The young wife went often now to the temple on the hill. Tatsu generally went with her, remaining outside in the courtyard or at the edge of the cliff, under the camphor tree, while she was praying within. Her entreaties were all for divine guidance. She implored of the gods a deeper insight into the cause of this strange trouble now upon them, and besought, too, that in her husband, Tatsu, should be awakened a recognition of his duties, and of the household needs. Kano visited the temple, also, and spent long hours in conference with his personal friend, the abbot. Even old Mata, abandoning for the moment her Protestantism and reverting to the yearning (never entirely stifled) for mystic practises, went to an old charlatan of a fortune-teller, and purchased various charms and powders for driving the demons from the unconscious Tatsu. Umè-ko soon discovered this, and the fear that Tatsu would be poisoned added to a load of anxiety already formidable.
By the end of October, Yeddo's most golden and most perfect month, no hours brought happiness to the little bride but those stolen ones in which she and her husband were wont to take long walks together, sometimes into the country, again through the mazes of the great capital. Even at these times of respite she was only too well aware how Kano and the old nurse sat together at home, lamenting the gross selfishness of the young,—deciding, perhaps, upon the next loved painting or household treasure to be sold for buying rice. Tatsu, now as unreasonable and obstinate as Kano himself, still refused to admit unhappiness or threatened destitution. He and Umè-ko could go to the mountains, he said. "The mountains were, after all, their true home. Once there the Sennin and the deities of cloud would see that they did not suffer."
On an afternoon very near the end of the month the young couple took such a walk together. Their course lay eastward, crossing at right angles the main streets of the great city, until they reached the shores of the Sumida River, winding down like a road of glass. They had emerged into the famous district of Asakusa, where the great temple of Kwannon the Merciful attracts daily its thousands of worshippers. Here the water course is bounded by fashionable tea-houses, many stories high, and here the great arched bridges are always crowded. Leaving this busy heart of things, they sauntered northward, finding lonelier shores, and soon wide fields of green, until they reached a bank whereon grew a single leaning willow. The body of this tree, bending outward, sent its long, nerveless leaves in a perpetual green rain to the surface of the stream, where sudden swarms of minnows, like shivers in a glass, assailed the deceptive bait. The roots of the tree—great yellowish, twisted ropes of roots—clutched air, earth, and water in their convolutions. Among them the current, swifter here than in mid-stream, uttered at times a guttural, uncanny sound as of spectral laughter.
Umè-ko stood, one slender arm about the trunk, looking out, with mournful eyes, upon the passing river show. On the farther bank grew a continuous wall of cherry trees in yellowing leaf, and above them glowed the first hint of the coming sunset. Rising against the sky a temple roof, tilted like the keel of a sunken vessel, cut sharp lines into the crimson light.
Tatsu flung himself full length upon the bank. He patted the soil with its springing grasses, and felt his heart flow out in love to it. Then he reached up, caught at the drifting gauze of Umè's sleeve, and made as if to pull her down. Umè clasped the tree more tightly.
"Tatsu," she said, "I implore you not to think always of me. Look, beloved, the thin white sails of the rice-boats pass, and, over yonder, children in scarlet petticoats dance beneath the trees."
"I have eyes but for my wife," said wilful Tatsu.
Umè-ko drew the sleeve away. She would not meet his smile. "Alas, shall I forever obscure beauty!"
"There is no beauty now but in you! You are the sacred mirror which reflects for me all loveliness."
"Dear lord, those words are almost blasphemy," said Umè, in a frightened whisper. "Look, now, beloved, the light of the sun sinks down. Soon the great moon will come to us."