A Daughter of the Samurai quotes

“Are they all widows?” I asked in astonishment; for it was the custom for a widow to cut off her hair at the neck and bury half of it with her husband, the other half being kept until her own death.

I thought I had never seen so many widows in my life, but I soon learned that these women had cut off most of their hair that it might be braided into a huge rope to be used in drawing the lumber for the important centre beam of the new temple.

Our own servants had cut big bunches from their heads, but, with more moderate enthusiasm than that of the peasant class, they had retained enough to dress it so as to cover their bald crowns.

Kind old Ishi forgave me at once, but my mother overheard and called me to her room. I was a little sullen, I remember, as I bowed and seated myself before her cushion, and she looked at me severely as she spoke.

“Etsu-ko,” she said, “do you not know that curly hair is like animal’s hair? A samurai’s daughter should not be willing to resemble a beast.”

I was greatly mortified and never again complained of the discomfort of hot tea and scented oil.

It only attracts attention to her ugly, twisty hair.”

How deeply a child can feel!

I wanted to shrivel to nothingness inside the gown of which I had been so proud, but I looked straight ahead and did not move.

I soon found out the truth. She had gone to the temple as soon as the dinner was over, and cutting off her splendid straight hair, had placed it before the shrine, praying the gods to transfer her hair to me.

My good Ishi! My heart thanks her yet for her loving sacrifice.

Who shall say that God did not pity the simple soul’s ignorant, loving effort to save from humiliation the child she loved?

but no friendly spirits were with us, for both shrines were sealed. Grandmother did not join us. She always occupied the seat of honour, and the vacant place looked strange and lonely. That night I asked her why she had not come.

“I would rather not grow as strong as a Westerner⁠—nor as clever,” she answered sadly. “It is more becoming for me to follow the path of our ancestors.”

My sister and I confided to each other that we liked the taste of meat. But neither of us mentioned this to anyone else; for we both loved Grandmother, and we knew our disloyalty would sadden her heart.

“Your honourable father trains you in so boy-like a manner,” she said turning to me, “that I fear fate must search long for your unfound husband. No genteel family wants an ungentle bride.”

And so, even in our pleasant family, there was a continual hidden battle between the old and the new.

Mr. Toda was a man of independent thought, and after several vain attempts to adjust himself to new conditions and at the same time retain his dignity, he decided to throw dignity aside and engage in some business that would bring material results.

Toda, sitting erect on his horse, galloped by. The door swung to and fro, and he stood with his head held high and on his lips the same half humorous smile.

Brave, unconquered Mr. Toda!

He represented thousands of men of the past, who, having nothing to offer the new world except the wonderful but unwanted culture of the old, accepted with calm dignity the fate of failure—but they were all heroes!

I sat down on the edge of the porch and Shiro snuggled his cold nose into my long sleeve. We were two as disconsolate creatures as could be found, and as I buried my hand in his rough white fur,

I had to struggle hard to remember that a samurai’s daughter does not cry.

Suddenly I recalled the saying, “To unreasonably relax is cowardice.” I bounded up. I talked to Shiro. I played with him. I even ran races with him in the garden.

“The gods of Poverty are sometimes kind. They’ve locked their hands with the Good-luck gods And prisoned joy within our gates.”

Thus lived the spirit of democracy in old Japan.

nor was my grandfather’s quiet acceptance of his fate so rare. It was only samurai loyalty to a cause, and samurai bravery in accepting defeat.

Standards differ in different countries, but everywhere we are expected to be loyal and to be brave.

But the tragedy of it came to the girl wife—my grandmother, who was little more than twenty years old when she became a widow. Under ordinary circumstances she would have been the honoured widow-mother of the seven-year-old heir—my father;

… personal possessions to the little granddaughter who was said to resemble her, even to her curly hair, to be worn in a welcome greeting to the spirits of the Inagaki family to whom she could no longer bow, but to whom her duty was due.

Her helplessness was tragedy. Her efforts were pathos. But to her best, and to the last, she was true.

Standards of duty differ on opposite sides of the world, but Japanese people never finch at its call.

But even among beautiful surroundings, if duty lies behind, undone, nothing, while life lasts, can break the heart pull, the brain planning, the soul prayer to reach, even partially, the lost goal.

Such is the deep-hidden soul of Japan.

When the young princess bade farewell to my grandmother, she presented her, as the highest token of grateful and affectionate appreciation, something which she herself had worn—a dress bearing her own crest.

Mother used to look troubled when a group of men came to look at things, but Father would laugh and say,

“Useless beauty had a place in the old life, but the new asks only for ugly usefulness.”

But one thing Father never laughed about. Whenever negotiations were pending in regard to land he was always watchful.

In this strange situation Mother turned to me, and for the first time in my life I was consulted in a family matter.

I think I changed from girl to woman in that hour of conversation with my mother.

We decided that, at least for the present, there was but one problem for us to face. That was how to prepare for an unknown life in a strange land. In this my relatives could take no part.

