“It is just like poor Hanano!” I moaned. “They will bind it again tomorrow, and neither it, nor she, will ever be free!”
XXVIII
Sister’s Visit
That summer Mother was far from well. Lately her occasional attacks of asthma had become more frequent and trying. Thinking that a visit from my elder sister, who had always lived near our old home, would give Mother the happiness, not only of seeing her daughter, but also of hearing the pleasant gossip of old neighbours and friends, I wrote asking her to come to Tokyo. In a few weeks she was with us and proved a veritable blessing to us all. She was a comfort to Mother, a wise adviser to me, and an encyclopedia of interesting family history to the children; for there was nothing Sister liked better than telling stories of our old home as it was when she was a child.
Almost every day that summer, about the time the sun was sinking behind the tiled roof of our neighbour’s tall house and the cool shadows were creeping across our garden, we would gather in the big room opening on the porch. One at a time we came, each fresh from a hot bath and clothed in the coolest of linen. Mother sat on her silk cushion, straight and dignified; but Sister, more informal, usually discarded a cushion, preferring, instead, the cool, clean mats. She was a beautiful woman. I can see her now, slipping quietly into her place, the suggestion of a wave in her shining widow-cut hair, and her sweet face seeming to be only waiting for an excuse to break into one of her gentle smiles. Between Sister and Mother were the children: Hanano’s fingers, always busy, shaping bits of gay silk into a set of beanbags or cutting out a paper doll for Chiyo, who, gazing with loving admiration at her sister, sat with her own dear, lazy little hands folded on her lap.
This was our hour to spend in talking of the small happenings of the day: school successes and trials, incidents connected with home affairs and stray items of neighbourhood gossip. But almost inevitably the conversation would eventually drift into a channel that called forth from someone the familiar, “Oh, isn’t that interesting! Tell us about it!” or “Yes, I remember. Do tell that to the children.”
One afternoon Mother mentioned that the priest had called that day to make arrangements for a certain temple service called “For the Nameless” that was held by our family every year.
“Why is it called ‘For the Nameless’?” asked Hanano. “It has such a lonesome sound.”
“It is a sad story,” replied Mother. “A story that began almost three hundred years ago and has not yet ended.”
“How could Kikuno’s story have anything to do with the little room at the end of the hall?” I asked abruptly, my mind going back to the half-forgotten memory of a door that was never opened. “It didn’t happen in that house.”
“No; but the hall room was built right over the haunted spot,” replied Sister. “Is it true, Honourable Mother, that after the mansion was burned someone planted chrysanthemum in the garden, and soft, mysterious lights were seen floating among the flowers?”
Hanano had dropped her sewing into her lap, and both children were gazing at Sister with eager, wide-open eyes.
“Your fate until dinner time is decided, Sister,” I laughed. “The children scent a story. Now you can tell them why you wouldn’t use the cushion decorated with chrysanthemums at the restaurant the other day.”
“I must seem foolish-minded to you, Etsu-bo, with your progressive ideas,” said Sister, with a half-ashamed smile, “but I have never outgrown the feeling that chrysanthemums are an omen of misfortune to our family.”
“I know,” I said, sympathetically. “I used to feel so, too. I didn’t really get over it until I went to America. The name Mary is as common there as Kiku is here, but I had associated it only with sacredness and dignity; for it is the holiest name for a woman in the world. Some people even pray to it. And when, one time, just after I went to America, I heard a shopwoman call roughly, ‘Mary, come here!’ and out ran a ragged child with a dirty face, I was astounded. And a neighbour of ours had an ignorant servant girl by that name. It was a shock at first; but I finally learned that association is a narrow thing. When we apply it broadly the original feeling does not fit.”
“People learn to forget when they travel,” said Sister quietly; “but as far back as I can remember, no chrysanthemum flower was ever brought into our house, no chrysanthemum decoration was ever used on our screens, our dishes, our dresses, or our fans; and, with all the pretty flower names in our family, that of Kiku—chrysanthemum—has never been borne by an Inagaki. Even a servant with that name was never allowed to work for us unless she was willing to be called something else while she lived in our house.”
“Why? Oh, do tell us about it!” pleaded both children.
So again I heard the story, familiar from childhood, but changing continually in its significance as I grew older, until it became fixed in my mind as the hero tale of a brave old samurai who represented the double virtue of a great and tender love combined with the hard, cold strength of loyalty to duty.
This ancestor of mine was lord of our family during the period when it was a government requirement that men of his class should have two handmaids. This was to guard against the possibility of there being no heir, that being an unspeakable calamity to people who believed that a childless family meant heavenly annihilation. Handmaids were always selected by the wife, from families of her own rank; and their position, although inferior in influence, was considered as
