Page:Modern Japanese Stories.pdf/129

frame of mind, became hopelessly confused in the general pattern. The possibilities of that one word, submission, seemed to have robbed him of them all.

A man raised by his fellows one degree above the normal world of human feeling, a man in daily association with a multitude of retainers, yet conscious of complete isolation—that was our Lord Tadanao.

He saw that even his home life, the life he lived in the intimacy of these rooms, had been a dreariness of solitude.

The impurity of every love he had ever known from women seemed now clearly revealed. If ever he had set his heart on a woman she had gratified his wishes to the full, without hesitation. But, for her, this had had nothing to do with love. It had been simply the fulfilment of a duty, the retainer’s duty to the master. He was sick and tired of receiving dutiful submission in the place of love.

From this time there was a change in the settled pattern of Lord Tadanao’s private life, corresponding with that in other spheres. He began to think that, instead of the usual passive puppets, he should like to love some more spirited, resilient type of woman. If such a woman loved him in return, well and good. But, even if she did not, at least she would show some resistance. She would treat him like a human being.

By way of experiment he caused a succession of the daughters of his more highly placed retainers to be sent to him in his apartments. But to these women, too, Lord Tadanao’s words were simply the words of the lord of the castle, and they did as they were told in complete resignation, as if obeying an order which it was beyond anyone’s power to question. Feeling only the nobility of their own sacrifice, like maidens offering themselves upon the altar of some awesome divinity, they lay down beside Lord Tadanao. And Lord Tadanao, even as he held them in his arms, felt not the slightest sense of illicit pleasure.

After things had continued for some time in this unsatisfactory state it occurred to Lord Tadanao that he might achieve