The Independence of Saburo

IT was the month of June, and a great festival of the Sanno Temple was in full swing. The streets were alive with excitement and brilliant with lanterns. The whole length of Kojimachi-dori was lined with gay booths and crowded with sightseers. Here and there the beat of drums, the clashing of cymbals, and the antics and grimaces of mummers held the crowd for a moment before some fantastic festival car. Off in the side streets were to be heard the rhythmic shouts of boys who rushed about with square red lanterns, bearing a miniature festival car high on their shoulders.

To Saburo Nozaki, alone at home, in charge of his father’s shop, the cheerful sounds carried nothing but misery. He sat at his little table figuring out the day’s accounts by the light of a small hanging lamp. The shop front was wide open to the narrow dark little side street, and now and then a wandering jinrikisha-man’s lantern flashed by, but for the most part the street was empty, for it was away from the centre of the festival, and every one who could leave his work had gone to the great celebration. Only Saburo seemed left of all the populous neighborhood, and as he fingered his soroban¹ and wrote out his accounts, the cheerful hum of the festival just around the corner simply increased his sense of desertion.

Saburo was thoroughly tired of the shop. He had been born in it, or rather in the room just behind it. His babyhood had been passed watching its business over his mother’s shoulder, and when he had been removed from his perch on her back to make room for a baby sister, he had at once begun to make himself useful. At first he could only run back and forth between the fireproof storehouse and the salesroom, carrying rolls of silk and cotton. Later, he had pulled a small handcart about the streets, acting at once as horse and delivery clerk. And now, since he had learned to count with the soroban, he sat all day on his heels, bowing and smiling and propitiating customers, measuring and counting and writing out bills, until it seemed to him that he could bear it no longer. His older brothers, Taro and Jiro, good, honest, unambitious youths, adapted themselves readily to the routine of the shop, but Saburo chafed under it and longed for a change. He was eighteen now, and still his only view of the world was what he could see of the street from under the heavy black curtains that draped the front of the salesroom.

How irksome it was to a proud spirit that felt itself set apart for better things! And now to-night, when the greatest festival in a cycle of sixty years was going on close by, and on the great last night of all the three, his father had taken the rest of the family to see the sights, and had left poor Saburo alone at home to guard the shop and wait upon improbable customers. It was too much! Saburo counted and wrote and counted again, but the bursts of gayety from Kojimachi confused his reckoning, and he gave up at last and settled down to listen and wish.

Suddenly the wish became the father of a thought — a great thought — an audacious thought. It had sometimes come before into Saburo’s head, though he had never seen the way clear to its accomplishment, but to-night was the very night for it.

The boy reached out from where he sat to a drawer in the wall, and drew from thence a heavy, iron-bound box, the till of the establishment. This he opened with a key from his girdle, counted out fifty yen with methodical exactness, set down his name in the account book opposite to that amount, then closed and locked the box and returned it to its drawer. The money he tucked away in his belt. Then he rose, carried the key into the back room and hung it on the wall, slid all the wooden shutters but one into place across the front of the shop, stepped out into the street, closed the last shutter, and walked off into the darkness away from the lights and noise of the festival. He did not care where he went. All he wanted was to get away from the close confinement, the unvarying monotony of the shop.

For an hour or so he wandered about dark and narrow streets, not daring to show himself in the wider, brightly lighted thoroughfares, lest he should be recognized by some chance acquaintance and his great plan be frustrated at its beginning.

It was ten o’clock, and even the business streets were putting up their shutters for the night, when the youth drifted aimlessly into a broad avenue, almost deserted at that hour, which he recognized as the one that led to the northern railway station. Then a new thought struck him, and he pushed forward with the energy of a definite purpose. When he reached the station a bell was ringing, and the northbound train was puffing on the track. He purchased a third-class ticket, selecting his destination — Nishi Nasuno — at random from the time-table hanging on the wall, rushed through the gate, and curled himself up in the corner of an empty carriage.

By noon of the following day Saburo found himself, after a long morning’s walk, close to the beautiful mountain region that surrounds the gorge of Shiobara. His morning had not been one of unalloyed pleasure in his independence. The girls at the teahouse, where he had stopped and called for breakfast, had met his air of assumed importance with derisive giggles and mocking obeisances, and had given him, not the cool, retired upper room that he had demanded, but a place close to the street, noisy and sunny, where he had eaten his meal in full sight of the public and of all the employees of the hotel kitchen. Then the morning’s walk had been hot and tiresome,— a straight shadeless road pointing directly toward the mountains.

