The Wooing of Wistaria

by Onoto Watanna

With excessive sweetness, the Lady Evening Glory informed the courtier that she had heard such good reports of him from her honorable husband that she had risen prematurely from her bed of sickness in order to greet him and assure him of her solicitation for his comfort and pleasure during his stay in Catzu.

All these marks of friendship and compliment from the honorable lady of the house, besides the increased cordiality of the Lord of Catzu, would have been very delightful to the lover, but for the fact that almost coincident with the return to health of her aunt it was announced that the Lady Wistaria was unable to leave her apartments because of a sudden illness. The lover, therefore, in an agony of apprehension for the health of his mistress, had no heart or ears for the words of compliment pressed upon him by her family.

He spent his time roving restlessly about the grounds of the palace in the neighborhood of Wistaria’s casement, but the blinds were drawn tightly, morning, noon, and night, and there was only the memory of the girl’s exquisite face at the window to torture the lover.

The arrival of Shimadzu, the father of the Lady Wistaria, created no stir in the Catzu palace. He came silently at night. If any of the servants or members of the household knew of his presence they were dumb concerning the matter. The lover, consequently, was wholly unaware of his coming.

Shimadzu was closeted for some hours with his sister and brother-in-law. The Lady Evening Glory was bitter against her niece. Not merely the fact of the indelicate and unconventional manner of the courtship, nor even the fact that the lover was a member of their rival clan, and through his residence among them must have acquired information concerning their province which would be of value to his prince—not these things infuriated her so much as the thought that her son, the pride and joy of her life, the heir of Catzu, had been led by this stranger into an undertaking both perilous and shameful, the outcome of which was most uncertain.

The Lord of Catzu was milder and more lenient towards the guilty parties, possibly realizing in his inmost soul a measure of the responsibility. He endeavored to palliate their offence.

As for Shimadzu himself, he had not one word to say. He listened to the separate speeches of his sister and brother-in-law, and when they had concluded he simply requested that his daughter be ordered into his presence at once.

Wild-eyed and trembling, Wistaria was brought in. Gone from her face, pale and drawn with the intensity of her sufferings, was all the sun. During the three days preceding the arrival of her father she had been locked up alone in an interior room of the palace. No one had approached save her august aunt, who brought food with her own hands, and whose absolute silence inspired her with a great dread. She would speak no word, or even deign to look at the unhappy girl. Wistaria, rendered frantic by her fears for her lover, had ofttimes thrown herself at her aunt’s feet, piteously beseeching that she would enlighten her as to the fate of her lover. But the Lady Evening Glory would shake her skirts icily and contemptuously from her grasp, to retire without a word of response.

Now Wistaria prostrated herself before the parent who had always inspired her with such incomprehensible fear. He motioned her to be seated, though he himself remained standing. Mutely, mechanically, she obeyed him.

For a moment there was silence. The deep-set eyes of the father looked out at the young girl, noting the piteous tremble of the hands, the small, bowed head, the down-drooped eyes which dared not meet his own, and all the other evidences of her sufferings. Whatever the thoughts of the father, whether merciful or cruel, his impassive face revealed not his inner feelings. In some strange way this samurai seemed steeled against the pain of the world itself. Suddenly he spoke, his hollow voice smiting with a shock the frail, highly strung girl.