'THE MIRROR OF MATSUYAMA' JAPNESE FAIRY TALES FOR CHILDREN

THE MIRROR OF MATSUYAMA

A STORY OF OLD JAPAN.


Long years ago in old Japan there lived in the Province of Echigo, a
very remote part of Japan even in these days, a man and his wife.
When this story begins they had been married for some years and were
blessed with one little daughter. She was the joy and pride of both
their lives, and in her they stored an endless source of happiness
for their old age.

What golden letter days in their memory were these that had marked
her growing up from babyhood; the visit to the temple when she was
just thirty days old, her proud mother carrying her, robed in
ceremonial kimono, to be put under the patronage of the family's
household god; then her first dolls festival, when her parents gave
her a set of dolls' and their miniature belongings, to be added to
as year succeeded year; and perhaps the most important occasion of
all, on her third birthday, when her first OBI (broad brocade sash)
of scarlet and gold was tied round her small waist, a sign that she
had crossed the threshold of girlhood and left infancy behind. Now
that she was seven years of age, and had learned to talk and to wait
upon her parents in those several little ways so dear to the hearts
of fond parents, their cup of happiness seemed full. There could not
be found in the whole of the Island Empire a happier little family.

One day there was much excitement in the home, for the father had
been suddenly summoned to the capital on business. In these days of
railways and jinrickshas and other rapid modes of traveling, it is
difficult to realize what such a journey as that from Matsuyama to
Kyoto meant. The roads were rough and bad, and ordinary people had
to walk every step of the way, whether the distance were one hundred
or several hundred miles. Indeed, in those days it was as great an
undertaking to go up to the capital as it is for a Japanese to make
a voyage to Europe now.

So the wife was very anxious while she helped her husband get ready
for the long journey, knowing what an arduous task lay before him.
Vainly she wished that she could accompany him, but the distance was
too great for the mother and child to go, and besides that, it was
the wife's duty to take care of the home.

All was ready at last, and the husband stood in the porch with his
little family round him.

"Do not be anxious, I will come back soon," said the man. "While I
am away take care of everything, and especially of our little
daughter."

"Yes. we shall be all right--but you--you must take care of yourself
and delay not a day in coming back to us," said the wife, while the
tears fell like rain from her eyes.

The little girl was the only one to smile, for she was ignorant of
the sorrow of parting, and did not know that going to the capital
was at all different from walking to the next village, which her
father did very often. She ran to his side, and caught hold of his
long sleeve to keep him a moment.

"Father, I will be very good while I am waiting for you to come
back, so please bring me a present."

As the father turned to take a last look at his weeping wife and
smiling, eager child, he felt as if some one were pulling him back
by the hair, so hard was it for him to leave them behind, for they
had never been separated before. But he knew that he must go, for
the call was imperative. With a great effort he ceased to think, and
resolutely turning away he went quickly down the little garden and
out through the gate. His wife, catching up the child in her arms,
ran as far as the gate, and watched him as he went down the road
between the pines till he was lost in the haze of the distance and
all she could see was his quaint peaked hat, and at last that
vanished too.

"Now father has gone, you and I must take care of everything till he
comes back," said the mother, as she made her way back to the house.

"Yes, I will be very good," said the child, nodding her head, "and
when father comes home please tell him how good I have been, and
then perhaps he will give me a present."

"Father is sure to bring you something that you want very much. I
know, for I asked him to bring you a doll. You must think of father
every day, and pray for a safe journey till he comes back."

"O, yes, when he comes home again how happy I shall be," said the
child, clapping her hands, and her face growing bright with joy at
the glad thought. It seemed to the mother as she looked at the
child's face that her love for her grew deeper and deeper.

Then she set to work to make the winter clothes for the three of
them. She set up her simple wooden spinning-wheel and spun the
thread before she began to weave the stuffs. In the intervals of her
work she directed the little girl's games and taught her to read the
old stories of her country. Thus did the wife find consolation in
work during the lonely days of her husband's absence. While the time
was thus slipping quickly by in the quiet home, the husband finished
his business and returned.

It would have been difficult for any one who did not know the man
well to recognize him. He had traveled day after day, exposed to all
weathers, for about a month altogether, and was sunburnt to bronze,
but his fond wife and child knew him at a glance, and flew to meet
him from either side, each catching hold of one of his sleeves in
their eager greeting. Both the man and his wife rejoiced to find
each other well. It seemed a very long time to all till--the mother
and child helping--his straw sandals were untied, his large umbrella
hat taken off, and he was again in their midst in the old familiar
sitting-room that had been so empty while he was away.

