Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things Part 9

I venture at last, "or a fairy?" "No," says Robert,--"only a gipsy. But that is nearly as bad. They steal children, you know."...

"What shall we do if he comes up here?" I gasp, in sudden terror at the lonesomeness of our situation.

"Oh, he wouldn't dare," answers Robert--"not by daylight, you know."...

[Only yesterday, near the village of Takata, I noticed a flower which the j.a.panese call by nearly the same name as we do: Himawari, "The Sunward-turning;"--and over the s.p.a.ce of forty years there thrilled back to me the voice of that wandering harper,--

As the Sunflower turns on her G.o.d, when he sets, The same look that she turned when he rose.

Again I saw the sun-flecked shadows on that far Welsh hill; and Robert for a moment again stood beside me, with his girl's face and his curls of gold. We were looking for fairy-rings... But all that existed of the real Robert must long ago have suffered a sea-change into something rich and strange... Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend...]

HORAI

Blue vision of depth lost in height,--sea and sky interblending through luminous haze. The day is of spring, and the hour morning.

Only sky and sea,--one azure enormity... In the fore, ripples are catching a silvery light, and threads of foam are swirling. But a little further off no motion is visible, nor anything save color: dim warm blue of water widening away to melt into blue of air. Horizon there is none: only distance soaring into s.p.a.ce,--infinite concavity hollowing before you, and hugely arching above you,--the color deepening with the height. But far in the midway-blue there hangs a faint, faint vision of palace towers, with high roofs horned and curved like moons,--some shadowing of splendor strange and old, illumined by a suns.h.i.+ne soft as memory.

...What I have thus been trying to describe is a kakemono,--that is to say, a j.a.panese painting on silk, suspended to the wall of my alcove;--and the name of it is s.h.i.+nkiro, which signifies "Mirage." But the shapes of the mirage are unmistakable. Those are the glimmering portals of Horai the blest; and those are the moony roofs of the Palace of the Dragon-King;--and the fas.h.i.+on of them (though limned by a j.a.panese brush of to-day) is the fas.h.i.+on of things Chinese, twenty-one hundred years ago...

Thus much is told of the place in the Chinese books of that time:--

In Horai there is neither death nor pain; and there is no winter. The flowers in that place never fade, and the fruits never fail; and if a man taste of those fruits even but once, he can never again feel thirst or hunger. In Horai grow the enchanted plants So-rin-s.h.i.+, and Riku-go-aoi, and Ban-kon-to, which heal all manner of sickness;--and there grows also the magical gra.s.s Yo-s.h.i.+n-s.h.i.+, that quickens the dead; and the magical gra.s.s is watered by a fairy water of which a single drink confers perpetual youth. The people of Horai eat their rice out of very, very small bowls; but the rice never diminishes within those bowls,--however much of it be eaten,--until the eater desires no more.

And the people of Horai drink their wine out of very, very small cups; but no man can empty one of those cups,--however stoutly he may drink,--until there comes upon him the pleasant drowsiness of intoxication.

All this and more is told in the legends of the time of the s.h.i.+n dynasty. But that the people who wrote down those legends ever saw Horai, even in a mirage, is not believable. For really there are no enchanted fruits which leave the eater forever satisfied,--nor any magical gra.s.s which revives the dead,--nor any fountain of fairy water,--nor any bowls which never lack rice,--nor any cups which never lack wine. It is not true that sorrow and death never enter Horai;--neither is it true that there is not any winter. The winter in Horai is cold;--and winds then bite to the bone; and the heaping of snow is monstrous on the roofs of the Dragon-King.

Nevertheless there are wonderful things in Horai; and the most wonderful of all has not been mentioned by any Chinese writer. I mean the atmosphere of Horai. It is an atmosphere peculiar to the place; and, because of it, the suns.h.i.+ne in Horai is whiter than any other suns.h.i.+ne,--a milky light that never dazzles,--astonis.h.i.+ngly clear, but very soft. This atmosphere is not of our human period: it is enormously old,--so old that I feel afraid when I try to think how old it is;--and it is not a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. It is not made of air at all, but of ghost,--the substance of quintillions of quintillions of generations of souls blended into one immense translucency,--souls of people who thought in ways never resembling our ways. Whatever mortal man inhales that atmosphere, he takes into his blood the thrilling of these spirits; and they change the sense within him,--reshaping his notions of s.p.a.ce and Time,--so that he can see only as they used to see, and feel only as they used to feel, and think only as they used to think. Soft as sleep are these changes of sense; and Horai, discerned across them, might thus be described:--

