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Lafcadio Hearn - Kokoro
seen going to the war; only the numbers on the shoulder-straps assured me of the fact. Sunburnt and grim
the faces were; many had heavy beards. The dark blue winter uniforms were frayed and torn, the shoes
worn into shapelessness; but the strong, swinging stride was the stride of the hardened soldier. Lads no
longer these, but toughened men, able to face any troops in the world; men who had slaughtered and
stormed; men who had also suffered many things which never will be written. The features showed
neither joy nor pride; the quick-searching eyes hardly glanced at the welcoming flags, the decorations,
the arch with its globe-shadowing hawk of battle, - perhaps because those eyes had seen too often the
things which make men serious. (Only one man smiled as he passed; and I thought of a smile seen on the
face of a Zouave when I was a boy, watching the return of a regiment from Africa, - a mocking smile,
that stabbed.) Many of the spectators were visibly affected, feeling the reason of the change. But, for that,
the soldiers were better soldiers now; and they were going to find welcome, and comforts, and gifts, and
the great warm love of the people, - and repose thereafter, in their old familiar camps.
I said to Manyemon: "This evening they will be in Osaka and Nagoya. They will hear the bugles calling;
and they will think of comrades who never can return."
The old man answered, with simple earnestness: "Perhaps by Western people it is thought that the dead
never return. But we cannot so think. There are no Japanese dead who do not return. There are none who
do not know the way. From China and from Chosen, and out of the bitter sea, all our dead have come
back, - all! They are with us now. In every dusk they gather to hear the bugles that called them home.
And they will hear them also in that day when the armies of the Son of Heaven shall be summoned
against Russia."
(1) The total number of Japanese actually killed in battle, from the fight at A-san to the capture of the
Pescadores, was only 739. But the deaths resulting from other causes, up to as late a date as the 8th of
June, during the occupation of Formosa, were 3,148. Of these, 1,602 were due to cholera alone. Such, at
least, were the official figures as published in the Kobe Chronicle.
(2) At the close of the great naval engagement of the 17th of September, 1894, a hawk alighted on the
fighting-mast of the Japanese cruiser Takachiho, and suffered itself to be taken and fed. After much
petting, this bird of good omen was presented to the Emperor. Falconry was a great feudal sport in Japan,
and hawks were finely trained. The hawk is now likely to become, more than ever before in Japan, a
symbol of victory.
VII. HARU
Haru was brought up, chiefly at home, in that old-fashioned way which produced one of the sweetest
types of woman the world has ever seen. This domestic education cultivated simplicity of heart, natural
grace of manner, obedience, and love of duty as they were never cultivated but in Japan. Its moral
product was something too gentle and beautiful for any other than the old Japanese society: it was not the
most judicious preparation for the much harsher life of the new, - in which it still survives. The refined
girl was trained for the condition of being theoretically at the mercy of her husband. She was taught
never to show jealousy, or grief, or anger, - even under circumstances compelling all three; she was
expected to conquer the faults of her lord by pure sweetness. In short, she was required to be almost
superhuman, - to realize, at least in outward seeming, the ideal of perfect unselfishness. And this she
could do with a husband of her own rank, delicate in discernment, - able to divine her feelings, and never
to wound them.
Haru came of a much better family than her husband; and she was a little too good for him, because he
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