As soon as they had sat down on the white mats, the father opened a
bamboo basket that he had brought in with him, and took out a
beautiful doll and a lacquer box full of cakes.

"Here," he said to the little girl, "is a present for you. It is a
prize for taking care of mother and the house so well while I was
away."

"Thank you," said the child, as she bowed her head to the ground,
and then put out her hand just like a little maple leaf with its
eager wide-spread fingers to take the doll and the box, both of
which, coming from the capital, were prettier than anything she had
ever seen. No words can tell how delighted the little girl was--her
face seemed as if it would melt with joy, and she had no eyes and no
thought for anything else.

Again the husband dived into the basket, and brought out this time a
square wooden box, carefully tied up with red and white string, and
handing it to his wife, said:

"And this is for you."

The wife took the box, and opening it carefully took out a metal
disk with a handle attached. One side was bright and shining like a
crystal, and the other was covered with raised figures of pine-trees
and storks, which had been carved out of its smooth surface in
lifelike reality. Never had she seen such a thing in her life, for
she had been born and bred in the rural province of Echigo. She
gazed into the shining disk, and looking up with surprise and wonder
pictured on her face, she said:

"I see somebody looking at me in this round thing! What is it that
you have given me "

The husband laughed and said:

"Why, it is your own face that you see. What I have brought you is
called a mirror, and whoever looks into its clear surface can see
their own form reflected there. Although there are none to be found
in this out of the way place, yet they have been in use in the
capital from the most ancient times. There the mirror is considered
a very necessary requisite for a woman to possess. There is an old
proverb that 'As the sword is the soul of a samurai, so is the
mirror the soul of a woman,' and according to popular tradition, a
woman's mirror is an index to her own heart--if she keeps it bright
and clear, so is her heart pure and good. It is also one of the
treasures that form the insignia of the Emperor. So you must lay
great store by your mirror, and use it carefully."

The wife listened to all her husband told her, and was pleased at
learning so much that was new to her. She was still more pleased at
the precious gift--his token of remembrance while he had been away.

"If the mirror represents my soul, I shall certainly treasure it as
a valuable possession, and never will I use it carelessly." Saying
so, she lifted it as high as her forehead, in grateful
acknowledgment of the gift, and then shut it up in its box and put
it away.

The wife saw that her husband was very tired, and set about serving
the evening meal and making everything as comfortable as she could
for him. It seemed to the little family as if they had not known
what true happiness was before, so glad were they to be together
again, and this evening the father had much to tell of his journey
and of all he had seen at the great capital.

Time passed away in the peaceful home, and the parents saw their
fondest hopes realized as their daughter grew from childhood into a
beautiful girl of sixteen. As a gem of priceless value is held in
its proud owner's hand, so had they reared her with unceasing love
and care: and now their pains were more than doubly rewarded. What a
comfort she was to her mother as she went about the house taking her
part in the housekeeping, and how proud her father was of her, for
she daily reminded him of her mother when he had first married her.

But, alas! in this world nothing lasts forever. Even the moon is not
always perfect in shape, but loses its roundness with time, and
flowers bloom and then fade. So at last the happiness of this family
was broken up by a great sorrow. The good and gentle wife and mother
was one day taken ill.

In the first days of her illness the father and daughter thought
that it was only a cold, and were not particularly anxious. But the
days went by and still the mother did not get better; she only grew
worse, and the doctor was puzzled, for in spite of all he did the
poor woman grew weaker day by day. The father and daughter were
stricken with grief, and day or night the girl never left her
mother's side. But in spite of all their efforts the woman's life
was not to be saved.

One day as the girl sat near her mother's bed, trying to hide with a
cheery smile the gnawing trouble at her heart, the mother roused
herself and taking her daughter's hand, gazed earnestly and lovingly
into her eyes. Her breath was labored and she spoke with difficulty:

"My daughter. I am sure that nothing can save me now. When I am
dead, promise me to take care of your dear father and to try to be a
good and dutiful woman."

"Oh, mother," said the girl as the tears rushed to her eyes, "you
must not say such things. All you have to do is to make haste and
get well--that will bring the greatest happiness to father and
myself."

"Yes, I know, and it is a comfort to me in my last days to know how
greatly you long for me to get better, but it is not to be. Do not
look so sorrowful, for it was so ordained in my previous state of
existence that I should die in this life just at this time; knowing
this, I am quite resigned to my fate. And now I have something to
give you whereby to remember me when I am gone."

