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THE IVORY TOWER say so) as rather astonished at it?" And then while his host took this without response, only engaged as to more entire repletion in the steady measure of him, he added further, even though aware in sounding it of the complacency or fatuity, of the particular absurdity, his question might have seemed to embody: "What in the world can I want but to meet you in every way?" His perception at last was full, the great strange sense of everything smote his eyes; so that without the force of his effort at the most general amenity possible his lids and his young lips might have convulsively closed. Even for his own ear "What indeed?" was thus the ironic implication—which he felt himself quite grimace to show he should have understood somebody else's temptation to make. Here, however, where his uncle's smile might pertinently have broadened, the graver blandness settled again, leaving him in face of it but the more awkwardly assured. He felt as if he couldn't say enough to abate the ugliness of that—and perhaps it even did come out to the fact of beauty that no profession of the decent could appear not to coincide with the very candour of the greedy. "I'm prepared for any thing, yes—in the way of a huge inheritance": he didn't care if it might sound like that when he next went on, since what could he do but just melt to the whole benignity? "If I only understood what it is I can best do for you." 111


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THE IVORY TOWER "Do? The question isn't of your doing, but simply of your being."

Gray cast about. "But don't they come to the same thing?"

"Well, I guess that for you they'll have to."

"Yes, sir," Gray answered—"but suppose I should say 'Don't keep insisting so on me'?" Then he had a romantic flight which was at the same time, for that moment at least, a sincere one. "I don't know that I came out so very much for myself."

"Well, if you didn't it only shows the more what you are"—Mr. Betterman made the point promptly. "It shows you've got the kind of imagination that has nothing to do with the kind I so perfectly see you haven't. And if you don't do things for yourself," he went on, "you'll be doing them the more for just what I say." With which too, as Graham but pleadingly gaped: "You'll be doing them for everyone else—that is finding it impossible to do what they do. From the moment they notice that—well, it will be what I want. We know, we know," he remarked further and as if this quite settled it.

Any ambiguity in his "we" after an instant cleared up; he was to have alluded but ever so sparely, through all this scene, to Rosanna Gaw, but he alluded now, and again it had for Gray an amount of reference that was like a great sum of items in a bill imperfectly scanned. None the 112

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MARIE ANTOINETTE'S TALISMAN. 455 sharing the same lessons, caressed by the same motherly hand, he could not, all at once, yield up the traditions of a superior race to which, by implication and habit, he almost belonged. It was in vain that he took upon himself the habits of the people, that he lived in a garret, and gave up the income of a little property which he had inherited from his own parents, to swell the extravagance of his foster-brother. A neglected toilet, unwashed hands, and coarse clothing, were insufficient to brutalize this man into one of the monsters that a little while after this baptized themselves patriots.

Notwithstanding his moderation, and his wish to save the monarchy, and give freedom to the people at the same time, Monsieur Jaque went hand-in-hand with Madame Gosner, and threw himself into this fearful work with equal energy He, too, believed that a wicked deception had been practiced upon a long-suffering woman, and could find no way of accounting for it which did not implicate the King and Queen of France. Some times, when he thought of the honest, kind face of Louis the Sixteenth, of the simplicity of his words, the shy gentleness of his manner, this belief became almost an impossibility to him. Nor could he think of the queen, so earnest, so generous and beautiful, without recoiling in his heart and reason from the thought that she could have known and sanctioned an act so full of dishonor, or so bitterly unkind.

But the fact still remained, no matter where the blame lay. A terrible wrong had been done, a human life worse than sacrificed. More than this, ont of that awful place one soul had made its cries of agony heard; but how many others lay in those vaults, unknown. Those awful walls, with their seven feet in thickness, were built thus massively, that the cries of human anguish might never penetrate them. What became of the hundreds on hundreds that had crossed that draw-bridge, never to be heard of again? Had they been carried out in the silence of midnight to unknown graves, or were they still chained to those reeking walls, and crouching in cells so far beneath the earth that they possessed all the horrors of a grave, without its peacefulness?

The fire spread. Mirabeau heard the story from his foster-brother, and thundered it through the clubs. It burned like a romance on his lips, and glowed out in words of fire on the pages of his journal. In less than three days all Paris was in a storm of indignation, and poured itself tumultuously into the streets, If human ingenuity could have imagined anything more terrible than the horrors of that man’s fate, the passions of an ignorant people would have invented something more awful than the truth; but here the bitterest passion failed, and the simple fact was far more powerful than exaggeration ever could have been.

Monsieur Jaque told the story, and in his own stirring language described the scenes he had himself witnessed in the Bastile, Madame Gos- ner pleaded with a woman's pathos and a man's power for the husband who had been torn from her in his youth, and was now perishing in the cells of that hideous prison. All the terrible traditions of the Bastile were nothing to the actual story of this man, as it came from the lips of his wife. Through the work-shops, the markets, the quays, and the clubs, the fact of his incarceration, after a pardon had been granted, and his death proclaimed, spread like fire along a train of powder.

The reckless demagogues, who had been so long striving to fire the people with a spirit of revolt, saw in all this an element of revolution stronger than their eloquence, and seized upon it with sharp energy. The clubs arose at once, uniting in one grand effort; but it was in answer to a clamorous demand from the people, who, ready for revolt, called aloud for guides and leaders.

The time had come. One night the streets of Paris were darkened by crowds of silent, stern men, whose enger faces looked sinister in the lamplight, as they turned invariably toward the Place de Grove. The men moved swiftly on in comparative silence; but wherever they paused  a warehouse was broken open, and everything  of iron or steel it contained taken therefrom,  though all other articles were scrupulously left  untouched.

Women, too, came out from their domicils, and swelled the stream that poured into the Place  de Grove. Each carried some burden—a loaf of bread, a bar of rusty iron, or a ponderous  fire-shovel, from her own hearth-stone. Before midnight the Place de Grove, and the adjoining  streets broke into a blaze. Anvils and forges in full blast seemed to start out of the very earth,  lighting up all the grim outlines of the Hotel de  Ville, and the great crowds of men and women  that swarmed around it, with gleams of light  thrown against deep, deep shadows, that made  the whole scene terrible. To this was added the sharp ring of iron against the steel, the roll of  wheels bringing in heavy loads of plunder, the  crash of hammers thundering to each other, and  the awful hum and swell of angry voices in suppression.

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Page:Everywoman's World, Volume 7, Number 7.djvu/44

PAGE 42 Save the Food and Serve the Empire !

The Average Canadian Family Wastes Enough to Feed a Soldier

“The Kitchen must help as well as the Workshop and the Trenches”

Lloyd George.

the kitchen can do much

to prevent the threatened a ’ world famine—can counteract the effect of high prices— and can replace growing debt with systematic saving.

Careful investigations show that before the war the average British family wasted 25% of their food—and we Canadians were even more extravagant,

This waste is not in a few big things, but in many little ones, each, we used to think, too small to bother about—such as careless peeling of vegetables and fruit—failure to make good use of dripping and “left- overs”—and such others as will occur to every thrifty housekeeper.

For the Empire’s sake as well as your own, hunt up and cut out

these leaks! You'll be helping to relieve the food shortage—saving

our own money—and putting yourself in a position to buy Canadian ar Savings Certificates and help win the war.

War Savings Certificates are issued in denominations of $25, $50 and $100, to be repaid in three years at full face value. They cost $21.50, $43 and $86 respectively, at all Money Order Post- Offices and Banks, thus yielding over 5% Interest. Should you need it, you can get your money back at any time. 19

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Canada who have voiced their honest feelings in the matter and who believe that the primary trouble rests in the fact that too much attention is paid to evidence given by officers, and not enough to the evidence of those who have served in the ranks and who know what a ranker has to go through.

As nearly as can be learned, it is believed that the above conditions could be obviated, to a large extent, by looking after the first complaint, by appointing more doctors for attendance, and also the making of appointments by schedule. Secondly, by constantly and carefully checking over the men on the register. Thirdly, by a simpler and more sympathetic system in dealing with those who have been seriously wounded. Fourthly, by forwarding money to men more readily than is at present done. Fifthly, by a bureau of information where the men could have their individual perplexities carefully listened to and relieved, Sixthlyy, by the speeding up of artificial limb manufacturing, or by purchase abroad, and also the getting into new quarters as soon as possible. Seventhly, by a more appreciable sympathy on the part of those in charge of the work, and also a tactful intimation to the general public, who at present hardly realize the part the men have played and the sacrifices they have made. Eighthly and finally, an extension of the out-patient system, with a subsistence allowance which would give the afflicted man more independence of spirit and would help to alleviate a good deal quicker the physical ills which at present beset him.

I believe that if the Government were to make an analysis of these findings they would prove them to be substantially correct and that they are really matters which call for urgent attention before next winter finds us again unprepared to deal with the situation.

Every good citizen should make it his duty to see that certain bad practices which have obtained in other countries do not creep into Canada in connection with our pension system. Already we are told that in England certain employers are seeking to benefit themselves by using the pensions to lower wages. According to the "London Chronicle" the scheme is worked in this way: A man was granted a pension of sixteen shillings a week: his employer was graciously willing, according to his promise, to take him on again if he would be content with a wage which would make up the difference between sixteen shillings a week and the standard trade union rate. However, the case was settled by the determination of the union not to allow such a transaction.

