine-needles, on the grey crumbling stones of the old graveyard, on the high-pitched temple roofs, and on the inconsequential swarms of humanity drifting to their devotions, casting their pennies into the great alms-trough in front of the shrine, clanging the bra.s.s bell with a prayer for good luck, and drifting home again with their bewildered, happy children.

Asako no longer felt like a j.a.panese. The sight of her countrymen in their drab monotonous thousands sickened her. The hiss and cackle of their incomprehensible tongue beat upon her brain with a deadly incessant sound, like raindrops to one who is impatiently awaiting the return of fine weather.

Here at Ikegami, the distant view of the sea and the Yokohama s.h.i.+pping invited Asako to escape. But where could she escape to? To England.

She was an Englishwoman no longer. She had cast her husband off for insufficient reasons. She had been cold, loveless, narrow-minded and silly. She had acted, as she now recognised, largely on the suggestion of others. Like a fool she had believed what had been told. She had not trusted her love for her husband. As usual, her thoughts returned to Geoffrey, and to the constant danger which threatened him. Lately, she had started to write a letter to him several times, but had never got further than ”Dearest Geoffrey.”

She was glad when the irritating day was over, when the rosy sunset clouds showed through the trunks of the cryptomerias, when the night fell and the great stars like lamps hung in the branches. But the night brought no silence. Paper lanterns were lighted round the temple; and rough acetylene flares lit up the tawdry fairings. The chattering, the bargaining, the clatter of the _geta_ became more terrifying even than in daytime. It was like being in the darkness in a cage of wild beasts, heard, felt, but unseen.

The evening breeze was cold. In spite of the big wooden fireboxes strewn over their stall, the Fujinami were s.h.i.+vering.

”Let us go for a walk,” suggested cousin Sadako.

The two girls strolled along the ridge of the hill as far as the five-storied paG.o.da. They pa.s.sed the tea-house, so famous for its plum-blossoms in early March. It was brightly lighted. The paper rectangles of the _shoji_ were aglow like an illuminated honeycomb.

The wooden walls resounded with the jangle of the _samisen_, the high screaming _geisha_ voices, and the rough laughter of the guests. From one room the _shoji_ were pushed open; and drunken men could be seen with kimonos thrown back from their shoulders showing a body reddened with _sake_. They had taken the _geishas_' instruments from them, and were performing an impromptu song and dance, while the girls clapped their hands and writhed with laughter. Beyond the tea-house, the din of the festival was hushed. Only from the distance came the echo of the song, the rasp of the forced merriment, the clatter of the _geta_, and the hum of the crowd.

Starlight revealed the landscape. The moon was rising through a cloud's liquescence. Soon the hundreds of rice-plots would catch her full reflection. The outline of the coast of Tokyo Bay was visible as far as Yokohama; so were the broad pool of Ikegami and the lumpy ma.s.ses of the hills inland.

The landscape was alive with lights, lights dim, lights bright, lights stationary, lights in swaying movement round each centre of population. It looked as if the stars had fallen from heaven, and were being s.h.i.+fted and sorted by careful gleaners. As each nebula of white illumination a.s.sembled itself, it began to move across the vast plain, drawn inwards towards Ikegami from every point of the compa.s.s as though by a magnetic force. These were the lantern processions of pilgrims. They looked like the souls of the righteous rising from earth to heaven in a canto from Dante.

The cl.u.s.ters of lights started, moved onwards, paused, re-grouped themselves, and struggled forward, until in the narrow street of the village under the hill Asako could distinguish the shapes of the lantern-bearers and their strange antics, and the sacred palanquin, a kind of enormous wooden bee-hive, which was the centre of each procession, borne on the st.u.r.dy shoulders of a swarm of young men to the beat of drums and the inevitable chant.

_Namu my[=o]h[=o] renge ky[=o]_.

Slowly the procession jolted up the steep stairway, and came to rest with their heavy burdens in front of the temple of Nichiren.

”It is very silly,” said cousin Sadako, ”to be so superst.i.tious, I think.”

”Then why are we here?” asked Asako.

”My grandfather is very superst.i.tious; and my father is afraid to say 'No' to him. My father does not believe in any G.o.ds or Buddhas; but he says it does no harm, and it may do good. All our family is _gohei-katsugi_ (brandishers of sacred symbols). We think that with all this prayer we can turn away the trouble of Takes.h.i.+.”

”Why, what is the matter with Mr. Takes.h.i.+? Why is he not here? and Matsuko San and the children?”

”It is a great secret,” said the Fujinami cousin, ”you will tell no one. You will pretend also even with me that you do not know. Takes.h.i.+ San is very sick. The doctor says that he is a leper.”

Asako stared, uncomprehending. Sadako went on,--

”You saw this morning those ugly beggars. They were all so terrible to see, and their bodies were so rotten. My brother is becoming like that. It is a sickness. It cannot be cured. It will kill him very slowly. Perhaps his wife Matsu and his children also have the sickness. Perhaps we too are sick. No one can tell, not for many years.”

Ugly wings seemed to cover the night. The world beneath the hill had become the Pit of h.e.l.l, and the points of light were devils' spears.

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