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Updated: June 17, 2025
A few days later, when Tanaka was arrested and had made a full confession of the crime, Count Saito, who knew how suspects fare at the hands of a zealous procurator, called in person on the Minister of Justice, and secured Asako's speedy liberation. "This girl is a valuable asset to our country," he had explained to the Minister.
They found their way through the musty mosquito-net which separated his bed from Asako's. They eluded his blow in the evening light; and he could only wreak his vengeance in the morning, when they were heavy with his gore. The colour faded from the Englishman's cheeks. His appetite failed. He was becoming, what he had never been before, cross and irritable.
There was a warmth, a sincerity in the tone which made Asako stare at her companion. But the childish face was innocent and smiling. The languid curve of the smile and the opalescence of the green eyes betrayed none of their secrets to Asako's inexperience. Reggie sat down at the piano, and, still watching the two women, he began to play. "This is the Yaé Sonata," he explained to Geoffrey.
Just when the new home was ready for occupation, just when Asako's enthusiasm was at its height and the purchases of silken bedding and dainty trays were almost complete, Geoffrey suddenly announced his intention of leaving Japan. "I can't stick it any longer," he said fretfully, "I don't know what's coming over me." "Leave Japan?" cried his wife, aghast.
Outside, the twilight was beginning to gather. A big black crow flopped lazily on to the branch of the neighbouring pine-tree. His harsh croak disturbed Asako's mind like a threat. High overhead passed a flight of wild geese in military formation on their way to the continent of Asia. Lights began to peep among the trees. Behind the squat pagoda a sky of raspberry pink closed the background.
There was a sense of expectation and hospitality, which calmed Asako's fluttering shyness. "Welcome! Welcome!" chanted the chorus of maids, "O agari nasaimashi! The visitor was shown into a beautiful airy room overlooking the landscape garden. She could not repress an Ah! of wonder, when first this fairy pleasance came in sight.
Two little maids brought tea and sugary cakes, green tea like bitter hot water, insipid and unsatisfying. It was a shock to see the girls' faces as they raised the tiny china teacups. Under the glaze of their powder they were old and wise. They observed Asako's nationality, and began to speak to her in Japanese.
He was not so egotistical and bitter as Sadako. He had traveled in America and Europe. He seemed to understand the trouble of Asako's mind, and would offer sympathetic advice. "It is difficult to go to school when we are no longer children," he would say sententiously. "Asa San must be patient. Asa San must forget. Asa San must take Japanese husband. I think it is the only way."
The new life appealed to Asako's love of novelty, and the strangeness of it to her child's love of make-believe. The summoning of her parents' spirits awakened in her the desire for a home, which lurks in every one of us; the love of old family things around us, the sense of an inheritance and a tradition.
Rings sparkled on Sadako's fingers, and she wore a diamond ornament across her sash; but neither their taste nor their quality impressed her cousin. Her face was of the same ivory tint as Asako's, but it was hidden under a lavish coating of liquid powder.
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