The Kingdom of Slender Swords

  CHAPTER V

  THE MAKER OF BUDDHAS

  The setting sun poured a flood of wine-colored light overReinanzaka--the "Hill-of-the-Spirit"--whose long slope rose behind theAmerican Embassy, whither the Dandridge victoria was rolling. It was along leafy ridge stippled with drab walls of noble Japanese houses, andstriped with narrow streets of the humble; one of the many green knollsthat, rising above the gray roofs, make the Japanese capital seem anendless succession of teeming village and restful grove.

  Along its crest ran a lane bordered with thorn hedges. A little wayinside this stood a huge stone _torii_, facing a square, ornamentedgateway, shaded by cryptomerias. The latter was heavily but chastelycarved, and on its ceiling was a painting, in green and white on agold-leaf ground, of Kwan-on, the All-Pitying. From the gate one lookeddown across the declivity, where in a walled compound, the ramblingbuildings of the Embassy showed pallidly amid green foliage. Beyond thiswere sections of trafficking streets, and still farther a narrow, whiteroad climbed a hill toward a military barracks--a blur of dull,terra-cotta red. In the dying afternoon the lane had an air of placidaloofness. Somewhere in a thoroughfare below a trolley bell sounded, animpudent note of haste and change in a symphony of the intransmutable.Over all was the scent of cherry-blossoms and a faint musk-like odor ofincense.

  From the gate a mossy pavement, shaded by sacred _mochi_ trees, led to aBuddhist temple-front of the _Mon-to_ sect, before which a flock offluttering gray-and-white pigeons were pecking grains of rice scatteredby a priest, who stood on its upper step, watching them through placid,gold-rimmed spectacles. He wore a long green robe, a stole of goldbrocade was around his neck, and his face was seamed with the lines oflife's receding tides. At one side of the pavement, worn and grooved bycenturies of worshiping feet, was a square stone font and on the otherside a graceful bell-tower of red lacquer. Back of this stood a forestof tall bronze lanterns, and beyond them a graveyard, an acre thick withstanding stone tablets of quaint, squarish shape, chiseled with deep-cutidiographs. Nearer the graveyard, overshadowed by the greater bulk ofthe temple, was a long, low nunnery, with clumps of flowers about it.Through its bamboo lattices one caught glimpses of women's figures, cladin slate-color, of placid faces and boyishly shaven heads. About theyard a few little children were playing and a mother, with a baby on herback, looked smilingly on.

  The space where the priest stood was connected by a small, curved,elevated bridge with another temple structure standing on the right ofthe yard, evidently used as a private residence. This was more ornate,far older and touched with decay. Its porch was arcaded, set with ovalwindows and hung with bronze lanterns green from age. Its entrance doorswere beautifully carved, paneled with endless designs in dull colors,and bordered with great gold-lacquer peonies laid on a background ofgreen and vermilion. From their corners jutted snarling heads ofgrotesque lions and on either side stood gigantic _Ni-O_--gloweringdemon-guardians of sacred thresholds. Through the straight-boled treesthat grew close about it, came transient gleams of a hedged garden, ofburnished green and maroon foliage, where cherry-blooms hung like fluffyballs of pink smoke. The garden had a private entrance--a gate in theouter lane--and over this was a small tablet of unpainted wood:

 

  Which, translated, read:

  ALOYSIUS THORN Maker of Buddhas

  Directly opposite stood a small Christian Chapel. It was newly built andstill lacked its final decoration--a rose-window, whose empty sasheswere stopped now with black cloth. High above the flowering green itsslanting roof lifted a cross.

  It rose, white and pure, emblem of the Western faith that yet had beenborn in the East. Over against the ornate pageantry of Buddhistarchitecture, in a land of another creed, of variant ideals and apassionate devotion to them, it stood, simple, silent, and watchful. Thepriest on the temple steps was looking at the white cross, regarding itmeditatively, as one to whom concrete symbols are badges of spiritualthings.

  Footsteps grated on the gravel and the occupant of the older temple cameslowly through its garden. He was a foreigner, though dressed inJapanese costume. His shoulders were broad and powerful and he movedwith a quickness and grace in step and action that had something felinein it. His hair, worn long, was black, touched with gray, and a curvedmustache hid his lips. His expression was sensitively delicate andalertly odd--an impression added to by deeply-set eyes, one of which wasvisibly larger than the other, of the variety known as "pearl," slightlybulbous, though liquid-brown and heavily lashed.

  The new-comer ascended the steps and stood a moment silently beside thepriest, watching the gluttonous pigeons. As he looked up, he saw theother's gaze fixed on the Chapel cross. A quick shiver ran across hismobile face, and passing, left it hard with a kind of grim defiance.

  Presently the priest said in Japanese:

  "The Christian temple across the way honorably approaches completion.Assuredly, however, moths have eaten my intelligence. Why does thegloomy hole illustriously elect to remain in its wall?"

  "It is for a thing they call a 'window'," said Thorn. "After a time theywill put therein an august abomination, representing sublimely hideouscloud-born beings and idiotic-looking saints in colored glass."

  The priest nodded his shaven head sagely.

  "It will, perhaps, deign to be a _gaku_ of the Christian God. I shall,with deference, study it. I have watered my worthless mind with mucharrogant reading of Him. Doubtless He was also Buddha and taught TheWay."

