Authors: Eiji Yoshikawa
"At last, Asatori!" Asuka cried, running up to him and bursting into tears as she seized his outstretched hand.
"What's the matter, Asuka? Were you waiting for me to come home?"
"Yes—"
"Has the Serpent been coming again?"
"He came again today and shouted at us, saying he would take me away this time for sure. That's why I ran away and came here."
"You don't have to be afraid," Asatori assured her. "I'll repay him. Let me talk to him, and I'm sure he won't force you."
At each turning that brought them closer to the Street of the Ox-Dealers, the lanes and alleys grew increasingly squalid. When they came to the wheelwright's clay hut the Serpent was still there, threatening the terrified couple. The Serpent was accompanied by an elderly woman, floridly dressed, who explained with feigned kindness: "You don't want to spend the rest of your life in this miserable slum, do you? I'm here to give you some advice—and you with that ravishing creature for a daughter! Haven't you ever thought of her future?"
Ryozen and his wife showed no sign of yielding, but the Serpent persisted in his threats. "Well, in that case, I'll have you pay me right now for the loan I made you last year. If it weren't for that, Asuka wouldn't be here now—would have been sold to someone up in the northeast. Don't tell me you've forgotten that! Why do you suppose I gave you some money again this spring? Because you said it was too cruel to take her away so young. And here's this woman, promising to set her up as a dancing-girl. What are you complaining about anyway? This is more than you deserve!"
Asatori and Asuka pushed their way through the crowd of inquisitive neighbors who craned in at the door. The Serpent and his companion seemed to grow uneasy at the sight of the mob surrounding the hut.
"We'll be back again. Think it over, you two," the Serpent said menacingly as he left.
"He's a persistent fellow—the Serpent. You'd better look out for Asuka. The devil himself is after you now," remarked Asatori examining the sick Ryozen as usual. "Have you any medicine left? As soon as you run out of it, send someone to me for more," he said kindly, and with a few more words of advice to the invalid, departed.
On the following day Asuka appeared at Asatori's house: "Good Asatori, here's a hair ornament that that man told us to return to you. Is it yours?" she said, handing it to Asatori. The pin, intricately worked of silver and gold, almost too valuable for even a court musician to own, was one that Asatori's mother had given him at his coming-of-age. It had been used to secure the headdress worn by court musicians on formal occasions. His mother had had the pin made for him by selling her few belongings to pay for it, and it was one of Asatori's most treasured possessions. After promising to repay the Serpent for the loan made to Ryozen, Asatori had induced the Serpent to accept the only valuable thing he owned.
". . . Do you really mean that that grasping fellow returned it?"
"Yes," Asuka replied.
"I wonder why."
"I don't know."
"But I can't believe he would do this, unless he intended to come again. You'd better keep this, Asuka, in case he does. . . . I have no use for it any more."
Asuka accepted the pin reluctantly, and it was only after she left that Asatori found it placed carefully on the box holding his books. She had often come to visit him after that day he had rescued her from the Serpent. Lately, however, she was spending more time with him than she did with her parents, and Asatori, who had grown fond of her, helped her with her reading and writing and took pride in her talents, for not only was she a promising calligraphist, but she could already compose verse. Though reared among the poor, Asuka's father, formerly a retainer to a nobleman executed after the Hogen War, had given his daughter some training in the accomplishments of a court lady.
There seemed to be no signs of an epidemic this year, but the unseasonally cool weather rotted and shriveled the rice and wheat seedlings. People talked anxiously of poor crops and of a famine that would follow in the winter.
Asatori was on his way home one day from his lectures in medicine. As he approached his door, he called out to Asuka, expecting to find her there, putting his house in order. There was no reply, however, and as he crossed the threshold he discovered that he had a visitor—Yomogi, staring at him with hostile eyes. He looked around for Asuka and found her sitting defiantly in the small kitchen. Neither of the two girls said anything. A long silence intervened, until Asatori began: "Dear me, what's this?" The sight of the two on the verge of tears puzzled him.
"Ah, Yomogi, here you are! We haven't seen each other for some time, have we?"
"How do you do, Asatori?" Yomogi replied with a stiff nod.
"You may already know that my mistress married last autumn rather suddenly."
"Yes, I did hear of that."
"I haven't been able to get away much since then, because she's surrounded by strange servants and likes to have me with her as much as possible, you know."
"Aren't you fortunate! But this is no place for you to come, though I'd be happy if we could see each other from time to time."
"I'm sure you're quite pleased that I can't come to see you often."
"Oh, that's not so!" Asatori denied, laughing.
"But—I quite understand how it is. I see that for myself."
"What's this? What do you mean?"
"Nothing—nothing at all."
Yomogi turned away and burst into tears. Asuka, who had been quietly watching them, stood up suddenly and ran from the house in her bare feet.
"Asuka! Here, Asuka, where are you off to? What's the matter?"
Asatori leaned from a window and called after her with all his might, but Asuka would not come back. Asatori, still mystified, began to wonder whether Yomogi and Asuka had been quarreling in his absence. One of those little tiffs, he thought, smiling, and went back to Yomogi. He noticed with surprise that she was no longer the child he had known six months or more ago.
