Chapter XX: The Faded Glory

But presently the glory faded (alas! nothing fades more quickly than glory!) and Arisuga thought again of Hoshiko. Yet it was still good to be back among those whose trade like his own was war. And there were pretty words to listen to--which made the heart swell--and friends joyously to caress one, and others to recount one's courage--for at least two weeks: then all was as before, and Arisuga had only his medal as a surety that all the heroic splendor of Miyagi Field had ever been. It was then that he began not only to think of but to wish for Hoshiko--her hands--her voice--her laughter. In another week he would have given it all for these! And he had sworn to go back. But how could he--now? It was like open treason. Yea, so it is! Glory may fill our lives for a while, but presently it becomes smaller than a woman's steadfast love--as it is smaller. Then he began to think of bringing Hoshiko to Japan. There was that theory, you will remember, that in the army there were neither samurai nor eta--only soldiers. Only sons of the emperor! Understand what that means--to be a son of the emperor. Yet no one but a Japanese can. Remember that the emperor is a god!

The yearning for Hoshiko grew upon him until he knew that he must do something definitive. Either she must come to him, or he must go to her, or he must forget her. Forget her! For three nights he strove to keep her out of his thoughts. When she came he would sing--shout madly. But she came quite easily through the songs. Then he cursed--everything which had conspired to bring about his unhappy status, pausing only before the emperor. She came smiling, seductive, through the curses.

Then he remembered the kindly face of the emperor and took a moment's hope. He would understand, and perhaps permit him to live in China. But when he told Zanzi his hope, that officer grew savage:--

"What! After the emperor has decorated you, touched you, you want--actually _want_--to go away from him? Adopt another country? Sir, if he should know that you have such small purposes, I think he would recall your medal."

Then he thought it might be looked at differently, if they knew that he was married. Especially if they could see Hoshiko. Of course this was impossible, since she could not come to Japan. But he felt that, if he could interest his colonel in the facts, he could give him an adequate description of Hoshiko. No one, he thought, need know that she was an eta. Having secured so much, he would intimate that he had no intention of adopting another country, but that the air of China was necessary for his recovery; that the retrogression in his convalescence, which all noticed and spoke of, was because of the now unaccustomed air of Japan.

He told Colonel Zanzi tentatively, not that he was married--but that he wished to marry. Zanzi was opposed to marriage for soldiers.

"I am sorry," grinned the colonel, with a shrug. "Why must you many? It is peace. Are the yoshiwara and Geisha street empty?"

"I have given my promise," said Arisuga.

"Oh, well," replied the colonel, with the air of dismissing a hopeless and useless topic, "if she is a samurai--"

"I have not inquired concerning that," said the color-bearer, untruthfully.

"But you must," said the officer, sharply.

"The old order is no more," quoted Arisuga against him. "I have heard you say yourself, Colonel Zanzi, that in the army there is neither eta nor samurai,--only sons of the emperor."

"In time of war, yes," finished the colonel. "We need them all then. But, these are times of peace. And the old order lives always. I have never said otherwise. You, sir, the son of a samurai who died at Jokoji, even if he died on the wrong side, ought not to need to be told that. Sir, no member of this regiment marries below his caste! If you are thinking of such a thing, I regret it. Your decision lies between this woman and the emperor, who gives you life, and who, when he accepts you as his son, takes back that life again to himself to dispose of at his will. You cannot have forgotten the samurai obligation,--not to live under the same heavens nor to tread the same earth with the enemy of your lord. You must leave it, or the enemy must. This woman, sir, puts herself in opposition to your emperor. She is, therefore, his enemy, and consequently yours. Nevertheless the emperor is gracious. He leaves the choice to his sons. But they must take the consequences. Good morning, sir."

But the color-bearer did not move. He stood there still with his hand to his forehead.

"Good morning!" thundered the colonel.

And even that could not frighten him. He was momentously deciding between the emperor and Hoshiko.

"I desire to say, sir, that I shall not marry," said Arisuga.

"I am glad to hear it. The soldier who marries is a fool."

And therefore the little color-guard set himself to fight again, and to the end, against the invincible thing called love. It makes me smile as I think of it. Who has ever vanquished it? At first he stubbornly thought of other battles he had fought and won. But he was surprised that this brought no courage to the new kind of conflict. She came in the visions of night, like the sappers and miners, when he was least defended against her, smiling, beckoning. He could see her and touch her, and know that she was at his side.

Now all things mightily conspired to make that thing he had once thought of in China--a temporary alliance,--a going away, an easy forgetting, another marriage, many--to be more fully than he could have hoped.

It was only necessary that he should remain in Japan. Time would do the rest. He used to wonder, in the night, under the stars, how long it would take her to understand, then forget, then to take another husband. He never got over this latter without waking his sleeping comrade by a certain wild violence of passion.

He thought of it with a pitying laugh at himself--now mad to go back where he was denied the going--to have her there who must not come--whose coming would be ruin.

One night he spoke wildly to this comrade:--

"I tell you that she will never forget, never take another: if she did, I would kill her! But I am the liar and the scoundrel--I. She chose me." Concerning which interruptions of his repose his sleeping-mate continued to complain to headquarters.

A dozen times he sat down to write to her. But what comfort was that? It was herself he wanted: the bodily presence which could softly touch him, the voice which could gently speak to him, all the beauty which he might see! A dozen times he threw the unfinished letter from him.

And so, finally, this fight against Hoshiko became a rout. Every night, when he should have slept, it came on--like an enemy who knew the time and place of the weakness of his adversary. If there had only been no nights to fight through! At last his bunk-mates so complained of him that the doctor sent him to live out of the barracks, where he would disturb no one. He had a small house to himself.

But in this new solitude she came and stayed and possessed him. She made him again to possess her. She was there always. The night mattered no more. He saw her eyes in the dusk, heard her voice in daylight. He often parted the shoji--sometimes to find vacancy--when his mood was practical and he had slept well; but often when he had not eaten or slept, and the visions came--to have her swiftly in his arms.

Presently a certain infidelity came and lodged in him, and the knowledge of it spread through the army.

"What a spirit must that be of the emperor--the gods--the augustnesses--even a father waiting in the Meido--which would not permit him to have one small woman!"

That is what he publicly said. And, worse, he had once thought of throwing his medal into the moat near by and of escaping to China. Of deserting the emperor he had doubly sworn to serve. His gods, his father, the shades. Perhaps there was but one thing in the old days, worse than the eta--the deserter. He thought of this and took terrible pause.

Finally it was known in the army that Arisuga was mad--quite mad. The wound in his head had done it. His talk was of a woman: an houri, if ever there was one, should his talk of her be believed. He had cursed the gods, reviled the augustnesses, the spirit of his father, the emperor who had pinned the medal on his coat. Certainly Shijiro Arisuga was mad. He himself heard this, and thought to take a cunning advantage of it. If he were mad, he would be invalided, and then he would see China again.

IN THE ANDON'S LIGHT