“Thy mother,” he repeated, and then she saw in the dim light of the room the great, shining tears roll down the hard crevices in her father’s face. She moaned and crept closer to him.
“For her I became an Eta—an outcast. Do not shudder, my daughter. Has the word, then, so evil a sound? Then I perceive you have been wrongly bred—in the school of prejudice. The Eta, though an outcast, is a human being—more human, indeed, than many of our disdainful lords who ride over their heads and trample them like insects beneath their feet.”
“Tell me of my mother,” she whispered.
“Of her antecedents I know naught and care less. Her honorable grandmother still abides here in my house.”
“Old Madame Mume?”
“Yes.”
“Continue. Pray do so.”
“After my marriage I was cast off immediately by my prince, my titles and honors were taken from me, my property confiscated. For all this I cared nothing. I was content and happy to be left at peace with my wife.”
His long, thin fingers unclenched. He moistened his lips, biting into them.
“Did I say that this prince under whom I served was arrogant and cruel? Did I tell you he had a heart of flint and a pride so indomitable that he would not brook one of his samurai being other than of noble birth? Six of his vassals, the most graceless and worthless in the province, to humor his pleasure, undertook to seek me out in my exiled happiness and engage to make life intolerable for me. Whether their actual intention was evil or not, I cannot say; that they wrought evil is all I know, and that they came with the express knowledge and consent of their prince.”