Putting her hand out, she took from the side of the pillow a square
wooden box tied up with a silken cord and tassels. Undoing this very
carefully, she took out of the box the mirror that her husband had
given her years ago.

"When you were still a little child your father went up to the
capital and brought me back as a present this treasure; it is called
a mirror. This I give you before I die. If, after I have ceased to
be in this life, you are lonely and long to see me sometimes, then
take out this mirror and in the clear and shining surface you will
always see me--so will you be able to meet with me often and tell me
all your heart; and though I shall not be able to speak, I shall
understand and sympathize with you, whatever may happen to you in
the future." With these words the dying woman handed the mirror to
her daughter.

The mind of the good mother seemed to be now at rest, and sinking
back without another word her spirit passed quietly away that day.

The bereaved father and daughter were wild with grief, and they
abandoned themselves to their bitter sorrow. They felt it to be
impossible to take leave of the loved woman who till now had filled
their whole lives and to commit her body to the earth. But this
frantic burst of grief passed, and then they took possession of
their own hearts again, crushed though they were in resignation. In
spite of this the daughter's life seemed to her desolate. Her love
for her dead mother did not grow less with time, and so keen was her
remembrance, that everything in daily life, even the falling of the
rain and the blowing of the wind, reminded her of her mother's death
and of all that they had loved and shared together. One day when her
father was out, and she was fulfilling her household duties alone,
her loneliness and sorrow seemed more than she could bear. She threw
herself down in her mother's room and wept as if her heart would
break. Poor child, she longed just for one glimpse of the loved
face, one sound of the voice calling her pet name, or for one
moment's forgetfulness of the aching void in her heart. Suddenly she
sat up. Her mother's last words had rung through her memory hitherto
dulled by grief.

"Oh! my mother told me when she gave me the mirror as a parting
gift, that whenever I looked into it I should be able to meet her--
to see her. I had nearly forgotten her last words--how stupid I am;
I will get the mirror now and see if it can possibly be true!"

She dried her eyes quickly, and going to the cupboard took out the
box that contained the mirror, her heart beating with expectation as
she lifted the mirror out and gazed into its smooth face. Behold,
her mother's words were true! In the round mirror before her she saw
her mother's face; but, oh, the joyful surprise! It was not her
mother thin and wasted by illness, but the young and beautiful woman
as she remembered her far back in the days of her own earliest
childhood. It seemed to the girl that the face in the mirror must
soon speak, almost that she heard the voice of her mother telling
her again to grow up a good woman and a dutiful daughter, so
earnestly did the eyes in the mirror look back into her own.

"It is certainly my mother's soul that I see. She knows how
miserable I am without her and she has come to comfort me. Whenever
I long to see her she will meet me here; how grateful I ought to
be!"

And from this time the weight of sorrow was greatly lightened for
her young heart. Every morning, to gather strength for the day's
duties before her, and every evening, for consolation before she lay
down to rest, did the young girl take out the mirror and gaze at the
reflection which in the simplicity of her innocent heart she
believed to be her mother's soul. Daily she grew in the likeness of
her dead mother's character, and was gentle and kind to all, and a
dutiful daughter to her father.

A year spent in mourning had thus passed away in the little
household, when, by the advice of his relations, the man married
again, and the daughter now found herself under the authority of a
step-mother. It was a trying position; but her days spent in the
recollection of her own beloved mother, and of trying to be what
that mother would wish her to be, had made the young girl docile and
patient, and she now determined to be filial and dutiful to her
father's wife, in all respects. Everything went on apparently
smoothly in the family for some time under the new regime; there
were no winds or waves of discord to ruffle the surface of every-day
life, and the father was content.

But it is a woman's danger to be petty and mean, and step-mothers
are proverbial all the world over, and this one's heart was not as
her first smiles were. As the days and weeks grew into months, the
step-mother began to treat the motherless girl unkindly and to try
and come between the father and child.

Sometimes she went to her husband and complained of her step-
daughter's behavior, but the father knowing that this was to be
expected, took no notice of her ill-natured complaints. Instead of
lessening his affection for his daughter, as the woman desired, her
grumblings only made him think of her the more. The woman soon saw
that he began to show more concern for his lonely child than before.
This did not please her at all, and she began to turn over in her
mind how she could, by some means or other, drive her step-child out
of the house. So crooked did the woman's heart become.