While labour, at the present time, is scarce in Canada, and will probably be scarcer during the coming months, it would be only a wise precaution for all good citizens to vigilantly watch conditions so that the men who return from the Front are not taken advantage of. It is good to know that in Great Britain the War Pensions Statutory Committee is alive to the situation. So long ago as June, 1916, it suggested to the Board of Trade that the "rates of pay to disabled sailors and soldiers should bear the same proportion as the rates of pay to competent, able-bodied men as the output of the former bears to that of the latter." In other words, a policy of equal pay for equal work, irrespective of pension, had practically been decided on in the Old Country.

The Committee further proposed that if any dispute arises between discharged soldiers and sailors and their employers the question should be referred to a committee consisting of an equal number of representatives of employers and union labour organisations, who shall recommend to the Board of Trade what wages should be paid in each particular case. Since this proposal was made the British Board of Trade has agreed ta set up such machinery. Advisory Wage Boards are to be established experimentally in twenty of the principal cities and towns, and if they are a success, the system will be extended throughout the rest of the country. Each Advisory Wage Board will consist of an independent chairman, a local employer, and a local workman, together with not more than three members of the local War Pensions Committee, sitting as assessors, but without the right to vote.

It would be well if the Government of the Dominion would supplement such work as the various patriotic organisations in every locality may do by adapting the system which the British Board of Trade has put into effect in the Old Country, and thus guarantee to every pensioner his full remuneration for services rendered.

Now that your true worth has been made known provincial legislators all over the Dominion are hastening to give you the higher tight of citizenship by offering you Equal Suffrage at the polling booth. It becomes, therefore, incumbent on you to see that justice is fully administered to the soldiers who have done what they could in this great crisis, and also to those who are dependent on them. This is a great responsibility and will necessitate much of your time and energy as you merge more and more into the political fabric, T am absolutely sure that every woman will prove equal to the task if she perceives clearly just how necessary will be her energies when peace at last arrives. If the women of Canada catch the correct perspective, Canada's future will be even brighter than the past has ever been.


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THE IVORY TOWER less it left him desiring still more clearness. His whole soul centred at this point in the need not to have contributed by some confused accommodation to a strange theory of his future. Strange he could but feel this one to be, however simply, that is on however large and vague an assumption, it might suit others, amid their fathomless resources and their luxuries or perversities of waste, to see it. He wouldn't be smothered in the vague, whatever happened, and had now the gasp and upward shake of the head of a man in too deep water. "What I want to insist on," he broke out with it, "is that I mustn't consent to any exaggeration in the interest of your, or of any other, sublime view of me, view of my capacity of any sort. There's no sublime view of me to be taken that consorts in the least with any truth; and I should be a very poor creature if I didn't here and now assure you that no proof in the world exists, or has for a moment existed, of my being capable of anything whatever."

He might have supposed himself for a little to have produced something of the effect that would naturally attach to a due vividness in this truth—for didn't his uncle now look at him just a shade harder, before the fixed eyes closed, indeed, as under a pressure to which they had at last really to yield? They closed, and the old white face was for the couple of minutes so thoroughly still without them that a slight uneasiness quickened 113


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THE IVORY TOWER him, and it would have taken but another moment to make a slight sound, which he had to turn his head for the explanation of, reach him as the response to an appeal. The door of the room, opening gently, had closed again behind Miss Goodenough, who came forward softly, but with more gravity, Gray thought, than he had previously seen her show. Still in his place and conscious of the undiminished freshness of her invalid's manual emphasis, he looked at her for some opinion as to the latter's appearance, or to the move on his own part next indicated; during which time her judgment itself, considering Mr. Betterman, a trifle heavily waited. Gray's doubt, before the stillness which had followed so great even if so undiscourageable an effort, moved him to some play of disengagement; whereupon he knew himself again checked, and there, once more, the fine old eyes rested on him. "I'm afraid I've tired him out," he could but say to the nurse, who made the motion to feel her patient's pulse without the effect of his releasing his visitor. Gray's hand was retained still, but his kinsman's eyes and next words were directed to Miss Goodenough.

"It's all right—even more so than I told you it was going to be."

"Why of course it's all right—you look too sweet together!" she pronounced.

"But I mean I've got him; I mean I make him squirm"—which words had somehow the richest 114


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 Rh —we murmured our thanks—“and now explain to me, please, your five-dollar gold piece and your ten-dollar eagle.”

We felt it proper, however, to shift the subject, and asked the Prince a few questions in regard to his views on American politics. We soon found that His Highness, although this is his first visit to this continent, is a keen student of our institutions and our political life. Indeed, his Altitude showed by his answers to our questions that he is as well informed about our politics as we are ourselves. On being asked what he viewed as the uppermost tendency in our political life of to-day, the Prince replied thoughtfully that he didn’t know. To our inquiry as to whether in his opinion democracy was moving forward or backward, the Prince, after a moment of reflection, answered that he had no idea. On our asking which of the generals of our Civil War was regarded in Europe as the greatest strategist, His Highness answered without hesitation, “George Washington.”

Before closing our interview the Prince, who, like his illustrious father, is an enthusiastic sportsman, completely turned the tables on us by inquiring eagerly about the prospects for large game in America.

We told him something—as much as we could recollect—of woodchuck hunting in our

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MARIE ANTOINETTE'S TALISMAN. 457 numbers a yell that rose fiercely, like the cry of wild beasts in a forest. From street to street, from alley to alley, that cry swept its way, arousing the people like a war-trumpet ; from the Place de Grove, from the steps and very roof of the Hotel de Ville it gathered force, and rolled in thunder through the crowd.

"To the Bastile! To the Bastile!"

Each strong arm dropped from its work. The Place de Grove was emptied as if a mountain torrent had swept through it. That moment all Paris seemed to hurl itself on the Bastile.

Burning with rage, fierce, wild, terrible, the people swarmed around the grim, old fortress. The draw-bridge was up; the moat, deep, stagnant, torpid as a gorged anaconda, coiled around its base, sending up a fetid odor as that serpent does when suddenly aroused. Some small houses and shanties were crowded close to the moat. In an instant the roofs of these buildings were covered with human beings, who swarmed over them until the timbers crashed beneath their weight; but it was in vain. The moat was too broad and deep- no man was vigorous enough to leap it. For a minute the crowd was held at bay; then a plunge from the lowest roof- a struggle through the green waves; another plunge, a wild, ringing shout, and a figure was seen climbing up the timbers of the drawbridge. Another followed, whom the people recognized as Monsieur Jaque, the foster-brother of Count Mirabeau, and rent the air with their shouts. Then came the sharp, ringing sound of axes, the rattle of chains, and a terrible crash of timbers-the draw-bridge had thundered down to its place. In an instant it groaned under the weight of human beings pressing over it, panting like wild beasts for a leap upon their prey.

Then an awful scene arose in the fortress. A man was seen hall- way up one of the towers, clinging to the ladder of massive ropes which coiled down its walls ; but some one of the insurgents had gone up before, and with his hatchet hewed the ropes above him. One after another the strands gave way, till only a single rope was left. A blow of the hatchet upon this, and the rope began to uncoil, swifter and swifter, whirling the poor wretch with it, until the last strand tore apart, and he fell, with a crash, to the court below, and was so broken upon the stones that no one could have told the bruised face as that of Christopher, the head keeper.

But a more pitiful scene was going on in the governor's room, which a crowd of insurgents had entered, weapon in hand. The poor man was upon his knees, pleading for the mercy he had never given, pale, abject, trembling with terrible dread. There was no riot, no noisethose men were all too bitterly in earnest for that ; the hatred in their white faces was terrible to look upon. One man held a key in his hand.

"Show us the cells, " he said, sternly, "those which are deepest underground. Before we kill you, the prisoners must be set free. "

The governor groveled to the earth, his limbs shook, his eyes stood out wildly from his head—snow itself was not whiter than his craven face.

"I cannot- I do not know where they all are. Christopher can tell.”

His words were broken; his teeth knocked together; he clung to the legs of a table near him in mad terror, lest those fierce men should drag him away by force. They did tear his hold from the senseless wood. He was lifted from one man to another, flung to the earth, spurned across the stones-at last dragged over the draw-bridge and hurled into the howling masses of the crowd.

Before his tormentors had entered the Bastile again, a cry so keen, so awfully shrill, that it cut through all other noises like an arrow, made them halt and look back with a pang of compassion; but the, next instant both the shriek and the feeling were gone, and the doors of the prison began to crash under their axes, while the maddened crowd rushed downward into the bowels of the earth, burning with passion, but awe-stricken and silent as an army of ghosts.

The first man who entered the lower corridors was Monsieur Jaque; he was followed by a woman with a face of marble, who carried a burning torch in her hand. Three times his axe circled around the head of Monsieur Jaque, and each time the iron-studded door resisted the blow. Another, and the mass of oak fell in with a crash, and a man, all trembling and whte, with eyes gleaming through the long, silver hair that fell over them, stood up in the center of the cell, holding out both hands imploringly.

When the flame of the torch fell upon his face, he uttered a sharp cry, and shielded his sight with both hands.

Then a low voice, broken and sweet with infinite tenderness, thrilled the air of the dungeon.

"My husband! Oh, Henry! will you not look upon me?"

