Chapter XVI: The Making of a Goddess

So she said the next day, not now with the aplomb of a lady, but as a servant:--

"Lord, there is a reason why you cannot--even--" she choked in her throat--"take me. Do you not know it?"

"Do not call me lord," he said, "as if you were a servant and I your master."

"It is right that I should do so, lord."

"I won't have it," he laughed.

And he had never seemed so beautiful nor the sound of his voice so tender. But she went on as she had planned in her sleepless night.

She was kneeling at his feet now--her head upon the mats--reaching out to touch him.

"Dear lord, I have deceived you," she said. "My only excuse is that it was sweet. All the sweetness I have had in my small life. Lord, I am young. But I had scarcely smiled until you came. In Japan we were accursed. I was beautiful and my father pitied me and brought me here where no one knew. Lord, I am an eta."

Arisuga recoiled from the word. The instant would have been inappreciable to measures of time. But in it the girl's heart leaped and fell with its own understanding. In the same instant Arisuga knew all that had so puzzled him concerning the beautiful creature at his feet. And he understood what his saying must have been to her. For this he would make a soldier's great reparation--and at once! That was the way of Arisuga.

"Then you have known no one--no man but me?"

"No," whispered the girl. "I thought if I had twenty lovers, you would wish me the more."

"And what I have foolishly taken for the advances of experience have been innocencies!"

Not she, but Isonna, spoke out:--

"Yes, lord. It was as I said. I am here now, when men might wish her, to see that none approach. There has been no one but you."

"Little Lady Hoshi," said Shijiro Arisuga, to her bruised heart, "there is but one reparation I can make for yesterday. It is to wish you to become my wife--to-day."

"But, lord, beautiful lord," cried the girl, "you did not hear what I said. I spoke too low. I was at your feet--" and now she deliberately raised her agonized face to his that there might be no mistake--"Lord, I am an eta! The accursed, despised caste! To the samurai we are as lepers! No samurai in all the thousands of years of our empire has ever married an eta! None has ever touched one! Lord, you did not hear!"

"I heard. Pray, call me lord no more, but husband."

"Li--li--Pardon me, husband, I have been taught that I am not to expect marriage."

"Who taught you that?"

"Even my father! My mother!"

"Gods! It shall be to-morrow."

"Yi--yes, li--li--husband," chattered Hoshiko.

"And on that day there shall be a new goddess to be worshipped, and her name shall be called Star-Dream! And the first prayer she shall hear will be from a very brutal soldier to be forgiven for a little start upon hearing a certain untrue word. For no goddess can be an eta--even if it were possible for a mortal as beautiful as you to be an eta. So, even to-day, see," as he gathered her from the floor strongly into his arms, "you are my goddess--to-morrow you will be my wife."

"Lord, I have no wedding garments! You know that though a Japanese maiden has always ready her garments for death or marriage, an eta maid has only those for death ready. It is presumption to have--the--the others."

"Then there shall be no wedding garment but this," and he touched the dainty thing she wore. "Where are your parents that I may ask their consent?"

Hoshiko did not know. But Arisuga suspected that they were close behind the fusuma listening with staring eyes and gaping mouths.

He suddenly pushed aside the slides--and there they were.

"To-morrow I wed your daughter," he said to them with his soldier's savagery.

He respectfully gave them time for an answer--but he meant them to understand that they dare not refuse. And together, when they had the breath for it, they bowed to the very earth and said:--

"Yea, august lord!"

Arisuga bowed haughtily in return, and closed the slides upon them.

"You see," he said to Hoshiko, "there is nothing but the three times three between us and our earth-heaven, goddess!"

"Yes, lord," she shivered.

She begged for delay, but he would not grant it, so all that night, while he slept near, she and Isonna in the next room strove to make a trousseau out of her shroud.

THE ETA