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  Text originally published in 1938 under the same title.

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  Publisher’s Note

  Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

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  A HUSBAND FOR KUTANI

  BY

  FRANK OWEN

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Contents

  TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

  A HUSBAND FOR KUTANI 4

  1 4

  2 7

  3 11

  4 14

  5 17

  6 19

  7 22

  8 24

  9 26

  DOCTOR SHEN FU 30

  THE BOOK OF LOVE 44

  1 44

  2 49

  3 55

  4 59

  5 64

  FIVE MERCHANTS WHO MET IN A TEA-HOUSE 67

  REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 73

  A HUSBAND FOR KUTANI

  1

  KUTANI WAS BORN UPON A MOUNTAINTOP ONE NIGHT in spring. Her mother had climbed the mountain that she might be delivered of her child in a spot that was drenched in beauty. All alone she had crept from her garden and scaled the dangerous paths. She had carried a few bare necessities; a tiny silk-quilted blanket which she had embroidered with her own hands to receive the little form that was to be so precious to her, a porcelain bottle containing a potent draught for her to swallow afterward to replenish her depleted strength. It was utterly still on the mountaintop. Not a sound disturbed the tranquillity except the occasional sigh of the wind. The sky was cloudless, a tapestry of blue glory embroidered with stars. The moon was at the full. It plunged down upon the countryside in silver splendour. Tears rose in the eyes of Yueh Nu, not because she feared the pains of labour but because there was so much beauty it intoxicated her.

  So on the mountaintop Kutani was born. Her feeble cry, echoing with the voices of the wind, rose up to meet the moon. And the moon understood what was in the heart of that Chinese mother, for it climbed down the blue stairs of the sky and stood by the side of that grass couch. It wrapped the body of the babe in its radiance. It bathed the inert form of the mother with a soothing unguent that assuaged all pain. And when the silk blanket had been rolled about the tiny form, it chanted lullabies, soft-cadenced, tender.

  Yueh Nu felt scarcely any pain. She seemed to be in a vague region that was neither sleeping nor waking. She was resting, peacefully. Her child had been born in beauty. In beauty it would live. She longed for her baby to be happy even though she herself had seldom been happy.

  Yueh Nu was the second wife of the renowned Mandarin, Tsiang Ling. She had not been consulted about her passage into thraldom. During her life she had never been consulted about anything, for she was a girl. The very food she ate was chosen for her. Her own mind had no part in directing the course of her activities.

  Tsiang Ling was fat and gross. He ate lustily, smacking his lips loudly, and gurgling in satisfaction when the food was savory. He gloated over preserved limes and water chestnuts as though they were jewels beyond price. Tsiang Ling was fabulously wealthy. His money was invested in rice, in tea, in shipping enterprises and in silk. It mattered little how much money he squandered on a whim. And the greatest of his whims was eating. He employed a famous chef for his kitchen who in turn had three assistants. They studied the cuisine of the whole world that they might find new designs for his banquets.

  In his affections, food came first, His wives and his four concubines were next in importance. Often while he dallied on his nuptial couch, he nibbled almonds and luscious grapes. Even in his amours he could not entirely break away from the shackles of food that enslaved him so delightfully.

  Although Yueh Nu was his second wife, she was less happy than the least of his concubines. She had been sold into this marriage by her parents. Every detail of the transaction had been carried out without her cognizance. Not till she had been delivered in marriage to the Mandarin, did she behold his bloated face. He was repulsive to her. Despite his smile, she shrank from him. He had just risen from a feast and there were still signs of grease about his mouth.

  The fingernails of Tsiang Ling were several inches long and he was inordinately proud of them. As he came toward Yueh Nu on their wedding night with hands extended, his fingers looked like the claws of a ravenous bird reaching for her golden-ivory flesh. Night of love. A travesty of devotion. Yueh Nu closed her eyes and permitted him to maul her at will. She no longer was able to do as she wished. She was more a chattel than a wife. When she was utterly exhausted, Tsiang Ling allowed her to rest.

  In the meantime, he summoned a servant and had a tray of food brought that he might re-establish his depleted strength. He enjoyed his round of food far more than his numerous rounds of love. The love was simply a prelude to adventure; the food itself was the adventure.

  And Yueh Nu lay with closed eyes, breathing faintly. She was thinking of the young Japanese artist, Yama-mato, who created fragile porcelain vases in that vast alley where rare jewels were displayed. For several years he had wooed her gently. Sometimes at night she had crept to his shop and remained with him until the moon melted into the dawn. She had worshipped Yama-mato. To her he was a god. How was she to know that Yama-mato was as promiscuous in his loves as the Mandarin, that each new girl was a bit of porcelain that he attempted to mold to his will? Yama-mato was an artist. His Kutani-ware was famous. His porcelains were much sought after by collectors because they were without flaw. Without flaw, too, was the love which he shared with many women.

  As Yueh Nu had walked through the Street of Porcelain, she had waited breathlessly for his words of greeting.