A slow shiver ran through the prisoner, the hands fell away from his face ; he tried to speak, but had lost all power of distinct articulation. His eyes turned wistfully on the eager face bending toward him, but he shook his head and turned away.

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THE IVORY TOWER gravity of any yet; "but all it does for his resistance is that he squirms right to me."

"Oh we won't have any resistance!" Miss Goodenough freely declared. "Though for all the fight you've got in you still!" she in fine altogether backed Mr. Betterman.

He covered his nephew again as for a final or crushing appraisement, then going on for Miss Goodenough's benefit: "He tried something a minute ago to settle me, but I wish you could just have heard how he expressed himself."

"It is a pleasure to hear him—when he's good!" She laughed with a shade of impatience.

"He's never so good as when he wants to be bad. So there you are, sir!" the old man said. "You're like the princess in the fairy-tale; you've only to open your mouth"

"And the pearls and diamonds pop out!"—Miss Goodenough, for her patient's relief, completed his meaning. "So don't try for toads and snakes!" she promptly went on to Gray. To which she added with still more point: "And now you must go."

"Not one little minute more?" His uncle still held him.

"Not one, sir!" Miss Goodenough decided.

"It isn't to talk," the old man explained. "I like just to look at him."

"So do I," said Miss Goodenough; "but we can't always do everything we like." 115


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THE IVORY TOWER "No then, Graham—remember that. You'd like to have persuaded me that I don't know what I mean. But you must understand you haven't."

His hand had loosened, and Gray got up, turning a face now flushed and a little disordered from one of them to the other. "I don't pretend to understand anything!"

It turned his uncle to their companion. "Isn't he fine?"

"Of course he's fine," said Miss Goodenough; "but you've quite worn him out."

"Have I quite worn you out?" Mr. Betterman calmly inquired.

As if indeed finished, each thumb now in a pocket of his trousers, the young man dimly smiled. "I think you must have—quite."

"Well, let Miss Mumby look after you. He'll find her there?" his uncle asked of her colleague. And then as the latter showed at this her first indecision, "Isn't she somewhere round?" he demanded.

Miss Goodenough had wavered, but as if it really mattered for the friend there present she responsibly concluded. "Well, no—just for a while." And she appealed to Gray's indulgence. "She's had to go to Mr. Gaw."

"Why, is Mr. Gaw sick?" Mr. Betterman asked with detachment.

"That's what we shall know when she comes back. She'll come back all right," she continued for Gray's encouragement. 116


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THE IVORY TOWER He met it with proper interest. "I'm sure I hope so!"

"Well, don't be too sure!" his uncle judiciously said.

"Oh he has only borrowed her." Miss Goodenough smoothed it down even as she smoothed Mr. Betterman's sheet, while with the same movement of her head she wafted Gray to the door.

"Mr. Gaw," her patient returned, "has borrowed from me before. Mr. Gaw, Graham!"

"Yes sir?" said Gray with the door ajar and his hand on the knob.

The fine old presence on the pillow had faltered before expression; then it appeared rather sighingly and finally to give the question up. "Well, Mr. Gaw's an abyss."

Gray found himself suddenly responsive. "Isn't he, the strange man?"

"The strange man—that's it." This summary description sufficed now to Mr. Betterman's achieved indifference. "But you've seen him?"

"Just for an instant."

"And that was enough?"

"Well, I don't know." Gray himself gave it up. "You're all so fiercely interesting!"

"I think Rosanna's lovely!" Miss Goodenough contributed, to all appearance as an attenuation, while she tucked their companion in.

"Oh Miss Gaw's quite another matter," our young man still paused long enough to reply. 117


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THE IVORY TOWER "Well, I don't mean but what she's interesting in her way too," Miss Goodenough's conscience prompted.

"Oh he knows all about her. That's all right," Mr. Betterman remarked for his nurse's benefit.

"Why of course I know it," this lady candidly answered. "Miss Mumby and I have had to feel that. I guess he'll want to send her his love," she continued across to Gray.

"To Miss Mumby?" asked Gray, his general bewilderment having moments of aggravation.

"Why no—she's sure of his affection. To Miss Gaw. Don't you want," she inquired of her patient, "to send your love to that poor anxious girl?"

"Is she anxious?" Gray returned in advance of his uncle.

Miss Goodenough hung fire but a moment. "Well, I guess I'd be in her place. But you'll see."

"Then," said Gray to his host, "if Rosanna's in trouble I'll go to her at once."

The old man, at this, once more delivered himself. "She won't be in trouble—any more than I am. But tell her—tell her!"

"Yes, sir"—Gray had again to wait.

But Miss Goodenough now would have no more of it. "Tell her that we're about as fresh as we can live!"—the wave of her hand accompanying which Gray could take at last for his dismissal. 118


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Rh, who in outward manner is particularly quiet and diffident. By the way, has he written to you again? I remember we read his poem together. You cannot, of course, under the circumstances risk giving him any definite encouragement; but do not be too hard upon him.’

Even amid these very exceptional young men Yūgiri looked surprisingly handsome and distinguished, and Genji, pointing to him, said to Tamakatsura in a whisper: ‘I am terribly disappointed that Tō no Chūjō should take up his present attitude about that boy. It has come to this nowadays, that those people will not look at any one who is not part and parcel of their own gang. A drop of other blood, even if it be that of the Royal House, seems to them a painful blemish….’ ‘That was not the way Royal Princes were regarded once upon a time,’ said Tamakatsura, and quoted the old folk-song Come to my house. ‘They certainly seem in no hurry to make ready a banquet for poor Yūgiri,’ admitted Genji. ‘I am extremely sorry for those two. They took a fancy to each other when they were mere children and have never got over it. I know quite well that they have suffered a great deal through this long separation. If it is merely because of Yūgiri’s low rank that Tō no Chūjō refuses his consent, he might on this occasion be content to disregard the comments of the world and leave the matter in my hands. He surely does not suppose that I intend the boy to remain in the Sixth Rank for ever….’ Again he was speaking of Tō no Chūjō with asperity and, like her brothers a few hours ago, Tamakatsura was perturbed to discover that the breach between them was widening, partly because such a state of

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270 affairs made it all the less probable that Genji would in the near future reveal her identity to Tō no Chūjō.

As there was no moon that night, the great lamp was presently brought in. ‘It is now just comfortably warm,’ said Genji, ‘and the only thing we need is a little more light.’ He sent for a servant and said to him: ‘One tray of bamboo flares! In here, please.’ When they were brought he noticed a very beautiful native zithern and drawing it towards him struck a few chords. It was tuned to the difficult ritsu mode, but with remarkable accuracy. It seemed indeed to be an exceptionally fine instrument, and when he had played on it for a little while he said to her: ‘I have all these months been doing you the injustice of supposing that you were not interested in these things. What I like is to play such an instrument as yours on a cool autumn evening, when the moon is up, sitting quite close to the window. One then plays in concert with the cicadas, purposely using their chirruping as part of the accompaniment. The result is a kind of music which is intimate, but at the same time thoroughly modern. There is, of course, a go-as-you-please, informal quality about the Japanese zithern which makes it unsuitable for use on ceremonial occasions. But when one remembers that almost all our native airs and measures originated on this instrument, one cannot help regarding it with respect. There are stray references which show that its history stretches back into the dimmest past; but to hear people talk nowadays one would think it had been specially invented for the benefit of young ladies, in whom an acquaintance with foreign arts and usages is considered unbecoming. Above all, do make a practice of playing it in concert with other instruments whenever you get the chance. This will immensely improve your command over it. For though the Japanese zithern is a far less

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Rh instrument than its rivals, it is by no means so easy to play as most people imagine. At the present time there is no better performer than your father, Tō no Chūjō. You would be astonished at the variety of tone he can get out of a mere succession of open strings; it is as though by some magic he were able in an instant to change his zithern into whatever instrument he pleases. And the volume of sound which he obtains from those few slender strings is unbelievable!’

Tamakatsura had reached a certain point of proficiency herself. But she knew that she had much to learn, and longed to meet with a first-rate performer. ‘Do you think I might one day be allowed to hear him?’ she asked, not very hopefully. ‘I suppose he sometimes plays when he comes here to entertainments. Even among those outlandish people on the Island there were several teachers, and I always supposed that they knew all about it. But from what you have just said I see that such playing as my father’s must be something quite different….’

‘It is indeed,’ he said, ‘and you shall certainly hear him play. You know, I expect, that though it is called the Eastern zithern and is said to have come from the other side of the country, it is always played at the beginning of every Imperial concert, being solemnly carried in by the Mistress of the Rolls. As far as our country is concerned (about the history of music in other lands I know very little) it is certainly the parent of all other instruments, and that perhaps the best performer upon it who has ever lived should be your own father is certainly a great stroke of luck for you. He does, as you suggested, play here and at other people’s houses from time to time, when there is music afoot; but chiefly on other instruments. It is really very difficult to make him play on the Japanese zithern. Often he begins a tune and then, for some reason, will not

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272 go on. It is the same with all great artists. They cannot perform unless they are in the right mood, and the right mood seldom comes. But later on you will, of course, certainly be hearing him….’ So saying, he began trying over a few usual chords and runs. Already she wondered how she had managed to tolerate the clumsy twanging of the island-professors. How exciting it would be to live with a father, who, according to Genji’s own showing, played far, far better even than this! It was intolerable to feel that all the while she might have been hearing him day after day, in his own home, with nothing to disturb or interrupt him. When, oh when would this new life begin?