Saburo found himself tired and hungry enough when he sat down to rest and eat his lunch in front of a teahouse that stood just where the road entered a beautiful mountain gorge.

“Elder Sister, where does this road go?” he asked of the bright-eyed, redcheeked girl who waited on him.

“To Shiobara,” she said,adding, “It is seven miles to the first village.”

As Saburo looked at the steep, rocky road ahead he felt sure that he needed some stimulus to carry him over those seven miles to the village, and he ordered from the “elder sister” a gourd full of sake,² which he hung at his belt. Then he pressed on, and the mountains closed about him.

He seemed to be entering their very bowels, and the roaring of the torrent below him, the awful grandeur of the peaks above, impressed his unsophisticated soul with a strange uneasiness. He remembered all the weird tales that he had heard from his childhood, of the mountain gods and goblins, of the spirits of the dead that mow and gibber by the roadside, of the foxes and badgers that work strange enchantments on unwary travelers, and as each horrid detail came before his mind, his knees grew more and more shaky. At last, he felt sure that he could never reach the village for which he was bound before the night fell.

He sat down by the roadside and wondered what he should do, and how he should pass the night; and as he sat there he saw a young girl coming out of the woods carrying a bucket of water. She was dressed after the country fashion, with her kimono tucked up to her knees, showing her red petticoat below. She wore white silk leggins and straw sandals, and she walked lightly and gracefully with her load, in the dog-trot of the mountain peasant.

Saburo rose as she passed, and she stopped and set down her bucket.

“Honorable maiden,” he said, “can you tell me of any house near here where I can get a meal and a bed ? ”

She bowed and smiled as she answered, “I have a very humble roadside booth just beyond the turn of the road where your honor can obtain refreshment, though of poor quality.”

Saburo started up, his tired, unsteady legs reeling under him, and followed the girl a few paces to a spot where the smallest of roadside eating-shops had been placed, almost overhanging the torrent. How cool and inviting it looked! Screens of bamboo across the front shut it off from undue publicity. A small stream of water from a bamboo pipe plashed pleasantly into a stone tank close by, and over the hibachi³ the kettle was bubbling. Cups and plates and various comestibles showed that the small establishment could furnish a meal, and it was with a sigh of relief that Saburo slipped his tired feet out of his clogs, bathed them in the cool sparkling water from the tank, and seated himself on the matted platform that made the guest-room,

“While I am preparing the poor meal, would your honor condescend to drink a cup of ama-zake?”⁴ said the silvery voice of the girl.

“Thank you, I shall be glad to take it,” said Saburo, holding his head up with an attempt at dignity, as he felt that now he had found some one who addressed him with the deference due to his independent position.

The girl, who to Saburo’s eyes grew more beautiful every minute, brought a steaming bowl of the thick white liquor and set it down in front of him. He drank it, sucking it down with gulps and smacks of satisfaction.

“That is food and drink both,” he said, as the maiden brought him another brimming bowl.

Cheered by the gracious glow which the comforting drink diffused through his entire being, Saburo sat and watched his beautiful friend while she attended to her lowly tasks. At last he spoke, and his voice was husky with emotion.

“It is strange,” he said, “and sad, that so beautiful a maiden as you should waste her life up here in these wild mountains. Why do you stay in such a place ? If you went to Tokyo you would soon make a good marriage.”

The girl looked at him before she answered, and Saburo felt as if his soul were on fire.

“Sometimes I have thought I would like to go out and see the world,” she said, “but I am the only child of my old mother, and she would not consent to my going,” and she wept, holding her sleeves before her face.

“And now my mother is dead, and I have no brother, nor any friends.” She wept quietly behind her sleeves for a space, her body shaking with the violence of her emotion; then she uncovered her face. Saburo felt her eyes looking deep into his heart. “If you do not object to my humble birth,” she continued, “and since you sympathize with my grief, please take me with you to Tokyo and teach me how to sweep and wash floors.” Then she hid her face once more behind her sleeves.

Saburo’s head was fairly turned by such a show of confidence, and he reached forward and patted the poor girl’s shoulder as she sat with covered face on the edge of his matted platform.

“Do not feel so sad,” he said; “I will find you a place where you will be much better off than here.”