--Because in Horai there is no knowledge of great evil, the hearts of the people never grow old. And, by reason of being always young in heart, the people of Horai smile from birth until death--except when the G.o.ds send sorrow among them; and faces then are veiled until the sorrow goes away. All folk in Horai love and trust each other, as if all were members of a single household;--and the speech of the women is like birdsong, because the hearts of them are light as the souls of birds;--and the swaying of the sleeves of the maidens at play seems a flutter of wide, soft wings. In Horai nothing is hidden but grief, because there is no reason for shame;--and nothing is locked away, because there could not be any theft;--and by night as well as by day all doors remain unbarred, because there is no reason for fear. And because the people are fairies--though mortal--all things in Horai, except the Palace of the Dragon-King, are small and quaint and queer;--and these fairy-folk do really eat their rice out of very, very small bowls, and drink their wine out of very, very small cups...

--Much of this seeming would be due to the inhalation of that ghostly atmosphere--but not all. For the spell wrought by the dead is only the charm of an Ideal, the glamour of an ancient hope;--and something of that hope has found fulfillment in many hearts,--in the simple beauty of unselfish lives,--in the sweetness of Woman...

--Evil winds from the West are blowing over Horai; and the magical atmosphere, alas! is shrinking away before them. It lingers now in patches only, and bands,--like those long bright bands of cloud that train across the landscapes of j.a.panese painters. Under these shreds of the elfish vapor you still can find Horai--but not everywhere...

Remember that Horai is also called s.h.i.+nkiro, which signifies Mirage,--the Vision of the Intangible. And the Vision is fading,--never again to appear save in pictures and poems and dreams...

INSECT STUDIES

b.u.t.tERFLIES

I

Would that I could hope for the luck of that Chinese scholar known to j.a.panese literature as "Rosan"! For he was beloved by two spirit-maidens, celestial sisters, who every ten days came to visit him and to tell him stories about b.u.t.terflies. Now there are marvelous Chinese stories about b.u.t.terflies--ghostly stories; and I want to know them. But never shall I be able to read Chinese, nor even j.a.panese; and the little j.a.panese poetry that I manage, with exceeding difficulty, to translate, contains so many allusions to Chinese stories of b.u.t.terflies that I am tormented with the torment of Tantalus... And, of course, no spirit-maidens will even deign to visit so skeptical a person as myself.

I want to know, for example, the whole story of that Chinese maiden whom the b.u.t.terflies took to be a flower, and followed in mult.i.tude,--so fragrant and so fair was she. Also I should like to know something more concerning the b.u.t.terflies of the Emperor Genso, or Ming Hw.a.n.g, who made them choose his loves for him... He used to hold wine-parties in his amazing garden; and ladies of exceeding beauty were in attendance; and caged b.u.t.terflies, set free among them, would fly to the fairest; and then, upon that fairest the Imperial favor was bestowed. But after Genso Kotei had seen Yokihi (whom the Chinese call Yang-Kwei-Fei), he would not suffer the b.u.t.terflies to choose for him,--which was unlucky, as Yokihi got him into serious trouble...

Again, I should like to know more about the experience of that Chinese scholar, celebrated in j.a.pan under the name Soshu, who dreamed that he was a b.u.t.terfly, and had all the sensations of a b.u.t.terfly in that dream. For his spirit had really been wandering about in the shape of a b.u.t.terfly; and, when he awoke, the memories and the feelings of b.u.t.terfly existence remained so vivid in his mind that he could not act like a human being... Finally I should like to know the text of a certain Chinese official recognition of sundry b.u.t.terflies as the spirits of an Emperor and of his attendants...