Among other old ballads Genji now sang ‘Not softlier pillowed is my head,’ and when he came to the line ‘O lady parted from thy kin’ he could not help catching her eye and smiling. Not only did she find his voice very agreeable, but his improvisations between verse and verse delighted her beyond measure. Suddenly he broke off, saying: ‘Now it is your turn. Do not tell me you are shy; for I am certain that you have talent, and if that is so you will forget that there is any one here, once you have become interested in what you are playing. The lady who was “too shy to do anything but go over the tune in her head” wanted all the time to sing the Sōfuren, and that is a very different matter. You must get into the habit of playing with any one who comes along, without minding what he thinks of you….’ But try as he might, he could not persuade her to begin. She was certain that her teacher on the island, an old lady of whom it was reported that she had once been in some vague way connected with the Capital and even that she was distantly related to the Imperial Family, had got everything wrong from beginning to end.

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THE IVORY TOWER III

was nevertheless not at once that he sought out the way to find his old friend; other questions than that of at once seeing her hummed for the next half-hour about his ears—an interval spent by him in still further contemplative motion within his uncle's grounds. He strolled and stopped again and stared before him without seeing; he came and went and sat down on benches and low rocky ledges only to get up and pace afresh; he lighted cigarettes but to smoke them a quarter out and then chuck them away to light others. He said to himself that he was enormously agitated, agitated as never in his life before, but that, strangely enough, he disliked that condition far less than the menace of it would have made him suppose. He didn't, however, like it enough to say to himself "This is happiness!"—as could scarcely have failed if the kind of effect on his nerves had really consorted with the kind of advantage that he was to understand his interview with his uncle to have promised him; so far, that is, as he was yet to understand anything. His after-sense of the scene expanded rather than settled, became an impression of one of those great insistent bounties that are not of this troubled world; the anomaly expressing itself in such beauty and dignity, with all its elements conspiring together, as would have done 119


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Rh If only she could persuade Genji to go on playing a little while longer, she felt sure she could pick up enough of the right method to prevent a complete catastrophe, and she sat as near as possible to the zithern, watching his fingers and listening intently. ‘Why does it not always produce such lovely sounds as that?’ she said laughing. ‘Perhaps it depends which way the wind is blowing….’ She looked very lovely as she sat leaning towards him, with the lamplight full upon her face. ‘I have sometimes known you by no means so ready to listen,’ he said, and to her disappointment pushed the zithern from him. But her gentlewomen were passing in and out of the room. Whether for this or other reasons his behaviour to-night continued to be very serious and correct. ‘I see no sign of those young men I brought with me,’ he said at last, ‘I am afraid they grew tired of gazing at every flower save the one they came to see, and went away in disgust. But it is their father’s visit to this flower-garden that I ought all the while to be arranging. I must not be dilatory, for life is full of uncertainties…. How well I remember the conversation in the course of which your father first told me how your mother had carried you away, and of his long search for you both. It does not seem long ago….’ And he told her more than he had ever done before about the rainy night’s conversation and his own first meeting with Yūgao.

‘Gladly would I show the world this Child-flower’s beauty, did I not fear that men would ask me where stands the hedge on which it grew.’

‘The truth is, he loved your mother so dearly that I cannot bear the thought of telling him the whole miserable story. That is why I have kept you hidden away like a chrysalis in a cocoon. I know I ought not to have delayed….’ He paused, and she answered with the

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458 MARIE ANTOINETTE'S TALISMAN. Henry!”

Again the poor man was seized with a shivering fit. He put the long hair back from his eyes, looked in that troubled face, and motioned with his hand that the woman should speak again.

‘My poor husband—my own, own Henry!

He looked around, smiling, and nodded his head.

“That was my name!”

The words fell from his lips at intervals, as if he were counting them; but the sound pleased him, and he repeated over and over again, “That was my name!”

“Ah, Henry! try to remember mine. Therese your wife!”

“My wife! My wife!” That was her name. My wife!

He looked at the woman again shyly, and touched her with his finger. She was crying now, and seeing this, he took up a long tress of his hair and attempted to wipe the tears from her face; but his hand wandered wide of its intent, and fell upon her shoulder. She taok it up tenderly and kissed it, sobbing as her tears fell thick and fast. Something in the touch of her hand, or the mournful look in her eyes, awoke that dormant soul. He clung close to her hand, his eyes looked steadily into hers, a soft tremor stole over the gentle whiteness of his face. “My wife! My wife! Therese!”

“He knows me,” she said, claiming sympathy from Jaque, who had taken the torch from her hand. ‘I think he knows me.”

Jaque nodded his head, great tears were roll ing down his cheek, and he held- the torch un steadily.

‘“My wife!’ repeated the prisoner, with plaintive wail of a child.

She bent toward him, a smile beamed on her face, one arm stole around his neck, and with a sob she pressed her lips upon his.

That instant all strength left him, and he fell into her arms, murmuring softly, “My wife! my wife! my wife!”

Some sweet link of affection had drawn that poor soul back to its old life.

Marguerite had been left alone all that night and day, for the riot at the Bastile had con- sumed so much time. She knew that some great; event was going on; that the people had risen; that Monsieur Jaque and her mother was among the crowd, urging them to some deed of violence —but this was all. Neither of these persons wished her gentle heart to bear the agonies ‘of suspense a true knowledge of their actions would bring upon her. In this they were mistakenly cruel. The very vagueness of her fears made them more intense. All day she sat listening to the noises in the street. Each sound gave her a pang at the heart. Not knowing the thing she had most to fear, she apprehended everything.

At last a step sounded on the stairs. She held her breath and listened. Yes, it was his step, at this moment the dearest to her on earth. He came in weary and staggering from over-exertion; his hair was full of dust, his hands black from the rough stones he had torn from their place. All his garments were rent; she would not have known him but for the brilliancy of his eyes, and the glorious expression of his face.

Monsieur Jaque came up to Marguerite and held out both hands.

“Marguerite, my beloved, I come to give back your promise. I must not earn your love, it shall be a gift of the heart, or nothing.”

She was surprised, and a little hurt; perhaps she had guessed at the tumult in the streets, and was disappointed.

‘Then you despair. My poor, poor father!”

“No, Marguerite, I do not despair. Your father is this moment a free man. The people are even now tearing down the Bastile; but I will not give the father freedom, that his daughter may be a slave.

Marguerite started up one her clasped hands were lifted-to heaven, then she reached them forth, crying out,

“A slave! Your slave! My father free! my mother happy, and I yours forever and ever! Thank God! Thank God!”

Monsieur Jaque clasped her hands, his eyes looked into hers; he opened his arms and gathered her close to his heart.

“Is it true? Can it be true? Is this love, or only gratitude? In mercy, tell me!”

She wound her arms around his neck; she laid her cheek to his, and, in the sweetest voice  that ever stirred a man’s heart, whispered,

Does this seem like love, or only gratitude!”

“My darling! Oh, my God! make me thank ful! But, bark! they are coming! Do not tremble, the angels are not more harmless than this good man.”

But she clung to him nervously, the tremor of a great expectation shook her frame; her eyes grew bright as she turned them on the door.

The footsteps which came up those stairs were slow and uncertain; but at last the reached the threshold, the door opened, and

�

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274 verse: ‘Who cares to question whence was first transplanted a Child-flower that from the peasant’s tattered hedge was hither brought.’ Her eyes filled with tears as in a scarcely audible voice she whispered this reply.

There were times when he himself took fright at the frequency of his visits to this part of the house, and in order to make a good impression stayed away for days on end. But he always contrived to think of some point in connection with her servants or household affairs which required an endless going and coming of messengers, so that even during these brief periods of absence she was in continual communication with him. The truth is that at this period she was the only subject to which he ever gave a thought. Day and night he asked himself how he could have been so insensate as to embark upon this fatal course. If the affair was maintained upon its present footing he was faced with the prospect of such torture as he felt he could not possibly endure. If on the other hand his resolution broke down and she on her side was willing to accept him as a lover, the affair would cause a scandal which his own prestige might in time enable him to live down, but which for her would mean irreparable disaster. He cared for her very deeply; but not, as he well knew, to such an extent that he would ever dream of putting her on an equality with Murasaki, while to thrust her into a position of inferiority would do violence to his own feelings and be most unfair to her. Exceptional as was the position that he now occupied in the State, this did not mean that it was any great distinction to figure merely as a belated appendage to his household. Far better, he very well knew, to reign supreme in the affections of some wholly unremarkable Deputy Councillor! Then again there was the question whether he ought not to hand her over to his step-brother Prince Sochi or to Prince Higekuro. Even were this course

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Rh in every way desirable, he gravely doubted his own capacity to pursue it. Such self-sacrifices, he knew, are easier to plan than to effect. Nevertheless, there were times when he regarded this as the plan which he had definitely adopted, and for a while he could really believe that he was on the point of carrying it out. But then would come one of his visits to her. She would be looking even more charming than usual, and lately there were these zithern lessons, which, involving as they did a great deal of leaning across and sitting shoulder to shoulder, had increased their intimacy with disquieting rapidity. All his good resolutions began to break down, while she on her side no longer regarded him with anything like the same distrust as before. He had indeed behaved with model propriety for so long that she made sure his undue tenderness towards her was a thing of the past. Gradually she became used to having him constantly about her, allowed him to say what he pleased, and answered in a manner which though discreet was by no means discouraging. Whatever resolutions he may have made before his visit, he would go away feeling that, at this point in their relations, simply to hand her over to a husband was more than the most severe moralist could expect of him. Surely there could be no harm in keeping her here a little longer, that he might enjoy the innocent pleasure of sometimes visiting her, sometimes arranging her affairs? Certainly, he could assure himself, his presence was by no means distasteful to her. Her uneasiness at the beginning was due not to hostility but to mere lack of experience. Though ‘strong the watchman at the gate’, she was beginning to take a very different view of life. Soon she would be struggling with her own as well as his desires, and then all her defences would rapidly give way….

