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This morning he got up early and put the whole apartment in order; and he is positive, and when Tatsu is positive he is not apt to be mistaken, that neither the photographs nor the maps were on that table, nor indeed anywhere in the rooms at five o'clock in the morning." The Mariposa listened attentively to what he had to say, and then thought deeply for a few moments.
"The servants," she said rapidly. "I was coming to them. They were all taken on for the dinner, with the exception of Tatsu, who has been with me for years, and whom, I think, I would trust further than I would myself. When I questioned him he was extremely clear and quick in his answers.
Your thin face peers like a fox from its hole. If you deceive me, yet must I remain, for should she come " "You shall soon perceive for yourself, dear Dragon Youth." Mata entered with hot sakè. "Go! We shall serve ourselves," said Kano, much to her relief. "I seldom drink," observed Tatsu, as the old man filled his cup. "Once it made of me a fool.
Why should cherry blooms and sparrows dare to come again, why should that old man near him wheeze and palpitate with life, why why should he, Tatsu, be held from his one friend, Death, when she, the essence of all life and beauty, she who should have been immortal, drifted alone, helpless, a broken white sea-flower, on some black, awful tide?
My first idea was that having the appointment with you for this afternoon so on my mind I had probably gotten up in the night and hidden the package somewhere, either when asleep or in a state of half-wakefulness; but Tatsu and I made a most thorough search of the entire apartment, over-looking no possible receptacle where I might have hidden them, and there is absolutely no trace of them."
Yes, that touches you. Human agony is nothing to your heart of jade. You would catch these tears I shed to mix a new pigment! You do not regret her. You would think the price cheap, if only I will paint. I hate all pictures! I curse the things I have done! Would that, indeed, I had the tongue of a dragon, that I might lick them from the silk!" "Tatsu, my poor son, be less violent. I urge nothing!
Tatsu looked up from his rice-bowl in some surprise. The relations between these two, though externally kind, had never approached intimacy.
Each day at dawn, and again at twilight of each day, it flamed high and was hard to conquer, for with dawn a letter was hers held in the night-wet branches of her dragon-plum, and each night when Mata and her father thought her sleeping, an answer was written, and committed to the keeping of the tree. When Tatsu did not paint, or rest from sheer exhaustion, he was writing.
"Her deed held the glory of self-sacrifice, that you might gain enlightenment; while you, railing impotently here, giving out affront against the gods, are as the wild beast on the mountain that cannot bear the arrow in its side." "And it is true," said Tatsu, "I cannot bear the arrow, I cannot endure this pain. Show me the way to death, if you have true pity.
In the windy street he clutched at his fluttering skirts as he had seen other men do, and, with a last terrified backward glance, ran breathlessly toward the haven of his temporary home. The little house was empty. Tatsu was thankful for so much. The rooms were already pre-haunted by dreams of Umè-ko. Tatsu felt the peace of it sink deep into his soul.
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