She watched the girl carefully, and one day peeping into her room in
the early morning, she thought she discovered a grave enough sin of
which to accuse the child to her father. The woman herself was a
little frightened too at what she had seen.

So she went at once to her husband, and wiping away some false tears
she said in a sad voice:

"Please give me permission to leave you today."

The man was completely taken by surprise at the suddenness of her
request, and wondered whatever was the matter.

"Do you find it so disagreeable," he asked, "in my house, that you
can stay no longer?"

"No! no! it has nothing to do with you--even in my dreams I have
never thought that I wished to leave your side; but if I go on
living here I am in danger of losing my life, so I think it best for
all concerned that you should allow me to go home!"

And the woman began to weep afresh. Her husband, distressed to see
her so unhappy, and thinking that he could not have heard aright,
said:

"Tell me what you mean! How is your life in danger here?"

"I will tell you since you ask me. Your daughter dislikes me as her
step-mother. For some time past she has shut herself up in her room
morning and evening, and looking in as I pass by, I am convinced
that she has made an image of me and is trying to kill me by magic
art, cursing me daily. It is not safe for me to stay here, such
being the case; indeed, indeed, I must go away, we cannot live under
the same roof any more."

The husband listened to the dreadful tale, but he could not believe
his gentle daughter guilty of such an evil act. He knew that by
popular superstition people believed that one person could cause the
gradual death of another by making an image of the hated one and
cursing it daily; but where had his young daughter learned such
knowledge?--the thing was impossible. Yet he remembered having
noticed that his daughter stayed much in her room of late and kept
herself away from every one, even when visitors came to the house.
Putting this fact together with his wife's alarm, he thought that
there might be something to account for the strange story.

His heart was torn between doubting his wife and trusting his child,
and he knew not what to do. He decided to go at once to his daughter
and try to find out the truth. Comforting his wife and assuring her
that her fears were groundless, he glided quietly to his daughter's
room.

The girl had for a long time past been very unhappy. She had tried
by amiability and obedience to show her goodwill and to mollify the
new wife, and to break down that wall of prejudice and
misunderstanding that she knew generally stood between step-parents
and their step-children. But she soon found that her efforts were in
vain. The step-mother never trusted her, and seemed to misinterpret
all her actions, and the poor child knew very well that she often
carried unkind and untrue tales to her father. She could not help
comparing her present unhappy condition with the time when her own
mother was alive only a little more than a year ago--so great a
change in this short time! Morning and evening she wept over the
remembrance. Whenever she could she went to her room, and sliding
the screens to, took out the mirror and gazed, as she thought, at
her mother's face. It was the only comfort that she had in these
wretched days.

Her father found her occupied in this way. Pushing aside the fusama,
he saw her bending over something or other very intently. Looking
over her shoulder, to see who was entering her room, the girl was
surprised to see her father, for he generally sent for her when he
wished to speak to her. She was also confused at being found looking
at the mirror, for she had never told any one of her mother's last
promise, but had kept it as the sacred secret of her heart. So
before turning to her father she slipped the mirror into her long
sleeve. Her father noting her confusion, and her act of hiding
something, said in a severe manner:

"Daughter, what are you doing here? And what is that that you have
hidden in your sleeve?"

The girl was frightened by her father's severity. Never had he
spoken to her in such a tone. Her confusion changed to apprehension,
her color from scarlet to white. She sat dumb and shamefaced, unable
to reply.

Appearances were certainly against her; the young girl looked
guilty, and the father thinking that perhaps after all what his wife
had told him was true, spoke angrily:

"Then, is it really true that you are daily cursing your step-mother
and praying for her death? Have you forgotten what I told you, that
although she is your step-mother you must he obedient and loyal to
her? What evil spirit has taken possession of your heart that you
should be so wicked? You have certainly changed, my daughter! What
has made you so disobedient and unfaithful?"

And the father's eyes filled with sudden tears to think that he
should have to upbraid his daughter in this way.

She on her part did not know what he meant, for she had never heard
of the superstition that by praying over an image it is possible to
cause the death of a hated person. But she saw that she must speak
and clear herself somehow. She loved her father dearly, and could
not bear the idea of his anger. She put out her hand on his knee
deprecatingly:

"Father! father! do not say such dreadful things to me. I am still
your obedient child. Indeed, I am. However stupid I may be, I should
never be able to curse any one who belonged to you, much less pray
for the death of one you love. Surely some one has been telling you
lies, and you are dazed, and you know not what you say--or some evil
spirit has taken possession of YOUR heart. As for me I do not know--
no, not so much as a dew-drop, of the evil thing of which you accuse
me."