Tō no Chūjō was somewhat uneasy about his newly

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276 discovered daughter. The members of his own household seemed to have a very poor opinion of her, and at Court he had overheard people whispering that she was not quite right in the head. His son Kōbai told him, of course, about Genji’s questions, and Tō no Chūjō laughed saying: ‘I can quite understand his interest in the matter. A year or two ago he himself took over a daughter whom he had by some peasant woman or other, and now makes an absurd fuss over her. It is very odd: Genji says nothing but nice things about every one else. But about me and every one connected with me he is careful to be as disagreeable as possible. But I suppose I ought to regard it as a sort of distinction even to be run down by him.’ ‘Father, if you mean the girl who lives in the Western Wing,’ said Kōbai, ‘I can assure you she is the most beautiful creature you can possibly imagine. Prince Sochi and many of the others have completely lost their hearts to her. … Indeed, every one agrees that she is probably one of the handsomest women at Court.’ ‘You surely do not yourself believe such stories?’ said Tō no Chūjō. ‘The same thing is always said about the daughters of men in such a position as Genji’s; and so oddly is the world made that those who spread such reports really believe in them. I do not for a moment suppose she is anything out of the ordinary. Now that Genji is Grand Minister, faced by an opposition that has dwindled to a mere speck and esteemed as few Ministers before, I fancy the one flaw in his happiness must be the lack of a daughter to lavish his care upon and bring up to be the envy and admiration of the whole Court. I can well imagine what a delight the education of such a child would be to him. But in this matter fate seems to be against him. Of course, there is the little girl who was born at Akashi. Unfortunately her mother’s parents are quite humble people

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Rh and she can never play the part that would naturally have been taken by a child of my sister Lady Aoi or of his present wife, Lady Murasaki. All the same, I have reason to believe that his schemes for her subsequent career are of the most ambitious nature.

‘As for this newly-imported princess, it would not surprise me to discover that she is not his child at all. You know as well as I do what Genji’s failings are…. It is far more probable that she is merely some girl whom he is keeping.’ After other somewhat damaging remarks about Genji’s habits and character, he continued: ‘However, if he continues to give out that she is his daughter, it will soon be incumbent upon him to find her a husband. I imagine his choice will fall upon Prince Sochi, with whom he has always been on particularly good terms. She would certainly be fortunate in securing such a husband; he is a most distinguished character….’

Nothing more exasperated Tō no Chūjō at the present moment than the endless speculations concerning Lady Tamakatsura’s future which were now the staple of every conversation at Court. He was sick of hearing people ask ‘What are Prince Genji’s intentions?’ ‘Why has he changed his mind?’ and so on, while the future of his own daughter, Lady Kumoi, seemed for some reason not to arouse the slightest curiosity. Why should not a little of the energy which Genji expended in dangling this supposed daughter of his before the eyes of an expectant Court be used on Lady Kumoi’s behalf? A word whispered by Genji in the Emperor’s ear would suffice to secure her future; but that word, it was very evident, had never been spoken.

If Genji (and this seemed hardly credible) were waiting to secure Kumoi for his own son Yūgiri, let him raise the boy to a decent rank. Then, provided suitable overtures

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278 were made on Genji’s side, he was quite willing to consider the possibility of such a match. As to what the young man’s feelings in the matter might be—he did not give the question a moment’s thought, having always regarded Yūgiri merely as a nuisance.

One day when he had been reflecting upon this problem more earnestly than usual, Tō no Chūjō determined to thresh the matter out with the girl herself, and taking Kōbai with him he went straight to her room. It so happened that Kumoi had fallen asleep. She was lying, a small and fragile figure, with only a single wrap of thin diaphanous stuff thrown carelessly across her. It was certainly a pleasure on such a day to see any one looking so delightfully cool! The delicate outline of her bare limbs showed plainly beneath the light wrap which covered her. She lay pillowed on one outstretched arm, her fan still in her hand. Her loosened hair fell all about her, and though it was not remarkably thick or long, there was something particularly agreeable in its texture and in the lines it made as it hung across her face. Her gentlewomen were also reposing, but at some distance away, in the room which opened out behind her curtained dais, so that they did not wake in time, and it was only when Tō no Chūjō himself rustled impatiently with his fan that she slowly raised her head and turned upon him a bewildered gaze. Her beauty, enhanced by the flush of sleep, could not but impress a father’s heart, and Tō no Chūjō looked at her with a pride which his subsequent words by no means betrayed. ‘I have told you often before,’ he said, ‘that even to be caught dozing in your seat is a thing a girl of your age ought to be ashamed of; and here I find you going to bed in broad daylight … you really must be a little more careful. I cannot imagine how you could be so foolish as to allow all your gentlewomen to desert you in

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Rh this way. It is extremely unsafe for a young girl to expose herself, and quite unnecessary in your case, since I have provided you with a sufficient number of attendants to mount guard on all occasions. To behave in this reckless manner is, to say the least of it, very bad form. Not that I want you to sit all day with your hands folded in front of you as though you were reciting the Spells of Fudō. I am not one of those people who think it a mark of refinement in a girl to stand on ceremony even with her everyday acquaintances and never to address a word to any one except through a barricade of curtains and screens. So far from being dignified, such a method of behaviour seems to me merely peevish and unsociable. I cannot help admiring the way in which Prince Genji is bringing up this future Empress of his. He takes no exaggerated precautions of any kind, nor does he force her talent in this direction or that; but at the same time he sees to it that there is no subject in which she remains wholly uninitiated. Thus she is able to choose intelligently for herself where other girls would be obliged merely to do as they were told. For the time it may seem that the energies of the mind have been somewhat diffused and extenuated, but in later life, given the best balanced and broadest system of education in the world, idiosyncrasies both of character and behaviour will inevitably reappear. At the present moment the Princess from Akashi is in the first and less interesting stage. I am very curious to see how she will develop when she arrives at Court.’ After these preliminaries he embarked at last upon the subject which he had really come to discuss. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘that I have not

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 GOD'S KEEPING.

she saw an old man, with the most benign and gentle face that human eyes ever looked upon, supported by her mother. She left the arm of Monsieur Jaque and moved timidly toward that angel-faced man, who held back his hair with both hands, that he might look upon her. She sunk to her knees at his feet, for great suffering had made him sacred to ler. A single holy word trembled on her lips.

“Father!”

A look oftouching bewilderment came over that gentle face; the prisoner looked from the beautiful girl at his feet to the face of the mother.

“This is Therese,” he said, reproachfully.

“This is your child,” said madame, keeping back her tears. ‘She was a little thing when you went away.”

‘A—yes—I remember! So small—so small! But this one Oh, me! how strange! how strange!”

“Father, will you not speak one word to me?”

“One word? There was something I used to do;” he seemed troubled with thought a moment, then bent down and laid his hand on her head, “‘God—God bless them!”

He turned his pleased face upon his wife.

“These words are with me. I kept them close—here, here!”

“Kept them for us,’ said the wife; ‘for me and your child.”

“Both—both!” he muttered, in a dreamy, bewildered way. “Now rest, rest!”

He was very feeble and weary; in mounting those flights of stairs he had sat down more than once. Now he seemed troubled for breath.

His wife led him toward a low couch, but he had forgotten its use, and, turning from it, lay down in a corner of the room, with his face to the wall, and closing his eyes against the light, seemed to be asleep.

It had taken but few hours to storm the Bastile; but, though the people swarmed in and about it like bees, tearing down its walls and leveling it to the earth, it took many days to choke up that moat, and fill the cavernous hollows in which so many human beings had suffered and perished. Before the terrible structure was razed to the ground, a wedding-party entered one of the humble churches in the neighborhood. In passing, one of the party turned to look at the cloud of dust which constantly hovered over the rents and fissures torn, day by day, in those ponderous walls; could it be that this poor man looked back upon the place of his torture with anything like regret? It is impossible to say, but his face was sad as he walked into the church, and a look of strange bewilderment still hung about him. Even the marriage-service, which gave his only child to as brave and true a man as ever breathed, seemed a mystery to him. When she knelt for his blessing, he lifted one hand to the light, and burst into tears.

“Tt is gone! It is gone!” he said. ‘The Talisman, which gives happiness to me and Alas! until that is found, I can give no real blessing to my child, but know full surely that it will bring sorrow and death to any hand that wears it!”

THE END.

IN GOD'S KEEPING.

BY N. F. CARTER THE sun went down one golden day On fields of clover bloom, And called our loved one from his play, With twilight's deepening gloom.