  An acolyte had come from the temple and approached the red bell-tower.Midway of the huge bronze bell a heavy cedar beam, like a catapult, wassuspended from two chains. He swung this till its muffled end struck themetal rim, and the air swelled with a dreamy sob of sound. He swung itagain, and the sob became a palpitant moan, like breakers on a far-awaybeach. Again, and a deep velvety boom throbbed through the stillnesslike the heart of eternity.

  "It is time for the service," said the priest, and turning, went intothe temple, from whose interior soon came the woodeny tapping of a_mok'gyo_--the hollow wooden fish, which is the emblem of the _Mon-to_sect--and the sound of chanting voices.

  * * * * *

  Thorn, the man with whom the priest had spoken, crossed the bridge tothe other temple with a slow step. He passed between the scowlingguardian figures, slid back a paper _shoji_ and entered. The room inwhich he stood had been the _haiden_, or room of worship. Around itswalls were oblong carvings, marvelously lacquered, of the nine flowersand nine birds of old Japanese art. In one were set six large paintedpanels; the red seal they bore was that of the great Cho Densu, the FraAngelico of Japan. In its center, under a brocade canopy, was a raisedplatform once the seat of the High Priest. It faced a long transept,like a chancel; this ended in a short flight of steps leading, throughdoors of soft, fretted gold-lacquer, to a huge altar set with carvedtables, great tarnished brasses and garish furniture. The walls of thetransept were done in red with green ornamentations. From the overheadgloom grotesque phoenix and dragon peered down and in the gatheringdimness, shot through with the wan yellow gleam of brass, the placeseemed uncanny.

  Thorn drew back a heavy drapery which covered a doorway, and entered aroom that was windowless and very dark. He lit a candle.

  The dim light it furnished disclosed a weird and silent assembly. Thespace was crowded with strange glimmering deities--of bronze, of silver,of priceless gold-lacquer--the dust thick on their faces, their aureolesmisty with cobwebs. Some gazed with passionless serenity, or blessedwith outstretched hand; some threatened with scowling faces and clenchedthunderbolts: Jizo of the tender smile, in whose sleeves nestle thesouls of dead children; Kwan-on, of divine compassion, with her manyhands; Emma-dai-O, Judge of the Dead, menacing and terrible; strangesardonic _tengu_, half-bird, half-human. The floor was thick with them.From shelves on the walls leered swollen, frog-l
ike horrors such asoften appear on Alaskan totem-poles, triple-headed divinities of Indiaand China, coiled cobras, idols from Ceylon, and curious Thibetanpraying-wheels. A sloping stairway slanted through the gloom; beside itwas an image of the red god, Aizen Bosatsu, his appalling countenanceframed in lurid flames, seated on a fiery lotos.

  The master of this celestial and infernal pantheon closed and locked thedoor, and mounted the stairway to the loft--a low, rambling room ofeccentric shape, under the curving gables.

  Here, through a long window beneath the very eaves, the light still camebrightly. In the center was a board table, littered with delicatecarving-tools. He kindled the charcoal in a bronze _hibachi_, and setover it a copper pot which began to emit a thick, weedy odor. From acabinet he took phials containing various powders, and measured into thepot a portion from each. Lastly he added a quantity of gold-leaf,slowly, flake by flake. At one side a white silk cloth was draped over apedestal; he drew this away and looked at the unfinished figure it hadconcealed. It was an image of Kwan-on, the All-Merciful.

  Through the open window the chant of the priests came clearly:

  "_Waku hyoryu kokai_ _Ry[=u]gyo Shokinan_ _Nembi Kwan-on riki_ _Har[=o] fun[=o]motsu._"

  (He who is beset with perils of dragon and great fish--who drifts on an endless sea--if he offer petition to Kwan-on, waves will not destroy him.)

  Thorn crossed the room and leaning his elbows on the window-ledge,looked out. Through the odor of incense the monotonous intonation of theliturgy rose with the grandeur of a Gregorian chant:

  "_Sh[=u]j[=o] kikon-yaku Mury[=o]ku hisshin Kwan-on myochiriki N[=o]ku sekenku._"

  (He who is in distress--when immeasurable suffering presses on him--Kwan-on, all-wise and all-powerful, can save him from the world's calamity.)

  Once, while the quiet yard echoed back the slow cadences of the antiquetongue, the watcher's eyes turned to the image on the pedestal, thencame back to an object that drew them--had drawn them for many daysagainst his will!--the white cross of the Chapel. A last glow ofrefracted light touched it now, as red as blood, a symbol of theinfinite passion and pain. A long time he stood there. The twilightdeepened, the chant ceased, lights sprang up along the lane, night fellwith its sickle moon and crowding stars, but still he stood, his facebetween his hands.

  At length he turned, and groping for the cloth, threw it over theKwan-on and lit a lamp swinging from a huge brass censer. Unlocking analcove, he took out a fleece-wrapped bundle and sweeping the tools toone side, set it on the table. He carefully closed the window and thrusta bar through the staple of the door before he unwrapped it.

  When the fleece was removed, he propped the image it had containedupright on the table. He poured into a shallow plate a few drops of theliquid heating over the fire-bowl--under the lamplight it gleamed andsparkled like molten gold--and with a small brush, using infinite care,began to lay the lacquer on its carven surface.

  Once, at a sound in some room below--perhaps the movement of aservant--he stopped and listened intently. It was as if he worked bystealth, at some labor self-forbidden, to which an impulse,overmastering though half-denied, drove him in secret.

  It was a crucifix with a dead Christ upon it.