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Only at night they would chatter as girls will, even if they are enemies; and it was then that Sadako narrated the history of her romance with the young student. One night, Asako awoke to find that the bed beside her was empty, and that the paper shoji was pushed aside. Nervous and anxious, she rose and stood in the dark veranda outside the room.
Men and women ought not to sit and move like animals; but the shape of their bodies, and their way of action ought to express a poetry. That is the art of the chanoyu." "I should like to see it," said Asako, excited by her cousin's enthusiasm, though she hardly understood a word of what she had been saying. "You ought to learn some of it," said Sadako, with the zeal of a propagandist.
Waking and sleeping she could see him, sword in hand, leading his men to desperate hand-to-hand struggles, like those portrayed in the crude Japanese chromographs, which Sadako showed her to play upon her fears. Poor Asako! How she hated Japan now! How she loathed the cramped, draughty, uncomfortable life!
It rested her to lie thus and look at her country. From time to time Sadako would steal into the room. Her cousin would leave the invalid in silence, but she always smiled; and she would bring some offering with her, a dish of food Asako's favorite dishes, of which Tanaka had already compiled a complete list or sometimes a flower. Asako gradually accustomed herself to the noises of the house.
He saw that this plan for a Japanese house meant a further separation of husband and wife, a further step towards recovery of his errant child. For he was beginning to regard Asako with parental sentiment, and to pity her condition as the wife of this coarse stranger. Miss Sadako was under no such altruistic delusions. She envied her cousin.
Already she had been questioned on the subject by Tanaka, by boy sans and by shop-attendants. "It is a great pity," said cousin Sadako, "that you have no baby. In Japan if a wife have no baby, she is often divorced. But perhaps it is the fault of Mr. Barrington?" Asako had vaguely hoped for children in the future, but on the whole she was glad that their coming had been delayed.
I don't think I shall ever be happy again." "You ought to be more grateful," said Sadako severely. "We have saved you from your husband, who was cruel and deceitful " "No, I don't believe that now. My husband and I loved each other always. You people came between us with wicked lies and separated us." "Anyhow, you have made the choice. You have chosen to be Japanese.
"What is the matter?" "I dreamed of Geoffrey, my husband. Perhaps he is killed in the war." "Do not say that," said Sadako. "It is unlucky to speak of death. It troubles the ghosts. I have told you this house is haunted." Certainly for Asako the Fujinami mansion had lost its charm. Even the beautiful landscape was besieged by horrible thoughts.
It was Asako's turn to cry. "Oh, I wish I had gone with him. He was so good to me, always so kind and so gentle!" "When he married you," said Sadako, "he did not know that you had the curse. He ought not to have come to Japan with you. Now he knows you have the curse. So he went away. He was wise." "What do you mean by the curse?" asked Asako.
Asako asked her cousin. "The geisha dance, because they are paid," said Sadako primly. Her pose was no longer cordial and sympathetic. She set herself up as mentor to this young savage, who did not know the usages of civilized society. "No, not like that," said the girl from England; "but dancing among yourselves with your men friends." "Oh, no, that would not be nice at all.
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