Most of the j.a.panese literature about b.u.t.terflies, excepting some poetry, appears to be of Chinese origin; and even that old national aesthetic feeling on the subject, which found such delightful expression in j.a.panese art and song and custom, may have been first developed under Chinese teaching. Chinese precedent doubtless explains why j.a.panese poets and painters chose so often for their geimyo, or professional appellations, such names as Chomu ("b.u.t.terfly-Dream),"

Icho ("Solitary b.u.t.terfly)," etc. And even to this day such geimyo as Chohana ("b.u.t.terfly-Blossom"), Chokichi ("b.u.t.terfly-Luck"), or Chonosuke ("b.u.t.terfly-Help"), are affected by dancing-girls. Besides artistic names having reference to b.u.t.terflies, there are still in use real personal names (yobina) of this kind,--such as Kocho, or Cho, meaning "b.u.t.terfly." They are borne by women only, as a rule,--though there are some strange exceptions... And here I may mention that, in the province of Mutsu, there still exists the curious old custom of calling the youngest daughter in a family Tekona,--which quaint word, obsolete elsewhere, signifies in Mutsu dialect a b.u.t.terfly. In cla.s.sic time this word signified also a beautiful woman...

It is possible also that some weird j.a.panese beliefs about b.u.t.terflies are of Chinese derivation; but these beliefs might be older than China herself. The most interesting one, I think, is that the soul of a living person may wander about in the form of a b.u.t.terfly. Some pretty fancies have been evolved out of this belief,--such as the notion that if a b.u.t.terfly enters your guest-room and perches behind the bamboo screen, the person whom you most love is coming to see you. That a b.u.t.terfly may be the spirit of somebody is not a reason for being afraid of it. Nevertheless there are times when even b.u.t.terflies can inspire fear by appearing in prodigious numbers; and j.a.panese history records such an event. When Taira-no-Masakado was secretly preparing for his famous revolt, there appeared in Kyoto so vast a swarm of b.u.t.terflies that the people were frightened,--thinking the apparition to be a portent of coming evil... Perhaps those b.u.t.terflies were supposed to be the spirits of the thousands doomed to perish in battle, and agitated on the eve of war by some mysterious premonition of death.

However, in j.a.panese belief, a b.u.t.terfly may be the soul of a dead person as well as of a living person. Indeed it is a custom of souls to take b.u.t.terfly-shape in order to announce the fact of their final departure from the body; and for this reason any b.u.t.terfly which enters a house ought to be kindly treated.

To this belief, and to queer fancies connected with it, there are many allusions in popular drama. For example, there is a well-known play called Tonde-deru-Kocho-no-Kanzas.h.i.+; or, "The Flying Hairpin of Kocho."

Kocho is a beautiful person who kills herself because of false accusations and cruel treatment. Her would-be avenger long seeks in vain for the author of the wrong. But at last the dead woman's hairpin turns into a b.u.t.terfly, and serves as a guide to vengeance by hovering above the place where the villain is hiding.

--Of course those big paper b.u.t.terflies (o-cho and me-cho) which figure at weddings must not be thought of as having any ghostly signification.

As emblems they only express the joy of living union, and the hope that the newly married couple may pa.s.s through life together as a pair of b.u.t.terflies flit lightly through some pleasant garden,--now hovering upward, now downward, but never widely separating.

II

A small selection of hokku (1) on b.u.t.terflies will help to ill.u.s.trate j.a.panese interest in the aesthetic side of the subject. Some are pictures only,--tiny color-sketches made with seventeen syllables; some are nothing more than pretty fancies, or graceful suggestions;--but the reader will find variety. Probably he will not care much for the verses in themselves. The taste for j.a.panese poetry of the epigrammatic sort is a taste that must be slowly acquired; and it is only by degrees, after patient study, that the possibilities of such composition can be fairly estimated. Hasty criticism has declared that to put forward any serious claim on behalf of seventeen-syllable poems "would be absurd."

But what, then, of Crashaw's famous line upon the miracle at the marriage feast in Cana?--

Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit. [1]

Only fourteen syllables--and immortality. Now with seventeen j.a.panese syllables things quite as wonderful--indeed, much more wonderful--have been done, not once or twice, but probably a thousand times... However, there is nothing wonderful in the following hokku, which have been selected for more than literary reasons:--

Nugi-kakuru [2]

Haori sugata no Kocho kana!

[Like a haori being taken off--that is the shape of a b.u.t.terfly!]

Torisas.h.i.+ no Sao no jama suru Kocho kana!

[Ah, the b.u.t.terfly keeps getting in the way of the bird-catcher's pole!

[3]]

Tsurigane ni Tomarite nemuru Kocho kana!