  “Kutani-ware,” he would say, “the red from your lips and the gold of the sunlight in your eyes. Greater than all other ware is Kutani, greater than all other love is my love for you. My porcelains reflect your beauty. Some day, if the gods are kind, in the furnace of everlasting love we will create a vase together.”

  After Yueh Nu was married to the Mandarin, she could not forget Yama-mato. Her soul cried out for him as she walked listlessly through the vast gardens of the palace. Through a mist of tears she beheld the blurred outlines of moon-bridges, gingko trees, marble pavilions, chrysanthemums and willows. Lilies floated on the ponds and streams and gorgeous carnations lifted their faces to the sun. It was a garden of beauty and color, of perfume and music. Purple thistle trees, orioles in the deep of the sky, flamingoes and pelicans near the water’s edge. The pink of peach blossoms. A gay pageant of glory and color, but to Yueh Nu it was drab, for the garden was without love.

  Then one night as she walked through the garden, she heard someone calling to her. Her heart commenced to beat wildly, for she recognised the voice of Yama-mato. He had risked his life to come to that garden for one final rhapsody of love.

  She drew his head against her breast. And now there was music once more in that garden, echoes of love songs of wandering minstrels through the ages.

  “I long to let your l
oveliness drown in my soul,” he whispered.

  Gently he led her to a spot in the shadows of the trees where the earth was soft with moss, soft as a velvet bed with the cool night dew upon it.

  “I will hold you here in my arms,” he told her, “until the river swallows the moon.”

  Languid night, soft-murmuring of the willows caught in the wind’s embrace.

  And Yama-mato whispered, “Always at sunset I think of Yueh Nu, and I say, ‘Because of its longing, the sun is sad. All alone it creeps over the far hills to die.’”

  His speech was gallant but futile. Nor did he tell her that on the morrow he was returning to his native Nippon, to the shadow of Fusiyama to be married to a girl of his mother’s choosing, who came of a family of great wealth. Henceforth he would be independent, nor would his new status interfere with his taste for philandering. But he had truly cared a great deal for the lovely Yueh Nu and he wished once more to possess her before shaking the dust of China from his feet, perhaps forever. After that final rendezvous, he had no intention of ever returning to her. Poet though he was, artist, dreamer, he was at heart severely selfish.

  2

  Yama-mato came no more to the garden. For him the interlude was ended. It had been pleasurable, like a chanted lyric of which only the echo remained. And Yueh Nu mourned for the porcelain-maker. Her grief was intense, even though she did not parade her sorrow. Women of China bear their burdens with fortitude.

  When she knew that she was to have a child, Yueh Nu was very happy. Even though there was a bare possibility that her husband, the Mandarin, was the physical father, she knew that the soul of the child had been fathered by Yama-mato. Had Yueh Nu been aware of the true character of the porcelain-artist, it is doubtful if her anticipation would have been so pleasurable. On his frequent visits to Tokyo, Yama-mato had passed most of his time in Yashiwaras. All sorts of women intrigued him. He was a superb artist, but his honeyed words were like a glaze of enamel. He could not be true to anyone. He bathed in excess. There were few vices of this earth that he had not tasted.

  Yueh trusted him implicitly. His voice was magic, his caress a drug. But what type of child could he father? How would the little one grow? Would it be an artist, restless, weary, always searching for new moons?

  And then on that mountaintop Kutani was born, born in beauty. Nevermore would Yueh Nu be separated from Yama-mato, for some part of him would always be beside her in the person of his child.

  When Tsiang Ling became acquainted with the fact that the gods had smiled upon him, he strode pompously about as though he had accomplished something remarkable. He celebrated by an orgy of gluttony. He hoped the child would be a boy. After that he dismissed the matter from his thoughts. Yueh Nu was molested no more. In fact he avoided her as much as possible, for he was afraid that her condition might make her ugly, and ugliness was the one thing that disturbed his placidity. However, he placed no restriction over her movements, and so it was quite easy for her to slip away unperceived to that moon-flooded mountain. After she had slept there for a few hours in a blissful condition of semi-stupor, she arose much refreshed, gathered the tiny mite of a child in her arms and returned to the garden.

  When Tsiang Ling heard that the baby was arrived, he was pleased, for now his calm need not be disturbed by complications. However, when he found that it was only a girl, he was disappointed and annoyed. Like all unpleasant things he dismissed it from his thoughts. When Yueh Nu told him she would like to name the baby Kutani, he made no objection. Had she decided to destroy it, he would not have protested. One girl-baby more or less, what matter? Tsiang Ling nibbled a water-chestnut. He had washed his hands of the whole affair, an affair which perhaps had never concerned him anyway.

  During the next few years, Yueh Nu lived solely for the child. Now she was no longer lonely. Kutani absorbed all her thoughts. There was little space left for regret. Besides, her husband the Mandarin was growing tired of her. He usually sickened of special foods after he had taken too much. Sometimes more than a month passed without his summoning her to his bed.

  Tsiang Ling never interfered with the calm even flow of Kutani’s life. He had almost forgotten her existence. Only one thing could have severely shaken his placidity—an attack of indigestion. As long as he could enjoy food, he enjoyed life.