He knelt beside us at the hour Of evening song and prayer; The sunshine of our garden-bower, The jewel of our care.

Invoking sweetest dreams of bliss, And God's kind care to keep; We gave him then our good-night kiss, And laid him down to sleep.

In silence rolled the hours away, With shadows overhung, Till to the world the new-born day Its morning banners flung.

No voice made answer to our call, Nor sound of little feet Tripping so lightly through the hall, The welcome smile to greet.

Does weariness so call for rest, He needs must sleep so long? Or is he filled with dreams so blest, So charmed with blissful song?

We found him in his wonted place, Hands clasped, as iffor prayer; The play of sunshine on his face, A smile of glory there.

His was a sweeter morning kiss Than we could give at best; God's own welcome unto bliss, And everlasting rest.

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28 torym was being a bit too artful. I could not see the point of all this trickiness. It annoyed me because Wimp had to travel most of the time sitting on the lap of Vans Holors. You see, Bruny Hudells took up most of the room in that flying egg. I'd trust Vans with my life. All the same, there are some Martian customs that I don't really like. Married women sitting in other men's laps is one of them. They saw no harm in it.

So, I was not sorry when we began to get near to the country of Kuspilad. There were some narrow, twisty caverns here. The traffic lights, set in the rocks over our heads, were at "Stop!" The great liner idled, waiting.

Some blunder here, I thought. The royal party should have had right of way. "Aha!" exclaimed Hektorum. "I thought Grumbold would show up!"

What alarmed him I couldn't see, until I noticed a lot of black specks darting out of the rocks at the waiting air-liner. Through the telescope, I saw that they were pterodactyls. Prince Grumbold had a lot of those prehistoric leathery-winged creatures that were extinct on Earth millions of years ago, and that he trained to do all sorts of dirty work for him.

"Don!" said Vans, "There's a fight going on there !"

"But for once, Holors," said Hektorum, firmly, "it is a fight that you will take no part in."

I saw the face of Vans twist in pain. In front of his eyes a fight was happening. And he was not in it. It hurt.

"I should have been on that liner," he growled.

"Me too," said Hudells.

The officials of the air-liner were putting up a good show, seeing what few arms they had and what numbers were against them. Pteros, paralyzed in the air by deathrays, nose dived, men on their backs falling off. But at last the gallant crew was wiped out. No more deathrays stabbed out. Pteros perched on the drifting liner, their riders getting off. The liner turned and went off another way, pteros all around.

"Grumbold thinks you and Don are in the passenger cabins on that liner," Hektorum explained. "Now all we have to do is to follow, and we shall be led to Grumbold's hide-out."

A subtle lad, that Martian detective. I'll say that for him. If I had been managing that affair I would have been in Grumbold's clutches by then. No use saying I wouldn't.

So, Wimp still on the huge lap of Vans Holors, and me on the lap of Wimp, we trailed the stolen liner.

HIS time it was not so easy. When we followed the liner before we had known exactly which way it was going. This time we did not. We did not dare let it out of our sight.

It led us into a wild, lonely cavern. But in the center of the cavern we saw what made our hearts jump. It was a great fat-bellied space ship.

"I must admit I was not prepared for this," Hektorum admitted, losing that "Don't you think I'm clever?" air of his.

We saw the passengers all marched out and looked over. Being so far away, we could not tell whether the conspirators noticed that their birds were not in the net. But soon all went into the space-ship, and the ship itself blasted off.

"Ah!" groaned the detective, "I'm beaten. Weil Hektorum outwitted. After this I'll keep bees! My secret air-egg cannot fly in space."

"Beaten?" snapped Wimp. "Nonsense! Get to the nearest observer post. Get the space-ship trailed!"

"Ah yes!" exclaimed Hektorum,


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280 been very successful in my plans for your own future. But I still hope that we may be able to arrange something not too contemptible. I promise you at any rate that you shall not be made ridiculous. I am keeping my ears open and have one or two projects in mind, but for the moment it is exceedingly difficult to arrive at a decision. Meanwhile, do not be deceived by the tears and protestations of young men who have nothing better to do than amuse themselves at the expense of confiding creatures such as you. I know what I am talking about’ … and so on, speaking more and more kindly as he went along.

In old days the scoldings which she had received on account of her intimacy with Yūgiri had been the more distressing to her because she had not at that time the least idea what all this fuss was about. But now that she was a little better acquainted with such matters, she recalled with burning shame time after time when she had mentioned to her elders things which she now saw it was the wildest folly ever to have repeated. The old Princess frequently complained that Kumoi never came to see her. This put the child in great embarrassment, for the truth was that she dared not go, for Tō no Chūjō would be sure to think that she was using her duty towards the old lady as a pretext for clandestine meeting with her lover.

But another question was at this time occupying a good deal of Tō no Chūjō’s attention. What was to be done with this new daughter of his, the Lady from Ōmi? If, after going out of his way to track her down, he were now to send her home again merely because certain people had said disobliging things about her, he would himself figure as intolerably capricious and eccentric. To let her mix in general society was, judging by what he had heard and seen of her already, quite out of the question. But if he

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'Grim death was the only romance to be found on this world that boasted a thousand moons'

ANCE KENNISTON felt the cold realization of failure as he came out of the building into the sharp chill of the Martian night. He stood for a moment, his lean, drawn face haggard in the light of the two hurtling moons.

He looked hopelessly across the dark spaceport. It was a large one, for this ancient town of Syrtis was the main port of Mars. The forked light of the flying moons showed many ships docked on the tarmac—a big liner, several freighters, a small, shining cruiser and other small craft. And for lack of one of those ships, his hopes were ruined!

A squat, brawny figure in shapeless space-jacket came to Kenniston's side. It was Hoik Or, the Jovian who had


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Rh continued to keep her, as he had hitherto done, in the seclusion of her own rooms, it would soon be rumoured at Court that she was some paragon who, just at the right moment, would be produced with dazzling effect and carry all before her. This, too, would be very irritating. Perhaps the best that could be done under the circumstances was to put her into touch with his daughter Lady Chūjō, who happened at the moment to be home from Court. It would then be possible to discover whether, when one got to know her better, this Lady from Ōmi were really such a monster as some people made out. He therefore said to Lady Chūjō one day: ‘I am going to send this new sister of yours to see you. It seems that her manners are rather odd, and I should be very much obliged if you would ask one of your older gentlewomen to take her in hand. Young girls are useless in such a case. They would merely lead her on to greater absurdities in order to amuse themselves. Her manner is at present, I gather, somewhat too boisterous’; and he smiled as he recollected some of the anecdotes which had already reached him. ‘I will gladly do all I can,’ answered Lady Chūjō. ‘I see no reason to suppose that the poor creature is anything like so outrageous as people are making out. It is only that Kōbai, wishing to gain credit for his discovery, tended to exaggerate her charms, and people are a little disappointed. I do not think there is any need for you to take alarm. I can quite understand that coming for the first time among surroundings such as these, she feels somewhat lost, and does not always quite do herself justice….’ She spoke very demurely. This Lady Chūjō was no great beauty; but there was about her a serene air of conscious superiority which, combined with considerable charm of manner, led most people to accept her as handsome, an impression

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66 been waiting for him.

"What luck?" asked the Jovian in a rumbling whisper.

"It's hopeless," Kenniston answered heavily. "There isn't a small cruiser to be had at any price. The meteor-miners buy up all small ships here."

"The devil!" muttered Hoik Or, dismayed. "What are we going to do? Go on to Earth and get a cruiser there?”

"We can't do that," Kenniston answered. "You know we've got to get back to that asteroid within two weeks. We've got to get a ship here."

Desperation made Kenniston's voice taut. His lean, hard face was bleak with knowledge of disastrous failure.

The big Jovian scratched his head. In the shifting moonlight his battered green face expressed ignorant perplexity as he stared across the busy space- port.

"That shiny little cruiser there would be just the thing," Hoik Or muttered, looking at the gleaming, torpedo-shaped craft nearby. "It would hold all the stuff we've got to take; and with robot controls we two could run it."

"We haven't a chance to get that craft," Kenniston told him. "I found out that it's under charter to a bunch of rich Earth youngsters who came out here in it for a pleasure cruise. A girl named Loring, heiress to Loring Radium, is the head of the party."

The Jovian swore. "Just the ship we need, and a lot of spoiled kids are using it for thrill-hunting!"

Kenniston had an idea. "It might be," he said slowly, "that they're tired of the cruise by this time and would sell us the craft. I think I'll go up to the Terra Hotel and see this Loring girl."

"Sure, let's try it anyway," Hoik Or agreed.

The Earthman looked at him anxiously. "Oughtn't you to keep under cover, Hoik? The Planet Patrol has had your record on file for a long time. If you happened to be recognized—"

"Bah, they think I'm dead, don't they?" scoffed the Jovian. "There's no danger of us getting picked up."

Kenniston was not so sure, but he was too driven by urgent need to waste time in argument. With the Jovian clumping along beside him, he made his way from the spaceport across the ancient Martian city.

The dark streets of old Syrtis were not crowded. Martians are not a nocturnal people and only a few were abroad in the chill darkness, even they being wrapped in heavy synthewool cloaks from which only their bald red heads and solemn, cadaverous faces protruded.

