Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/428

424 back room should waken, those parents toward whom she felt a resentment she could not voice, she soundlessly stepped over the threshold of the barrier of her maiden reserve, which had hitherto kept her from going to Shino. Her knees trembled, and she could scarcely walk. How dreary, sad, bitter, and hateful the inconstant world now seemed.

When Hamaji came close to Shino’s pillow, he saw that someone had entered his room. He drew his sword to him and sprang to his feet. “Who is it?” he cried, but no sound answered him. He wondered uneasily whether some enemy had come to observe whether he was asleep, with the intent of stabbing him to death. He grew more and more tense. He flashed the light of the lamp and peered into the darkness. Then he saw that it was Hamaji. Without warning she had appeared, and now lay motionless on the other side of the mosquito netting, seemingly shaken by grief but unwilling to reveal it by her tears.

Shino was a brave soldier who would not flinch before the fiercest enemy, but now he was disturbed. Controlling his emotions, he left the mosquito netting and, unfastening the cords by which the netting hung, drew his pallet to where she lay. “Hamaji, what has brought you here in the middle of the night, when you should be sleeping? Have you never heard the proverb, ‘Don’t arouse suspicion by tying your shoes in a melon field or by lifting your arms to straighten your hat under a plum tree’?” When he had thus admonished her, Hamaji, brushing away her tears, lifted her head in indignation. “How cruel of you to ask me in that impersonal way why I have come! If we were joined but casually, and husband and wife only in name, you might well speak in that way, but were we not wedded with my parents’ consent? Whatever might be the proper behavior under normal circumstances, it is heartless of you tonight, our last night for farewells, to order me out with a careless word. You are pretending not to know what I feel because you are afraid that it might bring discredit to you. How hardhearted of you!”