  Yueh Nu decided that Kutani must be well-educated. Her achievements must be like unto those of Yang Kuei-Fei, who according to legend was the most artful woman of all China, famed as much for her personality and charm as for her beauty. Yang Kuei-Fei had been proficient as a dancer, as a musician, as a singer and in the most difficult art of all, that of charming men. She wrote a graceful hand, her conversation was witty and clever, and she composed poetry which deserves to rank with the classics.

  Now in the establishment of Tsiang Ling there was a gardener named Kya Koen who was so tall and thin he looked like a reed swaying in the wind. Although he was old, he sat in his hut and wove new songs.

  “A man’s life,” he used to say, “is but a small breath in an awesome universe of great winds. His presence causes little disturbance. He is like a child writing with his finger on the air.”

  Kutani was fond of Kya Koen and it was no infrequent sight to see the tall strange old man walking through the marble paths, leading the tiny porcelain lady by the hand.

  Countless were the things Kya Koen taught Kutani. Legends of jewels and flowers, of trees and rice, of the mystery of the sea and the sky. But there was little he could teach her about the moon, for the moon had watched beside her moss-bed when she was born. It had caressed her cheek and bathed her in beauty.

  As the years slipped by, Kutani grew in loveliness. More and more she seemed to become a veritable little porcelain lady; fragile golden cheeks, teeth like camomile flowers, cherry-red lips, eyes forever wistful, brooding. The very flowers in the garden were comforted by her presence. Never did she tear one from its branch, for she knew that “you cannot pluck a flower without troubling a star.”

  At times it seemed as though Kutani was not a child of earth at all. She was stirred by strange emotions. It seemed as though she could hear music beyond the ken of ordinary mortals. And sometimes as she stood motionless with rapt attention, Kya Koen would gaze upon her without her being aware of his scrutiny.

  “Tell me,” he asked, “can you hear what the flowers are saying?”

  “I wish I could,” replied Kutani. “Oh, how I wish I could!”

  It was almost sunset. The garden was hushed as though nature had paused for a moment of prayer.

  “See,” he murmured, “the sun is sinking sleepily into a soft cloud bed and all the mountains group about awed by her loveliness. Each mountain is a hesitant black lover but the white moon alone has confidence enough to creep into her bed.”

  “When you speak of the moon like that,” said Kutani, “you make me want to cry. You make me feel deserted.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I long to have my cheeks brushed by the soft blue fingers of the moon.”

  “Tonight,” he told her, “there will be an eclipse of the moon. For a brief moment it will be entirely hidden by the shadow of the earth. Would you like to go out to the field with me to see the amazing spectacle?”

  “I have never beheld an eclipse,” said Kutani hesitantly.

  “Then tonight you shall do so.”

  “But would I like it?”

  “It would be odd.”

  “Everything odd is not enjoyable.”

  For a while they discussed the project, and finally Kutani decided that she would go. Yueh Nu made no objection. She trusted Kya Koen absolutely. She knew that no harm would befall Kutani while the faithful old philosopher was guiding her footsteps. So into the fields they walked that night. The sky could not have been clearer or more blue. When finally they reached a spot where Kya Koen decided they could view the antics of the moon to the best advantage, he sat down upon a rock that was bench-smooth.

  “Let us wait here,
” he said.

  The full moon was a pale silver lantern hanging in a vast tent of silken blue. Impulsively Kutani extended her arms toward the sky as though in adoration. Her face gleamed ivory white in the mist of moonrise. Her lips were glowing rubies. Her hair cast off a bluish sheen. Her dress curled about her slim body as though it were made of flower petals.

  Kya Koen scarcely breathed as he watched her. This was poetry set to music, and there was music in the clear night air. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes shone with a brillancy that matched the stars in splendour. The moon itself seemed to glow more brightly that her image might reflect clearly in his mirror-face.

  How long she danced neither of them knew. During moments of beauty, time ceases to be. And now came the earth’s shadow. Slowly it crept across the face of the moon. The night grew dark. A sudden chill seemed to seize the air. The music died off into a sob, followed by an awesome hush.

  Kutani ceased dancing. She stood, breathless, gating at the queer spectacle of the vanishing moon. Her heart pounded against the walls of her body as though endeavoring to break free. Kya Koen, watching her intently, saw her sway. He caught her in his arms ere she fell.

  “I am quite all right,” she whispered, “but see, the moon is dying. I can’t stand it!”

  “Be calm,” he murmured; “it is only the eclipse.”

  “The moon is dying,” she repeated. “Why am I grown so cold? Hold me tight so that my eyes need not behold the moon in anguish.”

  “Hush,” he soothed. “Hush. One must be patient. To cry because the moon is obscured for a moment by the shadow of the earth is more unwise than to drag a lake for the moon in the water. No one, though his wealth be boundless, can cause the moon to pause for a single moment in its march across the sky. We mortals, no matter how extreme and sincere our yearning, never are compensated by more than occasional glimpses of the moon. The moon itself remains beyond our reach.”