THE following morning an early messenger brought a letter to the Kamura residence. The family were at breakfast, but as the messenger came from the elder Kamura’s old Echizen friend, Yamada Kwacho, it was opened and read at once. Its contents, while surprising, were most pleasing to the family. Kwacho made an overture to contract a betrothal between their eldest son, Junzo, and his only daughter, Masago.
Junzo at this time was in Tokyo, where he had been living ever since he had returned from abroad. He was winning fame for himself as a sculptor,—an art quite new to Japan in its Western form,—and the family were proud of his achievements. This new mark of compliment from their esteemed friend, the wealthy Mr. Yamada, naturally flattered the Kamura family immensely. The messenger was sent back to the Yamada house with as gracious letter as the one received, and gifts of flowers and tea. The invitation of Mr. Yamada for a conference at his house the day following, in which the young couple might also have an opportunity of seeing each other and becoming acquainted, was accepted. Another messenger was despatched at once to Junzo in Tokyo, and the family congratulated themselves upon what they considered their good fortune.
Junzo read his father’s letter with a degree of irritation altogether out of keeping with the pride in the proposal manifested by the rest of his family. An extraordinary piece of fortune had recently come to Junzo, and the subject of his marriage seemed a matter of trivial importance beside it. He had, in fact, been commissioned to make a statue of the Prince Komatzu, the war hero of the time, who had distinguished himself by his brave conduct in the Formosa affair. Junzo knew that upon this work his future career would depend, and that should he please his illustrious patron he would doubtless have an opportunity of doing more work for the court; for at this time the nobility of Japan emulated everything modern and Western, and it had become the fashion for the gentlemen of the court to sit for their portraits in oil, though as yet none of the ladies had gone quite so far.
Junzo’s impatience, therefore, at his father’s summons to return home for the consummation of his betrothal to a young lady whom he had never seen, may be surmised. Being a well-bred and obedient son, however, he departed at once for his home, breaking a number of engagements in so doing.
As the train from Tokyo carried Junzo to Kamakura, the young man, while watching the flying landscape from his window, thought with some natural curiosity of his bride to be. Her father and mother he had met. Upon two or three occasions he had seen her little brothers playing in the fields. His active imagination soon pictured Masago. She would, of course, be plump and rosy-cheeked like her mother, pretty perhaps, thought Junzo, but lacking in that grace and spirituality that to him was the ideal of true beauty.
When his own grandsires had been samurai in the service of the Lords of Echizen, this girl’s ancestors had tilled the soil. Still, times were changed. The samurai had fallen, and the tradesman and farmer had risen. Now the descendants of the samurai drew the jinrikisha containing the fat merchant, or policed the streets of big cities for the glory of still wearing a sword. Moreover, the elder Kamura was in sympathy with the modern spirit of the times, and had accepted favors from the hand of Yamada Kwacho. Besides, the latter had not been without honor in Echizen; and, after all, his own family—the once proud samurai family of Kamura—were now but simple citizens, nothing more.
“The Restoration was right and just,” said Junzo, and smoothed out the frown from his patrician face. “And after all,” he added to his thought, “this girl of the people will be a more fitting wife than a woman of modern fancies, such as have become the ladies of caste.”
Masago’s aspect pleased, surprised—nay, quite bewildered Junzo. When at the look-at meeting she had raised her head finally from its low obeisance, Junzo had been startled at its delicate beauty. It shocked him to see a flower so exquisitely lovely and delicate surrounded by relatives so completely plebeian.
During the entire visit Junzo found his eyes constantly straying toward his betrothed. When she moved about the room, and with her own hands served him tea, he noted with delight her grace of movement, and the symmetry of her figure.
When tea had been served and drunk, he found her close beside him. She had moved dutifully there at a signal from her father; and now, as his betrothed, she quietly filled the long-stemmed pipe for him, and lighted it at the hibachi. As he took it from her hands, their eyes met for the first time. Junzo, though thrilled by the glance of her eyes, felt curiously enough repulsed. There was something forbidding, almost menacing, in their glance. A moment later the long lashes were shielding them. Then the young man noted that she had not as much as changed color, but still was calmly white and unmoved. A feeling of uneasiness possessed him. His delight in her beauty was chilled.
Once only throughout the afternoon did she show interest in the conversation. This was when Junzo had told his father-in-law to be, of a prospective visit to court to make a statue of a national hero. Then she had raised her head suddenly, and Junzo had stumbled over his words in the glow of artistic appreciation he felt of the beautiful pink color flooding her face.
The elder Kamura thought his son’s modesty in not mentioning the fact of the commission he had already received unnecessary in a family soon to become his own; and so he said, as he tapped the ashes from his pipe on the hibachi:—
“My son has been commanded to make a statue of his Imperial Highness the Prince Komatzu.”
The little cup which Masago had lifted toward her lips fell suddenly from her hand, its contents spilling on the tray. She seemed scarcely conscious of its fall, as she turned an eager and flushed face toward Kamura. She spoke for the first time, repeating half mechanically his words:—
“The Prince Komatzu—”
“Yes,” said Kamura, affably, “a cousin of his Imperial Majesty,” and he bowed his head to the mats in old-fashioned deference to the name of the Mikado.
“Why,” spoke up the simple Ohano, her eyes wide and bright, “we have his august picture.”
Her husband looked at her in astonishment.
“You have a picture of his Highness?” he inquired incredulously. “How is that possible, Ohano?”
“Masago cut it from a Chinese magazine you brought home last month,” said the wife, “and it was such a beautiful picture she has put it away among her treasures, have you not, Masago?”
The girl’s eyes were downcast, and she did not raise them. She knew by the silence in the room that her answer was awaited by the company, but she could not move her lips to speak. Then she heard Junzo answering quietly for her:—
“He is certainly the most admirable hero we have, and one that it honors our nation to idolize.”
His words were rewarded by a glance from the eyes she raised in timid gratitude. It was but for a moment; then her head was bent again.
For a week Junzo saw his fiancée daily. At the end of that time he accompanied her with her family a portion of the way to Kyoto, whither she went to attend school for a year. Junzo then proceeded alone to Tokyo, and on his journey back his musings of his future bride were as vague and unsatisfactory as when he had come.