And many things were sold. Grandmother and Mother consented to any sacrifice, though sometimes their faces were sad; but Brother seemed to have lost all feeling for the precious old belongings and would part with them without one expression of regret.

“Treasures are a useless care,” he often said.

“In a poor house like ours there is no need to keep dozens of chests of retainers’ armour. They had their place in the past, but hereafter the sons of our ancestors must fight on the battlefield of commerce.

I think it was our third day when I noticed that we were leaving the snow country. No longer did the towns have their sidewalks roofed, and these thatches bore no rows of avalanche stones.

The houses looked bare and odd⁠—like a married woman’s face with newly shaved eyebrows.

But we were not entirely beyond the sight of snow, for as we skirted Myoko Mountain we saw a good many drifts and patches. The jinrikisha men said snow lasted there until July.

The daimyo listened, then meditated in silence. Finally he lifted his head.

“Shinano needs more than the strength of youth,” he said gravely. “Ah, that I should have forgotten the well-known saying, ‘With the crown of snow, there cometh wisdom!’ ”

That very hour the cruel law was abolished, and the custom drifted into so far a past that only the legend remains.

She told me that she took care of six trays of silkworms all by herself. She seemed to know everything about them, and she loved them.

“They’re clean,” she said, “and dainty about food, and intelligent about their own affairs⁠—just like people.”

I was so interested in all the surprising things I heard that I was still listening when a girl came to fold away my bed cushions, and I had to hurry to get dressed.

I was glad to see Brother so interested, and was happy myself in watching the old lady’s face flush and light up with her memories; but her closing words made me feel sorry. To some remark of Brother’s she replied,

“Youth is always listening eagerly for marching orders; but the aged can only look backward to sad memories and hopeless dreams.”

As I mounted my jinrikisha and bowed again to the entire group of family and servants bowing in the doorway, I could not help sending a thought farewell to the busy little boarders.

None of us knew they were clothes for a little boy. Ishi dressed me and I strutted about, cramped into a straitjacket of cold, tight, scratchy discomfort. But the family admired me the, servants watched me with indrawn breaths of awe, and

I was as proud as the “bird of many eyes,” which is our symbol of vanity.

The more I saw of my teachers, the more I admired them.

In the same way, a half-hidden thought—elusive, tantalizing—would fill me with a breathless hope that the next moment light would come. Another thing about English books was that, as I read, I was constantly discovering shadowy replies to the unanswered questions of my childhood.

Oh, English books were a source of deepest joy!

I am afraid that I should not have been so persistent, or so successful in my English studies, could I have readily obtained translations of the books I was so eager to read.

But I did not know how to handle so awkward a subject, and reached my limit in both knowledge and vocabulary before the three pages were filled. Faithfulness to duty, however, still held firm, and I wrote on, finally concluding with these words: “

Love is like a powerful medicine. When properly used it will prove a pleasant tonic, and sometimes may even preserve life; but when misused, it can ruin nations, as seen in the lives of Cleopatra and the beloved Empress of the Emperor Genso of Great China.

”

The night that this thought came to me I wrote in my diary: “

Useless sacrifice leads to⁠—only a sigh. Self-respect leads to⁠—freedom and hope.

”

We walked on homeward. Just as we reached our gate in the hedge wall one of the girls, who had been rather quiet, turned to me.

“Nevertheless,” she said, defiantly, “the grasshoppers are climbing the mountain into the sunlight.”

As I learned to value womanhood, I realized more and more that my love of freedom and my belief in my right to grow toward it meant more than freedom to act, to talk, to think. Freedom also claimed a spiritual right to grow.

The little ivory finger-rake was exquisitely carved, and the rosary was of rare pink coral and flawless crystal; but to the eye of an Oriental all beauty was ruined by the strange arrangement.

It was like putting the Bible and a toothbrush side by side on a parlour table.

I did not criticize the judgment of the hostess. Her superior taste in all things artistic was beyond question, and in America the magonote was an object of art only. From that viewpoint it was properly placed.

I was thinking all this one pleasant afternoon as I sat in the hammock, sewing, while Mother was tying up the crimson rambler that covered part of the porch with a curtain of green.

“Mother,” I said suddenly, as a new thought came to me, “did you ever think of a Japanese woman as being in prison with the key to her cell in her pocket; and not unlocking the door because it would not be a polite thing to do?”

“Why—no!” said Mother, surprised. “What are you thinking, Etsu?”

It dictates the ceremonies of birth and the ceremonies of death, and guides everything between—working, playing, eating, sleeping, walking, running, laughing, crying. Every motion is chained—and by one’s own wish—with the shackles of politeness. A merry girl will laugh softly behind her sleeve.

A hurt child chokes back his tears and sobs out, “I am not crying!” A stricken mother will smile as she tells you that her child is dying.

A distressed servant will giggle as she confesses having broken your treasured piece of china. This is most mystifying to a foreigner, but it means only an effort to keep in the background. A display of one’s own feelings would be rudeness.

