“Ah, I see—I understand,” said Mr. Kurukawa. For a moment his face was lighted as a look of pride swept across it. “The boy was inspired. He could not wait to come of age. He wanted to give his young life for his country, his Emperor. I am proud of him. Where is he now?”
“The last time we heard from him he was at Port Arthur. That was—two months ago.”
“Ah-h! Condescend to give me his letter—”
The grandmother slowly and reluctantly took it from her sleeve and handed it to the father. Mr. Kurukawa’s eager fingers shook as he unfolded the letter, a long, narrow sheet, covered with the bold and characteristic writing up and down the pages of his son Gozo. As he perused it his face grew darkly red. The sheet rustled in his hands. When he had finished he crushed it, and stood for a moment in silence, anger and sorrow combating within him.
“So,” he finally spoke, “it was not honorable loyalty to the Mikado which inspired him, but a mean emotion—hatred of one he does not even know. I expected better of my son.”
He let the crumpled letter fall from his hand. Stooping, the grandmother picked it up, to place it tenderly in her sleeve. She spoke with a touch of reproach in her voice:
“Kurukawa Kiyskichi,” she said, “never before have I heard your lips speak bitterly of your eldest son. Be not inspired to feel anger towards him.” She glanced at Mrs. Kurukawa as though she were the one at fault. “Gozo is a good boy, has always been so. It was not hatred, as you say, which prompted him to leave his own. Call it rather a boy’s feeling of resentment, that the place of the one he had loved dearly—his mother—should so soon be filled—and by a bar—”
She did not finish the word. Her son-in-law stopped her with a stern gesture.
“Say no more, honorable mother-in-law. It is enough that my son has, without so much as referring to me in the matter, left my house. In his letter he speaks slanderously of one who is good, who was ready to love him as her very son. She is my wife just as much as Gozo’s mother was. She is not an intruder in her husband’s house, and my son has no right to question her place here. Of his own free will he has left his father’s house. Very well, he shall never return to—”
“What does it all mean?” broke in his wife with agitation. “Tell me what you are saying, Kiyo. Where is Gozo?”