The maiden looked with one eye from behind her sleeves. Saburo gently pulled down her hands until her whole face was visible. “How can I ever reward you for your kindness ? ” she said.

By the time he had eaten supper it was quite dark, and Saburo began to wonder where he could spend the night, for the little teahouse was simply an open booth.

“Where do you live?” he asked of his entertainer.

“Quite near here,” she answered, “and if you can endure my rude and squalid home, I can give you a bed there for tonight.”

She extinguished the coals in the hibachi by dropping them into a pot of water, using for the purpose a pair of firesticks, one of bamboo and one of bone. Saburo’s superstitious soul shuddered a little when he saw her do it, for he knew that in Tokyo such sticks were only used in collecting the ashes of the dead. But he remembered that she was a country girl, and could not be expected to know all the Tokyo customs. Then she closed the shutters about the little guest-room, and taking a white lantern ⁵ in her hand, she led the way into the woods. To Saburo there was something uncanny about the white lantern. It was like a funeral procession, he thought, but he said nothing.

There was a muttering of thunder among the hills, and zigzag lightning flashed from a black cloud overhead. The way seemed longer than Saburo had expected, but at last his guide stopped, just as a flash of lightning revealed a miserable dilapidated cottage. The paper of the sliding screens was flapping like ghostly garments in the wind, the plaster of the walls had fallen in places showing the bamboo skeleton of the house, the roof was breaking down under its load of stones, and the floor gave and creaked dismally as they stepped upon the dirty mats.

On one side of the room was a broken screen, inverted; ⁶ two of the floor mats had been taken up, and a clean new tub, bucket, and dipper stood on the rotten boards in the place thus left bare.⁷ Saburo shuddered. What did all this mean ? His legs, which had been painfully weak for several hours, nearly gave way beneath him.

“My mother lies there dead,” said the girl in explanation. “ I have not been able to bury her yet, but I will bury her tomorrow before we start. Wait here a little while, for I must go and find a priest to attend the funeral,” and the maiden disappeared in the darkness, leaving Saburo alone with the dead.

He tried to call, but his voice was choked; he tried to move, but his legs refused to carry him. He could only sit and wait for the return of his hostess, the horror of the place freezing his blood the while.

It was deadly silent in the woods. He would have been grateful even for a thunder-clap to break the silence, but the storm had passed. Suddenly the clouds parted, and the moonlight streamed through a hole in the roof right into the room.

Saburo found himself filled with a strange desire to look behind the screen, to see whether the girl had told him the truth. Slowly, on hands and knees he crept across the floor. Softly he moved the screen away. It was too true! There, on the floor, covered with a white quilt, sat a rigid figure, its knees drawn up to its chin.

Saburo crept closer and removed the covering from the face. Horror of horrors! It was the face of his beautiful hostess. But, even as he looked at it, the hair became snowy white, the eyes grew hollow, the parchment-like skin stretched tense across the nose, and the face changed to that of a demon.

Poor Saburo, not daring to turn his back on the awful object, retreated backward. The dead, raising her head, hitched forward across the floor. Saburo backed again. Once more the thing moved toward him, and once more he backed. It came close, — closer, — then suddenly, opening its mouth wide, it sneezed, and Saburo, forgetting his fatigue, turned and ran madly away from that terrible place.

Next morning a peasant, leading his shock-headed pony loaded with grass along the mountain road saw far beneath him, close to the brawling torrent, what looked like the body of a man. Scrambling laboriously down, he found poor Saburo, not dead, but badly bruised. With much labor and suffering he was at last dragged up to the road.

How familiar the whole place looked to him when he opened his eyes! There was the turn in the road near which he had sat down, there the footpath along which the girl had come with the bucket of water. A great terror came over him.

“ Do not take me to the rest-house beyond the turn,” he begged of his kindhearted rescuer.

“What rest-house? There is no resthouse near here,” said the bewildered peasant.

Then Saburo told him his story, but the man only shook his head. “There is no rest-house here, nor ever has been,”he said, “but there are foxes that live in the temple of Inari Sama ⁸ up in the woods there,” and he pointed toward the footpath. “They have bewitched you, and you should thank the gods that you have escaped alive.”

Two days later Saburo, bruised and tired, stepped out of his clogs and prostrated himself on his face in his father’s shop. “I have returned,” he said, as he bowed to his parents. Then he went back to his measuring stick, his soroban, and his account books.