The Dragon Painter | Page 4

steps to play in the temple courtyard, and feed the beautiful tame doves
that lived among the carved dragons of the temple eaves.

In that gray cemetery on the further slope Kano's wife, the young
mother who died so long ago that Umè-ko could not remember her at
all, slept beneath a granite shaft which said, "A Flower having
blossomed in the Night, the Halls of the Gods are fragrant." This was
the Buddhist kaimyo, or priestly invocation to the spirit of the dead. Of
the more personal part of the young mother, her name, age, and the date
of her "divine retirement," these were recorded in the household shrine
of the Kano cottage, where her "ihai" stood, just behind a little lamp of
pure vegetable oil whose light had never yet been suffered to die.
Through this shrine, and the daily loving offices required by it, she had
never ceased to be a presence in the house. Even in his passionate
desire for a son to inherit the name and traditions of his race, old Kano
had not been able to endure the thought of a second wife who might
wish the shrine removed.
Umè-ko and her father were well known at the temple, and worshipped
often before its golden altars. But Mata scorned the ceremony of the
older creed. She was a Shinshu, a Protestant. Her sect discarded
mysticism as useless, believed in the marriage of priests, and in the
abolition of the monastic life, and relied for salvation only on the love
and mercy of Amida, the Buddha of Light.
Sometimes at twilight a group of shadowy human figures, gray as the
doves themselves, crept out from the nunnery gate, crossed the wide,
pebbled courtyard of the temple and stood, for long moments, by the
gnarled roots of the camphor tree, staring out across the beauty of the
plain of Yeddo; its shining bay a great mirror to the south, and off, on
the western horizon, where the last light hung, Fuji, a cone of porphyry,
massive against the gold.
For a full hour, now, Kano had delighted in the morning-glories. At
intervals he strolled about the garden to touch separately, as if in
greeting, each beloved plant. Except for the deepening fervor of the sun
he would have kept no note of time. The last shred of mist had
vanished. Crows and sparrows were busy with breakfast for their
nestlings.
It was, perhaps, the clamor of these feathered parents that, at last,

awoke old Mata in her sleeping closet near the kitchen. She turned
drowsily. The presence of an unusual light under the shoji brought her
to her knees. The amado in the further part of the house were
undoubtedly open. Could robbers have come in the night? And were
her master and Miss Umè weltering in gore?
She was on her feet now, pushing with shaking fingers at the sliding
walls. She peered at first into Umè's room for there, indeed, lay the core
of old Mata's heart. A slender figure on the floor stirred slightly and a
sound of soft breathing filled the silence. All was well in Umè's room.
She knocked then on Kano's fusuma. There was no response.
Cautiously she parted them, and met an incoming flood of morning
light. The walls were opened. Through the small square pillars of the
veranda she could see, as in a frame, old Kano standing in the garden
beside the fish-pond. Even as she gazed, incredulous at her own
stupidity in sleeping so late, the temple bell above boomed out six slow
strokes. Six! Such a thing had never been known. Well, she must be
growing old and worthless. She had better fill her sleeve with pebbles
and cast herself into the nearest stream. She hurried back, a
tempestuous protest in every step.
"Miss Umè,--Umè-ko!" she called. "Ma-a-a! What has come to us both?
The Danna San walks about as if he had been awake for hours. And not
a cup of tea for him! The honorable fire does not exist. Surely a demon
of sleep has bewitched us."
She had entered the girl's room, and now, while speaking, crossed the
narrow space to fling wide, first the shoji, and then the outer amado.
Umè moved lazily. Her lacquered pillow, with its bright cushion,
rocked as she stirred. "No demon has found me, Mata San," she
murmured, smiling. "No demon unless it be you, cruel nurse, who have
dragged me back from a heavenly dream."
"Baku devour your dream!" cried Mata. "I say there is no fire beneath
the pot!"
Umè sat up now, and smoothed slowly the loops of her shining hair.

The yellow morning sun danced into the corners of her room, rioted
among the hues of her silken bed coverings, and paused, abashed, as it