Finally, just as I reached the iron gate, I drew in a long breath, and with a ridiculous feeling of loyalty and protection tugging at my heart, I surprised Matsuo by saying,

“I wish that either you or I had won the booby prize!”

It was an unusual thing for snow to remain on the ground longer than a few days, but Mother laughingly declared that the American gods of the weather had evidently planned a special season in order to keep me from being homesick.

Nevertheless, perhaps it is wiser and kinder to the puzzled many for the advanced few to accommodate themselves somewhat to fading beliefs, instead of opposing them too bitterly, unless it should be a matter of principle, for we are climbing; slowly, but—climbing.

Nature does not hasten, and Japanese are Nature’s pupils.

Mother had a magic touch with flowers, and when spring came the crimson rambler that formed a heavy brocade curtain on one side of our veranda was thick with tiny buds.

“And if we use the old-fashioned termination,” I cried with delight, “it will mean ‘foreign fields’ or ‘strange land.’ ”

“Hanano⁠—Flower in a Strange Land!” cried Matsuo, clapping his hands. “Nothing could be better.”

Mother consented, and thus it was decided.

“Of course,” said the surprised nurse. “What did you think?”

“Why, the stockin’s is double,” said Minty, almost in a tone of awe, “and I s’posed they wuz two-toed folks.”

When the nurse told my husband he shouted with merriment and finally said, “Well, Minty has struck back for the whole European race and got even with Japan.”

“This very same one,” her father replied. “Wherever you go, all your life, you will see it above you in the sky.”

“Then it walks with me,” said Hanano with satisfaction, “and when I go to Japan, God can see my Japanese grandma.”

Matsuo and I glanced at each other, a little puzzled.

It had been a broad, kindly, loving home for me and mine, but a place for the present only. It held no promise of usefulness for my growing children and had no need of my old age.

And what is life if one can only learn, and of what one learns give nothing?

The past years were like a dream. From a land of misty, poetic ideas I had drifted through a puzzling tangle of practical deeds, gathering valuable thoughts as I floated easily along, and now—back to the land of mist and poesy.

“What are you doing, children,” I asked, “sitting here so quiet?”

“Oh, just enjoying!” replied Hanano.

After a moment Chiyo said: “Grandma’s chairs are soft, but this one has knobs on the edge. Let’s swap again, Hanano.”

The anxious loneliness of months was gone, and there crept into my heart a peace that had not been mine since the protected days when my little family were all together in the dear, dear home of our kind, beloved American mother.

“How alike are the two sides of the world!” I thought.

“Both have many gods of little worth, but with one wise, loving, understanding Power over all, the time must surely come when we shall all understand.”

Mother glanced toward the closed shrine.

“The holy shrine, little Chiyo, is only a box when it is empty,” she said, “and my body is only a borrowed shrine in which I live. But it is proper courtesy to leave a borrowed article in the best condition.”

Chiyo’s eyes looked very deep and solemn for a moment.

Chiyo’s eyes looked very deep and solemn for a moment.

“That’s why we have to take a bath every day and always keep our teeth clean. Dear me! I never thought of that as being polite to God.”

I had been so anxious over the children’s shortcomings in etiquette and so happy over the slow but satisfactory outcome that I had never given a thought to the changes which my years in America must have made in myself.

I could not see, and I stumbled over a flower pot. It was a dwarf pine. The pushing roots had burst the pot, and my touch had caused it to fall apart, disclosing the roots cramped together in a twisted knot.

“It is just like poor Hanano!” I moaned. “They will bind it again tomorrow, and neither it, nor she, will ever be free!”

The little son of Kikuno became a priest who, in later life, built a small temple on Cedar Mountain. It was so placed that its shadow falls over a lonely nameless grave guarded by a statue of the goddess of Mercy.

But the memory of love and pity cannot die.

For almost three hundred years my stern old ancestor has lain among his people in his extravagant bed of vermilion and charcoal;

“I am a samurai,” he answered.

“Whether friend or enemy,” she said, “if you are a samurai, I will trust you.”

Though she believed him, those were dangerous days, and so she washed her hair and put on her death-robe, covering it with an ordinary dress.

“So you see, Hanano,” said Sister, “your grandmother’s life has not always been full of peace.”

“It was a wonderful life,” said Hanano in a tone of awe, “wonderful⁠—and terrible. But Honourable Grandmother did things! Oh, she did things!”

I looked at the lithe young body, held so straight, at the uplifted head and the tightly clasped hands. She was very like Mother. One generation removed from the ancient pride and rigid training; one generation ahead of the coming freedom; living, alas!

I looked at the lithe young body, held so straight, at the uplifted head and the tightly clasped hands. She was very like Mother.

One generation removed from the ancient pride and rigid training; one generation ahead of the coming freedom; living, alas! in the sad present⁠—puzzled, misunderstood, and alone!

Sister remained with us throughout the autumn and into the winter. I shall always be doubly thankful for her visit, for those weeks were Mother’s last with us, and they were happy ones.