Earthmen were fairly numerous in this main port of the planet. Swaggering space-sailors, prosperous-looking traders and rough meteor-miners made up the most of them. There were a few tourists gaping at the grotesque old black stone buildings, and under a krypton-bulb at a corner, two men in the drab uniform of the Patrol stood eyeing passersby sharply. Kenniston breathed more easily when he and the Jovian had passed the two officers without challenge.

HE Terra Hotel stood in a garden at the edge of town, fronting the moonlit immensity of the desert. This glittering glass block, especially built to cater to the tourist trade from Earth, was Earth-conditioned inside. Its gravitation, air pressure and humidity were ingeniously maintained at Earth standards for the greater comfort of its patrons.

Kenniston felt oddly oppressed by the warm, soft air inside the resplendent lobby. He had spent so much of his time away from Earth that he had become more or less adapted to thin-


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282 shared at this moment by her father as he watched her lips part in a smile that reminded him of the red plum-blossom in the morning when its petals first begin to unfold. ‘I daresay you are right,’ he replied; ‘but all the same I think that Kōbai showed a lack of judgment such as I should have thought he had long ago outgrown….’ He was himself inclined to think that the Lady from Ōmi’s defects had probably been much exaggerated, and as he in any case must pass her rooms on his way back he now thought he had better go and have another look at her. Crossing the garden he noticed at once that her blinds were rolled back almost to the top of the windows. Clearly visible within were the figures of the Lady herself and of a lively young person called Gosechi, one of last year’s Winter Dancers. The two were playing Double Sixes, and the Lady of Ōmi, perpetually clasping and unclasping her hands in her excitement, was crying out ‘Low, low! Oh, how I hope it will be low!’ at the top of her voice, which rose at every moment to a shriller and shriller scream. ‘What a creature!’ thought Tō no Chūjō, already in despair, and signalling to his attendants, who were about to enter the apartments and announce him, that for a moment he intended to watch unobserved, he stood near the double door and looked through the passage window at a point where the paper did not quite meet the frame. The young dancer was also entirely absorbed in the game. Shouting out: ‘A twelve, a twelve. This time I know it is going to be a twelve!’ she continually twirled the dice-cup in her hand, but could not bring herself to make the throw. Somewhere there, inside that bamboo tube, the right number lurked, she saw the two little stones with six pips on each…. But how was one to know when to

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 OF THE DAWN

T WAS late afternoon. Neela, the zebra, and his family of fifteen grazed quietly near the center of a level stretch of grassland. In the distance, and encircling the expanse of prairie, stood a solid wall of forest and close-knit jungle.

For the past two hours of this long hot afternoon Neela had shown signs of increasing nervousness. Feeding a short distance from the balance of his charges, he lifted his head from time to time to stare intently across the wind-stirred grasses to the east. Twice he had started slowly in that direction, only to stop short, stamp and snort uneasily, then wheel about and retrace his steps.

The remainder of the herd cropped calmly at the long grasses, apparently heedless of their leader's unrest, tails slapping flanks clear of biting flies.

Meanwhile, some two hundred yards to the eastward, three half-naked white hunters, belly-flat in the concealing growth, continued their cautious advance.

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Rh throw? Never were excitement and suspense more clearly marked on two young faces. The Lady of Ōmi was somewhat homely in appearance; but nobody (thought Tō no Chūjō) could possibly call her downright ugly. Indeed, she had several very good points. Her hair, for example, could alone have sufficed to make up for many shortcomings. Two serious defects, however, she certainly had; her forehead was far too narrow, and her voice was appallingly loud and harsh. In a word, she was nothing to be particularly proud of; but at the same time (and he called up before him the image of his own face as he knew it in the mirror) it would be useless to deny that there was a strong resemblance.

‘How are you getting on?’ he asked on being admitted to the room. ‘I am afraid it will take you some time to get the hang of things here. I wish I could see you more often, but, as you know, my time is not my own….’ ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ she answered, screaming as usual at the top of her voice. ‘I’m here, a’nt I? And that’s quite enough for me. I haven’t had the pleasure of setting eyes on you at all for all these years…. But I’ll own that when I came here and found I shouldn’t be with you all the time, like what I’d expected, I was as vexed as though I had thrown a “double-one” at dice.’ ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Tō no Chūjō, ‘I have not any one at present to run my messages and look after me generally; I had it in mind that, when you were a little more used to things here, I might train you to help me in that way. But I am not at all sure that such a post would suit you. I do not mean that as a lady-in-waiting in some other family you would not get on very nicely. But that would be different…. There would be a lot of other young women. … People would not notice so much. … I am afraid I am not expressing myself very happily. I only mean that a daughter or sister is bound to attract attention.

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284 People who come to the house ask “Now which of them is the daughter?” “Show me which of them is your sister!” and so on. That sort of thing sometimes makes a girl feel awkward, and it may even be rather embarrassing for the parents. Of course, in your case….’ He broke off.

Despite all his ingenuity he was in the end saying just what he had determined on no account to say. He was merely telling her that he was ashamed of her. But fortunately she did not take it in bad part. ‘That’s quite right,’ she said. ‘If you was to put me down among all the fine ladies and gentlemen, I shouldn’t know which way to look. I’d far rather you asked me to empty their chamber-pots; I think I might be able to manage that.’ ‘What odd ideas do come into your head!’ laughed Tō no Chūjō. ‘But before we go any further, I have a small request to make: if you have any filial feeling whatever towards a father whom you see so seldom, try to moderate your voice a little when you address him. Seriously, you will take years off my life if you persist in screaming at me in this way….’ How delightful to find that even a Minister could make jokes! ‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘I’ve always been like that. I suppose I was born so. Mother was always going on at me about it ever since I can remember, and she used to say it all came of her letting an old priest from the Myōhō Temple into her bedroom when she was lying-in. He had a terrible loud voice, and all the while he was reading prayers with her, poor mother was wondering whether, when I was born, I shouldn’t take after him. And sure enough I did. But I wish for your sake I didn’t speak so loud….’ It was evident that she was sorry to distress him, and touched by this exhibition of filial affection he said to her kindly: ‘The fault, then, is evidently not yours but your mother’s for choosing her associates

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Rh among the pious at so critical a moment in her existence. For it is written: “The tongue of the blasphemer shall tremble, his voice shall be silenced,” and it seems that, conversely, the voices of the pious generally tend to become more and more resonant.’

He himself stood somewhat in awe of his daughter Lady Chūjō. He knew that she would wonder what had induced him to import, without further enquiries so incongruous a resident into his household. He imagined, too, the pleasantries at his expense which would be exchanged among her people and soon repeated broadcast over the whole Court. He was on the verge of abandoning the plan, when he suddenly decided that it was too late to withdraw: ‘I wish you would sometimes go out and see your sister Lady Chūjō while she is staying here,’ he said. ‘I fancy she could give you one or two useful hints. It is, after all, only by mixing in the society of those who have had greater advantages than themselves, that ordinary people can hope to make any progress. I want you to bear that in mind when you are with her….’ ‘Well that will be a treat!’ she cried delightedly. ‘I never thought in my wildest dreams that, even if you one day sent for me, you would ever make me into a great lady like my sister. The best I hoped for was that I might wheedle you into letting me carry pitchers from the well….’ The last words were spoken in a tiny, squeaky voice like that of a new-fledged sparrow, for she had suddenly remembered her father’s injunctions. The effect was very absurd; but there was no use in scolding her any more, and he said good-humouredly: ‘I see no reason why you should draw water, or hew wood either. But if I send you to Lady Chūjō, you must promise me that you have made up your mind never again to model yourself on that pious personage from the Myōhō Temple.’ She took this very seriously. ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said.

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Page:Carl Sandburg - You and Your Job (1910).pdf/32

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286 ‘When may I go and see her?’ Tō no Chūjō was now an important person; indeed, he was reckoned to be the most formidable enemy to the then Minister of State. But the Lady from Ōmi appeared quite unconscious of the subduing effect which his presence had upon every one else, and for her part spoke to him with the utmost confidence and composure. ‘I will enquire which day will be the best,’ he said. ‘But come to think of it, probably one day is quite as good as another. Yes, by all means go to-day…’ and with that he hastened from the room.

She gazed after him. He was attended by officers of the fourth and fifth ranks, who made a brave show as they escorted him towards the main building. But why were they all nudging one another and laughing? ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘I have got a fine gentleman for my papa, and no mistake. It does seem queer to think what a funny little house I was brought up in, when by rights I ought to have been in this palace all the while.’ ‘If you ask my opinion,’ said her friend the dancer, ‘I think he is far too grand for you. You’d be a great deal better off if you had been claimed by some decent hard-working sort of man, who wouldn’t be ashamed of you….’ This was too bad! ‘There you go again,’ the Lady from Ōmi cried, ‘trying to put a body down whenever she opens her mouth. But you shan’t do it any more, indeed you shan’t; for they’ve made me into a lady now, and you’ll have to wait till I choose to let you speak. So there!’

Her face was flushed with anger. Seen thus, showing off in the presence of one whom she now regarded as an inferior, she became suddenly handsome and almost dignified. Only her manner of speech, picked up from the absolute riff-raff among whom she had been educated, remained irredeemably vulgar.

