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Updated: May 28, 2025
A flush of embarrassment dyed her face, and she threw a half-frightened look towards Tatsu. Answering her father's unrelenting frown, she murmured, timidly, "To-morrow, if the gods will, my dear husband shall paint." Tatsu's steady gaze drew her. "Your eyes, Umè-ko. Is it true that for this to make me paint you consented to become my wife?" Umè tried in vain to resist the look he gave her.
Perhaps he had waited too long for the simple breakfast; perhaps the recent glory had drained him of vital force. A hopelessness, alike of life and death, rose about him in a tide. Umè prostrated herself upon the veranda near him. "Good morning, august father. Will you deign to enter now and partake of food?" Her voice and the morning face she lifted might have won a smile from a stone image.
Kyushu dai-ichi no ume Kon-ya kimi ga tame ni hiraku. Hana no shingi wo shiran to hosseba, San-ko tsuki wo funde kitare. The finest plum-blossom of Kyushu This night is opening for thee. If thou wishes to know the true character of this flower, Come at the third hour singing in the moonlight. Yoshiwara Popular Song.
This was so unusual a thing that Tatsu, alone in their chamber, was at first astonished, then alarmed. For ten minutes or more he paced up and down the narrow space, pride urging him to await his wife's dutiful appearance. In a short while more he felt the tension to be unbearable. A sinister silence flooded the house. He hurried back to the main room to find that Umè and old Kano were not there.
"He must be clothed, but how? I would sooner sheathe a mountain cat in silks! The one hope of existence during this interval is to get him engrossed in painting; but where is he to paint? I dare not keep him in the house with Umè, nor with old Mata, neither, for she might poison him. If only Ando Uchida had not gone away, leaving no address!"
For the first time I felt that I had obtained a due acknowledgment. The book was translated into German by Kruse, with a long title, "Jugendleben und Tr ume eines italienischen Dichter's." I objected to the title; but he declared that it was necessary in order to attract attention to the book.
The presence of Umè in the chamber seemed to fade a little, but, for some reason inexplicable to himself, this brought now no poignant grief. He did not tell the wonderful thing to Mata or old Kano, but hid the still unfinished picture where no one but himself could see it. So February passed, and March.
It stood for bravery and loyalty in the face of disaster, but as one tottering old woman put it, as she went down on her knees begging food for her grandbabies, "The Ume Ke makes me suffer great shame for my weakness. It gives joy to weary eyes, courage to fainting heart, but no food for babies."
The sewing was, of course, done at home. Mata would have trusted this sacred rite to no domination but her own. She worked incessantly, planning, cutting, scolding, hurrying off to the shopping district for some forgotten item, conferring with Ando Uchida about the details of Tatsu's outfit, then returning, flushed with success and importance, to new home triumphs. Umè sewed steadily all day.
She denounced her erstwhile beloved master as a blind old dotard, and the idolized Umè, she declared a weak and yielding idiot. Tatsu's attempts at retort were swept away with a hiss. For a while he raged like a flame upon the doorstep, but he was no match for his vigorous opponent. It was something to realize his own defeat.
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