Everything about her seemed to have changed—the way in which she wore her hair and bore herself proclaimed her a young woman. Was it possible, Asatori asked himself, that the consciousness of womanhood at seventeen could transform her so completely into this tremulous being? Then he concluded that this was only natural and reproached himself for his blindness. He tried again:
"Yomogi, did Asuka do something to hurt your feelings?"
"No, nothing at all," Yomogi replied curtly, adding: "I even thought she was a mute because she hardly said a word when she first saw me."
"She doesn't see many people other than those in this slum. She's poor and I'm sure she felt very shy."
"No, I don't think it was that."
"Then what was it?"
"She glared at me as though she wanted me to leave. I suppose you're going to marry her? Aren't you, Asatori?"
Asatori was startled. Yomogi's eyes searched his with such a determined look that his glance wavered. He grew hot about the ears as it dawned on him that he was the reason for those jealous looks. It startled him, however, to think that one as young as Asuka could also feel jealous. He wondered whether Yomogi had already felt this way about him last autumn when he treated her as though she were still a child.
"Has some errand brought you this way?" Asatori asked, changing the subject.
"No, I wanted your advice about something."
"Oh? . . ." Asatori squirmed; his breath seemed to come in gasps.
"Asatori, I'm thinking of leaving my mistress and coming to live here. What do you say to that?"
"You mean you're leaving Lady Tokiwa?"
"I'm not happy at the thought of leaving her alone there, but—"
"But you were with her ever since her children were born, weren't you? I'm afraid she's going to miss you."
"Yes, I've thought about that a great deal, too."
"What makes you think that you want to come and live here?"
"Haven't you always told me that the life of the grand and the rich is all show? That there's no comparison between them and the poor, among whom you find real goodness and kindness? I've been thinking about that and I believe you're right."
"But, Yomogi, that's no reason for you to choose the miserable life here when people here are trying to get away from all this!"
"I'm sick of the life of luxury. When I found that you gave up being a court musician because you felt as I do now, I knew that I also wanted to come and live here."
"No, you won't be able to stand this life very long after those years of ease. You must speak to your mistress and ask her how she feels about letting you go."
"Of course she would stop me. To tell you the truth, I don't feel about her as I used to. Not after what happened between her and Lord Kiyomori, and then her marrying again. And though she's beautiful, it's so shameful. . . ."
Yomogi had grown up, Asatori mused; she was a woman standing in judgment over another. She had grown skeptical of her own mistress and was anxious about her own future. It distressed him, however, to realize that Yomogi was asking him to share that future with her. How was he to dissuade her? Asatori's heart sank at the thought of the task before him. But Yomogi seemed content just to be there, chattering to him and ignoring the passing of time. When evening came she helped him prepare his meager supper and stayed to share it with him.
"You had better leave now, Yomogi."
"Yes, but as soon as my mistress can spare me, you'll let me come here, won't you, Asatori?"
But Asatori put her off, saying: "Well, next time Mongaku comes to the capital, you must ask him what he thinks. Don't do anything rash before then."
He went with her as far as the crossroad, then turned back to his house, where he found a smudge fire going. The light from a small lamp fluttered in the night breeze; picking up the lamp, he placed it by his desk and began loosening the cords of his medical books, then he heard a splashing at the rear of the house; a bamboo pole rattled. Craning out across the narrow veranda, he saw a drying-pole slung between the branches of a tree; a small figure was reaching up to hang out some wash. "Is that you, Asuka, out there? Don't try to do any more washing in the dark. Come in here where it's cool."
"But if I do these now, you'll have something clean for tomorrow."
"Oh, you've been so good as to wash out my soiled clothes?"
"I started to do them this afternoon, when that visitor arrived, and so—" Asuka said, approaching the veranda shyly. She finally sat down beside Asatori, tenderly nursing a finger.
"A splinter?"
"From that pole."
"Here, let me look at it." Asatori reached for her hand and drew it close to his eyes. "It's too dark here, come up to the light." He picked up some tweezers and began probing. Asuka surrendered her hand and seemed not to mind the pain.
"Ah, here it is—out! It must hurt, it's bleeding."
"No, not much."
"The bleeding will stop soon," Asatori comforted her, placing the finger in his mouth and sucking it. Asuka suddenly burst into tears. Asatori quickly took her in his arms and cuddled her as though she were a young child.
"What are you crying about, Asuka?" he asked.
"Because I'm happy—so happy," Asuka sniffled.
"Stop crying, then."
"I'm crying because I won't be able to come here any more."
"What makes you say that?"
Asuka, however, refused to reply and Asatori continued to rock her in his arms. Poor child, he thought, so starved for affection, this child of the slums.
"Asuka, why didn't you take this pin I gave you the other day? You're to take it with you tonight . . . you mustn't be shy."
"Is it really for me?"
"You could sell it, you know. Get a dress, perhaps?"
"No—" Asuka shook her head. Clutching the pin to her, she smiled at last. "I shall keep this forever—for the rest of my life."
Her spirits restored, Asuka finally went home and Asatori settled once more to his books. Tonight, however, the difficult text seemed hopelessly confusing and he could make nothing of it.
A week or so later Asatori, who had not seen Asuka for two or three days, was on his way home and stopped at Ryozen's house. He was dumbfounded at finding that a hunchbacked child and a cripple had moved in with their few belongings—a cooking pan and a wooden pail.