But the father remembered that she had hidden something away when he
first entered the room, and even this earnest protest did not
satisfy him. He wished to clear up his doubts once for all.

"Then why are you always alone in your room these days? And tell me
what is that that you have hidden in your sleeve--show it to me at
once."

Then the daughter, though shy of confessing how she had cherished
her mother's memory, saw that she must tell her father all in order
to clear herself. So she slipped the mirror out from her long sleeve
and laid it before him.

"This," she said, "is what you saw me looking at just now."

"Why," he said in great surprise." this is the mirror that I brought
as a gift to your mother when I went up to the capital many years
ago! And so you have kept it all this time? Now, why do you spend so
much of your time before this mirror?"

Then she told him of her mother's last words, and of how she had
promised to meet her child whenever she looked into the glass. But
still the father could not understand the simplicity of his
daughter's character in not knowing that what she saw reflected in
the mirror was in reality her own face, and not that of her mother.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "I do not understand how you can meet
the soul of your lost mother by looking in this mirror?"

"It is indeed true," said the girl: "and if you don't believe what I
say, look for yourself," and she placed the mirror before her.
There, looking back from the smooth metal disk, was her own sweet
face. She pointed to the reflection seriously:

"Do you doubt me still?" she asked earnestly, looking up into his
face.

With an exclamation of sudden understanding the father smote his two
hands together.

"How stupid I am! At last I understand. Your face is as like your
mother's as the two sides of a melon--thus you have looked at the
reflection of your face ail this time, thinking that you were
brought face to face with your lost mother! You are truly a faithful
child. It seems at first a stupid thing to have done, but it is not
really so, It shows how deep has been your filialpiety, and how
innocent your heart. Living in constant remembrance of your lost
mother has helped you to grow like her in character. How clever it
was of her to tell you to do this. I admire and respect you, my
daughter, and I am ashamed to think that for one instant I believed
your suspicious step-mother's story and suspected you of evil, and
came with the intention of scolding you severely, while all this
time you have been so true and good. Before you I have no
countenance left, and I beg you to forgive me."

And here the father wept. He thought of how lonely the poor girl
must have been, and of all that she must have suffered under her
step-mother's treatment. His daughter steadfastly keeping her faith
and simplicity in the midst of such adverse circumstances--bearing
all her troubles with so much patience and amiability--made him
compare her to the lotus which rears its blossom of dazzling beauty
out of the slime and mud of the moats and ponds, fitting emblem of a
heart which keeps itself unsullied while passing through the world.

The step-mother, anxious to know what would happen, had all this
while been standing outside the room. She had grown interested, and
had gradually pushed the sliding screen back till she could see all
that went on. At this moment she suddenly entered the room, and
dropping to the mats, she bowed her head over her outspread hands
before her step-daughter.

"I am ashamed! I am ashamed!" she exclaimed in broken tones. "I did
not know what n filial child you were. Through no fault of yours,
but with a step-mother's jealous heart, I have disliked you all the
time. Hating you so much myself, it was but natural that I should
think you reciprocated the feeling, and thus when I saw you retire
so often to your room I followed you, and when I saw you gaze daily
into the mirror for long intervals, I concluded that you had found
out how I disliked you, and that you were out of revenge trying to
take my life by magic art. As long as I live I shall never forget
the wrong I have done you in so misjudging you, and in causing your
father to suspect you. From this day I throw away my old and wicked
heart, and in its place I put a new one, clean and full of
repentance. I shall think of you as a child that I have borne
myself. I shall love and cherish you with all my heart, and thus try
to make up for all the unhappiness I have caused you. Therefore,
please throw into the water all that has gone before, and give me, I
beg of you, some of the filial love that you have hitherto given to
your own lost mother."

Thus did the unkind step-mother humble herself and ask forgiveness
of the girl she had so wronged.

Such was the sweetness of the girl's disposition that she willingly
forgave her step-mother, and never bore a moment's resentment or
malice towards her afterwards. The father saw by his wife's face
that she was truly sorry for the past, and was greatly relieved to
see the terrible misunderstanding wiped out of remembrance by both
the wrong-doer and the wronged.

From this time on, the three lived together as happily as fish in
water. No such trouble ever darkened the home again, and the young
girl gradually forgot that year of unhappiness in the tender love
and care that her step-mother now bestowed on her. Her patience and
goodness were rewarded at last.