It is indeed a strange thing that a perfectly ordinary

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Rh remark, if made in a quiet, colourless voice, may seem original and interesting; for instance, in conversations about poetry, some quite commonplace piece of criticism will be accepted as very profound merely because it is made in a particular tone of voice. Or again, half a verse from the middle of some little-known poem can make, if produced in the right tone of voice, a deep impression even among people who have no notion what the words imply. Whereas if some one speaks in a disagreeable voice or uses vulgar language, no matter how important or profound are the thoughts which he expresses, nobody will believe that it can possibly be worth while to pay any attention to him. So it was with the Lady from Ōmi. She had a loud rasping voice and in general behaved with no more regard for the impression she was making on those around her than a child screaming in its nurse’s lap. She thus seemed far sillier than she really was. Indeed, her facility in stringing together poems of thirty-one syllables, of the kind in which the beginning of any one poem might just as well be the end of any other, was quite prodigious.

‘But I must be getting ready,’ she now exclaimed. ‘My father told me I was to call on Lady Chūjō, and if I don’t go at once, her ladyship will think I don’t want to meet her. Do you know what? I think I’ll go this very night, for though I can see that my papa thinks the world of me, I shall never get on in this palace unless the ladies are on my side….’ Which again shows that she had more good sense than one would have supposed.

She now sat down at once and addressed the following letter to Lady Chūjō: ‘Honoured Madam, though we have been living these many days past with (as the saying goes) scarce so much as a hurdle between us, I have not hitherto, as they say, ventured to tread upon your shadow, for to tell the honest truth I was in two minds whether I should

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288 not find “No Admittance” in large letters on your door. But though I hardly like to mention it, we are (in the words of the poet) both “tinged with the purple of Musashi Moor.” If I am being too bold, pray tell me so and do not take offence.’ All this was written in a rather speckly hand. On the back was the postcript: ‘By the way, I have some thoughts of inflicting myself upon you this very same evening. And please forgive these blots, which (as the saying goes) all the waters of Minasé River would not wash away, so what is the use of trying?’ In the margin was the following extraordinary poem: ‘I wonder with as big a query as How Cape on the Sea of Hitachi where the grasses are so young and green, when oh when, like the waves on the shore of Tago, shall we meet face to face?’

‘I’ll write no more,’ she added at the side of the poem, ‘for I declare I feel as flustered as the foam on the great River at Yoshino….’

It was written on a single sheet of blue poetry-paper, in a very cursive style, copiously adorned with hooks and flourishes which seemed to wander about at their own will and stand for nothing at all. The tails of her ‘ shi ’s were protracted to an inordinate length, and the lines slanted more and more as the letter went on, till in the end they seemed in danger of falling over sideways. But so delighted was she with her own composition that she could hardly bear to part with it. At last, however, she gave it a final look of admiration, folded it up very small and attaching it to a carnation-blossom, handed it to her favourite messenger, a little peasant-boy who did the dirty work in her part of the palace. He was a good-looking child, and though he had only been in service for a very short while, he had made himself quite at home. Sauntering into Lady Chūjō’s apartments, he found his way to the servants’ sitting-room and demanded that the note should at once be taken to her

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THE IVORY TOWER honour to a great page of literary, of musical or pictorial art. The huge grace of the matter ought somehow to have left him simply captivated—so at least, all wondering, he hung about there to reflect; but excess of harmony might apparently work like excess of discord, might practically be a negation of the idea of the quiet life. Ignoble quiet he had never asked for—this he could now with assurance remember; but something in the pitch of his uncle's guarantee of big things, whatever they were, which should at the same time be pleasant things, seemed to make him an accomplice in some boundless presumption. In what light had he ever seen himself that made it proper the pleasant should be so big for him or the big so pleasant? Suddenly, as he looked at his watch and saw how the time had passed—time already, didn't it seem, of his rather standing off and quaking?—it occurred to him that the last thing he had proposed to himself in the whole connection was to be either publicly or privately afraid; in the act of noting which he became aware again of Miss Mumby, who, having come out of the house apparently to approach him, was now at no great distance. She rose before him the next minute as in fuller possession than ever of his fate, and yet with no accretion of reserve in her own pleasure at this.

"What I want you to do is just to go over to Miss Gaw." 120


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Rh Ladyship. For a moment they surveyed him with astonishment, but presently one of the under-servants exclaimed: ‘Why, it’s the little boy from the northern wing!’, and took the letter, which ultimately reached the hands of a certain gentlewoman named Tayū no Kimi. This lady actually carried it into Lady Chūjō’s presence, unfolded it at her bidding and then held it in front of her. The great lady glanced at it, smiled, and indicated that it might now be removed. It happened that a certain Lady Chūnagon was at the moment in attendance. She caught a side view of the letter where it lay, and hoping to be allowed to read it properly, she remarked: ‘At a distance, Madam, that looks an uncommonly fashionable note.’ Lady Chūjō motioned her to take the letter: ‘I cannot make head or tail of it,’ she said; ‘you will be doing me a service if you can tell me what it is about. Perhaps I am being stupid over these cursive characters….’ And a few minutes later: ‘How are you getting on? If my answer has no connection with the contents of her letter, she will think me very discourteous. I wish you would write an answer for me, I am sure you would do it very nicely….’ The young ladies-in-waiting, though they dared not openly show their amusement, were now all tittering behind their sleeves. Some one came to say that the boy was still waiting for an answer. ‘But the letter is just one mass of stock phrases that none of them seem to have anything to do with what she is trying to say,’ exclaimed Chūnagon in despair. ‘How can I possibly answer it? Besides, I must make it seem to come from you, Madam, not from a third person, or the poor creature’s feelings will be terribly hurt.’

‘It vexes me,’ wrote Chūnagon in her mistress’s name, ‘to think that we should have been at close quarters for so long without arranging to meet. By all means come….’ And at the side she wrote the poem: ‘Upon the shore of

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THE IVORY TOWER "It's just what I should like, thank you and perhaps you'll be so good as to show me the way." He wasn't quite succeeding in not being afraid—that a moment later came to him; since if this extraordinary woman was in touch with his destiny what did such words on his own part represent but the impulse to cling to her and, as who should say, keep on her right side? His uncle had spoken to him of Rosanna as protective—and what better warrant for such a truth than that here was he thankful on the spot even for the countenance of a person speaking apparently in her name? All of which was queer enough, verily—since it came to the sense of his clutching for immediate light, through the now gathered dusk, at the surge of guiding petticoats, the charity of women more or less strange. Miss Mumby at once took charge of him, and he learnt more things still before they had proceeded far. One of these truths, though doubtless the most superficial, was that Miss Gaw proposed he should dine with her just as he was—he himself recognising that with her father suddenly and to all appearance gravely ill it was no time for vain forms. Wasn't the rather odd thing, none the less, that the crisis should have suggested her desiring company?—being as it was so acute that the doctor, Doctor Hatch himself, would even now have arrived with a nurse, both of which pair of ears Miss Mumby required for her report of those symptoms in their 121


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290 Suma, that is on the sea of Suruga in the land of Hitachi, mount, O ye waves, to where the Headland of Hako with pine-woods is clad.’

‘I think you have gone too far,’ said Lady Chūjō when she saw the letter. ‘I certainly hope she will not think it was I who wrote this ridiculous nonsense….’ ‘I assure you, Madam,’ replied Chūnagon, ‘there is more sense in it than you think; quite enough at any rate to satisfy the person to whom it is addressed.’ And with that she folded the note and sent it on its way. ‘How quickly these great ladies take one’s meaning!’ exclaimed Ōmi, as she scanned the reply. ‘Look, too, how subtly she expresses herself! Merely by mentioning those pine-trees she lets me know, as plain as could be, that she is waiting for me at this minute….’ There was no time to be lost. She scented herself by repeated exposure to the fumes of an incense which seemed to contain far too generous an admixture of honey, daubed her cheeks with a heavy rouge, and finally combed out her hair, which being, as I have said, unusually fine and abundant, really looked very nice when she took sufficient trouble about it.

The subsequent interview can hardly have been otherwise than extremely diverting.

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text: A Wreath of Cloud/Chapter 8

title: A Wreath of Cloud/Chapter 8


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THE IVORY TOWER new patient that had appealed to her practised eye an hour before. Interesting enough withal was her explanation to Gray of what she had noted on Mr. Gaw's part as a consequence of her joining them at that moment under Mr. Betterman's roof; all the more that he himself had then wondered and surmised—struck as he was with the effect on the poor man's nerves of their visitor's announcement that her prime patient had brightened. Mr. Gaw but too truly, our young man now learned, had taken that news ill—as, given the state of his heart, any strong shock might determine a bad aggravation. Such a shock Miss Mumby had, to her lively regret, administered, though she called Gray's attention to the prompt and intelligent action of her remorse. Feeling at once responsible she had taken their extraordinary little subject in charge—with every care indeed not to alarm him; to the point that, on his absolute refusal to let her go home with him and his arresting a hack, on the public road, which happened to come into view empty, the two had entered the vehicle and she had not lost sight of him till, his earnest call upon his daughter at Mrs. Bradham's achieved, he had been in effect restored to his own house. His daughter, who lived with her eyes on his liability to lapses, was now watching with him, and was well aware, Miss Mumby averred, of what the crisis might mean; as to whose own due presence of mind in the 122